Digital Flaneurism in Photoblogs

Hamburg.
The final speaker in this ECREA 2010 session is Ilija Tomanić, whose focus is on vernacular photography and digital flâneurism on Web 2.0. His specific interest is in photoblogs as a particular strand of amateur photography. There is traditionally a stratification of photography into ‘high’ and ‘low’, semi-professional and purely amateur uses, and each side comes with its own implicit and explicit rules and practices.

With digitalisation of photography and the move to Web 2.0, there has been a spread of higher-end photography know-how, and a shift away from the photographic auteur to a primacy of the image. The territory for photography has also been opened up; it has become more global in its reach, and amateur photography has migrated from the private to the public sphere. It is no longer only about the preservation of memories, but also about the construction of presence/the present, with a shift towards a more documentary style (fewer posed photographs).

Ilija’s interest, then, is specifically in the ‘visual diary’ style of photoblogs. This links to the concept of the flâneur – originally, the ‘man of the crowd’ who escapes the private sphere to become an anonymous, distant observer in the public sphere, observing and making sense of personal social existence through the lens of modernity. This can be seen as a retreat from the political public sphere, too, and perhaps even into consumerism (the flâneur as shopping mall rat).

The flâneur can be resurrected in a Web 2.0 context, however – the new flâneur is also communicating their observations, combining personal identity and community; they also extend their activities into documenting the private sphere, and are no longer mainly male – female cyberflâneurs are especially active, in fact. Reality is conceived of as fragmented, aestheticised, and ocularcentric; this confirms the primacy of visual culture in contemporary society.