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SEEING VISUAL CULTURE Aanchal Kasargod, Lorna Simpson in her…

- - - - The structure of the Panopticon designed by Michel Foucault highlights the way that visibility can be associated with uncertainty and a feeling of discomfort. The prisoners are completely visible to the overseer, and yet completely uncertain whether they are being watched. Their behavior is adjusted by way of this unsettledness. (Foucault, "Panopticism").
      - In the film "All Light Everywhere," uncertainty and unsettledness plays a large role. There is uncertainty of the filmmaker's place in the film, uncertainty among characters regarding body cameras, unsettledness regarding surveillance, etc. In one quote from the movie, an unsettledness in being surveilled is highlighted, but an indifferent, routine unsettledness. The quote reads "These kids don’t care about no cameras. They know they’re being watched. They’re just trying to survive" (Anthony, "All Light Everywhere").
  - - - Claudia Rankine speaks on the politics of visibility, and how certain people are invisible or hyper-visible to others based on prejudice.
        
        In one instance, Rankine being called the wrong name was referred to as "our mistake" in the apology note. Rankine reflects "apparently your own invisibility is the real problem causing her confusion" (Rankine, Citizen).
        
        In another instance, Rankine discussses the racist language as a means to render her "hypervisible" and to "exploit all the ways that you are present" (Rankine, Citizen). Once again, constructs of visibility are driven by prejudice
      - Franz Fanon in "The Fact of Blackness" describes his feelings of being hyper-visible and "caught in a man's gaze." He describes what it means to be alienated on the basis of a visible trait (skin color) and the prejudiced views of differences. (Fanon, "The Fact of Blackness"
    - - Often, blindness is associated with a loss: loss of control and ability. However, this is not the case. While sight is lost, other senses are heightened, allowing those suffering from blindness to be completely capable. According to John Hull, blindness is "a prerequisite for full development, the heightening of his other senses" (Sacks, The Mind's Eye"
      - John Hull considers his loss of visual imagery "a dark, paradoxical gift" (Sacks, The Minds Eye"
      - Georgia Kleege highlights the issues with the "Hypothetical Blind Man", which represents a sighted person's misunderstandings and prejudices about the blind. Kleege claims, the Hypothetical is a "prop for theories of consciousness" (Kleege, Blindness and Visual Culture"
        
        Kleege hopes that the prejudiced view of "blindness as synonym for ignorance, inattention, or prejudice" will end (Kleege, Blindness and Visual Culture").
      - "Country of the Blind" details a story in which the blind are fully capable and adapted to their society, and a sighted man brings his prejudiced view that sightedness is happiness. This is refuted, as the members of the COB say "that, in order to cure him complete, all that we need to do is a simple and easy surgical operation--namely, to remove these irritant bodies.” Here, the cure is actually blindness. (H.G. Wells, "Country of the Blind").
      - In Georgia Kleege's "Molyneaux Redux", she discusses the problem posed by William Molyneaux to John Lock which asked "What if a man who was born blind but had learned to recognize through touch certain geometrical forms such as a sphere and a cube, were to have his sight restored by an operation, would he then be able to recognize these forms through sight alone?" This question itself brings us to the subject of blindness and ability, as well as of knowledge and vision. While it does address the literal spacial ability of someone who is blind, is also provides deeper thought into whether sight ensures clarity and correct knowledge.
- - - - Exclusivity in White
        
        "I feel most colored when thrown against a sharp white background" (Rankine, "Citizen").
        
        Le Corbussier highlights the exclusivity of white by examining its societal associations as "moral", "clean", and "healthy", with the Law of Ripolin signifying the Law of Whitening. However, this overt association between white and purity creates a kind of exclusion: it excludes any other color from the possibility of representing those "moral" characteristics. One important question in particular posed by this article is "what do we think against a background of white?" (Corbussier, "A Coat of Whitewash: The Law of Ripolin").
        
