Week 16 Rumination
This week we learned about the global flows of visual culture. The basis of this chapter deals with ways humans have impacted the Earth and the visuality of these impacts. The terminology used to describe this is called “Anthropocene”, which basically means the current geologic age in which humans have irreversibly altered the global environment. With this being said, the Anthropocene is one product of modernity’s global development. The visuality of the anthropocene is imagined in art and visual culture and is created through technologies and impacts involving visual technologies. Another concept we touched on was the history of global image reproduction. Today’s image circulation bears legacies of circulation of analog images prior to the internet era, up until the 15th century, most images were originals, on display or used for worship. Another topic we touched in this chapter was globalization. Some pieces of this concept that mostly contribute to the scale of globalization are global financial/ trade markets and trade liberalization and the emergence of multinational corporations. Another major concept of globalization is cultural imperialism which is how one nation extends its influence through soft power. The cold war is a great example of this since Soviet Russia’s invasion of western Europe sent their political ideology via cultural texts across the borders of Russia and into half of western Europe.
One thing that really piqued my interest in this chapter was how Donald Duck was used to promote imperialist ideology. Especially in the image that was used in the chapter slides. You can clearly see Donald Ducks being replaced with both North America and South America as he is depositing coins into a “National Bank” box. This clearly states that it is in the United States great interest to pursue rule of the land south of the United States.




