The Realistic vs. the Abstract
To clarify, an image is though to be realistic when it reproduces the way something looks. In the news, an image should be a representation of what is real (what the naked eye sees). I think even an unaltered photograph, however, cannot always be and exact replica of what is real because any photographer will always be biased in some way, even if they try to be completely objective. This is why the images on the news in other countries may differ; what a journalist (or average citizen) notices or believes to be important will differ based on their background. This goes back to what Nietzsche said about there being no universal truth because everyone perceives things differently due to their different experiences and demographics. Thus, I think he would conclude that there cannot ever be anything that is completely real.
I wonder if it is always necessary for images to represent exactly what is real. A lot can be said from the way an image is distorted or the way an image is created to represent an idea. The images created now will be a part of history. People of the future will look back on our images to study history, politics, culture, and art the same way that we look back on the work of our ancestors.
We must be careful when looking back on images because some artists did not use the most modern techniques f their time when creating art, the same way it has been common to alter images to look older in our world. I love black and while photography and experiment with different grey-scales, which make my photos look older. I also use colors and other editing techniques on my pictures, which is a modern development and representative of our time. Another example of this could be the films we create that are set in earlier time periods or produced with the intention of imitating an older film.
Realism is defined by the book as “a set of conventions or a style of art or representation that is understood at a given historical movement to accurately represent nature or the real or to convey and interpret accurate or universal meanings about people, objects, and events in the world.”
Perspective, on the other hand, “refers to a set of systems or mechanisms used to produce representations of objects in space as if seen by and observer through a window or frame.” Scientists, artists, psychologists, mathematicians, and physicists have used it in their studies. The idea of perception has evolved over time to take into account the way human vision works and the way images are interpreted. Images are not only used to represent one object or moment in time. Artists, especially impressionists, began to us them to represent a moment in time, but an extended period that encompasses more than what the naked human eye would seen.
Questions and Ideas:
1. The question this chapter raises is can abstract art represent what is real?
2. Will video games book looked back upon by historians and are they representative of our changing culture?
3. Compare the works of 20th century artists Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol (not mentioned in the chapter, but know for his Pop Art). How do their representations of emotions and images differ and how are they similar? Is either representative of the culture of the mid-1900’s?
Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup I (Black Bean)
Jackson Pollock Eyes in the Heat
Check this out http://www.jacksonpollock.org/
On the floor I am more at ease, I feel nearer, more a part of the painting, since this way I can walk around in it, work from the four sides and be literally `in' the painting.
-- Jackson Pollock, 1947.
When we look at am image, we look through a field that consists of "objects, technologies, and built and natural environments, as well as other people who are either present and looking with us (and we may also look at these people, and they look at us) or those who we know or imagine to have looked before or to be looking simultaneously at the same image elsewhere, on a different screen" (93). We use all of our senses to look, which effects what we perceive. This field is studied using the concepts of spectatorship and gaze (to look). Further, to gaze is a "relational activity of looking."
Different people in different places will have different ideas of what it means to be modern. They will argue over an exact date on which the world became modern; however, many scholars agree that modernity is defined by the historical, cultural, political, and economic conditions related to the eighteenth century philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment. At this point in time mankind got the idea that they could control nature through technology, science, and rationalism. Here began the rise of industrial society and scientific rationalism (95). As this continued, there was an incredible rise in industrial capitalism. As people moved from the country to cities, there became new forms of architecture and new products.
The term flaneur is used to describe someone who strolls through the new city, taking in all of the sights through glass windows and metal surfaces. When that term is defined, I feel like it comes with feelings of excitement, awe, and beauty; however, in the industrial revolution there was a great amount of strife. While the buildings were growing higher and higher into the skies, there were many poor, struggling people below covered in soot and grunge.
While modern man likes to see himself as incredibly advanced and sophisticated, some, like Latour, argue that man never fully separated himself from nature. Maybe it is not possible to do this. Latour offers the idea that man, nature, machine, etc.- they are all intertwined complexly (I believe this is true, and man has no choice but to accept it).
Now let's move back to the idea of spectatorship. Spectatorship, we've found, is the practice of looking, while a spectator is the one who looks. Recently I read Nietzsche in one of my English classes here at Clemson, and I was interested by his ideas of perception. He argued that every single person would perceive and image differently due to the differences in their cultures, backgrounds, etc. Basically, he believes that what we have seen influences what we will see. If every spectator perceives things differently, then, argues Nietzsche, there can be no universal truth. The idea of there being no universal truth is key in the twentieth century existentialist movement.
Questions/Talking Points:
1. Isn’t there importance to images we “glance” at and how we perceive them (not only the images we “gaze” at)?
2. If women were used in cinema to be objects of the “male gaze”, then will me ever be used to be a part of the “female gaze”?
3. What examples of voyeurism (the pleasure one takes in looking while they cannot be seen) can you find in your every day life?
