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VISUAL STUDIES
Interdiscipline still pretty young. It depends on the perspectives Issues on technology and the abundance of images
- DEFINITION OF VISUAL CULTURE AND VISUAL STUDIES Visual studies is the discipline that studies the visual culture of a given era or culture. Objects of inquiry of visual studies might be : … (guarda definizione slide) Is a transdisciplinary academic field of research, or and inter-discipline, emerged in the 1990s as a response to the diffusion of : Digital technologies and pc Massive increase of the number images in our dailu meadiascape Devices and software to produce and/or edit images Convergence of media into the devices Images that had a strong political and social impact Images that allow scientific research and medical diagnosis Historical events heavily mediatized (fall of the berlin wall, twin towers)
- THE FIRST JPEG Was created in 1991- Everything is based on files and images, the jpeg is the main format Is a way to transform an image into a set of data
- GULF WAR The night vision cameras were a new way of seeing war Night shift cameras change the way we see, they give the possibility to watch the war on tv at night. You can watch it but at the same time you feel safe because you are at home New interest for: -Archival images employed by artists -role of images in geopgraphy, natural science, medicine -relationship between visuality, surveillance, discipline, and control -techniques of visualization of big data to access huge amounts of informations -taxonomies, visual cliches Two main schools of visual studies
- Visual cutlture studies in anglo saxon countries have been influenced by cultural studies, feminist studies and postcolonial studies
- Bildwissenschaft (science or theory of images) in German countries re-establish a connection with 1920-1930 art historians from German countries such as: Wofflin, Panofsky, aby warburg
- Andrea Pinotti and Somaini, cultura visuale. Immagini sguardi media dispositivi ORIGINS OF VISUAL STUDIES 1920 Bela Balazs is the first who use the term visuelle Kultur to describe the advent of culture based on images 1920 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy uses the term optische kultur and schaulkultur to describe the way in cinema and photography are affecting the cultural scenario -Photogram 1926: sereies of works he made manipulating his own hands producing something 1924 Panofsky, perspective as symbol: is the real father fo visual studies. Wht you perceive you can reproduce throught the mathematical system Alberti, De Pictura: he wrote about perspective, and that the painting through the perspective becomes like a window Optical devices produce scopic regimes, that oplige us to see reality in a specific way. Ex: Camera Obscura, Panorama, Photography, cinema (scopic regime), virtual reality, augmented reality. They are regimes because they sort of oblige us to see things in a certain way Benjiamin, the work of art in the age its technological reproducibility He states the difference between the apparate and the medium: the apparate affect our sensorium and thus our perception while the medium is the spatial environment in which perception occurs Aby Warbourg, Mnemosyne atlas 1924- He understood that to study art history you must go into museums. he was talking about accessibility to culture but if I have these images of paintings and sculptures why can’t I make comparaison between the images. So he started to make the atlas comparing images among them. André Malraux, le musée imaginaire, 1947 He made an imaginaire musem through images. He put on the floor images. Is like our pinterst Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosophical investigations Michel Foucault, the birth of the clinic: an archaeology of medical perception, discipline anf punishùhe discussed the panopticon which is a model of a proson, there is a circular building and in the center of it there is a tower with guards. This is about images and how images control human being, we are controlled. Is a way to control people through architecture and the eyes. JOHN BERGER, WAYS OF SEEING 1972
Hal foster, vision and visuality, 1988: Belting, the end of the history of art?: he was an art isotrian. He aknowledge that media are about perception. He porposes that single paradigm should be adopted. ESTABLISHMENT OF VISUAL STUDIES The pictorial turn, Mitchell: turn in humanities and contemporary culture towards pictures (slide) We need how to navigate on images, we need to understand them. The icnic turn, Bohem Every images produces an iconic difference. The bildwissenschaft theory is more technical and less social political MITCHELL, SHOWING SEEING he talks about William blake, cnn (gold war), dinosaurs, abu grahib, videodrome his book is Picture Theory metapictures: enact a refelction of the image onto itself Magritte is a picture that tells me what the picture is Distinction between picture and images: -images are immaterial and entities such as figures, motifs and forms -pictures are material entities produced by media and technical devices 2/
- CONSTRUCTION OF THE FEMALE NUDE John Berger underlines this topic in his book Ways of Seeing. It is a book created with advertisements that he put into the book, and he commented. There are chapter dedicated to different topics of advertisements, but the main topic is the objectification of the female body. Importance of the act of seeing that is like a force on the female body. also talks about the dynamic of looking and being looked at. This produces an action that transforms the subject observed into an object.
