Seeing Visual Culture
Hypervisibility
Invisibility
The Observer and the Observed
The State of Concealment and Disguise
The State of Ostentatiousness and Attention-Seeking
Racialization of Visibility
Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison 1952)
"I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."
Ellison's Invisible showcases the socialization of visibility. As a black man living in a racially divided society, people refuse to acknowledge him as a human, and thus the invisibility acts as a facelessness and concealment. While invisibility causes him to be overlooked in society, it also acts as a way for him to unaccountable.
A Short Story of the Shadow (Christopher Turner and Victor I. Stoichita 2006)
Shadows have become an integral part of the theories of art and knowledge throughout history. Shadows have represented the human psyche, a symbol of the alter ego of a human, one that is fueled by darkness. Shadows have become synonymous with the absence of light, acting as a disguise for the person's inner self. Similar to the allegory of the cave, the shadows are used to showcase an inability to change or branch out to new knowledge. #
Ephemerality vs Stagnancy
Untitled (Mary Corse 1969)
Mary Corse's paintings aim to showcase the fickleness and ephemerality of light. Her pieces utilize light as a form of art by allowing the surfaces of flicker. The ephemeral quality of light is demonstrated through a stagnant and plain surface. Similar to the other white pieces, the uniqueness of these paintings stands in the fact that they utilize other elements to showcase the quality of light the artists aim to demonstrate.
LA Glows (Lawrence Weschler 1998)
Highlighting duality of light in LA, Weschler demonstrates the uniqueness of the light in this city. The light in LA can be represented as a sort of haze, with its softness and mellowness. The light obscures the passing of time, causing the residents of this city to be oblivious and unknowing to the passing of time. For LA Notebook and LA Glows, both pieces presents the subtle presence as a way of influencing its citizens. #
LA Notebook (Joan Didon)
"The violence and unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuating its permanence, its unreliability."
Didon presents weather as a way of influencing LA citizen behavior. During Santa Ana, the night seems tense and people seem more on edge, but only for a brief moment. The fickleness of the weather as it comes and goes reflects on the people. Invisibility relates to impermance or something that is subtly present that you overlook. The idea of overlooking is present within the visibility of skin tones. #
The Image and the Void (Trinh Minh-Ha 2016)
The power of being unseen is to be unaccountable, to be beyond power, and to have absolute power. It utilized anecdotes of the Japanese tsunami and its unassuming nature and quietness before the actual event hit to demonstrate the invisibility of the situation. The inability to see what was coming and the oblivious nature of the citizens. Furthermore, the Dalai Lama incident highlighted the power of emptiness and not being there as a statement of political resistance.
How to Not be Seen (Monty Python 1971)
visibility is associated with putting oneself in danger, this is represented by the individuals being shot in this film. To be seen is to put yourself at risk. The sense of not being seen is similar to the icebergs in Darkening. Visibility in relation to being in danger heavily relates to the racialization of individuals. To visible or hypervisible as an black individual often causes them to want the desire to blend in or be invisible, this sentiment was reflected in Rankine's Citizen # # #
Perceiver and the Observer
Using Black to Paint Light (Robin Coste Lewis 2017)
"The light range was so narrow if you exposed film for a white kid, the black kid sitting next to him would be rendered invisible except for the whites of his eyes and teeth." - Simone Weil
The light range of filmmaking is so exclusive and non-encompassing that it was entirely targeted and made for white people. This poem seeks spaces where you can find blackness and reveal the various ways you got power and representation at play.
All Light Everywhere (Theo Anthony 2021)
Film detailing how body cameras distorts the world in front of it. It causes a discrepancy between what is perceived vs the reality. Optics and how we see events are contradictory. As a result, the reality of the situation is often rendered invisible. #
Lorna Simpson Searches for Meaning in Arctic Ice (Seph Rodney 2019)
"language can proclaim, fix in place, define, revise, affirm, recognize, delimit, undergird"
Meaning is a fugitive thing that fades in an out of existence. The human faces hidden within the arctic ice act as a metaphor for negotiating and making sense of what we see solely through sight. Visibility is racialized, and thus, Simpson uses arctic ice as a metaphor for how black individuals are rendered in front of the camera, but also often in life as well. In relation to Citizen, both texts showcase invisibility and hypervisibility as negatives in black individuals lives, either wiping away their individuality or emphasizing their difference or deviance to what is considered normal by society. #
Expansiveness
Into the Blue (Derek Jarman 2010)
Associations with blue expressed through different objects and mediums, describing the color as being a space that you can fall back on, a void, an expansion of infinite nothingness, and fathomless.
