Design Blog 3: Typographica

Stephen Coles' article: http://typographica.org/on-typography/roboto-typeface-is-a-four-headed-frankenstein/

Before looking on the blog Typographica, I had only read approximately two or three articles/stories on typography. I have always appreciated the art as an observer with practically no knowledge of it until Visual Communication class. Now, I know a bit about serif, sans-serif and slab fonts, as well as some of the purposes they serve. Reading Stephen Coles’  Typographica article, “Roboto is a Four-headed Frankenfont,” taught me just how passionate typographers are about their work. Coles argues that the new typeface Google had created for high density displays looks terrible. To be completely honest, when I looked at the sample Coles provides, I was not disgusted by Roboto. I did not like it, but I did not loathe it. I felt that there is almost unlimited creativity in coming up with a new typeface, but I soon learned that thinking that is a mistake. Coles analyzes this new typeface and informs readers that it borrows design elements from a Grotesk sans and a Humanist sans. While he states that it is acceptable to combine these families, he claims that Roboto combines all the wrong elements from them to create a mish-mash of a typeface. There are unspoken rules in borrowing aspects of typeface families to make a new typeface. One must be diligent in his or her choices so that the combination is harmonious, not jarring or muddled. Google notes that the typeface was created for the high density display of a cell phone, so it may look different on that screen than that of a computer. I never realized that the device providing the medium for which the typeface is displayed can change the look of the letters and symbols. Now that smart phones are so common, typographers must be busy trying to make typefaces that look good on those screens. 

www.typographica.org

Design Blog 2: enpundit.com

The website enpundit.com has thousands of articles on art, design and technology. Its multifaceted selection of topics ensures that nearly everyone can find something pertaining to his/her interest. One article, “A Positive Light on Negative Space by Artist Tang Yau Hoong,” shows how the artist plays with the idea of negative space. Usually, I think of negative space as something that is empty, a part of the document or art piece that helps provide balance for the true design it surrounds or cuts through. However, Tang Yau Hoong’s artwork utilizes the negative space so that it becomes an apparent active part of the design. Many of his works feel almost like optical illusions; they provide two different worlds within the same piece.

http://enpundit.com/a-positive-light-on-negative-space-by-artist-tang-yau-hoong/

Another article I enjoyed is “Quite Possibly the Most Gorgeous Office Space Ever,” which includes photos of Urban Outfitters’ office space in Philadelphia. The article explores how the office strikes a balance between old and new, original and renovated. The exposed pipes and wooden beams in the ceiling contrast with the pops of bright color provided by the swivel desk chairs and couch pillows, which also lend softness. All of the industrial elements might seem cold, but they become interesting and beautiful when paired with natural elements of plants and water features. It reminds me of good feng shui principles, which call for a balance amongst all of the elements in order to maintain strong, flowing energy throughout the rooms. Even though it is an office, I would like to live there.

http://enpundit.com/quite-possibly-the-most-gorgeous-office-space-ever/ 

Design Blog 1: LogoDesignLove

While perusing the LogoDesignLove blog, the photo of Katona Jozsef Theatre’s design element instantly caught my attention. I love bright, clean, simple designs. The theatre’s business cards, papers and envelopes are all stark white with red quotation marks in the corners. My favorite color is red, and I loved how they paired such a brilliant, energizing color with the clean whiteness. Also, I think I was attracted to the quotation mark motif because I love quotes and book passages. I admired the photo amongst all the others, yet I had to click on it to learn more after reading its caption, which tells its audience that the quotation marks are designed after theatre masks. I did not see it on first glance, and I do not know if I would have noticed if I had not read that. However, this subtlety balances out the pop of color so that nothing screams at the viewer in a bad, glaringly obvious way. The theatre mask design has a clear connection to the company, yet the quotation marks might throw off many viewers. I believe they chose quotation marks to show that all these words - from the magazine article to the company letter to the theatre’s title on a business card - are mere snippets of its entirety, a small look at its whole being. One may even go so far as to say that the quotation marks can be metaphorically placed around each performance of the theatre, since one performance is just one small part of the millions of performances out there. The actors can only show us one slice of life each night. It may not create an impossible, all-encompassing “book” on theatre, but it makes for a damn good quote.

http://www.logodesignlove.com/katona-jozsef-theatre 

Questions on Tufte Reading

On page 107, the beginning of “Chartjunk: Vibrations, Grids and Ducks,” Tufte claims that graphical decoration prospers in technical publications. Aside from the fact that it is cheaper, what are the reasons for this unneeded design element’s success?