J.B. talks also about the biblical episode of Susanna and her bath, where she is taking a bath and a man appears and molest her. She told everyone that she was abused but no one believes her. This became a recurrent subject in paintings. (Tintoretto example): the moment before she is approached, she is looking at us knowing what is going to happen and there is no fear in her eyes. (Allore example): susanna is resisting but is a little bit complicit in her action. Artemisia Gentileschi: when we see the same subject painted by a woman is totally different. In her painting susanna is relly disgusted and she is really resisting, is not eroticized and objectified as in the other paintings my mens. Renaissance example of the objectification of womanbody: tiziano, venus of Urbino. Based on the voyeurism. Griselda Pollock talks about the story of Susanna. Feminism is a privilege that women have on men. John Berger, ways of seeing, 1972. Albrecht durer, man drawing reclining woman, 1525. Hans Bellmer, la poupée, 1935: He works with so many issues. The work is a fetish. His work is so controversial because he presents often the same subject. Manipulation of that body. forms of torture and abuse. Reconfiguration of body parts. He is like a serial killer. This wirk is very unclassifiable. It is like a sculpture but it is not really a sculpture because we only have the photographic documentation not the physical sculpture. -la popuée 1935: idea of the uncanny. Sigmund Freud, on fetishism, 1927 Tom Kelley, Marilyn Monroe on red velvet, 1949 compared to Bronzino Venus They have in common the same pose of the woman. This is a posture meant to put the body of the woman as an object of desire. Griffin’s Microsheen advertisement, 1950s You don’t really understand what the product might be, the first thing on which you concentrate is the woman. The product is one used to clean wood things. The woman looks literlay in extasy. Reference to sex and some practices. Also the phrase is referring to that. First Barbie doll, 1959 She is wearing a swim suit. She has a very precise feature: she is not looking at us, she is an object of an external look, of an external gaze. Allen Jones, Table compared to Modigliani, reclining nude 1917 Jones creates fornitures based on women turned on functional objects. atomAge, bondage magazine, 1970
Political vision of women. Guerrilla girls, Art and politics. They produce posters addressing forms of discrimination taking place in the art wolrd, do women need to be naked on the posters. Riot grrrl movement, 1990- Musical subculture, was born at the same time of scrunch subcultures. In the weast coast of the united states. Was on the female bands of the music in itself. Use music to produce certain messages. Create a huge network of young women spread through the world and through the imagery based on the representation of women on comics. They try to create a counter discourse, they let them say something different from their original context. Me too movement, 2017 Revolutionize our culture with small changes.
- LGBT FORMS OF RECLAIMING REPRESENTATION Judith Butler, subjects of sex/gender/desire, 1990 Gender doesn’t mean to correspond to male or female. This binary dynamic is being broke. -she suggest that gender is becoming free floating. Man Ray, marcel Duchamp as rrose selavy 1921 Was a femal character that Duchamp started to invent for himself and started to appear like that. Claude cahun, self portrait with mirror, 1927 She often uses the mirror as an instrument of duality and ambiguity. John wayne, prototypical filmic cowboy The cowboy is the prsonbification of the macho identity of the powerful and fearless men. A man that is always ready to shoot. Spaghetti western movies posters, 1960 Many of them were produced in Italy. Identification into these characters. Richard prince, cowboys, 1980 He appropriated illustrations from other images. The slogans of the cigarettes, he only takes the image of the cowboy. He is interested on how Marlboro uses cowboys images for their cigarettes. Jimmy se sana, cowboy boots The image of the cowboy is seen from a gay vision. He take several photos performing in domestical spaces with cowboy boots that become a fetish. This is the idea of the fetish from a gay perspective. The light create a fictional athmosphere. Tom of Finland, illustration
He creates lots of illustrations representing male characters from an erotic vision, in the way how women are usually hypersexualized. He put them into an object of desire. Brokeback mountain, movie, 2005 Counter look emerging from popular culture. Stories of cowboys seen from a different perspective Judith butler, subjects of se gender desire She suggests that the more you perform the same thing the more it become natural and integrated Vogue magazine covers and Gianni versace 1980s Women bodies are really object of desire in fashion magazines. The woman body is presented through fashion outfits objecting themselves into a fashion world. Vogueing ballroom culture, new York This was a phenomenon based on subcluters clubs of gay and transgender people. They created fashion shows in which trans gender people could impersonate people from fashion magazines. It started from what vogue represented, they appropriated the phonomeno form a different view. Paris is burning, documentary 1990 It is a documentation of vogueing. The same story was reproposed by Netflix on Pose. Music videos, deep in vogue and Madonna’s vogue She was highly criticized because she appropriated a subculture from trans gender and black people. The music bideo shows her dancing with people vogueing. The posture of Madonna is the act of framing that a photograph do before shooting for a fsshion magazine. The idea of framing the body and containing the face. Appropriation that overidentified the fashion models David wojnarowicz, one day this kid, 1990 Autobiographical works. it is not very wellknown because eit is difficult to objectify his works because they are too radical. Deborah bright, dream girls, 1989-
- BLACK IDENTITY Human Zoos, 19th^ century This was called as a black village zone in which immigrant people were put there and gentlemen went there to visit the human zoo and they went there to see what they did. Jim crow enforced racial segregation in southern US from late 19th^ century. lousian and .. were the region in which there were more slaves. After salvery the segregation remained very visible in society. You cound still see the waterfall split for black and white people. They were free citized but still segregated.
