Visual Culture is a term used for all visual art.
"The age of print" started in 1450 with the invention of the Guttenberg Printing Press.
This allowed people to become literate on a wide scale.
Marshall McLuhan, in the 1960's and 70's foretold the social effect of the internet in his theory of "the global village."
With the rise of computers, we are seeing people not only becoming literate, but computerate. The difference is that the computer provides a vehicle for the mass consumption AND mass production of information.
The eBook for example allows for people not only to take in information but they can critisize it and publish their own views at the same time. A possibility of democratic media.
This affects the way we read. Does it give us a false sense of efficiancy? Reading superficially, skipping through or becoming lost on a non linear path. Was print an easier vehicle for the consumption of information?
"Social Constructionism" is a theory about objects or ideas that come about as social constructs by a person or group, so in terms of information sharing it is about people building their own education.
The Mass Media is a group of modern communication systems supplied by a relatively small group of people but consumed by the masses.
The negative sides of this are:
- depersonalisation of the delivery of the information, it is superficial and uncritical. It is popular therefore unchallenging as a result.
- The audience is dispersed and disempowered by not being given the information as a group.
- It is conservative in that it encourages the status quo.
- It encourages apathy, the power is held by the few. Karl Marx said in 1844 "It (religion) is the opium of the people." The same idea can be used for the mass media becuase, like religion, it provides a quick fix of easily digestible information for those who need reassurance without putting in any effort.
Positives of the Mass Media
- It encourages and allows social injustices to be discussed
- It allows for mass transmission of creative ideas
- high art material can reach a broader audience instead of being restricted to the gallieries and walls of the rich and powerful.
John Walker wrote a book asking the question "what happens to high art in the age of the mass media?"
The leeds 13 did a project called "Going Places" where they pretended to have blown their student grants on massive piss-ups and holidays. They did this by staging photographs of them all partying around pools using backdrops and such. Then they leaked it to the mass media.
This made a lot of people angry and sparked off arguments about what was art and what wasn't.
"United Colours of Benneton" had an ad campaign showing shocking images of suffering and the results of war while advertising their clothing.
Projects like this create questions like "Can and should art be autonomous (exist on its own?)"
The debate is "does the best art stand outside of politics and society?"
The was a rumour that Jackson Pollack was funded by the CIA to show the "genius of the liberated mind under capitalism."
Thomas crow wrote a book "Modern Art in Common Culture" which talked about Pop artists such as Richard Hamilton and Roy Lichtenstein who presented a challenge to the elite value system of high art.
Andy Warhols "Marylins" portrayed Marylin Monroe in kitsch colours (soapbox colours, anti aesthetic) Marylin Monroe was portrayed by the mass media as a fun loving sex goddess, whereas in reality she suffered from mental illness and died of a drug overdose. Essentially she was a product that was marketed and sold, Warhols images reflected this.
Also, Warhols "green cola bottles" showed cocacola in a light unlike the adverts of the cocacola company as a wall of green bottles some half full, like a production line, dull, drab and boring.
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