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o David Hockney Wc had

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says:

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belief in photogra.phy, but that is abour to.li.eppear beceusc of the compurcr. It can re-

crcate somcthing thet looks likc the photogrr.plu we'vc known. Bur it's unred. what's that gomg ro

do to all photographs? Eh? It's going to makc people say: that'sjust another invention. And sce rhere's a sidc

ofit

I

can

that's disnubing for us all. It's likc thc ground bcrng puiled &om undcracath usr

For one-hundred-and-6ft-v years chemical photography held a speciai posirion represenration of reaiiry; but now, it would scem, rhar sranding is being called into quesdon. New vision technologies have made it possible to expand the range of photographic seeing - 'beyond vision' - through the remore sensing of micro-wave, infra-red, ultra-violet and shon-wave radar imagery. AsJohn Darius suggesg, 'the result in a]l cascs is an image; at what poinr it ceases to be a photograph is a matter of semancics.'1 as a

If rhere have been norable developments in the rvavs of seeing, there has also been a signiticant breakrhrough in rhe recording and handling of images. New image rechnologies, based on digtal electronics, have aiso chalrenged whar we mean bv phorographv. we can sav rhar rhese new vision and image technologies are post-phorographic. 'The compurer's done this', as Hocknev says.

we

are seeing the convergence of srill and movrng images. and wirh it the emergence of a generalized image technolo and c But what has made

this possible

is

e more

convergence of image and computer

rechnoiogies. Images have become subsumed within an overarching informaoon sysrem. To ralk of images now is to ulk of computen. The image-informaoon product, in the form of digral elecrronic signals, is then opened up to almosr unlimrred possibilides of processing, manipularion, srorage and rransmission. And once it becomes possible ro record phorographs and orher visual images in the form of digral information, rhen it also becomes feasible to reverse rhis process and to generate infornration rhat wiil produce or simulate an image ex nihilo, as it were. This capaciry ro generare a 'realisric' image on the basis of marhemacical applications thar model realiry is the most dramaric and significant developmenr of this new post-photography. It has become rhe major focus for research and developmenr. Thus at Massachusetts Instirute of Technology's (MIT's) Media

Lab, more sophisticated and futuristic developmenrs of these technolog,cal principles are cenrred around rhe crearion of computer-generated holograms, and even rhe vim:al real.iw of an arriicial compurer univene. Here, we are rold, the convergence of arri6cial inrelligence, roborics and animarion rechnologes

is

about 'reinventing rhe world from scrarch', about moving on from the old reaiities to a brave, new, vinual world., The capaciries of these new-image rechnologies are cenainly impressive. Bur jost how significant are rhe se developmenrs? And, inde ed, what is rhe real narure of their signiGcance? These are the quesnoru that I want to pursue through the course of rhis essav. To do so, it is necessary to move beyond the rechnoiogical, and often technocratic framework wirhin which most discussioru of post-photography have so far been conducted. we should be suspicious abour talk of a technological revolution, or of an emergenr information age. The quesrion of technology, as I shall argue, is nor ar all a technologicai question. 'w'har seem to me of rhe uunosr imponance are rhe social and cuirural forces rhat are scimulaung the developmenr of auromacic and cybemeric vision..The new image technologies have been shaped bv, and are informed by, parricular values of western culrure; they have been shaped bv a logic of raoonalirv and conrrol; and rhey are inibrmed by a culture that has been both militaristic and imperialisdc in irs ambinons. In chrs lighr, we mav be less impressed about the techno-revolurionary ciaims being made abour rhe uansition &om chernrcd photogrephy to erecrronic imagng. In retusing to terishrze the rechnologies. we are less likely ro experience the disturbing sense of future shock that David Hockney invokes, and more able ro

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recognize and acknowledge the continuities and rransformarions of panicuiar dynamics in wesrern culture.

Beyond

the reaLity princip[e?

The hcrmit turn3 his back on thc world, and will havc no truct< witb it. But oac can do morc than that; onc can tr7 to rc-crcerc thc world, to build up iu its ttcad eaothcr world io which its most unbcarablc fcatutcs arc climinatcd and rcplaccd by orhcrs that ere in conformiry with one's owu wishcr.

