November 8th Body and Space and Visual Culture.

Today we were introduced to Visual culture, it is a research area that regards visual image as the focal point and is heavily based on cultural context. (Heywood et al, 2017, p. 65) We can see it everywhere for example images whether on your phone, on a billboard or a cartoons, this also includes objects. “If you can see it, if it was made to be seen, then it’s visual culture.” (Boylan, 2020, pp.26-27) It is extremely important to our society as it builds culture and centralises itself around numerous themes and ideas such as: Film theory, critical race theory, feminism, postcolonial studies, and queer theory. A quote that resonated with me described how visual culture can be applied to everything in our world, which is constantly changing everyday “A work of art can be symbolic, often even while disguised to look like everyday objects.”(Howells and Negreiros, 2018, p.12)

Examples of Visual Culture. Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol & The Beatles' Abbey Road' Album Cover.

So how does this relate to body and space? Well as stated in my second blog, interiors are ephemeral meaning they are constantly being modified as they cycle through different trends and purposes due to our ever-changing notion of space. Consequently so does our representation of it, from written descriptions, to drawings, plans, photographs and collages. This is important to know as it highlights one important detail about visual culture if not taught how to read “we run the risk of remaining visually illiterate. This is something that none of us can afford in the modern world.” (Howells & Negreiros, 2018) Since we will not have to capacity to connect or understand space, which will leave us isolated from not only the world but also others and ourselves.

Book I read to further understand Visual Culture in relation to Body and Space.

References:

Heywood, D. I., Gardiner, M., Gunalan Nadarajan, and Soussloff, C. (2017). The handbook of visual culture. Bloomsbury.

Boylan, A. L. (2020). Visual culture. MIT Press.

Howells,R. and Negreiros, J. (2018). Visual Culture. Polity.