Massumi, Brian. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Duke UP: Durham, NC.
2002
“The dynamic enabling the back-formation is “intensive” in the sense that movement, in process, cannot be determinately indexed to anything outside of itself. It has withdrawn into an all-encompassing relation with what it will be. It is in becoming, absorbed in occupying its field of potential” (7).
“Cultural laws of positioning and ideology are accurate ina certain sphere (where the tendency to arrest dominates). Right or wrong is not the issue. The issue is to demarcate their sphere of applicability—when the ‘ground’ upon which they operate is continuously moving” (7).
“Passage precedes construction. But construction does not effectively backform its reality. Grids happen. So social and cultural determination feed back into the process from which they arose” (8).
“A concept is by nature connectable to other concepts” (20).
“When you uproot a concept from its network of systemic connections with other concepts, you still have its connectibility” (20).
“Their only positive conclusion emphasized the primacy of the affective in image reception” (24).
“Accepting and expanding up that, it may be noted that the primacy of the affective is marked by a gap between content and effect: it would appear that the strength or duration of an image’s effect is not logically connected to the content in any straightforward way” (24).
“the strength or duration of the image’s effect could be called its intensity” (24).
“To translate this negative observation into a positive one: the event of image reception is multilevel, or at least bi-level. There is an immediate bifurcation in response into two systems” (24).
“Intensity is embodied in purely autonomic reactions most directly manifested in the skin—at the surface of the body, at its interface with things” (25).
“Matter of factness dampens intensity” (25).
“The qualifications of emotional content enhanced the images’ effect, as if they resonated with the level of intensity rather than interfering with it, An emotional qualification breaks narrative continueity for a moment to register a state—actually to re-register an already felt state, for the skin is faster than the word” (25).
Why just skin?
“Intensity would seem to be associated with nonlinear process resonation and feedback that momentarily suspend the linear progress of the narrative present from past to future. Intensity is qualifiable as an emotional state, and that state is static—temporal and narrative noise. It is a state of suspense, potentially of disruption” (26).
“Of course, the qualification of an emotion is quite often, in other contexts, itself a narrative element and that moves the action ahead, taking its place in socially recognized lines of action and reaction” (26).
“For present purposes, intensity will be equated with affect” (27).
“Emotion is qualified intensity, the conventional, consensual point of insertion of intensity into semantically and semiotically formed progressions, into narrativizable action-reaction circuits, into function and meaning. It is intensity owned and recognized” (28).
“Will and consciousness are subtractive. They are limitative, derived functions that reduce a complexity too rich to be functionally expressed” (28).
Which is why I have trouble with Massumi.
“Intensity and experience accompany one another like two mutually presupposing dimensions or like two sides of a coin” (33).
“Intensity is asocial, but not presocial—it includes social elements but mixes them with elements belonging to other levels of functioning and combines them according to different logic” (30).
“’Implicit’ form is a bundling of potential functions, an infolding or contraction of potential interactions (intension). The playing out of those potentials requires an unfolding in three-dimensional space and linear time—extension as actualization; actualization as expression. It is in expression that the fade-out occurs. The limits of the field of emergence are in its actual expression” (35).
“Affects are virtual systesthetic perspectives anchored in )functionally limited by) the actually existing, particular things that embody them. The authomy of affect is its participation in the virtual. Its autonomy is its openness. Affect is autonomous to the degree to which it escapes confinement in the particular body whose vitality, or potential for interaction, it is. Formed, qualified, situated perceptions and cognitions fulfilling functions of actual connection or blockage are the capture and closure of affect. Emotion is the most intense (most contracted_ expression of that capture—and of the fact that something has always and again escaped” (35).
“But it is also continuous, like a background perception that accompanies every event, however quotidian” (36).
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Katchadourian, Herant. Guilt: The Bite of Conscience
Katchadourian, Herant. Guilt: The Bite of Conscience. Stanford UP: Stanford, CA. 2010.
