Also part of the Picture Generation, Sherrie Levine dealt a lot with topics around appropriations and rephotographing.
In 1981, Levine photographed reproductions of Depression-era photographs which were done 1936 by Walker Evans. The series is called “After Walker Evans” and became a landmark of postmodernism. The story continues, when in 2001 Michael Mandiberg scanned these same photographs, and created AfterWalkerEvans.com and AfterSherrieLevine.com. On these two websites there are also links to high-resolution exhibition-quality images which you can download and print out in order to create your own image. Additionally there is a “certificate of authenticity” available for each image, which you can as well print out and sign yourself. Furthermore there are detailed information how to print and frame the pictures to fulfil all requirement of the original.
http://www.aftersherrielevine.com – http://www.afterwalkerevans.com
So when Sherrie Levine rephotographed the in 1936 taken pictures in 1981 and Mandiberg scanned the data 2001 and made it accessible in high resolution via the internet, why not taking the next step and put them -again rephotographed with a phone camera – on Instagram?
On the 2nd of July I created a new Instagram channel and called it after_michael_mandiberg. I photographed Mandiberg´s scanned images with my phone camera from the screen of my computer. Through the act of photographing the screen, a lot of digital traces and disruptions occur on the pictures. These digital traces give the pictures a completely new look and feel. They occur cheap in their appearance and loose all their detail and authenticity.
Moreover the photos got even more transformed while uploading them on Instagram. Pictures on Instagram usually appear in a square format. So there was not just a change in the quality, but also in the format and dimension. To implement them I had to crop pieces of the bottom and the top so the whole message of the pictures was changing though this.
http://www.instagram.com/after_michael_mandiberg
dhimmelbauer // Major Module 