My last post reminded me that I wanted to say something about Sena Clara's exhibit in our campus gallery. I really appreciated that she took time to talk to us about her work. Although, I enjoyed looking at the whole exhibit, I felt most interpellated by Sena Clara's work, especially after she explained how and why she created her work. I found myself even more curious about the process of how she edited each photo to achieve the end result. But what I loved the most was her honesty about the embarrassment she felt using a cell phone camera to capture images. I can really relate to that! In my job, I take pictures of the houses I list and although I don't consider myself an artist, I do take pride in getting showings on a house quickly when my photos show the house in a positive way, especially if I'm able to make the house look better than it actually does, and even more so when I used my cell phone to take the photos! I used to routinely use it and I would always try to arrange a time when the seller wouldn't be there...so they wouldn't catch me using it. Occasionally sellers ask me if I'll be using a "professional" photographer to take the photos. Wouldn't it be fun if I said "yes, I will" and then brought Sena Clara over with her cell phone?

On Aesthetics and Taste...

Why do we stop and gaze at a work of art or photo?...because it brings us pleasure. However, there could be many reasons that we find the piece 'pleasurable' to look at. There are people who find pleasure in looking at something that others find sick & disgusting, so it's still comes down to individual taste, right? No. It's been shown that "taste" is influenced our experiences...background, social class, our level of education, etc. Society often labeled people as to whether we are high class, low class or no-class based on our tastes. Well, thank you to art critic Clement Greenberg who help boost the status of people like me, for arguing the kitsch (I love that word) is art, too.

Moving on to the next section "Producers Intended Meanings". The authors are refering to a point made by French theorist Roland Bathes that text offers "a multidimensional space that the reader deciphers or interprets" and that images and media may hold different meaning for different readers/viewers. They've made Barthes concept pretty clear but then they go on to say..

"Barthes advocated for the work of a critical and analytical reader whose interpretive practices are grounded in the historical contexts and postions from which texts are always read, as a means of showing how the authority of the author as the primary producer of the literary text is in fact a myth."

Then they try to explain what Barthes means here by saying...

"His point was, in part, that texts are produced in the act of reading them and that these acts are performed from the cultural and political perspectives of readers and never fully according to the intentions of the author or producer."

Wow...that really clarified it for me! Ha!

I think what they are trying to point out is that an authors intended meaning may be not be how the viewer/reader interprets it. Any thoughts?

Hello! I'm back after a long vacation from blogging. While I've been away, I have been doing my assigned reading from "Practices of Looking", I just haven't be blogging about it. I have a hard time doing that, so I've been trying to figure out why, and also, how to get started again. I thought maybe I had "blogaphobia" and maybe I do. Maybe its easier once you get to know your audience a little better. But I think I've figured out the real reason that I've had such a hard time and what I can do to get going again.

First of all, I really don't care for the writing style of at least one of the authors...I don't feel interpellated by much of what they say, and I think the reason is that (in my opinion) they often take a relatively simple concept and use sentences that are much too long to explain it. I know that I have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and that my mind can easily wander sometimes when I'm reading, but this book just doesn't help that. So, after doing the Wikipedia assignment, I came up with an idea....When I come across the sentences that I think make a concept confusing, I'll just post it here and maybe we can break it down into something a littler simpler. Of course, when I went back to the beginning of Chapter 2...Viewers Make Meaning...I couldn't find a good example. This concept in this section is pretty clear I think. "Some images strongly interpellate viewers, some do not." 50

Whenever I've gone to an art gallery or museum with someone else, I notice that I'll get stuck gazing at a work of art that really speaks to me...draws me in. The person with me may go quickly by it, and maybe even quickly past everything, and then hang around waiting for me to finish. I feel rushed and don't enjoy my time there as much. So, I've decided that I should go by myself, that way, when I feel interpellated by something, I can stay at look as long as I want to.