Thursday, 25 October 2012

Richard Miles : Panopticism : Lecture 3


LECTURE 3: 


How social control and the way society makes our consciousness. institutions and specific types of power institutions hold over us : physical presence i.e organise bodies of men (prisons / army / police) or institutions that have organised practise or behaviour (family, marriage). How they frame our behaviour. people authorising - whats good / bad? 
PANOPTICISM INSTITUTIONAL POWER


Panopticom is a building > understand micheal foulcalts concept of disciplinary society'
consider that disciplinary society i a way of making individuals productive and useful.
Understand foultts idea of techniques of the body and 'docile' bodies.

MICHEAL FOULCAULT :
INSANITY // MADNESS // civilisation 
To deconstruct 


History :
MIDDLE AGES : NO STRICT CONCEPTION OF MADNESS; HAPPY FOOL NO DIVISION NO DIVISION BETWEEN SANE AND THE INSANE UNTIL 1600'S > NEW SENSIBLITY STARTED TO EMERGE > CONCERNS NEW ATTITUDE TO WORK AND SOCIAL VALUE OF WORK, FROM MORAL USEFULNESS OF WORK. ANXIETY EMERGED TO ALL PEOPLE WHO COULD BE BRAKCED AS SOCIALLY USELESS, EG, NOT PRODUCTIVE LABOURERS. THESE HOUSES OF CORRECTION WERE BUILD. HOUSES/PRISIONS FOR FACTORYS - THREW MAD, CRIMINALS - SOCIALL UNPRODUCTIVE WERE DEEMED, DRUNKEN PEOPLE, DISEASE PEOPLE, SINGLE MOTHERS, HOUSES OF DEPRESSION. MADE TO WORK AT WORK STATIO, PHYSICALLY BEATEN IF THEY DIDNT WORK, CRUDE WAY OR MAKING SOCIAL UNPRODUCTIVE > PRODUCTIVE. UNDERTSANDING OF MORAL RE-FORM WAS THOUGHT TO BE THIS. THIS WENT ON UNTIL THE 18TH CENTURY. HOUSES OF CORRECTION STARTED TO BE SEEN AS MISTAKE, INSIDE HOUSES ALL PEOPLE WOULD CORRUPT EACH OTHER, INSANE CWOULD CORRUPT THE SANE ETC. WHAT EMERGED WAS SPECIALISED INSTITUTIONS LIKE PRISN FOR CRIMINALS LIKE MENTAL HOSPITAL AND THE ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE > CORRECTING THE MENTAL ILL SME WAY AS HOSITAL CORRECTS THE SICK, 




THESE INSTITUTIONS WORKED ON CORRECTING IN A VERY DIFFERENT WAY THAT THE HOUSES DID. IN ASYULUM INSTEAD OF PHYSICAL VIOLENCE SUTTLE TECHNIQUES WERE USED, TATICALLY REDUCED TO STATE OF CHILDREN, TREATED LIKE CHILDREN AND IF THEY BEHAVED PPROPRAITLY THEY WERE GIVEN AWARDS, BADLY > THEY WERE CHASTIZED. INTRESTING BECAUSE PRE MODERN SOCIETY TO ATTEMPT CONTRL POPULATION THROUGH PHYSICAL VIOLNCE TO A MORE SPEACIALISED FORM OF CONTROL THOUGH MENTAL TATICS > TRAINIG PEOPLE TO BEHAVE. MODIFYING PEOPELS BEHAVIOUR / ATTITUDE. 
YOU GET NEW INSTITUTIONAL SPECIALISED KNOWLEDGE . EXPERTS THTA EXPLAIN WHAT GOES ON. NEW AUTHORITY FIGURES, PHYSCOLOGY ETC,DOCTOR GAINS MASSIVE INCREASE IN SOCIAL STATUS AT THIS TIME. 

HOW TEHSE INSTITUTIONS EFFECT THE WAY WE THINK AND CONTRIL OUR BEHVAIOUR IN A WAY THAT YOU TAKE RESPONSIBILTY FOR YOUR OWN DISCIPLINE.



