Week 9-Gender

   Judith Butler argues in her essay "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory" that "gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo."  Gender is not something that is created when you are born, but rather is created and evolves through a series of acts over time.  Gender is a performance that is always changing and shifting. "As a public action and performative act, gender is not a radical choice or a project that reflects merely individual choice, but neither is it imposed or inscribed upon the individual.... Just as a script may be enacted in various ways, and just as the play requires both text and interpretation, so the gendered body acts its part in a culturally restricted corporeal space and enacts interpretations within the confines of already existing directives."  

  If Butler is correct and gender is always evolving and in flux, then it seems that some of the acts that are happening in the medical world are taking things a bit far.

 A doctor at the Children's Hospital Boston has launched a new drug that delays puberty so that children can decide if they want to have a male or

 female body.  http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=62010

Dr. Norman Spack created the drug so that you could alter the body earlier and therefore more successfully, but do twelve year old children really know enough about themselves to be able to make that choice?  Dr. Spack also previous acknowledged that only about 20% of children that are gender confused in childhood continue those feelings into adulthood.  If gender is always changing... then what happens when medical steps are taken to permanently change or alter the physical appearance of the body.  

 Another area in which our view of gender has changed is simply in what we find attractive.  Fifty years ago- the looks that were favored where more traditionally 'classic' in the idea of males and females.  Burt Lancaster has the classic square jaw, strong forehead,  and Roman nose, while Grace Kelly is facially much more delicate with higher cheekbones and lower eyebrows.  Today in Hollywood, these classic facial features are becoming much more interchangeable- with these male and female facial features being reversed.  As our ideals of what make a male male or female female evolve- it would seem our perception and attraction levels to what is 'beautiful' are also changing.

Week 8- The Gaze Part 3

*Sorry that I keep posting in sections- my internet is going crazy.

The one thing that really bothered me about this weeks reading was that they really only focused on the "woman as image, man as bearer of the look."  Olin mentions that the feminists have begun to investigate the female gaze, the gaze of gays or lesbians or those with multiple identifications, but not much more than that is said.  

Week 8- The Gaze Part 2

Week 8- The Gaze Part 1

One photographer who employs the gaze in an interesting way is Shizuka Yokomizo.  In her series, Stranger, she sends an anonymous letter to her subject asking them to stand beside their windows at a particular date and time, at which point Yokomizo shows up for a few moments, photographs, and leaves.  She asks that her subjects leave all the lights on, wear their normal clothes, and since she normally photographs at night- the subjects can only see her vague outline outside their windows.  The final images show the outline of the windows and curtains which further the distance between the viewer and the subject.

This type of work best exhibits the most traditional view of the gaze produced by Laura Mulvey.  The viewer or photographer in this case has power over the person they are looking at.  The subjects are performing for the camera and are therefore in a position of vulnerability.  While there is also a gaze being exchanged in the subject looking out at the photographer- the photographer is still the one with the power.  

Week 7

Michael Foucault. Discipline and Punish. Panopticism

The panoptican model can easily be applied to the role of the photographer.  The central tower is the photographer while the surrounding cells are the photographs or the people who are being photographed.  From the tower or center- the photographer has the power of visibility.   From behind the camera- the photographer is able to capture almost anything and everything surrounding him/her.

In the world of celebrity photography- famous people are under constant surveillance.  They are locked in the cells- "this enclosed segmented space, observed at every point, in which the individuals are inserted in a fixed place, in which the slightest movements are supervised, in which all events are recorded" (p.2).  This idea of course extends even further into our modern day surveillance- put in place for our own security.  From the supermarket to running red lights, video and photography is in place to make law enforcement easier.  In the same way that the panoptican allowed for easier control over prisoners, surveillance in most parts of our daily lives allows for easier control over rule breakers at large.  The operation of power is increased because the number of people who are able to be observed increases while the number of operators decreases.

This society of surveillance was predicted in another writing as well- George Orwell's 1984.  This book presented a vision of an all-knowing government and a society that was under constant surveillance and was bombarded with propoganda.

The model of the panoptican also serves to illustrate the way the population views media.  The news that we are presented is in the central position of power.  The public remains secluded in its separate cells with little choice other than to believe what it is presented with.

The Practice of Everyday Life by Michel de Certeau  BLOG UPDATE

  This book points out ways in which we take mass culture and alter it to fit our individual needs.  In the chapter Walking in the City, de Certeau begins by presenting a view from high above the city- reflecting on the spatial planning and then sinks down to the actual streets to comment on particular symbols and names.  When we went on our walk around Chicago, we examined the ways in which those around us take urban elements and alter them for our own uses.  The most common example is that of the planters being used as places to sit or smoke or gather.  While the concrete structures were created to hold shrubs, the population has appropriated the space for their own individual uses.  The city in turn, has responded as such by placing spikes and attempting to create spaces that prevent these kind of spatial alterations.

De Certeau is also fascinated with the way that naming a place changes the space of the city.  Proper names "make sense" and provide a way for us to move about the space.  "These names create a nowhere in places; they change them into passages."

Week 6

Photography has maintained it's individuality as an art form because of the very nature of the medium.  What truly is an original when it comes to a medium that has developed and flourished in part due to its ability to be reproduced.  "That which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art."  In painting, it's much easier to distinguish the original from the copies, but in photography, in some ways they are all copies.  What does that mean then for the aura of the work?

Above I tried to recreate a bit about what Barthes says about aura.  Photographs are all copies, and should therefore hold their aura in the same way.  The aura of a painting diminishes when you get further and further from the original.  What happens however, in situations where in photography the prints are numbered?  If only 10 prints are part of an edition, do those have a stronger aura than any copies that would chance to come afterwards?  

I know appropriation art and especially Sherry Levine and Richard Prince have been brought up several times already in this class, but I still think of them when it comes to the idea of aura.

Last year when photographer Jim Krantz walked into the Guggenheim for a 30-year retrospective of Mr. Prince's work, he was struck by the image below.  This photograph- "Stretchin Out" was one that he had originally shot in the late 1990's for a Marlboro campaign.  Mr. Prince copied the image for his own work- but where then does that leave the aura?  Simply because Prince is protected by fair use under copyright laws- is he then able to steal an aura?  The age of mechanical reproduction allows for this image to have two auras- even though to the human eye- they may look exactly the same.  Also, it is a strange thought to think that this image probably has posters on sale in the museum bookshop for $9.99.  "Works of art are received and valued on different planes."  By emphasizing the exhibition value of a piece we are furthering its value as a reproducible work- something that I don't always find so positive.