Ways of Seeing

[molly-moriarty-blog]

Claudia Rankine’s Citizen

As I was thinking of what to write for this post, I realized how brilliant the first dozen pages of Citizen are. Citizen is a work about racism and awareness of being different, which isn’t something that’s easy for everyone to understand. But Rankine starts Citizen with things that are all familiar at their roots: Thinking too much while trying to go to sleep. Awkward elementary school interactions. The feeling of affronts by friends. Sitting silently in your car.

The first few entries in this book are all still entries about race, but they’re entwined with incredibly relatable situations. This is a really clever way of imparting to the reader the way that these hurtful moments are inseparably wrapped up in everyday life.

If Claudia Rankine looked at my life, she’d see a whole lot of privilege. I’m not a minority, I haven’t faced a ton of adversity in my life, I’m of able body and mind, I’ve got a complete family, and I’ve been educated and employed without an extraordinary amount of effort. And, the most inherent mark of privilege: I don’t even think about it. I think that makes it more important for me to understand that not everyone’s life is like that, and that my accidental place gives me a unique vantage point to make injustice something that I notice, call out, and make sure I don’t contribute to. The barriers addressed by Claudia Rankine are being constructed by everyday occurrences. So, like Claudia Rankine, my job should be to seek out each individual bricklayer. 

[priebemike-blog]

The photo that I selected was captured by the photographer, Martin Barr. Barr believes that the overwhelming power behind published images are propaganda. Barr counters this propaganda by embracing criticism, humor, and seduction through his photography. His photography shows viewers how we live, how we present ourselves to others, and what we value. Parr provides us the ability to look at a familiar things in a completely different way than how we are used to. 

I found this photo very intriguing because of the relationship between the dog and the man present. Everyone’s always heard a dog being referred to as “a man’s best friend” and captured in this photo it really does not look like that the two subject are “best friends” by any means. In this image, it seems as if each of the two are isolated in their own personal way. If either the man or the dog were removed from the photo, I feel that the photos would be much more common. Or if the dog was in the man’s lap, it would show their loving relationship towards one another. This photo was not staged and Barr was able to capture a situation that would not be common to see, but now seeing it in this photo a viewer may now be more susceptible to see this same situation in every day life. 

Also, another detail that interested me was that the background and foreground. In the background, there is absolutely beautiful scenery, but neither of the two subjects captured were looking towards the beauty. I don’t exactly know what message the photographer is trying to convey, but personally I felt that one way of interpreting it would be is that we as society do not need to search for the beauty, because beauty is all around us in our everyday life. We as the viewers do not know what either the dog or the man are looking at, but they could be admiring something else that may not seem beautiful to one person, but to them it is something special. 

[punctumproject]

Mike explores the photography of Martin Parr, and notices the nuances of body language of this image’s man and dog. 

[molly-moriarty-blog]

Mike, I really like your analysis of this photo! I was struck by your statement that Parr makes us “look at familiar things in a completely different way than how we are used to” because it reminded me of Sontag’s idea of conferring immortality on things that would otherwise go unnoticed. My photographer for this project is a street photographer, so ideas like commentary on social landscapes and capturing everyday things have been on my mind. Parr’s works fit in with that really well! Finally, I like how you noticed the beautiful scenery and the way that neither subject is focused on it. I only noticed them facing away from each other, so I’m glad you pointed that out! It’s really interesting!

[molly-moriarty-blog]

For my show and tell this week, I wanted to share a photo that my history professor showed our class yesterday. This is a photo taken by Yōsuke Yamahata in Nagasaki the day after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city. The composition and depth of field are striking, as well as the exhaustion and sadness in the woman’s face. But I think the most important thing about the photo is how hauntingly human it is. The constant trend of the world wars was extreme dehumanization of the enemy, and unprecedented civilian casualties on every side. This photo is so arresting because of it’s undeniable universality. 

[molly-moriarty-blog]

I chose the photographer Lee Friedlander because his photographs are attention-grabbing and as I looked through them, I was completely baffled as to what his message was. His work struck me as having many different interpretations.

Lee Friedlander is an American photographer, born in 1934 in Aberdeen, Washington. Friedlander got his start at Atlantic Records, taking photos of blues and jazz musicians, many of whom were very famous. As Friedlander developed his own style and gathered a following throughout the 1960s, he was often cited as capturing the urban “social landscape,” especially with everyday objects and in the realm of advertising.

