+ theories of the visual: part i october 11, 2011
TRANSCRIPT
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+
Theories of the Visual: Part IOctober 11, 2011
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+Ways of Seeing
John Berger
“When the camera
reproduces a painting, it
destroys the uniqueness of its image”(19).
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+Ways of Seeing
John Berger
“The art of the past no longer exists as it once did. Its authority is lost. In its place there is a language of images” (33).
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+Ways of Seeing
John Berger
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+Ways of Seeing
John Berger
Internationally recognized British art critic, painter, author
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+Ways of Seeing
John Berger
Internationally recognized British art critic, painter, author
Ways of Seeing was also simultaneously a groundbreaking documentary on the BBC (let’s take a peek at one…)
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+Seeing:
In this text, Berger constructs vision in a particular way. For him:
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+Seeing:
In this text, Berger constructs vision in a particular way. For him:
“To look is an act of
choice” (8)
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+Seeing:
In other words, to look is something that requires active agency on the part of the looker because we all, ultimately, decide what to look at.
And, by virtue of what we choose to look at, we situate ourselves in the world “in relation” to those things we choose to look at, we become “closer” to them.
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+Seeing:
Further, according to Berger:
“We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves. Our vision is continually active, continually moving, continually holding things in a circle around itself, constituting what is present to us as we are” (9).
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+Seeing:
Thus, seeing is not just “looking at stuff”—it’s the way by which we situate ourselves in the world, determine where our place is, where we belong.
Seeing also creates a reciprocal relationship with others in a way that, according to Berger, is even “more fundamental than that of spoken dialogue” (9).
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+Seeing:
Hence his claim:
“Seeing comes before
words” (7).
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+The Reproduction of the Image
Not surprisingly, Berger focuses here on visual art and, in particular, how the camera has “changed the way men saw” (18).
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+The Reproduction of the Image
He writes: “When the camera reproduces a painting, it destroys the uniqueness of its image” (19).
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+The Reproduction of the Image
Does that sound like anyone
mentioned in your readings?
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+The Reproduction of the Image
In Remediation, B+G summarize
Walter Benjamin’s argument in
“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction.” They write:
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+Ways of Seeing
John Berger
“Benjamin’s argument is that mechanical
reproduction produces a fundamental change in the nature of art, a change that destroys the artwork’s ‘aura’ by removing it from the context of ritual
and tradition in which art had been historically
embedded”(73).
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+Ways of Seeing
John Berger
Sound familiar?
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+Ways of Seeing
John Berger
However, although Benjamin sees this reproducibility as a signal of the end of
culture, Berger sees possibility in the multiplicity of
images…
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+Ways of Seeing
John Berger
Berger aims to wrestle visual art out of the hands “of a few specialized experts” who represents “a ruling class in decline”(32).
However, reproduction is used so much that it tends “to promote the illusion that nothing has changed” (33).
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+Ways of Seeing
John Berger
But, for Berger, there is possibility in the plentitude of images:
“If the new language of images were used differently, it would, through its use, confer a new kind of power. . .The art of the past no longer exists as it once did. Its authority is lost. In its place there is a language of images”(33).
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+
“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago
Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Critical Inquiry
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago
Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Critical Inquiry
Awarded numerous prestigious awards for his scholarship, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowments for the Humanities
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
Mitchell observes that the history of philosophy involves a series of “turns” or periods in which a particular topic is obsessed over.
For Mitchell, “it does seem clear that another shift in what philosophers talk about is happening” (11).
He calls this new turn “The Pictoral Turn”
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
This “Pictoral Turn” represents “a point of peculiar friction and discomfort across a broad range of intellectual inquiry”(12).
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+
But why now?
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
Mitchell suggests two opposite, paradoxical
reasons for this:
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
1)Our current “age of electronic reproduction has developed new forms of visual simulation and illusionism with unprecedented powers”(15).
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
2) On the other hand, “fear of the image” and anxiety about the power of the image may be driving this turn as well (15).
