Chapter 10: The Global Flow of Visual Culture
By the twentieth century, images could be exchanged through nationally broadcast tv networks, motions pictures, print media, and the internet. Today, images can travel the glove much faster, in fact almost instantaneously, than ever before—a speed not even thought of before the 1980s. The paradox of global culture is that translational flow of culture creates homogeny but at the same time can encourage diversification and new audiences around the globe. Visual communication has been importance during the changing status of nation-states and globalized capitalism.
Even in the 21st century, the concept of a global world without borders is impossible to achieve from a social perspective. Even though mobility is much easier and attainable, national boarders have tightened severely since 2001, resulting from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
In the 1960s, during the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, NASA released images of the earth taken from space. Seeing these images of the earth as a single entity heavily influenced the worldwide concept of the glob and a global existence. When Earth Day was declared in 1970, there was an increased sense of a unified planet and strong human connections; however, these were mostly felt by those in North America and Europe.
It is a little shocking to think that at the beginning of the 21st century, there were more than 8,000 satellites orbiting the earth. That seems like a very large number to me, especially considering that the first satellite, the Russian Sputnik, was first launched in 1957. Satellites allow us to view the sky from a downward-looking perspective instead of looking upward, as humans have done since the beginning of humanity. It is interesting to consider how our changing perspective of the sky alters our perception of the world we live in. I use Google Maps to find directions sometimes, and they use a satellite representation of the earth to show the route to take. I usually don’t stop to think about this, but when I do, it’s pretty bizarre for me to think that it’s normal to see the earth and where I live from that perspective. It’s even weirder that I expect that I should be able to view the earth from that angle—it’s a bit like taking the technology (not of GoogleMaps but of satellite imaging) for granted since I’ve grown up with it all my life.
Geocaching is a really interesting activity. I have been a couple of times with my uncle, who is a geocacher by hobby. From experience, I can say that it’s a strange pastime, but there is a strong treasure-hunting quality to it that makes it enjoyable. The only difference is that instead of an X marking the spot, you get positioning coordinates that you plug into your GPS. It’s been a few years since my last geocaching experience, but I’d definitely do it again if I had the opportunity.
It’s amazing how attached people have gotten to their GPS systems since they’ve become popular. I suppose it’s the same idea as cell phones and rapid-fire expansion. I know people who always leave their GPS plugged into their car. I have a GPS, but I try not to use it unless I absolutely have to because I’m afraid I will begin to rely on it and lose my ability to find my way around by myself. I have a pretty good sense of direction, and I don’t want to lose it by becoming dependent on a new kind of technology. Regardless, my GPS often takes me on strange and unnecessary routes and more often than not seems to land me in the middle of nowhere. I’ve had more than one experience of being told “destination reached” after stopping in front of an abandoned warehouse-like building that has obviously been vacated for quite some time. That’s the most frustrating feeling in the world because then you really don’ know where you are, since you’ve relied on this machine to get you where you needed to go. All this aside, I still feel better having a GPS with me than not at times.
Cultural imperialism is the idea that an ideology or way of life can be exported into other territories by cultural products. This applies to restaurants, consumable products, television shows, news networks, etc.
I’ve never heard of Nollywood, but the Nigerian film industry is apparently the third largest filming industry, behind Hollywood and Bollywood, respectively.
I always thought it was weird that the Mona Lisa was in the Louvre in Paris, because Leonardo da Vinci was Italian, but after learning that the painting was taken from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence this makes much more sense. This is disappointing to me because I’ve been to the Uffizi, and it’s sad to think that I could have seen the Mona Lisa. However, the Uffizi certainly doesn’t lose anything from not housing the painting; I think the Mona Lisa is pretty overrated in actuality. I guess the only thing the gallery would lose would be the increased number of tourists coming to see the painting.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine: Scientific Looking, Looking at Science
Visual Culture is a term that has come to denote a wide range of forms, such as art, popular film, and visual data from sciences, law and medicine. Science and looking at science doesn’t occur in an environment isolated from cultural shaping and meaning. It is necessary to view scientific images while taking into account their social contexts and the advertising, art, law, and popular culture of the time period. In other words, “science and culture are always mutually engaged.”
Photography, originating in the early 19th century, became crucial in the fields of science and medicine as imaging methods became more complex and widespread and more incorporated into scientific and medical practices. Even though visual pictures and photographs are usually seen as being objective images, cameras are banned as means of documentation during the proceedings in courts in the U.S..
In medicine and science, there has been an obsession with “seeing the unseen.” People want to be able to see things that are viewed as secret or hidden. It’s human nature to be curious. Therefore, medical imaging techniques fuel human curiosity and inquisitiveness.
Artists have been preoccupied with the topic and representation of the human body for centuries. This was especially true during the Renaissance, when art and science combined on a regular basis. Leonardo da Vinci is famously known for his artistic representations of the anatomy of the human body. He was known to have performed more than 30 dissections during his life, and one of his most famous images, Vitruvian Man, is an anatomical representation of the human body.
An interesting topic in the chapter, anatomy theaters were popular from the 16th century onward. The anatomy theater of Leiden in the Netherlands (built in 1596) was a prominent site for public dissections. It seems like a very strange thing to us; however, the basic idea is present in our culture today—television shows such as Nip/Tuck and medical shows such as House and ER are immensely popular and regularly feature scenes of surgery and dissection.
Currently, the Body Worlds exhibits are popular and are directed by Gunther von Hagens. This exhibit has been discussed on the news, featured on magazine covers, and exhibited in cities around the U.S. and the world for years, followed by much interest and fascination. The bodies in this exhibit undergo a process called “plastination” and are posed and put on display with the layers of flesh pulled back to reveal organs, nerves, blood vessels, and muscle tissue. There have been some obvious controversies surrounding this exhibit, notably the gender discrepancies between the poses of male and female figures and the transgression of the boundary lines between real and fake, human and posthuman, organic and synthetic, and authentic and copy. This exhibit bridges art, science, and entertainment in a somewhat disturbing way.
The camera created the tendency for people to use photography as an objective recording device used to document and classify residents of various institutions—hospitals, asylums, etc. This led to the classification of medicine and the tendency to document and typify humanity. The practice of phrenology uses the drawing and photographs of bodies to catalogue and classify them, as well as to set a standard of “normal.” Phrenology was especially practiced on skulls and was thought to show a visual link between skull shape and temperament, moral capacity, health, and intelligence. Also, photographic categorization was used to establish criminality as a trait which could be linked to physical characteristics like a “low forehead” or “beady” eyes. This is evidenced today when people say things like “he just had a strange look about him” or “he looks like the kind of person would would do—“ of criminals and people in mug shots. In fact, Alphonse Bertillon’s photographs of his subjects’ profiles evolved into the modern day mug shot.
The Human Genome Project is another example of our obsession and desire to have visual “mappings” of the body, even on microscopic and molecular levels. Having a digital map of the genome would produce something easily decipherable, understandable, and containable—thus demystifying the human body in a way that we find somewhat comforting and satisfying.
The idea of a cyborg is another example of how humanity is seen as becoming meshed with technology and machinery. A cybord is something that is part technology and part organism, such as a bionic human. This is also a cultural phenomenon, captured by Hollywood in such films as the Terminator and such TV shows as Battlestar Gallactica.
Once again, science is not created in a vacuum or a world deprived of culture; rather, it is very much shaped by the culture in which it develops. Scientific images also contain cultural meanings that “govern not only how they are produced and for what purpose but also how they are interpreted and gain cultural value.”
Visual Culture is a term that has come to denote a wide range of forms, such as art, popular film, and visual data from sciences, law and medicine. Science and looking at science doesn’t occur in an environment isolated from cultural shaping and meaning. It is necessary to view scientific images while taking into account their social contexts and the advertising, art, law, and popular culture of the time period. In other words, “science and culture are always mutually engaged.”
Photography, originating in the early 19th century, became crucial in the fields of science and medicine as imaging methods became more complex and widespread and more incorporated into scientific and medical practices. Even though visual pictures and photographs are usually seen as being objective images, cameras are banned as means of documentation during the proceedings in courts in the U.S..
In medicine and science, there has been an obsession with “seeing the unseen.” People want to be able to see things that are viewed as secret or hidden. It’s human nature to be curious. Therefore, medical imaging techniques fuel human curiosity and inquisitiveness.
Artists have been preoccupied with the topic and representation of the human body for centuries. This was especially true during the Renaissance, when art and science combined on a regular basis. Leonardo da Vinci is famously known for his artistic representations of the anatomy of the human body. He was known to have performed more than 30 dissections during his life, and one of his most famous images, Vitruvian Man, is an anatomical representation of the human body.
