Visual Culture free essay sample

Visual culture Visual Culture as an academic subject is a field of study that generally includes some combination of cultural studies, art history, critical theory, philosophy, and anthropology, by focusing on aspects of culture that rely on visual images. Anthropology /? n? r p? l? d? i/ is the academic study of humanity. It deals with all that is characteristic of the human experience, from physiology and the evolutionary origins to the social and cultural organization of human societies as well as individual and collective forms of human experience. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. 1] The term anthropology is from the Greek anthropos ( ), man, understood to mean humankind or humanity, and -logia (- ), discourse or study. Anthropologys basic concerns are the definition of human life and origin, how social relations among humans are organized, who the ancestors of modern Homo sapiens are, what the characterizations of human physical traits are, how humans behave, why there are variations among different groups of humans, how the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens has influenced its social organization and culture and so forth. citation needed] Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. [1][2] Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. [3] The word philosophy comes from the Greek (philosophia), which literally means love of wisdom. [4][5][6] Critical theory is a school of thought that stresses the examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism. This has led to the very literal use of critical theory as an umbrella term to describe any theory founded upon critique. According to critical theorist Max Horkheimer a theory is critical in so far as it seeks to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them (Horkheimer 1982, 244). In a narrow sense, critical theory refers to a style of neo-Marxist philosophy of the Frankfurt School, developed in Europe in the 1930s with a tendency to engage ith the work of thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. [1] Modern critical theory arose from a trajectory extending from the antipositivist sociology of Max Weber and Georg Simmel, the Marxist theory of Georg Lukacs and Antonio Gramsci, toward the milieu associated with Frankfurt Institute of Social Research. Five Frankfurt School theorists were chiefly responsible for estab lishing critical theory as a specific strand of thought: Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, and, slightly later, Jurgen Habermas. With the latter, critical theory shed its roots in German idealism and moved closer to American pragmatism. The concern for a social base and superstructure is one of the few remaining Marxist concepts in much contemporary critical theory. [2] Whilst the critical theorists are usually defined as Marxist intellectuals[who? ], their tendency to denounce so many Marxian elements has been attacked as revisionism by stricter Marxists. Martin Jay suggests that the first generation of critical theory is best understood not as promoting any specific philosophical agenda or ideology, but rather as a gadfly of other systems. [3] Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i. e. genre, design, format, and style. [1] This includes the major arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture as well as the minor arts of ceramics, furniture, and other decorative objects. As a term, art history (also history of art) encompasses several methods of studying the visual arts; in common usage referring to works of art and architecture. Aspects of the discipline overlap. As the art historian Ernst Gombrich once observed, the field of art history [is] much like Caesars Gaul, divided in three parts inhabited by three different, though not necessarily hostile tribes: (i) the connoisseurs, (ii) the critics, and (iii) the academic art historians. [2] Overview Among theorists working within contemporary culture, this field of study often overlaps with film studies, psychoanalytic theory, gender studies, queer theory, and the study of television; it can also include video game studies, comics, traditional artistic media, advertising, the Internet, and any other medium that has a crucial visual component. The field’s versatility stems from the range of objects contained under the term â€Å"visual culture,† which aggregates â€Å"visual events in which information, meaning or pleasure is sought by the consumer in an interface with visual technology. The term â€Å"visual technology† refers any media designed for purposes of perception or with the potential to augment our visual capability. [1] Because of the changing technological aspects of visual culture as well as a scientific method-derived desire to create taxonomies or articulate what the visual is, many aspects of Visual Culture overlap with the study of science and technology, including hybrid electronic media, cognitive science, neurology, and image and brain theory. In an interview with the Journal of Visual Culture, academic Martin Jay explicates the rise of this tie between the visual and the technological: â€Å"Insofar as we live in a culture whose technological advances abet the production and dissemination of such images at a hitherto unimagined level, it is necessary to focus on how they work and what they do, rather than move past them too quickly to the ideas they represent or the reality they purport to depict. In so doing, we necessarily have to ask questions about . . . echnological mediations and extensions of visual experience. †[2] It also