Is the medium the message?

On Monday my seminar talked about the public sphere and what role the media play in creating a sense of it. My TA, Elysia, brought up a lot of interesting questions regarding our readings for this week, but what I found most compelling was her question of 'is the medium the message'? Also, she went on to ask what we thought was more important; the message itself, or how the message is conveyed -- the medium.

Our society has become completely dependent on our vision; what we see and what is shown to us shapes how we think, feel, and progress. Because of this visual dependency, I fully believe that regrettably, the medium is the message to us, and subsequently the medium has come to mean more than the message. A possible example of this would be Shelby Lee Adam's work. Even though Adams has made vocal statements about his pieces, claiming them to be an exploration of his heritage and Appalachian life, people still draw their conclusions from the images alone. Regardless of his words and written proposals, people see these unedited images of realistic life and immediately label them as exploitative.

Another example would be how over-the-top commercials have become. Instead of having a woman with nice, in-airbrushed hair stand beside a bottle of Pantene shampoo and simply tell us it works really well, we have to have gorgeous beauties prance around our television screens with nothing more than a bikini on, and hair more luminous than the sun itself. We've become susceptible to flashy, in-your-face visuals. Billboards plague our streets and bus stops, and every time we watch a program we're thrown at least 5 different ads every 10 to 15 minutes. Without the medium of a message we lose interest quickly, perhaps this is because of our dependency on visuals, or because we're incapable of paying attention to things that hold no visual medium. Either way, the medium has undoubtedly become more important than the message; now I wonder, is this a good thing?

"The Gaze" and the photo's from Abu Ghraib Prison.

"The Gaze", as defined in last night's lecture, is how practices of looking function within different social relationships. Basically, who is being looked at and why? Last night's lecture was based on how images, power, and social control are connected, and in regards to that, I found the question of "the gaze" to be a vital one. Even more specifically, nearing the end of the lecture when we began to talk about the photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, that question of how we see things within different social relationships, resonated in my mind and begged to be pondered.
When the abusive pictures from Abu Ghraib surfaced, so many things came in to question; fundamentally, what is wrong with us, but also, what's the big deal? Personally, I felt sick to my stomach. I hated seeing that North American soldiers would do such things, but what I hated even more was that people around me didn't think it was a problem. My own family and close friends shocked me almost as much as the pictures themselves; they would say things like "they do it to their prisoners, so we can to" or "whatever, they deserve it...damn terrorists". I could not and still can not understand the ignorance of some people, and it drives me crazy for I believe tolerance and open mindedness are essential when listening to others' opinions. What's wrong with us, North America? - please, tell me.
Anyways, recalling those past arguments and throws of opinion brought me back to the idea of "the gaze", mostly because there were so many thoughts connecting the idea of how we look at things to differing social contexts. The pictures of Abu Ghraib raised issues we as a western society didn't even know existed, and those issues were raised because of perception. People saw the abusive images and went crazy; feelings of injustice and guilt spread like wildfire. We as a society share a social relationship with these images -- we are the onlookers who do nothing, the cultural brothers or sisters of the torturers. When we saw these images, we felt horrible because our subconscious questions were being answered; our instincts were being justified. Our practices of looking, our initial perceptions, were boosted by pre-inspired guilt so we reacted. We gazed at these images, and brought forth a unified meaning, we said 'this is wrong' and remedied the mistakes.
I'm not sure if much of this has made sense, however this entry is my attempt to understand 'the gaze' and try to apply it's meaning to an issue brought about in lecture. Hopefully, I've achieved this.

David Hockney's Theory.

Last week we watched an incredibly interesting film by David Hockney; it was riveting. In my opinion, Hockney's theory of great master painters using the camera lucida to better their work, really makes sense. Granted, a lot of his evidence was circumstantial, but I strongly believe after the entirety of the film, that optics were used to some extent.

A lot of controversy was raised by this film; some people felt that Hockney's thesis was completely wrong, some felt it was completely right, and some felt cheated - as if the camera lucida's possible use made the great masters of the past 'cheaters'. I don't feel this way. If the camara lucida was in fact used to the extent Hockney supposes it was, it only helped in accuracy, not talent. I found this qoute from Hockney on this website ( http://painting.about.com/od/oldmastertechniques/ss/camera_lucida_4.htm ) and it explains my point perfectly;
"The lens can't draw a line, only the hand can do that ... look at someone like Ingres, and it would be absurd to think that such an insight about his method undercuts the sheer marvel of what he achieves."
There's really no way to say it better; even if the camera lucida was used, you can not call our master painters cheaters. They were still masters of their craft, still impecable artists with great insight and talent. If anything, their great use and mastery of the camera lucida itself can be seen as an accomplishment if it was in fact used so much.

In short, I found Hockney's video to be enlightening and interesting. I took no offence from it, and hope those who did will be able to look at it positively and see that no injustice was done.