This was the photo of his that stuck out to me the most. It’s stagnant and simple, but somehow still dynamic. It’s bold and high-contrast, and your eye is immediately and irresistibly drawn to the bright face on the television screen. When I saw this photo in a smaller size and especially as a thumbnail, I realized how bright the woman’s face really is. She’s a very obvious punctum, and she’s looking directly at the viewer. The television is the only source of light in the room. Even with a lamp directly next to it, Friedlander chose the television as the brightest object. The woman on the screen also has an almost heavenly halo of light around her face, calling to mind the light often depicted around divine figures.

The next thing I notice about this photo is the odd setup of the room. I would guess that in most of our homes, if there is a television in the room, the chairs are positioned to watch it. I think it’s interesting how the television is aimed primly at the camera, while the chairs are positioned intently away from the woman’s gaze.

As I researched more, I discovered that Friedlander did a lot of travelling for his art, so many of the photographs in this series (The Little Screens) were taken in hotel rooms. That may discredit my initial thought, but I’m going to share it anyway. The first thing I perceived in this photo (and others in the series) was that there were no other people in these rooms. These impeccably clean and un-cluttered rooms do not look like real living areas, and that adds to the austere look of the photos. At the time Friedlander took this photo, televisions were still a luxury thing. So while now we might interpret these photos as admiration or a commentary on celebrity presence in ordinary homes, knowing the time period sheds a new light on the photos. Friedlander could be trying to highlight the luxury, or marveling at the near-magical novelty of having strangers in your house. I personally feel like the photos in this series are tinged with a Bradbury-esque, almost creepy feeling of a distinctly non-human presence in a room. Even though the face on the screen is beautiful and clearly human, it’s also very clearly not a person.

[molly-moriarty-blog]

Studying Illustration: Designing The Big Sleep!

Hey gang, here's a video allllll about how I went about designing The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler for the Penguin Design Award 2013. Watch my vlog of the P...

I came across this video and wanted to share it because it’s a college student’s project while she’s studying illustration, which I think is really cool. It fits in with what we’ve learned regarding Sally Mann and Alison Bechdel: There’s so much research and behind-the-scenes trial and error involved in every final product we see. Even a fairly sketchy-looking rough draft of a cover has this much research and time behind it. What we see isn’t just a whimsical sketch. I also think it’s insane that a student our age already has all these development skills

[english202ashleyfechner-blog]

How can a sentient person of the modern age mistake photography for reality? All perception is selection, and all photograohs- no matter how objectively journalistic the photographer’s intent- exclude aspects of the moment’s complexity. Photographs economize the truth; they are always moments more or less illusorily abducted from time’s continuum.

Sally Mann, 151

This paragraph stood out to me because I think it is very powerful. It came right after the section where she told about all of the letters she had received about her work. It is a very interesting response to these letters in which she explains what photography is from her perspective and how she wants others to perceive her work. It first caught my attention by her use of a question for the first sentence in the paragraph. It was a very interesting question too, which made me think about it for a second before continuing to read. The verbs she used, such as mistake, exclude, economize and abducted, are powerful and interesting verbs which show more of the passion she feels about this subject. The verb “mistake” in the first sentence adds to the annoyance portrayed by implying that they are mistaken and wrong in their assumptions of her images. The way “abducted” is used in the last sentence adds more intensity to the sentence and the fact that the images are not real portrayals of the moment. 

The tone of this paragraph is slightly annoyed but serious. Especially in the first sentence she really shows her annoyance. She is partially making fun of the people who wrongly criticize her by questioning if they really are a sentient person of the modern age. The rest of the paragraph she is serious and matter-of-fact stating that photography isn’t reality and is somewhat distorted compared to what was actually experienced in the moment the image was captured. She explains the images are “abducted” from the moment and “exclude aspects of the moment’s complexity.” She is also cool with her writing here. She is not being very warm to her critics, which is understandable. She is questioning their perceptions and saying their assumptions of her images are wrong. 

(via english202ashleyfechner)

I loved that quote! I thought about using it for my analysis as well, but realized I was more interested in the content than the style. But the things you pointed out were really perceptive!! You identified the tone really accurately, and I especially like your note about her use of “abducted,” which I didn’t pay attention to before.

