The Global Flow of Visual Culture

Before I wrote this blog I was talking face to face with my brother. My brother was sitting in the middle of nowhere in the remote mountainous terrain of northern Afghanistan eating an apple and talking to me. As an officer in the U.S. Army, he has access to satellite internet connection from time to time, allowing him to stay in touch with us. We talked as if there weren't thousands of miles separating us, chatting casually about family and friends. After reading this chapter, it blows my mind to think that I already take technologies like Skype for granted. It is an incredible resource that allows myself and all of my brother's loved ones to interact with him in personal, face to face way.

In my lifetime, the world underwent a dramatic transfiguration. Images and videos now pass freely through the world wide web, shrinking the globe to fit into the palm of our hands. The way we perceive the world has changed. From multi-national corporations to a person sitting in a coffee shop, the infrastructure and method for communication has radically changed the face of the globe. Terms the text uses like "global culture" would have been considered by a select few only a few decades ago. The development of satellite technology has given people a new perspective. We can see the world in a single picture frame, or in a live video feed, and this localization and familiarization has enacted a global mindset unheard of before the last half of the 20th century. Software like Google Earth make it possible to see the pyramids at Gaza or the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It is seen my many as an impingement on personal privacy because of the in depth, up close ability Google Earth gives to everyone. The idea that we are constantly being watched would have been unheard of twenty years ago. It raises a lot of controversy however I think it can be harnessed help and keep our world safe. With this new mindset, and the ease of visual communication, the once defined borders between countries are starting to fade. The circulation of images has raised awareness of social discrimination and persecution, essentially bringing them into a global light. Along with socio-economic issues, environmental awareness has reached new heights.

Globalization is occurring as we speak. American pop-culture is being viewed and replicated all around the world. Take McDonald's for instance. In every decent sized city there is any number of American fast-food chains. McDonald's adapts to certain culinary ideals, but our culture is being plastiched into a world culture. Media and entertainment are being mass produced and proliferated. Hollywood's products are released simultaneously in cities all over the world. Likewise, we can see movies and art and news broadcasts that are produced in India, the U.K., or in China. I can go on the Internet and watch FoxNews, BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, and any other news corporations by clicking the mouse. We are called the information generation by many because of the propensity to find out anything instantly. The most important concern with globalization that the text brings to light is the shadowing of the minority by seeing only the majority culture. Visual communication around the globe can portray only the needs, trends, and images of the majority. In other words, globalization needs to be taken with a grain of salt. There are aspects of different cultures that we can't understand in a global culture sense. They are beyond the simplification of Wikipedia or a short news story. Awareness is one thing, but misunderstood awareness is quite possibly the greater wrong. It will be very very interesting to see what this millennium has in store, but at the exponential rate of change the globe has experienced in the last few decades, I think we can only expect radical changes ahead.

Advertising, Consumer Cultures, and Desire.

The world we live in...how do people categorize the things they want against the things that they need. Enter: advertisement. The inundation of squawking voices on TV, blaring images on billboards, magazines, Xenon atoms (more to follow), clothes, cars, the internet, and the list goes on and on interminably (don't get me started). I sound a little bit bitter for the simple reason that I'm not a fan of over-stimulation. I like a more simplistic, less invasive lifestyle. The category between desires or wants and needs is, to the benefit of advertisers, becoming less and less of a priority to maintain. As members of the most prolific consumerist nation in the history of mankind, we are the rabbit in the crosshairs--we are the targets of billions of dollars of advertising research--research determined to reach even the most 'jaded consumers,' as our book calls us. The reality of advertising is that escaping it and ignoring it is becoming a battle for the most vigilant of minds. I do not mind some advertising, but I often want to take breaks from them. This is becoming harder and harder because advertisers understand that you can turn off the TV, or TIVO past a commercial, or change browser windows, or read a newspaper instead of a magazine. Subsequently, they have adapted to reach the remotest places. In this chapter, the swath of advertisements is well-framed, giving me a broad perspective of the foundation and evolution of advertisement in America.

Advertising a product means two different things: as the books states, "[advertisement] took place within a context of shifting values" which basically says that ads must reflect current culture to work. (Baudrillaire's idea of the flaneur comes into play here but I will expound that later). Secondly, advertisers make false, over-exaggerated promises which in turn create a simulated reality in and of itself.

