⚜Riley⚜

[rileybrittain-blog]

Week 14 Rumination

While reading the first section in chapter 9 I found that a lot of the medical examples and artistic stances from the past made sense. Since there was really no basic knowledge of germs, cells, or bacteria it's easy to imagine that the thought of “looking within” the body was a strange way of thinking. The topical solutions of the time were, of course, the accessible view of human illness or wounds that were not scientifically backed up. While there were many theories, most relating to the wrath of god, the scientific revolution and the enlightenment brought more modern ideas of science, evolution, and the human body. The first thought I had while reading is that it makes sense that early doctors and physicians were also artistic. When you look at the past’s great minds the majority had artistic ability, such as Leonardo da Vinci. He had a lifetime’s worth of journals filled with drawings of human anatomy. Humans are incredibly dependent on sight, however, without other cognitive functions, we would not be able to understand what we were seeing. Da Vinci worked closely with anatomy during his lifetime, he was present at many human dissections where he would draw what was happening to the body. I found it very interesting how he draws the human fetus, which in turn led to more scientific practices, according to the book. These practices include genetics, embryology, gynecology, and obstetrics. These strides in science paved the way for modern science and art. Since we are visually reliant creatures, looking inside the body was a privilege for some and a scientific endeavor for others. I find it morbid but necessary to visually understand the human body. Ultimately, the textbook “Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture” took the practice of looking to a whole different level by delving deeper into the history of why we “look inside.”

[rileybrittain-blog]

Obama Hope

The Obama Hope phenomenon of 2008 was definitely a craze. I remember a lot of things being completely decked out in Obama hope merch, I even remember having an Obama doll. The funny thing, looking back, is that the majority of the public really didn't seem all that interested in Obama’s policies, in fact, I think the public was most stoked about the fact that America finally had a black president elected into office. The inherent need for this to happen probably provoked a lot of idealism surrounding Obama, with many claiming he would save the country or claiming (rather irrationally) that he was “magical”. In essence, supporting outlandish and irrational ideals for one man. While it's true he did everything he could for the country, some claims were simply impossible for a man to accomplish in 4-8 years. I will not get political because I truly don't think this is a political debate, I think that the Obama Hope era was actually more of a capitalist movement geared toward getting people excited for a new era in America. While reading Laurie Gries’s “Still Life with Rhetoric: A New Materialist Approach for Visual Rhetorics” one idea popped out to me. She explains a marketing strategy called attribution. This theory supports the idea that if a person, in this case, Obama, gets you to purchase an item with their slogan, face, etc., then you are more likely to support them in the future. In other words, if you make a financial commitment then you're committing to that campaign. This idea stuck with me because I was already considering the fact that this accidental work of art was an ingenious marketing scheme. While it seems to be completely accidental for Fairey to make such an impactful poster, in the end, this poster goes on to be globally recognized as not just art but as a symbol of hope and progress.

[rileybrittain-blog]

Branding

This week the chapter focused on brands and the theory that freedom is linked to capitalist markets. I really liked this chapter because the idea of branding is intriguing and a little frustrating. We are all victims of brand culture whether we try to avoid brands or not. There’s really no escaping the marketing of certain items because media is everywhere we look and we connect our personal lives to these companies and brands. Ethically speaking we want to be drawn to brands that are inherently good, their marketing targets audiences through their “good works” or messages. For example, Nike’s saying “Just do it” is somewhat emotional, inspiring, and is linked to ethical movements. When we see Nike on a shirt, we can assume that person likes the brand for what it stands for or how it looks. This brings me to a problematic company whose brand is toxic and enhances self hate for one’s body. What company? Victoria's Secret of course!

I did my P2P activity this week on Victoria’s Secret. Their brand has always degraded women into believing a certain body type (skinny and near-malnourished) is ideal. Their brand is more geared toward what men want in a woman. Since the company continues to be run primarily by male executives their message to women has not changed, even in the face of criticism for their problematic marketing. Their abuse of models is just one factor in its horrifying behavior. As an example there have been multiple scandals accusing executives of molesting models and even shaming them for eating. As a kid I looked up to the models for their beauty and because they were “angelic” and “perfect.” This of course is not what a female body is supposed to look like and it’s only in the past couple decades that men have accepted thin as the beauty norm rather than curvy or voluptuous body types. The Victoria’s Secret brand is geared towards men rather than women and its evident in their shaming of women- heir costumers. There are other, more positive brands whose message is accepting your body and imperfections as something unique and inspiring rather than being ashamed of perfectly natural and healthy curves or tummies. 

[rileybrittain-blog]

This week we went over the naturalistic enthymeme. The naturalistic enthymeme is the phenomenon where people assume photographs reflect reality until we are given reasonable doubt to disagree with the photos message. In the reading, the author discussed the example of the skull controversy during the depression era or America. I found that this example sort of altered my view of professional photography. While we usually believe what we see, a lot of time our eyes are being manipulated through framing, photoshop, or incorrect captioning. The author wrote that the study of visual argument in fact encodes ideas or power, spectatorship, and domination. I never thought of visual arguments having that kind of power over people but it makes sense. Since humans are visual creatures we believe what we see and don’t believe what we can’t see. There is a lot of controversy surrounding professional journalist photography because the photographs taken must be true and honestly covey what was happening. But how can one prove that what we see can oftentimes be manipulated by framing or cropping. While all photographers have a choice in what they decide to take pictures of, the visual argument will always be present whether the photo taken was truthful or not. People question what they see now because of the possibility of being tricked as we have been so many times before. This also ties into visual culture. As I understand it, visual culture is how individuals from different backgrounds perceive images relating to their culture and upbringing. As an example a person from China will take a political ad for Donald Trump completely different from how a British person might perceive the same image and caption. Depending on the framing of the image and how it is presented there will always be a diversified view of images whether they are the same image or completely different.