Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Seeing Visual Culture - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Hilaria Loyo, “Blinding Blondes: Whiteness, Femininity, and Stardom” in Questions of Colour in Cinema, ed. Wendy Everett (Oxford and New York: Peter Lang, 2007), Discussion about masquerade films, and how whiteness is often explored in relation to black. Whiteness also seen as a symbol of purity, which leads to the stereotype of white women as pure and innocent
      - Maurice Berger, "Picturing Whiteness: Nikki S. Lee’s Yuppie Project," Art Journal, Winter 2001, pp. 55–56.
        Talks about how every other color is pronounced, while whiteness is assumed. Contributes to the conversation of whiteness as the default and color as the 'other'.
  - - - Syreeta McFadden, “Teaching the camera to see my skin”
        Conversation about having to fight to be seen, even on camera. Cameras have a difficult time depicting black faces and often are better at portraying white ones. The use of grayscale to "not look so off" against whiteness.
        
        Carrie Mae Weems, Colored People, Slow Fade to Black The use of purple lighting as opposed to white light better captures black skin.
        
        Film: Mother of George (Andrew Dosunmu, 2014, Bradford Young, Director of Photography)
        This film is another example of the use of bright colors and warm lighting to capture black skin and Nigerian culture.
        
        The use of colors in this film serve to capture the characters' relationships and comfort with each other. The correct lighting is used to capture their features.
  - - - Monty Python, “How Not to be Seen,” 1971 Video where people hide as best as they can. When seen, they're either shot or explode.
      - Film: All light Everywhere (dir. Theo Anthony, 2021) Tells a history of policing and surveillance. Police cameras were supposed to promote transparency in the policeforce, but were instead used to protect the police.
  - - - “A lack thus loses its negative connotation to become an affirmation, and an absence is received as a much-anticipated presence.” (136)
      - Hito Steyerl, How Not to be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File, 2013
        Shows how to be invisible to a camera. You'd have to be incredibly small (less than a pixel) or hide.
- - - - Georgina Kleege, “Blindness and Visual Culture: An Eyewitness Account,” Journal of Visual Culture Vol 4 (2) (2005), 179-190.
        The 'Hypothetical Blind Man' is often used by philosophers like Descartes for thought experiments, but they rarely can grasp the concept of not seeing. When compared to memoirs written by blind people, it's apparent that many of them prefer touch to seeing, even after gaining vision.
      - Georgina Kleege, “Molyneaux Redux,” Invisible Culture 19 (2013)
        The research done on blind people is often based on the assumption that blindness is a complete tragedy and that the “skills of blindness” are rendered useless once vision is restored. Kleege proposes new thought experiment, where a blind girl has her vision “restored,” and is used for research that’s largely guided by the researchers themselves. She is ultimately discarded once her blindness is taken away from her. This is a commentary about the negative consequences of the stigma behind blindness.
      - H.G. Wells, “The Country of the Blind” (1904)
        Story about a country where every child is born blind. It is assumed that the mass blindness was a punishment for their sins. Our main character is the only seeing person and is regarded as strange for not using the rest of his senses.
  - - - Calmness and Blankness of White
        
        Hans Blumenberg, “Light as Metaphor for Truth: At the Preliminary Stage of Philosophical Concept Formation,” in Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision,
        Claims that light is ever exposing, clarifying, guiding, overwhelming and overall, powerful
        Explores lighting through different metaphors, such as Plato's Allegory of the cave.
        
        (white grid, horizontal strokes 1969) exploration of how the textured paint looks under different lighting/ gains dimension
        
        (white inner band, beveled 2011) how light captures different textured paper
        
        David Batchelor, “Whitescapes,” in Chromophobia (Reaktion Books, 2000), 9-20. The interior of a wealthy person's home is described as seamless and vast. The lack of color, or presence of only one color:white is used to draw the eye to the structure of the interior. Such a vast whiteness that it's intimidating.
        
        Le Corbussier, “A Coat of Whitewash: The Law of Ripolin,” in Color, 82-84. Whitewash on walls as a sign of culture, purity and luxury accessible from the poorest to the most wealthy. Regarded as classic and not to be tainted with any other color.
        
        Herman Melville, “The Whiteness of the Whale,” excerpted in Color (MIT, 2008) Explores white as a menacing color in the wild. This contrasts cultural associations with white as purity and innocence. The whale's underbelly, for example invokes feelings of terror, not sirenity.
        
        Robert Rauschenberg, White Paintings (1951)
        This silent composition relies on lighting and structure to draw the eye, as opposed to bright designs or colors.
        
