It has been along thinking process as I think about how to write a synthesis essay on The Ways of Seeing, the Panopticism, and Kanye’s West Power video. I read the readings for a third time trying to see how I can connect all to Kanye’s Wests song. Through my thinking process I came up with a three bubble diagram so that it could help me come up with a thesis. I know the essay is going to center on the concept of power and how the three see power. Berger see power as the power of images and how people can take an image and take it out of their historical context thereby mystifying it. A question I ask myself is it important to take into account that the concept of art means different things to the rich and the poor. In Foucault’s Panopticism power is intensified by using the Panopticon concept. This is where I can somehow connect the both readings. While both of them deal with observing/seeing and both use adaptation, in Foucault everyone can be the observer and the society as a whole is responsible for power. The society shares the power to create a more efficient society. The question that arises is if everyone in able to use images as a form of power in Bergers and if they convey the same type of power. There is one line that I trying to figure out what it says, “They surround us in the same way as a language surrounds us. They have entered the mainstream of life over which they no longer, in themselves, have power,” I think this line will help me figure out what to write. THE PROBLEM IS trying to connect these two writings with Kanye’s video. Kanye’s video shows the composition unity that Berger said described to emit power and it looks like a painting that would be in the Sistine chapel. Could this be what Berger was referring when he said that images could be taken out of context to be used for other purposes (the heavenly skies)? Kanyes’ images can also display that he is the system in power only to be defeated by power itself. Is he saying that power is a responsibility??
Blanca,
ReplyDeleteThe line about images becoming like a language is the sense that it is become possible for many people (not just a particularly elite class). With increased access to images (and the possibility of their appropriation--think about digital manipulation in photoshop) the image does have a power in itself as that which is controlled by authorities/upper class. We can "use" images in ways that are contrary to their "original" purpose. However, it is important to emphasize that Berger claims that thus so far, it seems that the reproduction of images have only been used to further enforce the idea that "nothing has changed" --that is, that images still have some kind of mystified power/protection.