VISA 1Q98 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Hugh Welch Diamond, Visual Culture, Physiognomy
5 Aug 2016
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Document Summary
Visual culture can both sustain and challenge power dynamics between individuals or groups of individuals. Sometimes this is overt (e. g. : we can think of activists attempting to challenge the status quo through shocking imagery), but other times this dynamic is not so obvious. Many ideas that we take for granted have been normalized through the circulation of images. For example, about the changing ideas about standards of beauty or what is fashionable. Here the concept of spectatorship becomes useful because it makes reference to the fact that visually engaging with images is always part of a broader context. Your readings also introduce the idea of the gaze. This is an important concept when studying visual culture, one which stresses the importance of considering relationships between who is being looked at and who is doing the looking. These relationships can and do change depending on a number of different circumstances.