Sigrnuad Freud, Ciralization asd

iu

Dittoatcau

I want to begn by looking at whar I would call the techno-fedshisric approach to new image technologies. whar is immediately srriking about it is rhe feeLing ofeuphoria and the sense ofomniporence that these new rechnologes can arouse. sense of unbounded possibilities being opened up:

There is an exultanr

will bc &eed 6om our perperual constrainr, thar ofhavrng, by dc6nidon, ro record thc rcaliw of things, that which is really occumng...Frecd ar last rrom being mere rccorders of Photographcrs

C

realiry, our crercivrry will be gven free rern.'

The introducrion ro a recenr conference programme is more 0amboyanr still.

Here we are told thar 'rhe increasing progress in digitd irnages and the perfecdng of display and multisensorid inreracrion sysrems, hencefonh, make ir possible ro immene oneself physically in rorally consrrucred symbolic, visual, sonorous and tacrile spaces.' The new compurer images. ir cononues. thcse access

beinp which achicve such a singular hybridizarion ofrhe intclligiblc eud thc visible, gvc us to a new world, a tabuh rasa, wherc the most gestunl mcuphos and thc most formd logic,

the most sPonaneous movcmenc and the most tocuous models, rrc inexmcablv intemwrncd.

How tre wc to answer thc Cassandras of derealizaaon? We have long dwclt in thc land of imagcs. and wc know firll wcll thar illusion ceases where enjoymenr bcgins.

'We are offered expenences that sharter all cerrirude; experiences rhat 'osrensibly pose the proble m of the narure of re aliry, and rhat of our relacionship to its representations.'5 Sudden-ly released from the mundane realiry we have alwavs had to come to terru wrth, we have the freedom now to enter new worlds, 'the worlds we wish ro know'. For those who 'conspire in elecrronic wisualizaripn',

there can no longer be any meaningful return !o some 'aurhentic realiw'.

According to Gene Youngblood:

MiL. bv.. Frcn .dv, It phdoFehv ri.:d? a.

lq.

The fear of 'losing touch wrth rcrliw', of living in en artifcid domain that is somchow'unnatunl', s for us simplv not an issue, and we havc long since elected to live accordrngly. What martcrs is the tcchnical abiliw to genenrtc srmulaoons and the polincal powcr to control the context

ofthcir

presentadon. Monlisoc crirics of the simulacmm accuse us of living in a drcam world. Wc respond

with Monuigne thar to abandon Iifc for a drcam is to price it exacdy at its wonh. And annvav, when life is a dream there's no nced for sleeping..

One is forcibly srruck by rhe idealizarion of rhe new rechnologles and by rhe quasi-mvsrical feeling that they arouse. These are powerfui expressions of 6nasv and desire. whar is significant, however, is that they are articulated through rhe discourse of science and rationaliry. The discussion of image furures quickly translates into one about computen and their logic. The computer is the symbol of omn:porenr reason. For Youngblood, the computer is the ultimate metamedium, the medium thar can simulate, and thereby conrain or become, ail other media (and image generarlon is jusr one parr of its multimedia domain). Indeed, it

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10.

Yds8blo.d. o?.6L pt5

may weil be 'the most profound development in the history of symbolic discoune'; it is possible 'to view the encire career not oniy of the visual ans but of human communication in general as leading ro rhis Promethean instrument of represeniarion', this 'univenal machine.'' The universal machine is (western) scienriEc ranonaliry brought to its culminacion. Findly, reason has been hamesed to overcome worldly limjtarions and to make all things possible.