Blue (Derek Jarman 1993)
Blue acts as a refuge for the protagonist dealing with loss. It comes and goes, as shown through the sunsets and sunrises. Blue is used as an expansiveness and a limitlessness, coming back in sparks when coping with moving on. #
The Evolution of Art Towards the Immaterial (Yves Klein 1959)
"First there is nothing, next there is a depth of nothingness, then a profundity of blue."
Association of blue with dreams. Blue has no dimensions and has the ability to expand beyond the dimensions we know. It is abstract and unable to be grasped. The inability to grasp this color demonstrates that like white in the white paintings and untitled by mary corse, the color has an ephemeral quality to it. #
Three Colors: Blue (Kieslowski 1993)
Throughout scenes of the waiting room, the car crash, the beach ball, the swimming pool, all instances of blue mark a sense of never-ending pain. As blue is illuminated darkness, pushing out all other colors. The endlessness of blue is synonymous with the expansiveness of grief. Blue in this sense, for a large part of the protagonists life, was also stagnant and a constant. As blue paralleled with feelings of sadness, the color permeated all aspects of her life. # #
Colored People - Slow Fade to Black (Carrie Mae Weems 1989-1990)
A series of photographs featuring black people. The photos are monochromatic and saturated with one color. When other colors are taken out of the frame, their beauty is highlighted through monochromatic shadows. In both Teaching the camera to see my skin, as well as colored people - slow fade to black, both instances showcase how cameras capture dark skin tones. The camera initially physically rejects black inviduals by not wielding the power to capture their skin, yet for white skin, the camera yearns for their presence, shown through blonde venus as well as the La La Land intro scene #
Teaching the Camera to See my Skin (Syreeta Mcfadden 2014)
Film emulsions not catering to market beyond white consumers. Black individuals' features are cloaked in shadows and they are treated as menacing. This implies how black individuals are mimicked to fit a racialized nightmare which dehumanizes them. As a result, this type of invisibility cause by their skin being photographed results in black children hating their skin. # # #
Blinding Blondes (Hilaria Loyo 2007)
"I claim that the presence of black not only renders white blindingly visible, but the black/white polarity in Dietrich also brings out specific sexual, moral, class, and racial meanings in US culture"
Invisibility is also related to normalcy. Whiteness became the norm and the standard of visibility on film and in media. In the golden era of the blondes, whiteness was desired and related to purity. The appropriation of whiteness in movies have been used to justify racism. All other visible things are denoted as unpure or of lower standard. #
White (Richard Dyer 1988)
As long as whiteness is treated as "invisible", it will continue being the default experience. To combat the lack of representation on film, there is a necessity of equal representation of races. Visibility is racialized to the extent that whiteness is normalized and all else is considered hypervisible.The idea that white skin is desired and pure is also reflected in interior design texts such as whitescapes and chromophobia, both instances demonstrate how white is used as the standard, or default skin tone and color tone# # #
The Whiteness of the Whale (Herman Melville 2008)
White is an elusive quality, one subject to change. White itself is not a color but rather the visible absence of color. The indefiniteness of white brings about the ephemeral quality it holds to the objects that it possesses. In the case of Untitled and White Paintings, both pieces utilize light as the ephemeral quality against the white surface. # #
Chromophobia (David Batchelor 2000)
Batchelor details how color corrupts culture. His argument boosts the virtue of whiteness. White, in his argument, is a type of purity and cleanliness that stands out, removing all other color that stains or causing impurity to the world. In both Chromophobia and "Whitescapes", white, the color that typically is used to push forth or make visible the things around it, is now see as the color that rejects all else.
