Visual Culture

About this book

"A short, accesible critical guide to visual culture-what it means to look and see; how the visual impacts our lives, our era, our understandings of each other, and even how it is changing our brains"-- As if John Berger's Ways of Seeing was re-written for the 21st century, Alexis L. Boylan crafts a guide for navigating the complexities of visual culture in this concise introduction. The visual surrounds us, some of it invited, most of it not. In this visual environment, everything we see--art, color, the moon, a skyscraper, a stop sign, a political poster, rising sea levels, a photograph of Kim Kardashian West--somehow becomes legible, normalized, accessible. How does this happen' How do we live and move in our visual environments' This volume offers a guide for navigating the complexities of visual culture, outlining strategies for thinking about what it means to look and see--and what is at stake in doing so. Visual culture has always been inscribed by the dominant and by domination. This book suggests how we might weaponize the visual for positive, unifying change. Drawing on both historical and contemporary examples--from Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party and Beyoncé and Jay-Z at the Louvre to the first images of a black hole--Alexis Boylan considers how we engage with and are manipulated by what we see. She begins with what: what is visual culture, and what questions, ideas, and quandaries animate our approach to the visual? She continues with where: where are we allowed to see it, and where do we stand when we look? Then, who: whose bodies have been present or absent from visual culture, and who is allowed to see it? And, finally, when: is the visual detached from time? When do we see what we need to see?