1. In chapter two we learn how to analyze a visual text! I am overwhelmed. Can visuals only be understood in terms of author, purpose, audience, composition, medium, genre, social, cultural, historical, and economic contexts? When we create visuals, do we have to consider all those features?
2. Is there such a thing as visual politics? If yes, how can we define it? How does Bell Hooks try to raise awareness of visual politics?
3. In his essay " Shock's Next Wave", Grierson argues that the "aims of advertisers haven't changed, but their tactics have had to adjust". Thus, in our society the tactics of advertisement become more and more shocking in order to reach the customer. This, however, is shocking to me. I wonder if our society becomes more and more hard-nosed what we observe in a few decades from now on TV?
4. Visuals are able to convey more than only one meaning. It is an advantage but I also see a problem with that. What if the author/designer doesn't want to convey multiple meanings?
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I would like to say that Martha's overwhelmed response illustrates my point of - really who's responsibility is this type of education? It seems as though, ideally, there should an art teacher AND an English teacher in the classroom at all times if this is wave of the future!
ReplyDeleteIn response to Martha's last question, and to other comments (Bridget, Bouncing), I want to think about acknowledging that all creations--art/writing/photographs/blog posts--are susceptible to multiple interpretations, and possibly interpretations that are far different from what the creator intended. What does it mean to acknowledge creative work--anything put out into the world, really--takes on a life of its own? One of my mentor-heroes is Terry Tempest Williams, a writer who takes risks and speaks her truth passionately. She says that she writes knowing she can be killed by her own words, "crucified by both understanding and misunderstanding." Why is knowing the intentions of the creator of a piece of work important? Does knowing the intentions, reading something the "right" way, matter more to the audience or the creator? I'm curious, too, about how the "messenger" fits in to the message...
ReplyDeleteMartha, I did a pile of analyses at one point when I was chin deep in gender studies on the representation of women in advertising... simple stuff, print ads in trade mags not porno or anything. A lot of it shocked me. There was a phase--that is probably worse now if I were paying attention--using women in ads who looked maimed, violated, dismembered, dead... to sell shoes, fashion, cologne. It was shocking and we can get very desensitized by seeing these images acritically over and over again. I went on a rant during the Superbowl commercials. Very expensive items... many depicting males visualizing women naked or in scanty lingerie... what message does that send over and over and over? That is the reason we need media literacy more than ever, I think.
ReplyDeleteI love Schoolsville. It's one of my favs. I also swoon over Advice to Writers and Marginalia... if you haven't read them, they are wonderful Billy Collins at his best, I think.
ReplyDelete2. The whole concept of societies being decensitized because they have been shocked into numbness is really scary. I remember reading literature from soldiers in the vietnam war and how their initial reactions to the blood, guts and gore they felt in the first few weeks of combat never returned. Those feelings forever remained their initial reactions because being exposed to such atrocity on a regular basis made the whole war lose its sense of chaos and insaneness. It happens on every level, all the time. Yikes.
ReplyDeleteThere's a great book by Kevin DeLuca called Image Politics--it deals, in part, with the need of activists to stage "image events" that will be shocking enough to allow them access into corporate-controlled, establishment media powers that be. Examples are the GreenPeace or Sea Shepherds people in tiny dinghy boats trying to ward off massive whaling ships. The activists talk about setting off "mind bombs" with their image events...something that explodes into public consciousness. It's hard to imagine what's next for shocking us into action, waking us up--if not violent and sexual images to sell products, if not the personal horrors witnessed in war--what?
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