On page 112, Jacques Bertin claimed that a good design has to “flirt with ambiguity.” Tufte goes on to say that there are no good examples that prove this idea. Why have we not been able to provide a good example? Should we even be trying to make graphics that flirt with ambiguity if it seems that good ones are not made in this way?

On page 117, what do Venturi, Brown and Izenour mean when they assert, “It is all right to decorate construction but never construct decoration” in Learning from Las Vegas?

In the second Tufte reading, the author shows the importance of visual design reflecting the true scientific analysis with the examples of the cholera epidemic in 1800s London and the Challenger explosion. Does he then suggest that a graphic designer should also have an educational background in the field which he/she is portraying? Science and graphic design are usually thought of as areas on different sides of the spectrum. How can someone marry the two in order to create a strong design?

Rose, "Content Analysis" and "Audience Studies"

I can use content analysis in a future MAPC project. Comedies fascinate me, and I have recently become interested in women’s roles in comedies. Oftentimes, I think of men being funnier than women, but I feel that this idea is not true. However, I also think that more men star in Hollywood comedies than women. Perhaps I can use content analysis to study comedies in a formal, academic way. I can research the top 50 comedies produced by Hollywood in the past 50 years or so. Then, I can find those film’s posters or DVD covers. That could be step one of the process: finding my images. I like the random way of choosing images. I could number them all and pick a random few numbers to analyze. In order to devise my categories for coding, I need to follow the procedures assessed by Rose: the categories must be exhaustive, exclusive and enlightening (Rose 91). For example, a few of my categories can include the number of women featured on the covers, the number of men, how revealing the clothing is, and which gender is featured in the foreground rather than the background. However, following the rules of content analysis is difficult. Since my categories cannot overlap, I might not be able to code the number of women and which gender is in the front of the image. In regard to coding the images, I can use Excel to mark off which images address which categories. Then, to analyze them, I can put the results into a bar or line graph. I can use qualitative analysis to determine what the results mean. Perhaps they will help provide evidence for my theory that more men are featured in comedies and that women are not seen as funny as men based solely on what is featured in posters or DVD covers.

I may be able to use information I learned in the “Audience Studies” chapter in a future project. In regard to my interest in comedies featuring strong female leads, I could perform audience studies. Rose suggests that researchers should use public institutions to find participants. Since I go to Clemson, a public academic institution, I am in a great environment for locating participants. If I want a diverse group, I can set out an ad in different buildings and choose participants based on age, ethnicity, where they are from, etc. After this assessment, I can ask those chosen to watch two different comedies: one that has mostly females in the leading cast (perhaps Bridesmaids) and one that has mostly males in the cast (possibly Horrible Bosses). To maintain the integrity of the research, I would not tell the participants what I am studying while I watch them react to the movies. Then, I can perform one-on-one interviews with them. I think that these interviews are better than group interviews because I fear that participants’ answers in group interviews may influence what other participants say. After asking questions regarding which parts were funnier and focusing on any differences or similarities between the male and female film characters the audience found, I can enter the data into a spreadsheet and graph. Perhaps this quantitative information will allow me to find patterns that can help further my research.

Rose's "Visual Methodologies" Chapters 1, 2 and 12

On page 3, Rose mentions that several theorists have studied the centrality of the visual in our current society. This centrality is so prevalent that Rose even tells the audience about Martin Jay’s term, ocularcentrism, for this phenomenon. Are there opposing theories that claim that the visual is not the central sense that dominates our society? I agree that the visual seems to be the strongest in our culture, but do any theories point to the auditory as being a dominating sense as well?

Rose is careful to mention that ocularcentrism occurs in contemporary Western life. Do other cultures and ways of life focus on the visual more than other senses? Which cultures do not allow the visual to dominate, and how do they function differently than ours?

Page 7 introduces the audience to the term “post-human.” Does this term imply that we are becoming less human? Are we moving away from our instincts for the sake of faster and more advanced technologies?

