The Influence of Visual Culture - Essay Example

Visual culture is a field of study that generally includes some combination of cultural studies, art history, critical theory, philosophy, and anthropology, by focusing on aspects of culture that rely on visual images. With the desire to explain what visual is, many aspects of this culture overlap with the study of science and technology including cognitive science, neurology and image and brain theory. Working within contemporary culture, theorist often extend beyond film studies, psychoanalytic theory, gender studies, queer theory, and the study of television. ; it can also include video game studies, comics, traditional artistic media, advertising, the Internet, and any other medium that has a crucial visual component. (Wikipedia) This text will focus on psychoanalytic theories that evidently apply to visual culture. Designed to explain how this particular science that speaks of sexuality, creativity, repression, fetishism, drives and the like could possibly be applied to visual culture, work of two renowned artists would be discussed. Andy Warhol's paintings of Marilyn have attracted much commentary from critics attempting to discern any complexity of thought or feeling in Warhol's treatment of the original image. With the fascination and argument it has evoked it serves as a perfect example that could relate psychoanalytic theories with visual arts. Alexander McQueen, with his continually provocative shows and outrageous designs, has solidified his reputation as the bad boy of fashion. His choice of collections compels potent mix of controversy, creativity, and technical mastery had made him renowned and notable artist. An exploration into his art would greatly substantiate visual cultures relevant to psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic theory is a general term for approaches to psychoanalysis which attempt to provide a conceptual framework more-or-less independent of clinical practice rather than based on empirical analysis of clinical case. Its development is described as a primarily unconscious - that is, beyond awareness - and is heavily coloured by emotion. The term often attaches to conceptual uses of analysis in critical theory, literary, film, or other art criticism, broader intersubjective phenomena. For example, those broadly conceived as cultural or social in nature, religion, law, or other non-clinical contexts, sometimes signifying its use as a hermeneutic or interpretative framework. In some respects this can resemble phenomenology insofar as it attempts to account for consciousness and unconsciousness in a more or less eidetic fashion, although there are inherent conflicts between phenomenology as a study of consciousness and the frequent psychoanalytic emphasis on the unconscious or non-coincidence of consciousness with itself(wiki). Some of the theoretical orientation of psychoanalysis results in part from its separation from psychiatry and institutionalisation closer to departments of philosophy and literature. Its diverse influence have dispersed its implications toward racial and colonial identity, distinct Marxist positions that had attempt to use psychoanalysis in the study of ideology, work in literary studies informed by philosophy, psychology, neurology, Freudian and Lacanian theory. Theory can be so expansive a container as to include the work of Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari, who believed psychoanalysis ultimately radically reductionist and strongly opposed the psychiatric institutions of their time. Sometimes it heavily informs gender studies and queer theory. Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, and Jacques Lacan are often treated as canonical thinkers by Lacanian psychoanalysts despite the considerable objections to their authority. Freud's psychoanalytic theory provided a radically new approach to the analysis and treatment of what had been perceived as abnormal adult behaviour. Behaviours were once ignored and were rather substituted with psychological explanation. The novelty of Freud's approach was in recognizing that neurotic behavior is not random or meaningless but goal-directed. By looking for the purpose behind so-called abnormal behavioural patterns, the analyst was given a method for understanding behavior as meaningful and informative, without denying its physiological aspects. This had then brought psychoanalysis into the scene. Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory has been one of the most influential theories of our time. It breaks the human personality down into three critical parts: Id, Ego and Superego. The Id is the most basic part and is present at birth. The Id functions with the pleasure principle. This means it tends to be a little animalistic. It can be irrational and illogical. The Ego works to maintain or control the Id. It operates on the reality principal and tries to keep the Id straight. The Ego makes a person have rational and realistic thoughts while interacting with others. The Superego is the conscience. It contains the principles and ideals of society. The Superego operates on idealism. Its goal is to inhibit the desires of the Id and convince the Ego to work towards more moral goals rather than realistic ones (Mcquade, 2007). This theory had been mostly acclaimed due to its applicability and significance to other, if not almost all aspect of humanity. Jacques Lacan develops a linguistic interpretation of Freud, arguing that "the unconscious is structured like a language." Norman N. Holland applies psychoanalytic concepts to reader-response criticism. Feminist critics deconstruct Freud's patriarchal assumptions. Moreover, psychobiography, a genre that uses data from the real events of an author's life and the fictional events dramatized in his literature, is a product of psychoanalytic theory. In short, the analysis of literary symbolism is heavily indebted to Freudian theory (Herderson, Brown). Going beyond the limits of Freud's Theory, Lacan had considerably depict its significance. Psychoanalysis was the first to lay the emphasis upon the signification of psychic facts. It was the first to insist upon the fact that every state of consciousness stands for something other than itself. With its imaginative yet scientifically pragmatic view it can reasonably rationalize humanity. Moreover, it could deliberately define philosophy, anthropology, art, critical theory and cultural studies of which comprise visual culture. Like any form of art, visual culture speaks of its creator's emotion. A painting could best define how its painter felt at that specific time he was doing such piece. But one cannot understand emotion unless its signification has been looked for. And this, by its nature, is its functional order. Simple consideration of the facts brings us to an empirical intuition of the finalist meaning of emotion. This finality presupposes a synthetic organization of behaviour which could only be the 'unconscious' of psychoanalysis, or consciousness. And it would be easy enough, if need be, to produce a psychoanalytic theory of emotional finality. This dissociation between the organized character of emotion -the organizing theme being relegated to the unconscious- and its ineluctable character, which it would not have for the consciousness of the subject, would render something like the same service in the psychological domain as the Kantian distinction between the empirical and the noumenal does in the domain of metaphysic (Sartre). It is certainly true that psychoanalysis was the first to lay the emphasis upon the signification of psychic facts: that is, it was the first to insist upon the fact that every state of consciousness stands for something other than itself. One great example would be Warhol's diptych of Marilyn Monroe. Andy Warhol's art focus was on popular culture that could be regarded to the middle-class social and material values he absorbed growing up amid the depression. The industrial studio he called the factory changed his style from hand painting to assembly-line silk-screening on canvas. The continuous image suggests the symbol of the moving image that made Marilyn Monroe so famous. The photo is of the Monroe the star not the person. Using diptych format from Byzantine icons of Christian saints, it shows Marilyn in biblical proportions (Patterson). Like in most celebrated artist, it takes the viewer to reflect on Monroe's life to get what the piece supposed to imply. "On its live impression the colors printed on the face reflects a much deeper purple. A sick unhappier color; ill or sickly. The blacks go from invisible to extreme contrast. The left seems almost cloud-like and the bright happier if the limelight" (Patterson). Warhol's paintings of Marilyn have attracted critics with their review and attempt to determine any convolution of concept or emotion in Warhol's interpretation towards his creation. Analysis that mediates on Marilyn's immortality and life death, and that it was something symbolical had somehow made their point. Nevertheless, Warhol was not naive about the possible implications of his artistic choices. In the case of the "Gold Marilyn", one of several variations, there is an obvious intention to portray her as some kind of religious icon, whose public image had achieved a universal visual strength parallel to that of the Madonna (Patterson). But where could such strong perception came from Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhol in Pittsburgh in 1928 into a poor immigrant family. After showing promise as an artist, he entered the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and majored in pictorial design. In the 1950s, he enjoyed a successful career as a commercial artist in New York, and began to show his artwork in galleries, as well as in a group show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1956 (Mickeytwin, 2006). Upon keen observation and analysis, his bibliography could explain his art works. Warhol and Monroe shared many