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Visual Cultural Studies is more than the study of images or objects: it is the study of vision and
the visual world.
Visual modes of communication have proliferated and become increasingly significant in
the twentieth century augmenting and displacing written/oral forms.
A tendency toward visualizing existence has progressed throughout modernity. This
trajectory toward more elaborate forms of visualizaton has been characterized as part of a
rational/scientific quest for increasing control over the world through techniques for
recording, documenting, and codifying knowledge. (Power)
Nicolas Mirzoeff and others have noted that the modern world is characterized by the
drive to visualize things which are not visible or visual: the diagram, the map, the
cartiogram, the microscope, the x-ray, etc...
What are the implications of constituting a field of inquiry around looking as a practice as
opposed to a field of object?
Looking (unlike vision) is a language. It is a form of communication that is learned and
Intertextuality:
Is it possible to study diverse forms of visual culture together? And is it useful?
Meaning isn't confined to one discipline: scientific images are interpreted based on
Memory has a strong role in visual experience. We understand a visual image within a
Raymond Williams: Culture is a set of shared practices for making meaning.
The anthropological definition of culture as a "way of life".
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18/08/22, 17:36 lecture notes
an image or text. The same text or image suggests different meanings for different viewers
or for the same viewer at different times. How can we explain this? What factors affect
interpretation?
Meaning is contextual.
Making meaning is an active process--it is not purely a matter of perception or reception.
Meanings are produced not in the heads of viewers so much as through a process of
intervention?
Is there a truly objective or non-subjective photography?
Robert Frank: Charleston, South Carolina (Photo of a black woman holding a white
baby)
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18/08/22, 17:36 lecture notes
Woman on a Bus
Benetton ad with a woman nursing a baby
cropping
Certain images become iconic (they become a type)--they carry an influential interpretive
weight
Iconic images are those that becomes symbolic and suggest a universal meaning. But all
Finally, one could argue that all images have an iconic register.
While the fine art object often is valued because it is unique, it also can be valued because
it can be reproduced for popular consumption.
Museums and institutions such as universities affirm value.
Example: Van Gogh, Irises (1889) Irises (1888)(poster of the painting, costers, jar).
Value and taste as a product of history, rarification, the interplay of interpretive, legal and
economic factors. For example, the laws surrounding the establishment of museums as tax
exempt institutions. Or the policies regarding rights to publicity, copyright and privacy.
(industry, mobility, color and images of the landscape)
Komar and Melamid's "Most Wanted Paintings"
How do popular and expert tastes or preferences relate to economic value of cultural
artifacts?
In what ways does meaning relate to value?
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