>>2993637Thus in so far as the white border connotes the materiality of a medium which no longer necessarily exists as such, it now belongs to a semiotic structure of representation that exerts a counterproductive, overdetermining effect on the photographic image and asserts an obsolete aesthetic paradigm as the condition governing its consumption. That is to say, it now possesses an allure that is less aesthetic than it is fetishistic, in the sense of the commodity-fetish. It neglects the vocation of committed photography which in [>CURRENT YEAR] is to foreground a type of frame that is not something complete, coherent, and infinitely inclusive, but rather reticulated, involuted, and absolutely atomizing; these effects surface in the ever-more proficient means and mechanisms for staging, constructing, and altering images, the near total subversion of conventional (renaissance-perspective) pictorial naturalism to veristic truth-claims and the increasing abolition of chance and uncertainty from the representational procedures underlying (digital) photography and international commerce alike.
This all isn't to say that white borders are bad, full stop. They're just a sign and a device that is especially loaded with historical-political significance and which I think as such must be handled with care and attention in any photographic endeavour.