An interesting topic in the chapter, anatomy theaters were popular from the 16th century onward. The anatomy theater of Leiden in the Netherlands (built in 1596) was a prominent site for public dissections. It seems like a very strange thing to us; however, the basic idea is present in our culture today—television shows such as Nip/Tuck and medical shows such as House and ER are immensely popular and regularly feature scenes of surgery and dissection.
Currently, the Body Worlds exhibits are popular and are directed by Gunther von Hagens. This exhibit has been discussed on the news, featured on magazine covers, and exhibited in cities around the U.S. and the world for years, followed by much interest and fascination. The bodies in this exhibit undergo a process called “plastination” and are posed and put on display with the layers of flesh pulled back to reveal organs, nerves, blood vessels, and muscle tissue. There have been some obvious controversies surrounding this exhibit, notably the gender discrepancies between the poses of male and female figures and the transgression of the boundary lines between real and fake, human and posthuman, organic and synthetic, and authentic and copy. This exhibit bridges art, science, and entertainment in a somewhat disturbing way.
The camera created the tendency for people to use photography as an objective recording device used to document and classify residents of various institutions—hospitals, asylums, etc. This led to the classification of medicine and the tendency to document and typify humanity. The practice of phrenology uses the drawing and photographs of bodies to catalogue and classify them, as well as to set a standard of “normal.” Phrenology was especially practiced on skulls and was thought to show a visual link between skull shape and temperament, moral capacity, health, and intelligence. Also, photographic categorization was used to establish criminality as a trait which could be linked to physical characteristics like a “low forehead” or “beady” eyes. This is evidenced today when people say things like “he just had a strange look about him” or “he looks like the kind of person would would do—“ of criminals and people in mug shots. In fact, Alphonse Bertillon’s photographs of his subjects’ profiles evolved into the modern day mug shot.
The Human Genome Project is another example of our obsession and desire to have visual “mappings” of the body, even on microscopic and molecular levels. Having a digital map of the genome would produce something easily decipherable, understandable, and containable—thus demystifying the human body in a way that we find somewhat comforting and satisfying.
The idea of a cyborg is another example of how humanity is seen as becoming meshed with technology and machinery. A cybord is something that is part technology and part organism, such as a bionic human. This is also a cultural phenomenon, captured by Hollywood in such films as the Terminator and such TV shows as Battlestar Gallactica.
Once again, science is not created in a vacuum or a world deprived of culture; rather, it is very much shaped by the culture in which it develops. Scientific images also contain cultural meanings that “govern not only how they are produced and for what purpose but also how they are interpreted and gain cultural value.”
Monday, March 23, 2009
Chapter Eight
Chapter 8: Postmodernism, Indie Media, and Popular Culture
Postmodernism is marked by an era of simulation, where a simulation of real is sometimes seen as more real than reality. The idea of an amusement park known as World Park is a very strange idea to me. I find it strange how the Chinese government tries to pacify their citizens’ desire to travel outside of the country by creating miniature replicas of landmarks in the park. However, a similar thing is seen in Disney World’s Epcot, where many different countries are recreated in miniature. Even though this sort of thing is seen in the United States, I feel like its goal is different—Americans (or whoever else) visiting Epcot are probably doing so because it would be impossible to visit so many countries at once from an economic or free time perspective. However, World Park seems like a way to pacify the curiosity of citizens who are unable to travel outside of the country for more political reasons and restrictions.
Also within postmodernism is the idea that everything has been done before, which tends to jade people who become obsessed with remakes, remixes, and the pastiche. Also, there is the tendency to regard human bodies as malleable and changeable to an intense degree of different practices which alter the look of the human body (from body art to surgery to exercise).
Some argue that postmodernism arose from a desire (beginning after 1968 and taking hold in the 1980s) to understand the changing concepts of humanity and as an analysis of globalization and its effects. However, postmodernism can also be seen as a natural progression from the ideas of late modernism. It’s almost impossible to draw a distinctive line between late modernism and postmodernism.
Postmodernism is characterized heavily by the idea that there is no singular truth, but rather there exist many truths that are culturally and historically constructed. It is seen collectively as a mindset that challenges master narratives (i.e. reigning and major politics, science, religion).
Children’s movies today contain so much sarcasm and irony (along with parody and satire) that appeals to adults while at the same time usually going unnoticed by children. However, even though the children may not notice it at the time, they are being raised on these ideas of irony and parody, and will grow up already more aware of its existence than they would have otherwise been if animated films were not geared towards both adults and children. An example of this is the scene in Shrek which pokes fun at the slow-motion, spinning camera angle fight scenes of The Matrix. A child watching Shrek and having not seen The Matrix will not understand the reference, but will still find the scene as funny; whereas, an adult will understand that sarcasm within the reference and find it funny on a deeper level than a child. If the child reviews Shrek as an adult after having seen The Matrix, they will then understand the reference and appreciate it in a new way. I have had many of these experiences when reviewing movies from my childhood. Disney movies are filled with these kinds of instances, and I catch myself trying to remember why I thought parts of movies were funny when I was little because I know I didn’t catch all of the references.
For instance, the movie Aladdin contains an extreme amount of cultural references that are lost on the children who watch the movie (but the children still find the scenes funny for other reasons) but are appreciated by adults. This scene with the genie impersonating Robert De Niro is a good example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFfG8C9Ap9w&feature=related
The section on Radiohead and their album in Rainbows was interesting to see in the book. I personally participated in their available digital download of the album in 2007 (not even dreaming that it would be mentioned in any sort of textbook). It was an interesting move and obviously hasn’t hurt the band in any way—I later went to a concert of theirs last May, and it was packed, so any money they could have potentially lost is certainly made up in increased ticket sales by new fans who were introduced to the band by the digital download.
Postmodernism is marked by an era of simulation, where a simulation of real is sometimes seen as more real than reality. The idea of an amusement park known as World Park is a very strange idea to me. I find it strange how the Chinese government tries to pacify their citizens’ desire to travel outside of the country by creating miniature replicas of landmarks in the park. However, a similar thing is seen in Disney World’s Epcot, where many different countries are recreated in miniature. Even though this sort of thing is seen in the United States, I feel like its goal is different—Americans (or whoever else) visiting Epcot are probably doing so because it would be impossible to visit so many countries at once from an economic or free time perspective. However, World Park seems like a way to pacify the curiosity of citizens who are unable to travel outside of the country for more political reasons and restrictions.
Also within postmodernism is the idea that everything has been done before, which tends to jade people who become obsessed with remakes, remixes, and the pastiche. Also, there is the tendency to regard human bodies as malleable and changeable to an intense degree of different practices which alter the look of the human body (from body art to surgery to exercise).
Some argue that postmodernism arose from a desire (beginning after 1968 and taking hold in the 1980s) to understand the changing concepts of humanity and as an analysis of globalization and its effects. However, postmodernism can also be seen as a natural progression from the ideas of late modernism. It’s almost impossible to draw a distinctive line between late modernism and postmodernism.
Postmodernism is characterized heavily by the idea that there is no singular truth, but rather there exist many truths that are culturally and historically constructed. It is seen collectively as a mindset that challenges master narratives (i.e. reigning and major politics, science, religion).
Children’s movies today contain so much sarcasm and irony (along with parody and satire) that appeals to adults while at the same time usually going unnoticed by children. However, even though the children may not notice it at the time, they are being raised on these ideas of irony and parody, and will grow up already more aware of its existence than they would have otherwise been if animated films were not geared towards both adults and children. An example of this is the scene in Shrek which pokes fun at the slow-motion, spinning camera angle fight scenes of The Matrix. A child watching Shrek and having not seen The Matrix will not understand the reference, but will still find the scene as funny; whereas, an adult will understand that sarcasm within the reference and find it funny on a deeper level than a child. If the child reviews Shrek as an adult after having seen The Matrix, they will then understand the reference and appreciate it in a new way. I have had many of these experiences when reviewing movies from my childhood. Disney movies are filled with these kinds of instances, and I catch myself trying to remember why I thought parts of movies were funny when I was little because I know I didn’t catch all of the references.