may overlap with another emerging field, that of Performance Studies. As â€Å"the turn from art history to visual culture studies parallels a turn from theater studies to performance studies,† it is clear that the perspectival shift that both emerging fields embody is comparable. [3] Visual Culture goes by a variety of names at different institutions, including Visual and Critica l Studies, Visual and Cultural Studies, and Visual Studies. citation needed] [edit] History Early work on visual culture has been done by John Berger (Ways of Seeing, 1972) and Laura Mulvey (Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, 1975) that follows on from Jacques Lacans theorization of the unconscious gaze. Twentieth-century pioneers such as Gyorgy Kepes and William Ivins, Jr. as well as iconic phenomenologists like Maurice Merleau-Ponty also played important roles in creating a foundation for the discipline. Major work on visual culture has been done by W. J. T. Mitchell, particularly in his books Iconology and Picture Theory, and by the art historian and cultural theorist Griselda Pollock. Other writers important to visual culture include Stuart Hall, Roland Barthes, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Rosalind Krauss, Paul Crowther and Slavoj Zizek. Continuing work has been done by Lisa Cartwright, Margarita Dikovitskaya, Chris Jencks, Nicholas Mirzoeff and Gail Finney. Visual Culture studies have been increasingly important in religious studies through the work of David Morgan, Sally Promey, Jeffrey F. Hamburger, and S. Brent Plate. edit] Differentiating Between Visual Culture Studies and Image Studies While the image remains a focal point in visual culture studies, it is the relations between images and consumers that are evaluated for their cultural significance, not just the image in and of itself. Martin Jay clarifies, â€Å"Although images of all kinds have long served as illustrations of arguments made discursively, the growth of visual culture as a field has allowed them to be examined more in their own terms as complex figural artifacts or the stimulants to visual experiences. [4] Likewise, W. J. T. Mitchell explicitly distinguishes the two fields in his claim that visual culture studies â€Å"helps us to see that even something as broad as the image does not exhaust the field of visuality; that visual studies is not the same thing as image studies, and that the study of the visual image is just one component of the larger field. †[5] Cultural studies From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. Characteristically interdisciplinary, cultural studies provides a reflexive network of intellectuals attempting to situate the forces constructing our daily lives. It concerns the political dynamics of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts and defining traits. It is distinguished from cultural anthropology and ethnic studies in both objective and methodology. Researchers concentrate on how a particular medium or message relates to ideology, social class, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality and/or gender, rather than investigating a particular culture or area of the world. 1] Cultural studies approaches subjects holistically, combining feminist theory, social theory, political theory, history, philosophy, literary theory, media theory, film/video studies, communication studies, political economy, translation studies, museum studies and art history/criticism to study cultural phenomena in various societies. Thus, cultural studies seeks to understand the w ays in which meaning is generated, disseminated, and produced through various practices, beliefs and institutions. Also politically, economically and even social structures within a given culture. Celebrity A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media. The term is synonymous with wealth (commonly denoted as a person with fame and fortune), implied with great popular appeal, prominence in a particular field, and is easily recognized by the general public. Various careers within the fields of sports and entertainment are commonly associated with celebrity status. Hero worship Hero worship is defined as the foolish or excessive adulation for an individual[1]. In Wikipedia, you may be searching for: †¢Hero Worship (Sandra Bernhard album), an album released by Sandra Bernhard †¢Hero Worship (Hal Crook album) †¢Hero Worship (TNG episode), an episode Star Trek: The Next Generation †¢Hero Worship, a song by The B-52s which is included on their debut album, The B-52s †¢Hero cult in ancient Greece †¢Apotheosis, raising a person to the level of a deity †¢Cult of personality, a political weapon used mainly in dictatorships Gender Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity. Culture of India The culture of India refers to the religions, beliefs, customs, traditions, languages, ceremonies, arts, values and the way of life in India and its people. Indias languages, religions, dance, music, architecture, food, and customs differ from place to place within the country. Its culture often labeled as an amalgamation of these diverse sub-cultures is spread all over the Indian subcontinent and traditions that are several millennia old. [1] Regarded by many historians as the oldest living civilization of Earth, the Indian tradition dates back to 8000 BC,[2] and has a continuous recorded history since the time of the Vedas, believed variously to be 3,000 to over 5,500 years ago. [3] Several elements of Indias diverse culture, such as Indian religions, yoga, and Indian cuisine, have had a profound impact across the world.