Envy, Desire, and Belonging

How many people do you know that put on Axe body spray and expect this is return. Well obviously its a ridiculous claim but for some reason, as far back at "Lifebuoy Soap" people have persisted in buying products for completely irrational reasons. Advertisements have an unbelievable amount of control over the decisions a culture will make. We identify with advertisements. The iPod is recognizable by millions of people with out having to really process the advertisement. They focus on familiarity and visual stimulation and the result of both of these elements is success. Success, not only monetarily, but for simple reason that a consumer will now talk about the ad, think about the ad, and eventually relate to the ad. We desire the product advertised because it is always being pushed into our minds. Making promises of success, wealth, beauty, confidence, and the list never ends.

But what about those clever advertisements...
I mentioned earlier that IBM advertised on a molecular level. Take a look at this picture.
IBM manipulated the atoms of a xenon plate to spell IBM. Pretty cool I think. It is amazing how far and how clever an advertisement can be. Some advertising images grip the senses and the imagination and the curiousity others are in poor taste and resort to banal, primitive attraction. Advertisement can serve as "culture jams" being used by activists because of the preexisting familiarity of the advertisement. The activist promotes their cause by essentially piggy-backing on the visual communicative powers of an advertisement. Like this advertisement, the message is powerfully transmitted through a familiar medium. The double-take effectively pulls the consumer in.

Questions:

Are we living in a simulated reality, created by advertisers?

What is 'going to far' in advertising? and where do we draw the line?

Scientific Looking, Looking at Science

Looking at Science

The book makes the obvious assertion that science is not distinct from culture and just because it is "dedicated to discovering laws of nature" doesn't even come close separating itself from societal trends, ideas, and politics. In fact, science has always been relevant to our culture because it is always changing and revealing more about the world, the human being, and about life as a whole. The fact that science is always fluctuating and coming out with disclaimers, contradictions, and other news that conveniently aligns itself with the mainstream themes is evidence that culture, and by default, visual communication, are integrally connected to the field of science. Science, while being affected by culture, also has an enormous effect on culture (art, advertising, and the law). Like the X-ray on page 348, the image of the hand is a technological breakthrough on one hand, while on the other hand, offering a completely original aesthetic to the world. This was the beginning of a wave of scientific breakthroughs that allowed us to see things like never before. Things like the MRI, CAT, CT, PET, ultrasound, and many more offer unprecedented images that essentially broadened the scope/vision of the average person.

Ironically, science has taken things previously unseen (the use of sound waves in an ultrasound, for instance) and reintroduced them to us, culture, as visual images. The image of a baby in the womb is now common to us, but I can imagine the first ultrasounds bewildered the globe. Visualization, as the book calls it, is whenever something previously unseen, whether sensory, acoustic, etc, has become available visually. Science has literally changed, and continues to change the way we perceive the world. Our perception has not only broadened in a tangible, physical sense, we now manage life from a molecular level. This may seem to most a metaphysical, psychology shift because the average person doesn't deal with life on a molecular level, his or her mind only abstractly understands the molecular existence of a virus, for instance. For some, daily their minds gravitate subconsciously or consciously to the molecular level. Drugs that we people take everyday to fight viruses, or thoughts about genetics, and what kind of traits we are receiving from our parents, all this leads us to images of things invisible without technology. The book makes the point that science has both literally and metaphorically changed the way we understand our bodies or nature. Basically, the interplay between culture and science is anything but mutually exclusive.

The Theater of Science

When I think of historical (pre-photography) images of the body, the first to jump into my mind is Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, or his grotesque anatomical sketches. The Vitruvian Man, is named after the Roman architect Vitruvious, who saw geometry of the human body as a microcosm of the universe. The sketch is now famous for depicting " a symbol of the interrelationship of the human body to the laws of mathematics and structure in nature." All this to say, anatomical, or scientific art such as the V-Man, inherently affected the history of art and medicine. It is through such images that culture and science are fused together. Culture, like science, has always been fascinated by the human anatomy. I guess that explains why nearly every college, liberal arts or otherwise, makes their students take biology. Part of what drives both culture and science to uncover the mystery of the human body is represented by Leiden's Anatomy Theater in which "the practice of science was presented as a wonder and a view into the mysterious border land between life and death." Rembrandt's, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, presents a commentary on the culture and science. The social aspect includes the fact that even important figures in Amrsterdam are interested in the anatomy of a human body, so long as its a "social outcast" like the man is being dissected in the painting. So, to brush over anatomical paintings, people want to know what going on inside them, and just like in the 17th century, we are still having our perceptions changed (paradigm shifts).
*If you have a chance, check this out. It shows our culture's extreme, if not disturbing, fixation with the human body.

