Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Globalization cartoon
http://www.geographyalltheway.com/ib_geography/ib_globalization/imagesetc/globalization.jpg
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
What I Have Learned This Semester ...
First, I have found a significant improvement in my ability to understand visual communication. Throughout my academic life, this is the first time I have moved away from my comfort zone, however, not to find any discomfort. I have started understanding the “whyness and howness” of different visual media. Colors, motions, and music have started making sense to me. Or, I have started taking components of visual design as “motivated signs.”
Throughout the semester, I was struggling through the complexities of the uses of different technological tools. The theoretical discussions in both the books (Practices and Grammar) are quite familiar to me as these theories are interdisciplinary in nature and are explored in other fields too. But the real purpose behind theories is always improvements in practices, which I had to struggle through all the way to the end of the semester. But, even if it was difficult, it was rewarding as well.
Regarding the ideas learnt from this course, the first idea is that of questioning the notion of “one to one correspondence between image and reality.” Or, different theories of visual communication have challenged the idea that photographic reality is the exact reproduction of the external reality. Rather, photography always selects something by deselecting the others, thereby distorting reality and offering a partial view. Second important idea is the notion of social construction of meaning of visual communication. Meaning is not produced only by the producer, it is also mediated and sometimes even interrogated by the audience or the viewers too. Visuals can be powerful means of constructing reality. But at the same time the manipulation of it can be equally so in exposing the ideology behind the construction of certain meaning or reality. The manipulation of the cowboy ad powerfully demonstrates how meaning of an image can subverted through some creative manipulation. This is what we learnt through our digital remix subproject.
Similarly, I found Grammar of Visual Design particularly interesting as it takes us through both the theoretical and the practical aspects of visual communication. It offers us insights into understanding colors, shapes, motions, and modality of images. This book really provides practical guidance to both the beginners in the field and the experts. Their discussion of visual language in terms of (verbal language) linguistics is both insightful and sometimes highly technical. But I really enjoyed reading it. It’s true that we can understand visual communication if we approach it as having its own grammar similar to that of language. I found the ideas of sign, conceptual and narrative representations, color symbolism, and the positioning of the material in images quite useful for me to understand the basics of visual communication.
Even if technological tools almost frustrated me, I could learn a lot and use them considerably well to accomplish different projects of the course. All the software were new to me. I learnt little bit photoshop in the beginning, but since I had to use that again while developing website, I really have got good footing on it. Moviemaker was not that difficult to learn. But dreamweaver was really frustrating. But with a lot of help from Michael Hovan, I could learn some basic stuff about it. Now, I can say that I can use these tools when necessary.
Overall, this course has been incredibly useful for me.
Throughout the semester, I was struggling through the complexities of the uses of different technological tools. The theoretical discussions in both the books (Practices and Grammar) are quite familiar to me as these theories are interdisciplinary in nature and are explored in other fields too. But the real purpose behind theories is always improvements in practices, which I had to struggle through all the way to the end of the semester. But, even if it was difficult, it was rewarding as well.
Regarding the ideas learnt from this course, the first idea is that of questioning the notion of “one to one correspondence between image and reality.” Or, different theories of visual communication have challenged the idea that photographic reality is the exact reproduction of the external reality. Rather, photography always selects something by deselecting the others, thereby distorting reality and offering a partial view. Second important idea is the notion of social construction of meaning of visual communication. Meaning is not produced only by the producer, it is also mediated and sometimes even interrogated by the audience or the viewers too. Visuals can be powerful means of constructing reality. But at the same time the manipulation of it can be equally so in exposing the ideology behind the construction of certain meaning or reality. The manipulation of the cowboy ad powerfully demonstrates how meaning of an image can subverted through some creative manipulation. This is what we learnt through our digital remix subproject.
Similarly, I found Grammar of Visual Design particularly interesting as it takes us through both the theoretical and the practical aspects of visual communication. It offers us insights into understanding colors, shapes, motions, and modality of images. This book really provides practical guidance to both the beginners in the field and the experts. Their discussion of visual language in terms of (verbal language) linguistics is both insightful and sometimes highly technical. But I really enjoyed reading it. It’s true that we can understand visual communication if we approach it as having its own grammar similar to that of language. I found the ideas of sign, conceptual and narrative representations, color symbolism, and the positioning of the material in images quite useful for me to understand the basics of visual communication.