3/02 APPROPRIATION: FROM DADA TO FAN CULTURES
Appropriation is like a fil rouge through art and history. We see it today in practices from artists Appropriation was ready much practiced in historical avant guardes like DADA that was the first movement in which appropriation took form and developed.
- COLLAGE, MONTAGE, PHOTOMONTAGE collage first examples in cubism Picasso an Braque Picasso, still life with chiar caning There are pieces from a chair. The chair is not painted, is cut off from the chair in order to create a kind of combination to create a manufacturing of the world. Picasso, guitare, sheet music This is a real collage. In the bottom left part there is a cut out page from a magazine. Color and cardboards are cut out. There is an element which is a drawing probably cut out from a bigger drawing. It does not distinguish the art and the everyday. The acknowledgment that everyday should be brought into art. Picasso, au bon marché There are several elements that are put together, all linked to the idea of shopping. Shopping in those days is becoming a fundamental part of the everyday life of people. People enjoy their free time doing shopping. ASSEMBLAGE: materials taken from the real world and put into an art form in a tridimensional way. Degas, little dancer fourteen years old The skirt is a specific element, is a real tutu from a ballerina. Degas used this element trying to materialize the ballerina in front of our eyes. It is made in bronze like most of the statues that are made in this period. bronze is a strong material that remind us to urban monuments. For the first time the bronze is used not for a public monument, it does not represent a man, but instead a little woman. For the first time there is a contamination from reality in a statue. Picasso, glass of absinthe The main element Is glass and the spoon is the symbolic value of that time in coffee where everyone went. He took an actual spoon from a caffe. Duchamp, bicycle wheel He used a real bike
Duchamp says that ready-made was to paint something from everyday life put in different ways to see it. DADAISM They were critical to the period in which they lived. Kurt Schwitters, collages Series of collages form cut outs from magazines. They are print stuffs. There are also photographs and logos for references to consumerism Hannah hoch, cut with the kitchen, 1919 She cut images from newspapers and magazines creating an allegory of society in which she lives. We can see a kind of work of history of Germany in that period. the kitchen knife becomes a weapon. Lot of wheels from machines are brought for automation, for dehumanization It was like a sabotage, you assign them different meaning to the images she uses. This is her aim. Hanna hoch, pretty maiden Reference to industrial production. Hannah hoch, untitled (from ethnographic museum) Portions of bodies from history. A kind of identity that could not fit into the society so tries to find out an identy and standards from the past. Raul hausmann, spirit of our time Automation. We have a mannequin without identity. It symbolizes the work in factories and the alienation of men. He is figuring the future in which men are substituted from automate. John heartfield, self portrait with the plice commissioner zorgiebel Collage. Has a metaforcal meaning Heartfield, adolf the superman He put himself in danger because he was against the regime and he did this kind of work of arts. This is a real radiograph, he made a photomontage and put into the corp of hitler the nazist ideology. Money, that symbolize the economic side. The radiograph as a new visual form of investigation of human body is really allowing people to see what inside human body is. the fascination of that. Show the act of seeing, how our seeing is influenced. Bertold brecht: he wrote about photomontage. SOVIET MONTAGE Spread the message of communis. Some are pure forms of propaganda and reflection of the imagery. Construction the shows how the real life was becoming to be Lev Kuleshov, Kuleshov effect He said that if you put an image after another you change the meaning of the montage.