        David Batchelor's "Chromophobia" quite literally represents a fear of color. In this context, white,the absence of color, takes on a new meaning. Often, white is thought of as "pure" or "virtuous" while color is considered "corruptive" . With this in mind, "Chromophobia" highlights white's removal of differences with things that don't belong represented by color. This belief of white as a kind of purging catalyst for things that seemingly don't belong further highlights white's quality of exclusivity. (Batchelor, "Chromophobia").
        
        Yves Klein in "The Evolution of Art Towards the Immaterial" describes white as "absolute" and "a white beyond all whiteness" while noting color as "tainted, humiliated, and conquered" and "trapped in the lines." Here, once again that exclusive quality is highlighted in the color white. He describes the color blue as profound and beyond dimensions, highlighting its differences from other colors that are merely psychological expanses. Klein claims blue represents the intangible and the abstract.
      - White as a dichotomy: Light and Shadow
        
        Lawrence Weschler details the "white light of LA", writing "here in LA, the same kind of diffuse light - no shadows" (Weschler, LA glows). Here, this whiteness of light and the lack of interruption of shadows holds cultural significance. While Weschler details his love for LA in association with this whiteness, Joan Didion portrays a sort of chaos associated with LA (Didion, Los Angeles Notebook"). Coupled together, LA's white light provides a cultural dichotomy for the color white: both vibrance and catastrophe
        
        According to Turner and Stoichita, shadows are often described as "a mark of bad/evil" (Turner and Stoichita, "A Short History of the Shadow"). This further highlights shadows as an interruption, perhaps to white.
        
        In Hans Christian Anderson's "The Shadow", the learned man's shadow begins as just that: a shadow. However, over the course of the story, he becomes his own person. Eventually, the learned man is killed and suppressed by his shadow. This narrative furthers the depiction of the shadow as something inhibitory, bad, or evil. This can be applied to discussions of light and its white qualities, and the way that shadows can serve as an interruption to the vibrant quality of white, bringing it to chaos.
      - Aggressive White
        
        Hans Blumenburg writes that "light is intrusive" (Blumenburg, "Light as a Metaphor for Truth"). Much of light today is described in terms of white light. This intrusiveness can be linked to the color white in general, contributing to the offensive, stark quality of white.
        
        In David Batchelor's "Whitescapes", he characterizes white as an "accusatory white", calling the fully white house "a strategic emptiness, but it was also accusatory" (Batchelor, "Whitescapes"). Batchelor also claimed that inside the all white space, nothing looked settled. This further highlights this aggressive, uncomfortable quality of white that has been understood and associated with by society
      - White's more traditional associations
        
        In "The Whiteness of a Whale", Herman Melville highlights some of the more traditional societal associations with white. To some, it can be a sacred happiness or justice, while to others it can be a symbol of religion or honor, and on the other hand it can be negatively associated with terror, horror, and a ghastly ellusiveness. (Melville, "The Whiteness of a Whale").
        
        In the film "Blonde Venus", viewers are forced to see white. Whiteness of the hair on Helen Caburay and the sparking whiteness of her costume. Here, white is linked to shine, glow, and celebrity. However, with Caburay's constant imitation, it almost seems as if this overt showing of a shining white is made as a statement to dismantle the idea of "white purity" or "white shine"
        
