O documento fotográfico : da mediação cultural à mediação técnica

Abstract

The media society is a global society, nomad and dedicated to recording, which, with the practice of digital information, led to the definition of documentality (phenomenology of social objects). As a social document, the photograph depends on and exists if people believe it exists as a document - as an intention, a will and an expression. Today, the photo-document is approached as form, sign and medium. If it is a record that is apprehended with meaning it is sharable. With digital means, operations are done in any place and at any time; the archiving of data preservation is delocalised (no direct appropriation takes place); reading requires the interface of a machine, breaking the imbrications and continuity between traditional support and inscription, now subject to the programme’s formatting, which may place interpretation at risk. Preservation only allows for migration to another devise, what remains is a logical structure, the capacity to reproduce. Cultural measurement has been joined by technical measurement, which gradually takes priority.