For instance, the movie Aladdin contains an extreme amount of cultural references that are lost on the children who watch the movie (but the children still find the scenes funny for other reasons) but are appreciated by adults. This scene with the genie impersonating Robert De Niro is a good example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFfG8C9Ap9w&feature=related
The section on Radiohead and their album in Rainbows was interesting to see in the book. I personally participated in their available digital download of the album in 2007 (not even dreaming that it would be mentioned in any sort of textbook). It was an interesting move and obviously hasn’t hurt the band in any way—I later went to a concert of theirs last May, and it was packed, so any money they could have potentially lost is certainly made up in increased ticket sales by new fans who were introduced to the band by the digital download.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Helvetica
I found the documentary Helvetica to be extremely interesting. To pay tribute to the typeface, in this post I will be using Arial instead of my usual Georgia. I am fascinated with the idea of different typefaces and fonts and typesetting and have been for years. There is still a large part of me that desperately wants to go into graphic design, although it is unlikely I will do so. However, watching this documentary rekindled the interest I have in graphic design. I think it's incredibly interesting to think about how a typesetting can influence the way that people interpret a message, symbol, brand name, etc. I also think it's interesting to see how people design a typesetting that is not only functional and readable, but also asthetically pleasing and able to convey a message just in the way the letters are shaped and structured as well as what the letters spell out. The whole world of graphic design and especially typesetting is an extremely subtle art, and I suppose that's part of what appeals to me about it. In a completely nerdy way, this documentary would definitely have been something that I would have watched on my own had I come across it outside of class. I was delighted that we were able to watch something like this as part of this class; I thought it was one of the most interesting things we've looked at so far.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Chapter Seven
Chapter 7: Advertising, Consumer Cultures, and Desire
We are constantly surrounded by advertisements—so much so that we don’t even realize them all of the time and we become desensitized to them, forcing advertisers to be on a constant search for new techniques that will capture and hold our attention. Ads make promises to consumers (whether or not they can keep them) and present an “abstract world” that does not necessarily line up with reality. Some ads disguise themselves as more than ads—some as art, entertainment, or “culture jams.” Consumerism is something that is deeply ingrained in our present society much as capitalism is in this country. Capitalism functions when people consume large amounts of goods beyond what they need to survive. Mobility was an important part of the spread of capitalism, because it allowed urban populations to grow and become more concentrated. Because of mobility becoming more important in consumerism, the city streets became “forums for advertising.”
Part of consumer societies is the idea that some of one’s self-image is constructed through their purchases and through their use of commodities, which are said to fill the void of a closer-knit community and give meaning. “The idea that consumer products will offer self-fulfillment is crucial to marketing and consumption.”
When arcades became popular, people changed their idea of “shopping” from a mere necessity to a pleasurable experience and even as a form of entertainment. Arcades became places not only to shop, but to walk around and look at beautiful buildings and artworks.
Anne Friedberg wrote that an increased “mobility of vision” was displayed in the interest of 19th century panoramas, dioramas, and the emergence of photography, and later, motion picture film.
The automobile became a symbol of “individualism, freedom, and conspicuous consumption” and people began to see that embracing these ideas as part of a “broader social engagement with consumption as a kind of civic duty.” The paradox that lies within using commodities to fill emotional needs lies in the fact that people generally think they will be happier if they consume more goods, but this is not the case.
Advertisers seek to create consumer relationship to brands so that brands become necessary, familiar, comforting, and “loveable.” Advertisements establish relationships between the product (signifier) and the meaning (signified) to sell products and also the connotations associated with those products. To promote ethnic awareness and political correctness, many advertisements now use models from several different ethnic backgrounds.
Marxist theory doesn’t exactly extend to today’s advertisements and the idea of contemporary consumerism because Marx did not foresee the complexity that the system has taken on today. Consumers today are increasingly interested in where their goods are produced. Issues like fair trade and worker conditions are becoming the focus of more business practices for the general public.
Pop art was an “attack on distinctions between high and low culture.” People who produced pop art took things from television, comic books, advertisements, symbols, and brands, to make “high art.” Andy Warhol was famous for this—especially for his artwork employing the image of a Campbell’s soup cans.
Establishing a brand is something that advertisers and companies strive for. However, a company can be too successful at this, and the brand name ceases to refer only to the brand but encompasses the whole kind of product—Kleenex for tissues, Xerox for making copies, Coke for any soft drink. This is known as genericide.
Guerrilla advertisements seemed very strange to me. The idea that a company or business would hire someone to act like a person not working for that company or business—say, to act like a tourist and praise the features of the camera they are using—seemed slightly bizarre and even a bit unsettling. Also, advertisers and companies are finding ways to advertise by tapping into social networks like Facebook and MySpace. I’ve even noticed recently that ads pop up in the middle of YouTube videos.
Overall, in “late consumerism, the boundary between the mainstream and the margins is always in the process of being renegotiated.”
We are constantly surrounded by advertisements—so much so that we don’t even realize them all of the time and we become desensitized to them, forcing advertisers to be on a constant search for new techniques that will capture and hold our attention. Ads make promises to consumers (whether or not they can keep them) and present an “abstract world” that does not necessarily line up with reality. Some ads disguise themselves as more than ads—some as art, entertainment, or “culture jams.” Consumerism is something that is deeply ingrained in our present society much as capitalism is in this country. Capitalism functions when people consume large amounts of goods beyond what they need to survive. Mobility was an important part of the spread of capitalism, because it allowed urban populations to grow and become more concentrated. Because of mobility becoming more important in consumerism, the city streets became “forums for advertising.”
Part of consumer societies is the idea that some of one’s self-image is constructed through their purchases and through their use of commodities, which are said to fill the void of a closer-knit community and give meaning. “The idea that consumer products will offer self-fulfillment is crucial to marketing and consumption.”
When arcades became popular, people changed their idea of “shopping” from a mere necessity to a pleasurable experience and even as a form of entertainment. Arcades became places not only to shop, but to walk around and look at beautiful buildings and artworks.
Anne Friedberg wrote that an increased “mobility of vision” was displayed in the interest of 19th century panoramas, dioramas, and the emergence of photography, and later, motion picture film.
The automobile became a symbol of “individualism, freedom, and conspicuous consumption” and people began to see that embracing these ideas as part of a “broader social engagement with consumption as a kind of civic duty.” The paradox that lies within using commodities to fill emotional needs lies in the fact that people generally think they will be happier if they consume more goods, but this is not the case.
Advertisers seek to create consumer relationship to brands so that brands become necessary, familiar, comforting, and “loveable.” Advertisements establish relationships between the product (signifier) and the meaning (signified) to sell products and also the connotations associated with those products. To promote ethnic awareness and political correctness, many advertisements now use models from several different ethnic backgrounds.
Marxist theory doesn’t exactly extend to today’s advertisements and the idea of contemporary consumerism because Marx did not foresee the complexity that the system has taken on today. Consumers today are increasingly interested in where their goods are produced. Issues like fair trade and worker conditions are becoming the focus of more business practices for the general public.
Pop art was an “attack on distinctions between high and low culture.” People who produced pop art took things from television, comic books, advertisements, symbols, and brands, to make “high art.” Andy Warhol was famous for this—especially for his artwork employing the image of a Campbell’s soup cans.
Establishing a brand is something that advertisers and companies strive for. However, a company can be too successful at this, and the brand name ceases to refer only to the brand but encompasses the whole kind of product—Kleenex for tissues, Xerox for making copies, Coke for any soft drink. This is known as genericide.
Guerrilla advertisements seemed very strange to me. The idea that a company or business would hire someone to act like a person not working for that company or business—say, to act like a tourist and praise the features of the camera they are using—seemed slightly bizarre and even a bit unsettling. Also, advertisers and companies are finding ways to advertise by tapping into social networks like Facebook and MySpace. I’ve even noticed recently that ads pop up in the middle of YouTube videos.
Overall, in “late consumerism, the boundary between the mainstream and the margins is always in the process of being renegotiated.”
Monday, February 23, 2009
Chapter Six
Chapter 6: Media in Everyday Life
In the 19th century, the term “the masses” arose in order to describe the structure and changes in societies that were undergoing industrializations and the rapid growth of a working class. Because this group of working class people was so large, the they were seen as having influence on the opinions of a society and on societal practices. Karl Marx used the concept of the masses to explain how the working class fit into industrial capitalism. Sometimes, this term is met with a pejorative connotation. The negative connotation comes from the idea of seeing the “masses” as an undifferentiated group of people who are basically sheep who passively accept what they are told by the media and who can be easily manipulated.
A criticism that arose in the 20th century in respect to the idea of the masses was that the sense of community and belonging diminished with the rise of urban populations and a more homogenous and isolated worldview. There was also the criticism that there was a decline in family and community life due to urban sprawl and suburban life.
The term “mass media” has existed since the 1920s and is used to describe the forms of media that reach large audiences with shared interests. In the 20th century, most forms of mass communication were visual, with some exceptions such as radio, and with the rise of electronic and digital media consumers of media devices such as computers, cell phones, the Internet, are likely to view themselves not only as consumer but also as partial producers in information and media.
Before the radio, when literacy rates were also low, only an educated minority could read and write, and, therefore, they controlled the exchange of information beyond the level of word of mouth. As literacy rates rose and new forms of media arose that did not involve reading, this began to change more and more.