“The capacity for guilt is innate—we are born with it hard-wired into our brain through evolution. Guilt serves a variety of functions in connection with social control, hence its experiences are subject to cultural variation. Like other emotions, guilt is neutral in itself, neither good nor bad as such” (xiii). =E
“The word emotion is associated with psychological excitement ( from the Latin “I was moved”; “I got upset”). The more informal term for emotion—feeling—may be used both as a noun (“I have a gut feeling”) as well as a verb (“I feel guilty”). Emotions are states of heightened psychological arousal accompanied by physical manifestations, like the pounding heart of fear and the blush of embarrassment” (4). =E
“Emotions are at the core of human nature” (4). =E
“Natural as they are, emotions do not just happen—they occur for some reason” (5). =E
“Earlier investigators focused on primary emotions such as anger and fear (as well as sadness, happiness, disgust, and surprise). These core emotions have a biological basis (hence they are shared with higher animals) and distinctive physiological manifestations” (5). =B & E
“The subjective experiences of guilt, shame, regret, embarrassment, and pride place them squarely in the emotional ballpark. However, they lack some of the universal components of the primary emotions, and hence are called secondary emotions. It is easier to tell if a person is angry or afraid than if a person feels guilty or ashamed. Secondary emotions are more subject to social conditioning, and thus show greater cultural differences in their experience and expression” (5). =E
“However, secondary does not eman of secondary importance. These secondary emotions play a central role in regulating our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors” (5).
“Psychologists call guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride social emotions because they are heavily dependant on social interactions” (7). =E
“Psychologists now generally refer to guilt shame, embarrassment, and pride as self-concious emotions” (7). =B & E
“What the term is meant to convey is that such emotions reflect the evaluations of the self by others. . .To call them emotions of self-assessment would be even less cryptic, but that term is far less commonly used” (7). =E
“The word shame is derived from the Old German term skew (“to cover”0. This points to the association of shaming with exposure, which we described as the essential element in embarrassment” (15). = B
“Non-moral shame results from public exposure of defects that lead to loss of social status; in that sense, it may overlap with embarrassment” (16). =B
“Guilty action and guilty feeling do not always go together. It is possible to be guilty but not feel guilty, or feel guilty without having done anything wrong” (21).
(Goes with conduct books and the guilt they induce).
“ancient Greek has no word for guilt in the sense of “feeling guilty” (21).
“guilt is a part of the ‘currency’ we use carrying out our personal transactions with others. It is a powerful influence technique (laying ‘guilt trips’) to change the behavior of others” (22). =E ***
“guilt remains a common source of distress in the modern world’ (22).
“In existential terms, guilt ties us down to the past, making it difficult for us to live in an authentic present. It underminds the trust we have in the adequacy of our selves and leads to a loss of self-esteem and self-confidence” (23). =E ***
“There are no reliable physical manifestations of ‘looking guilty,’ despite Darwin’s claim that the expression of guilt could be recognized across culturess. Studies based on photographic expressions of self-conscious emotions have so far failed to find distinctive features of guilt” (23) ***
“we feel guilt when our actions have caused pain, suffering, fear, and disappointment’ (26). =E
“Guilt has a complex relationship with pride, Feelings of superiority, at the expense of others, makes us feel bad. The sense of guilt is especially acute when we are contemptuous toward those who are close to us (46). =B
“There is a special form of guilt called positive inequity that is associated with privilege. Some affluent people assuage their guilt by being charitable, but one can also be charitable out of compassion, a sense of moral obligation and social responsibility” (54).
“Since guilt is a painful emotion, we need to deal with it. If we shove it under the carpet, it will not go away. We usually try to deal with guilt in the privacy of our conscience; less often, by approaching the person we have offended” (60).
“Interpersonal relationship is the term that refers to all forms of relationships between people” (64). =B
“The primary purpose of guilt in these contexts is to deter wrongdoing and to repair the damage to the relationship (65). =B
“Like money, guilt can be used effectively, but also abused or debased. It may be used to pay an honest debt, or it may be contrived” (66).
“The second source of guilt is associated with exclusion anxiety, which results from the sense of alientation from the relationship partner we have hurt” (66).
“The particular techniques of inducing guilt vary from the subtle . . . to the theatrical (68).
“the power of guilt in seeking out vulnerable spots and striking where it hurts most” (69).
“Since guilt is a distressing feeling, people have a generally negative view of it. Nobody wants to feel guilty” (75).
