Liquid Intellegence

In Jeff Wall’s description of “liquid intelligence” he uses his photograph, Milk to describe his ideas about the connection between photography and liquid. Photography has always been a mechanical process that has the ability to capture nature – as Wall describes “a natural form with its unpredictable contours is an expression of infinitesimal metamorphoses of quality. Photography seems perfectly adapted for representing this kind of movement or form.” Wall controls many aspects of his photos and manipulates them in some cases. The splash of milk in Milk is an organic or natural form that is created on its own. He is using photography's mechanical process to capture a natural process.

In the past, water played a huge role in photography. While the mechanical process is used to capture the image, water and chemicals were needed to produce an image on the film. Even then and now photography's relationship to water was a dynamic one. You would never want your camera to be submerged in water, so the role of water in photography is very limited to creating the image on the film, it is controlled. Creating an image on film is the wet part of photography; the dry part is the technology itself or the equipment.

Of course digital is changing all of this. Wall doesn't see digital’s new dominance as good or bad but as "a new displacement of water in photography." Digital seems to just take the “water” out since chemicals and water are no longer needed to present an image. This also changes our historical ties with photography. Wall agrees that digital technology has smartly advanced, but he poses the concern of eliminating our connections to the past. Wall believes that there is importance within the liquid used to shape photography and that the loss of this quality may change photography in a negative way.