Visual Literacy Final Review

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Visual Culture

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material artifacts, buildings, and images, plus time-based media by human labor and imagination, which serve aesthetic, symbolic, ritualistic, or ideological-political ends and/or practical functions, and which address the sense of sight to a significant extent. Multidisciplinary in nature--many academic disciplines are integrated into the study of this. Reflects a move to a concern with theories of Art and Design, in addition to histories

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Culture Concepts

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nature and culture. Makes these assumptions:

1. "culture" has historically been juxtaposed against "nature"

2. culture is, partly, a framing device

3. culture is defined as what humans have done or added to nature by their inventiveness and labor

4. complex relationship between nature and culture, although much of the Earth is developed and controlled, nature is still a determinant

5. Nature = feminine, culture = masculine

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base and superstructure

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Marxist architectural metaphor

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base

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material resources, means of production, labor, machines, technology, etc. Determines superstructure. If this falters, superstructure is weakened

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superstructure

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"spiritual" phenomena, ideology, arts, religions, etc

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ideology

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a shared set of societal values and beliefs

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ideology is a false consciousness

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Karl Marx

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we're unconsciously constituted as subjects by ideology

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Louis Althusser

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civilization

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a culture synonym with broader and evaluative connections. Symbolically equals mannered

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paradox

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civilization usually increases the potential for destructive power

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culture and class

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traditional levels of culture: high, middle-brow, and low

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high culture

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royalty, aristocracy, upper middle class

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middle-brow

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the bourgeoisie or middle class and the lower-middle class (petit bourgeoisie)

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low culture

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proletariat or working class

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kitsch

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visual artifacts judged to have little or no aesthetic value

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camp

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recodes kitsch as valuable, sees value through invoking class standards of bad taste

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cultural capital

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like money, everyone has access to some culture

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folk culture

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rural societies (in decline)

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mass culture

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modernity, industrialization, and mass communication

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mass culture

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made by professional designers and artists

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popular culture

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made by untrained people for masses

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mass culture vs popular culture

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sometimes used interchangeably; can merge, display messages in new and unexpected ways

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anthropology and sociology

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culture an object of study for both fields, even a "visual" sub-field in each; culture about meaning and symbolism-dependent

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pluralist culture

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many cultures; a flexible, dynamic process

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trans-/cross-cultural

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looking for commonalities among groups that don't necessarily merge

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intercultural

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ways cultures interact

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Carl Jung

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the idea of archetypes, "the human mind follows certain channels"

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cultures in conflict

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cultures destroyed, undermined, or transformed by violent or other means

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multiculturalism

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need to incorporate values and ideas which do not reflect merely the dominant group ideology, dangers of tokenisms

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culture and barbarism

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the cost of culture often exploitation; critics often wary of "celebratory" approach to history and criticism

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apperception

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visual information merges with other sensory information along with existing memories and knowledge. "We don't see things as they are, we see them as WE are"

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synaesthesia

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colors and shapes associated with sounds, smells, and feelings

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visual and the other senses

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vision traditionally the top sense of the western hierarchy; vision is mastery--a kind of power

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ocularcentrism

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critique says vision is complicit in social oppression via surveillance and spectacle. e.g. trinacria "Eye of God", the idea of a controlling, all seeing deity

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panopticon

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Jeremy Bentham, "all seeing" prison design

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panopticism

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internalization of normative gaze

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biopower

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a state has indirect control over citizens, Micheal Foucault-- "The Study of Surveillance and Spectacle"

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surveillance society

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The incredible array of spying technology; think 1984

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feminist critique

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termed by Luce Irigaray; associated gaze with male dominance (the patriarchy)

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"The Gaze"

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The eye objectifies and masters

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"History of Perception"

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termed by Donald Lowe; different classes/different periods emphasized different sense/ways of perceiving the world

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visuality

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socialized vision; knowledge, interest, desires, and social relations between the perceiver and the perceived

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representation

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use of language and images to create meaning about the world; debated to be either mimesis or a social construction

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mimesis

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mirroring the world

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social construction

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making meaning only through specific cultural contexts

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mediated vision

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seeing images versus seeing the world; media visual representations, intentional, encoded communications

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mediasation

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term for how modern culture is characterized

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Mixed Media

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perception is not limited to sight, many disciplines utilize other senses--one medium can take another medium as it's subjects

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haptic

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refers to the sense of touch, texture, and contour

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taste

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food sculptures, melon carvings, etc appeal to this sense

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kinaesthetic

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movement in muscles, tendons, and joints; appeals to body sense

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scopic drive

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our desire to see

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invocatory drive

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our desire to hear

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visual representation

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issue of why, with similar optical equipment, various cultures use different representational systems

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Psychology of Perception

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Ernst Gombrich; explains style and perception of taste through "making and matching", remaking of "schemata", extending the scientific paradigm of the generate-test cycle to perception and art, and peoples' ideas of the concept/ impartial impression

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linguistics insight

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"we don't speak languages; languages 'speak' us"; postmodernist idea from Jacques Lacan

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field of reception theory

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artifacts and viewers: viewing as an active mental process; subjective/objective

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the field of visual culture

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defined by Pierre Bourdieu as a field of forces and a field of struggles tending to transform or conserve the same

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hegemony

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power relations in a constant state of flux

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habitus

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concept that a field exists before entry with rites of passage; individual assumes positions within it

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origin of visual culture studies

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1960s progressive political and artistic movements; scholars began to question the nature of their disciplines--often with socialist bias, seeing political/economic movements

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Post-Colonial Theory

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European countries relinquished colonies, which became aware of their colonial/imperial legacies; the concept of the "other"--center versus the periphery

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primitivism

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cult and appropriation of tribal arts by modern artists

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orientalism

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exotic conceptions of East as European inventions; constructed "orient" as a negative inversion of western culture

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design history

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Britain, 1977, group of retrained art historians formed U.S., 1983 Design History Caucus at CAA (College Art Assn.)