IN PRE MODERN SOCIETY > DISPLINE TECHNIQUES USED WHERE NOT ABOUT CORRECTING OR REFORMING BUT PUNISHMENT WAS TO BE AS MEAN AND GRIZZLY AS POSSIBLE, DISPLINE SERVIED AS A VISABLE TECHNIUE AND REMIINDER AS POWER OF STATE OVER YOU. 
SIGN OF POWER OF STATE AND RMINDER TO PEOPLE NOT TO TEST THAT. PUNISHEMNT ON FEAR AND PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT. 

PUNISHMENT > GUY FORKS > VERY GRIZZLY 



MODERN SOCIETY > NEW FORM OF DIIPLINE > EMERGENCY OF DISCIPLINARY SOCIETY > NEW MODE OF POWER THAT REVOLVES ROUND MENTAL RATHER THEN PHYSICAL AND INFUSES EVERY ASPECT OF OUR LIVES. 
SURVALINECE : CONTROL BEHAVIOURS THOUGHTS FEELINGS PHYSICALLY IMPROVE SOCIAL USEFULNESS.  = PANPOPTICISM > FTER THE BUILDING





PANOPTICOM > THIS IS A BUILDING. PROPOSED AS A DESIGN FOR A GENERIC CONSITUTION > MULTIFUNCTIONAL HOSPIAL FOOD SCHOOL ASYLUM PRISON ETC.. MOST WERE ACTUALLY PRISON AND ASYLUMS.
CIRCULAR BUILDING > THERE ARE CELLS ETC WITH WALLS IN-BETWEEN WHERE AN INDIVIDUAL WILL BE PLACED ON NUMBER OF FLOORS. 





Each cell has a large window from back and open from the front in each cell there is an individual, wall to left and right > in panopticon it has a mental effect > he proposed the building as almost the perfect institution for whatever purpose. reason it functions perfectly, is cos, each cell individual stares constant at the central observation tower, (hospital doctors, school teachers) prison - prison gursd. inmates could not see each other, all they can really see if is the constant guards in the tower > has an effect.

Efffect that is the opposite of dungeon > where you hide or lock away the crimal classes, Panopticom everything is light and visual and on display how class goes from dark to scrutiny.
because your costly reminded that you are being watched by someone who expects you to behave, what happens is that you ultimalty you never behave in a bad way. because if you were to rebel you would be spotted. so what is the point of misbehaving? that effect is drilled into your head, no responses, can't see or speak to anyone, always on your mind, it has servivre mental effects. 



THE PANOPTICON INTERNALISES THE INDIVIDUAL CONSCIOUS STATE.

THEREFORE YOU DONT NEED ANYONE SUPERVISING COS YOU WOULD MENTAL THINK THAT YOU ARE BEING WATCHED. PEOPLE START TO CONTROL THEMSLEVES, 


Scrutteny and functions like a laboratory, classification interilistic knowdgle sppecialist to carry out experiments on people. System for classifying. 


PANOPTIC POWER > OPEN PLAN OFFICE > PEOPLE TO SHARE EXPERIENCE, BUT WHAT REALLY HAPPENS THAT PEOPLE CAN CONSTANLTY BE SEEN INFRONT OF THE BOSS, NOT GOOFING OFF WITH MATES, CHANGES WORKERS
VISIBLITY AND INTERNALISED OF WBEING WATCHED > CONTROL BEHAVIOUR > START CONTROLLING YOURSELF. 



STUDIOS / BARS







GOOGLE MAPS / TV / CONFORM / GOOGLE MAPS











Monday, 22 October 2012

Richard Miles - Seminar 2 - The Gaze

Seminar on Lecture  >  ' The Gaze '

Insetad of looking at a subject you will look at objectify someone/object (stereotype), but other do the same to us, reseprosity (giving and taking) within matter. 
'The Gaze' relationship is based around power.

She is not looking at us, the reflection is of herself, we are allowed to look without ever being looked at. Sp we are therefore in control in this situation. e can gaze on but never gaze upon. she gaze's upon her self, so that therefore makes it ok for us to look. 

>

The images painted by men and consumed by men because society was patriarchal (men controlled / jobs of status) woman didn't have status in society. This period, where nude starts to become accepted as form of art. It a picture of naked women because > duel function > pornagraphic function (unchallenged) errotic / sexual images, but also about control and domination, power > male power over women. Females submissiveness to power of dominant male. Image here as a fantasy of the controllable servile submissive passive obedient female. Ultimate male fantasy of both power and virility of masculine control over the female. 

