Customer Reviews

An Introduction to Visual Culture

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The life we lead today is very different from the one we grew accustomed to twenty, ten, or even five years ago. Information that took centuries to accumulate can now be sent from Singapore to San Antonio at the click of a button. More and more, our digital culture is depending on non-textual imagery to translate this information into a vast collage of cultural messages. It is the study of these images and the culture that interacts with them that Dr. Nicholas Mirzoeff is concerned with in his book An Introduction to Visual Culture (1999, Publisher: Routledge). Much of Mirzoeff's book is dedicated to examining the expansive manner in which the image is playing a role in the development of our global culture. While in the midst of this examination, the reader will soon find him or herself amazed by what the naked eye can now see. From the creation of the x-ray in 1895 to the Hubble telescope's visualization of distant galaxies, our technology creates a culture that has the capacity to, as Mirzoeff writes, "make visible things that our eyes cannot see." What is more, it is not the images themselves that intrigue Mirzoeff the most; rather, he is interested in the manner in which these images create a new reality. Or, as he puts it, "visual culture does not depend on pictures themselves but the modern tendency to picture or visualize existence." As an example, by simply turning on CNN the audience has the capacity to see images from parts of the globe that may have been unknown to them when they awakened in the morning. Not only that, but now the world can see the travesties that occur in these far away places. In Kosovo, the world was alarmed by video feeds of the very young and the very old being forced from their homes in the name of ethnic cleansing. Twenty years ago, this is something most of the world would have only read about. Depending on someone else to visualize the event as he or she saw fit, the textual relay of the event would have seemed distant or even nonexistent to the person who simply chose to quite reading. Today's images not only make Kosovo very close, they make what's happening there very real. It is up to students of visual culture to decide what kind of impact this visualization will have on the formation of the global community. The most important part of this book, however, is the claim Mirzoeff stakes for "visual culture" in the traditional and monotonous universe of academia. It is true that anything new is a threat to everything old. Knowing this, Mirzoeff guides his reader gently into the theory of "visual culture" by showing how it is both a relevant and necessary study in the afore mentioned digital arena. There are, of course, those who will charge that Mirzoeff's interests are cast too broad and his manner of interpreting them too fluid. To this valid concern, Mirzoeff argues that a fluid interpretive structure is paramount if academia wants to understand the world that lies beyond the gates of the university (like Kosovo). Visual Culture, writes Mirzoeff, "hopes to reach beyond the traditional confines of the university to interact with people's every day lives." In other words, visual culture is an attempt to ask a set of questions entirely alien to the modern university. Mirzoeff proves himself quite capable of setting out these new questions while keeping the avenue wide open for the reader or the "viewer" to answer them.

The book is quite an interesting read and does a good job of covering key themes in this relatively new area.The author is -at times-very insightful.

This is a fascinating reader that will appeal to the novice and academic alike - providing a broad overview of how vision has come to dominate all of our senses. No one way of seeing is ever accepted and this book demonstrates how history and convention has altered the way we look at the world. From perspective in the Renaissance world to sculpture, painting, TV, the internet, to issues of race, gender and sexuality and even to the global visual impact of the death of Princess Diana - this book will inform and open your eyes in ways you couldn't imagine.

This book was exceptionally biased, and opinion based. Very little actual facts were used in the publication, which makes you wonder how it made it to the shelves. It is very outdated, and wastes an entire chapter on the situation in the Congo, which was completely off subject. The author tends to go on tangents and fails to ever truly get his point across. The chapter on photography was a serious let down, and focused on only two photographers who are amateur at best in regards to their talent. As a photographer, the chapter offended me greatly and failed to address the artistic aspects of photography. The book was more concerned about the sexual revolution of the 1970's than it was of Visual Culture.