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In this ideal domaln. the mundane iaws of realiry ue suspended and transcended, and all phenomena exist vim-rdlv, that is to say they exist in effecq 'for all practicd pulposes', though not in actual fact. Thus 'if photography is making marks with iight, then computer imaging is a kind of photography, but one in which the "camera" is only a point in virnral space and the "lens" is not a physical object' but a mathematical algorithm that describes the geomerry of the image it creates.t Computer images may 'exist informally in an intuirive space with other visual

objecs, but they derive from

formd space in the computer's memory." What is created, it is argued, is a new kind of data space - a virtua.l logcal space - and the image exists essenrially in this space'as a kind of Platonic ideal': a

We gezc rn fascination upon these digiel simulacn: thev simulacra,

riud

possess an

rl A (rir;t;-'n ?i .':tla:4"t\\4 / -/ L t ,r r;ii , ^ ,! 61r. 11,tt -ll

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'aura' preoselv because the-v ere

chimen of a new kind of cideoc vision. They rcfer to nothing outside themselves

cxcept the purc.'idcd'laws ofnature thev embodv. Thev have that'qudrw ofdisuncc'no

rultcr

how manv degrees of manipulativc frccdom we have over them, becausc thcy oost in thc demarenalizcd terriroru of rirtual space.r'

f1,

Through the crearion of this simuiated and surrogate realiry, it is suggested, our sense oi and ailegance to older realines may be fundamentaliv ransformed. is a discourse on Pure reason and on the Punrv of reason. But is more rhan this. What is desired in this worldvieu' is the revitalization and

At one level, it

it

re-enrichmenr of reason. Contemporary sociery is experienced in terms o[ a cnsis of imagnarion and cre3tivirv. For Youngblood, it is about trving to change impoverished artitudes and values, about 'trying to rethink ourselves. realign ourselves. tn'ing to live up to our rroubled and inamculate sense of new realiries.'

This process of resocializarion, he

suggests:

presupposes an abilirv to hold conrinuously before ourselvcs aitemativc models ofpossible realities'

'consciousness raising'but thc redefinidon:nd reconstrucrion ofconsciousness.

It

is comparable

to religrous convenion. pwchotherapy, or other lifc-changng expenences in *hich an individual litcrally'swrtchcs worlds'through a rrdical rranstbrmanon of subjecuve idenriry. This requires continuous

acccss

to aitemative social worlds...that senre

as laboratories

of traruformacion. Only

in such autonomous 'realiry-communioes' could we surround ourselves wrth counter-dcfinirions

ofrediry and lcarn how to desirc another way oflife."

The new rechnologies are seized upon as possible means to consmlct an alternarive culrure, and maybe even a new age. In this age, this new renaissance , it

with imaginarion, and science and art may be harmoniously re-united.

Another way of life sounds desirable, bur ir is difficult ro imagine rhar it can be served up courtesy of these new image-informarion technologles. This idea of new 'realiry communities'is more a fantasy Projecnon than a serious proposal for social change. Nonetheless, if we cannot believe in the radicai programrne of 'switching worlds', we can agree that-the new technoiogl,es do -raise imPortqnt, philosop_hical quesrions about acrually g)oscingjelliry. One agen& concerns how

is projected, reason may once again be united

fr. k ro* and apprehend

the world

-

quesdo;s 6fipistemotog:y, rePresentacion

and truth. It is this quesrion of veraciry that David Hockney finds disurbing about post-photography. Digral technologies Put into question the narure and function of the photograph/image as representation. The essence of digtal information is that it is inherendy malleable and plasric: 'The unique comPuter tools available to the artist, such as those of image Processing, visualizarion' simulation and neNvork communication are tools for changng, moving and

transtbrming, not for fixing, digrtal information."' Through techniques of elecuonic monage and manipulation, what we once mrsted as 'Pictures of realiry' can now be seamlessly, and undetectably, edited and altered.'r The starus of the phorographic document as evidence is rhereby called into doubt.

L

\ hâ&#x201A;Ź

4

s

whole new vistas are rhen opened up tor the manutlcrure of fakes. fabncaoons and misintbrmation. The relarion berween the phorographic image and the 'real rvorld' is subverted, 'leaving rhe entire problemaric concepr of represenrarion pulverized...and destabilizing rhe bond the image has with rime, hemory or history.'What this represents can, indeed. be justi6ablv described as'a fundamenra.l transformarion in the epistemologcal structure of our visual culture.'r.

