practices of looking Ch1 & 2

In chapter 1, images, power and politics, we could learn that every day we engage in looking to communicate, interact and create meaning of the world. The social worlds in which we live are full with visual images that are designed to be seen with variety of purpose and intended effect. We negotiate the social worlds through the practice of looking. A single image can convey many diverse meaning to different people. Sturken and Cartwright discussed the image and ideology and stated that “to explore the meaning of image is to recognize that they are produced within dynamics of social power and ideology” (P.22). Practices of looking are tied to ideology which is the system of beliefs and values in all cultures. The meaning of images can dramatically change when those images represent in different cultural and social contexts. In addition, they also discussed the value of image and asserted that “ the work of detecting social, cultural and historical meanings in images often happen without our being aware of the process and is part of the pleasure of looking at images” (P.34). The social value of images is determined by particular social contexts such as monetary, social and political factors. According to the criteria of uniqueness, authenticity and aesthetic style, we give social value to images and art of works. Furthermore, they talked about image icons. Image icons that are historically and contextually produced are perceived to represent universal concepts, emotions and meanings to evoke similar responses in all cultures and in all viewers. What are the important elements of images to become an image icon?

In chapter 2, viewer make meaning, images can generate meanings for viewers yet viewer may interpret the meaning of images differently from how it is intended to been see. Sturken and Cartwright pointed out the meaning of images not only depend upon the work itself but also related to code and convention of image’s structure, interpretations and experiences of viewers, and the exhibited context of the image. They also asserted that “meanings are the product of a complex social interaction among image, viewers, and context” (p55). In addition, Sturken and Cartwright discussed view interpretations: aesthetics and taste. From aesthetics point of view, the art of work bring people pleasure through its beauty, style or the creative and technical virtuosity that is depend on individual interpretations. Sturken and Cartwright say “Taste is informed by experience relating to one’s class, cultural background, education and other aspects of identity” (p.56). They also stated that “the distinctions between different kinds of taste culture have traditionally been understood as the difference between high and low culture” (p.60). However, later in twentieth century the distinction between fine art and popular culture, high and low taste, which involves the elements of hierarchy and value judgment was criticized and became vague. A question to think about is that how low culture gain social value to become high culture. Moreover, Sturken and Cartwright talked about encoding and decoding. Stuart Hall has proposed three positions of decoding of cultural images and artifacts are dominant hegemonic reading, negotiated reading and oppositional reading. A question come to mind is that if an art of work generate oppositional interpretations to viewers, could the work evaluate as a good work or good art?