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Week 5 Rumination

Following this week's lecture, I found our discussions about the "Afghan Girl" to be the most interesting. Through our learning about the relevance of that image, I began to realize the symbolistic and representational power an image can hold. The image of the Afghan Girl represents millions of individuals who struggle as refugees and undergo violence, loss, and unfortunate circumstance. While the image possesses a degree of simplicity, it holds a much deeper meaning and represents a concept much bigger than it may appear to without context. After viewing the image, I began to look at other photography and works of art in a deeper, more analytic way. Seemingly simple visuals can carry much broader meanings and bare societal and social relevance.

I also found the concept of orientalism to be a very interesting topic, Orientalism is a phenomena that encapsulates a plethora of stereotypical ideals that are often applied to people with eastern roots. This could be applied to various pieces of cinema, literature, and even some instances of news coverage. After being further educated on this topic, much like the "Afghan Girl", I was able to point out instances of orientalism more effectively and more often.

With these two lessons in particular, I was surprised and delighted to see that I was inadvertently putting the concepts into practice outside of class. Because of that, I found these two lessons to be the most memorable and interesting.

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Week #4

Of all content covered in Week 4, I found myself gravitated to the panopticon most of all subject matter. the panopticon is a phenomena associated with modernity, a contemporary and modern way of thinking, working, viewing the world, etc. The concept of the panopticon revolves around the concept of a higher power's constant surveillance over you, and its assurance that you are abiding by it's standards and regulations. A real world example of this would be the common work environment, where employees are given standards and guidelines to follow by their supervisors, whom monitor the work ethics of their employees even if they're not physically with them. These employees, even if their boss is not present, work according to the guidelines in order to retain their job.

There are many other examples of this, such as military ranks and hierarchy, prisoners obeying the regulations of a jail (as some of my classmates have stated), or even something as primal as the pecking order within a flock of birds. However, not all panopticon examples need to be related to surveillance. Some instances of the panopticon could stem just from the fear of repercussions instilled in subjects by their superiors. An example of this could be a country under a dictatorship, where citizens refrain from speaking poorly about their rulers just out of fear of punishment. Surveillance doesn't even have to be present, but rather the fear of punishment holds citizens in line with the dictator's guidelines.

Examples of the panopticon are all around us in every facet of the world, from natural, to corporate, to societal contexts.

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Week 8

In this chapter, the class went over visual technologies and how their progression has changed the world. Few example covered in class include police body cams, pilot-less drones, and self driving cars, and each example has shaped the behavior of certain individuals, as well as how some professions go about their business. Visual technologies such as ell phones can be included in progressive inventions as well, as their creation generated an altered version of human behavior. They made it possible to see anything in the world at any time, send immediate messages, and find an answer to any question. Even social media can be attributed to the changing of the world. These are a few common examples covered either in the "Practice of Looking" or in a class discussion. Visual arts and technologies such as these push humanity forward, exemplifying the forward progression of human n intelligence, as well as the ever changing world.

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Week 10

In week 8, my classmates and I learned about media's effect and impact on society. Examples of this include propaganda circulation, media conglamerates, advertisement, and the entire media infrastructure as a whole. Different iterations of visual communication have expanded the way humans go about life in many ways. This can include the alteration of political views or beliefs (propaganda), the incentive to boost the economy (ads), and entertainment (TV or movies).

The medium for visual communication I want to focus on however is propaganda. This form of visual communication is unique because of it's enticing nature and historical relevance. Propaganda by itself has the means to display the power visual media has within society. These posters have acted as catalysts for movement, war, and peace, being known for it's posting during was time or times of action. As society has progressed, so has our mediums of communication, and visual communication is no exception.

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Week 7

In Week 7's chapter of Sturken & Cartwright, the textbook covers the concept of photo realism, history on argumentation, and camera vs human vision.

Firstly is photo realism, which is a term that alludes to the accuracy a photo holds in how similar the photograph is to the same visual if you were to observe it with your own eyes. While no image is likely to be 100% faithful to the original visual, photo realism is how visuals are measured in many mediums, such as art, journalism, etc.

Secondly, this chapter covered the concept and history of argumentation. There are two kinds of arguments regarding visuals; demonstrative and rhetorical. Demonstrative visuals are defined as having an action within that inspires thoughts or actions. Rhetorical visuals typically bear an encoded message. Multiple contexts are also in play, changing the visual argument of images based on scenario. These contexts include immediate visual, immediate verbal, and visual culture.

Finally, the textbook covers Snyder's camera vs. Human Vision. The book expresses the differences of the two in a plethora of ways. Firstly, it's stated how human vision is not confined and limited to a single rectangular frame. The text also expresses how human vision is only available in color, a contrast that's made when comparing it to black and white photography, a medium that's seen as more authentic.

#rumination #photography #visual communication

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Rumination Chapter 4

For this rumination I have chosen to cover Chapter 4 of Sturken and Cartwright titled "Realism and Perspective: From Renaissance Painting to Digital Media. This chapter covers the origins and legacy of perspective, and it's integration into artistic practices, explaining the title of the chapter; "From Renaissance to Digital Media." This chapter also focuses on the importance that perspective holds in capturing the most "realistic" interpretation when creating an art piece. On page 141, the textbook reads "We focus on perspective because it is a cornerstone of pictorial realism across painting, photography, film, video, and computer graphics." While realism does have a universal definition, that being the level of accuracy and faithfulness a recreation of a visual has to it's original, an observer's point of view or perspective holds great weight in the level of realism one draws from an observation. The chapter provides an immense amount of visual representations regarding realism and perspective throughout history from art movements such as the French Poetic Realism movement to art pieces of the Renaissance. One outstanding example from the textbook that really caught my eye however regards the Tomb of the Emperor of China's Qin Dynasty. In this instance the art being used to recreate an original visual would be the terra-cotta statues resembling Chinese soldiers from ancient times. These figures are each described as unique, therefor they can be assessed as accurate and realistic depiction of previous real life soldiers' numbers, garments, etc. However if the perspective is changed to where these figures are being observed from a different vantage point, factors shift and realism can be lost or gained. If someone was standing with the crowd of artificial soldiers and took a picture, the realism regarding a detail likehow many statues there were could be lost. Same think could be said about an image of them from far away, which at different depths of perception can affect the assessment of the accuracy regarding their clothes or unique characteristics. This is a singular example of how perspective can alter one's observation of a visual and possibly lead them to gain a different conclusion regarding a photo or work of art's realism.