When we talk about the “media” we usually refer to a plural for of medium but also to a unified and singular group of ideas and messages. The different forms of media used to convey a message can heavily influence how that message is received by an audience.
When looking at how our society judges the media, we can look at how they gather their information about news and politics. According to the book: “We might consider news parodies to be more reliable sources because their biases are explicit, and there is no pretense of neutrality.” I know that I’ve read statistics before that say a surprising number of young adults use parody news shows (such as the Daily Show and the Colbert Report on Comedy Central) as their only or major source of news and political information. While I think that sometimes major news networks can be biased towards the news they portray, I’m not sure that I would go so far as to say that parodies of the news are any less biased because of their supposed neutrality. To solve the problem of biased news, I suppose that my suggestion would be to check several different sources for news and information, rather than just relying on one source, let alone a parody of other sources.
There is an interesting idea that mass broadcasting fosters “conformity to dominant ideas about politics and culture,” which I would agree with in a sense. Rather than conforming to one dominant idea, I think that mass media leads to the polarization of ideas, where the middle ground is less populated than ideological extremes on either end of a spectrum. People tend to listen to others who share their ideas while sometimes neglecting the views of others. And there are different methods of mass media that appeal to different groups of people, therefore, polarizing their ideas even further.
“Public” can be defined in several ways, but as the term applies to media, is refers to the space of discourse where people can exercise personal and impersonal public speech in a social situation that allows for the “circulation and exchange of ideas.” This public space can be a physical space, a social setting, or a media arena—any “place” where people can come together to discuss the “pressing issues of their society.”
The idea of the traditional networks and news organizations—such as the BBC and CNN—being displaced and encountering competition for worldwide audiences from relatively new and influential news networks from the Middle East and Latin America is a very interesting scenario. In the coming years we will no doubt be able to see the continued effects that these new and different news powerhouses will have on global opinion and differing worldviews.
In the 19th century, the term “the masses” arose in order to describe the structure and changes in societies that were undergoing industrializations and the rapid growth of a working class. Because this group of working class people was so large, the they were seen as having influence on the opinions of a society and on societal practices. Karl Marx used the concept of the masses to explain how the working class fit into industrial capitalism. Sometimes, this term is met with a pejorative connotation. The negative connotation comes from the idea of seeing the “masses” as an undifferentiated group of people who are basically sheep who passively accept what they are told by the media and who can be easily manipulated.
A criticism that arose in the 20th century in respect to the idea of the masses was that the sense of community and belonging diminished with the rise of urban populations and a more homogenous and isolated worldview. There was also the criticism that there was a decline in family and community life due to urban sprawl and suburban life.
The term “mass media” has existed since the 1920s and is used to describe the forms of media that reach large audiences with shared interests. In the 20th century, most forms of mass communication were visual, with some exceptions such as radio, and with the rise of electronic and digital media consumers of media devices such as computers, cell phones, the Internet, are likely to view themselves not only as consumer but also as partial producers in information and media.
Before the radio, when literacy rates were also low, only an educated minority could read and write, and, therefore, they controlled the exchange of information beyond the level of word of mouth. As literacy rates rose and new forms of media arose that did not involve reading, this began to change more and more.
When we talk about the “media” we usually refer to a plural for of medium but also to a unified and singular group of ideas and messages. The different forms of media used to convey a message can heavily influence how that message is received by an audience.
When looking at how our society judges the media, we can look at how they gather their information about news and politics. According to the book: “We might consider news parodies to be more reliable sources because their biases are explicit, and there is no pretense of neutrality.” I know that I’ve read statistics before that say a surprising number of young adults use parody news shows (such as the Daily Show and the Colbert Report on Comedy Central) as their only or major source of news and political information. While I think that sometimes major news networks can be biased towards the news they portray, I’m not sure that I would go so far as to say that parodies of the news are any less biased because of their supposed neutrality. To solve the problem of biased news, I suppose that my suggestion would be to check several different sources for news and information, rather than just relying on one source, let alone a parody of other sources.
There is an interesting idea that mass broadcasting fosters “conformity to dominant ideas about politics and culture,” which I would agree with in a sense. Rather than conforming to one dominant idea, I think that mass media leads to the polarization of ideas, where the middle ground is less populated than ideological extremes on either end of a spectrum. People tend to listen to others who share their ideas while sometimes neglecting the views of others. And there are different methods of mass media that appeal to different groups of people, therefore, polarizing their ideas even further.
“Public” can be defined in several ways, but as the term applies to media, is refers to the space of discourse where people can exercise personal and impersonal public speech in a social situation that allows for the “circulation and exchange of ideas.” This public space can be a physical space, a social setting, or a media arena—any “place” where people can come together to discuss the “pressing issues of their society.”
The idea of the traditional networks and news organizations—such as the BBC and CNN—being displaced and encountering competition for worldwide audiences from relatively new and influential news networks from the Middle East and Latin America is a very interesting scenario. In the coming years we will no doubt be able to see the continued effects that these new and different news powerhouses will have on global opinion and differing worldviews.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Second Life House
Although when I first started tinkering with building things in class I had a good bit of trouble, when I went home and started messing around with all of the features, I found that I had a lot less trouble getting things to work the way I wanted them to work.
I must say that I enjoyed this assignment more than the assignment on making clothes. This could, however, possibly be attributed to the fact that I've never been terribly interested in clothes.
I made my little hut a round shaped room with a dome top. I've always liked rounded shapes more than rigid, square or rectangular shapes. The outside of the walls (wall?) is a blue tile, and the inside is a light blue wallpaper. I made the floor the texture of beach sand. It's not the most traditional flooring, but I miss living at the beach, and I figured I could make the floor whatever I wanted to since this is a virtual world (and a virtually sandy floor would only make things virtually dirty). The dome of the hut is probably my favorite part - it's translucent and shaded white so it's like clouded glass. I like a lot of natural sunlight in buildings, so I figured that a cloudy glass roof would allow for plenty of that.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Chapter Five
Chapter 5: Visual Technologies, Image Reproduction, and the Copy
Technology has made is somewhat easier to reproduce images. Drawings and paintings dominated thousands of years of visual reproduction, but new technologies such as photography have opened up more options for those wishing to recreate or capture an image.
Technology develops in strides but also gradually sometimes. I think it’s really interesting to see how some technologies are used decades later for things you couldn’t have imagined earlier—such as the military technology that morphed into the Internet. Some technologies, such as cell phones, have grown so dramatically over the last decade that I have a hard time seeing how they will develop further until they come out with some feature that at first seems totally superfluous and then becomes standard.
Motion and sequence photography are two of the most drastic advancements in image reproduction. The techniques used in motion picture film and sequential photography opened up many more opportunities for photographic uses, such as studying movement through time-lapsed photography and making films with motion pictures. Sequential photography allowed for studying movement that was too fast for the naked eye to take in and observe.
The idea of a kinescope—a device in which only one person at a time could view a moving picture—seems very strange to us, or at least to me, today. In a way it reminds me of those big binocular things at different tourist spots where you insert coins and then get to look through at a landscape more closely, or those toys where you have a round disk-like card with little pictures on it and you put it into the plastic viewer and scroll through the pictures (I cannot for the life of me remember what these are called).
It’s interesting to think about what could have happened to motion photography if the technology allowing people to view it had not coincided with the technology to produce the motion picture film. However, I can’t really believe that there would have been too much of a gap between these inventions, because throughout history, if there has been a need for an invention, it usually doesn’t take too long for someone to come up with a solution.
It is interesting to note that throughout history, even though copies and the tendency to copy images has existed, the value of an original, uncopied image is usually always more valuable than the copy. This is evidenced today in many ways, such as an original painting by a famous artist selling for millions and millions of dollars, while reproductions are worth relatively little. Today, “hand painted” items are usually always going to be more costly than items that are not original or painted by hand.
I found the idea that “authenticity” has come to mean something that is “timeless” or “classic” instead of something unique or original to be interesting and seemingly contradictory at first. Although, I can’t help but admit that this is true especially in advertising today, where mass-produced items are deemed “authentic.”
The section talking about how some works are so universally reproduced, such as the Mona Lisa, made me think of how many times I have seen that image copied and reproduced. One of my favorite instances is in one of my favorite movies—Elf—where the main character uses and Etch-A-Sketch to draw the picture and hangs it on a Christmas tree. The joke implies that most people will understand that this particular image has been reproduced so many times that we are almost desensitized to its beauty.
Whoever owns a copyright literally has the right to copy that image. Today, copyright laws are so important to artists, writers, and in many other areas because some people make a living from the images, writings, music they have created.