Since the location of seeing and experiencing a visual is important to the viewing process, according to page 15, then how did people decide that the designs and layouts for typical stages and theatres were the most conducive to the visual aspects?

In chapter 2 on page 23, Rose mentions that at times, street photography can be seen as voyeurism. Where is the line drawn between good art and offensive practices?

Page 26 mentions auteur theory, which claims that the maker or creator’s intentions is the most important part of the visual. Rose states right after that more recent work places less importance on the maker and more on the audience and its interpretations of the work. How is this shift reflected in our society? What does this shift mean for other modes of work? Why does our society now care less about the creator and more about the creation’s effects on others?

Can convergence (noted on page 36) weaken a visual’s message since it takes away the strong relationship between content and medium? It does take away many confinements, but can that have negative repercussions?

Chapter 12 deals with the ethics of photography. Can someone use photographs depicting the subjects in a negative light for research ethically, or must the photographs always shy away from offended their subjects?

How do photo-sharing websites not get into trouble for copyright or anonymity purposes?

Understanding Comics, Chapters 2-3; Persepolis

In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud theorizes that human beings are self-centered and try to see themselves in many objects. He uses examples such as the front of a car or an electrical outlet. Since reading this chapter, I have noticed how I naturally see faces in inanimate objects. My toothbrush holder has three openings and looks as if it is about to talk to me. Making the subjects in comic books look more cartoonish does help me identify with these characters more and allows me to put myself in their situations. I have found I have been able to identify with characters in cartoons or anime more easily than television shows with real actors. Aside from the fact that their features are less individual and defined than those of real humans, the cartoons’ facial expressions are more pronounced, drawing me into the pathos of the moment. Seeing such strong emotion prominently displayed makes it more accessible for me as a viewer to conjure up similar feelings and empathize with the character, rather than sympathizing from more of a distance. If I am emotionally invested in the characters and story, I extremely likely to finish reading or watching until the end.

“Blood in the Gutter” shows us that negative space is crucial to comics and many other forms of art. McCloud asserts that “the art of comics is as subtractive an art as it is additive” (85). Comics must strike a balance between negative and positive space so that readers are given enough information without having their senses overwhelmed or their creativity and imagination stifled. McCloud observes that comics from Japan have honored this balance studiously throughout the years. He states that the East understands that “elements omitted from a work of art are as much a part of that work as those included” (82).

While reading this chapter, I thought of writer and artist Austin Kleon’s work in his project, Newspaper Blackout Poems. Kleon read newspaper articles and blacked out most of the words with a Sharpie, leaving only a few behind to create poetry. One of his most well-known works from this collection states, “Creativity is subtraction.” He seems to echoes McCloud’s view of comics, the “subtractive art.” Beauty is found in Kleon’s work not just through the readable words, which are themselves entertaining and honest, but also through the fact that so many words were read and chosen to be excluded by the artist. They have now become invisible underneath the marker, allowing the visible words to take on new meaning and beauty. Similarly, comics must use the invisible - the gutters - to connect panels in a way that makes readers understand the panels’ meanings.

This use of positive and negative space factors into Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis. Satrapi usually uses panels; however, she employs a different tactic when she tells her readers of her uncle’s death. This tragedy was one of Satrapi’s first that she experienced first-hand. She loved her uncle and worried about his safety when he was imprisoned. She uses panels to show their conversation in the prison, but then when she announces, “That was my last meeting with my beloved Anoosh,” (70) the drawing of the newspaper declaring her uncle’s execution is surrounded by negative space without the use of a frame. Perhaps this image shows that her pain could not be contained within a panel, that this hurt bleeds out into the empty vastness of negative space and colors her perception between every action from now on. She then uses an entire page devoted to the image of her as a little girl floating in a black background with the words, “And so I was lost, without any bearings...What could be worse than that?” (71). There is no gutter to use in between images on this page; this one panel must take up the whole page because for this girl in this particular moment in time, there are no such things as transitions. Loss and emptiness is all there is. The abrupt start of the war is signified by creating a new chapter. Many sections of Satrapi’s story employ smooth transitions between panels using the gutter, but she uses the technique of dedicating a whole page to one panel for certain images that symbolize a change in her life and culture to which she wants readers to pay close attention.