“Psychologists now view guilt as an emotion that promotes prosocial effects. It moves people to admit responsibility for their wrong actions, to make amends, and repair damaged relationships. However useful it might be, guilt still carries a serious pathological potential” (75).
“Yet there are instances when one feels guilty without having done anything wrong. Survivor guilt is one such example” (89). =B
“A second form of such guilt results from the feeling of personal responsibility for the wrong that the members of one’s group have done—collective guilt. Finally there is existential guilt—the feeling of guilt for more puzzling reasons ranging from being better off to merely being human” (89). =B
“Collective guilt results from feelings of culpability for unjust or criminal actions perpetrated by a group one identifies with. The common bond may be based on nationality, ethnicity, or some other social bond” (96).= B & E
Collective guilt and women and the Eve problem. Men would associate all women with Eve creating a sense of collective guilt for women.
“The justification for collective guilt goes back to the biblical injunction that children will pay for the sins of their fathers for many generations. (97). =B
“Since the value of what we have is relative to what others have, the guilt of positive inequity is expressed not in the absolute but relative terms. It is not an issue of having too much or too little, but having more or less relative to others we compare ourselves with” (134). =B
“In its more popularized versions, existential guilt can also said to arise from the failure to develop our full potential as human beings” (110). =B
“In the medieval period, popular senteiment, usually but not always backed by church doctrine, fostered the idea that feeling guilty was a good thing—it reflected a healthy conscience—hence, the guiltier one felt, the better one could resist sin” (118). =B
“By the end of the nineteenth century, the stricture of Victorian morality led Nietzsche and Freud to protest against prevailsocial mores that induced needless guilt (117). =B $ E
“However, psychoanalysts distinguish between conscious and unconscious guilt” (119). =E
“The medieval church’s view of human nature was laden with guilt. The secular perspective that followed it in the Renaissance was equally bleak. Niccolo Machiavelli described his contemporaries as ‘ungrateful, fickle, dissembling, anxious to feel danger, and covetous of gain” (169). =B
“When we say that our capacity for feeling guilt is innate, what we mean is that the moral behavior can be adaptive in genetic terms by virtue of having provided our ancestors with a reproductive advantage. It does not mean than an innate trait will assert itself irrespective of the environment. Nor does it mean that it will lead to universal patterns of moral behavior across all cultures at all times and in all places. To avoid the use of nebulous labels, ethologists now use the term fixed action pattern to refer to behaviors that emerge without prior learning” (171).
Guilt, shame, and embarrassment are forms of social control” (186). =E ***
“These emotions may not always be portrayed in these terms, but that is how they have evolved and become embedded in our cultural beliefs and practices” (186). = E***
“Consequently, shame has been generally assumed to be the predominant sentiment that motivated and restrained the ancient Greeks. Their shame culture was based on public esteem” (189).
“I agree with the perception that guilt is a distinctive emotion—and quite separate from shame, embarrassment, and disgust” (307). =B
“A serious problem in the psychological literature on guilt and shame is the lack of sufficient attention to the cultural context of these emotions, although this problem is now being more widely recognized” (307).
“The capacity for guilt is innate—we are born with it hard-wired into our brain through evolution. Guilt serves a variety of functions in connection with social control, hence its experiences are subject to cultural variation. Like other emotions, guilt is neutral in itself, neither good nor bad as such” (xiii). =E
“The word emotion is associated with psychological excitement ( from the Latin “I was moved”; “I got upset”). The more informal term for emotion—feeling—may be used both as a noun (“I have a gut feeling”) as well as a verb (“I feel guilty”). Emotions are states of heightened psychological arousal accompanied by physical manifestations, like the pounding heart of fear and the blush of embarrassment” (4). =E
“Emotions are at the core of human nature” (4). =E
“Natural as they are, emotions do not just happen—they occur for some reason” (5). =E
“Earlier investigators focused on primary emotions such as anger and fear (as well as sadness, happiness, disgust, and surprise). These core emotions have a biological basis (hence they are shared with higher animals) and distinctive physiological manifestations” (5). =B & E
“The subjective experiences of guilt, shame, regret, embarrassment, and pride place them squarely in the emotional ballpark. However, they lack some of the universal components of the primary emotions, and hence are called secondary emotions. It is easier to tell if a person is angry or afraid than if a person feels guilty or ashamed. Secondary emotions are more subject to social conditioning, and thus show greater cultural differences in their experience and expression” (5). =E
“However, secondary does not eman of secondary importance. These secondary emotions play a central role in regulating our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors” (5).