The copyright section was interesting to me, as a amateur photographer. I participate in photography as a hobby now, but one day hope to learn enough and develop my skills and craft enough to do something with it (and as I’ve been put in charge of the wedding photography for my cousin’s wedding this March, it’s a goal that doesn’t seem as unattainable as it once did). Since I’ve made a transition from film to digital photography, I have always been apprehensive about putting my pictures on the Internet, since I have no way to keep people from using the images for their own purposes. I put the pictures on the Internet in the first place to show them to people I would like to see them, and it’s the easiest and most accessible way to do that, especially when communicating with people hundreds of miles away. But at the same time, there’s nothing to stop anyone from right-clicking and saving the images to their computer. Sure, the images won’t be high resolution at all, but the idea is still there, and it’s a bit of an unsettling thing to think about.
Technology has made is somewhat easier to reproduce images. Drawings and paintings dominated thousands of years of visual reproduction, but new technologies such as photography have opened up more options for those wishing to recreate or capture an image.
Technology develops in strides but also gradually sometimes. I think it’s really interesting to see how some technologies are used decades later for things you couldn’t have imagined earlier—such as the military technology that morphed into the Internet. Some technologies, such as cell phones, have grown so dramatically over the last decade that I have a hard time seeing how they will develop further until they come out with some feature that at first seems totally superfluous and then becomes standard.
Motion and sequence photography are two of the most drastic advancements in image reproduction. The techniques used in motion picture film and sequential photography opened up many more opportunities for photographic uses, such as studying movement through time-lapsed photography and making films with motion pictures. Sequential photography allowed for studying movement that was too fast for the naked eye to take in and observe.
The idea of a kinescope—a device in which only one person at a time could view a moving picture—seems very strange to us, or at least to me, today. In a way it reminds me of those big binocular things at different tourist spots where you insert coins and then get to look through at a landscape more closely, or those toys where you have a round disk-like card with little pictures on it and you put it into the plastic viewer and scroll through the pictures (I cannot for the life of me remember what these are called).
It’s interesting to think about what could have happened to motion photography if the technology allowing people to view it had not coincided with the technology to produce the motion picture film. However, I can’t really believe that there would have been too much of a gap between these inventions, because throughout history, if there has been a need for an invention, it usually doesn’t take too long for someone to come up with a solution.
It is interesting to note that throughout history, even though copies and the tendency to copy images has existed, the value of an original, uncopied image is usually always more valuable than the copy. This is evidenced today in many ways, such as an original painting by a famous artist selling for millions and millions of dollars, while reproductions are worth relatively little. Today, “hand painted” items are usually always going to be more costly than items that are not original or painted by hand.
I found the idea that “authenticity” has come to mean something that is “timeless” or “classic” instead of something unique or original to be interesting and seemingly contradictory at first. Although, I can’t help but admit that this is true especially in advertising today, where mass-produced items are deemed “authentic.”
The section talking about how some works are so universally reproduced, such as the Mona Lisa, made me think of how many times I have seen that image copied and reproduced. One of my favorite instances is in one of my favorite movies—Elf—where the main character uses and Etch-A-Sketch to draw the picture and hangs it on a Christmas tree. The joke implies that most people will understand that this particular image has been reproduced so many times that we are almost desensitized to its beauty.
Whoever owns a copyright literally has the right to copy that image. Today, copyright laws are so important to artists, writers, and in many other areas because some people make a living from the images, writings, music they have created.
The copyright section was interesting to me, as a amateur photographer. I participate in photography as a hobby now, but one day hope to learn enough and develop my skills and craft enough to do something with it (and as I’ve been put in charge of the wedding photography for my cousin’s wedding this March, it’s a goal that doesn’t seem as unattainable as it once did). Since I’ve made a transition from film to digital photography, I have always been apprehensive about putting my pictures on the Internet, since I have no way to keep people from using the images for their own purposes. I put the pictures on the Internet in the first place to show them to people I would like to see them, and it’s the easiest and most accessible way to do that, especially when communicating with people hundreds of miles away. But at the same time, there’s nothing to stop anyone from right-clicking and saving the images to their computer. Sure, the images won’t be high resolution at all, but the idea is still there, and it’s a bit of an unsettling thing to think about.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Paper Proposal
Paper Proposal
Photography in the 1930s: The Great Depression Through the Camera Lens
Problem Statement
The issue that I would like to explore in my paper this semester is the use of photography in the 1930s to capture the spirit and emotions of the Great Depression. During the 1930s, photography as a medium of journalism, artistic expression, and archiving changed dramatically with the attitudes and outlook that accompanied the Great Depression and coincided with the continual rise of Modernism in areas such as literature, film, and art.
It is difficult to determine if this change and progression in the field of photography was a result of the attitudes of the Great Depression or if the photography that began to infiltrate the media perpetuated and enhanced the emotions that were expressed and experienced during this difficult and trying decade. New technological advancements during this time period also contributed to the ability for photographers to practice their craft in innovative and ground-breaking ways. The cause and effect of the innovations in taking photographs on the kinds of images that were captured in this decade is also an interesting situation to investigate.
Current Situation
Photography during the 1930s and the era of the Great Depression underwent a transition as a medium for stiff portraits to a means of capturing the emotions of the people in the photographs. Photographic journalism experienced a surge, but people also began to realize the potential for photographs to evoke emotions in their intended audience. It was at this time that photography began to become a way for people to raise awareness about certain issues—it began to have a role in certain branches of activism.
Some of the more modern ideas that we associate with photography originated during this time period. The practice of seeing photography as more of an art form as opposed to an objective and almost scientific application was greatly explored during this decade. As a new medium, photography had assumed an identity as an objective medium—at least more objective than more easily-manipulated and interpretable fields such as painting and drawing. As people began using photography as a way to draw emotions out of viewers, this view of photography as an objective medium slowly began to disappear. People became slightly more aware that photography could be used to different things, such as emotional manipulation and even propaganda. Despite this slight change in perspective, most people would consider a photograph to be more objective than any other medium—a belief that exists even today, despite the invention of image manipulating software.
Solving the Problem
There are certain iconic photographs that emerged from the 1930s, and I intend to take a closer look at these images and discuss their impact on society during this time as well as the field of photography as a whole. The different styles that emerged during this time period are also important in discussing the issue of how photography continued to evolve and develop and must also be discussed throughout the paper.
It is impossible to discuss photography and the leaps that the art form made in the 1930s without focusing on photographer Dorothea Lang, whose works have become iconic and a recognizable representation of the Great Depression. During her trip around the country and to California, she captured some of the most remarkable images from people living in the Great Depression. The impact of her photographs was so great that they are still centrally discussed and greatly relevant in conversations about modern photography today.
In investigating the photography of the 1930s, one must also mention Ansel Adams. His photography leading up to the 1930s and extending beyond that decade also helped to reshape the idea of photography as an art form and a means of promoting activism—in his case, the defense of nature and environmental preservation. He is still one of the most famous modern American photographers, and his style is easily recognizable. He has written many books about photography and is a well-respected authority, even posthumously. His landscape photographs and unusual compositions also helped to transition photography from the stiff portrait and business-like applications to an art and means of expression.
In addition to pioneering photographers and changes in style, the technological advancements must also be researched and explored in such a discussion. The rise of Modernism as a movement in American also impacted the kind of photographic revolution experienced in the 1930s. The attitudes that infiltrated the decade of the Depression were reflected in the arts, literature, film, photography, as well as in the mindset people carried with them in their daily lives, and the impact that these attitudes had on photography specifically is something that will have to be explored throughout this research paper.
Photography in the 1930s: The Great Depression Through the Camera Lens
Problem Statement
The issue that I would like to explore in my paper this semester is the use of photography in the 1930s to capture the spirit and emotions of the Great Depression. During the 1930s, photography as a medium of journalism, artistic expression, and archiving changed dramatically with the attitudes and outlook that accompanied the Great Depression and coincided with the continual rise of Modernism in areas such as literature, film, and art.
It is difficult to determine if this change and progression in the field of photography was a result of the attitudes of the Great Depression or if the photography that began to infiltrate the media perpetuated and enhanced the emotions that were expressed and experienced during this difficult and trying decade. New technological advancements during this time period also contributed to the ability for photographers to practice their craft in innovative and ground-breaking ways. The cause and effect of the innovations in taking photographs on the kinds of images that were captured in this decade is also an interesting situation to investigate.
Current Situation
Photography during the 1930s and the era of the Great Depression underwent a transition as a medium for stiff portraits to a means of capturing the emotions of the people in the photographs. Photographic journalism experienced a surge, but people also began to realize the potential for photographs to evoke emotions in their intended audience. It was at this time that photography began to become a way for people to raise awareness about certain issues—it began to have a role in certain branches of activism.