Even if technological tools almost frustrated me, I could learn a lot and use them considerably well to accomplish different projects of the course. All the software were new to me. I learnt little bit photoshop in the beginning, but since I had to use that again while developing website, I really have got good footing on it. Moviemaker was not that difficult to learn. But dreamweaver was really frustrating. But with a lot of help from Michael Hovan, I could learn some basic stuff about it. Now, I can say that I can use these tools when necessary.
Overall, this course has been incredibly useful for me.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Materiality and Meaning
The writers now move from the visual signs and their abstract aspects to their material side. Like visual signs theselves, their materiality is also semiotic. They claim that “signs in their materiality are fully motivated” and the relationship between their materiality and their signification are not global, rather it is both specifically contextual and historical. However, the materiality also offers the visual communicators some opportunity to project their individuality or subjectivity.
Technology affects the production and reception of visual signs as it facilitates or limits the use of certain means of production. The writers divide these technologies into three categories as they relate to different historical periods and different epistemological standpoints.
a. Production: technologies in which representations are rendered in all aspects by human hands and hand-held tools like pen, brush, etc.
b. Recording technologies: “the technologies of the eye (and ear), technologies which allow more or less automated analogical representation of what they represent, for instatnce, audiotape, photography and film;
c. Synthesizing technologies: they “allow the production of digitally synthesized representations while remaining tied to the eye (and ear), these reintroduce the human hand via a technological ‘interface’, at present still in the shape of a tool (keyboard, mouse), though in future perhaps increasingly through direct articulation by the body.
This shift in the use of technologies also means the shift in the way the visual signs are perceived by the readers (viewers, audience). The idea of representation as reference has broken down and given way to ‘signification.’ It affects the modality of the visual images too. Like the material substance, the color also has different associations of meaning. It is also contextual and historical, but not arbitrary.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Modality is Social Construct like Truth or Reality
Like Janet and Beth, I also was puzzled about the meaning of “modality.” But later, when the writers discuss “modality” in relation to the “auxiliary verbs,” (linguistics) I could make sense to some extent. As with other chapters, we find the same kind of use of linguistic jargons which make very simple idea of credibility of visual communication really very complex to understand.
The writers’ discussion of modality markers and their varying meanings or degrees of credibility in different contexts helps us understand their point that “modality” itself or the markers of modality and their relation to reality or truth is socially constructed. I like the way they present their idea of social semiotic in terms of the distinct ways in which different fields like science, naturalism, and abstract arts assign different value to the same markers of modality. I think the writer’s main point in this chapter is that modality is always related to the values and beliefs of a group. The system of coding and decoding is different in different fields.
Chapter 6 is highly informative for me to interpret images. This chapter provides a good language to read and understand the meanings of differnet parts and aspects of images. The chapter became particularly interesting when I found it discussing the composition of images in terms of placement. That something at the top is supposed to be ideal and the ones at the botton real. In planning my website design, I was thinking on the same line. For instance, I was thinking of making a tourist look up to the wonderful, seemingly fantastic and ideal view of the beauty and grandeur of Nepali mountains and artistic buildings. On the other hand, I was thinking of making another man looking down at the other side to the site of poverty and hardships. But now the problem is that of new and old. If the things on the right connote new information and those on the left the old one, my plan won't be compatible with this model. Perhaps, I can utilize the concept of the round pictures where the central palce is taken by the most important. So, now I can present two pictures in bigger circles on the top right and the left bottom sides. However, I still not sure whether that works or not.
The writers’ discussion of modality markers and their varying meanings or degrees of credibility in different contexts helps us understand their point that “modality” itself or the markers of modality and their relation to reality or truth is socially constructed. I like the way they present their idea of social semiotic in terms of the distinct ways in which different fields like science, naturalism, and abstract arts assign different value to the same markers of modality. I think the writer’s main point in this chapter is that modality is always related to the values and beliefs of a group. The system of coding and decoding is different in different fields.