Imaging the Body's Interior

Technology has allowed us to see into the human body, eliminating some mysteries and affirming others. The ultrasound, although it is thought by many to be a visual window to the body, is actually an image created by sonar technology. The sound waves bounce back to the sonar with data about the measurements of the object being sonographed. Our culture likes it when things are visual, and on a TV screen, so ultrasounds are converted into images, instead of graphs or numerical records. Prenatal images hold heavy emotional, cultural, and/or religious weight. An ultrasound is the mother's first glimpse of her child and it is only natural that she would cherish that image the rest of her life. Culturally, we see images of ultrasounds in car commercials (like the Volvo ad; fig 9:16) or in political ads like this one on the left. Abortion battles have long kept politics and religion in a heated discourse, and you can bet that both sides have used ultrasounds. It is interesting to look at the 1960s and what they had in mind for this new found technology. Immediately, as in the Fig. 9.18, the proposition of the "Control of Life" entered the scene. Scientific advancement has been used by culture by all sides, pro-life and pro-choice.
Phrenology

During the Victorian Age, especially in England, criminal behavior was an enormously popular study. In this picture, one can begin to understand the lengths criminologists took to unpack and catagorize the criminal mind.

1. What are some images produced in the field of science that have had a notable impact on society?

2. Has science and the increase of visual technologies become political fodder more than anything else?

3. Do you think molecularly throughout your day?

Helvetica

Let's face it, unless you're into typography, a documentary about the life and times of a font won't necessarily grab your attention when you're at the movie store. At the start of the film, I was not altogether interested in Helvetica, or its history, but within the first ten minutes of the documentary, I was hooked. Part of this stems from the aesthetics of the presentation. In other words, it was a very well done film and kept my attention the entire class period. I never realized how much Helvetica encompasses advertising, communication, and design, and after watching the film, my eyes were opened to the phenomenon of Helvetica that was right in front of me. It is everywhere. It is interesting to see how much deliberation and effort goes into designing something seemingly simple--all for the purpose of being culturally transparent. Not many people take a second glance at a Nike commericial or a street sign with the intention of figuring out the font of the ad or sign. The question that the film asks and answers is why Helvetica has become so popular across the globe. I imagine research has been poured into typefaces like Times New Roman or Verdana, but what makes Helvetica stand out? Its ubiquity can only be explained by looking at the tastes and styles of the Swiss designers who created Helvetica. Like the professional, yet captivating film presentation, Helvetica can appeal to nearly any audience, whether it be a billion dollar corporation like Apple or a flyer on stapled to a streetside bulletin board. Maybe it is its clean, sleek look that makes it so popular, but the versatility of Helvetica cannot be dismissed.

Visual Technologies. Image Production, and the Copy

How has the reproduction of images changed society and culture as a whole? The invention of the camera has, for the first time, been able to freeze an image as it actually exists. Cezanne says of photography, "We cannot claim to have really seen anything before having photographed it (185)." It was thought by many that photography was the new and improved way of seeing, making real time vision obsolete. I think from the Joseph Nicéphore Niépce's first photograph in 1826, human's developed a sense of pride that they could essentially 'capture' an image, taking ownership of it. This picture was the first known photograph, rediscovered in 1952. "Niépce captured the photo with a camera obscura focused onto a sheet of 20 × 25 cm oil-treated bitumen. As a result of the 8-hour exposure, sunlight illuminates the buildings on both sides (Wiki)." Techonology has drastically--exponentially increased over the past century. We now carry palm sized 8.0 megapixel cameras in our pockets, taking 500+ pictures a vacation without having to change film or flash. Photographs eventually led to film strips, and then motion pictures. The evolution of image reproduction was undoubtedly rapid, however the adaptation undergone by the culture along side the increasing technology was relatively seamless.

Jean Baudrillard theorized that our culture's obsession with image reproduction and copies would lead to a simulated reality wherein everything we see is shrouded by the simulacra, or the copies. Roland Barthes remarks that film has a 'unique affinity with the real.' Movies like The Matrix used such ideas to create a world where the real is not really real at all, only a reproduction of the real, or the hyper-real. Although this might seem fantastical to most, take a look at the average American's intake of reproduced images in a single day. Two hours of TV in the morning, staring at a computer all day at work, TV at night, a magazine, sleep, and repeat.I think its worth while, in a culture as visual stimulated as ours, to take time to reflect on what we are taking in. Images like Che Guevera, Hitler, Obama, Charlie Chaplin, and dozens of other influential figures have had their pictures artistically modified to fit just about any T-shirt agenda, or bumper sticker philosophy. Our eyes grow so accustomed to these images, like Mona Lisa, it becomes easy for people to piggy-back on top of them, adding a layer of their own meaning. They can be made heroes or fools all in the presentation of a photograph or a piece of art. Obviously then, these images are spun in different directions by political activists. Take this picture of Obama for instance. It is obviously supporting him a beacon of promise and hope for our country. His face is delicately highlighted with red, white, and blue colors, signifying his focus on America. In this picture, someone is trying to draw a clear parallel between these two recognizable figures, using the Obama graphic campaign slogan and his typical graphic design (highlighted red, white, and blue). The agenda of this artists rendition of Hitler is very clear, however ridiculous. Because of the evocativity of Hitler's image, this artists' rendering has a very chilling and powerful effect. As a culture we are collectively conscience of a large number of images.