Some of the more modern ideas that we associate with photography originated during this time period. The practice of seeing photography as more of an art form as opposed to an objective and almost scientific application was greatly explored during this decade. As a new medium, photography had assumed an identity as an objective medium—at least more objective than more easily-manipulated and interpretable fields such as painting and drawing. As people began using photography as a way to draw emotions out of viewers, this view of photography as an objective medium slowly began to disappear. People became slightly more aware that photography could be used to different things, such as emotional manipulation and even propaganda. Despite this slight change in perspective, most people would consider a photograph to be more objective than any other medium—a belief that exists even today, despite the invention of image manipulating software.
Solving the Problem
There are certain iconic photographs that emerged from the 1930s, and I intend to take a closer look at these images and discuss their impact on society during this time as well as the field of photography as a whole. The different styles that emerged during this time period are also important in discussing the issue of how photography continued to evolve and develop and must also be discussed throughout the paper.
It is impossible to discuss photography and the leaps that the art form made in the 1930s without focusing on photographer Dorothea Lang, whose works have become iconic and a recognizable representation of the Great Depression. During her trip around the country and to California, she captured some of the most remarkable images from people living in the Great Depression. The impact of her photographs was so great that they are still centrally discussed and greatly relevant in conversations about modern photography today.
In investigating the photography of the 1930s, one must also mention Ansel Adams. His photography leading up to the 1930s and extending beyond that decade also helped to reshape the idea of photography as an art form and a means of promoting activism—in his case, the defense of nature and environmental preservation. He is still one of the most famous modern American photographers, and his style is easily recognizable. He has written many books about photography and is a well-respected authority, even posthumously. His landscape photographs and unusual compositions also helped to transition photography from the stiff portrait and business-like applications to an art and means of expression.
In addition to pioneering photographers and changes in style, the technological advancements must also be researched and explored in such a discussion. The rise of Modernism as a movement in American also impacted the kind of photographic revolution experienced in the 1930s. The attitudes that infiltrated the decade of the Depression were reflected in the arts, literature, film, photography, as well as in the mindset people carried with them in their daily lives, and the impact that these attitudes had on photography specifically is something that will have to be explored throughout this research paper.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Second Life Clothing
I played around with my outfit for a while before I decided on this:
I created a gray short sleeved undershirt (using some weird texture like basketweaving, but I can't really remember it now), and layered it with a free shirt I got, which I shortened and made into a half tank top sort of thing. I could have done this by making the shirt myself, but I thought the little design on the shirt was nice, and I didn't know how to reproduce something like that, having not learned how to create textures yet. Then I made a pair of Bermuda shorts (which look kind of like a pencil skirt at some angles which is cool), with a plaid material which is pretty subtle because they are such a dark color.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Chapter 4: Realism and Perspective
Realism and Perspective: From Renaissance Painting to Digital Media
“Realistic” images are not always what something “really” looks like—it is rather an interpretation of someone’s perception of that thing. Realism can and has been liked to different approaches and conventions over the years that are in turn linked to various political agendas. Realism in the visual arts has been seen as a goal for the artist to depict something as it would have been seen by the eye; however, the visual arts do not always try to produce a “realistic” looking image. During the Renaissance, painting changed as artists strived to produce images as they would have appeared to the eye of the observer rather than using art as merely symbolic productions. I was amazed to read that the emperor of China’s Chin dynasty was buried with 7,500 life-size clay warriors and horses that were individually shaped and uniquely made. That’s an incredible amount of time and effort, especially during 200 B.C.
Cubism is an abstract art style where planar shapes are used to represent nonlinear objects and are then shifted around space. The conventions of representation both in art and image making give rise to new worldviews.
-Visual Codes and Historical Meaning
Image codes and conventions reproduce historical meaning because they change over time, and the images created in the past therefore look different than images created today or in any other time period.
Sepia toning of photographic prints was common during the nineteenth century largely because the process made the photographs more resistant to decomposition over longer periods of time than regular, untreated black-and-white photographs produced at the same time. Because of this, we tend to associate sepia tones with older photographs. The portrait of Alice Liddell holds special meaning not only because the subject is the inspiration for the Alice in Wonderland story, but because her portrait is unusual for the time period, containing a natural background, a more relaxed pose, and softer edges. This is a reproduction of the early classical Renaissance artists before Raphael. Reproduction of a work’s style is a nostalgic remake which doesn’t necessarily reflect what is considered to be “realistic” during the time period of the reproduction.
-Questions on Realism
Aesthetics and people’s tastes change over time, and this is reflected in the art from different time periods. Realism best typifies the set of conventions or style or representation that is considered at a given historical moment to accurately represent nature or what is real. There isn’t a universal standard for realism; rather, this is something that varies between cultures and time periods. For instance, Josef Stalin mandated and return to a classical pictorial realism in the 1930s which became known as socialist realism. Because of this mandate, abstract art became very dangerous and artists who refused to abandon or change their work were sometimes exiled to Siberian work camps. There is an episteme for every period in history. An “episteme” is “an accepted, dominant mode of acquiring and organizing knowledge in a given period of history. Later epistemes are not inherently better or even more advanced than earlier ones.
-History of Perspective
“Perspective” comes from the Latin word perpicere which means “to see clearly,” “to inspect,” or “to look through,” and refers to the mechanisms used to produce images of objects in space.
-Perspective and the Body
In ancient Egypt, people of greater importance were represented in images as being larger than people of lesser social importance. Today we do not typically employ the same standard; however, this is a good representation of how images and their standards change between time and cultures.
-The Camera Obscura
The camera obscura served as an aid for artists and even scientists and mathematicians to visually recreate images as they appeared.
-Challenges to Perspective
The movement of Impressionism developed in the late nineteenth century and contained techniques that employed visible brushstrokes and unique depictions of light to represent movement in the recreated images. Cubism “deliberately challenged the dominant model of perspective through an analytic system that broke up the perspectival space of the conventional painterly style.” Cubism and surrealism spar with the dominant worldview for which perspective is the paradigm, which makes sense because realism has been the dominant worldview in Western societies for centuries. Abstraction’s purpose lies in emphasizing a perspective that is not a universal principle.
-Perspectives in Digital Media
Digital imaging presents new modes through which viewers experience varying perspectives about the virtual words that appear on computer screen, television screens, and other modes of depiction. John Haddock, for instance, recreates famous images by rendering them as if they were images in a video game and then making screenshots of them known as “isometric screenshots.” Virtual images are simulations which represent constructed or ideal images rather than actual conditions. They are most likely images but can also be applied to real-world objects such as pacemakers and hearing aids which act as simulators. Technology has allowed visual reality systems to become teaching aids to medical students in situations where the students would not otherwise be able to exam internal structures of the human body.
Talking Points:
1.) What would we consider “realism” today in our society and cultural frameworks?
2.) Compare figures 4.2, 4.6, and 4.20. Do you think perspectives go through cycles? How are these three images alike, yet come from very different time periods?
3.) How can virtual representations be used or seen as art? Are video games and the like the new medium through which artists will create?
4.) Have all the barriers of “art” been pushed so far that any new ideas of what “art” is seem contradictory to what we would normally consider art?
“Realistic” images are not always what something “really” looks like—it is rather an interpretation of someone’s perception of that thing. Realism can and has been liked to different approaches and conventions over the years that are in turn linked to various political agendas. Realism in the visual arts has been seen as a goal for the artist to depict something as it would have been seen by the eye; however, the visual arts do not always try to produce a “realistic” looking image. During the Renaissance, painting changed as artists strived to produce images as they would have appeared to the eye of the observer rather than using art as merely symbolic productions. I was amazed to read that the emperor of China’s Chin dynasty was buried with 7,500 life-size clay warriors and horses that were individually shaped and uniquely made. That’s an incredible amount of time and effort, especially during 200 B.C.
Cubism is an abstract art style where planar shapes are used to represent nonlinear objects and are then shifted around space. The conventions of representation both in art and image making give rise to new worldviews.
-Visual Codes and Historical Meaning
Image codes and conventions reproduce historical meaning because they change over time, and the images created in the past therefore look different than images created today or in any other time period.
Sepia toning of photographic prints was common during the nineteenth century largely because the process made the photographs more resistant to decomposition over longer periods of time than regular, untreated black-and-white photographs produced at the same time. Because of this, we tend to associate sepia tones with older photographs. The portrait of Alice Liddell holds special meaning not only because the subject is the inspiration for the Alice in Wonderland story, but because her portrait is unusual for the time period, containing a natural background, a more relaxed pose, and softer edges. This is a reproduction of the early classical Renaissance artists before Raphael. Reproduction of a work’s style is a nostalgic remake which doesn’t necessarily reflect what is considered to be “realistic” during the time period of the reproduction.
