Thursday, January 24th

Chapter 4 Notes from Reading
*Digital- representing data by means of discrete digs and encoding that data mathematically. Digital technologies involve a process of encoding information in bits and assigning each a mathematical value.
*Internet-a network that connects supercomputers, mainframe computers, and personal computers throughout the world through email, the World Wide Web, and file transfer. The internet functions through a system of protocols and a system of packet switching.
*World Wide Web-The internet information server that uses hypertext as its primary navigation tool. Includes multimedia: images, graphics, audio, and video in the form of web sites and pages that can be accessed and downloaded by viewers through browsers.
*parodies- cultural productions that make fun of more serious works through humor and satire while maintaining some of their elements such as plot or character.

~Realism and the history of perspective~
-the meaning of images has changed throughout history
*perspective-a technique of visualization that was invented in Renaissance Italy in the mid-15th century that indicates the Renaissance interest in fusion of art and science.

-one of the fundamental shifts of the depiction of reality in the history of western art took place w/ the development of perspective as a convention of European art (this was a result of a renaissance interest in the fusion of art and science in the mid-15th century)
*Renaissance-a term 1st coined in France in the 19th century to look back on a particular period of history that began in Italy in the early 14th century and reached its height throughout Europe in the early 16th century. As a time period, it was characterized by a resurgence of cultural, artistic, and scientific activity and a renewed interest in classical literature and art.

-perspective makes images more realistic

*classical-art that adheres to the styles and aesthetics of tradition. Typically the term is associated with ancient Greek and Roman art where it refers to norms of balance symmetry and proportion.

-in perspective, the spectator defines the center of the image

*Scientific Revolution-The time period covering the 15th to 17th centuries that was characterized by scientific development and a struggle for power between the Church and science.

-perspective took hold in Europe at the same time as the scientific revolution.
-an early proponent was Leonardo da Vinci (this all can be seen in the context of a shift from religion to science)

*objective-The state of being unbiased and based on facts, usually referring to scientific fact or ways of seeing and understanding the world that involve a mechanical process rather than human opinion.

-perspective desires objectivity/ perspective also indicates a desire for vision to be stable and unchanging when in fact looking is highly changeable and contextual.

-Rene Descartes (French philosopher who lived in 17th century) came up with Cartesian space
-Cartesian space- that which can be mathematically mapped and measured

*empiricism-The science-inspired philosophy that assumes that things exist independent of language and other forms of representation, and can be known unambiguously as positive truths independent of any specific context.

Descartes was influential in the legitimation of ideas about visual observation forming the basis of evidence.

~Realism and Visual Technologies~
*Enlightenment-An 18th century cultural movement associated with a rejection of religious and pre-scientific tradition through an embrace of the concept of reason. It emphasized rationality and the idea of moral and social betterment through scientific programs.
*modernity-refers to the time period and world view beginning approximately in the 18th century w/ the Enlightenment, reaching its height in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when broad populations in Europe and North America were increasingly concentrated in urban centers and in industrial societies of increased mechanization and automation. Modernity is a time of dramatic technological change that embraces a linear view of progress as crucial to humankind’s prosperity and an optimistic view of the future at the same that that it embodies an anxiety about change and social upheaval.

-The history of image production in Western culture can be viewed in 4 generational periods:
1. ancient art produced prior to the development of perspective in 1425.
2. the age of perspective until the era of the mechanical, including the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, and Romantic periods (roughly mid-15th century until 18th century)-includes scientific revolution and Enlightenment.
3. the modern era of technical developments w/ the rise of mechanization and the industrial revolution, including the development of photography in the 1830s (mid 18th century to late 20th century)
4. the postmodern era of electronic technology, computer and digital imaging, and virtual space (overlapping w/ the mechanical, approximately from 160s to present)

*reproduction-the act of making a copy of duplicating something. Reproduction of images refers to the means through which original works are rendered into multiple copies in the forms of prints, posters, postcards, and other merchandise.

*Mass media-Those media which are designed to reach mass audiences, and that work in unison to generate specific dominant or popular representations of events, people, and places. The primary mass media are radio, television, the cinema, and the press. However, it also includes the internet, www, and multimedia.
*post modern-used to describe particular styles in art, literature, architecture, and popular culture and to define particular aspects of contemporary theory and to designate a particular way of viewing the world in the late 20th century. In terms of its application to art and visual style, postmodernism has been used to describe a set of trends in the art world in the late 20th century that question concepts of authenticity, authorship, and the idea of style progression.
*virtual-Because electronic technology can simulate realities, virtual indicates phenomena that seem to exist but in no tangible or physical way. A virtual version of something is thus capable of functioning in a number of ways that are similar to its actual physical or material counterpart.
*technological determinism- belief that technology determines social effect and change and that it is autonomous and hence separate from social effects.
-the book argues against this.

-Technologies are the products of particular social and historical contexts.
-Technologies thus emerge because they fit certain emerging social concepts and needs of the time (ex- photography emerged because of its institutional and personal uses.
-The era when photography was developed is considered the height of modernity.
Modernity refers to the time between the 16th and 20th centuries and also to a particular era of social development in Euro-American culture and modernism to a style of western art. (it is defined by industrialization and mechanization, the rise of the modern political state, and increase of bureaucracies
-The development of photography allowed painters to focus less on realistic portraits and more on new ways (Example- Impressionism)

* Impressionism- an artistic style that emerged in the late 19th century, primarily in France, that was characterized by an emphasis on light and color.