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
Mitchell focuses on the achievements of the very influential art historian Erwin Panofsky.
Primarily a scholar of medieval and northern Renaissance art, Panofsky is most frequently associated with the concept of iconography, matching the subject-matter of works of art to a symbolic syntax (ie. language) of meaning drawn from literature (ie. language) and other works of art.
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
However, according to Mitchell, there remains some “unfinished business” in Panofsky’s work:
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
However, according to Mitchell, there remains some “unfinished business” in Panofsky’s work:
the question of the spectator.
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
One way to “unweave this tapestry” woven by Panofsky is through the work of Jonathan Crary, whose work attempts to dialogue with Panofsky’s work.
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
However, as much as Mitchell values Crary’s work, Mitchell observes that Crary’s historical narrative follows a “well-worn path” about visual history and the role of the spectator.
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
The familiar story, for Mitchell, is the one about the “‘abstraction’ of visual experience from a ‘human observer’ whose image is progressively ‘alienated’ and ‘reified’” (22).
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
So, then, how to we begin to “state the questions” that the pictoral turn insists we ask?
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
First, we must, perhaps, rethink the practice of iconography.
Iconography traditionally aims to connect a language system to images as a means to organize the visual. But Mitchell suggests a new “critical iconography”:
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
First, we need to take the study of iconography beyond a simple 1-to-1 comparison between image and word (24).
Images are much more complex than that—they play a role in the way we construct ourselves or, in Berger’s terms, how we see ourselves.
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
Second, perception and interpretation are also much more complex than a 1-to-1 comparison between image and word:
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
Mitchell sees value in Panofsky’s argument that interpretation occurs in a three-dimensional “scene” (hence, “theatrical”), that shifts in complexity from “surface to depth” (26)
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
However, Mitchell argues that Panofsky’s method has many problems (he lists six); Mitchell suggests to go even further and “remove the figures from the stage and examine the stage itself, the space of vision and recognition, the very ground which allows the figures to appear” (31).
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+“The Pictoral Turn”
W.J.T. Mitchell
In simpler terms, Mitchell argues that we need to examine how the ways we see are rhetorically constructed via ideology.
Another way to say it is: the way we see is rhetorical. That is, it is constructed in particular ways and persuade us to see in particular ways.
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+ SO WHAT?
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+ What do these two essays begin to teach
us about rhetoric, writing, editing, and visual design?
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+So What?
First, I think they teach us about how technology has changed our relationship
with the image. Is it for the better or for the worse?
*shrug*
In either case, since we now have an
unprecedented ability to work with images in a public way online, we
should be aware of the effects our use of images
can have on our audiences and the larger world.
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+So What?
Second, I think these two (admittedly abstract)
articles demonstrate how difficult it is to articulate
our understanding (or lack of understanding) of the
power of the image.
The image does do something to us, the image can be very
persuasive, but describing how images do these
things is tricky.
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+So What?
Third, it suggests to me that in our selection of images in the texts we
create, we must take great care, since the effects of the image have proven to
be both powerful and unpredictable.
We should aim to be ethical users of images.
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+So What?
Fourth, I think they demonstrate that there is
a lot of potential in the image.
In other words, images can be fun to play with!
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+Now What?
So let’s play!
I’ve posted a .doc version of our syllabus on the
website. You’ll find it under “Assignments.”
I’d like each group to look over the syllabus and
make some visual changes. You are tasked with changing the visual look of this syllabus by
adding and deleting images, and altering the overall visual design of
this document.
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+Now What?
Let’s play!
There are four images currently in this version of
the syllabus. You must keep at least one of these images and you will tell us all why you
made the choices you did (although you can change its location). You must then
find, insert, and position new images in the
syllabus that you think make the syllabus more visually interesting and
more sophisticated.
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+Now What?
Let’s play!
You can add as many images as you like.
However, keep in mind that the overall document must be visually appealing
and organized in a rhetorically effective way.
We’ll all share our results with the group.
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+
Theories of the Visual: Part IOctober 11, 2011