Art Theory - week 9

Viewership gaze

Viewer ship, us as human's are very three dimensional, we know how complex we are. One can not express one's self through just words as the person who they are talking to can only see them for their exterior. so they see them as their exterior not as who they are physiology, and words can not express what is going on in out heads no matter how much we try. We as people thrive on hoping we can make our exterior make people understand and not see us as our exterior. This is what the fashion industry thrive on.
This is very interesting and it very relevant to what I am looking into for my person study as visual communication.

relationship of offering or demanding gaze
nature of relationship between subjects

Gaze - Deals with how the audience views the people presented

The Mirror Phase - the moment when a child recognize the face in the mirror as itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OnhOXq7m4w
Links in with the fact people can not get satisfaction and connection with another person because they can't express how they really are physiologically with words and or exterior expression. The viewer views you as 2D what your exterior is is what you are, weather to yourself you are a 3D object and there is so much comprehensiveness going on inside your mind.

Spectator's gaze - tho is viewing the text.
This is usually us, the audience. It is our on interpretation of what we are viewing and our own opinion.

Intra-diegetic gaze - One person depicted in the text who is looking at another person or object in the text

example: Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe Édouard Manet created in 1862 and 1863

The women is the back is looking at something in the water as she is bathing herself.

The male laying down is looking at the other male.

Image result for Le DÃ©jeuner sur lâ€™herbe Ã‰douard Manet created in 1862 and 1863

Extra-diegetic gaze - Where the person depicted in the text looks at the spectator, such as in an aside, or an acknowledgement of the fourth wall

Example: Gabrielle d’Estrees and one of her sisters (c. 1600), Artist Unknown, School of Fontainbleu, 96 x 125 cm , Paris, Musee du Louvre

The two Women are looking at the viewer/spectator

Camera or Director's gaze

The gaze of the camera, often equated to the person directing the camera

Text within Text gaze

A character watching other characters

Editorial gaze

Where a certain aspect of text is given emphasis, such as in photography, where a caption or cropping of an image depicting one thing can emphasize a completely different idea

example:

Power and Gaze

Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen:

The idea of the gaze as a relationship between offering and demanding gaze:

Indirect gaze is an offer by the spectator, where we initiate the gaze and the subject is unaware

Direct gaze: a demand by the subject, who looks at us, demanding our gaze

http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/gaze/gaze04.html

Catherin Lutz and Jane Collins:

This reflects power structure, or the nature of the relationship between subjects

This tells us who has the right and/or need to look at whom

Emotions and Feminist Theories by Catherine Lutz

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-476-02869-3_6

The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes: The Example of National Geographic

https://www.oca-student.com/sites/default/files/oca-content/key-resources/res-files/nationalgeographic_gaze.pdf

Male Gaze

Laura Mulvey is a feminist film theorist from Britain, best known for her essay on Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) which investigated questions of spectatorial identification and its relationship to the male gaze.

“The gender power asymmetry is a controlling force in cinema and constructed for the pleasure of the male viewer, which is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideologies and discourses.”

In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts and in literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male viewer.

Visual Pleasure at 40: Laura Mulvey in Discussion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWAJdj3cPvA

This was interesting because she brought up some very valid and important things about essays and Feminist theory in film and the male gaze. She states in this response to her essay that it is valid at the time of what was going on, it was valid because of the politicians at the time. This is something that should be expressed when reviewing essays and works by critiques and or research materials, is should be disclosed whether or not it is still a valid argument or statement in modern context or is it only valid for the time it was written because of what was happening in the period of being written. She also talks about the I and We in feminist theory, this I thought was interesting especially when it was written, she states that she didn't want to use I or we for her writing because it was stupid feminist thing, and in fact her writing is biographical in a sense even though she does not use I. It should be pointed out that she does state that some things are still valid and some things are no longer valid dude to change in time and the period it was written in and what was happening in that time.

Subversion of Male Gaze

This is an interesting topic with in cinema, It is changing the way the female is seen in the film and is presented. She is not sexual and empowered, she is her own person and is not there for the pleasure of looking at she is there to drive plot line and to tell a story.

This was interesting to pull apart and discuses because of the fact, how can you tell if a film is subversion of the male gaze? is it to do with the female character and how she presents herself?, the submersion of female viewer and film? or is it to do with cinematography?

This became interesting to discuses and analyse, as it is difficult to distinguish as there is no certain genera that caters to this. As this applies to all film genres, and aesthetic approaches. The main thing is how the female character is captured in the film, is she sexualized? is she submissive to the viewer or to a male characters? How are the cinematographic angles of the women?, how is she presented to the viewers? These are key things I have noticed that can indicate whether or not it is a male gaze film or not.

References (Was taken from presentation)

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/566978/

https://hyperallergic.com/32394/people-looking-at-art

http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/clinicalgaze

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3684185?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents/

Identify issues of gaze within your own artwork

In my own works I have noticed that I like to do the Extra-diegetic gaze, I like my subject to be looking at the spectator and forcing them to look at their face and not their body. What does this say about myself? I am forcing myself onto the viewer making them look at me in the eye. It's if my works are viewing and judging the spectator or interrogating them rather than the spectator interrogating my works.

What is an example of “male gaze” in current culture?

In current culture, first thing that came to mind was movie poster advertisement, and the famous headless women.

What is an example of “female gaze” in current culture?

Female gaze is a bit more complex than the male gaze in my own opinion because, there is a lot more in depth parts to it. there are different lines with male gaze and female gaze. the female gaze is more catered around the idea or idealized romance and satisfying the unsatisfactory love life that the female could be experiencing. It is satisfying a connection that one can not have because of the romanticism of romance.