Prof Zeki's Musings: Abandon the search for perfection?

Prof Zeki's Musings: Abandon the search for perfection?

Our cultural inheritance shapes the way we see. For example, research has shown that those who live in a city or town are particularly well attuned to horizontally and vertically oriented lines because that is mainly what they see in the form of buildings, streets, and so on. That is not the case for those who spend most of their time in an environment dominated by oblique shapes. “to see in the fullest sense of the word, it is not enough to open your eyes; you also must come with an open mind.”

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Disscution: Reading the Gaze: The Construction of Gender in “Rembrandt”Mieke BalThe Gaze and the Glance Nude mature women (object of looking) & Blind old men (subject of looking).
Other ReferencesFoss, Paul. (1986) 'Eyes, Fetishism, and the Gaze," Art & Text XX (February-April, 1986, 24-41.
Jay, Martin. (1986) 'In the Empire of the Gaze: Foucault and the Denigration of Vision in Twentieth- Century French Thought,' in Foucault: A Critical Reader, ed. David Couzens Hoy. Oxford.
Bataille, Georges. in Denis Hollier, Against Architecture: The Writings of Georoes Bataille trans. Betsy Wing. Cambridge, Mass., 1989,15-19.
Bryson, Norman. (1986) 'The Gaze in the Expanded Field,' in Hal Foster's vision and visuality, Seattle: Bay Press, 1988. Number 2 DIA Art Foundation Discussions in Contemporary Culture: 87-113

Disscution: Reading the Gaze: The Construction of Gender in “Rembrandt”
Mieke Bal

The Gaze and the Glance Nude mature women (object of looking) & Blind old men (subject of looking).

Other References
Foss, Paul. (1986) 'Eyes, Fetishism, and the Gaze," Art & Text XX (February-April, 1986, 24-41.
Jay, Martin. (1986) 'In the Empire of the Gaze: Foucault and the Denigration of Vision in Twentieth- Century French Thought,' in Foucault: A Critical Reader, ed. David Couzens Hoy. Oxford.
Bataille, Georges. in Denis Hollier, Against Architecture: The Writings of Georoes Bataille trans. Betsy Wing. Cambridge, Mass., 1989,
15-19.
Bryson, Norman. (1986) 'The Gaze in the Expanded Field,' in Hal Foster's vision and visuality, Seattle: Bay Press, 1988. Number 2 DIA Art Foundation Discussions in Contemporary Culture: 87-113.

The object stares back: on the nature of seeing By James Elkins
Elkins argued in regard to notion that seeing is a simple action. "Seeing is metamorphosis, not mechanism." (12). Elkins' "Blindness" discussed the blindness as the opposite of seeing and examines the complexity that follow the concept itself. Vision is described as the act originated from the early hunting. He argued that all goes through a process and observation. “Vision runs back and forth from objects to eyes, and whatever is seen also sees...seeing is self-definition. Objects look back, and their incoming gaze tells me what I am.” (86) Vision is an incomplete process, for we cannot truly see everything. Elkins references Georges Bataille, who claims three objects cannot be seen: the sun, genitals, and death. (103). A series of questions follow his argument of vision such as Why are these objects problematic for vision? How do we bridge this shortcoming of vision? What is the connection between visual comprehension, linguistic reference, and anatomical reference?Elkins argue that if blindness exist in old age it also exist on the infants. He poses questions "How did I see as an infant and what did I see?" (p. 202). In connection with the memory he argued that blindness and memory go together and in early infancy this link has not linked yet.Elkins touches upon collective memory: "Since seeing can be dependent on memory, and blindness on forgetfulness, it is not extravagant to find the same relations in collective memory-in history-as there are in individual memory. Entire cultures have disappeared into blindness because they let themselves be forgotten..." (203)

Just read Adolf Loos's "Ornament and Crime". A very interested piece.What he wrote was based on some key principals such as: The embryo passes through the stages of the development of animals and the child through the stages of development of mankind, at which point he becomes aware of the color violet which wasn’t known before the 18th century as some of today’s colors will not be recognized until the future. The child, is amoral but not criminal, whereas a modern man who ate his enemies would be. The urge to ornament one’s face and other things is the origin of fine art. All art is erotic. The first artwork was to rid the artist of natural excesses. Horizontal and vertical lines represented male penetration, and the creative joy was the same as that of Beethoven. Objects without ornament in the past were carelessly thrown away, and any rubbish with the smallest ornament was collected and displayed. Every period had a style, which meant ornament. Our period however does not: it is important because it cannot produce new ornament, has out-grown ornament. The streets will now glow like white walls.

I went to see the movie The Hurt Locker of Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow. In my opinion the entire movie was based on image emotion effect on a realistic documentary type of style. Very heavy, emotional, and some realistic (unfortunately this happened in the world).According to the NYtimes “The Hurt Locker,” directed by Kathryn Bigelow from a script by Mark Boal, "is the best non documentary American feature made yet about the war in Iraq. This may sound like faint praise and also like a commercial death sentence, since movies about that war have not exactly galvanized audiences or risen to the level of art"The movie uses the images to address emotion to the extreme points. The movies also make a connection between individual and society.Ann Kibbey’s Theory of the Image is based on a concept of the image as a dynamic relation rather than a thing. In three essays Kibbey contends that the image itself is an ideological construct.

There was a publication referring to the Gombrich's The Story of the Art in the British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 36, No. 3, July 1996.Woodlield, R. (1996). In reference, according to Gombrich the entire history of art may be matched against an illusionist ideal. At this point the term of the word "relative" was used as the aversion to the doctrine of the absolute relativism. The answer is given to the first sentence in the introduction of the book "There really in no such a things as Art. There are only Artists" (Gombrich, 1995, p. i). At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York he said that everything implies to the theoretical position of art. He also proposed to back to the early usage of the word "Art" that signified any skill or mastery. (September 1995, Phadon Press).

Referring to McLuhan "The Medium is the Message" a very interesting piece. His argument guides to understanding environments, especially new ones as they enter and pervade society and how the world wide web is threatening to liberate the old information monopolies from governments and big corporations. In connection with my other post in regard to the images in the connection with our culture "long accustomed to splitting and dividing all the things as a means of control,...the medium is the message. Now more relevant than ever, the impact of new media illustrates how our senses and perceptions are altered as these devices become integral parts of our lives.

Image Culture