Notation on the text Seven Principles for Visual by Paul Duncum

24/01/2014

Blog Entry 11:

In preparation for our first lecture for the Visual Culture: Debates module, the class was asked to read and consider the text Seven Principles for Visual by Paul Duncum. This blog entry contains my initial notation on the text.

Extra reading, Seven Principles for Visual by Paul Duncum (follow the below link):

http://learningthroughmuseums.wikispaces.com/file/view/Seven+Principles+for+Visual+Cultural+Education.pdf

(Duncum, 2010)

• The principles were first put in place to understand art, which may be more obscure or convay a message which is not obvious, e.g. abstract or not photo realism.

• These principles was created near the beginning of the 20th Century when art had moved from focussing on realistic to imagery more open to interpretation.

• These principles or guidelines are used mainly for education purposes, for educators to use as a guide for marking and critique purposes, however I feel as students, it is important for us to understand these principles so that we are more able to understand assessment criteria and critique our own work agains them.

The Principles:

• Power
• Ideology
• Seduction
• Gaze
• Intertexuality
• Multimodality

• The principles are useful today (modern day) to create a guideline that suggests what educators and practitioners can look for in Contemporary art, which is known to follow less guidelines or is more obscure in content or meaning.

• Duncum is a teacher, he suggests throughout the text how the principles can be used in a teaching environment

Power:

• Power can be exercised by both the practitioner and the viewer
•   Artists will protray something as they intend it to be seen or manipulate media or content to make the viewer think of feel a certain way
• "Viewers are not passive recepticles, but active discriminators" (Duncum, 2010) 
• The viewer can interpret visual stimuli meaning that the artist does not have full control over their own imagery

Ideology:

• Human traits such as emotions and opinions affect how we create or view imagery
• The Human condition seems to dictate ideology
• Visual creation can actively or passively "inspire ideals" (Duncum, 2010)
• View point or point of view
• An artist or practitioner cannot please everyone or adhere to their personal ideologies
• Ideology is affected by all factors of human life and thought - beleif, life, culture, etc.

Representation:

• Representation is basically how ideology is presented through imagery
• When is represented, how is it represented and what is not represented?
• Juxtaposition and composition affect how aspects of imagery or imager is represented
• The relationship with the viewer
• Character representation - stereotypes or if they are intended to be liked or disliked
• Representation which is well known can either adhere or create ideology
• Representation can be to captivate a specific target audience
• What is not being represented can be as important as what is

Seduction

• To seduce/ capture attention of an audience be it specific/target or general public
• Pleasure people get from imagery - how one justifies such pleasure
• Seduction can adhere to human feelings of morbid fascination or sexuality
• What do people want to look at?
• To repulse of fascinate
• To affect the senses, sensory qualities

Gaze:

• People's "Predisposition", how people are already going to view something due to personal qualities or environment
• Where imagery is situated can affect how the viewer will look at it, e.g. glance, look over medetaively
• Each person will gaze/ look at something differently due to their unique outlook or lifestyle
• Someone may view something as offencive and others will not
• The gaze focusses on the viewer and what relationship they will have with imagery due to outside factors
• The viewers' context

Intertexuality:

• How imagery can be created or affected whilst being created has many different outside influences that has provoked the artist to create the work.
• Associations the imagery has
• Links and relationships
• How imagery is directly and indirectly linked to other influenced
• connections and relationships of outside factors
• the situ can affect what an imange is linked to 

Multimodality:

• Imagery is never purely visual
• how other sensory factors can affect the representation or meaning
• Text, sound, smell, logos are all factors of multimodality
• How a narrative or meaning can be changed or affected
• situ
• other aspects that affect context

The next blog entry will focus on the first session of the Visual Culture: Debates module which these notes were made in preperation of.