“Psychologists call guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride social emotions because they are heavily dependant on social interactions” (7). =E
“Psychologists now generally refer to guilt shame, embarrassment, and pride as self-concious emotions” (7). =B & E
“What the term is meant to convey is that such emotions reflect the evaluations of the self by others. . .To call them emotions of self-assessment would be even less cryptic, but that term is far less commonly used” (7). =E
“The word shame is derived from the Old German term skew (“to cover”0. This points to the association of shaming with exposure, which we described as the essential element in embarrassment” (15). = B
“Non-moral shame results from public exposure of defects that lead to loss of social status; in that sense, it may overlap with embarrassment” (16). =B
“Guilty action and guilty feeling do not always go together. It is possible to be guilty but not feel guilty, or feel guilty without having done anything wrong” (21).
(Goes with conduct books and the guilt they induce).
“ancient Greek has no word for guilt in the sense of “feeling guilty” (21).
“guilt is a part of the ‘currency’ we use carrying out our personal transactions with others. It is a powerful influence technique (laying ‘guilt trips’) to change the behavior of others” (22). =E ***
“guilt remains a common source of distress in the modern world’ (22).
“In existential terms, guilt ties us down to the past, making it difficult for us to live in an authentic present. It underminds the trust we have in the adequacy of our selves and leads to a loss of self-esteem and self-confidence” (23). =E ***
“There are no reliable physical manifestations of ‘looking guilty,’ despite Darwin’s claim that the expression of guilt could be recognized across culturess. Studies based on photographic expressions of self-conscious emotions have so far failed to find distinctive features of guilt” (23) ***
“we feel guilt when our actions have caused pain, suffering, fear, and disappointment’ (26). =E
“Guilt has a complex relationship with pride, Feelings of superiority, at the expense of others, makes us feel bad. The sense of guilt is especially acute when we are contemptuous toward those who are close to us (46). =B
“There is a special form of guilt called positive inequity that is associated with privilege. Some affluent people assuage their guilt by being charitable, but one can also be charitable out of compassion, a sense of moral obligation and social responsibility” (54).
“Since guilt is a painful emotion, we need to deal with it. If we shove it under the carpet, it will not go away. We usually try to deal with guilt in the privacy of our conscience; less often, by approaching the person we have offended” (60).
“Interpersonal relationship is the term that refers to all forms of relationships between people” (64). =B
“The primary purpose of guilt in these contexts is to deter wrongdoing and to repair the damage to the relationship (65). =B
“Like money, guilt can be used effectively, but also abused or debased. It may be used to pay an honest debt, or it may be contrived” (66).
“The second source of guilt is associated with exclusion anxiety, which results from the sense of alientation from the relationship partner we have hurt” (66).
“The particular techniques of inducing guilt vary from the subtle . . . to the theatrical (68).
“the power of guilt in seeking out vulnerable spots and striking where it hurts most” (69).
“Since guilt is a distressing feeling, people have a generally negative view of it. Nobody wants to feel guilty” (75).
“Psychologists now view guilt as an emotion that promotes prosocial effects. It moves people to admit responsibility for their wrong actions, to make amends, and repair damaged relationships. However useful it might be, guilt still carries a serious pathological potential” (75).
“Yet there are instances when one feels guilty without having done anything wrong. Survivor guilt is one such example” (89). =B
“A second form of such guilt results from the feeling of personal responsibility for the wrong that the members of one’s group have done—collective guilt. Finally there is existential guilt—the feeling of guilt for more puzzling reasons ranging from being better off to merely being human” (89). =B
“Collective guilt results from feelings of culpability for unjust or criminal actions perpetrated by a group one identifies with. The common bond may be based on nationality, ethnicity, or some other social bond” (96).= B & E
Collective guilt and women and the Eve problem. Men would associate all women with Eve creating a sense of collective guilt for women.
