CHAPTER 2: VIEWERS MAKE MEANING



CHAPTER 2: VIEWERS MAKE MEANING

I. Content Summary

The meaning of an image is produced in three ways: through codes and conventions, by the viewers and their interpretations, and from the contexts in which the image is viewed. Instead of considering audiences, (groups conceptualized by the media industry), this text examines viewers (individuals who look). Viewers are interpellated by images; that is to say, an image requires viewers to know that the image is meant for them to understand, even if they feel that their understanding is unique or goes against the grain of a meaning that seems to have been intended.

Viewers and Producers

An image has a viewer and a producer. A producer can be an individual or a whole team (such as an art collective group or an advertising agency). In terms of an image’s meaning, however, theorists hold different viewpoints on who holds power and authority to determine an image’s (or a text’s) meaning. Roland Barthes claimed that the text allows for an undetermined space in which the reader or viewer can interpret and decipher the work. The viewer is always interpreting and critiquing every text; there is no author to hold authority or power over the viewer. Michel Foucault disagreed and argued that the “author function” (adapted by the authors to become “the producer function”) is a set of beliefs that leads us to have certain expectations about a work with regard to the status of its producer. As the authors state, “. . . a producer may make an image or media text, but he or she is not in full control of the meanings that are subsequently made through their work.” Add the global cultural flow to the interpretation of images, and the result is that the producer can only produce a text or an image but cannot control the meaning it evokes for others.

Aesthetics and Taste

Pierre Bourdieu states that good taste and bad taste are socially constructed—what is held to be good taste is usually a result of middle-class education and notions of aesthetics associated with “high culture.” What is understood to be bad taste can be the result of an ignorance of these standards, or it can be a deliberate rejection of the notion of good taste. In the case of avant-garde and kitsch (where avant-garde is art and kitsch is inauthentic and mass produced), kitsch became more widely appreciated in postmodernity and has even served as a reaction to the elitist taste revered by modernity. Collecting, Display, and Institutional Critique

The value of art is mainly influenced by the collecting of private owners and museums. Collecting provides a means to measure appreciation and creates a market for art. The act of viewing collections itself evokes meaning.

Encoding and Decoding

Stuart Hall posits one theory about how viewers decode images that are encoded with meaning by the creators. A viewer can decode in one of three ways: (a) dominant hegemonic reading—accepting the dominant meaning of an artifact in an unquestioning manner; (b) negotiated reading—negotiating an interpretation of the image and its dominant meaning; and (c) oppositional meaning—completely disagreeing with the meaning or ignoring it completely.

Reception and the Audience

Hall’s theory has been critiqued because most viewers fall somewhere on the continuum between dominant hegemonic reading and oppositional reading; however, it is still helpful to us especially when understanding oppositional readings of works. Negotiated readings are another matter; Michel de Certeau offers one negotiated reading through “textual poaching”: taking a text and “inhabiting” it with new or altered meanings as a form of cultural bricolage. De Certeau argues that in this case negotiating is a struggle for possession of the text. The term bricolage comes from the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss and means adapting commodities (or cultural texts) to different uses outside of their usual context. In this case, bricolage means creatively making use of cultural texts for oppositional or negotiated meanings.

Appropriation and Cultural Production

Cultural appropriation is the process of “borrowing” and changing the meaning of cultural products, slogans, images, or elements of fashion. Examples of appropriation include the many recreations of Grant Wood’s American Gothic, political art, and fan subculture.

Reappropriation and Counter-Bricolage

Reappropriation and counter-bricolage are not always part of oppositional readings of texts. These terms also refer to the process by which the counter-hegemonic bricolage strategies of marginal cultures are reappropriated by mainstream designers and marketers and then parlayed into mainstream designs that signal “coolness.” ]This is counter to the intent of the bricolage strategy.

