Visual Culture - Concept Map

This is my initial response into the exploration of visual culture. I have seperated the words 'Visual' and 'Culture' and also tried to explore them as a whole.

Visual mediums include text and images or a fusion of the two. Both of these are interpretted by the individual and become a part of their conciousness based on their experiences and social group. This is one way that people define their own self image.

Culture can be broken down into high and low culture: Examples of high culture being poetry, classical music and theatre. Low culture examples include glossy magazines, popular music and works of fiction.

However, it can be argued that the boundaries between what has classicaly been associated with high and low culture are blurring. Producing subcultures as described by the likes of Susan Sontag, in her 1964 work "Notes On 'Camp'"

Practices of Looking Images, Power, and Politics

"To see is a process of observing and recognizing the world around us. To look is to actively make meaning of that world."

Seeing is an ability that most of us are born with, we are able to observe the world, however, by looking it takes us as humans many years to make even the vaguest sense of it. Looking is an experiential cognition, and must be practiced as it involves the interpretation of the things that you see. These interpretations can cause a myriad of emotional reactions and responses as diverse as pleasure, curiosity, confusion or disgust.

Looking, or rather the choice to look, brings about relationships of power. To look at an image is a voluntary, however you can be persuaded to look, and in doing so you are relinquishing to the power of the image that you look at. You might try to get others not to look at you by the way you act or dress, or by the same methods you may want to stand out and be looked at. Both of these are exercises of power, and such power can also be exercised by images created by others.

The interpretation of seeing something is fairly unique to the individual, although a defined collective emotional response can be brought about using imagery. A single image may take on many different meanings to different people.

In the image saturated world that we live in, the realms of 'old' and 'new' media rely on each other for the meanings to their images. For example, many of the most popular traditional paintings have been technologically reproduced, thus making the image itself a print of another images. Does the image therefore lose its original meaning?

We use both language and images to refer to the world around us, this is known as representation. Languages are sounds (or words) based upon a set of rules governing how they should be understood, which allows us to quantify, express and interpret meaning. Similar rules apply to images, which have conventions about how they are organised and expressed. It should be considered that we as humans can only make meaning of the world through representation, which humans themselves create, impact upon and interpret. Therefore we ourselves are continually constructing meaning of the material world, unlike some who may argue that we are merely mirroring the world as it is though the forms of representation. However, sometimes the distinction between these two views can be difficult to make. Although it can be easy to argue that a still life painting or a portrait is mimicking real world objects it is easy to miss the hidden connotations that an image may have, which the creator wished to express in this fashion. Thus we are making complex meaning from images as simple as a vase of flowers or food at a table. Such complexities are illustrated in Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe 1928-29

Photography

photography was developed in Europe in the early 19th century, where the concepts of positivist science were prevalent. Positivism declared that human subjectivity could taint any process, be it a scientific experiment or capturing an image. Hence the photograph, being 'recorded' by a mechanical device, was seen to be free of subjectivity. A method of 'registering reality' through scientific methods, which was thought to be rather more accurate than a drawing.

However, it could be argued that the operator of any camera is a 'subjective' human being, and although the image might be a recording of an exact place and time, it is still subject to the wishes of the person capturing the image. Also, the image itself is always open to interpretation by the people who view it, similarly to artwork. Although the medium of communication is different, the meanings interpreted by looking at an image may be the same.

The argument over the validity of photographs to accurately interpret real world events has resurfaced with the advent of digital photography. A photographic image is often seen as an exact copy of a scene; but without other evidence to corroborate the photo it is easy to interpret. Yet an interpretation of events is given more truth value by a photograph, even if the interpretation is false. This is very much the case in courtrooms, where debates over the validity of photographic evidence are most prevalent.

Still, photographs are held in regard as truthful records of objects or events, and this is what gives them power. Even in the present climate, where most people know that photographs can be convincingly manipulated with the help of computer software.

The levels of meaning

Theorist Roland Barthes wrote about images having two distinct levels of meaning. These were described as DENOTATIVE and CONNOTATIVE:

Denotive meanings are those apparent truths present in an image, providing documentary evidence and literal, descriptive meaning.

Connotative meanings are those which are formulated from the context of the image both culturally and historically, and the viewers knowledge of that culture of history. Basically, the way that the viewer feels both personally and socially.

Practices of Looking Introduction Responses

The Practices of Looking should be an interesting book to study, it is trying to analyse Visual Culture, which is defined as the influence of visual media in shaping our values and beliefs.

I agree that culture is cited as one of the most complex words in the English language. It is incredibly difficult to quantify and is always open to subjective opinion. I also agree with Stuart Hall that a culture can be a set of processes or practices through which individuals and groups come to make sense of various types of media. For example, it is commonplace for members of a subculture to better appreciate the work of an artist from that subculture, as they are influenced not only by the piece itself, but also by its creator. Similarly, someone involved in a different subculture may not interpret the same piece in the same way. This can be for a number of reasons, such as naiveté, lack of understanding, or precepts derived from their own subculture. However, there are cases when visual media can cross or fuse cultural boundaries. E.g. the acceptance of black rap music into ‘middle’ America and white youth culture. This is still opposed by some as it is seen as one of the mediums of low culture, the sometimes-derogatory term to describe the opposite to high culture. Such visual artefacts as fictional novels, popular music and television can be described as low culture. I think that one of the traits of both high and low culture is that they both differentiate themselves from each other where possible, therefore does that make each a subculture?

This book is defining culture as “the shared practices of a group, community, or society, through which meaning is made out of the visual, aural and textual world of representations.” Which means that the classical definitions of both High and Low cultures given in the book are open to interpretation. Does current ‘popular music’ become a different part of culture when it ceases to be popular? Or is the fact that certain types of music are never likely to be popular that makes them high culture? If so then why is thrash metal classed as low culture? My opinion is that much of the supposed ‘high’ culture is descended from historical ‘blinkered’ perceptions of greatness. High culture used to define high class and low culture - low class. I think it is true to say that culture and social grouping are inextricably linked.