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architectural history

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traditionally "mother" of the arts; a shift from modernism to postmodernism

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film/media/communication studies

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visual culture includes all electronic media, except for radio; electronic media was the key development of contemporary visual culture

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Cultural Studies

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broader than visual culture, as it includes all the habits and customs of people

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theory

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a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomenon; Karl Popper--all of this is provisional (generate-test cycle)

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language and visual culture

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language is the main medium of the discussion-translation process

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ekphrasis

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Classical period; detailed description of works of art

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criticism

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a genre of writing that describes and evaluates particular examples of visual culture for the benefit of non-specialist readers; different types:

1. journalistic

2.poetic

3. academic

4. clear

5. obscure

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intrinsic difficulties of criticism

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works can be eclipsed by theory; complexity and subtlety of theory itself sometimes will fully obscure

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necessity for theory

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everyone operates on these--ways to organize data; understanding new words or usages; understanding how visual signs generate meanings requires some of this knowledge

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production

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visual culture is a part of cultural production and part of the capitalist mode: social, political, and economic

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Ancient art prior to perspective

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(1425) role in ritual and cult value because art was one-of-a-kind

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Age of Perspective up to mechanical age

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(mid 15th century to the 18th century) Renaissance link of science and art; perspective/printing press: image has value as codification of knowledge

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modern era of technical development

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gives new capacities of image reproduction: photography, cinema, television, high-speed printing; image has value through reproducibility and distribution

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postmodern era of electronic technology

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computer/digital imaging; image has value from accessibility, malleability, and information status

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exchange value

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what something costs

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use value

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how useful/necessary something is; a functionality or a physical need, though almost never only so

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lack

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loss from separation at birth

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interpellate viewer

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viewers as the subject; addresses "you" directly

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"presumption of relevance"

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insinuates necessity

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pseudo-individuality

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consumption will make you unique

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equivalence

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connection made between disparate things

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commodity fetishism

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separates goods from context of production for new meanings to be attached

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reification

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abstract ideas given concrete from

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metacommunication

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exchange where a topic is an act of communication itself; reflexive

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signifying practice

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a goal of producing meaning as well as an object; all subgroups of culture are engaged in this; the idea of absolute artistic individualism versus collective social view in cultural production

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Authorship/Auter

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idea of defining individual style vs. the "death of an author" with the "birth of a reader"

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resources

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capital, facilities required for production

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materials and tools

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raw goods of production; artists and designers work either with or against these

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external quality of art

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deals with religion, political beliefs, gender/sexual preference issues, etc

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internal quality of art

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deals with functionalism, expressionism, minimalism, etc

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aesthetic resources

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enormous bank of object types, images, symbols, techniques, and styles accumulated over centuries

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distribution

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packaging, shipping

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circulation

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through space and over time; can have many "lives"/ changes in classification such as:

1. transient

2. durable

3. rubbish

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exchange

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three main ways:

1. bartered for goods and services

2. gift

3. bought and sold for money

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reception aesthetics

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branch of criticism/ history concerned with the impressions art, design, and media make and how they are "read" by various individuals and social groups

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taste

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key variable in reception of artifacts

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bricolage

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appropriation; taking existing artifacts and recoding them for new subgroup meanings

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counter-bricolage

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mass culture reappropriating (coding) the bricolage

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4 basic looks in images

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1. looks of producer towards the motif or scene; influenced by selection, psychology, technology, and/or ideology

2. looks exchanged by depicted characters; directional cues, breaking frame

3. looks of spectator towards the image

4. looks between depicted characters and spectators; "fourth wall" breaks

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scopophilia

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voyeurism; erotic gratification derived from looking

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mirrors

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psychologically powerful viewing device; used as self-reflexive comment on the act of looking

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"mirror phase"

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developmental stage where infants recognize their image in mirrors as self and yet not to project control

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cinematic apparatus

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Jean-Louis Baudry and Christian Metz; traditional social cinema space-darkened theater, mirror-like screen invites regression to childlike state

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point-of-view

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pans, tracking shots, zooms, editing

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objective shot

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camera as a third-person viewer

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subjective shot

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camera assumes alternating character positions; reverse-shot structure

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dominant-hegemonic reading

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unquestioningly identify with the dominant ideology

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negotiated reading

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combine various interpretations

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oppositional reading

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completely disagree, reject, or ignore

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visual poetics

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examines rhetorical devices in images and language

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metonymy

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a change of name , e.g. "he started hitting the bottle"

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synecdoche

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part standing for the whole

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chiasmus

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two phrases are juxtaposed with the key word order reversed in the second

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intertextuality

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references to other works in the genre; "quoting"; culture eating itself