Kleon, Austin. Creativity Is Subtraction. 2010. Goodreads. Web. 24 Sept. 2012. 

Kleon, Austin. The Travelogue. 2010. 20X200 Artist Fund. Web. 24 Sept. 2012.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Print.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York: Random House, Inc., 2003. Print.

Barton & Barton: "Ideology of the Map"; Kress and van Leeuwen, 175-214

In “Ideology of the Map,” Barton and Barton explain how maps display the authority of the cartographer’s culture and society when creating the visual. In high school, my chorus teacher had told the class that if aliens came to visit Earth, they would not know which part of the planet we consider “up” and “down.” That was the first time I had ever thought about the globe and the decision to make the Arctic the top and Antarctic the bottom, and I was already fifteen or sixteen years old. Still, I had not even thought of how this positioning reflects a Eurocentric train of thought and power until reading this article. Maps, which I always deem practical and accurate, are another way of viewing the world in a subjective manner, separating dominant cultures, the “normal,” from the minorities, the “Other.” The non-Eurocentric cultures would probably be deemed “New” in Reading Images.

Kress and van Leeuwen assert that typically, the Given, the image that is held to be common knowledge or the normal standard of the culture and society, is on the left of a document. The New, which is the “Other” or image that challenges the self-evidence of the Given, is placed on the right. When I searched “McCain vs. Obama” in Google Images, many of the top images displayed McCain on the left and Obama on the right. Perhaps the creators of these images felt that McCain stood for the Given because the United States had a Republican president before the 2008 election. Obama could be seen as the New idea, the Democratic candidate, who contested the status quo. Obama may also have been considered the New because he was the first African American to be a primary presidential candidate during that time.

When I searched “Romney vs. Obama” in Google Images, I found that many of the photos place Obama on the left and Romney on the right. Perhaps this placement is due to the fact that Obama has been the president for the past four years seeking reelection. He is the Given; of course he is going to run for a second term. Romney, on the other hand, is the new candidate in this election, butting heads against the current administration and causing a disruption in American politics via the election. However, a few photos and images still place Obama on the right. An image from The Atlantic, for example, shows Romney and Obama in a boxing ring with Romney on the left. 

I found it interesting that The Atlantic is deemed a liberal magazine. I would have thought that it may have been conservative, leaning toward asserting that Romney should be the Given in this election. However, the magazine may have situated Obama on the right to make him still seem new and fresh to the audience. He is the more salient figure; his face is well-lit and is turned toward the audience, whereas Romney’s face is bent slightly down, hiding in shadow. Perhaps this image is a way to say that Obama is challenging conservative, old-fashioned ideals that Romney represents, such as strictly heterosexual marriage and pro-life choices. Indeed, the current president seems edgier when presented as someone New who rises up against the authority, although in this election, he is the authority. I also wonder if associating liberals with the left and conservatives with the right has any impact on people’s voting when taking this Given/New theory into account.

Another visual design decision includes placing an important image in the center, with the less important things surrounding it to become margins. Reading Images notes that the central composition is not common in Western culture, although it seems prevalent in many Eastern ideas and designs. In feng shui, for example, the bagua map does not ignore the center of the room. Rather, the center may be considered the most important area because it concerns personal health. If one does not have good health, one cannot gain success in the areas of life to which each other gua pertains, such as family, career and relationships. Admittedly, I tend to ignore the center of the bagua map when decorating my bedroom. Perhaps if I had grown up influenced by an Eastern culture more, I would pay the center more attention.

Visuals found from Google Images.

Sturken and Cartwright, Chapter 3

Throughout Chapter 3, a power struggle emerges between the image and viewer through spectatorship, the looking that is through an interactive, multimodal, and relational field. In fact, Descartes believed that world becomes known to us only when we accurately represent it in our thoughts. However, what if our thoughts are not correct? Is our world still unknown to us?