“The justification for collective guilt goes back to the biblical injunction that children will pay for the sins of their fathers for many generations. (97). =B
“Since the value of what we have is relative to what others have, the guilt of positive inequity is expressed not in the absolute but relative terms. It is not an issue of having too much or too little, but having more or less relative to others we compare ourselves with” (134). =B
“In its more popularized versions, existential guilt can also said to arise from the failure to develop our full potential as human beings” (110). =B
“In the medieval period, popular senteiment, usually but not always backed by church doctrine, fostered the idea that feeling guilty was a good thing—it reflected a healthy conscience—hence, the guiltier one felt, the better one could resist sin” (118). =B
“By the end of the nineteenth century, the stricture of Victorian morality led Nietzsche and Freud to protest against prevailsocial mores that induced needless guilt (117). =B $ E
“However, psychoanalysts distinguish between conscious and unconscious guilt” (119). =E
“The medieval church’s view of human nature was laden with guilt. The secular perspective that followed it in the Renaissance was equally bleak. Niccolo Machiavelli described his contemporaries as ‘ungrateful, fickle, dissembling, anxious to feel danger, and covetous of gain” (169). =B
“When we say that our capacity for feeling guilt is innate, what we mean is that the moral behavior can be adaptive in genetic terms by virtue of having provided our ancestors with a reproductive advantage. It does not mean than an innate trait will assert itself irrespective of the environment. Nor does it mean that it will lead to universal patterns of moral behavior across all cultures at all times and in all places. To avoid the use of nebulous labels, ethologists now use the term fixed action pattern to refer to behaviors that emerge without prior learning” (171).
Guilt, shame, and embarrassment are forms of social control” (186). =E ***
“These emotions may not always be portrayed in these terms, but that is how they have evolved and become embedded in our cultural beliefs and practices” (186). = E***
“Consequently, shame has been generally assumed to be the predominant sentiment that motivated and restrained the ancient Greeks. Their shame culture was based on public esteem” (189).
“I agree with the perception that guilt is a distinctive emotion—and quite separate from shame, embarrassment, and disgust” (307). =B
“A serious problem in the psychological literature on guilt and shame is the lack of sufficient attention to the cultural context of these emotions, although this problem is now being more widely recognized” (307).
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Hariman, Robert and Lucaites, John Jouis. No Caption Needed:
Hariman, Robert and Lucaites, John Jouis. No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture,and Liberal Democracy. Chicago UP: Chicago. (2007).
“Popular images disseminated, promoted and repeatedly reproduced by large-scale corporations and seamlessly sutured into the material practices of ordinary life—whether documenting victory or disaster, surely these images exemplify ideology at work” (2). =E
“But we are hardly alone: the study of various practices of visual representation is booming, so much so that it seems similar in scope to the ‘linguistic turn’ that expanded across the human sciences in the twentieth century” (5). =E
“Iconic photographs provide an accessible and centrally positioned set of images for exploring how political action (and inaction) can be constituted and controlled through visual media” (5). =E
“The most complicated relationship between the photographic image and public opinion occurs because images communicate social knowledge” (10). =E
“we define photo-jounalistic icons as those photographic images appearing in print, electronic, or digital media that are widely recognized and remembered, are understood to be representations of historically significan events, activiate strong emotional identification or response, and are reproduced across a wide range of media, genres or topics” (27).
“the iconic photograph is an aesthetically familiar form of civic performance coordinating an array of semiotic transcriptions that prject an emotional scenario to manage a basic contradiction or recurrent crisis” (29). =B & E
“by being placed amidst prin journalism, the icons can also work in conjunction with other discourses of polity such as speeches, declarations, official reports, judicial opinions, and editorial commentary” (30). =B & E.
“To capture the aesthetic engagement that we believe is central to its appeal, we make a second assumption that the iconic photograph functions as a mode of civic performance” (30). B & E.
“Photography is grounded in phenomenological devices crucial to establishing the performative experience. Framing, for example, whether by the theatrical state or the rectangular boundaries of any photo, marks the work s a special selection of reality that acquires greater intensity than the flow of experience before and after it (31). A+E
“The repeatedness of any photograph is in itself an iconic representation of the object to be seen within its frame: that object is not a unique conjunction of materials, but a typical, recurring feature of one’s environment. Thus, the photograph is capable of providing deep knowledge of social reality, both in its specific manifestations and as it is itself an unending process of repetition” (32). B & E
“By analogy, we would suggest that photojournalism, when it is operating as a form of ritual performance in a literate society, acquires the capability to reveal or suggest what is unsayable or at least not being said or seen in print” (33).
