Now that I have come to the end of the Course and awaiting my Tutor's comment on my last Assignment it seems an appropriate time to try and evaluate what I have gained from the Course.
It is difficult to make a definitive statement because I believe that the benefits will only be apparent as time goes on and I realise the impact it has had on my thinking. However there are some clues. Recently a photograph sold for roughly £3m. It was shown on television and first impressions were not good. It seemed to be four stripes of colour and was entitled 'Rhine'. Before the Course I would have dismissed it as being part of the sometimes crazy world of art. On this occasion I approached it differently and saw the very simple way the photographer had depicted the Rhine. The stripes were the sky, the bank, the river, and the opposite bank. All the information was there in a minimalist way. Whether it was worth £3m is not a real question because that is the value that someone placed on it and it follows that that is its worth until the picture comes on to the market again.
Other clues lie in the way that I now analyse images (my major is photography) and seek the signs within the image that provides the information about the photographer's thinking at the time he completed the image. I make the distinction here between the taking of the image and its final form because of the almost infinite number of chances there are to change the initial shot before creating the final image. It is interesting to work out what is included and what has possibly been left out. Of course there remains the problem of whether my interpretation is close to the intent of the photographer. The change is significant because my approach prior to the Course to any photograph was solely on its technical merits and the use of tonal values and composition.
It would be true to say that this was one of the most difficult Courses I have ever taken which given that I have a BA Hons and an MA degree says something about the content of the Course. Looking back I believe that many of the difficulties arose because of my previous learning and my natural inclination to use an analytical approach. The philosophy I studied earlier was primarily analytical whereas the Course offered the continental approach and the thinking of Marx, Lacan, Derrida and others. I found this approach unsatisfactory and confusing. It seemed to be a series of statements the validity of which was questionable and apart from Marx, whose work is set in the stone of his death, the views changed over time occasionally reaching the point that they made very little sense. There was a need to take things at face value and not question too deeply the underpinning thinking. It was made more difficult because in researching the background it was very easy to find scathing criticism of any particular approach/idea that was not solely the usual venom found in academic work designed to discredit a rival academic.
There was also the problem of unfulfilled expectations. When electing to take the Course I assumed, without any grounds at all, that there would be some discussion and examination of the individual and his/her interpretation of the world as each of us see it. I can see the attraction of lumping together huge groups of people under one title such as Western Culture from an academic point of view but I feel that such an approach misses the richness and diversity within that Culture. It was of interest that when visiting an exhibition with tutors and students from the OCA and taking the opportunity to listen to the conversations and group discussion the variety of opinions that were expressed by what one would have considered to be an homogeneous group. The underlying approach of the Course is collectivist based on Marxist theory and followers of such thinking. So be it and I do not doubt the validity of such an approach but perhaps an examination of the way that Marxist theory has been used in the real world would suggest that the collectivist approach may not be the most illuminating way to think about Visual Culture.
Perhaps the final word should go to my wife who when told that I had submitted my final assignment responded "You will miss it". I will because it was not only difficult but stimulating forcing me to challenge long held assumptions.
Sunday 20 May 2012
Friday 18 May 2012
Assignment 5
Just sent my final assignment to my Tutor. Await his comments with interest and in the hope that I can submit all my work for assessment in July 2012.
As I was doing the research and writing I found myself thinking that the Course tended to deal with people as a large homogeneous mass who, having been raised in a large group such as Western Culture, would see the world in much the same way. I have very serious doubts that this is the case. If we look at groups that have been raised say just in Great Britain we know that there will be differences both large and small even within similar communities. Leaving aside the class divide that remains a significant part of the world in which we live we only have to consider the effects of different educational experiences from the under-performing school in a deprived area to the highly regarded school in an affluent area.
I have the feeling that Visual Culture as an academic exercise is somehow missing the point by concentrating on the differences between Western/Eastern culture or using such large groups as women or men to make what are supposed to be learned pronouncements. For those of us who experienced the Feminist rhetoric from its strident beginnings to its more reasoned approach as seen now it is only too clear that there was a desire to jump on the band wagon of the work of Lacan and others and to produce not well thought out theories that were not only rejected by men, as would be expected, but also the vast majority of women.