II. Key Figures and Terms

|Artist/Creator/Producers |Theorist/Scholars |Key Terms |

|Group Material |John Ellis |Viewer |

|RTMark |Roland Barthes |Audience |

|James Cameron |Michel Foucault |Interpellation |

|Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid |Nicholas Mirzoeff |Bricolage |

|Jean-Michel Basquiat |Pierre Bourdieu |Intervisuality |

|Shepard Fairey |Clement Greenberg |Producer |

|David Teniers |James Clifford |Kitsch |

|Gabai Baaré |A. J. Greimas |Avant-garde |

|Thomas Struth |Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Taylor |Aesthetics |

|Marcel Duchamp |Karl Marx |Taste |

|Hans Haacke |Louis Althusser |High culture |

|Fred Wilson |Antonio Gramsci |Low culture |

|Barbara Kruger |Stuart Hall | |

|Quentin Tarantino |David Morley | |

|Makiko Kudo, Yuko Marada, Tabaimo, and Chiho |Janice Radway | |

|Aoshima | | |

|Gordon Parks |Ien Ang | |

|Grant Wood |Michel de Certeau | |

|Gran Fury |Claude Lévi-Strauss | |

|Copper Greene |Dick Hebdige | |

| |Angela McRobbie | |

| |George Lipsitz | |

| |Steven Biel | |

| |Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson | |

III. In-class Activities/Assignments

1. Vanity Fair—2008 Hollywood Issue, Hitchcock Stills Recreations

In the March 2008 issue, Vanity Fair magazine reshot some of the most famous stills from Alfred Hitchcock movies with 2008’s Hollywood A-list actors. The original stills can be seen by clicking on the new photos. The link to the slide show is:



Questions for students:

A. How do the new versions interpellate viewers in 2008?

B. Do the new stills create a different meaning for viewers?

2. The Value of Art

Watch PBS’s Independent Lens, Stolen (2007)



A. How is art valued by art thieves? By law enforcement? By museums?

B. How does the quote by Katherine Weber (on the “Famous Heists” page), stating that art theft is about power, not love of a painting, challenge or agree with the theory of Foucault and the work of Fred Wilson?

3. Guernica Appropriation Exercise

Have students read the story and study the original Guernica painting on the PBS site. Then show the Belfast Guernica mural and discuss how the muralists appropriated the artwork to create new meaning for the artwork as a bridge between sectarian politics and violence in Northern Ireland.

PBS site URLs on Guernica:



Guernica Mural—International Wall—Belfast, Northern Ireland

This mural illustrates the lasting impact and resonance that Guernica—arguably Picasso's most famous work and the most famous antiwar painting ever created—has had, repainted here in the context of the conflict in Belfast and Northern Ireland as a universal antiwar symbol. By using an iconic work in the canon of modern art to illustrate their stance against the violence of war, the muralists have discredited the Belfast art establishment's claim that their work is nothing more than sectarian propaganda.

Painted by Mark Ervine (Loyalist) and Danny Devanney (Republican)—a collaboration across political lines—painted in August of 2007 in conjunction with the annual Feile Festival and the seventieth anniversary of the Spanish Civil War.

Link to photo of mural:



For more mural photos, see Appendix (Photo Credit: Sarah McDonald, 2007).

IV. Chapter 2 Journal Assignments

1. Appropriation in Popular Culture

On page 83, the authors discuss the phenomenon of “appropriation” as the act of borrowing, stealing, or taking other’s meanings to one’s own ends and cultural appropriation as the process of “borrowing” and changing the meaning of commodities, cultural products, slogans, images, or elements of fashion.

From popular culture today (TV, film, magazines, Internet, advertising), find an example of how the creator appropriates another’s meaning to his/her/its own end.

Answer the following questions, citing evidence from the image or artifact to support your answers:

A. What is the original intended meaning?

B. In what way is the image or artifact appropriated?

C. What is the new meaning intended through the appropriation?

D. Attach the sample to or include the URL in your entry.

2. Aesthetics and Taste*

Read the following book:

Postrel, Virginia. The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.

Postrel argues that aesthetic value is real and that appearance counts in our society.

A. Compare Postrel’s argument with Bordieu’s. How are they similar? How are they different?

B. What support does Postrel provide for her argument? Is this persuasive? Why?

*This could also be a larger Think Paper assignment.

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