My favorite part of this quote is that “All perception is selection, and all photographs...exclude aspects of the moment’s complexity.” I think that’s one of her most compelling arguments, and one we should focus on more than the assertion that the photographs of her children are not her children. It’s such a strong support for the things we’ve discussed in class: that only 1/4 of her photos included her nude children, and that her critics know nothing of the Mann children or of Sally’s relationship with them. I’m glad you chose to spotlight this quote, Ashley!

[molly-moriarty-blog]

The Revenant | "Production Design" Featurette [HD] | 20th Century FOX

Inspired by true events, THE REVENANT is an immersive and visceral cinematic experience capturing one man’s epic adventure of survival and the extraordinary ...

When Sally Mann talked about photographing her son every day in the river, trying to capture a certain shot,  it made me think of this movie. Around the :50 mark of this video, the director touches on the complexity of shooting The Revenant. Every day they only had a window of a few hours to shoot their scenes. The actors and crew would spend all day rehearsing and waiting around for the right time of day and the right lighting. When I first saw these featurettes, that blew my mind. Shooting this movie was more like theater, and that makes you all the more appreciative of the lighting, complex camerawork, and intense acting. Sally Mann’s work has this element as well.

Here’s another video that touches on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toFJOZ08cxI  

Hearing them talk about trying to capture this landscape really helped me understand how daunting Sally Mann’s task must have been to her. Hold Still and The Revenant are just two of the many testaments to our discussion of how we don’t really realize all the time and effort that go into the art we see.

[molly-moriarty-blog]

These moments nurture me through the reemergence into the quotidian...through the bill paying and the laundry and the shopping for soccer shoes, although I am finding that I am becoming increasingly distant, like I am somehow living full time in those moments.

Hold Still, Sally Mann (pg 108)

This passage is from an old letter that Sally wrote, in which she is referring to her new photography project: family photos. Above this, she describes the rare moments when there is “an almost mystical rightness about the image.” 

This passage struck me because it is a snapshot of Sally trying to find a balance between artist and mother. It also exposes her belief that photos can overpower memories, and it echos Sontag’s sentiment that photographs can impair our ability to be present.

Sally’s tone in this passage is almost bitter. In the beginning, we feel a happiness (almost relief) in her wealth of new material, but then she wrenches us back into the “quotidian” with her list of chores. That list, with its absence of commas, feels breathless and overwhelming. “Quotidian” means ordinary, everyday, mundane. It’s interesting that she uses such a fancy and uncommon word to describe the ordinary. 

I also noticed her use of the words “nurture’ and “emergence,” which are both words associated with babies and birth. She is describing the stress of being a mother, but also identifying her work and her children as caregivers for her. 

What I like about this passage is that it perfectly lays out Sally’s dual role. If we take a look at the paragraph above this passage, we see it clearly:

“I am working, every day...on new photographs. This body of work, family pictures, is beginning to take on a life of its own. Seldom, but memorably, there are times when my vision, even my hand, seems guided by, well, let's say a muse. There is at that time an almost mystical rightness about the image: about the way the light is enfolding, the way the [kids'] eyes have taken on an almost frightening intensity, the way there is a sudden, almost outer-space-like, quiet.” (p. 108)

Her tone in the letter mirrors her shift from mother to artist and back. She begins by stating simply that she’s taking photos of her family every day. Then she shifts into ornate, ethereal language describing capturing the perfect photo. And she seamlessly shifts back to mother as she yanks us into bills and laundry. She drifts from cool but intense descriptions of her photographers’ fervor, straight to warm sentiments about how her work with her family is healing. Even though it’s a letter and may not have been as carefully crafted as the prose in her book, I think this is a very telling passage about the odd balance that Sally must find.

[english202laurenathmann-blog]

“I found release from my own increasing burden of flesh” (170)

This was my punctum because burden of flesh represents a sin that is often a sexual sin. She feels guilt about her actions she is taking and carries a burden around with her because she has kept her father in the dark for so long. On the next page she also writes “sin of omission” which is a sinful failure to perform an action. I think that these two quotes have a lot of significance with each other. They are both representing the battle she is internally fighting with what she feels is right and what she thinks should be right. 

[molly-moriarty-blog]

Lauren, I think this is a really interesting contrast. Throughout most of Fun Home, guilt isn’t really a feeling we pick up a lot of from Alison. But this quote shows that it might be there more than she shows. “Sins of omission,” on the other hand, is a huge theme in the book. Absence and fiction play a large role in the way Alison views her father. I think you bring up a really cool discovery that guilt is often implied, but omitted, even though it’s something you might expect in a story about suicide and sexuality. 