Blonde Venus (Joseph von Sternberg 1932)
Race is seen as a visual display. The links between whiteness, shine, glow and fame establish a sense of inherent racism permeating the film industry. One standout scene is linked in the photo above where a white woman emerges from the contained and removable black skin, as such, the visibility of blackness is demonstrated to be undesired and discarded. Similarly Whitescapes also showcases how all other colors are unpure, and whiteness is used to cleanse the unpurity.
Untitled White Monochrome (Yves Klein 1958)
Similar to Mary Corse's painting, the simplicity of the painting is demonstrated by the use of a singular color.
Whitescapes (David Batchelor 2000)
"There is a kind of white that repels everything that is inferior
to it, and that is almost everything"
description of experiencing a space that is completely white to the point of being ostentatious, minimalist, aggressive all at once. The strategic emptiness acts as a reminder of everything people have failed to become. While white typically lingers in the background, bringing forth whatever colors are tied with it, but in this sense, white stands out as an "uninterruptible" force. For interior design, the use of white is typically thought of in relation to museums and exhibitions. I always thought of white as a background color, a color that is constant and used to make others stand out, however, through chromophobia and "whitescapes", the sense of ostenatiousness and luxury is shown through the use of a conventionally "pure" color #
The Shadow (Hans Christian Andersen 1847)
The shadow is a short fairy tale about a learned man and his shadow. The philosopher sends his shadow around the world to travel and discover places, in doing so, the shadow becomes well educated and acts as a reminder and representation of what the man could have been. The shadow turns from invisible to hypervisible, taking over the man's life. The power of positioning was chosen as this subcategory as a way of highlighting how the state of visibility may influence one's psyche and experiences in life. The shadow, initially being of lower status than the man becomes a better version of the man when he becomes visible to the world, exploring new places. Visibility, thus, becomes a notion of understanding or wielding more knowledge. # #
The Perceived and Observed
La La Land (Damien Chazelle 2016)
The sharpness of light in the foreground insists on a glorious atmosphere, reflective of how LA is romanticized in films. The beckoning of the camera and how the light hits the characters showcase a "demanding" to be seen. In contrast to Following Piece and Suite Véinitienne, the state of hypervisibility, at least in front of the camera, is yearned for. As such, it can be said that the state of being hypervisible is only positive when the subject desires the attention in question. #
Citizen (Claudia Rankine 2014)
Rankine reveals snip-its of racially charged micro-aggressions in the 21st century through experiences in daily life or through media, highlighting what life is like for black women in a white society. Visibility is racialized, causing a black individual to be singled out in all facets of life. To be seen and unseen acts to emphasize black individuals’ deviation from the norm while dismissing their presence in society all at once.
Following Piece (Vito Acconci 1979)
Artist follows a random person on the street until they reach a private place. Examines the gesture of keeping someone in your sight or stalking. A random person becomes hypervisible to the eyes of another and the stalker or follower becomes invisible. What's interesting here is the idea of desired visibility or invisibility. The ability to control one's visibility is seen as a privilege. #
Panopticism (Michel Foucault 1975)
Panopticism means everything being seen. The outer rings of cells is supervised by a central control tower. Panoptic vision is about social control. The central control tower becomes the perceiver regardless of whether there is a person there to watch. While the prisoners in the cells become invisible, the control tower ensures that there is a sense of instability thus prisoners act "better" because there is surveillance. #
Suite Véinitienne (Sophie Calle 1981)
Similar to the following piece, Calle follows a stranger all the way to Venice, phoning police stations and hotels to find out where the man lives. To be an unseen photographer is to be invisible, but at the same time, the person he follows becomes hypervisible. Hypervisibility puts you at focus from the camera and other's eyes, which is sometimes seen as a good thing, the commonality between many of these texts is that hypervisibility, when the subject in question desires it, is good, but when it cannot be chosen or desired by the subject, it is seen as a bad thing. # # #
The World as a Whole (Stanley Cavell 1979)
Color establishes a world of futurity, establishing moods and environments. While black and white is the natural medium, Color suggests make-believe, fantasy, allowing it to stand out against the rest.