“Through phenomenological devices such as framing, the iconic image highlights the deeply repetitive features of social life, a condition reinforced further by the mechanical reproduction of the photograph itself” (33). B
“In addition, to have popular appeal a work must be open to multiple and often inconsistent perspectives” (34). B & E
“iconic photographs provide the viewing public with powerful evocations of emotional experience. Performances traffic in bodies, and they evoke emotional responses precisely because they place the expressive body in a social space. The photograph is such a space, and the iconic image constructs a scenario in which specific emotional responses to an event become a powerful basis for understanding and action” (35). B& E.
“David Hume observed that we feel more through the public exposure to others’ emotions than t hrough an interior circuit of sensations, and contemporary scholarship on the social construction of the emotions provides strong confirmation of this fact. The photograph’s focus on bodily expression not only displays emotions but also places the viewing in an affective relationship with the people in the picture” (35). =E ***
“The significant entailment is that the ideological implications of specific texts or images are necessary but not sufficient for understanding how public address fulfills the interrelated functions of constructing public identity and motivating political behavior” (48). B & E
“A photograph captures a tiny sliver of time and space yet can reveal in a flash the social order. Photojournalism shows what can be done in public, and it allows one to think that what is not shown cannot be done” (287). A& E ***
Exactly, the photos from the charities show only a moment, and only a certain part of that moment.
“For it is only by understanding how they worked—how they were formal compositions negotiating specific social and political problems—that talk of change can be effective” (288). B & E
“The first limitation of iconic memory is that it is necessarily mainstream. The icon is that which can inspire widespread identification, even when it is a disturbing image or one that supports political dissent” (289).
“Whether transgrtessive or utopian, the marginal image—or, the image of the marginal experience—is off to the side in the virtual space of the national cathedral” (289). B & E
“considerable energy still goes into either promoting or warning against visual media, rather than understanding how they are tangled together to create culture” (295). B & E
Words along with the visual media become enmeshed in order to create culture. All tangled up.
“The origin of rhetoric as a practice of reflection is instructive in this regard. From the first the art provoked intense discussion regarding its cognitive, moral and political effects” (295).
“You might say that rhetoric was speaking as it came to be seen through the lens of writing” (295). B
Does this mean that seeing photo rhetoric means that it becomes virtual through the picture. We can imagine ourselves there, in that photo, and what we would see?
“Our conclusions regarding iconic photographs cannot cover all of photojournalism, but we are positive that the entire medium is laden with complex negotiations of multiple social codes, political ideas, practical reasoning, and emotional intelligence” (297).
“What is seen? Our approach has put great emphasis on the content of the individual photograph. We should caution against too much of this. Public spectatorship depends primarily on the continual production and circulation of images” (300).
“Photographs capture moments of social interaction while situating viewers in social relationships. Public reason emerges as a practice of looking at and thinking about these things, and as a considered negotiation of the relationships in question” (301).
“The images come to present the public audience with an opportunity to reimagine itself” (305).
“Popular images disseminated, promoted and repeatedly reproduced by large-scale corporations and seamlessly sutured into the material practices of ordinary life—whether documenting victory or disaster, surely these images exemplify ideology at work” (2). =E
“But we are hardly alone: the study of various practices of visual representation is booming, so much so that it seems similar in scope to the ‘linguistic turn’ that expanded across the human sciences in the twentieth century” (5). =E
“Iconic photographs provide an accessible and centrally positioned set of images for exploring how political action (and inaction) can be constituted and controlled through visual media” (5). =E
“The most complicated relationship between the photographic image and public opinion occurs because images communicate social knowledge” (10). =E
“we define photo-jounalistic icons as those photographic images appearing in print, electronic, or digital media that are widely recognized and remembered, are understood to be representations of historically significan events, activiate strong emotional identification or response, and are reproduced across a wide range of media, genres or topics” (27).
