Miderm on Aesthetics/visual culture short answer

• High class/culture is associated with “good taste” and ‘proper education’ where elite cultural values were enforced
• High class/culture = wealth. There4 those who were socialized in wealthy family, were exposed to and have developed taste that relates to what they can afford to consume
Habitus- within any given society, there are stratified notions of taste related to high class and low culture
•
Kitsch-
• little or no aesthetic value- trite, cheap, sentimental
• something of little cultural value gains value over time as a cultural artifiact
• kitsch resides between culture and not-art as an artifact on James Clifford’s diagram

• sometimes bricolaged items are appropriated to be sold in fashion. They can be recycled from there and turn into a high culture item. Ex. Ripped gloves from homeless or couriers are now made of leather and sold for 800$ a pair
Avante-Garde-
• movements at the forefront of artistics experimentation/innovation/creativity
• avante gard had to be protected from becoming kitsch
• it had to be kept separate from mass culture to keep it as “low culture”
• although, they were attached and reliant on upper-class consumers

• Viewer of visual arts such as cinema
• Freud- An ideal viewer, separate from defining social, sexual, and racial aspects of viewing identity
• Freud- Relates to unconscious desires of the spectator as they digest the images presented to them (interpellation…)and how they build the ego
• Lacan- ‘mirror stage’-child discovers himself as an object of reflection
• traumatic experience that forms the basis of the ego, allowing them to be independent (split into ideal image and embodied image)
• a darkened cinema is a regression to this state

• dominant class’ ideologies are offered as common sense, however continues to be questioned and revised by other classes
• Describes the kinds of positions viewers take when seeing text
• dom-hegemonic reading: they can identifiy with the hegemonic position (the message the image is sending out) and accept it in an unquestioning manner
• negotiate reading: they can interpret the image without completely giving into it and accepting the message
• oppositional reading: the reader takes an oppositional position and eithier disagrees with the image’s message or completely ignores it

special quality that emulates from original work of art-assembled by hands of artist
Quality of authenticity that cannot be reproduced
Clearly made in spec time and place
Ben was writing about this when art was at time of crisis
Ben wanted for art to be about something/function in context within society
Everyone can interact with art/reinforce it
Today’s media is what ben is now talking about (youtube/blogs/net
Reproduction creates the discourse
Direct reproductions do not have aura of their own-

Ex. Mona lisa- very often reproduced. Reproductions are worthless because they have no aura whatsoever. Makes the mona lisa seem more desired. Provenance adds value to it (was stolen

• argued that classic Hollywood film was supposed represent the male gaze
• typical protagonist within a classic Hollywood film was male and the audience members were similarly tipically expected to be men
• typical male audience member is aligned w the films protagonist, by identification, admiration or aspiration
• 3 looks
o perspective of the male protagonist and how he perceives the female chracter
o the perspective of the character
o the two looks together, in other words, the male audience POV of the male character in film

• more power given to person looking than to the person being seen
• the gaze is Mostly male (used to always be male) now slightly female
• helps establish relationships of power
• motivated by subject’s desire to control over the object it sees
• in trad psycho theory, gaze is linked to fantacy
• voyeuristic in film- there is an intimacy that cannot be replicated
Scopophilia- the drive to look and general pleasure in looking. Freud says voyeurism (pleasure in looking w/o being seen) and exhibitionism (pleasure in being looked at) as active and passive forms of scopophilia. Important in psychoanalytic film theory in its emphasis on the relationship of pleasure and desire/ practice of looking

Orientalism- fetisization of middle east and eastern society by the European viewpoint
Helped established Europe as the norm
Wanted to explore the norms
Not truthful depiction of middle east….etc
• Women sexually available
• Men more violent
• Less civilized
• Fantasy of the place to impose European power

• challenges to perspective- impressionism
• new explorations into perceptoin, abstractionism, ppl studied our perption of the world and how it was so complex
• analyzed principles of optics
• monet analyzed how things like (10:54 am)
• impressionists nve captured things in one image- had to be a succession
• often capturethe same thing
• assert the canvas/painting as an object and not a window onto the world
• cubism- fascited/ fractured planes by Picasso- 1100

interpellation- process by which ideological systems call out to you as subjects and tell you your place (certain ideological position) in the system-
ex. outline the kind of consumer/spectator they want us to be
Often, these things are predetermined/preconditioned/already exist in society (viewer must put themselves in this position to understand the image)
Image interpellates subject and hails them
• 2 skools of thought
o 1.viewer is passive consumer and have no idea that we are being squeezed into these ideologies
o 2. We are somewhat critical thinkers???
MORE POTENTIAL FOR DISTRIBUTION OF INTERPELLATING IMAGES TO AUDIENCE (CONVINCES PPL)
AUDIENCE THAT HAS INTERPERETED TEXTS (constantly hegemonicallly reading and digesting) NOW HAVE ABILITY TO CREATE AND DISTRIBUTE DIGITAL IMAGES AND CAUSE DISCOURSE
DIGITAL IMAGES LACK GNEOME QUALITY NOW

• Thesis- the distributor of the images controls their meaning and the way they are experienced
• Seeing things together in certain context create indexical symbols for the viewer
• Institutions control the success of each work/ how its percieved
• Ppl learn to rank artwork based on their experience in the museam/gallery
• AUTHORITATIVE
• instrumental in constructing experience→ therefore shaping history/meaning of work by displaying art in certain ways
• the producer(artist’s) intended meaning will be changed through the lighting used/the work of their piece’s relationship to the room
• EX- artist who did museum stuff an security guards
• EX- 911 magazine from david Carson
• EX- lady who imposes opinions on viewers

Panopticism (Foucault)
• The ways that we (as members of society(modern social subjects), regulate our behavior
• In contemp society, we behave as if we are under scrutinizing gaze and we internalize the rules and norms of society
• We constantly imagine ourselves under a watchful eye that expects us to perform in this way
• effects how we interact w eachother- ther4 relates to discourse
• more power given to person looking than to the person being seen
• the gaze is Mostly male (used to always be male) now slightly female
• helps establish relationships of power
• motivated by subject’s desire to control over the object it sees
• in trad psycho theory, gaze is linked to fantacy
• voyeuristic in film- there is an intimacy that cannot be replicated
Scopophilia- the drive to look and general pleasure in looking. Freud says voyeurism (pleasure in looking w/o being seen) and exhibitionism (pleasure in being looked at) as active and passive forms of scopophilia. Important in psychoanalytic film theory in its emphasis on the relationship of pleasure and desire/ practice of looking

Panopticon- characterizes the way that the modern social subject regulates their own behavior- Foucault- and Jeremy benton’s jail- gaze/presence that makes us conform or act a certain way- security cameras in London

in particular, and examine its influence upon this development. realism means diff things to diff ppl-
• refers to relay naturalism and social/cultural meaning
• realistic depiction of the social conditions of the time
•
• gustav courbet- the stone breakers- instead of showing something beautiful, ideal figures…. He sshowed a realistic depiction of societ
• wanted to go against the idealized realism at the time
• john Everett millais- Ophelia, Julia Margaret Cameron, pamona portrait of alice liddel
• went against, criticized the idealist Victorian values
• gross clinic- depicting realistic modern medicine in painting to legitimize the practie
•
• socialist realism enforced in ussr
• for them realism was revealing true characteristics of material
• this form of painting could be understood by proletariat
• banned abstraction- could not be understood by proletariat
o taste of upper class
• showed ppl how the gov wanted it’s ppl to be
• promote nationalism and particular ideologies at time
• dziga vertov- wanted to capture the essence of Russian everyday life