Friday, 17 February 2012

CTS Seminar 3 - Jean Baudrillard & Gaze in the Media

Plato - greek philosopher - allegory of a cave - shadows on the wall - advertising space

Images that are around commodities - disguise the reality

Coca Cola Christmas campaign - red and white Father Christmas - western jovial image

out of a multitude os father christmas images coke had taken one and made it become father christmas's reality - disregarding the fact that he's not real

Baudrillard (marxist) - poststructuralism theorists - analysed commodity culture


sign value of a commodity

society developing a culture thats fantastical not real - getitng further and further away from the real

simulacra - somethign that stands in for the original (superceeds the original/makes it hard to tell the difference)
copy taking over.

Hyper reality - simulacra happens so much we can't ever et back to reality.


Walt Disney Castle Logo

the logo was inspired by the castle (copy)
but the logo informs our experience when we see the castle (hyper reality)


films about places e.g. New York are simulacra of that place

Manhatton skyline - romantic because their are so many films about it with a certain view at a certain time.


Ribenna is a simulacra of the black current - the flavour has been copied and modified to surpass the taste. children will taste Ribenna before they ever eat a real black current and they will find that the black current doesn't taste and nice, going back to Ribenna after eating a black current is in a way a form of escaping reality.

We'd rather stare at Plato's cave wall than embrace the bankrupt reality.


Is love really real? or are we experiencing a simulation that we relate to romantic novels, films and programmes.

Unrealities are causing changes in reality.


Spinal Tap film.


We are all simulacra of something or someone else - behaving the way we  think someone like us should - panoptic link

Good for writing about branding and reality


Gaze in the Media

Bringing Marx Faucau and Baudrillard into the equation

Panopticism mapped onto a situation of gender.

Berger (1992) quote applies to panopticism

our planet is a panopticon for women - they are the aesthetic we (as men) are the observer

When the gaze is returned we are forced to interact with the women as a subject and not an object

Patriacal society

Men make art - men buy art - dominant position at the base

Subject defined by men - painted in a way that objectifies women but at the same time excuses them - excuses mens dominance
pseudo pornographic function

male fantasy of domination to women - art is a reminder of this domination - not a reality - fantasy - fixation

Manet's Olympia - challenges this fantasy through returns of the gaze - depicted as Smut - challenges dominance of the male over the female

Copied  form 'Venus of Urbino' by Titian (1538)

Perfect domestic experience - hand teasing - dog (loyalty) - maid looking after the child (wife can focus on husband) - gaze is returned in an intimate and inviting way softening the impact of the return


These images lead to the next pieces of art and pictures of women.

Gaze is about power.

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