        Like in "Blonde Venus", Hilaria Loyo's "Blinding Blondes" explores the culturally accepted ideal of blondeness and whiteness signifying stardom and brilliance. This work too calls into question the idea that white is normal, and also highlights this exclusivity exuding from the color white. For example, she writes that her article will "interrogate his view of whiteness as an unmarked category assuming the standard of 'normal'." (Loyo, "Blinding Blondes: Whiteness, Femininity, and Stardom").
    - - Paul LaFarge "Colors/Black": In this article, LaFarge describes black as the color of freedom and refusal. He is indicating that black is the color of non-compliance and non complacency, and that this void, this lack of, and this invisibility caused by black is freeing
      - Sexton also mentions black as a "constitutive social, political, and aesthetic power.” This further highlights the cultural associations and responsibilities placed on the color black (Sexton, "All Black Everything").
      - In Jared Sexton's "All Black Everything", Sexton associates black with meaning, a different idea than LaFarge and yet, another cultural association with color. He sees black as a paradox, agreeing with LaFarge in the sense that it can be a color of freedom, but seeing negative aspects of this lack and invisibility, this not doing, which he calls "the negative condition of possibility"
      - In Jared Sexton's article, he quotes Ad Reinhardt, another prominent artist in the conversation of the color black. He says "connotations of black in our culture where our whole system is imposed on us in terms of darkness, lightness, blackness, whiteness. Goodness and badness are associated with black. " -->This furthers the notion that there are many cultural associations with black.
      - Carrie Mae Weems's "Colored People, Slow Fade to Black" is a depiction of African American adolescents in a filter of vibrant color. Weems's purpose was to both show variations on black skin tones and also to push the social and political bounds of color and expand its horizons. (Weems, "Colored People, Slow Fade to Black"
  - - - Multicolor
        
        In "The Wizard of Oz", color is used deliberately as a symbol of fantasy. According to Stanley Cavell, the film allows "color to create a world... a world of an immediate future" (Cavell, "The World as a Whole: Color"). This helps us see the work that color does in conveying emotion and selling a fantasy in film.
      - Sepia
        
        In the sepia toned film, "Persona", the black and white qualities of the film contribute to making the movie slightly incomprehensible and open to interpretation. The decision to make this film black and white was very deliberate. It adds to the emotion of the boy's dream, for example, making it more chaotic and difficult to understand, conveying the emotions likely felt in the dream itself. Seeing as the entire movie is about a mix-up, this black and white quality, the intentional choice for a lack of color contribute to this overall plot-line, conveying more emotion than any other color could. In this film, sepia tones are doing the work of color.
        
        In "The Wizard of Oz", the transition from sepia to color marks a large transition in plot. As Dorothy steps from a postlapsarian world to the prelapsarian fantasy, she movies from sepia to color. (Fleming & Cukor, "The Wizard of Oz").
        
        Stanley Cavell discusses the work that sepia does in "The Wizard of Oz" and in film in general, writing about the "inherent drama of black and white" (Cavell, "The World as a Whole: Color").
    - - In "The Wizard of Oz", the red-green contrast is stark. The red of Dorothy's slippers and within her character as a whole is deeply desired by the wicked witch, helping red represent a sense of unfettered desire and danger. The witch, completely enveloped in green, is always in constant desire of Dorothy's red. It is important to note the fact that red is a primary color, while green is secondary, showing the red-green contrast as the witch's jealously and desire to become primary, when she is stuck in the secondary. All of this emotion and plot is conveyed merely through the interaction of color in film, depicting how color plays a large role in emotion.
    - - In the film "Three Colors Blue," the interactions between blue and yellow hold great significance, particularly in the opening car crash scene. In this scene, there are constant exchanges of blue and yellow light, ending with the boy's yellow skateboard cast aside with happy, lighthearted joy and childhood to allow an overwhelming blue to take over. In this film blue represents the loss, pain, and suffering of Julie, and her desire to internalize her daughter as a means of coping with grief. (Kieslowski, "Three Colors Blue").
        