Chapter 6 is highly informative for me to interpret images. This chapter provides a good language to read and understand the meanings of differnet parts and aspects of images. The chapter became particularly interesting when I found it discussing the composition of images in terms of placement. That something at the top is supposed to be ideal and the ones at the botton real. In planning my website design, I was thinking on the same line. For instance, I was thinking of making a tourist look up to the wonderful, seemingly fantastic and ideal view of the beauty and grandeur of Nepali mountains and artistic buildings. On the other hand, I was thinking of making another man looking down at the other side to the site of poverty and hardships. But now the problem is that of new and old. If the things on the right connote new information and those on the left the old one, my plan won't be compatible with this model. Perhaps, I can utilize the concept of the round pictures where the central palce is taken by the most important. So, now I can present two pictures in bigger circles on the top right and the left bottom sides. However, I still not sure whether that works or not.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Chapter 3: Conceptual Representations
This chapter basically deals with conceptual representations, which, unlike narrative representations, concentrate on presenting relatively stable attributes of objects, events or situations (participants). The writer divides such representations into “classificational,” “analytic,” and “symbolic” processes.
Classification refers to the presentation of participants in terms of a class. All the objects or people belong to the same class in terms of certain characteristics. They are of same kind. Classification is often shown through the use of tree structure. The main item comes at the top and that is divided into subclasses, and that is further categorized into smaller classes. For instance, we can see any organizational structure.
“Analytical processes relate participants in terms of part-whole structure.” There one participant stands for the whole and the others are its parts. If we compare it to language, we can say that it conforms to descriptive kind of writing where we find a certain object described in terms of its parts and individual attributes. Analytical representation allows us to scrutinize the participants in terms of their possessive attributes.
Another process is symbolic. “Symbolic processes are about what a participant means or is.” It can be of two types: symbolic attributive and symbolic suggestive. In the first one there are two participants, one carrier and the other related to it. In the second one there is only one participant.
Classification refers to the presentation of participants in terms of a class. All the objects or people belong to the same class in terms of certain characteristics. They are of same kind. Classification is often shown through the use of tree structure. The main item comes at the top and that is divided into subclasses, and that is further categorized into smaller classes. For instance, we can see any organizational structure.
“Analytical processes relate participants in terms of part-whole structure.” There one participant stands for the whole and the others are its parts. If we compare it to language, we can say that it conforms to descriptive kind of writing where we find a certain object described in terms of its parts and individual attributes. Analytical representation allows us to scrutinize the participants in terms of their possessive attributes.
Another process is symbolic. “Symbolic processes are about what a participant means or is.” It can be of two types: symbolic attributive and symbolic suggestive. In the first one there are two participants, one carrier and the other related to it. In the second one there is only one participant.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Narrative Representations
I found the chapter very interesting. It is wonderful in its theoretical proposition and practical information. As a beginner in visual communication, I found the interpretation of the certain shapes representing movement and certain characteristics very useful for me to understand images. I was not able to see image in terms of broader organization before reading this chapter. The idea that the image does not merely reflect but manipulates reality is what this books shares with the other book we have read. The interpretation of the encounter between the whites and the Aboriginals made me see picture in terms of the basic shapes.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Grammar of Visual Design
Grammar
I find the title of the book fascinating in relating visual communication with verbal communication. The particular point of interest for me is its claim that visual communication also has an independent structure and organization of its own like “grammar” of a verbal language: “In this book, by contrast, we will concentrate on ‘grammar’ and on syntax, on the way in which these elements are combined into meaningful wholes. Just as grammars of language describe how words combine in clauses, sentences and texts, so our visual ‘grammar’ will describe the way in which depicted elements – people, places, and things –combine in visual ‘statements’ of greater or lesser complexity and extension” (1).
Social-semiotic approach
The second important aspect of the book is its “social semiotic approach” to the study of grammar, that “meanings belong to culture, rather than to specific semiotic modes” (2). So, the organization of images is largely culture specific.
