VISUAL CULTURE

Posted: August 25th, 2021

VISUAL CULTURE

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Visual Culture

The onset of the digital era has brought about a new culture of viewing practices. In particular, visual media has morphed from being a simple representation of some themes, concepts, or ideas.Today, visual media has multiple aids embedded in it for the purpose of assisting the viewers to understand, remember, elicit emotional appeal, and increase the viewer’s interest. The influence of this new visual culture is far-reaching. Today, it is different seeing an original work in a museum from viewing it at home, in a print copy that hangs on your wall, or online in a digital reproduction on your computer screen. With reference to specific works, this variation is confirmed to be as a result of changes in visual culture.

A number of scholars have attempted to explain the meaning of visual culture. The most applicable meaning is that visual culture entails the cultural meaning of a piece of work which overrides its aesthetic value.[1] Often, it involves the analysis of visual communication. This definition of visual culture has two fundamental insinuations. To start with, visual culture transcends the obvious sense of appeal of a piece of art. Secondly, for a piece of item, for instance, original painting in a museum, in the house, or online, it is not about how good it looks but the intrinsic meaning in it. This is what the analysis of visual communication involves. Going by the meaning of visual culture, the same piece of art, for example, the Nightfall 1, has different visual meaningsdepending on settings. In a museum, almost everyone has a crude meaning that items stored there have artistic, cultural, historical significance. Our homes are places which we keep items whose aesthetic value elicits good feeling through what we call a “cool environment.” If the Nightfall 1painting was to be placed in a museum, people’s viewing culture or practice would be different from if the same painting was kept at home, for instance, hanging on the wall of the living room. This difference is explained by the analysis of visual communication. The Nightfall 1painting in a museum triggers people to think about its cultural, artistic, or historical meaning.[2] If the same painting was hanged on the wall of a living room, its visual communication would entail the aesthetics which it delivers to the living room, for instance, how well it makes the room feel cozy orexquisite.

Visual culture in today’s world is infiltrated with sound, smell, texts, and touch. Apparently, these are verbal and nonverbal cues which influence people’s viewing practices. The Nightfall 1 is a painting which depicts trees on which most none Americans, especially Mexicans, were hanged during the lynching era in the USA.[3] In online platforms, for example, social media and other digital reproductions, this painting is accompanied by text which might serve the interest of the publisher. For example, a person against the lynching and racial discrimination might have the text which says “The unforgettable.” Such a tagline would change how a person views the painting, and that has been the case with the representation of original pieces of items in digital platforms unlike in the museum. This explains the difference between viewing a work in a museum and viewing it online or in digital reproduction. 

Form the above discussion, visual practice is about how humans perceive visual items based on several factors. It is visual communication which makes people see a piece on item in museum as having cultural, artistic, or historical meaning. Meanwhile, it is the accompanying smell, text, sound, or touch which makes a painting evoke different sensation online or while in digital reproduction format. In brief, visual culture explains these differences in viewership of original artworks.     

Bibliography

Dikovitskaya, Margarita. Visual Culture: The Study of the Visual After the Cultural Turn. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005.

Mizota, Sharon. “Ken Gonzales-Day Re-Examines Violence, Race, and Identity.” KCET. Last modified August 1, 2016. https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/ken-gonzales-day-re-examines-violence-race-and-identity.

Walhimer, Mark. “What is a Museum ?” Museum Planner. Last modified April 9, 2017. https://museumplanner.org/what-is-a-museum-2/.

[1] Margarita Dikovitskaya, Visual Culture: The Study of the Visual After the Cultural Turn (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005)

[2] Mark Walhimer, “What is a Museum?, “ Museum Planner, last modified April 9, 2017, https://museumplanner.org/what-is-a-museum-2/.

[3] Sharon Mizota, “Ken Gonzales-Day Re-Examines Violence, Race, and Identity,” KCET, last modified August 1, 2016, https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/ken-gonzales-day-re-examines-violence-race-and-identity.