        Carol Mavor's analysis of "Three Colors Blue" specifically examines Julie's consumption of the blue lollipop, and what this blue means to her. She writes "Julie's eating of the lollipop is an eating of Anna in order to bury he rwithin herself" (Mavor, "Blue Mythologies: Reflections on a Color"). This helps understand the emotional work that blue is doing in this film.
      - Maria Popova highlights the close emotional relationship between yellow and blue as she writes: "As yellow is always accompanied with light, so it may be said that blue still brings a principle of darkness with it" (Popova, 19th Century Insight Into the Psychology of Color and Emotion").
      - Robin Coste Lewis depicts a personal connection with blue. After a life-threatening fall, blue became her transition out of the darkness, much like it is as a color. She discusses the gaps in paintings, detailing how she tried not to fall through, much like Matthew Henson in the Arctic. She also learned to recover in a blue pool, able to fully experience her pain without repercussions (much like in "Three Colors Blue"). (Lewis, "Using Black to Paint Light: Walking Through a Matisse Exhibit Thinking about the Arctic and Matthew Henson")
      - Derek Jarman's film "Blue" and his accompanying text "Into the Blue" details blue's role in Jarman's experience living with AIDS. In the film, the only visual is the color blue. Coupled with Jarman's explanations of his associations with Blue, calling it a "fathomless blue of bliss" and "darkness made visible", Jarman shows the emotion behind blue for him in his film, a color he could still see after battling AIDS. (Jarman, "Blue" & "Into the Blue").
    - - Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison go into depth about the subjectivity of color in their work "The Color of Subjectivity". However, one point in particular stands out: color is individualized, and sensations are incomparable. This means that multiple people can see the same color, but in different ways. This is an extremely important point when associating color with emotion, because similar colors can mean different emotions for different people. (Daston & Galison, "The Color of Subjectivity").
      - According to Walter Benjamin, Color through the eyes of a child takes on a kind of clarity and spirituality. For a child, a rainbow does not become a blur, but rather different nuances of color. A child's pure expression is in color. With this in mind, color's subjectiveness is highlighted. Color is something entirely different to children than it is to adults. After all "“Children are not ashamed because they do not reflect but only see” (Benjamin, "A Child's View of Color").
      - James Turrell also contributes to the conversation of subjectivity of color in his discussions about light. He specifically notes the sky, and how each person's perception of its color can change based on their environment. (Turrell, "You Who Look").
      - Joseph Albers work focused on highlighting the interaction and interdependence of color, and how each person's perception of it is different. He was greatly inspired by Goethe’s Farbenkreis and his color wheel which depicted different colors as different culturally accepted ideas, such as red signifying beauty, yellow goodness, and blue as common. (Albers,"Interaction of Color"
      - Maria Popova in "19th-Century Insight Into the Psychology of Color and Emotion" goes in depth about traditional associations between color and emotion. She discusses yellow as "agreeable and gladdening, and in its utmost power is serene and noble, it is, on the other hand, extremely liable to contamination" while a red-yellow is "warmth and gladness" She highlights blue and its relation to black as " cold, and thus, again, reminds us of shade. We have before spoken of its affinity with black" (Popova, "19th Century Insight Into the Psychology of Color and Emotion"). These associations with color and culture and different emotions provide context into the use of color we see in media and on screen.
- - - - In this same context, Hito Steyerl's "How not to be seen" movie details lessons on how not to be seen including "making something invisible to a camera," "how to be invisible in plain sight, and "more important things want to remain invisible" (Steyerl, "How not to be seen"). Here, invisibility is made to be a kind of superpower, and something that is so advantageous and desirable that lessons are needed to achieve it.
  - - - Ellison also details how, although invisible, he is still held responsible. He asks "how can he be responsible and to whom when they refuse to see him?" (Ellison, "Invisible Man").
- - - - Dawoud Bey's "Night Coming Tenderly" images encapsulate a knowledge that comes from darkness. Each of his photographs are darkened heavily, and the camera keeps the light out, rather than inviting it in. (Bey, "Night Coming Tenderly".
        
        In Shawn Michelle Smith's examination if Dawoud Bey's "Night Coming Tenderly", she breaks down the meanings and significance behind Bey's images. She explains how the purpose of these paintings was to "visualize black presence in the American physical and social landscape." She also highlights how Bey's paintings focus on the Underground Railroad and the African American freedom struggle. Smith helps dissect how the darkness in this painting represents knowledge (Smith, "Photography, Darkness, and the Underground Railroad: Dawoud Bey’s Night Coming Tenderly, Black,” American Quarterly Vol 73 (1), 2021, 25-52."