Seeing

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• Seeing Looking

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Imaging Technologies Intertextuality
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Representation Social Construction
Do systems of representation (like images)
reflect the world as it is? Or, do we construct
the world and its meaning through systems of
representation?
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Photographic Truth
The objective/subjective tension in
camera-generated images
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Denotation Connotation
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Myth
hidden sets of rules and conventions that make
connotations seem denotative
Expectations of Truth
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Ideologies
shared sets of values and beliefs through which
individuals live out their complex relations to a
range of social structures
The retouching is excessive. I do not look like
that and more importantly I dont desire to look
like that. Kate Winslet
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Value (social, monetary, aesthetic, political)
capitalist reproduction superior
technique/innovative style authenticity
mad/genius artist
(autobiography) scarcity
institutional stature
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Value
Why is this image valuable?
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Icon
Is this (she) an icon?
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• To interpret images is to examine the assumptions
  that we and others bring to them, and to decode
  the visual language they speak
• Images contain layers of meaning that include
  their
• formal aspects
• cultural and socio-historical references
• the ways they make reference to the images that
  precede and surround them
• and the contexts in which they are displayed
• Practices of looking, then, are not passive acts
  of consumption. By looking at and engaging with
  images in the world, we influence the meanings
  and uses assigned to the images that fill our
  day-to-day lives.