Sign as motivated and conventional rather than arbitrary and conventional
Third use of ‘sign-making’ instead of ‘sign’ and its characterization as ‘motivated’ rather than merely ‘arbitrary’ is, I think, more appropriate to visual signs than verbal. This is again not something intrinsic to any of these signs but simply conventional. What I mean here is that due to the established system and conventions, the users of linguistic signs have to depend largely on the conventions, though they also have some possibilities of “sign-making” in some cases. Whereas in visual semiotics, the writers’ idea of “motivated” sign is more appropriate. This is due to more freedom and creativity possible in projecting new meanings and creating new signs. So, there is a lot of room for subjectivity in visual communication (blend of subjectivity with the communal). However, we need to be aware that this is only a relative thing. (Ex. “This is a heavy hill.”)
Visual and Verbal Modes
But I still cannot agree with the writers that “literate cultures have systematically suppressed means of analysis of the visual forms of representation.” This can be because I am still very poor in visual literacy so that I cannot see its immense potential. However, instead of placing so much of blame to literate cultures, we may need to see the essential difference in these two semiotic modes. Language (verbal) seems to me more systematic and closed whereas visual communication more flexible and thus more creative. The dominance of language is not only due to the demeaning of the visual mode by the elitists, it is also due to the relative directness of language and the ease with which the people can use it. It is true that an image can tell what a thousand words cannot, but equally true is the fact that it can cause thousands of confusion which the words are not vulnerable to. For instance, the markings of the child may mean almost anything, though the writers interpret them in a specific way.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The Global Flow of Visual Culture
Since long, people have been talking about the hegemonizing of the “third world” by western media. That it makes the people of the third world assimilate the values of the west and offer themselves as readily available consumers for the transnational or corporate business. This is largely true. But at the same time, the western media also offers, especially in case of the societies where media is often owned by the state, perspectives alternative and sometimes counter to that of official state media. At the same time, media like BBC have produced programs specially produced for the different countries. And in those media we can find the voices and perspectives of the local people being represented to appropriate the culture and ideology of the dominant western (or in can be that of the dominant regional power, like India) media on the one hand and the monolithic discourse of the state. So, there is no one way flow of the culture from the center (west) to the margin. Internet, like the rise of private media channels, makes media more democratic.
As the writers have said, internet offers two (multi) way conversation and dialog. World Wide Web can provide space for the articulation of the voices of almost all the people. The state and the corporate world does not have the monopoly to disseminate information and hegemonize culture. In this regard, I remember a terrible event of my country few years back. All the members of the royal family were brutally massacred in the royal palace itself but none of the media were disseminating information. Only the rumor could be heard. It was internet through which we got the news. The information reached us (living 4/5 miles away from the palace) from the western media through internet. After that we could read and hear different versions of that gruesome event. Though the state brought an official report of the massacre, I believe, most of the people could not trust that. So, the rise of internet and different other forms of media have helped in avoiding the monopoly of any single form of media. Even the rebels or “terrorists” can have their own website and bring their voices to the public.
But again what we should not forget is that there are still millions of people who have not seen computer and who are totally ignorant about internet. So, the issue of whether the internet is democratic or not is quite controversial. I remember a communist leader talking about liberal democratic competition and dialog. There can be a competition and dialog between those with similar or equal access to the resources (of any kind). But how can there be a fair competition between a lion and a rabbit (exceptions are there like in a story about a lion and a rabbit in which rabbit wittily kills the lion). That is why, internet is also a powerful weapon but only to those who have resources. The ones who do not have may speak but often not to be heard (Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”).
So, there are always two sides of every story and the rise of internet and different other forms of media and visual culture are not exception. However, internet, due to its interactive and open space, may democratize culture more than many other forms we have used and seen in our history. But at the same time it can be an illusion masked by the pervasive ideology about technology of our time which the future generation will see. I believe that though every form of media is owned and run by the powerful institutions/people/society, there are always the possibilities of resistance and appropriation.
As the writers have said, internet offers two (multi) way conversation and dialog. World Wide Web can provide space for the articulation of the voices of almost all the people. The state and the corporate world does not have the monopoly to disseminate information and hegemonize culture. In this regard, I remember a terrible event of my country few years back. All the members of the royal family were brutally massacred in the royal palace itself but none of the media were disseminating information. Only the rumor could be heard. It was internet through which we got the news. The information reached us (living 4/5 miles away from the palace) from the western media through internet. After that we could read and hear different versions of that gruesome event. Though the state brought an official report of the massacre, I believe, most of the people could not trust that. So, the rise of internet and different other forms of media have helped in avoiding the monopoly of any single form of media. Even the rebels or “terrorists” can have their own website and bring their voices to the public.
