The Airportline: Observations

Thesis writing/reading day. I read Oorschot & Hogerhuis 2006 book, How people get lost in organizations – On communication and organizing. It's brilliant for my topic and they have the good taste to throw in some high culture quotes and references to old school plays here and there. Just because they can. Creativity runs high in the book and when they explain the concept of linearity in management thinking they compare it with the concept of a photograph, claiming that 'When you take a picture of a group of people you create a new reality that is called photograph:

• It is a moment frozen in time that immediately ceases to exist.
• The photo is a representation of a reality and no more.
• Add to that the fact that the photo refers to history, it no longer is.
• In order to make the photo possible, much is omitted; many of the things that can be named and many things we do not even notice because of our limited powers of observation.
• What you will get to see depends on the vantage point from which the photo is taken.
• The photographer also matters.
• Not to mention that is is possible to falsify the image by adding to or omitting from the original photo.

(p. 67-78)