[farisbaadhaim-blog]

Centriphone - an iPhone video experiment by Nicolas Vuignier

find out how I did it: https://youtu.be/d45oGNv8H98 After almost two years of tinkering and tweaking I finally achieved the result I was looking for No iPhon...

One of my friends sent me this link and told me to watch it.  I was really impressed with the creativity of this person and his cinematography by using an iPhone and a Centriphone. A centriphone is a device that he designed and built.  But the most impressing thing about this is he used an iPhone to film this and the quality of the video he took from his iPhone look like one of those really expensive camera that movie makers use. I think it is crazy the quality was this good, yet the device fits in you pockets. Overall, I liked the video and was really impressed by it.

[molly-moriarty-blog]

This is insane!! This is a fantastic example of the way that smartphones have revolutionized the way we think of photography. But even though creative stuff like this gets buried in all of the selfies and documentation that we see on social media, you can see that it’s still very true that technology has made art widely accessible. Amateur artists are capable of making ridiculously high-quality projects with something they have in their pocket every day. I think with all the discussion our class has had about how horrified Sontag would be by our culture, this is a gem that shows that it’d be pretty hard for her not to be pleased as well. Almost everyone can make and share art in a way that’s never been possible before.

[molly-moriarty-blog]

Complete List of All the Disney Classics Being Remade (So Far)

From Beauty and the Beast to The Little Mermaid, it seems all of Disney's classics are being remade

These upcoming live-action remakes of old Disney classics have been on my radar for a while. Like a lot of kids who grew up on these movies, I’m a little wary. Reboots of older movies is really trendy lately, as I’m sure you guys have noticed. I think this aspect of our culture is super interesting. Is it just greed? Producers know that they can make more money from us by rebooting old classics? Or is it an actual creative enterprise? People our age are growing up and becoming filmmakers and they want a crack at re-imagining their childhood movies? I’m not sure. As uneasy as these make me, all I know for sure is that I’ll be the first one in line for Tim Burton’s remake of Dumbo.

[molly-moriarty-blog]

The picture framer: Kurt Nordwall

Kurt Nordwall is a framing technician at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts whose job involves building frames appropriate to the art they surround.

The last time I was at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, I stopped to look at some of the books on display, and in one I read a short biography about a framer who worked for the museum. I didn’t buy the book and I don’t remember his name, but I looked online for articles about the framers who work at the institute because I think it’s super interesting. I never would have guessed that there’s someone whose entire job is to choose frames for this art. After I read that story, I found myself seeing all of the art in a new light - with two layers. The actual art, and the frame. This led to looking at how and why the art is placed the way it is, and which pieces of art are put next to each other. I personally think that that behind-the-scenes work makes museums much more interesting.

[kjnick]

[molly-moriarty-blog]

I remember this photo from the museum and I didn’t pay enough attention to it to feel creeped out. But it’s definitely creepy! My first thought is how was this photo even taken? How would you take a photo where the moving subject in the foreground is still and the entire background is shaky? The fact that the girl’s head is cut off in the photo gives the viewer even more disorientation and unease. Something about the girl just looks very wrong. She’s larger than life and her shadow fills the street, which goes with your ghostly, supernatural impression. Most of all, I wonder why the photograph shows her with the jump-rope between her legs, rather than capturing successful jump-roping. 

[molly-moriarty-blog]

      This black and white image at first invites its viewer into this home, but the gaping doorway and the narrow, claustrophobic staircase give you an uncertain feeling. The shadows cast in the scene give it a stagnant, silent feeling. You can just imagine the musty, woody smell and the echoing creaks of your footfalls. Although the clean lines, sharp angles, and high contrast look modern and polished, you can imagine the old feel of the house and the roughness of the wood. The yawning entryway and the staircase that winds out of sight, into the dark, are both inviting and foreboding, making the viewer both nervous and curious

       There’s not a distinct foreground subject and background like in some photos we looked at - the edge of the door protrudes towards us, and the staircase winds back into shadow. The photo encloses the entire doorway, and the viewer feels like they’re standing, looking into the doorway. The doorway sprawls over the middle third of the photo and dominates the frame vertically. However, the photo feels unbalanced – the light and dark don’t weigh equally on the eye, and the photo barely feels grounded by the chair on the right hand side. Otherwise it would feel crooked and empty.