The question we as culture ask ourselves, is what does it matter if its a copy? Does a copied version of Mona Lisa really have less of whatever the original claims to have. In actuality, the original to most is very anti-climactic, whereas thrilling reproduction that blow her into a larger print or give her tye-dye hair--those can be more appealing and more overall 'value' than the original.

Postmodernism, Indie Media, and Pop Culture

I had never heard of Jia Zhang-ke’s, The World (Shijie) or “World Park” and when I read about it for the first time I was fascinated. My fascination, however, was followed closely by a strong dose of reality after reading about existing travel restrictions on Chinese citizens. With my interest piqued, I looked into these restrictions and learned from www.china.org/english that these restrictions are intended to curb the spread of SARS. Although a tangent, facts like these drive home the fact that we are privileged to have, among many other things, the freedom to travel freely. Baudrillard posits that people like the Chinese who have only simulated representations of real social territories are experiencing ‘all the signs of the real’ without the fluctuation and permutation of the real thing. The postmodern world that we live in, as it transforms, shrinks, and redisplays the world as we know it, is changing the definition of reality before our eyes. The Eiffel Tower, the pyramids of Egypt, and Lower Manhattan constitute reality for those curious Chinese unable to travel and accomplishes at least part of the same thing an American tourist pays dearly to see. World Park is similar to Second Life in that it provides people with the opportunity to visit and 'experience' places, like the the Sistine Chapel for instance.

When Americans travel to Rome, the Coliseum or the Vatican are things to check off their lists. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a tourist thing. Zhang-ke steps back from postmodernism, pointing out the peculiarity of World Park and in his film, he portrays the strain a detached reality/virtual reality has on an individual forced to settle into it. Baudrillard claims that TVs and computers have defined Western Culture. The implications of such a claim ties, or relegates rather, our entire culture to a simulated reality. What we see is virtual and digital copies—abstractions of reality. The book points out the ease in which we move and interact in our virtual worlds, whether Second Life, Twitter, etc. This semester has been especially strange for me, a Super Mario Brothers/Contra for NES kind of guy, in that it was extremely unnatural for me to dive into the world of Second Life. I’m pretty old school when it comes to computer gaming, but for me Second Life hasn’t clicked. I think the main reason for this sentiment is the lack of emotional, sensory interaction with the world—in other words, I haven’t invested enough time or energy for it to become a virtual reality or a simulated “world” for me.

I really like Dave Harvey’s take on postmodernism as a “phase of time-space compression that has a disorienting and disruptive impact… (312).” The world is getting smaller and smaller. In Second Life for instance, the avatars are controlled by individuals around the globe, bringing together different ideas, cultures, and perspectives into the compressed reality of Second Life.

The transition between modernism and post-modernism is hardly a smooth one. Both are interwoven and overlapped together. If self-consciousness is a key feature of Modernism, then Post-modernism is an amplification of this, coupled with an increased global-consciousness.

Shrek (2001) like many other animated films, shamelessly parodies pop-culture and brings together previous images, concepts, and presentations under one composite animated reality. The Matrix, America’s addiction to Starbucks, or the TV show COPS are stereotyped, compressed, and inserted in the movie, all the while presuming that its viewers will identify with one, if not all of the references. This is another example of how our culture is constantly compressing reality into bite size pieces. The internet gives us endless information at our fingertips. We are the information generation as some people would suggest and Post-Modernism is therefore a direct reflection of our keen ability to communicate with others, inform ourselves, and project our ideas to the world (webcams, skype, etc...) while sitting on Bowman Field taking in the sun.

Three Discussion Questions:

1. What are some remnants of Modernity in the Post Modern Era

2. Is 'compressed' reality enough to sustain a culture?

3. Does every simulated world, whether Second Life or World Park, need to be looked at from two perspectives--our perspective and the perspective of the people working to maintain it?