This is all rhe more so *'hen the images are compurer-generared rather rhan

simply compurer-manipulated. If the computer image appears 'realisric' if ir 'positivelv enshnnes phorographic rea.iism as the scandard, unquesrioned model

ofvision'- it is the case thar the referent is nor, in fact. 'in the real world', but is icself an image, a mathemadcal-informadonal represenrarion.,! Realiw is no longer represenred. but is simultaneously modelled and mimrcked. Through rhis process of simuladon, rhe whole quesrion of accurary and of authenricirv becomes not simplv problemarical, bur apparentlv, ar least, anachronisric and redun&nt.

This brinp us ro a second phjJosophrcal agenda occasioned by rhe proliferarion of rhese rmaglng technologies. The crisis of the relarion berween image and reaiiry raises quesdons concerning rhe scarus of the image realm. The technofururisa emphasize parricuiariy rhe ontologrca.l quesdon of decidabiliry berween the real and the unreal. As Gene Youngblood pur ir:

i

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13.

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P6rrn4, Dc.6bcr lStjeq 19* pp37. rl

no37

a

d:gtaliy processcd photograph, for cxamplc, cen no longer bc regardcd

extemai to

iself Digal

scenc sirnulation hrs deprivcd photogre.phy of

as evidcnce ofanything ia rcprescnuoor:al authonry

just u photographlr disqualiEcd pdaring in the nincteenrh ccnrury; but rhis trmc thc Auesnon of reprcscnution has beeo cmrucended aitogethcr.,.

The dislocanon of image from referenr reinforces its perceprion as a domain in its own right. Through the problemaazarion of any indexicai or referential reiarion to realiry, rhe rmage-space, or dara-space, assumes for icseif an increasing auron-

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p35

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Addbbq76Jd. lS p.9

omy. In the facritious space, rhe formai and logical

space , of the computer, it to simulare a surrogare realiry, a kind of alter-reaIiry which rs rlifFcult ro differenriare from our convencional realiry and which, it is claimed, even threatens to eci-ipse it. It might seem as if what we have gor used s6 6rlling rhe reai world had been both displaced and replicared by a ghosrly double. But maybe it was actually thar the old realiry was only ever an imperfecr precursor or prefiguracion of the emergenr vinual world an)'\ilay. Maybe thar old real.iry

has become possible

was onJy a kind of pre-technological simulation: We habirually think of the world wc sce as 'out there', but what we are sceing is rcallv a mcntal modcl, a perceptual simu.leoon thzt e:osa.only in our brarns. That simulacion capebility is where humaa minds and

digal compules

share a potenrial for s,vncrgy. Give the hlpcr-rcahsric simuletor

in our heads a handle on computcrized hrper-realtnc simulators, and something vcry big is bound to happen.''

The belief is thar when we finally come ro be immersed in rhis 'cybenpace' we shall be able to realize our rrue and full potcntral. as

There is a new fronrier, ir would seem, and there are those who see thernselves the new settlers. The new image and simuiation technoiogies are supposed to

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5

provide the doorway to new and other worlds: 'rvhen vou're interacting rvith a computer, you are not conversing rvith another Person. You are exploring ano[her wor]d."t This new worid is an ideal world, a world bevond graviw and friction. In this world, human consciousness and inrelligence are amplified.

Cyberspace is imagined as 'an amusemenr park where anvthing that can be imagrned and programmed cart be experienced. The nchness of the expenences that wil be available in cybenpace can bareiv be imagned todav.''e This. at irs most hyperbolic, is 'where the interpersonal, tnterac[ive consclousness oithe world mind is emerging...where minds of tomorrow will mrrror themselves, meet each other, enter the universe of informanon and knowledge."o Metaphon

s

t

rurn mysrical.

This is whar they call 'imagning the future'. Compucer images mark the shift to a new visual paradigm, to a new age when we shall see rhings differentlv: Visuallv-oricnrcd computer intcrllaccs. 6lm, photognphy, and before them. peinnng end dnwrng, all changed the wav peoplc scc thc world. Pcople ran screamrng out of movic houscs at thc sight of the 6nt extremc close-ups of ganr

faces on thc scrcen.