It seems that Visual Culture is based on a number of different and sometimes conflicting theories whose base was originally another discipline. For example Lacan was a psychoanalyst and his trying to make sense of the world was centred around the individual. Derrida introduced the idea of deconstruction and whilst this has relevance to visual culture studies it was more concerned with the wider philosophical field. Foucault was a historian and philosopher primarily associated with structuralism and post-structuralism. Although, again, these ideas can be useful in the world of visual culture that was not their original purpose and there has been some 'stretching' of them to make them more relevant and sometimes the stretching causes a tear in the fabric. Althusser concerned himself with the works of Marx and his impact on our way of thinking. Inevitably his approach is that of the collectivist that has its place in visual culture theory but fails to take account the differences of the individual that underpins the diversity and richness of all cultures. Saussure offered remarkable insights into linguistics although his work is now criticised 'for being of its time' i.e. it has become outdated as the studies of linguistics has moved on as the use of language changes.
Like physics there is no Grand Unifying Theory (GUT) that underpins studies of visual culture so that the practitioner is able to pick and choose methodologies and theories that best suit his personal point of view. Whilst this can make for exciting discussion it necessarily leads to unresolved differences with and rejection by others in the field. Perhaps this is no bad thing but it does leave the discipline apparently thrashing about in the dark with no clear idea of where it is going. The strong message I got from Terry Eagleton's book after theory is best summed up by the book description in the Kindle library:
As I was doing the research and writing I found myself thinking that the Course tended to deal with people as a large homogeneous mass who, having been raised in a large group such as Western Culture, would see the world in much the same way. I have very serious doubts that this is the case. If we look at groups that have been raised say just in Great Britain we know that there will be differences both large and small even within similar communities. Leaving aside the class divide that remains a significant part of the world in which we live we only have to consider the effects of different educational experiences from the under-performing school in a deprived area to the highly regarded school in an affluent area.
I have the feeling that Visual Culture as an academic exercise is somehow missing the point by concentrating on the differences between Western/Eastern culture or using such large groups as women or men to make what are supposed to be learned pronouncements. For those of us who experienced the Feminist rhetoric from its strident beginnings to its more reasoned approach as seen now it is only too clear that there was a desire to jump on the band wagon of the work of Lacan and others and to produce not well thought out theories that were not only rejected by men, as would be expected, but also the vast majority of women.
It seems that Visual Culture is based on a number of different and sometimes conflicting theories whose base was originally another discipline. For example Lacan was a psychoanalyst and his trying to make sense of the world was centred around the individual. Derrida introduced the idea of deconstruction and whilst this has relevance to visual culture studies it was more concerned with the wider philosophical field. Foucault was a historian and philosopher primarily associated with structuralism and post-structuralism. Although, again, these ideas can be useful in the world of visual culture that was not their original purpose and there has been some 'stretching' of them to make them more relevant and sometimes the stretching causes a tear in the fabric. Althusser concerned himself with the works of Marx and his impact on our way of thinking. Inevitably his approach is that of the collectivist that has its place in visual culture theory but fails to take account the differences of the individual that underpins the diversity and richness of all cultures. Saussure offered remarkable insights into linguistics although his work is now criticised 'for being of its time' i.e. it has become outdated as the studies of linguistics has moved on as the use of language changes.
Like physics there is no Grand Unifying Theory (GUT) that underpins studies of visual culture so that the practitioner is able to pick and choose methodologies and theories that best suit his personal point of view. Whilst this can make for exciting discussion it necessarily leads to unresolved differences with and rejection by others in the field. Perhaps this is no bad thing but it does leave the discipline apparently thrashing about in the dark with no clear idea of where it is going. The strong message I got from Terry Eagleton's book after theory is best summed up by the book description in the Kindle library:
- The golden age of cultural theory (the product of a decade and a half, from 1966 to 1980) is long past. We are living in its aftermath, in an age which, having grown rich in the insights of thinkers like Althusser, Barthes and Derrida has also moved beyond them. What kind of new, fresh thinking does this new era demand? Eagleton concludes that cultural thinking must start thinking ambitiously again - not so that it can hand the West its legitimation, but so that it can seek to make sense of the grand narratives in which it is now embroiled
The book 'After Theory' was published by Penguin Books 2004. The Kindle edition is obtainable from Amazon Books. The quote is from the 'Book Description' provided by Kindle.
Saturday 12 May 2012
The Gulf War did not take lace
Baudrillard made a prediction that the Gulf War would not take place on the eve of the start of the war. He believed that the simulations played out by the generals of both sides would show that to proceed would be a mistake. The simulations would have replaced the 'real' war where actual people were killed or maimed. His belief that simulations had replaced would have been dramatically proved. However it could be argued that this, as with all simulations, was a specific case. There is little doubt that simulations that were played out during the Cold War to ensure that the launching of nuclear missiles would result in the annihilation of the initial aggressor enforced an uneasy peace at the global level. At the smaller conflict level this was not the case and the number of conflicts where the superpowers, through proxies, fought for domination in a particular area of the world were a constant part of the latter part of the 20th Century.