-Claude Monet was an Impressionist (he exhibited the complexity of vision)

*avant-garde- a term imported from military strategy into art history to describe movements at the forefront of artistic experimentation. It is often associated with modernism and is frequently contrasted with mainstream or traditional art that is conventional rather than challenging.

*cubism- an early 20th century art movement that was part of the modern French avant-garde. Cubism was a deliberate critique of the dominance of perspective in styles of art, and an attempt to represent the dynamism and complexity of human vision.
-cubists were interested in creating a new way of looking at the real (ex- Picasso and Braque)
*Abstract expressionism- a style of abstract art, which prevailed in the post-World War II era until the mid-1950s in the United States and Europe, that was characterized by an emphasis on abstraction as expressive of contemporary anxiety.

~The Reproduction of Images~
*Replicas-a copy of an artwork that was produced by the original artist or under his/her supervision.
-Prior to the development of technologies that could reproduce images, a work of art was considered to be unique and original
-Mechanical reproduction changes the meaning and value of an image and the role images play in society.
-Walter Benjamin (German critic) wrote “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” where he explains and predicts the changing visual culture of the 20th century. He argued that the one-of-a-kind art work has a particular aura to it and its value is derived from its uniqueness and its role in ritual. The value has changed since it is not from the uniqueness as being one of a kind but rather from the original of many copies.

With reproduction, images can now be seen in several different contexts. The meaning of the image changes with each context.
-The question of artistic authorship becomes increasingly complex in digital media.

*Authenticity-the quality of being genuine or unique. Traditionally, authenticity referred to things which were one of a kind and original, rather than copied. In Benjamin’s theories of the reproduction of images, authenticity is precisely the quality that cannot be reproduced or copied.

~Reproduced images as Politics~
*Propaganda- refers to any attempt to use words and images to promote particular ideas and persuade people to believe certain concepts.
-Images can be in many places simultaneously and this increases their ability to persuade and captivate
-they can also include text which increases this.

~Visual Technologies and Phenomenology~
*Phenomenology- the belief that knowledge and truth derives from subjective human experience and not solely from things themselves.
-Edmund Husseri (founder of philosophy and phenomenology) proposed in his writings of the 1910s and 20s a science of experience of the ways we react bodily and emotionally as well as intellectually to the world around us.
-Maurice Merleau-Ponty (philosopher who wrote in 1950s and 60s)- he emphasized the importance of recognizing bodies as the entity through which we experience the world and emerge as individual subjects.
-In using phenomenology to examine visual media, we focus on the specific capacities of each medium that distinguish its properties and the effect of these properties on our experience of the images produced in each.

*graphical user interface-the design in computer software and in the WWWeb that allows users to make choices, enact commands, and move around through the use of graphics and images rather than text.
*hypertext-a format presenting text and images, which forms the basis of the world wide web, that allows viewers to move from one text, page, or web site to another through hyperlinks.

~The digital image~
-digital images are computer generated

*analog- the representation of data by means of physical properties that express value along a continuous scale. Analog technologies include a photograph, a tape, etc.
*referents-In semiotics, a term that refers to the object itself, as opposed to its representation.
*bits- the smallest units of memory and information in a computer. A bit can hold only one of two values: 0 or 1.

-The value of a digital image is derived in part by its role as information and its capacity to be easily accessed, manipulated, stored in a computer, or downloaded.

-Pre-mechanical image (valuable as being unique)
-Mechanical image (valuable from its reproducibility, potential distribution and role in mass media)
-digital and virtual image (value from accessibility, malleability, and information status)

-Charles Peirce (semiotician) defined 3 types of signs: iconic, indexical, and symbolic
-Iconic signs resemble their object in some way
-Symbolic signs bear no obvious relation to their objects
-Indexical signs involve an “existential” relationship between the signifier and signified (meaning they have coexisted in the same place at the same time…ex) fingerprints are indexical signs of a person)

*simulations-often used as a term to describe aspects of postmodern culture in which copies and realities get blurred. Simulations refer to a sign that does not clearly have a real-life counterpart.
-most digital images are not indexical and index gives way to icon.

-digital imaging allows for alterations.

~Virtual Space and Interactive images~
-Virtual space refers to spaces that appear to be like physical space but which are not physical.

~KEY TERMS~
*Perspective-a technique of visualization that was invented in Renaissance Italy in the mid-15th century that indicates the Renaissance interest in fusion of art and science. Perspective desires objectivity/ perspective also indicates a desire for vision to be stable and unchanging when in fact looking is highly changeable and contextual.
*Realism- The realistic and natural representation of people, places, and/or things in a work of art. The opposite of idealization.
*Reproduction- the act of making a copy of duplicating something. Reproduction of images refers to the means through which original works are rendered into multiple copies in the forms of prints, posters, postcards, and other merchandise.
*Aura-a term used by German theorist Walter Benjamin to describe the quality of unique works of art that exist in only one place. According to Benjamin, the aura of such works is precisely what gives them the quality of authenticity, which cannot be reproduced.
*Authentic- Being trustworthy as genuine; original; the real thing.
*Walter Benjamin- (German critic) wrote “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” where he explains and predicts the changing visual culture of the 20th century. He argued that the one-of-a-kind art work has a particular aura to it and its value is derived from its uniqueness and its role in ritual. The value has changed since it is not from the uniqueness as being one of a kind but rather from the original of many copies.