> Woman who is there to be looked at (nude), but a woman knows that she is an object to look at. A man has painted this for another man, for woman to be looked at, called 'Vanity' implies woman is vain > condescending attitude on woman, slightly making fun of. She is looking on herself > vain, asking for it. Artificially projected a passive felinity, which men laugh at, even though they created the image. 
Idealised fantasy sexuality, which residers in male domination of female, whilst degrading woman. 

Power > Domination > Patriarchal Idea of Feminity > Where female is passive or submissive > And the male is active and dominant. 
MEN CREATED VISUAL CULTURE > if this is first time we start to see representations of gender, then they are automatically biased, 

* Women objectified, on display is that culture has determined it that way, because woman where not dominant class in the west, in the past. 

The above is looking away, the below is meeting the gaze > PASSIVE AND SUBMISSION.
The Birth of Venus - Goddess of love, 
Olympia - Prostitute, being given flowers, gifts

Gaze Relations : Venus is a fantasy image, made by and for real people with real attitudes, it validates the depiction - abstract notion o fart removing it further away from notion of society, men and women in industriazatio . modern world nor any notion or realities of sex, venus image is sexual > on her back, covering head > 

Olympia transforms a dignified goddess into the simple nakedness of humanity. You don't won her, she is per on, equal, reality. Scandal because it de-pics an everyday event, and symbolises that women are sexual for men. 'Sleazy' in compression to Goddess.  

Meet the gaze as a challenge or as an invite. 

Find the feminimities in all aspects of culture  >  Across movie stars, magazine, film, celebrities in media etc.

Vue Magazine > Written by Men , stripes include : 'My hobby is Men' > cultural attitude that gets replayed in certain ways. modern day > katie price > was a sexual object but then its gone to far > look at this woman > wants to be fancied > but she is not because she is grotestq > traps and punishes women. 
Sun Newspaper Pg 3. statement from the pg. 3 model : the woman is naked, and comments on topical news issue of day and pulls a quite from g=famous people such as niche, Einstein, humorous, men writing it, to laugh at her for being this image that they have created, based uptown sexual power. 


Assertive / Message: Who cares, leading Femininity i can't cook, i don't really care, cos i have my body and figure and breast and successful life. Who is it aimed at? both genders, men to buy for women so that they can mould woman into perfect and ideal sense. Aimed at women who can identify with being assertive etc. 


Thursday, 18 October 2012

The Gaze and the Media - Lecture 2

Helen Clarke - The Gaze and the Media - lecture 2



From Ways of Seeing Chapter 3
Investigation of the gaze through the nude in european oli painting
This does not mean that women are vain. Women watch themselves being looked at because of the many representations of women that surround us.
Women survey their own femininity and idea of this. 




Angle of mirror is incorrect in reflection. the womans face in mirror is full. 
Double view of face, mirror placed in hand as device to justify act of looking. Painter makes painting so they can enjoy nudity. Allows us to look at her without.






Slight challenge to the gaze as she looks back from the mirror. Checking mirror - how do i look? 

Tendency to depict female body which doesn't allow us to look at the gaze.










Reclinig figure, 3/4 picture taken up of the body, legs open dn hand on breast. Because of this the advert was banned, they ended up turning the image round, from horizontal to vertical when publishing - takes emphasis of sexual body position. 



Titians Venus of Urbino; 1538
Berger makes the comparison :Traditional nude- regarding us coquettishly


Olympia transforms a dignified goddess into the simple nakedness of humanity. Olympia does not belong to the world of mythology - Olympia stood “as the first nude to represent modern reality” because she is a prostitute rather than a goodness figure.Shocked Modern society - Olympia is adorned with the trappings of success - jewels / bracelets etc not the degraded prostitute of popular myth - Courtesan

Cat is symbol of individual femininity and independence. Olympia ignores the flowers presented to her, probably as a gift to her from an admirer.





Guerrilla Girls formed in 1985 in response to the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition "An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture" which showcased 169 artists; out of those 169, only 17 were women. The curator's press release for the exhibition stated: "Any artist who is not in my show should rethink his career." 



