I knew from early on that Looking and Subjectivity would take some time to complete. The study guide suggests 110 hours of study time to complete this chapter, compared to 60 hours for Part 1; 5 for Part 2; and 70 for Part 3. There are eight projects, most of which are multi layered and therefore time-consuming; I certainly have spent many more then 110 hours on this chapter, which has taken five monthe to complete, partly it has to be said because of other commitments.
It is alos a complex area, covering some of the more difficult areas of visual culture, notably Freud, race, and the viewing of women, the last of which was used as a basis for my Assignment.
The chapter starts by revisiting Freud, this time considering the Oedipus complex. Because I had published the associated blog entry before tutor had considered assignment 3, he took the opportunity in his summary to consider my three objections to Freud: that his thesis is unprovable; that it is sexist; and that it has limited relevance to visual culture.
Broadly, with caveats, tutor agrees with the first two, though points out that Freud was a 'man of his time with many of the prejudices of his age'. That is partly my point; society has moved on since Freud wrote, and visual culture should surely reflect current Zeitgeist.
It is the third argument where I boldly stepped on a banger. Tutor points out that Freud is relevant because he is relevant to so many artists, just as Christianity was to earlier artistic generations. The implication is that one needs to understand Freudian thesis in order to understand the messages of artists who are influenced by him. That has to be right. My error was to take Freud too literally. I find it difficult to believe that little boys really do worry overly about their penis once they notice that girls do not have one, but that is not the point. What we need to understand is the fascination that artists (even recent ones like Sarah Lucas) have with the repressed subconscious sexual drive that Freud brought to our attention, and the impact thereof in their work. Freud's impact is broader and perhaps less tangible than I had accounted for.
I do not entirely give up on the point of Freudian relevance, however. Whilst I understand the relevance it has to the work of artists, that is only a part and, critically, I would say a much reduced part nowadays, of visual culture. The study of artistic works is the highbrow end of the visual culture market - the 'legitimate sphere' in Bourdieu's terms. What we have now (and explore more in next chapter) is an explosion of visual culture resulting from the development of the internet, and fast streaming and social media in particular. These developments have led to our world being almost entirely visual. YouTube seems to have been with us for ages, but actually only started in 2005. Now we have video mashups, vblogging and many other visually related online media that are visual and definitely part of our culture, albeit at the 'arbitrary sphere' end of the market, again borrowing from Bourdieu. And I am not sure how relevant Freudian analysis is to a study of these media; perhaps the subject needs to define its boundaries in light of the extension of the visual into areas that were previously off the visual culture radar as they were technologically not possible. This is an area I wish to explore in Assignment 5 where we look at the boundaries between reality and virtuality, very relevant to the growth of visual social media. It leads too to discussion of whether there is a difference between entertainment and art, and if so what it is, and what this means to visual culture in an increasingly visual world.
Lacan's mirror phase was one attempt to extend and update Freud. It is difficult reading, not least because of the contorted and opaque language that I have criticised before. One ends up having to read what others think of the thesis before reading it in order to have any hope of unpicking the meaning.
Panopticism by Foucault was a very interesting article, and blissfully clear prose. The associated project was valuable; I thought about writing further on the topic for the Assignment as the topic of what I shall 'business use' of visual culture is not covered elsewhere. By business use, I do not just mean surveillance cameras in car parks, on buildings etc, but also as used in forensic police work (some photographers have studied crime scene photography), medical images, and detailed scientific images to name a few.
Three projects then focussed on the visualisation of women, taking Laura Mulvey's essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema and John Berger's Ways of Seeing as a base. The projects were challenging and varied; I particularly enjoyed the visual essay; as a photographer I find this genre interesting in light of my comment earlier that our world is becoming entirely visual. Henry Wessel's Incidents discussed in another post provides an example. The project to locate and discuss four female artists was interesting; I had not heard of Cecily Brown, Lisa Yuskavage, or Justine Kurland before rieviewing thier work, and selecting a piece from each to discuss inthe context of the course. Kurland in particular uses her gender to her advantage, portraying naked women in natural settings.
The last two projects contrasted black and white perspectives, based on writings by Fanon and Dyer. The Fact of Blackness by Fanon is a classic essay, but I thought rather dated. In White, Dyer attempts to set out a view of visual culture from a majority perspective, pointing out that the concentration of many writers on the issues of minorities may inadevertently make those issues seem larger than they actually are, that they are 'departures from the norm', while the norm carries on in a natural way. The implication is that the causes identified by the commentators may not be best served by being highlighted as departures from the norm.
The last project was very long, requiring both a review of media for a week noting and commenting on racial identity. I coupled this with a visit to Tate Modern, where I found two works to include. Watching the two films - Simba and Battle of Algiers - was an interesting and enjoyable project, exactly the sort of thing I would not have watched but for the course, but very glad to have done. Battle of Algiers is an excellent movie, occupying 48th place on the Critics' Top 250 Films of the 2012 Sight & Sound poll.
For the assignment, I selected the subject of the portrayal of women as the topic covered in the chapter to be discussed. Having an interest in sport, I combined the two topics into a visualisation of women in sport. I researched the topic in some detail, adducing number of relevant essays (pincipally by women) and combined these academic studies with supporting articles and examples from the internet.
As with all the chapters, I found Chapter 4 introduced me to many concepts and artists that knew little or nothing about. This was a principle aim of the course. having more time available now, I aim to complete the shorter final chapter in time for the March 2015 assessment.
Three projects then focussed on the visualisation of women, taking Laura Mulvey's essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema and John Berger's Ways of Seeing as a base. The projects were challenging and varied; I particularly enjoyed the visual essay; as a photographer I find this genre interesting in light of my comment earlier that our world is becoming entirely visual. Henry Wessel's Incidents discussed in another post provides an example. The project to locate and discuss four female artists was interesting; I had not heard of Cecily Brown, Lisa Yuskavage, or Justine Kurland before rieviewing thier work, and selecting a piece from each to discuss inthe context of the course. Kurland in particular uses her gender to her advantage, portraying naked women in natural settings.
The last two projects contrasted black and white perspectives, based on writings by Fanon and Dyer. The Fact of Blackness by Fanon is a classic essay, but I thought rather dated. In White, Dyer attempts to set out a view of visual culture from a majority perspective, pointing out that the concentration of many writers on the issues of minorities may inadevertently make those issues seem larger than they actually are, that they are 'departures from the norm', while the norm carries on in a natural way. The implication is that the causes identified by the commentators may not be best served by being highlighted as departures from the norm.
The last project was very long, requiring both a review of media for a week noting and commenting on racial identity. I coupled this with a visit to Tate Modern, where I found two works to include. Watching the two films - Simba and Battle of Algiers - was an interesting and enjoyable project, exactly the sort of thing I would not have watched but for the course, but very glad to have done. Battle of Algiers is an excellent movie, occupying 48th place on the Critics' Top 250 Films of the 2012 Sight & Sound poll.
For the assignment, I selected the subject of the portrayal of women as the topic covered in the chapter to be discussed. Having an interest in sport, I combined the two topics into a visualisation of women in sport. I researched the topic in some detail, adducing number of relevant essays (pincipally by women) and combined these academic studies with supporting articles and examples from the internet.
As with all the chapters, I found Chapter 4 introduced me to many concepts and artists that knew little or nothing about. This was a principle aim of the course. having more time available now, I aim to complete the shorter final chapter in time for the March 2015 assessment.
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