#18 Can a photograph be seen as data?

According to Ed Ruscha, the answer is yes.

In a 1965 interview with John Coplans, Ruscha said:

"Above all, the photographs I use are not 'arty' in any sense of the word. I think photography is dead as fine art; its only place is in the commercial world, for technological or informational purposes."

And about his famous book Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963), he remarked:

"They are technical data, like industrial photography."

In this book he assembled photographs of twenty-six gas stations along Route 66, taken during trips between Los Angeles and his parents’ home in Oklahoma City
To Ruscha, the photographs were simply a means to an end. He was not interested in making beautiful prints for a gallery wall. He wanted to make a book, a mass-produced object. Photography was merely the tool.

Or as he put it:

“To me they are nothing but snapshots.”

Ruscha did not consider himself a photographer. The photographs functioned as records, carrying information rather than artistic expression.
At least, that was the intention.

Many critics have argued that the photographs reveal more than mere facts. The choice of route, buildings, and subjects reflects Ruscha’s personal relationship with Los Angeles and the landscape he repeatedly travelled through. What appears objective inevitably becomes autobiographical.

A similar tension can be found in the work of Christopher Williams.

At first glance, Williams’ photographs also seem to function as technical data. His images often resemble commercial product photography: studio photographs of cameras, postal packages, stacked chocolate bars, cobs of corn, and other everyday objects.
This impression is reinforced by his titles. Rather than offering a short descriptive label, Williams frequently includes extensive technical information about the object depicted, the production process, the studio, the date, and the photographic method used. The title becomes an inventory of data attached to the image. In this way, Williams makes visible what usually remains hidden: the informational structure surrounding a photograph.

Yet unlike Ruscha, Williams is not primarily interested in the facts represented by the image. His attention shifts to the conditions under which those facts are produced. His photographs are not simply about objects. They are also about cameras, studios, commercial photography, archives, classification systems, reproduction technologies, and the institutions through which images circulate.
Critics have described his work as an investigation into the “visual and informational structures” of contemporary image culture.
Where Ruscha treats photographs as technical data, Williams examines how that data is produced, organised, and interpreted.

Like Ruscha, Williams does not see himself primarily as a photographer. He often works with professional photographers, laboratories, and production teams. His role is closer to that of a director who orchestrates the image rather than physically making it himself.

In 2023 I made a work entitled ‘Kunst der Farbe’. The work is based on the colour theory of Johannes Itten. Itten’s system describes seven colour contrasts and the relationships between colours. In a sense, it is a structured body of visual information: a system that translates colour into categories and relationships.
I photographed all seven colour contrasts as still lifes and presented the images together in a grid on a poster.

Seen from that perspective, the work can also be understood as a form of data visualisation. The photographs are not primarily concerned with individual objects. Instead, they make a pre-existing structure visible. Each image represents one element within a larger system.