Baudrillard ignores the personalities of those involved (the military can only justify its existence through involvement in battle so have a pre-conditioned response to any perceived threat and the politicians know that to win a war is to ensure increased chances at the polls so the major deciders have an interest in going to war). In a world where logic and clear thinking rules war would be impossible - it is the vagaries of the human population that seems intent at some point in time in destroying itself. That Baudrillard was wrong was proven the very next day.
Having lost the first argument he then moved on to suggest that what was happening was not a war and that the Americans were not fighting to win a quick and decisive battle but to demonstrate to onlookers there considerable might. His argument is based on the lengthy air war before the ground war began. Although bombs were being dropped and cruise missiles were destroying their targets together with anyone in the area what was happening was no doubt real to those in the firing line the Americans were not really fighting so spectators were experiencing a simulation.
It is necessary to first accept that the Americans were not really fighting but this is to misunderstand the nature of modern war. Baudrillard argues that the relatively small numbers of casualties compared with previous wars made it difficult to see this war as a real war. He does not state what level casualties have to reach to make something real because to do so would make obvious the weakness of his argument - is 500,000 death enough or must it exceed say a million. Does the death of one individual mean less than the death of hundreds of thousands? By Baudrillard's standards the Second World War was not a war because by comparison with the 1st World War the number of deaths was small. Generals in the 1st World War saw the death of thousands of men in one day as an unavoidable price to pay to make the most paltry of gains. Seen as a totally unacceptable view, Generals in the 2nd World War tried to reduce the number of casualties by dominance of the air and preventing the enemy from mounting an appropriate response. Heavy reliance was placed on technology and fighting at a distance and this can be seen in other conflicts.
Aware of the unpopularity of the War at home the American Generals used their supremacy in the air to ensure that when the ground battle began casualties would be as low as possible. They were successful but they had still fought a war - not least because war had been declared.
I find it difficult to take Baudrillard seriously despite his earlier work on simulations. He took up more and more extreme positions - even to the extent that he proposed that in future there would only be simulations and that simulations can never be detected - and when challenged by events such as the Gulf War invented his own simulated world in which he was never wrong. However one should never throw the baby out with the bath water and he has a great deal to say on other topics that seem well grounded in the real world or perhaps I only see the simulation.
A major source of information for this piece was the article at
http://www.socresonline.org.uk/9/2/raffel.html
Baudrillard ignores the personalities of those involved (the military can only justify its existence through involvement in battle so have a pre-conditioned response to any perceived threat and the politicians know that to win a war is to ensure increased chances at the polls so the major deciders have an interest in going to war). In a world where logic and clear thinking rules war would be impossible - it is the vagaries of the human population that seems intent at some point in time in destroying itself. That Baudrillard was wrong was proven the very next day.
Having lost the first argument he then moved on to suggest that what was happening was not a war and that the Americans were not fighting to win a quick and decisive battle but to demonstrate to onlookers there considerable might. His argument is based on the lengthy air war before the ground war began. Although bombs were being dropped and cruise missiles were destroying their targets together with anyone in the area what was happening was no doubt real to those in the firing line the Americans were not really fighting so spectators were experiencing a simulation.
It is necessary to first accept that the Americans were not really fighting but this is to misunderstand the nature of modern war. Baudrillard argues that the relatively small numbers of casualties compared with previous wars made it difficult to see this war as a real war. He does not state what level casualties have to reach to make something real because to do so would make obvious the weakness of his argument - is 500,000 death enough or must it exceed say a million. Does the death of one individual mean less than the death of hundreds of thousands? By Baudrillard's standards the Second World War was not a war because by comparison with the 1st World War the number of deaths was small. Generals in the 1st World War saw the death of thousands of men in one day as an unavoidable price to pay to make the most paltry of gains. Seen as a totally unacceptable view, Generals in the 2nd World War tried to reduce the number of casualties by dominance of the air and preventing the enemy from mounting an appropriate response. Heavy reliance was placed on technology and fighting at a distance and this can be seen in other conflicts.
Aware of the unpopularity of the War at home the American Generals used their supremacy in the air to ensure that when the ground battle began casualties would be as low as possible. They were successful but they had still fought a war - not least because war had been declared.