       I think the imbalance, the contrast, and the general conflict of feelings in this photo are meant to make the viewer feel uneasy. It’s simplistic and familiar at first, but the longer I looked at it, the more confused I became. The title is “The Upstairs,” which sometimes has a heavenly connotation, so these feelings of unease and curiosity could be imparted intentionally by the artist.

       The most interesting point about this photo is that it’s not really a photo. I looked at the small image for a while in the gallery before realizing that some of the lines weren’t straight – it looks like a painting. The placard states that the photo “captures an oil painting of the same year that was itself based on a photograph of a Quaker home from more than a decade earlier.” This sort of created conversation of images is particularly interesting for this class. The original painting is in color, which speaks about the photographer’s choice to make it black and white. Charles Sheeler could be trying to communicate the unreality of images, or could be toying with the relationship between photorealistic art and whether it can be replaced by actual photographs.

[molly-moriarty-blog]

Art Trip: Twin Cities | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios

Today's episode has been sponsored by Squarespace. For more information, visit http://www.squarespace.com/artassignment In which we explore a few of Minnesot...

The Art Assignment is a YouTube channel hosted by Sarah Urist Green, who is a curator at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. I don’t follow the channel closely, but this video took me by surprise when it came out because it’s about the twin cities. Sarah visits the Minneapolis Institute of Art in this video, and goes on to visit lots of other galleries and museums in the area (including Macalester!). In the wake of our trip, this would be a good video to check out if you want to see more art around St. Thomas!

[collinswayofseeing-blog]

One of the frames that stuck out the most to me in the first few chapters from Fun Home was on the bottom of page 30. It was the map of the town with the correlating waypoints to major events or significant places to the father who had died. I found it very interesting that the father had some sort of an obsession almost with the figure of an obelisk and the meaning that he put upon it. Then to have some of his major points in life line up in the shape of an obelisk when mapped out seemed less of a coincident and more of on purpose. But Why? Why would you seemingly plan out your death? Could an obsession really drive you to make rash decisions? From reading on I believe that the father made no actions on accident and that his life was a twisted interesting knot of characters and books he was caught into like a web. This specific picture doesn’t have a lot of insightful text to go along with it as Bechdel is labeling the different points on the map, but she does bring up one thing. That the small circle where her dad’s life took place correlates to his provincialism or narrow-mindedness. Which is both misleading and accurate due to his deep complexity as a human.

[molly-moriarty-blog]

I didn’t notice the shape that the points on the map made! Good eye, Collin! Your questions are ones that were running through my head throughout this whole reading. How much of Alison’s father’s life was intentional? And how much did his obsession affect him? Alison talks about her dad just wanting to live in a fictional world, and that could be a simple explanation for his obsession. But his obsession with Fitzgerald specifically suggests to me that he’s a fan of intentionality - since Fitzgerald is kind of famous for his careful writing and symbols. Something I kept wondering is WHY, if Alison’s father still thought of his lovers right after his wedding, did he get married at all? I think his obsession with fiction and appearances played a role. And I wonder if he thought he needed his own Daisy, and that’s what his wife was for.

[molly-moriarty-blog]

Page 17 of Fun Home is a page about appearances. It looks, at first glance, like it’s about a normal family. It isn’t until you look at the details that you notice that no one looks happy. It’s very rare in this first section of the book to see any smiles (or even facial expressions that aren’t angry or distant). The middle two frames are too formal, too pristine. Alison’s family posing starkly for a photo, and a corner in their home – shining, and definitely not belonging in a kids’ home. This not only draws a parallel for how her family appears, but it also reflects their emotional environment. It’s uncomfortable and forbidding. But the first and last frames on the page show a real family: looking bored at church, and playing and bickering together in a messy living room. In all of the frames, we see them physically close together, which is rare in Alison’s drawings.

When you finally read the words on the page, they’re more dark and serious than you expect. The first frame has a textbox which arguably packs the biggest punch so far in our reading: “But would an ideal husband and father have sex with teenage boys?”  And Alison doesn’t address this. She immediately goes on to say that her family wasn’t a sham. That her family was a real family who really lived in this house. This is a rare spark of contentment, almost happiness. It doesn’t feel confused and bitter like much of Alison’s retrospective writing. This page gives the reader a sense of the coziness that we might imagine family entails. But all the while, we see these dead, tired faces and that looming first frame, in which we see Alison watching her father watching an altar boy. This is at the root of her family’s corruption, and is a theme that permeates the whole memoir: Alison watching her father watching something else.