But again what we should not forget is that there are still millions of people who have not seen computer and who are totally ignorant about internet. So, the issue of whether the internet is democratic or not is quite controversial. I remember a communist leader talking about liberal democratic competition and dialog. There can be a competition and dialog between those with similar or equal access to the resources (of any kind). But how can there be a fair competition between a lion and a rabbit (exceptions are there like in a story about a lion and a rabbit in which rabbit wittily kills the lion). That is why, internet is also a powerful weapon but only to those who have resources. The ones who do not have may speak but often not to be heard (Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”).
So, there are always two sides of every story and the rise of internet and different other forms of media and visual culture are not exception. However, internet, due to its interactive and open space, may democratize culture more than many other forms we have used and seen in our history. But at the same time it can be an illusion masked by the pervasive ideology about technology of our time which the future generation will see. I believe that though every form of media is owned and run by the powerful institutions/people/society, there are always the possibilities of resistance and appropriation.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Man in Postmodern Age: A Desiring Machine
What is postmodernism? Let me define it as a perpetual shift of desire created by (late) capitalism and modern mass media. This shift of the desire is due to the multiplicities of the images served to us. You want to buy something, let me say an external drive. Then you don't know which is good for you. You don't know what capacity you may need. You visit amazon.com and search "external drive" and find hunderds of them. You find it difficult to chose, then you go to sleep. You are tired. But your desire is becoming still more intense. You again visit similar sites and decide to buy one. However, before it arrives to you, you are sent a host of the ads of external drives to your email. You find another one more attractive. You regret you ordered one. Is there any end to this process? Never. You will find the same object advertised with different names as the producers have to try to create desire: "In a consumer society, there is constant demand for new products and the need to constantly repackage and sell old products with new slogans and ad campaigns" (Sturken and CartWright 192). This is why Deluse and Guattarai call us "desiring machines." Or they means that postmodern man is schizophrenic. We can see the ad of the IBM. Does that child ever explore that "globe." He needs to buy one after the other but always to find himself desiring a new one.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Mass Media: Democratic or Hegemonic?
The role of mass media (culture industry) has been variously defined and hotly debated. There are two sides of the matter: one its democratic potential, and the other its use for hegemonic purpose. The idea is who produces and who consumes knowledge or information. What can be the effect of the rise of World Wide Web in information politics? What about the authenticity of the news? On the other side is the tendency in some intellectuals to question the information or knowledge produced and reproduced by the dominant media as they are in one way or the other appropriated by the rulers. So, some people think that rumors can be more truthful than the news in dominant news media or the information in official discourses. Can Internet or WWW provide a space for rumor and have some revolutionary(?) potential?
Mass media has the potential to shape the mind of the people. Very often people talk of the appropriation and distortion of information or knowledge by media to fulfill their vested interest. However, there are others who see an immense democratic potential in visual mass media as it opens up the avenues of mass media to the general public. For instance, people like Adorno and Horkeimer see mass media as a means of control and domination rather than freedom and liberation. Whereas people like Habermas and Rorty see a high potential in mass media (as public sphere) to keep watch on the activities of the rulers and to indirectly but very powerfully keep them on the right track.
The Marxists (like Adorno and Horkeimer) believe that the mass media is mostly owned by the big corporate houses and businessman or multinational companies and they do nothing more than providing consumers to those companies and corporate houses. The media, through various advertisements, instills the idea that “we buy therefore we are.” But as the writer in this book says, though that is partially true, media is not so much monolithic to propagate and promote the values of the single community and to fulfill its selfish interests. Now media has become diverse and both the forces work simultaneously. On the one hand, media like TVs have started participatory approach to the representation of voices of the diverse population. On the other hand, the rise of WWW has offered multiple forums to counter the hegemonic practices of the dominant media and the official discourses. On the one hand Internet offers an ample and incredibaly vast global reach for the dominant media, on the other hand, it can equally be used by any group to articulate their view and counter the hegemonic practices.
