Images, Power and Politics

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

Seeing vs. Looking

What is the difference?

• Seeing= process of observing, involuntary, passive

• Looking=conscious consideration, active interpretation

Thomas Struth, Art Institute of Chicago II, Chicago, 1990Chromogenic print mounted to acrylic

Looking vs. Seeing

Seeing: a process of observing and recognizing the world around us in a somewhat arbitrary way as we go about our daily lives.

Looking: to actively make meaning of that world with a more involved sense of purpose and direction. Through looking we negotiate social relationships and meanings. Looking is a practice much like speaking, writing or singing. Looking involves learning to interpret and it involves relationships of power.

Seeing vs. Looking:Looking Closer

Role of Representation

Representation – “the use of language and images to create meaning about the world around us”

-Sturken and Cartwright, Practices of Looking, p. 12

Henri-Horace Roland de la Porte, Still Life , c. 1765, oil

Role of Representation – “Seeing” a Still Life

Mimesis = imitation

Rene Magritte, The Treachery of Images (This is not a Pipe), 1928-29

Interpreting Visual Codes and Conventions

Henri-Horace Roland de la Porte, Still Life , c. 1765, oil

Role of Representation – “Looking” at Still Life

• Pictorial realism before photography

• Contains symbolism• Simple peasant life in

France during 18th century

• Transience of earthly life (fruit, flowers, drink will be eaten or wither and die)

The Myth of Photographic Truth

Myths - the hidden cultural values and conventions through which meanings are made to seem universal and given, even though in reality they are specific to certain groups. (e.g. beauty & thinness)

Roland Barthes – 20th Century French Theorist

Positivism – a philosophy that emerged in the mid-19th century that holds that scientific knowledge is the only authentic knowledge. What are some good examples of this belief today?

DNA

Surveillance photo of suspected Boston bombers

Denotative vs. Connotative Meaning

Word Presentations

Denotative – literal, explicit meaning

Connotative – meanings informed by the cultural and historical contexts of the image and the viewers’ knowledge of those contexts and its personal significance to them

Robert Frank, Trolley Ride—New Orleans, 1955, gelatin silver print

Case Study: Denotative vs. Connotative

Case Study: Denotative Meaning

Robert Frank, Trolley Ride—New Orleans, 1955, gelatin silver print

• Black and white photograph

• Medium value contrast• City Trolley in New

Orleans, LA• Viewed at mid-level

from side• Three registers

(horizontal bands)• Variety of passengers

seated• Most engage

photographer’s gaze• Appear separated by

race• Children sit at center

Case Study: Connotative Meaning

Robert Frank, Trolley Ride—New Orleans, 1955, gelatin silver print

• Racial segregation in American South during 1950s

• Tension & heightened emotional state

• On verge of change due to civil rights activism

• Brown vs. Board of Ed (1954) overturned segregation in schools

• Montgomery bus boycott 1955-56 (Rosa Parks)

• Trolley as symbol for passage of time or movement toward change

• Children in the middle may signify future resolution of differences?

Images and Ideology

Ideology - set of broad values and beliefs through which individuals live out their complex relations to a range of social structures (p. 21)

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground), 1989

Newsweek vs. Time depictions of O.J. Simpson, 1994

O.J. Simpson with Heismann Trophy, 1968

Case Study: “#If they Gunned Me Down”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/us/if-they-gunned-me-down-protest-on-twitter.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LargeMediaHeadlineSum&module=photo-spot-region&region=photo-spot&WT.nav=photo-spot&_r=0

Michael Brown via Facebook

Art of Persuasion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7nrByig01Q

Norman Rockwell, Freedom from Want, 1943Oil on canvas

Vanessa BeecroftWhite Madonna with Twins2006