“the iconic photograph is an aesthetically familiar form of civic performance coordinating an array of semiotic transcriptions that prject an emotional scenario to manage a basic contradiction or recurrent crisis” (29). =B & E
“by being placed amidst prin journalism, the icons can also work in conjunction with other discourses of polity such as speeches, declarations, official reports, judicial opinions, and editorial commentary” (30). =B & E.
“To capture the aesthetic engagement that we believe is central to its appeal, we make a second assumption that the iconic photograph functions as a mode of civic performance” (30). B & E.
“Photography is grounded in phenomenological devices crucial to establishing the performative experience. Framing, for example, whether by the theatrical state or the rectangular boundaries of any photo, marks the work s a special selection of reality that acquires greater intensity than the flow of experience before and after it (31). A+E
“The repeatedness of any photograph is in itself an iconic representation of the object to be seen within its frame: that object is not a unique conjunction of materials, but a typical, recurring feature of one’s environment. Thus, the photograph is capable of providing deep knowledge of social reality, both in its specific manifestations and as it is itself an unending process of repetition” (32). B & E
“By analogy, we would suggest that photojournalism, when it is operating as a form of ritual performance in a literate society, acquires the capability to reveal or suggest what is unsayable or at least not being said or seen in print” (33).
“Through phenomenological devices such as framing, the iconic image highlights the deeply repetitive features of social life, a condition reinforced further by the mechanical reproduction of the photograph itself” (33). B
“In addition, to have popular appeal a work must be open to multiple and often inconsistent perspectives” (34). B & E
“iconic photographs provide the viewing public with powerful evocations of emotional experience. Performances traffic in bodies, and they evoke emotional responses precisely because they place the expressive body in a social space. The photograph is such a space, and the iconic image constructs a scenario in which specific emotional responses to an event become a powerful basis for understanding and action” (35). B& E.
“David Hume observed that we feel more through the public exposure to others’ emotions than t hrough an interior circuit of sensations, and contemporary scholarship on the social construction of the emotions provides strong confirmation of this fact. The photograph’s focus on bodily expression not only displays emotions but also places the viewing in an affective relationship with the people in the picture” (35). =E ***
“The significant entailment is that the ideological implications of specific texts or images are necessary but not sufficient for understanding how public address fulfills the interrelated functions of constructing public identity and motivating political behavior” (48). B & E
“A photograph captures a tiny sliver of time and space yet can reveal in a flash the social order. Photojournalism shows what can be done in public, and it allows one to think that what is not shown cannot be done” (287). A& E ***
Exactly, the photos from the charities show only a moment, and only a certain part of that moment.
“For it is only by understanding how they worked—how they were formal compositions negotiating specific social and political problems—that talk of change can be effective” (288). B & E
“The first limitation of iconic memory is that it is necessarily mainstream. The icon is that which can inspire widespread identification, even when it is a disturbing image or one that supports political dissent” (289).
“Whether transgrtessive or utopian, the marginal image—or, the image of the marginal experience—is off to the side in the virtual space of the national cathedral” (289). B & E
“considerable energy still goes into either promoting or warning against visual media, rather than understanding how they are tangled together to create culture” (295). B & E
Words along with the visual media become enmeshed in order to create culture. All tangled up.
“The origin of rhetoric as a practice of reflection is instructive in this regard. From the first the art provoked intense discussion regarding its cognitive, moral and political effects” (295).
“You might say that rhetoric was speaking as it came to be seen through the lens of writing” (295). B
Does this mean that seeing photo rhetoric means that it becomes virtual through the picture. We can imagine ourselves there, in that photo, and what we would see?
“Our conclusions regarding iconic photographs cannot cover all of photojournalism, but we are positive that the entire medium is laden with complex negotiations of multiple social codes, political ideas, practical reasoning, and emotional intelligence” (297).
“What is seen? Our approach has put great emphasis on the content of the individual photograph. We should caution against too much of this. Public spectatorship depends primarily on the continual production and circulation of images” (300).
“Photographs capture moments of social interaction while situating viewers in social relationships. Public reason emerges as a practice of looking at and thinking about these things, and as a considered negotiation of the relationships in question” (301).
“The images come to present the public audience with an opportunity to reimagine itself” (305).
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