Asked to design a billboard for the Public Art Fund in New York, we welcomed the chance to do something that would appeal to a general audience. One Sunday morning we conducted a "weenie count" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, comparing the number of nude males to nude females in the artworks on display. The results were very "revealing."
The PAF said our design wasn't clear enough (????) and rejected it. We then rented advertising space on NYC buses and ran it ourselves, until the bus company canceled our lease, saying that the image, based on Ingres' famous Odalisque, was too suggestive and that the figure appeared to have more than a fan in her hand.
Phallic implication
Take object to be some sort of sexual object - sexual connotation and therefore poster was banned from public view.


MANET - Bar at the Folies Bergeres
Again, self-portrait…
Skewed perspective.
Dissaffected from society, unhappy at work and not involved with the revelry - Marginalised members of this great new Modernist society
Role of women - disaffected, no longer the passively available, sexualised Nymphs
Locket around the hints at another life - escapism - a love token from another world
She is the only figure not reflected - Paris as a hall of mirrors - Superficiality
See her from 2 positions at once, see her as herself and as the character 'gent' in the corner. 

She looks at us and returns our gaze.



Picture for Women was inspired by Edouard Manet's masterpiece A Bar at the Folies-Bergères (1881–82). In Manet's painting, a barmaid gazes out of frame, observed by a shadowy male figure. The whole scene appears to be reflected in the mirror behind the bar, creating a complex web of viewpoints. Wall borrows the internal structure of the painting, and motifs such as the light bulbs that give it spatial depth. The figures are similarly reflected in a mirror, and the woman has the absorbed gaze and posture of Manet's barmaid, while the man is the artist himself. Though issues of the male gaze, particularly the power relationship between male artist and female model, and the viewer's role as onlooker, are implicit in Manet's painting, Wall updates the theme by positioning the camera at the centre of the work, so that it captures the act of making the image (the scene reflected in the mirror) and, at the same time, looks straight out at us.
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/jeffwall/rooms/room1.shtm

GAZE OF CAMERA AND GAZE OF WOMAN. 


From her essay the look
Nudity
Sunglasses
Normalises the display of bodies




Voyeurism: the compulsion to seek sexual gratification by secretively looking at sexual objects or acts; the actions of a Peeping Tom. 


To do with quantity - no. of images of naked male bodies is outweigh by female bodies. 

There are examples where the male body is objectified in a similar way
The issue of male objectification is often raised in gender classes that I have taught. I have heard many men and women suggest that men are now equally objectified in popular culture. Many a people have focused on the Lucky Vanos ads of years past as a sign of advertisers recognizing the desire of women to objectify men in our society. But what is really happening in advertising? Can men be objectified as women? If so, in what frequency is objectification present in ads? The Ads: Consider the number of ads presented in this male trope as compared to other examples of female objectification. It is interesting that when I first began the Web site many years ago, the number of ads in this exhibit were small. Today, there are nearly 60 such ads


Laura Mulvey did not undertake empirical studies of actual filmgoers, but declared her intention to make ‘political use’ of Freudian psychoanalytic theory (in a version influenced by Jacques Lacan) in a study of cinematic spectatorship in narrative Hollywood cinema.





Mulvey notes that Freud had referred to (infantile) - the pleasure involved in looking at other people’s bodies as (particularly, erotic) objects. In the darkness of the cinema auditorium it is notable that one may look without being seen either by those on screen by other members of the audience.argues that various features of cinema viewing conditions facilitate for the viewer both the voyeuristic process of objectification of female characters and also the narcissistic process of identification with an ‘ideal ego’ seen on the screen. She declares that in patriarchal society ‘pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female


Action character - men led stories, woman are accessories in stories, Lara croft - leading female? Visual special - something thats a sexualised object - overly sexualised. 