Collective born there. Ron herron and archigram Produced collages like this with cityscapes. They prefigured this life. Flat portions of the work and window. Kind of prophecy and refused and expanded experience. There is lot of leisure and free time coming from this work. Superstudio, the continuous monument Superstructure, monumentale and huge minimal structure that could cover up the city. The monument is like a space sheep coming from the sky and covering Manhattan. Is highly dystopian. Materialization of the future. CUT-UP Cut ups might talk in an ambiguous way. Create a new narrative though pieces. William burroughs and brion gysin’ cut-up technique Cutting out pages from books and newspapers as if they were like confetti. You ca nimmagine different possible meanings. What was available before. Form of establishing tools. William burroughs and brion gysin, untitled Industrial subcultures. Untitled work that comment Vietnam war. PUNK Jamie reid, holidays in the sun Record cover for sex pistols single. There is an advertisement of a travel agency in Belgium. According to jamie reid this was a lifestyle that was opposed, was an emblem for something fake because in that period unemployment was much more spread. They used music and images. It is political but also ironical Linder sterling, it’s the buzz She was a musician from punk community. She brought into the punk movement. This reminds a lot hanna hoch. Incarnate punk in herself. The hat is substituted with an iron, as if it is a robot. the mouths on tits are smiling in a worrying way as if they are ready to bite. Genesis porridge, genetic fear Images taken from pornographic magazins, lot of images from the queen. Anachronistic real evolution of the modern society. Geometric areas as if it was a wall paper of a bourgeois apartment.
- APPROPRIATIONISM AND PASTICHE Pastiche is not necessarly satytical, is more taking images from media
John baldessari, heel Shows the possibility of reusing the images from the media culture. Semiotically analyze and show and highlight. Fictional structure. they were thaught to be the messages of someone who want to deliver. There are portions in which are used primary colors that suggest some connections. Sherrie levine, untitled Her works are never clear, they are very feminist works. there is the silhpuette of a men, the president, in which is put the image of a typical woman seen in on magazine. Dara birbaum, technology/transformation She appropriates images from the tv serie of wonder woman. She is a very ambiguous character, she is the first woman heroine but she is hypersexualized. On one side symbol of woman empowerment on the other side a sexual ideal. For dara the important thing is that she is an heroin and what she does, she does it in fantasy. Reference to the technological scenario. Footage from tv series in the moment of transformation. She rotates around herself until there is an explosion and she become wonder woman, this is the moment that dara analyzes. Barbara kruger, untitled Self telling the critique. Dynamic that starts to fall down. Modernism is about the crisis of faith. Grass valley and apple II Basic system, huge change on what was available before. The great change was the pc Birth of hip hop culture, new York Recreating something based on samples that you take into that work. People simnging on the mixed samples. Christian marclay Started to create sounds through a phonograph. he was one of the earliest people. Rediscovering Laszlo moholy nagy. Marclay, recycled records Broke down the puts of the cds and reput them together. Marclay, body mix Create this character with appropriation of parts of bodies from popstars. Negativland, U Forms of critique of pop culture. Negativeland was a band that started to reproduce the music of other band and this created many legal problems. They used u2 songs. They anticipated the anticipation that is spread today John Oswald, plunderphonics, 2001
How do you see the enemy while fighting in war. Paolo Uccello, battle of san romano Tryptic, painted on 3 huge slides. It is highly choreographed. Apparently chaotic scene but everything is very clear, everything is on its own place. We perceive order because war is about chaos but also about order. All the area painted is a countryside that is destroyed. There is a ind of mathematical approach on the visualization of the battlefield. Prussian general carl von Clausewitz. He talks about information abaotu war and the fact that it must fight for the peace. Illustration 1890 Shows the battle of Fleurs. There are some armies of the ancient regime and the Austrian army against the army of the revolution. The main point is the baloon used by French and soldiers were on the top of the balloon looking with telescopes. Visualizing the battlefield with technology and the position that the balloon has into the air. Map of Africa At some point everything became to be based on images. War is through images and representations. Through the act of looking and through the eyes we see what os going on the battlefield. The design of properties in Africa. They designed the noew properties of Africa. Aerial photography developed in IWW. Allow to be placed on airplanes. Shot from airplanes, it developed during war. Allow soldiers to study the land. Mathematical observation of the land. German aerial cameras. Prints from a T£ lenses cameras, 1926 You could take more photo and put them in sequences in order to recreate the land. Tato, sorvolando in spirale. Futurist painting, aerial pictura. Developed in the 30s as the war was approaching and people were totally enthusiastic about the idea of war. They were amateur pilots. Spiral movement as exercise. Tullio crali, incuneandosi nell’abitato Fastly approaching into the life of the city. Beginning of WWII. Telling about transformation and futurism. Sort of cult into the ghetto Bombing in Italy during WWII, 1944 Normandy d-day assault Was based on images of the events. It was a very complicated action through us and british armies get into Normandy. They developed a strategical arrival from the map.
