This chapter mainly talks about using photography with other medias and also in different ways that they can be displayed. In the opening paragraph of the chapter she makes it clear that she is exploring mixed media when she states:

The possibility that the photograph offers more than just a set of forms and technologies (P112)

This is all about thinking outside the box, about moving away from the way photographs are traditionally displayed and exhibited. It is also expanding the boundaries and asking the questions of what constitutes as art. Soutter then goes on to suggest:

Any object, event, or activity maybe proposed as a work of contemporary art – even if not all audiences will accept it as such (P112)

She then moves on to discuss the difference between the artefact and the image. In essence the image can be printed onto anything to make the artefact and this we see with, for example, photographs printed onto t-shirts. By doing this she is proposing that the image is what makes the artefact the work of art. She also gave one example of a photograph screen printed using glue onto a wall and then when people walked past and dust was kicked up, this would stick to the glue and gradually the image would develop.

Soutter also uses the word “Transmediality”, which means the artwork crosses over onto to different medias. This could mean that the whole series could be a mixture of photographs, film, screen prints etc., as the series is the artwork and not just one artefact. It also seems as if this is a development from the theory proposed by Walter Benjamin in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, where the work of art can be infinitely recreated but onto different types of media.

From this point she then starts to summarise the book and this can be summarised when she says:

As we have seen, the success of a contemporary photographer is a more complex matter, like 3 dimensional chess. It relies not only on the work’s form and subject matter, but also on the language and concepts with which it is framed and the context in which it is presented. (P126)

Myself, I’ve enjoyed reading the book. The most noteworthy parts for me is when she discusses post modernism and how it evolved from modernism. Also her analysis of authenticism in photography was quite insightful, especially when she said that photography could be just a breakable code of semiotics and visual language. Also, the last chapter with the emphasis on mixed media was good and I could see how it relates to Walter Benjamin’s theory.

Overall, a very good read and I feel that I have benefitted from it.