Two women are trying to cut off a man's head on a bed. Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith Beheading Holofernes shows a famous Biblical assassination. The sword-woman is Judith, a Jewish lady. The other woman is her maid, Abra. Their victim is Holofernes, the Assyrian general.
Judith has got into his tent and got him deeply drunk. To judge from his naked body in the sheets and from her slipped dress, she's got him into bed too, before he passed out and they could get to work. Gentileschi pays attention to her story.
And now the drunk man has woken in the middle of their attack. Candlelight reveals the tight, desperate wrestling of limbs. Judith, she with the blade, is keeping herself at arm's length, partly, as her pursed, slightly averted face suggests, out of a revulsion from the disgusting though necessary job (how many heads has she cut off before?); partly to stay out of the fight, so far as this is possible, because both her hands are needed for leverage, grasping his head by the hair, pushing the blade through his neck.
Abra meanwhile tries to hold him down. Her calm and beautiful face is directly above him, looking straight down on to him. Her efficient hospital gestures restrain his thrashing body. They indicate her perfect managing indifference to this creature's battle for life. But both women are ruthless. Judith is disposing of a rat. Abra is drowning kittens.
There is plenty of sensation to enjoy, the blood-stained sheets, the flesh. But Gentileschi's emphasis is on how hard it is, how long it can take, to kill someone. She stresses the hows and difficulties. The strain and strength in Judith's parallel arms, driving the sword through spine and gristle, is evident. The visual confusion of plunging arms and gripping hands – whose is whose? – mimics Abra's trouble keeping control of the man, holding one arm down while another breaks free.
This violence, in other words, is violent. This outcome is clear, probably imminent, the cut is almost through, the head will come free. But that's not how the picture makes you feel. There is no sense of a clean gesture, a chop. They're in the thick of it, the carving blade still in the neck, their bodies tangled with his like lovers. The killers are intimately implicated in their murder.
This killing isn't pictured as a heroic deed, a sword raised to strike, a head raised as a trophy. It's an ongoing business, which never seems to end. Muori, dannato! Muori!, as Tosca cries in the opera: Die, damned one! And in this painting, the struggle continues.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-judith-beheading-holofernes-161213-artemisia-gentileschi-1807173.html




Image and text using found imergery. Turning away form the male gaze, feminist work, figure in image literally turning away - implication of violence on the 'hits' in title. 

>><<
Humorous challenge - implies sexual act but picturing the self consciousness that because of connotation, of sexual act, might produce a self conciseness - conforoontational look. 



FROM POWERPOINT:
The idea that women are natural liars has a long pedigree. The key document in this centuries-long tradition is the notorious witch-hunter's manual, the Malleus Maleficarum or The Hammer of Witches, which was commissioned by Pope Innocent VIII. The book was written by two Dominican monks and published in 1486. It unleashed a flood of irrational beliefs about women's "dual" nature. "A woman is beautiful to look upon, contaminating to the touch, and deadly to keep," the authors warned. They also claimed that "all witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable".
It's not difficult to see these myths lurking behind Pacelli's description of Knox: "She was a diabolical, satantic, demonic she-devil. She was muddy on the outside and dirty on the inside. She has two souls, the clean one you see before you and the other." The lawyer's claim that she was motivated by "lust" could have come straight from the Malleus, which insists that women are more "carnal" than men.


Looking stunned? headline reenforce story - mistake - reveals media tricks - prepare 2 stories - one for each outcome - gets published - totally fabricated - published wrong story. Gaze of media? decided on the portrayal for people in a way.  

As Knox realised the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears.
A few feet away Meredith's mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family.
Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that 'justice has been done' although they said on a 'human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail'".


FB normalises voyeurism
Male or female posting doesnt matter.
One hundred and 93 thousand young people like or relate to this image
Media and male gaze are one , as Rosalind Coward says in The Look’ 


Pap images steal shots for personal financial gain
The publication of these shots creates a market for their passive consumption (mags and newspapers)
We contribute to the perpetuation of this cycle buy buying the mags, we create the market for our own voyeuristic pleasure
Our desire is to see the mask of celebrity lifted, and ordinary life exposed.
This is ultimately what killed Princess Diana




Male females to gaze upon.
Chair is designed for maximum exposure
Voyeurism becomes everyday
Original idea was that all would be exposed but ten years on we accept that the programme is edited.
Fantasy that they cannot see us but they are constantly picturing themselves, in mirrors etc and speculating about how the public wil percieve them (they are professionally aware of this)
They know the premise of the show and the viewing figures.
They effuse to be looked at ness.
Ultimate passive viewing experience.