However, there is still another complexity. Do the people at the margin own the public sphere? I think the matter of access is again there. Second is the issue of authenticity. Though we question it, most of the public still believe that what CNN or BBC reports is authentic and what we see on the internet is either false or fictional. These big media houses have the resources and manpower to gather information, though screened through their orientation, and to disseminate it. Whereas the news or information served by individuals or a particular group is considered biased or one-sided or insufficient. Maybe we can never come out of this contradiction.
Question for discussion: How does Internet or World Wide Web affect the role of media in the present world? What can be the positive and negative aspects of it?
Mass media has the potential to shape the mind of the people. Very often people talk of the appropriation and distortion of information or knowledge by media to fulfill their vested interest. However, there are others who see an immense democratic potential in visual mass media as it opens up the avenues of mass media to the general public. For instance, people like Adorno and Horkeimer see mass media as a means of control and domination rather than freedom and liberation. Whereas people like Habermas and Rorty see a high potential in mass media (as public sphere) to keep watch on the activities of the rulers and to indirectly but very powerfully keep them on the right track.
The Marxists (like Adorno and Horkeimer) believe that the mass media is mostly owned by the big corporate houses and businessman or multinational companies and they do nothing more than providing consumers to those companies and corporate houses. The media, through various advertisements, instills the idea that “we buy therefore we are.” But as the writer in this book says, though that is partially true, media is not so much monolithic to propagate and promote the values of the single community and to fulfill its selfish interests. Now media has become diverse and both the forces work simultaneously. On the one hand, media like TVs have started participatory approach to the representation of voices of the diverse population. On the other hand, the rise of WWW has offered multiple forums to counter the hegemonic practices of the dominant media and the official discourses. On the one hand Internet offers an ample and incredibaly vast global reach for the dominant media, on the other hand, it can equally be used by any group to articulate their view and counter the hegemonic practices.
However, there is still another complexity. Do the people at the margin own the public sphere? I think the matter of access is again there. Second is the issue of authenticity. Though we question it, most of the public still believe that what CNN or BBC reports is authentic and what we see on the internet is either false or fictional. These big media houses have the resources and manpower to gather information, though screened through their orientation, and to disseminate it. Whereas the news or information served by individuals or a particular group is considered biased or one-sided or insufficient. Maybe we can never come out of this contradiction.
Question for discussion: How does Internet or World Wide Web affect the role of media in the present world? What can be the positive and negative aspects of it?
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The Gaze
The idea of gaze that the writers talk about is interesting. This continues the discussion in the earlier two chapters regarding the social and communal constructions of reality through the interaction between the producer, recipient and the context. Visual culture appropriates reality (?) to fulfill the expectations of the idealized viewers. For instance, in most of the cinemas and other visual representations of women, they are (re)presented as objects of male desire. Similarly, in many of the movies, novels, or other books, the Arabs or the ‘Black’ (inclusive term, including all other than Anglo-Saxon Whites[?]) are often presented in the role of the villain. This bears witness to the fact that both the gaze of the producers and the consumers is conditioned by the ideology of the society. Another interesting nature of the gaze is that it is not often turned back by the object of gaze, rather it is turned inward. This is what Foucault calls by the normalization of the institutional gaze. However, we should not think of this process as uniform and one-way. There are several negotiations and conflicts in the realm of visual productions. The gaze can equally be appropriated.
The gaze, usually taken to be individual and neutral, is always, as the writers contend, social and ideological. This is often both conscious and unconscious, as the various theorists suggest. We have a long history of presenting women as nudes or objects of beauty in painting and photography, which corresponds to the dominance of patriarchal ideology in the long history of the West (same is true to many of the non-western societies). The subversion of the ideology in recent times has been accompanied by the production of visual culture dismantling the traditional notions about gender.
Similarly, the idea of the gaze extends, as Edward Said says, to the relationship between the west and the non-west. The way the western people look at or expect to see the non-western (or often third world) people and society is conditioned by the kinds of knowledge they have acquired from their culture (readings, movies, and television). For instance, the pictures in the book of some girls in the paddy field, the exotic picture of the women and men from Papua New Guinea reflects how the Westerners exoticize the non-Westerners. The interesting thing is whoever is the photographer, the pictures captured will have, in most cases, the similar nature. This is because they have always built a lens through which to see the world they actually visit. The same holds true to the case of the co modification of women.
