"I have often wondered: would it be possible to look at a photograph shorn of all its context, caption-less, unconnected to current thought and ideas? It would be like stumbling on a collection of photographs in a curiosity shop – pictures of people and places that we do not recognize and know nothing about. I might imagine things about the people and places in the photographs but know nothing about them. Nothing."

Sort of like watching a foreign film from the '50s/'60s where, not only is it a different language and culture, but a different language and culture from a different time period.
# posted by  Anonymous @ 7/21/2007 1:46 PM  

 
Except the example you've just given has actual context. You might not have lived the 50s or 60s in a foreign culture, but you have a conception in your mind of what "foreign" and "60's" means. What if you had ZERO context to go on? No genre. No origin. No history.
# posted by  Lauren @ 7/23/2007 4:17 PM  

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