Arnheim and Anderson / Bazin

Arnheim's essay discusses central perspective as a condensation of all space into one moment. The development of central perspective, he wrote on page 288, transformed art from a representation of being to one of happening. Similarly, Anderson argued that according to pre-industrial, religious concepts of time, "a connection is established between two events which are linked neither temporally nor causally--a connection which it is impossible to establish by reason in the horizontal dimension . . . . It can be established only if both occurrences are vertically linked to Divine providence" (24). Could central perspective--which employs a horizontal reference point; in fact, one that is based on the horizon, where all of space converges and diverges--have contributed to (or resulted from) this shift from temporal to spatial constancy that Anderson addresses?

Arnheim also wrote that no method of showing perspective in drawings or paintings is better than another and all are flawed. But what would he say about photography? I question what Bazin said about the camera "stripping away . . . all those piled up preconceptions" to reveal reality (15). He discredits perspective as an illusion, but if you look at something in a distance, your eyes too see illusions: the world appears to end, faraway objects appear smaller than closer ones, parallel lines seem to converge. So then, is perspective really a distortion aimed at fooling the eye, or is it true to it? Bazin distinguishes between "true realism, the need that is to give significant expression to the world both concretely and its essence, and the pseudorealism of a deception aimed at fooling the eye" (12). But is there a difference between being true to vision and being true to life as we know it? After all, don't we know it through our vision? Also, even abstract artwork comes from what the artist has seen throughout his/her life, since vision is necessary for mental imagery (people born blind don't understand sight, after all). And it can attest to emotions, thoughts, or stretches of time and space that neither the camera nor perspective can capture.

Even with the camera, it was created to represent the world the same way our eye does, or else we wouldn't recognize the images it produces as real. Thus, I would argue that it doesn't show the referent; it shows, like all methods of showing space, a representation of it. Stated another way, a camera is based on peoples' concept of realism, a "preconception" in of itself. Or maybe not even peoples' concept; maybe realism is based on the Bourgeois ideology, the myth of visual reality that has inspired the invention of the Durer technique and then the photograph. Did the "real" world--the one we think we see in photographs--simply inform techniques of the "plastic arts" (Bazin's phrasing), or does it also work the other way around, with ideology of realistic art affecting our visual perception?

This question has been on my mind ever since I visited the Met over the summer and noticed that the only paintings, especially portraits, that look at all realistic are ones done recently (say, since the renaissance). I wondered if people before this time made the conscious decision to not represent the world realistically, or if I just have a culturally conditioned idea of what people and objects look like. If the latter is true, does the culturally relative representation of space extend to a culturally relative vision of it?

-Suzy

WEEK 6: CAMERA LUCIDA

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your papers and to those of you who posted on the blog in my absence!
Let's try and keep as posting as regularly as we can.

Here are some broad topics/questions that we might want to think about while reading _Camera Lucida_

1. What is the status of "meaning" or "essence" in the text?
2. Why is the photograph so special as a sign for Barthes?
3. What are the main differences between the "studium" and the "punctum"?
4. What does Barthes mean when he says that "the punctum is the kairos of desire"?
5. Why is the "punctum" the "Death of time"?
6. What is the role of the "erotic" in _Camera Lucida_?
7. What role does the Winter Garden photograph play in Barthes's theorization of photography?
8. And finally, can cinema have "punctum"? How does Barthes distinguish between cinema and the photograph?


Have a great weekend and see you all in class.

Poetic language and the filmic medium

As I read Roman Jakobson's analysis of the poetic function in language, I couldn't help but compare many of his linguistic analyses with film as an expressive medium. Jakobson states that every message has an addresser and an eventual addressee. Film can also be viewed as having an addresser and addressee, but these notions in film seem a bit more fragmented and complex to me. As where linguistic communication usually involves one addresser, the speaker, film usually involves multiple people in the conveying of a message. Most evidently, the director and screenwriters can be considered addressers, but what about the actor and the cinematographer? I believe that these people also play important roles in the passing on of the message through the filmic channel or code. Can anyone think of examples in which film becomes metafilmic? I think this ties in nicely with what professor Rosen discussed in class on wednesday when he discussed Bleu Shut. By tying in clips from all different types of filmmaking, the film itself becomes a critique of the filmic code. Also, the addressee in film, the audience, is drastically fragmented for obvious reasons. We can discuss in section more ways in which film connects with poetic language...

Foucault the author

As I was reading Foucault's analysis of the concept of an author, I couldn't help but think of Barthes's essay on The Death of the Author, which states many of the same ideas about the disappearance of the author in post modern critique. Foucault's essay, however, seems much more self-aware to me in regards to its existence as a text with an author. In addition to the obvious presence of a second ego (of Foucault, through his use of the pronoun I throughout the text), Foucault seems to be requesting, from the reader, some sort of departure from the springboard he has laid down in the theory of the author-function in which he differentiates between the "initiators of discursive practices" and the "founders of sciences". In the final pages of the essay, Foucault seems to be claiming some of his ideas as coming from a sort of "initiator of discursive practices" by posing many questions that undoubtedly require further analysis of the ideas posited in the essay. To me, however, his text seems like an interesting hybrid of the initiators of which he speaks (Saussure, Freud, etc). Throughout the essay, Foucault's ideas rest pretty heavily on a foundation laid down by other authors. Does this still allow him to be an initiator of discursive practice? Or does one's ideas have to be completely original to be considered worthy of such a well respected author-function? Does the text lose a sort of "aura" by losing the author? (In this way can it be connected to the effects of modern reproducibility on visual art according to Benjamin?)

Also I would like to speak a bit about identifying myths in our society today. Barthes stated some very interesting examples, but I would like to find some that relate to us more intimately as a group and break them apart into their various components.

Also, it might be worth talking about what exactly constitutes a "work" according to Foucault. Barthes once wrote about the difference between a work and a text. Is anyone familiar with this? If so, how does it pertain to Foucault's analysis of the disappearance of the author?

WEEK 3: BARTHES AND FOUCAULT...start posting!

Welcome to the MCM 0100 blog!

Hi everyone,

This is an informal space where we will want to raise questions about the theory and media texts we are dealing with in this course. We are going to be very flexible about the format of the response: it can be a comment on a passage in a text, a critique of a couple of scenes in a film, or even connections between the theory and media texts assigned for the week. In other words, the post can be anything that is interesting or provocative to you from the assigned reading/viewing. Let's respond to each other's posts (but continue to be friendly when we agree to disagree) and use this space to make our sections productive.

Once again, my apologies for missing section for the next two weeks. But I am sure you will have a great time with Maggie.

Let's start thinking about what Barthes calls the "myth" and Foucault calls the "author function" and try to post our responses by (Thursday) midnight so that we have about twelve hours to go through and/or reply to each other's posts.

All best,
Ani