However, such representations are also challenged. I remember one poem written by Sylvia Plath in which she challenges the male gaze by inviting the spectators to see her body in the public. In her performative act, she turns the gaze back to the males and assigns agency and the counter-gaze to the female speaker of the poem. I was reminded of this poem when I read the debate about pornography, which is really a complicated issue. Thus the meaning of a image is also the product of the gaze of the spectators.
The gaze, usually taken to be individual and neutral, is always, as the writers contend, social and ideological. This is often both conscious and unconscious, as the various theorists suggest. We have a long history of presenting women as nudes or objects of beauty in painting and photography, which corresponds to the dominance of patriarchal ideology in the long history of the West (same is true to many of the non-western societies). The subversion of the ideology in recent times has been accompanied by the production of visual culture dismantling the traditional notions about gender.
Similarly, the idea of the gaze extends, as Edward Said says, to the relationship between the west and the non-west. The way the western people look at or expect to see the non-western (or often third world) people and society is conditioned by the kinds of knowledge they have acquired from their culture (readings, movies, and television). For instance, the pictures in the book of some girls in the paddy field, the exotic picture of the women and men from Papua New Guinea reflects how the Westerners exoticize the non-Westerners. The interesting thing is whoever is the photographer, the pictures captured will have, in most cases, the similar nature. This is because they have always built a lens through which to see the world they actually visit. The same holds true to the case of the co modification of women.
However, such representations are also challenged. I remember one poem written by Sylvia Plath in which she challenges the male gaze by inviting the spectators to see her body in the public. In her performative act, she turns the gaze back to the males and assigns agency and the counter-gaze to the female speaker of the poem. I was reminded of this poem when I read the debate about pornography, which is really a complicated issue. Thus the meaning of a image is also the product of the gaze of the spectators.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Chapter 1 & 2 Practices of Looking
The initial chapters (chapter 1 and chapter 2) of Practices of Looking introduce us to the nature of visual representation of reality. The writer demonstrates how the production, circulation, and consumption of images are inflicted with various social and individual orientations. Images or photographs, even if look objective and neutral, are always captured from certain perspectives and with a certain manifest or latent intentions. That is why images construct reality rather than reflecting it.
Our culture is becoming more and more visual and visual culture makes tremendous influence on the way we see and make meaning of the social practices. Visual culture constructs and is constructed by the broader social and cultural phenomena it inhabits. The basic notions the writers discuss in these two chapters can be narrowed down to: a) the relationship between the images and reality; b) the relationship between culture/myth/ideology/power and images; and c) appropriation and re-appropriation of images by both the producers and consumers. To cut the whole idea short, the acts of coding and decoding meanings through and of visual images is always a matter of negotiation among producers, images, context, and consumers. So, the meaning making process is dependent on all these factors.
Our culture is becoming more and more visual and visual culture makes tremendous influence on the way we see and make meaning of the social practices. Visual culture constructs and is constructed by the broader social and cultural phenomena it inhabits. The basic notions the writers discuss in these two chapters can be narrowed down to: a) the relationship between the images and reality; b) the relationship between culture/myth/ideology/power and images; and c) appropriation and re-appropriation of images by both the producers and consumers. To cut the whole idea short, the acts of coding and decoding meanings through and of visual images is always a matter of negotiation among producers, images, context, and consumers. So, the meaning making process is dependent on all these factors.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
This is just for testing how blog works (I am an immigrant into the world of blog and into the world of technology as well). However, this looks as exciting to me as the world around looks to a child before its senses are deadened by the social habits.
I am thinking of a theme for my viscom project. Janet seems to have got a really nice beginning, about to come up with a little more specified and narrower topic. I was really attracted by her topic, even if I misread golf for gulf in her post. May be because I was thinking of something like that for my portfolio theme. Let me see how my gulf works even if there are many gulfs to go across.
I am thinking of a theme for my viscom project. Janet seems to have got a really nice beginning, about to come up with a little more specified and narrower topic. I was really attracted by her topic, even if I misread golf for gulf in her post. May be because I was thinking of something like that for my portfolio theme. Let me see how my gulf works even if there are many gulfs to go across.
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