CTS - Lecture 5 - Gaze in the Media.

John Berger quote - commonly misunderstood - women are not vain - they are trying to be looked at less

Hans Memling - age of witch hunting

Artworks using objects and gestures to allow us as an audience to look at them

The mirror. The arm across the face.

This advert wasn't approved as above because of its extreme content of nudity and objectification of the female. Whereas the version below was passed because of its change in orientation the audience it drawn to her face more so than the rest of her body softening the fact that she is completely naked.

Staring at you - signs of a wealthy woman with the servants/nanny in the background

Modern nude - Berger compares this with Titans nude.

Prostitute - but looks wealthy - symbol of modernist women.

Ingres & Guerrilla Girls - survey of the art world.

Self portrait (top right)

Many perspectives - not realistic

Partially naked lady - people in the background act as if its normal.

Sunglasses reduce challenge of being seen by the 'seen' lessening the audience being watched.

Looking down at herself so we are not being watched, context of the billboard - she's looking down on us, flirting from a high up position.

Perversion leading to the death of a woman

Men are also objectified - can the be objectified whilst women are? - it exists but to what frequency?

D&G advert - youth, strength, power, 5 males returning the gaze - representation of the 20th/21st century cult of strength and healthy male.

The camera chops the body up and presents it to the audience as an object of consumption.

Infantile scopophilia - pleasure in looking - cinema experience - the protagonist is male the female is the adonis - imbalance

Lecturer at Leeds University

Some artists have been read as illustrative of the gaze.

Text and imagery offer and alternative - reference of violence in the text 'hits the side of my face' implying that the gaze causes harm, could be interpreted as the gaze upon a female in this fashion has a harmful and reductive effect on society and the way we look at each other, especially that of the opposite sex.

The woman carrying around the idea of being looked at

Banana - fallik object - uncomfortable to be seen eating in public or so openly.

Women making money with their bodies.

Knox/Sollecito case - witches - hammer of witches - women are demonic if they are accused

Circumstances portrayed the case verdict incorrectly - guilty instead of innocent

They had two stories prepared - by publishing the standby story the Daily Mail exposes itself.

Reality T.V. - we never approach something as a reality.

Big Brother - set up so people sunbath and use the pool - people showing more nudity to keep people interested - diary room shows the contestants crotches on the camera so you have this view of every personal aspect of them. The idea of the diary room gives a one on one idea between the audience and the contestant, however the audience is fully aware of the contestants ignorance to who is looking at them, they feel as though they are being allowed to see every private aspect of the conversation and their physical being.

Simulacrum - endless hall of mirrors

CTS - Seminar 2 - based on 'Technology Will Liberate Us'

This seminar was a follow up of the second Lecture which was title 'Technology will liberate us'.

We discussed further the key points o the lecture and tried to get an idea of how much we understood and and grasped and then expanded on it.

- The original and the copy - which is which - philosophical argument

- Thw way in which technology creates situations where the authority of someone or something can be questioned.

- Copy challenges the original

We then split into smaller groups to read through and analyse given sections of critical essay written by Walter Benjamin.

Given sections were 4,5 and 6.

Section 4

- if you take the piece of art out of the context it was meant to be seen in it becomes a coy of its original state...

challenges the broad meaning of it from spiritual - popular culture

Section 5

- things become art when technology & society surpass it. I.E. painting portraits was surpassed by the camera and photographing peoples portraits and so on.

Section 6

- exhibition value - Magazines, Ad, Etc

- Cult value - loved ones

- Politics/ Ideology

CTS - Lecture 4 - Critical Positions on the Media and Popular Culture

Aims of the lecture:-

• Critically define ' popular culture'
• Contrast ideas of 'culture' with 'popular culture' and 'mass culture'
• Introduce Cultural Studies & Critical Theory
• Discuss culture as ideology
• Interrogate the social function of popular culture

What is Culture

Raymond Williams - three uses of the term culture - intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic

development - you grow you become cultured

A way of life - living together. Elite - working class - global culture.

Intellectual and artistic significance - Beethoven.

Marx Reading of culture - different class of relations - forms a superstructure bond which forms culture.

Culture emerges from the 'bass' and almost legitimises superstructure and makes it possible.

- well liked by people - e.g Dr. Who

- inferior kinds of work - e.g. Shakespeare

- work trying to win favour with people - populist, understood by everyone

- culture made by people themselves - taste makers - subjective judgement

The view you'll have will depend on your political stand point

Who are each aimed at?

Quantity and content?

Left above is culture - grand, essential, emotions

Right above is popular culture - mass produced, decorative, disposable

We're coded into judging what is good and bad.

Belfast political murals.

Graffiti - ghetto expression - what happens when its transferred over to western culture? - culture can appropriate art.

Different definitions of culture but also different dynamics of culture.

Materialistic reading - before modernism (broadly speaking) society had a common culture.

This first changed with industrialisation, workers kept together away form the Bourgeoisie - moved into slums - higher class lived in nicer parts of the cities.

Visual and physical separation form cultural separations - cut off and ghettoised - they find their own music, literature and entertainment (culture).

At that point only the ruling class had a say, now there are two voices competing against each other. The working class have a say in what goes on and how things are run.

One of the first writers to write about culture - tried to define what it was (see slides) opposite to culture is anarchy - defined as the working class.

Leavisism - lectures were followed and attended popularly

- similar to Arnoldism

- throughout 20th cent - gradual dumbing down of culture - decline

- there was a time when culture was perfect in his eyes.

'Minority keeping' - elitist groups keep the culture - there to maintain it.

The snobbery of dismissing T.V. shows (X factor) is a hangover of Leavis' and Arnold's readings - a disinterested culture.

Closed down when the Nazis came to power - Marxist theorists studying popular culture wrote about radio and T.V. etc

Americas popular culture was much further ahead than Germany so when they moved there it was a massive dfference

Fordism - stems from economical systems that Ford put in place (production line mass production)

All mass culture is identical - films made to a formula (see quote on slide above)

As we consume mass produced mass culture we become 1 dimensional instead of multi dimensional beings.

X Factor - your salvation from a miserable life is resolved by going on a show and being judged by the middle class - the taste makers.

Adorno - on popular music (he hates it)

All is standardised (the same) same instruments, same beats, similar names

'The...somethings', trends and styles.

- peculiarity of culture industry is that it does the thinking for you - reduces  capacity for free thought - limited engagement.

Listening to pop music causes rhythmic and emotional adjustments a kin to the production line of the factory - mindlessly dancing to the rhythm of their own oppression.

Culture, once mass produced and made into a commodity is lost forever.

What happens when you repeat art over and over and over?

e.g. Mona Lisa - whats it a bout? we all know of it but few know what its about, its purpose, who created it, where it is.

It's now everywhere - previously you would have to go to the Louve in Paris, your meeting the work on its own and the galleries terms. Now its accessible on your terms.