Jacques Lacan held theories that tell us we do not accurately represent our world in our thoughts. One of the crucial stages of development, according to Lacan, is the mirror phase between six and 18 months, which “involves a process in which the infant gains motor skills adequate to venture away from the maternal body and in this process comes to understand itself... as a unitary entity separate from that body” (Sturken and Cartwright 101). However, while the infant notices itself in the mirror, it also holds an idealized image of itself. It is separate from its world and its mother, so it seems independent. Obviously, such a young being is far from being independent; however, in its eyes, it is starting to see this burgeoning sense of itself and the other, the rest of the world. While I am skeptical of this theory (I am not sure if the human mind is capable of such thought at 18 months, and not every society has mirrors/multiple reflective surfaces for the infant to see so young), it does begin to explain how, at our very early stages, we misunderstand the reality surrounding us and ourselves in general. We do not have enough power to fully realize exactly what we are and how we relate to our environments because our perceptions are constantly flawed.

Foucault believed that a person is never fully self-governed; rather, discourses, “the socially organized process[es] of talking about a particular subject matter” or bodies of “knowledge that both [define] and [limit] what can be said about something” (439), guide our behavior and thought. For example, self-regulation is enacted by prisoners in a panopticon-prison structure, in which a guard tower can see into all the prison cells, but no one can see directly into the tower to know if the guard is standing watch or not. It gives a “Big Brother” sense to the world so that one never knows if one is being watched, so one must behave docilely at all times. It reminds me of George Orwell’s 1984; everyone is being watched, and no one knows for certain if the government has seen you perform something illegal until it is too late. Someone I know had put a fake security camera in front of his driveway to ward off potential criminals. While it was a real camera positioned outside, it was not even turned on. I did not know at the time that this is an example of an inspecting gaze; I only knew that it allowed him power over the criminals as long as they did not know it was fake.

Other theories of power come to light in this chapter. The concept of power/knowledge comes into play because it finds that most societies function through cooperation, not coercion. American society seems to be based upon this principle because citizens vote to allow budgets and certain rules to be passed in their communities. When they are coerced into doing something, they are up in arms, adamantly against something that goes against their rights as U.S. citizens. In societies, biopower becomes important because governments want their citizens to be healthy in order for them to be able to work, defend their countries, and reproduce. The infamous Uncle Sam poster acknowledges this power.

To me, the most interesting images in this chapter concern women. Women are usually regarded as the other, the entity opposing the norm. When they are not from a westernized culture, then they are typically shown as even more “other” in Eurocentric images. Many times, they are drawn or painted as highly sexualized, exotic creatures. These images fascinate me because while Western men have sexualized women in different cultures, they try to control the sexuality and experience of the women within their own cultures. Seen in this light, the non-Western women have a sense of power with their bodies that Western women do not.

American Treasures of the Library of Congress. "The Most Famous Poster." 1917. 11 Sept. 2012.  

          Web.

Sturken, Marita and Cartwright, Lisa. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. New    

          York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

Practices of Looking: Chapter 2

The concept of “intervisuality” brings together a lot of ideas explaining how viewers create their own meanings in visual culture. In the example Sturken provides, the film release of Titanic found great popularity and success through an older Chinese generation. Supposedly, this phenomenon was brought about because crying while watching the film allowed the viewers to indirectly shed their sadness concerning the failed socialist practices that they spent their youth creating. While I am not presented with enough evidence to convince me that this explanation is true, it presents another dynamic of this particular film and its relation to its viewers based on culture and their past experiences.

During my junior year of college, I took part in an acting class that had students observe art in the school’s gallery and create a performance piece based upon the artwork one day. I looked at a painting that had red dice in it. Although I know that the painter did not intend for my reaction, I instantly grew sad thinking about how I connect dice to gambling, which I connect to risk, which I, at the time, connected to my uncle’s new job that would force him to take some risks. This path of thinking led me to remember my aunt, who had passed away a few years ago. When I presented my performance piece, I broke down in front of my class and sobbed throughout my on-the-spot monologue. 

I have no idea what the artist had in mind when she had created her piece, but I gave it my own meaning by connecting it to my memories of how my aunt took a risk and passed away and how my uncle was going to have to leave behind a banal life for a time in order to fulfill his duty. At the time, I did not know that this part of my life exemplified Barthes’ idea of the power struggle between an author and reader (or, in my case, between artist and viewer) within his 1967 essay, “The Death of the Author.” Likewise, my interpretation of the painting shows that intervisuality was also at work; I associated the red dice with risk because of my cultural setting. Perhaps the artist did not intend for this particular cultural viewing.

