Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the 19th Century (October Books) (Paperback)

by Jonathan Crary (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review


"Nimbly interweaving the histories of science, technology, philosophy, popular culture, and the visual arts, Jonathan Crary provides a stunning challenge to conventional wisdom about the epochal transformation of visual culture in the nineteenth century. Techniques of the Observer will be a vital resource for anyone concerned with the complex interaction of technological modernization and aesthetic modernism."
—Martin Jay, University of California at Berkeley

Product Description
"Crary outlines a genealogy of vision that challenges some standard assumptions about the history of film, photography, and modernist art. He argues against a continuity of Renaissance traditions, and for an abrupt break from classical models early in the 19th century." -- Booknews

Jonathan Crary's Techniques of the Observer provides a dramatically new perspective on the visual culture of the nineteenth century, reassessing problems of both visual modernism and social modernity. This analysis of the historical formation of the observer is a compelling account of the prehistory of `the society of the spectacle.'

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Product Details

• Paperback: 183 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (February 25, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262531070
• ISBN-13: 978-0262531078
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #145,135 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Camera Isn't a Camera, March 30, 2005

By	Audrey Kuenstler - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

HUGE thumbs up. Crary historicizes technological vision and illuminates an underrepresented point: things we're taught to think of as objective, such as cameras and vision, are in fact quite subjective and historical. They're ideas first, which means social/cultural ideas, from design to usage. Gradually these cultural ideas plus economic and technological possibility fuse into 'things'. The social aspects get invisibly embedded into these 'things' through myths of objectivity and modern people's desire to be taken care of by machines. When cultural values become things we are conditioned not to see the subjective part. Why? Our primary way of thinking is still the way of the Enlightenment -- from the 18th century -- which loves measuring and equating and separates 'myth' from 'science'. [Which is which? as Roger Waters asks, Do you think you can tell?] Western high culture privileges thinking and seeing over affect and body, imagining they are separate and valuing one over the other. Really it's just an excuse for laziness and cultural arrogance.

Read this book along with Eric Michaels' _Bad Aboriginal Art_ and Adorno and Horkheimer's _Dialectic of Enlightenment_ to begin to see glimpses of Western cultural values and narratives embedded in today's supposedly 'objective' media such as photography, video, TV, vision, etc. Do the work and eventually technology will be a mirror of your own social/historical context.

4.0 out of 5 stars Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the 19th Century, February 12, 2009

By	Chen Yi Chun "vonda" (Taiwan) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

lt tall me how to see,who to READ the wold.I get many important concept.

13 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tricky but interesting, September 1, 2003

By	Mardie Cohen (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the 19th Century (October Books) (Hardcover)

Crary presents some interesting views on the perception of art. I found that it took a while for his ideas to formulate - the writing tends to be a bit wordy. I would recommend the book with reservations - really only for the serious academic reader. Not a casual bedside book.