A Child's View of Colors (Walter Benjamin 1913-1926)
colors shimmer in shifting nuances, make definite and explicit changes in intensity. Color serves as a boundlessness, filling the world with innocence and harmony. The hypervisibility of color is that it becomes the fluid medium of all changes. The world as a whole and a child's view of colors contrasts the other two texts whitecapes and chromophobia also linked to the ostentatious and attention-seeking subgroup. These two texts present color as a way of grasping attention, enabling the ability to keep harmony and attention. In contrast, the white as explained by the other two texts highlight a difference in view, as such, the use of a variety of colors and white both have the ability to grab attention, however in two different ways. One being a way of establishing the mood and environment and the other being a state of "cleansing" or removal of impurity.
Interactions of Color (Joseph Albers 1963)
"it should be learned that one and the same color evokes innumerable readings"
Color is the most relative medium in art. The visual discrepancies between physical fact and psychic fact is demonstrated through differences in viewers' perceptions. This contrasts to the invisible images where it describes color through machine-to-machine seeing. In that sense color is objective relative to humans, who see color subjectviely. #
The Color of Subjectivity (Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison 2010)
Late 19th century discovery of how "color became a paradigmatic example of private, incommunicable subjectivity". Colors cannot be uniform and thus are up to the viewer to subjectivity determine the value of a color. Again, similar to the interactions of color piece, the invisible images and the perception of color through the computer causes color to become objective and stagnant. #
Invisible Images (Trevor Paglen 2016)
Visual culture has begun to detach from human eyes and becoming invisible. Machine to machine seeing has allowed images to be analyzed by a computer, generating their description on the basis of "objectivity and equality". As a result, the article describes new generations to have to unlearn human seeing and to acknowledge the fact that machines now look at us instead of the other way around. In contrast to the colors of subjectivity, interactions of color and the mind's eye, color becomes objective, as analyzed through the computer.
19th Century Insight into the Psychology of Color and Emotion (Maria Popova 2012)
Refuted Newton's ideas on the color spectrum, suggesting that "darkness is an active ingredient rather than the passing of light". Explored the different psychological impacts of colors and their moods.
Night Coming Tenderly (Dawoud Bey 2019)
Photographer using a world shaped by darkness as a visual inspiration for his pieces. His pieces highlight places that are typically invisible, or not acknowledged very often, such as underground railroad tracks as a symbol of threat of exposure. Similar to the Darkening pieces depicting icebergs, dark colors are utilized in highlighting what was previously invisible. #
Photography, Darkness, and the Underground Railroad (Shawn Michelle Smith 2021)
use of large prints and minimalistic black panels to showcase shadowy landscapes. The aim is to bring the invisible back to light, "visualizing the black presence in the American physical and social landscape". By reorienting what was previously unseen, the viewers see black bodies being overexposed and underexposed at the same time. For both black and white paintings (White paintings and Untitled), their features both emphasize to bring out things and people that are typically overlooked. For this painting, it is bringing to light black individuals' presence in the United States while for the white painting, it aims to highlight and showcase light as a medium of art and exchange. # #
All Black Everything (Jared Sexton 2017)
"To truly see black would require the loss of any visible light, meaning in fact that all would be black."
to see the world in black is to see in total darkness. This contrasts Maria Popova's views of darkness being an active ingredient. #
The Allegory of the Cave (Plato 380 BC)
The use of light and brightness to represent understanding. The observer becomes the person who leaves the cave after being unshackled in search of enlightenment. For the observer, plato insists that knowledge starts with light, and that you must renounce something to gain knowledge.