Coming from a culture that takes pride in its authorial defiance, I am intrigued by the ways employed by some artists to challenge the ideas of “high” and “low” culture. Once seen as tacky, kitsch can now be seen as possessions of educated art lovers. Dada blatantly pokes fun at conventional museum displays and curators’ ideas of high art. Causing controversy by adding “low-art” pieces or playing with the displays is an art form in and of itself; one can bring even more meaning to this action by taking the time to purposefully place certain pieces near each other, such as Fred Wilson’s display of slave shackles next to fine silver in Mining the Museum: An Installation by Fred Wilson. Viewers could not ignore the severe contrast between these two objects and the cultural meanings behind them. While some may celebrate the prestige and elegance of a time period that called for fine silver to be used for teatime, they must acknowledge that this time period also contained human exploitation, cruelty and intense poverty that allowed for such fine things when the viewers see this installation. 

Other forms of defiance manifests itself within bricolage and appropriation. For example, parodies and alternative versions of American Gothic have reflected social values and stereotypes within the original and new paintings. The newer versions that stretch the original’s meaning (or flip the meaning upside down) allow me to view the first American Gothic in a different, more educated light. I had always considered it to be a boring piece of art that did not hold much meaning to me; however, after viewing a few appropriations of it, I know see a few more of its social and cultural implications of the white, Puritanical couple who look as if hard work has provided them with a plentiful way of life. I admire the artists who saw the flaws and false implications within the piece and decided to show the world these falsehoods through new versions of the painting. These actions help our society to understand its own flaws in the hopes of changing for the better.

Practices of Looking: 22-47; Document Design: Chapters 1-3

Ideology affects nearly everything people see. According to Sturken and Cartwright, ideologies are “the broad but indispensable shared set of values and beliefs through which individuals live out their complex relations in a range of social networks” (23). These values, such as familial devotion and the right to free speech in the United States, shape our way of looking at the world. However, not only personal experiences relate and change our ideologies, but the media does as well. Television shows viewers values that may be true to society, but they may be fabricated by the medium itself in order to convey these values as “normal.” It is frightening to think that the media controls our beliefs in what we consider real or natural, when, in fact, these beliefs are false.

Artist Yue Minjun plays with the falsity of smiles in a lot of his paintings. Instead of showing happiness, as many smiles seem to connote, his subjects’ smiles show irony, agony, sadness and a plethora of other negative emotions. All these various meanings are explained by Charles Sanders Pierce, who believed that signs mean nothing unless they are interpreted by our thought processes. This idea stems from semiotics. Barthes took this idea and explained signs as a combination of a signifier (the image or word) and the signified (the meaning of the image or word) (Sturken and Cartwright 29). There are three types of signs: iconic, which resemble their objects; indexical, which coexisted with their objects at one time; and symbolic, which do not have a direct relationship to their objects, such as words. 

The values of images are incredibly interesting, especially in the case of icons. If something is mass-produced and turned into a commodity, nearly anything can become an icon. Andy Warhol embraces the allure of the icon with the celebrity Marilyn Monroe in his 1962 piece, Marilyn Diptych. He reproduces Monroe’s image several times, showing us how ubiquitous she was in the entertainment industry throughout the ’50s and ’60s.

The readings in Document Design opened my eyes to the many ways that a document can be visually appealing or displeasing. Documents are made by the designer in order to satisfy the needs of the client as well as to allow users to effectively interact with the documents. The seven visual variables to manipulate objects within a two-dimensional design consist of shape, orientation, texture, color, value, size and position. I had always known that when these variables are used effectively, they can create a good document. However, I was not consciously aware of the fact that the designer must actively manipulate them before delivering the final document. Before submitting the work, the designer may run into problems with inadequate figure-ground contrast, for example. Then, he or she might distinguish between the object and its background by changing the value of the object so that it can be seen more clearly. I was also aware of the six basic principles of design: similarity, contrast, proximity, alignment, order and enclosure, although I did not know of the different theories that surround these principles and the way we interpret documents.

