Sketch of a Conversation about Photographs
[New Fame and Ferret sit eating at a newly opened, swanky restaurant.]
New Fame
So what do you think of the food?
Ferret
It’s okay, I guess. I’m not blown away.
New Fame
Yeah, everything about this place is good not great.
Ferret
Hmm. What do you think of the pictures on the wall?
New Fame
The photographs?
Ferret
Yeah.
New Fame
I don’t know.
Ferret
I really don’t like them. I mean, they’re all pictures of these kids pouting or smiling. In a way, I think they’re very interesting. The compositions are great. They certainly have character, but would you want them gawking at you in your home, or while you’re eating?
New Fame
No, it’s true. I absolutely agree with you. There’s something about photographs-
Ferret
The closeness to reality?
New Fame
Exactly. There’s something about looking at a photograph. The resemblance to reality is offputting, especially when you’re dealing with a person.
Ferret
With paintings it’s completely different. There’s more distance there. You feel as if there’s the painter that sits between you and the object. The way they squiggle too much here or there. It’s distortion really. You need that.
New Fame
But why?
Ferret
I don’t know. I mean, there’s something to be said for trying to confront the world absolutely. And to be fair, when you really get down to it, photography fails at this too. Any photographer will tell you that the camera can be altered in just as endless an array just as any painter’s brush. Light can be refracted and twisted in ways that our eyes just can’t mimic.
New Fame
But photographs get closer than paintings.
Ferret
To commit that terrible faux pas of generalization, I’ll agree with you and say that they do.
New Fame
So what then?
Ferret
What about what?
New Fame
Why paintings over photographs?
Ferret
I see it this way. Let’s say you were able to record every conversation that you ever had, and then play it back on command. You’d just say, “Let’s listen to the conversation that I had yesterday at dinner.” And you could play it back, fast forward, rewind, etc.
New Fame
Like an endless Tivo for conversations?
Ferret
Exactly. So let’s say you had this. When that conversation came up in another conversation, would you want to use it every time?
New Fame
No.
Ferret
Well, why not?
New Fame
First of all, it’d get too damn boring.
Ferret
I agree. If all of your conversations were just clips of old conversations, then any new conversation could easily end up being a place for exchanging clips. Like swapping trading cards. No human interaction at all except the very basic, show me yours and I’ll show you mine.
New Fame
But it’s more than just that, right?
Ferret
I don’t know. I mean, what happens when you try to recall something that happened before?
New Fame
You end up embellishing it, or leaving details out. Distorting it like we were saying.
Ferret
That’s true. But what is it about that distortion that’s comforting?
New Fame
I guess it’s the fact that it serves to remind us that someone created the thing. But not only that, at least with the case of the conversations, the retelling tells something about the moment in which it was told. Maybe I’m trying to describe what my friend was buying, but I forget. So I start talking about him buying photographs because that’s what I’m seeing right now.
Ferret
And then the conversation is really living before you, interacting with you. That spontaneous act of the conversationg lives again!
New Fame
Pretty cool.
Ferret
Of course, there’s something terribly wrong here.
New Fame
What’s that?
Ferret
By analogy, we should say that now paintings resemble reality more than photographs.
New Fame
Shit.
Ferret
Ah well, I suppose there’s something to all of this.
New Fame
Maybe you should tell somebody about this conversation.
Ferret
Yeah, maybe I should.