What is pose in photography?
The bodily process of orienting oneself toward the camera to become an image.
What does Barthes distinguish in photographic images?
The motionless, objectified image from the light, divided self.
According to Barthes, how many versions of a person does formal portrait photography present?
Four simultaneous versions of a person.
Name one version of a person presented in formal portrait photography according to Barthes.
The person they think they are.
Name another version of a person presented in formal portrait photography according to Barthes.
The person they want others to think they are.
Name a third version of a person presented in formal portrait photography according to Barthes.
The person the photographer thinks they are.
Name the fourth version of a person presented in formal portrait photography according to Barthes.
The person the photographer uses to exhibit artistic skill.
Why can't a photograph fully contain the self as a visible object?
Because the four versions in formal portraiture never completely overlap.
What is familyness in family photography?
The relationship produced through active bodily and photographic enactment of a desired family unit.
How do family members use photography to show their relationships?
They pose and interact for the camera to visualize, maintain, and memorialize their shared unit.
What moments does family photography commonly select?
Ideal, harmonious, and simplified moments of success and joy.
What does family photography exclude?
Non-conformers, estrangements, and distress.
Why can't family be understood only by blood kinship?
Because families may extend beyond kinship and be dispersed worldwide.
What is disinterestedness in aesthetic response?
Contemplating artwork for its own sake, apart from practical interests.
When did Immanuel Kant live?
From 1724 to 1804.
How did Kant describe aesthetic contemplation?
Considering the object apart from all interest.
What does traditional disinterestedness separate aesthetic experience from?
Technical, cognitive, moral, religious, and everyday practical experience.
What does the theory of disinterestedness require regarding the artwork's environment?
It must be separated from its everyday environment to be regarded freely.
How does viewer participation challenge disinterestedness?
By requiring viewers to connect artwork meaning with their general existence.
What must viewers do in viewer participation to understand an artwork?
Imagine possible meanings related to their own life events.
Which three basic categories does Robert Jauss identify in aesthetic tradition?
Poiesis, aesthesis, and catharsis.
What is poiesis in aesthetic experience?
The productive function focused on making and involving the viewer as co-creator.
What does aesthesis represent in aesthetic experience?
The interpretive function renewing or changing perception.
How does catharsis affect the viewer in aesthetic experience?
It changes beliefs and liberates the mind, enabling norm acceptance.
How are poiesis, aesthesis, and catharsis related in aesthetic experience?
They are interconnected functions that can follow one another.
What does culturalism emphasize in its study of culture?
Subjective lived experience.
What does culturalism focus on regarding culture?
The making of and response to culture.
What does post-colonialism critically examine?
Cultures and societies shaped by colonization.
What concepts are included in post-colonialism's examination?
Cultural hybridization and the construction of the other.
What is othering in colonial discourse?
The process producing its subjects as others.
How do post-postmodern artists engage with othering subjects?
To produce cultural hybrids that empower marginalized people.
What do cultural hybrids produced by post-postmodern artists do?
Deconstruct boundaries and reclaim or reimagine cultural space.
What is hybridity in post-colonial theory?
The emergence of a new identity from colonizer and colonized cultural elements.
What characterizes Bhabha's third space?
An in-between site where new cultural meanings emerge and categories are questioned.
How is mimicry defined in post-colonial theory?
Exaggerated copying of dominant culture differing from simple imitation.
What does mimesis involve historically?
A changing practice including emulation, mimicry, theatricality, and resemblance.
According to Derrida, what can mimesis produce?
Influence, appropriation, change, repetition, or new interpretation.
How do San trance dancers harness supernatural potency?
Through dancing and songs accompanied rhythmically by clapping women.
What does nasal bleeding in San rock art signify?
A physiological reaction to trance indicating supernatural contact.
What are therianthropic figures in San rock art?
Figures combining human bodies with animal features like antelope heads.
How are therianthropic figures interpreted?
As shamans partially transformed into animals.
What do red lines with white dots represent in San rock art?
Threads of light seen by shamans in trance accessing the spirit realm.
How should San rock-art panels be interpreted?
As evolving wholes influencing the spiritual realm, not isolated pictures.
What balance does San rock art maintain?
Between individual and society, and material and spirit realms.
What primarily distinguishes graffiti from street art?
Graffiti is writing or scratching that leaves a mark, while street art includes imagery and public engagement.
By 2000, how did many street artists view their work?
As an art practice combining mixed methods and hybrid genres on and off the street.
How does street art transform unrecognized urban space?
By bringing institutional art arguments into the streets to create visual engagement.
What is détournement in cultural practice?
The hijacking or misappropriation of received culture for other ends.
How does street art treat the city as a historical palimpsest?
Each new work responds to previous works and invites public discourse and interventions.
Why is leaving a visual mark in public urban space often considered illegal?
Because it is usually technically illegal and acts as nonviolent civil disobedience against property controls.
What techniques are commonly combined in street-art practice?
Spray-can graphics, appropriated imagery, advertising, photography, stencils, painting, montage, collage, scale shifts, and repetition.
Who is Vhils also known as?
Alexandre Farto.
What techniques does Vhils use in his art practice?
Carving, stencil painting, metal etching, pyrotechnic explosions, and video-to-sculptural installations.
How does Vhils treat urban walls in his work?
As material records absorbing social and historical change.
What is a palimpsest?
A manuscript with later writing superimposed over erased earlier writing.
What does José Parlá create as visual memory devices?
Wall murals and multilayered panels and canvases.
What artistic elements does José Parlá use in his work?
Palimpsests, urban mark-making, and material history.
How does Parlá transform graffiti in his art?
He morphs graffiti into calligraphy.
What does Parlá confront with the decay of streets and city walls?
Abstract Expressionist action painting.
Test your knowledge with 28 questions on Visual Culture Test Notes.
1. What does pose mean in portrait photography in the sense described by the material?
2. In Barthes’s distinction, what contrasts with the motionless, objectified photographic image?
Review the complete course in the revision sheet for Visual Culture Test Notes.
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