similar qualities; both came from humble beginnings, were desperate for fame and success, and longed to be taken seriously by the established artists of their times. Marilyn studied with Strasberg, whose technique and students had ties to the Abstract Expressionists, both of whom emphasized "authenticity in expressionthe result of an unplanned process of inner discovery, a peeling away of learned responses to allow an unmediated confrontation between the medium (script or paint) and self" (Mickeytwin). By reproducing his image of Monroe repeatedly, in singular and multiple formats, and in various color combinations, Warhol attempts to grant Monroe the dignity that was stolen from her by the press in the years leading up to her death (Mickeytwin). And that sympathy he had with her could be attributed to their faults and similarities. Understanding these, as psychoanalysis had been employed; we had found a link between Warhol's emotion and his art. Recent experimental fashion has a dark side, a preoccupation with representations of death, trauma, alienation, and decay. Disturbing themes that tells us about consumer culture and contemporary anxieties had been discussed in an intriguing book by Caroline Evans. Fashion at the Edge considers a range of cutting-edge contemporary fashion in unprecedented depth and detail, including the work of such designers as John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, Viktor & Rolf, and Martin Margiela. Contrasting images by such photographers as Steven Meisel, Nick Knight, Peter Lindbergh, and Juergen Teller are also reviewed. It is 1995, and Alexander McQueen's fifth collection, "Highland Rape", features models who are staggering, half-naked, brutalised. He is immediately accused of misogyny. McQueen, who is often depicted as an East End wide boy, "a malevolent Edward Scissorhands", reacts violently. Having seen his sister suffer, he knows about domestic violence: "I've seen a woman nearly get beaten to death by her husband. I know what misogyny is. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress." McQueen knows about history, too: his mother was a local historian. The collection, he tells us, was about the rape of Scotland; it was about genocide (Evans). McQueen's battered-looking women, the distressed body of much 1990s fashion exhibited the symptoms of trauma. Bodies looked ill and bruised; cloth was literally distressed, sometimes buried and unpicked and left to rot. The themes of death, dereliction and disease were ever present. The "semiotic blur" of fashion was awash with imagery of ghosts, of melancholy, of dystopia, of alienation. Part of the fashion world became a place where these hysterical symptoms could not only be acted out but celebrated. Evans uses the image of the rag picker to describe the way that so many of these designers--Galliano and McQueen in particular--refer to the past to make the present strange, in order that we can remake ourselves in different ways. Drawing on theoretical perspectives of which includes psychoanalytical, the author argues that fashion plays a leading role in constructing images and meanings during periods of rapid change. This could in turn lead to an alteration if not improvement of criminal inclinations. Sources: Alexander McQueen. Retrieved August 20, 2008 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_McQueen Alexander Mcqueen. Retrieved August 20, 2008 from: http://nymag.com/fashion/fashionshows/designers/bios/alexandermcqueen/ Henderson, Brown. Glossary of Literary Theory. Retrieved August 20, 2008 from: http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/glossary/Psychoanalytic_theory.html McQuade, 2007. Sigmund Freud Psychoanalytic Theor. Retrieved August 20, 2008 from: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/424863/sigmund_freuds_psychoanalytic_theory.html Moore, Suzanne. Caroline Evans. For the Mail on Sunday Mickeytwin, 2006. Part 2. Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe Paintings. Clever Tyrant. Retrieved August 20, 2008 from: http://clevertyrants.blogspot.com/2006/12/part-2-andy-warhols-marilyn-monroe.html Patterson, 1997. The Death of Glamour. Retrieved August 200, 2008 from http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/MultimediaStudentProjects/96-97/9340071p/project/html/mar.htm Psychoanalytic Theory. Retrieved August 20, 2008 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_theory Quigley, 1998. Freudian, Lacanian, and Object Relations Theory. Retrieved August 20, 2088 from: http://cepa.newschool.edu/quigleyt/vcs/psychoanalysis.html Sartre, Jean-Paul. On the Psychoanalytic Theory of the Emotions. Retrieved August 20, 2008 from http://hometown.aol.com/DonJohnR/Philosophy/S_Sketch.html Thomas Crow, "Saturday Disasters: Trace and Reference in Early Warhol," Art in America 75 (May 1987), p 132. Wagner. The Unconscious and Unconscious Mind-The structure of the Mind According to Freud. Retrieved August 20, 2008 from: http://hometown.aol.com/DonJohnR/Philosophy/S_Sketch.html Read More