U2 spy plane, 1956 Example of airplane that could fly without being noticed. Cuban missiles crisis Bring the war home! Poster Vietnam war. Was particularly senseless. Particularly dreadful war both for American and Vietnamese. People were really tired to do what governments told them to do. Vietnam war was one of the central motive for the born of some counterculture. SDS was a social movement that was born into the university. Realized that they have to spread a new message. According to sds the reason why the war lasted so long. Martha rosier, cleaning drapes Feminist artist. this series of photomontage have the title of a motto that spread arounf the country. One image was a consumerist image coming from a magazine while the other image is realetd to the battlefield. The images from magazins sho homes and women while the images from the battlefield are about men and soldiers. This one comes from the advertising of a vacuum cleaner and is completely decontextualized related to the soldiers. The woman is near to a window that is on the battlefield. Creates a contrast between the two images. Martha rosler, makeup/hands up The eye is the place where stands the act of loonkig. contrast between the two images. In the place of her eyes there is the image. Martha rosler, vacation gateaway This image does not come from a magazine but from a travel agency book that show vacation rent houses. Vacation is controversial in this atmosphere because of war. There is the beach on the back, all of a sudden the beach is the place of a battlefield. Gulf war, bombing on Baghdad The gulf war was about controlling the areas around it. The gulf war was conducted with a new technology that was introduced: the night cameras. The most interesting aspect is not formal but is the fact that this technology was used by the army as much as the media. The CNN established a real power on the gulf war because they showe all the time what was going on on the battlefield especially at night was very followed. This was war at home. Paul Virilio, desert screen French philosopher. Gulf war tv reporters. From different areas of the world. The most interesting thing is that we also started to see computer reconstruction of the battlefield. We started as spectators to familiarize with wars. Sanja ivekovic, general alert: soap opera Artist about appropriation and feminist views. Series of screenshots of a video she did during a bombing attack. All of a sudden all the tv shows on tv started to spread the same message that there was an attack. She created that through the screenshots.
Abu ghraib tortures The soldiers took the photos. They are smiling, they are proud about what they are doing. The prisoners are like trophies. There is also a woman because in 2000 women started to enter the army, Jean Baudrillard, war porn Susan sontag All the images are the same. We can give different meaning Every contend on the media looks the same to us. We have to have the capacity to sensitize. Doing a lynndie meme This people simulate the gesture of the photo Chris korda, I like to watch Electronic musician. sounds from pornographic movies. Nowthatsfuckedup American soldiers in Iraq posted photos from people they have killed with photos form naked women.
- SURVEILLANCE AND DRONES Photos of two governmental structures. National security agency and GCHQ. Assure security to the country must surveille people. Internet became accessible to everyone, so everything changed, the way to control people changed. Moment in which internet becomes a parallel world. Btw 2001 and 2004 moment of change. James bridle, drone shadow He started to create public installations about drones. They are outlines of drones, they are drone shadows that simulates the presence of drones in the sky. It is very simple outlined. Materialize the invisible presence of drones. The presence of the drone and war is constant James bridle, evening standard Gregoire Chamayou, surveillance and annihilation All-seeing eye of god The presence of someone looking everything we do Printed on banknotes Eyeborgs, movie Science fiction movie. Tells about hpw the transformation of technology affect the public vision.
Gregoire chmayou Talks about ways of seeing that are independent. Trevor paglen, cactus flats All the governmental organizations. Machine visions. Created a series of photographs. Interest on topography and representation of the landscape. Takes phots of hidden and mystery add workers of the government. Trevor paglen, they watch the moon Observational base from which are conducted observation of the space Trevor paglen, nation security agency Starts to reveal the sequences. One side there is a governmental units. Trebor paglen, blank spots on the map the dark geography Trevor paglen, nonfucntional satellites 2013. Minimalist sculptures. Sphere only in formal terms. Is about on what represents so the life of people. 9/ HISTORY REPEATED: MANIPULATION AND RE-ENACTMENTS How can we rewrite history over and over again
- MANIPULATED HISTORY PHOTOGRAPHS Hippolyte bayard, the photographer as a drowned man 1840 He manipulated a photo of himself as a dead man drowned in a river. Really emblematic for understanding. William mumler, spirit photographs by William mumler 1870- Sold as a through thing so people could think they could talk with dead people. The photogaphs of their dead relatives. Sybell corbett, apparition of lord comberbermere. 1891 You have the photographs of the two steps of the ghost. William h. martin, taking our geese to market Ironical image. They wanted to present them so big because they sell them in their farm Alfred stanley johnson, cutting corn At that time people didn’t have means to understand if they were real or fake. These people used tequinques based on retouching.
