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Visual and Culture: Assignment

The document discusses Mitchell's distinction between visual studies and visual culture. [1] Visual studies bridges gaps between art history and aesthetics by focusing on visuality, but visual culture represents both the field and its content in a less neutral way. [2] Mitchell addresses myths about visual culture, including that it is limited to images, functions solely through optical powers, and is linked only to modernity. [3] He argues visual culture includes the unseen and everyday practices of seeing, and explores the visual construction of the social field through a dialectical approach.

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119 views

Visual and Culture: Assignment

The document discusses Mitchell's distinction between visual studies and visual culture. [1] Visual studies bridges gaps between art history and aesthetics by focusing on visuality, but visual culture represents both the field and its content in a less neutral way. [2] Mitchell addresses myths about visual culture, including that it is limited to images, functions solely through optical powers, and is linked only to modernity. [3] He argues visual culture includes the unseen and everyday practices of seeing, and explores the visual construction of the social field through a dialectical approach.

Uploaded by

airan Isha
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Indraprastha College for Women

Assignment

VISUAL AND
CULTURE

Submitted by :-
Isha Airan
12/SOC/20
Ba. Sociology Hons.
Q, critically discuss the discourse of visual and culture and its myths.
Mitchell begins the text with a distinction between visual studies and visual
culture. Visual research is the study of visual culture (Mitchell, 2002:166), but
people tend to confuse the two. Mitchell prefers visual cultures that represent
both the field and its content, writing that it is less neutral. 
Interdisciplinary tensions exist between visual studies and art history and
aesthetics. Aesthetics deals with the theory of visual experience, while art
history deals with the history of images and visual forms. Then the question
arises, why do we need visual studies? This interdisciplinary terror is what
Jacques Derrida called the "dangerous complement." 
Visual studies, on the other hand, bridges the gap between art history and
aesthetics by acting as a subdiscipline focused on visuality, but this
complementarity allows visual studies to address the imperfections of both
disciplines. They become complementary because they threaten boundaries by
showing and opening boundaries. Make it an external object. Mitchell ponders
the question of whether vision studies can become an academic department. He
wrote that visual studies need to address both the idiosyncrasies of what we see
and the fact that much of traditional art history has been like that. mediated by a
highly imperfect representation. (Mitchell, 2002:168) 
Mitchell writes that visual culture is not, as has been pointed out, a "dangerous
complement", but advocates fail to answer assumptions about discipline, and he
therefore presents myths and argues against their He also offers
counterarguments to myths. The myths he unfolds are mainly about how visual
culture is reduced to images and how it functions as something that functions
solely by optical powers, and how this is the art of art. We are dealing with
things that led to liquidation. there is
Also, this assumption that it arose in a visual age and is linked to modernity,
and that visual culture is a socially constructed field with an anthropological
approach, and therefore part of the capacity of nature. Visual culture is also
associated with the myth that it consists of obscure regimes and mystical
imagery meant to be overthrown by political criticism. 
Mitchell offers a refutation of these assumptions about visual culture. He states
that visual culture is not limited to images and their study, but also includes the
unseen, the unseen, the overlooked, and the everyday practice of seeing and
showing. increase. He also considers the relationship between art and non-art,
the difference between visual and linguistic signs, and different sensory and
semiotic modes. (Mitchell, 2002:
170) Visual image detached from the body and dematerialized. Culture is said
to have a penchant for being a fairly integral part of the dialect of the field.
Mitchell writes that the political task of the discipline is to provide criticism.
The age we live in is a unique visual age. Because visuals are socially
constructed here, the question of visual "nature" arises and takes centre stage. 
Like language, codes, visual images are also symbolic constructions. This
recognition has helped visual culture in its elaboration. But Mitchel asks to what
extent is this vision natural. He writes that a dialectical concept of the discipline
makes sure that there is a dialogue with visual “nature”, it explores the visual
construction of the social field. (Mitchell,2002:171)

Further, Mitchell discusses the fallacies and provides counter thesis of visual
culture by dividing it into five points:
 Democratic or leveling fallacy: It is related to the myth that visual culture
ends the distinction between artistic and non-artistic images and dissolves
the History of art into history of images. (Mitchell,2002:171) Mitchell
counters it by saying that just because some scholars open up the domain
of images to both artistic and non-artistic images that doesn’t diminish
the difference between the two.

 Fallacy of the pictorial turn: This relates to the myth that visual media
and spectacle create supremacy over other linguistic activities. This is
countered by saying Pictorial turns are not unique to the modern era, they
have a recurring character and take specific forms. Inventions such as the
Internet and photography have presented new ways of imagining and
creating visual culture. The error pointed out by Mitchell is this Building
a binary model of history and the gap between the literate age and the
visual age. 

 Fallacy of technical modernity: The superiority of the visible is thought to


be a product of the new Western media technology. However, visual
culture is not confined to the West alone, but is generalized as the study
of all social practices of human vision. Mitchell writes that the notion of
viewing vision as hegemonic is dull, and that it is important to explain the
specific relationship of vision to other senses. 
 Fallacy of the visual media: This is related to the myth that visual media
is limited and exemplified only through television, film and the internet
etc. Mitchell says that there is not one such thing like an exclusive visual
medium. The notion of mixed media allows to specify codes, materials
etc. and allows to break up the reification of media around a single
sensory organ. (Mitchell,2002:174) Visual is everywhere, in literature too
even if it is indirectly conveyed.

 Power fallacy: Here, it is thought that the spectator dominates the visual
images, and their producers exert power over the viewers. It is related to
power relations. While visual culture can be used as an instrument of
domination it is not the “only” vehicle of political tyranny. Scopic
regimes can be overturned without any visible effect on either visual or
political culture. (Mitchell,2002:175) Mitchell proposes a balanced
approach between the image as a tool for manipulation and image as an
autonomous source of meanings where the social construction of the
visual field has to be continuously replayed as the visual construction of
the social field.

Visual culture goes beyond the fields of art history, aesthetics, and media
studies. One of his ways of initiating interdisciplinary exercises is by compiling
an archive of hands-on demonstrations, showing what to see. This practice of
showing seeing invites people to inspire a sense of wonder as to how it
encompasses a broader field of everyday vision that differs from other fields. In
this way, visual culture draws from both other disciplines and its own resources,
and stands as an interdisciplinarity that turns out to be a specific and
independent area of study, rather than just a 'dangerous supplement'. Visual
culture involves contemplating the unseen, understanding the unseen, and above
all transcending images. 

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