        Yves Klein, Untitled White Monochrome (1958), Le Vide (1958) This piece of art has no sharp lines or colors to draw the eye; let's the eye wander in its vastness.
      - Joan Didion, “Los Angeles Notebook”
        Conversely, Didion speaks of suffocating heat and blaring light in LA. This piece covers the anger during extreme sunlight, the dangers, the fire. Exploration of light as an extreme.
    - - Plato, The Allegory of the Cave from The Republic, Book VII
        Story of chained people forced to stare at a cave's wall their entire life and believe that the shadows they see is reality. One of them is set free and returns to set the others free. In this thought experiment, they would refuse to be set free and would likely kill the freed person for going against their reality. Makes the point that our realities are limited to what is seen.
        
        Christopher Turner and Victor I. Stoichita, “A Short History of the Shadow: an Interview with Victor I. Stoichita,” Cabinet 24.
        Shadows are critical to art theories. Negative connotations with shadows are based on the western fear of the unseen. Compares Plato's allegory to Pliny's story about the origin of painting. Shadows in the latter are not threatening and conversely, warm.
        
        Hans Christian Andersen, "The Shadow" Story about a man and his shadow’s attempt to keep poetry alive in a society that only cares about appearances. His shadow leaves him and comes back as a person.
        
        Film: Ingmar Bergman, Persona (1966) In this scene, the boy has just put on his glasses, but his vision remains blurred. The use of shadow on his hand makes it look like he’s reaching into something. The use of shadows in this film invoke a sense of mystery.
      - Film: Blonde Venus (dir. Joseph von Sternberg, 1932) The use of shadows in the film serve to accentuate her features, like her sharp cheekbones. The costuming relies on shape and structure in the absence of light.
      - Paul LaFarge, “Colors/Black,” Cabinet Magazine 36 (2009-2010) Critical analysis of black. Conversation about how it's surprising we can register the color at all, given that it's the absence of light completely and our vision relies on light. Claims that it's the color of not seeing/ not doing; comparison of black to freedom.
        
        Jared Sexton, “All Black Everything”
        Political and critical analysis of black, from the BLM movement to the paradox of it being regarded as a color when it is quite literally not one. Also a discussion about life and death in black art by black artists.
        
        Rashid Johnson, Cosmic Stop “Bitter”, 2015 This art reflects on the absence of color as a political statement.
- - - - Film: Three Colors: Bleu (Krzysztov Kieslowski, 1993)
        The color blue is used widely throughout the film to capture a mother's emotional journey after the loss of her husband and daughter in a car accident. Part of a trilogy exploring the emotions of other colors, like white and red.
    - - Derek Jarman, “Into the Blue,” from Chroma: A Book of Color (University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 103-124.
        Color that gives other colors their own vibrations. ”If I lose half my sight will my vision be halved?” (109)
        
        Film: Blue (Derek Jarman, 1993) Movie is told in two parts. In the first part, blue is its own character. In the second, we follow the daily life of Derek, who lived in London with AIDS in 1990.
        
        Seph Rodney, Lorna Simpson Searches for Meaning in the Arctic Ice Covers art and remarks that it takes us into an icy, blue desert devoid of people and life.
        
        Robin Coste Lewis, Using Black to Paint Light: Walking Through a Matisse Exhibit Thinking about the Arctic and Matthew Henson Poem discusses topics about the color blue and its coldness. The author relates it back to her experience as a woman of color.
  - - - Goethe and his color wheel. His theory of colors assigned each one an emotion.
    - - Joseph Albers, excerpts from Interaction of Color (1963) A How To guide on how to trick the eye with colors: transparency, two colors as on, one color as two, etc. Relies on the fact that the human mind and eye can be tricked.
      - Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, “The Color of Subjectivity,” in Objectivity (New York: Zone Books, 2010), 273–83.
        There is no real way to know that we can perceive the same colors. One person's red might be the complete opposite of someone else's red. Color perception varies, but the perception of light intensity doesn't.
      - David Batchelor, “Chromophobia,” in Chromophobia (Reaktion Books, 2000), 21-49.
        "Purging of color is accomplished one of two ways: making it a property of some foreign body, or making it perceived as some secondary quality of experience" (22-23)
        Color is an important part of art and poetry.
      - Walter Benjamin, “A Child’s View of Color” in Selected Writings, Volume 1, (Cambridge: Belknap Press)
        Children perceive color with joy, and don't worry about its depths and different aspects. Makes the claim that color is spiritual.
  - - - Film: The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, George Cukor, 1939)
        Heavily uses color to portray signs of ganer, wealth and luck. The color red, for instance is often a sign of looming consequence, while green is used to mark the goal.