I find it difficult to take Baudrillard seriously despite his earlier work on simulations. He took up more and more extreme positions - even to the extent that he proposed that in future there would only be simulations and that simulations can never be detected - and when challenged by events such as the Gulf War invented his own simulated world in which he was never wrong. However one should never throw the baby out with the bath water and he has a great deal to say on other topics that seem well grounded in the real world or perhaps I only see the simulation.
A major source of information for this piece was the article at
http://www.socresonline.org.uk/9/2/raffel.html
Thursday 10 May 2012
Saturday
Just finished reading the Kindle version of Ian McEwan's Book "Saturday" Vintage 2006 for the second time. One of the delights of Kindle versions is that you can annotate the material as you go along which lessens the number of times you spend looking for a passage half remembered which has taken on significance for whatever reason. The book was recommended by my tutor as one that offered a number of ideas around the theme for assignment 5.
One strong impression left with me was the possibility that the book is a recollected dream. There is a definite denial of this in the narrative but how do we distinguish between our waking experiences and our dream world whilst we are in the dream world. Simple denial is not enough because dreams can be only too real and close to our conscious world. Why do I think that it matters? Apart from trying to distinguish the two states one of which would be considered 'real' (the quote marks indicate my scepticism about what is and what is not real) and one a false world of events. We are probably safe in assuming that the dream world is more open to interpretation as a better reflection of the person than the carefully constructed world when we are awake. Yet to be decided but I may pursue this line of thought in the assignment.
If what is recorded is a dream we can draw the reasonable conclusion that the events in the dream have meaning to the dreamer. In the case of 'Saturday' the main character is a neurosurgeon called Perowne who is at the top of the tree in his profession. The main events in the narrative are an incident in which he is assaulted by a man called Baxter; a squash game with a colleague and Baxter's invasion of Perowne's house seeking revenge all of which occur on the Saturday of the title. It could be argued that these three events reveal much about Perowne - his retreat deeper into his own world when that world is attacked; his underlying aggression revealed in the squash game that is normally not evident and the ambivalence and repressed feelings towards his family (his wife is held captive by a knife wielding Baxter and his daughter is forced to strip under the threat of the death of her mother. Freudians would have a field day with this scenario which is so reminiscent of the early stages of sexual development as described by Freud). If it were a dream then Baxter, a violent and aggressive person, could be seen as Perowne's alter-ego; a part of him that he keeps repressed. By passing the unacceptable parts of his nature to 'an other' he can retain his self image that is so much part of his persona.
Just because I would like it to be a recollection of a dream this does not make it so. It can be read as a straightforward narrative of a day in the life of Perowne. I think that from an analytical point of view this makes it less interesting but wishing does not make something real. Or does it??
One strong impression left with me was the possibility that the book is a recollected dream. There is a definite denial of this in the narrative but how do we distinguish between our waking experiences and our dream world whilst we are in the dream world. Simple denial is not enough because dreams can be only too real and close to our conscious world. Why do I think that it matters? Apart from trying to distinguish the two states one of which would be considered 'real' (the quote marks indicate my scepticism about what is and what is not real) and one a false world of events. We are probably safe in assuming that the dream world is more open to interpretation as a better reflection of the person than the carefully constructed world when we are awake. Yet to be decided but I may pursue this line of thought in the assignment.
If what is recorded is a dream we can draw the reasonable conclusion that the events in the dream have meaning to the dreamer. In the case of 'Saturday' the main character is a neurosurgeon called Perowne who is at the top of the tree in his profession. The main events in the narrative are an incident in which he is assaulted by a man called Baxter; a squash game with a colleague and Baxter's invasion of Perowne's house seeking revenge all of which occur on the Saturday of the title. It could be argued that these three events reveal much about Perowne - his retreat deeper into his own world when that world is attacked; his underlying aggression revealed in the squash game that is normally not evident and the ambivalence and repressed feelings towards his family (his wife is held captive by a knife wielding Baxter and his daughter is forced to strip under the threat of the death of her mother. Freudians would have a field day with this scenario which is so reminiscent of the early stages of sexual development as described by Freud). If it were a dream then Baxter, a violent and aggressive person, could be seen as Perowne's alter-ego; a part of him that he keeps repressed. By passing the unacceptable parts of his nature to 'an other' he can retain his self image that is so much part of his persona.
Just because I would like it to be a recollection of a dream this does not make it so. It can be read as a straightforward narrative of a day in the life of Perowne. I think that from an analytical point of view this makes it less interesting but wishing does not make something real. Or does it??
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