-Questions on Realism
Aesthetics and people’s tastes change over time, and this is reflected in the art from different time periods. Realism best typifies the set of conventions or style or representation that is considered at a given historical moment to accurately represent nature or what is real. There isn’t a universal standard for realism; rather, this is something that varies between cultures and time periods. For instance, Josef Stalin mandated and return to a classical pictorial realism in the 1930s which became known as socialist realism. Because of this mandate, abstract art became very dangerous and artists who refused to abandon or change their work were sometimes exiled to Siberian work camps. There is an episteme for every period in history. An “episteme” is “an accepted, dominant mode of acquiring and organizing knowledge in a given period of history. Later epistemes are not inherently better or even more advanced than earlier ones.
-History of Perspective
“Perspective” comes from the Latin word perpicere which means “to see clearly,” “to inspect,” or “to look through,” and refers to the mechanisms used to produce images of objects in space.
-Perspective and the Body
In ancient Egypt, people of greater importance were represented in images as being larger than people of lesser social importance. Today we do not typically employ the same standard; however, this is a good representation of how images and their standards change between time and cultures.
-The Camera Obscura
The camera obscura served as an aid for artists and even scientists and mathematicians to visually recreate images as they appeared.
-Challenges to Perspective
The movement of Impressionism developed in the late nineteenth century and contained techniques that employed visible brushstrokes and unique depictions of light to represent movement in the recreated images. Cubism “deliberately challenged the dominant model of perspective through an analytic system that broke up the perspectival space of the conventional painterly style.” Cubism and surrealism spar with the dominant worldview for which perspective is the paradigm, which makes sense because realism has been the dominant worldview in Western societies for centuries. Abstraction’s purpose lies in emphasizing a perspective that is not a universal principle.
-Perspectives in Digital Media
Digital imaging presents new modes through which viewers experience varying perspectives about the virtual words that appear on computer screen, television screens, and other modes of depiction. John Haddock, for instance, recreates famous images by rendering them as if they were images in a video game and then making screenshots of them known as “isometric screenshots.” Virtual images are simulations which represent constructed or ideal images rather than actual conditions. They are most likely images but can also be applied to real-world objects such as pacemakers and hearing aids which act as simulators. Technology has allowed visual reality systems to become teaching aids to medical students in situations where the students would not otherwise be able to exam internal structures of the human body.
Talking Points:
1.) What would we consider “realism” today in our society and cultural frameworks?
2.) Compare figures 4.2, 4.6, and 4.20. Do you think perspectives go through cycles? How are these three images alike, yet come from very different time periods?
3.) How can virtual representations be used or seen as art? Are video games and the like the new medium through which artists will create?
4.) Have all the barriers of “art” been pushed so far that any new ideas of what “art” is seem contradictory to what we would normally consider art?
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Second Life Avatar
My second life avatar:
My goal was to create an avatar that looked sort of like me, only as a bit of exaggerated reality. Honestly, I picked the hair because it was the only thing I could find that was even close to mine. Somewhere along the way this necklace got put on me, and I honestly have no idea how to get it off so that’s why my avatar is wearing a necklace. It took me a while to get the proportions (height, leg length, nose shape, etc.) right so that the avatar didn’t look like some sort of mutant, but I think it turned out pretty well. And even though I didn’t like the hair at first, it’s grown on me a lot, and I think maybe I’ll keep it for a while.
Pictures:
My goal was to create an avatar that looked sort of like me, only as a bit of exaggerated reality. Honestly, I picked the hair because it was the only thing I could find that was even close to mine. Somewhere along the way this necklace got put on me, and I honestly have no idea how to get it off so that’s why my avatar is wearing a necklace. It took me a while to get the proportions (height, leg length, nose shape, etc.) right so that the avatar didn’t look like some sort of mutant, but I think it turned out pretty well. And even though I didn’t like the hair at first, it’s grown on me a lot, and I think maybe I’ll keep it for a while.
Pictures:
Before:
After:
Chapter 3 – Modernity
Modernity: Spectatorship, Power, and Knowledge
When we look at an image, we don’t simply see the image—we see an array of things that include our contextual biases and the contexts of the image as well as the medium the image is captured in. If anyone is viewing the image with us, the contexts of that image expand to also include their experiences. When we look at images, we aren’t just using our sight; we are also including perceptions from our other senses, such as touch and smell, whether we are conscious of this or not.
Part of the goal of studying visual communication is to find out exactly how we experience the world as individuals.
Modernity is a term used to “refer to the historical, cultural, political, and economic conditions related to the Enlightenment…); the rise of industrial society and scientific rationalism; and to the idea of controlling nature through technology, science, and rationalism.” This ideology arose in mostly industrialized countries—and is not an ideology that occurred universally.
Although we usually use the word “modern” to refer to the time we are in now, it once referred to a culture that sees itself as a change from tradition to progress, from old to new, “modeling itself on a past era that is regarded as embodying timeless, classical principles.” During the Enlightenment, “modernity” was seen as a rejection of traditional things and the new support of the concept of reason. The idea of the individual being lost in the crowd has been a reaction to the “modernity” movement and has been written about by several poets, authors, and screenwriters within the last century. Sturken and Cartwright assert: “We live through associations between bodies, machines, nature, and inanimate objects and across biology, technology, culture and science.
Foucault argued that societies function on the basis of cooperation rather than coercion. This is supported by the fact that the presence of security cameras—or the potential for security cameras to exist—lead people in many situations to self-regulate their behavior, rather being explicitly and directly forced to behave in a certain way.
Photography became an important tool in defining “normal”—something that did not match a picture of something else could be considered “abnormal.”
The idea of the pleasure one has in looking without being seen as looking is known as “voyeurism.” Scopophilia refers to the pleasure in being looked at. Both terms sometimes carry a negative connotation. However, activities such as viewing a movie are kinds of voyeurism. “Men act; women appear.”
I thought it was interesting reading the last part of the chapter about how webcams raise the need to alter the thoughts about voyeurism because earlier today I figured out how to set up a webcam my sister gave me for graduation (I know, I know, I’m just now setting it up two years after getting it…) and then using Skype to communicate with family back home. It’s been very interesting—I kind of had no idea I could talk to my family while seeing them by using the internet (I mean, I knew I could in theory; I had just never really tried).
One problem I had with this chapter was that I had difficulty understanding what exactly was meant by the term “gaze,” which was a problem considering the entire chapter focused on the “gaze.”
Talking Point 1: What are some everyday examples of how we live through associates between all the things (bodies, machines, nature, objects, etc.) that Sturken and Cartwright claim we live through?
Talking Point 2: Do you think the practice of using surveillance cameras in public places is overused?
Talking Point 3: What do you think Said meant when he claimed that “the Orient is not strictly a place or culture in itself, but rather a European cultural construction”?
Talking Point 4: How has the picture in the Keri advertisement been even further Westernized and modernized than the original painting?
When we look at an image, we don’t simply see the image—we see an array of things that include our contextual biases and the contexts of the image as well as the medium the image is captured in. If anyone is viewing the image with us, the contexts of that image expand to also include their experiences. When we look at images, we aren’t just using our sight; we are also including perceptions from our other senses, such as touch and smell, whether we are conscious of this or not.
Part of the goal of studying visual communication is to find out exactly how we experience the world as individuals.
Modernity is a term used to “refer to the historical, cultural, political, and economic conditions related to the Enlightenment…); the rise of industrial society and scientific rationalism; and to the idea of controlling nature through technology, science, and rationalism.” This ideology arose in mostly industrialized countries—and is not an ideology that occurred universally.
Although we usually use the word “modern” to refer to the time we are in now, it once referred to a culture that sees itself as a change from tradition to progress, from old to new, “modeling itself on a past era that is regarded as embodying timeless, classical principles.” During the Enlightenment, “modernity” was seen as a rejection of traditional things and the new support of the concept of reason. The idea of the individual being lost in the crowd has been a reaction to the “modernity” movement and has been written about by several poets, authors, and screenwriters within the last century. Sturken and Cartwright assert: “We live through associations between bodies, machines, nature, and inanimate objects and across biology, technology, culture and science.
Foucault argued that societies function on the basis of cooperation rather than coercion. This is supported by the fact that the presence of security cameras—or the potential for security cameras to exist—lead people in many situations to self-regulate their behavior, rather being explicitly and directly forced to behave in a certain way.
Photography became an important tool in defining “normal”—something that did not match a picture of something else could be considered “abnormal.”
The idea of the pleasure one has in looking without being seen as looking is known as “voyeurism.” Scopophilia refers to the pleasure in being looked at. Both terms sometimes carry a negative connotation. However, activities such as viewing a movie are kinds of voyeurism. “Men act; women appear.”