I understand the Gestalt laws of perception, which include figure-ground discrimination, grouping and good figure. However, I find it unsatisfactory that Gestalt only concentrates on a general human being interpreting documents, rather than individuals or small groups of people. Constructivism makes sense because although we cannot constantly view and experience all things in the world, we take the fragments that we are experiencing at the moment to produce a whole. I find this theory more believable than ecological perception, which insists that we experience everything through direct perception, which allows our senses to perceive things without any indirect neurological responses. Since I believe that I only know my perception of reality, rather than reality itself, it is hard for me to fathom that this theory can be true, even though I wish it were.

I had not previously realized that visual rhetoric can be witnessed in any document. Each document combines ethos, pathos and logos to provide users with a sense of the authors, emotional responses from the users and the facts the document wishes to present. For example, in many Nike advertisements, the company wishes to convey the image of being cool, trendy and athletic. They want users to feel that they themselves will be cool and athletic if they purchase Nike products. It is important in these advertisements to show that the products are made of quality material and will satisfy the customer; it is not important to divulge how expensive these products are.

Sturken, Marita and Cartwright, Lisa. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. New    

          York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

Practices of Looking: Introduction and Chapter 1 (9-22)

Although I had a general grasp of what visual culture is, reading the introduction and first section of Practices of Learning helped define the idea. This book tells its audience that visual culture is the "shared practices of a group, community, or society through which meanings are made out of visual, aural, or textual world of representations and ways that looking practices are engaged in symbolic and communicative activities" (Sturken and Cartwright 3). The writing emphasizes that the exchange of meaning in anything related to visual culture is constantly changing, which gives it new meaning to every individual. Any visual object can become symbolic of a person, place, idea, or any other thing that may hold importance within the time and society in which it is created. 

I also had an understanding of critical theory and have applied it before (probably without knowing it) in my life. I am familiar with the differences between the denotation and connotation of something, both of which can affect how someone responds to a visual object in regards to his/her past experiences and related thoughts. I enjoy focusing more on something’s connotation because it tells me ample information about the culture, society and views on what is being studied. Some terms that are new to me include positivism, the philosophy holding that scientific knowledge is the only authentic, true knowledge in life; studium, which refers to the truth and distanced appreciation of a camera and photographs; and punctum, the effect some photos have that make viewers feel emotional.

It is interesting that at the beginning of the first chapter, the authors are quick to note that the practice of looking concerns power. One holds the power to look or not to look, yet the images have power as well. Sometimes, one can almost not help but look, no matter how devastating or life-changing the visual concept may be. Weegee's photograph titled The First Murder captures this concept vividly. The children in this photograph, who are witnessing a dead body for possibly the first time in their lives, seem almost possessed. They have to look. One kid in the corner is even smiling. A girl's eyes bug out in earnest so that she can witness all the details of this night. It seems absurd to think that these children are looking at the results of a murder. Only a few people look away from the gruesome sight, and only one is in clear distress. The sight of the murder holds too much power over these young children; its novelty practically forces them to watch.

The numerous representations, the images that help us create meaning within our world, shown in the first chapter help the audience understand how they (the images) reflect upon much more than simply upon the objects or people portrayed within them. While Henri-Horace Roland de la Porte's Still Life may show a viewer some fruit and containers, it also gives insight into the life of the owner of these things. It  looks like he or she just ate a meal in the country, where life is simple, rustic and hardworking. The foods may appeal to the viewer's gustatory senses, and the way the light seems to cascade over the objects and table appeals to the visual. In reality, there is no light reflecting off the glass container, but the painter's skill is so adept that onlookers believe the light must be coming in from a partially opened door or window. René Magritte plays with representations in the painting, The Treachery of Images (This is Not a Pipe). Magritte is correct in saying that his painting of a pipe is, in fact, not a pipe. Rather, it is an image of a pipe. It looks like a pipe, but one cannot hold it and smoke it. Sometimes it is difficult to remember the differences between a representation and the real thing.

I am interested in learning more about how visual culture varies amongst different societies and cultures. I enjoy discovering the meanings behind symbols and how one can have various interpretations depending upon who is observing it. Another aspect of visual culture that captures my interest concerns persuasive techniques. How do representations and symbols persuade their audiences to feel, think or act a certain way? How often do they affect me, and in what ways? I would like to become more aware of the thousands of media forms that create an impact upon my decisions, as well as how I can use them to affect others.



Sturken, Marita and Cartwright, Lisa. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. New 
          York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.