Thc Renaiss:nce was in0uenced at much is pan ofe culrurel

by thc introducrion ofperspecnvc

u by the rcdiscovery ofGrcek philosophy. It

cvoludonary process: cverv ume

wrdcly scen visual pandigm break into

shifts

I

a

a new dimension, reaIiry

little. ln rhc case ofthe cybenpace trrnsformation (becausc ofthc narure ofthe digitei

computcr), it look like realiry is Borng to changc

a

to disrupt our Bken-for-granted and habituai sense of realiry. And photography has had disrurbing implicarions for what we have understood to be the real world. exPosing us to the unreal dimensions of that realiry and even encouraglng us to believe that the caPnrred image is somehow more real. Buc now we are asked to seriously consider the idea that images can, literally, displace and replace realiw. 'We are asked to believe that we could inhabit this other-world of simulanon.

'What does it acrually mcan, though, to'd'r"ell in rhe land of irnages'and to 'abandon life for a dream'? If we aren't moved bv this scenario. we might be tempted just to dismrss it as vacuous fantasv. Perhaps, however, we shou-ld take it seriouslv, insotar as it is a symptomaric reiiection oithe kind of world we are living in. We should take seriouslv the cukural. psvihic, and also polirical, rooa that nourish this desire and this vision. And we should consider it, not onJy in terms of i$ positive aspirations (to imagne and visualize other wavs of being in the rvorld), but also in cerms of the negative mocivations (discontentment with the perceived inadequacy oithe eisdng world). In Freud's terms, this 'rea.hry shift'might be seen in terms of srrategies aimed at the'avoidance of unPleasure'; rt is about coping wirh frustration iiom rhe external world. To tlus end the new technologies can be mobilized, either to 'loosen rhe connecnon' with realiw, or 'altemativelv, to 'remold' it.'Hasn't this insrinctual need alwavs been a driving force in technological rnnovation? We can foilow Susan Sontag's insight that photography is both'a defence against anxiew and a lool of power.' In the light of a felt sense of insecuriry, images are mobilized to achieve symbolic or imaginarv possession over space.'r They are abour containment and control.

Of coune,

L,

lot.!r

ic is rnre that rmages have a.lwavs served

tr

John

wrll.r.

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25. P-ob.tr J.

n ts ilKety ro D€ a comoinatioo of thes€ thrs€.

C

L

ernerg-ed rnro a worrd reshaped by rndustrial l?'I1gtogies, new-forms of sociEioiga;iation, and a new

?!.qloeppll

experience of tlme and_space, nnololiaptrf o#er.a posliritittes for a naw representation of this changing- wbriO-

currentry new moans of rmagrng a-nd communrcatron are arxrrgrng rn socteiles thar are rhemseryei a[.grn u"oii.g;r"s ec o n o mr c, tecfi n o o g i c? r a! d_ n a nIe. i h s' s o c cui r n g 1u] !yla1 g wtthtn a society whe?e ror the.past rso_yeais tt,a p-rrb1"iiriliii. lmage has prayea a prvoiar tot[in-niiJiitrg-orr view of rha wortd. e. fI? development ol photography changed tha ways tn which other lmages i,vere sien.

Jf;ir6;i"-

r

r

r

r

a) Through rr.prggrction

images which previousry existed in one prace one time courd now be redo by a ririetv-oi range of sites.

d

",iii"#"lri'r";iiJo.

b) As images wers seen in many ditferent contexls they became open to multiple interpretarion and reaOinjs.

c)

The development of mass reproduction of images made them mrrh more op"lloSlestigning an-d maae it possible ro and connoct divbrse images. napioouction arjo fry-al9 arrorned the rmage to gain n€w ground as a polrtaue iurtural ob;ect.

t;;;;;.-tt d$

2,1 Electrontc Bnc, gf-glt ltmqgtng fs 9langtng the way photographtc lmeges ere s€an, undirstoooirit used. a) rh? ability t?.€ry and store th?.phgt?graphic,image makes new ki nds- of receptio n, cibuiailil-ffi 'tran in digitar code s m issio n possibl e.

