OUGD501 - Context of Practice: The Gaze and The Media Seminar

Recap of the lecture:

• Voyeurism (Freud) - Sexual desire
• Visual culture (Art and media)
• Looking at art and media is not just neutral
• "Men act, women appear." Berger 1972 - Men have purpose/power, women are more like objects than people
• Women are objectified by men
• It is very rarely the other way round
• Visual representations are skewed
• A painting by a man of a woman
• Artists were mainly men
• Society was patriatchal
• The domination and exploitation of women in society
• It serves pornographic function - Designed to make the male feel more secure about sexuality and power - Voyeuristic fantasy
• She checks in the mirror to see if you are looking

Manet

• Inviting
• Covering up
• Prostitute
• Olympia's goddess in Greek mythology
• Reality
• Black cat is a symbol of independence
• Still a person looking back
• The gaze is met and the person is also a subject

Alexandre

• Everything on display
• Flirtatious look at me
• Venus is the goddess of love
• Acceptable representation
• Floating on waves
• Unchallening
• Made to look beautiful
• Dog is a man's best friend - sexually available

Berger's Video

• 'A nude has to be seen as an object to be nude.' To be naked is to be yourself, nude is the act of being seen naked by someone else but to not actually be yourself.

We then analysed and read through Coward, R., 'The Look', in Thomas, J. (ed) (2000), Reading Images, Basingstoke: Palgrave, pages 33-39. Using the comments we have made on the pages we have to then complete the task on the gaze and the media.