I thought it was interesting reading the last part of the chapter about how webcams raise the need to alter the thoughts about voyeurism because earlier today I figured out how to set up a webcam my sister gave me for graduation (I know, I know, I’m just now setting it up two years after getting it…) and then using Skype to communicate with family back home. It’s been very interesting—I kind of had no idea I could talk to my family while seeing them by using the internet (I mean, I knew I could in theory; I had just never really tried).
One problem I had with this chapter was that I had difficulty understanding what exactly was meant by the term “gaze,” which was a problem considering the entire chapter focused on the “gaze.”
Talking Point 1: What are some everyday examples of how we live through associates between all the things (bodies, machines, nature, objects, etc.) that Sturken and Cartwright claim we live through?
Talking Point 2: Do you think the practice of using surveillance cameras in public places is overused?
Talking Point 3: What do you think Said meant when he claimed that “the Orient is not strictly a place or culture in itself, but rather a European cultural construction”?
Talking Point 4: How has the picture in the Keri advertisement been even further Westernized and modernized than the original painting?
Monday, January 19, 2009
Chapter Two
Chapter 2 – Viewers Make Meaning
Meaning in an image is produced by:
1: the codes and conventions that structure the image and that cannot be separated from the content of the image.
2: the viewers and how they interpret or experience the image
3: the contexts in which an image is exhibited and viewed
Dominant meanings of the images we see are not necessarily the most important one we experience. A producer can mean different things: from an individual, to a company or brand.
Today, we consider concepts like “beauty” to be socially constructed. Rather than having a universal idea of beauty, we believe that the definition of beauty changes between cultures and viewpoints. “Taste” has becoming something that many believe one can learn through contact with culture. However, tastes can also be “kitschy” and fall in and out of mainstream trends. In the twentieth century, the distinction between fine art and pop culture was blurred significantly.
The acts of creating and viewing images contain the processes of encoding and decoding—the process in encoded with meaning by its creator and then decoded by its viewer.
Reception theory looks at how people view, interpret, and make meaning through their interaction with cultural products.
The concept of “bricolage” discusses how things can be put to uses for which they were not originally intended and in ways that remove them from their original context—such as in the use of safety pins as body decoration by punk youth in the 1970s.
Cultural meaning changes daily in ways that we can clearly observe. Even thinking of cultural trends three and five years ago, they are as different as the trends 10 and 15 years ago. It’s interesting—but impossible—to speculate what the trends and cultural norms will look like three and first years from now.
Talking Point Number 1: What is the significance in distinguishing between the viewer and the audience when talking about the meaning of an image?
Talking Point Number 2: Are texts created when the author writes them or when they are read by an individual “viewer”? In other words, is the idea of the author as the primary producer of a literary text a myth?
Talking Point Number 3: How has the internet affected collecting and displaying art?
Taking Point Number 4: How have the lines between subculture fashion and mainstream fashion become blurred?
Meaning in an image is produced by:
1: the codes and conventions that structure the image and that cannot be separated from the content of the image.
2: the viewers and how they interpret or experience the image
3: the contexts in which an image is exhibited and viewed
Dominant meanings of the images we see are not necessarily the most important one we experience. A producer can mean different things: from an individual, to a company or brand.
Today, we consider concepts like “beauty” to be socially constructed. Rather than having a universal idea of beauty, we believe that the definition of beauty changes between cultures and viewpoints. “Taste” has becoming something that many believe one can learn through contact with culture. However, tastes can also be “kitschy” and fall in and out of mainstream trends. In the twentieth century, the distinction between fine art and pop culture was blurred significantly.
The acts of creating and viewing images contain the processes of encoding and decoding—the process in encoded with meaning by its creator and then decoded by its viewer.
Reception theory looks at how people view, interpret, and make meaning through their interaction with cultural products.
The concept of “bricolage” discusses how things can be put to uses for which they were not originally intended and in ways that remove them from their original context—such as in the use of safety pins as body decoration by punk youth in the 1970s.
Cultural meaning changes daily in ways that we can clearly observe. Even thinking of cultural trends three and five years ago, they are as different as the trends 10 and 15 years ago. It’s interesting—but impossible—to speculate what the trends and cultural norms will look like three and first years from now.
Talking Point Number 1: What is the significance in distinguishing between the viewer and the audience when talking about the meaning of an image?
Talking Point Number 2: Are texts created when the author writes them or when they are read by an individual “viewer”? In other words, is the idea of the author as the primary producer of a literary text a myth?
Talking Point Number 3: How has the internet affected collecting and displaying art?
Taking Point Number 4: How have the lines between subculture fashion and mainstream fashion become blurred?
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Photographs
Here are some of the photographs I've taken over the past few years:
*****Note: the landscape oriented pictures don't completely show up on the blog, but if you click on an individual picture, it will show you the full image in another window. (So that's why some of the pictures look kind of weird...if you think a picture looks kind of lame, it might just be that you're only seeing half of the picture)
Film:
*****Note: the landscape oriented pictures don't completely show up on the blog, but if you click on an individual picture, it will show you the full image in another window. (So that's why some of the pictures look kind of weird...if you think a picture looks kind of lame, it might just be that you're only seeing half of the picture)
Film:
http://www.prov.org/publications/Lexicon0607.pdf (picture on Page 52)
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Chapter One
Comments on the reading of Chapter One from “Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture” by Sturken and Cartwright:
-We look to make sense of the world around us. Even those who are blind or have no vision daily recognize the importance of viewing the world around us—looking doesn’t simply include vision but also hearing and touching. As someone with poor vision, I can agree with that particular statement. Looking is a social practice, and we are so conditioned to look at things every second of our life that we aren’t even aware the importance of it without conscious effort.
- We construct meanings to whatever we see. The way we construct meaning is shaped by different things including our own experience and the culture we live in. Images are not simply copies of something, but our perception of those images determines and changes their meanings.
- Photographs aren’t “visual truth.” Photography is a medium that can be as easily manipulated as any other visual medium. This is growing increasingly evident with such programs as PhotoShop. Our tendency to think that photographic/film pictures are truthful is slightly surprising considering today’s proclivity for movies that are completely manipulated and fictional – we recognize that these images are fictional, but we still tend to believe that other images are more factual because they are not called “movies” when in reality they can be just as easily doctored.
- Photographs are extremely common in today’s world. They are used both to express individuality but also in a repressive fashion as when used in the cataloguing of citizens. Today, portraits images are used for identification purposes in many different areas. Surveillance cameras are also a factor that sometimes escapes our daily thought about how an image of our identity is captured.
- “Signals” are composed of an image/sound/word known as a “signifier” and the meaning of the image/sound/word known as the “signified.”
-I find it extremely interesting that Chris Crocker has officially reached enough fame to be included in one of my college textbooks.
Also, my reasons for choosing this particular theme for my blog are as follows:
I think that this theme is clean looking and professional while still being visually stimulating—not too plain or boring to look at. Also the color scheme is not distracting to the posts while being more interesting than plain black and white. Not only is blue my favorite color, it is also a very naturally calming color and, for lack of a better word, I feel that this theme has a “calm” feel, which I liked.
-We look to make sense of the world around us. Even those who are blind or have no vision daily recognize the importance of viewing the world around us—looking doesn’t simply include vision but also hearing and touching. As someone with poor vision, I can agree with that particular statement. Looking is a social practice, and we are so conditioned to look at things every second of our life that we aren’t even aware the importance of it without conscious effort.
- We construct meanings to whatever we see. The way we construct meaning is shaped by different things including our own experience and the culture we live in. Images are not simply copies of something, but our perception of those images determines and changes their meanings.
- Photographs aren’t “visual truth.” Photography is a medium that can be as easily manipulated as any other visual medium. This is growing increasingly evident with such programs as PhotoShop. Our tendency to think that photographic/film pictures are truthful is slightly surprising considering today’s proclivity for movies that are completely manipulated and fictional – we recognize that these images are fictional, but we still tend to believe that other images are more factual because they are not called “movies” when in reality they can be just as easily doctored.
- Photographs are extremely common in today’s world. They are used both to express individuality but also in a repressive fashion as when used in the cataloguing of citizens. Today, portraits images are used for identification purposes in many different areas. Surveillance cameras are also a factor that sometimes escapes our daily thought about how an image of our identity is captured.
- “Signals” are composed of an image/sound/word known as a “signifier” and the meaning of the image/sound/word known as the “signified.”
-I find it extremely interesting that Chris Crocker has officially reached enough fame to be included in one of my college textbooks.
Also, my reasons for choosing this particular theme for my blog are as follows:
I think that this theme is clean looking and professional while still being visually stimulating—not too plain or boring to look at. Also the color scheme is not distracting to the posts while being more interesting than plain black and white. Not only is blue my favorite color, it is also a very naturally calming color and, for lack of a better word, I feel that this theme has a “calm” feel, which I liked.
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