Country of the Blind (H.G. Wells 1904)
A story of Nunez, a man blind in one eye who discovers a village in which everyone is blind. Nunez observes that the entire town has adapted to blindness and as a result, he emerges with his vision back to the rest of society. This story explores assimilation and individualism through sight. In context, the one with sight is perceived to be a disability. Hence, it can be seen that assimilation is done through blending in with the dominant group, even if its not necessarily right. This is showcased towards skin tones as well, white individuals are seen as the norm and thus black individuals feel the need to hide away as they are seen as "deviant", even though the desire towards whiteness is caused by a social construct. #
The Mind's Eye (Oliver Sacks 2003)
anecdotal description of how the blind see. The way of perceiving explained as not just through sight but through other senses. The ability to look at the world in influenced since childhood. How one observes in their future is influenced by the environmental factors within their youth and what they are exposed to. In relation to the subjectivity of color in The interactions of color and the color of subjectivity, color becomes subjective to the observer who examines the piece. #
Darkening (Lorna Simpson 2019)
the depiction of icebergs slipping in and out from blues, to whites, and to blacks and well as the usage of darker colors all highlight and bring out the themes and motifs of gender, race, representation and history, things that are typically glanced over and not focused on. #
The Fact of Blackness (Franz Fanon 2000)
Explaining the alienation through colonial violence. Identity is established upon the skin. The recognition of differences is acknowledged but Fanon also acknowledges that being a black individual means that they are responsible for their body, their race, and ancestors. The desire to be visible by the dominant race group, typically whites, is shown to be a positive thing. In The Shadow, visibility is also associated with a positive connotation of having more knowledge. However, for black inviduals, visibility only further emphasizes their blackness, hence isolating and seperating them from the norm. Visibility for black invisiduals only accentuates their difference, reducing their individuality to solely their skin color.
Colors/Black (Paul LaFarge 2009-2010)
Being black is the color of what might have been. The visibility of their skin causes them to stand out against the rest, meaning that their individuality is built from the basis of their skin. "When people like me, they tell me it is in spite of my color. When they dislike me, they point out that it is not because of my color." Hypervisibility is not seen as a good thing for black invidiuals. The focus becomes an emphasis on their skin and race, causing many individuals to want to blend in and become invisible, as shown in Rankine's Citizen. #
A Coat of Whitewash (Le Corbussier 1925)
Law of Ripolin - demonstrating that "whitewashed walls had a spiritual and moral cleansing power". In such, he associates whiteness with purity and nudity. This also plays into the cultural construct that white is exclusive and the norm. White is seen as stagnant. It is the typical color used on the walls in most households, it is used in hospitals, museums, and most public facilities. Hence, white can be seen as the norm in both skin color and buildings and everyday objects. # #
Persona (Ingmar Bergman 1966)
Persona is a mask, an attitude adopted by a person based on their societal role. Persona can also be a way of describing ones ability to be invisible, blend into the crowd, and conceal themselves against other's judgement. As the boy touches the face in the background, he encounters a 4th call, the face fades in and out of focus acting as a hinderance of sight. In How to not be seen, the persona or mask is represented by physical objects. In both cases, the idea of inviisbility is related to concealment and disguise as they hide away their true self for either acceptance or safety. In Citizen, to be invisible is to sacrifice one's identity. # #
Light as a Metaphor for Truth (Hans Blumenberg 1993)
light is only seen in what it lets become visible. Light demands to be seen, there is a ostentatiousness in its nature. It demands ecstatic attention. This is reflected in the La La Land intro scene when the harsh lights hit the faces of the subjects in camera, the individuals yearn for the attention of the camera this way.
Molyneaux Redux (Georgina Kleege 2013)
This text is an analysis of William Molyneaux's question. Hypothetical thought experiment. When the main girl experimented on is observed, she feels pressured to use sight when she relies on other senses more. The result becomes worse than when she didn't have sight to begin with.
Blindness and Visual culture (Georgina Kleege 2005)
breaking down stereotypes of blindness. When blind individuals feel pressured to use other senses over sight due to scientists expectations of how they will utilize sight. When being pressured to act in a certain way, previously blind individuals feel the need to assimilate and use sight as a way of justifying the experience when it is in reality not their main source of perceiving the world. #
The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming 1939)
The use of color in this film to showcase fantasy. Color in this case, like how it was described in the child's view of colors is utilized to create a consistent region of make-believe. The immersion into this world is a type of entrapment. Color is used to enclose people in a sense of unreality. # #