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b) Photogr.apllic images.which are codad in this ryay are no longer tied to a material form.i.e. print, negative or tape. A digital irnage cd'n take as many material forms as @nventionally

exist.

c) Digital images, whilst mimicking a photographic imaga do not necessarily refer to a pre-existent maEri, onject.

d) Digital technology allows the photograph to be deconstrustsd and reconstructed, to become malleable and readily changeable. e) Digitaltechnol ogy can lead to a questioning of belief in photography's objectivity and offers a nâ&#x201A;Źw way to understind how ptrotograins nive meaning.

0 Tlre boundary between the still and moving photographic image dissolves.

L

3. Photography changed the way the world was seen. a) h enabled the flux and movement ol the world to be capturad and stilled.

b) The lamiliar and unremarkable coufd now bs scrutinised.

c) Urseen details and processas coutd be seen. d) The remote and inaccessible coutd now become accessible.

e) Memories could be grasped and stored in new nays. f) The personafly significant courd now be capturod and

celebrsted.

g) The photographic imagj beca.me lhe dominant mode by which the was perceived. Through photographic processed images ceme Iol_d to pervade axperience on an unprecdoehtod'scale. e h)

photograph.came not to replicate vision but mediata it. lt mediated the way in which we viewed milor areas of daily lifa: thiougir iorms or public communication and advehising;within pfivate and timity tite anO the.crty;and in relationship lo social6ntrol i[O organization, lleiiurs and consumption.

T!'te

3-1 le electronle arrd dtgttal lnraglng changlng the way the

world is seen?

a) Jhe contempor:ary world is chanactarised by the manner

in which much knowledge arrd experierye is mediated trrough the phorographic image in all-its forrirs - the illustraled book, irri n"*=mper and fgaz!ry, film and cinema, and the photogrrpr,ic iniajes of rv and video. Much of what w6 se8, know, dnJoeiiJG ii iouno in the photographic image

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o b) Digitaltechnologies

bring ebout a conyâ&#x201A;Źrgencs of many lorms of media h allows us lo construct new hybrid lonns from multiple

sourco6. Beyond a capacity to join, synthesise and edit previous media, digital technologiee can be used to genorata images of a virtual world to a photographic standard.

c) This ability to construcf ofiers both an incraased critical capacity to question glven realities, and an invitation to invent and inhabit ever more powerful media fantasies.

4. Photography changed who could make end use lmagec.

a)

The development of a technology has multiple outcomes, 6yon contradictory and unlooked for outcomes. Technologies are used for purposes different from those envisionad by its developea. This situation is never settled, Photography is no exception to this.

b) ln lndustrial

societies vastly incrsasod numbers of people ga,ined accass to the means of image making and self-representation.

However, the potential of this development was constrained by the shaping of thâ&#x201A;Ź popular markst end control of the forms of distribution.

At the sarn6 time through the development of photography there was a realization of new fonns ol visual doqrmentation and surveillance.

4.'! Elactrcnic and dtgltal imaglng ls lntensltylng issues of access and control.

a) There is a promise that alectronic and digital imaging will increase the accsss to, and involvement in the process of lmage production. This raises in new and intense ways lssues of access and control that have existed with the photographic image.

5. ThE photographlc lmage stsnds at the centra of the maior means ol

communlcation. a) tt is used almost continuously in reldion to recorded sound and speech ( film, video, television), to tha printed word (newspapers, magazines, books, advertisemonts) and in oral exchange, hi$ory and memory. b) ln these ways tha photograph operates within a chain of relatad tachnologies, lt is seldom met in its chemical and discrele form. Hence, in a photographic centred culturs, we have long experienced a hybrid form of media.

6. New technologles facilitate unpracadented torms ot hybrid medla. also offer a nar{ facility, intersctivlty. lnteractivity suggests new fhey lorms ol user / producer relattonshlps, and promlses new levels of user control.

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