CHAPTER 2: VIEWERS MAKE MEANING
I.
Content Summary
The meaning of an image is produced in three ways: through codes and
conventions, by the viewers and their interpretations, and from the contexts in which the
image is viewed. Instead of considering audiences, (groups conceptualized by the media
industry), this text examines viewers (individuals who look). Viewers are interpellated by
images; that is to say, an image requires viewers to know that the image is meant for
them to understand, even if they feel that their understanding is unique or goes against the
grain of a meaning that seems to have been intended.
Viewers and Producers
An image has a viewer and a producer. A producer can be an individual or a
whole team (such as an art collective group or an advertising agency). In terms of an
image’s meaning, however, theorists hold different viewpoints on who holds power and
authority to determine an image’s (or a text’s) meaning. Roland Barthes claimed that the
text allows for an undetermined space in which the reader or viewer can interpret and
decipher the work. The viewer is always interpreting and critiquing every text; there is no
author to hold authority or power over the viewer. Michel Foucault disagreed and argued
that the “author function” (adapted by the authors to become “the producer function”) is a
set of beliefs that leads us to have certain expectations about a work with regard to the
status of its producer. As the authors state, “. . . a producer may make an image or media
text, but he or she is not in full control of the meanings that are subsequently made
through their work.” Add the global cultural flow to the interpretation of images, and the
result is that the producer can only produce a text or an image but cannot control the
meaning it evokes for others.
Aesthetics and Taste
Pierre Bourdieu states that good taste and bad taste are socially constructed—
what is held to be good taste is usually a result of middle-class education and notions of
aesthetics associated with “high culture.” What is understood to be bad taste can be the
result of an ignorance of these standards, or it can be a deliberate rejection of the notion
of good taste. In the case of avant-garde and kitsch (where avant-garde is art and kitsch is
inauthentic and mass produced), kitsch became more widely appreciated in
postmodernity and has even served as a reaction to the elitist taste revered by modernity.
Collecting, Display, and Institutional Critique
The value of art is mainly influenced by the collecting of private owners and
museums. Collecting provides a means to measure appreciation and creates a market for
art. The act of viewing collections itself evokes meaning.
Encoding and Decoding
Stuart Hall posits one theory about how viewers decode images that are encoded
with meaning by the creators. A viewer can decode in one of three ways: (a) dominant
hegemonic reading—accepting the dominant meaning of an artifact in an unquestioning
manner; (b) negotiated reading—negotiating an interpretation of the image and its
dominant meaning; and (c) oppositional meaning—completely disagreeing with the
meaning or ignoring it completely.
Reception and the Audience
Hall’s theory has been critiqued because most viewers fall somewhere on the
continuum between dominant hegemonic reading and oppositional reading; however, it is
still helpful to us especially when understanding oppositional readings of works.
Negotiated readings are another matter; Michel de Certeau offers one negotiated reading
through “textual poaching”: taking a text and “inhabiting” it with new or altered
meanings as a form of cultural bricolage. De Certeau argues that in this case negotiating
is a struggle for possession of the text. The term bricolage comes from the anthropologist
Claude Lévi-Strauss and means adapting commodities (or cultural texts) to different uses
outside of their usual context. In this case, bricolage means creatively making use of
cultural texts for oppositional or negotiated meanings.
Appropriation and Cultural Production
Cultural appropriation is the process of “borrowing” and changing the meaning of
cultural products, slogans, images, or elements of fashion. Examples of appropriation
include the many recreations of Grant Wood’s American Gothic, political art, and fan
subculture.
Reappropriation and Counter-Bricolage
Reappropriation and counter-bricolage are not always part of oppositional
readings of texts. These terms also refer to the process by which the counter-hegemonic
bricolage strategies of marginal cultures are reappropriated by mainstream designers and
marketers and then parlayed into mainstream designs that signal “coolness.” ]This is
counter to the intent of the bricolage strategy.
II.
Key Figures and Terms
Artist/Creator/Producers
Group Material
RTMark
James Cameron
Vitaly Komar and Alex
Melamid
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Shepard Fairey
David Teniers
Gabai Baaré
Thomas Struth
Marcel Duchamp
Hans Haacke
Fred Wilson
Barbara Kruger
Quentin Tarantino
Makiko Kudo, Yuko Marada,
Tabaimo, and Chiho
Aoshima
Gordon Parks
Grant Wood
Gran Fury
Copper Greene
Theorist/Scholars
John Ellis
Roland Barthes
Michel Foucault
Nicholas Mirzoeff
Key Terms
Viewer
Audience
Interpellation
Bricolage
Pierre Bourdieu
Clement Greenberg
James Clifford
A. J. Greimas
Ilisa Barbash and Lucien
Taylor
Karl Marx
Louis Althusser
Antonio Gramsci
Stuart Hall
David Morley
Janice Radway
Intervisuality
Producer
Kitsch
Avant-garde
Aesthetics
Ien Ang
Michel de Certeau
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Dick Hebdige
Angela McRobbie
George Lipsitz
Steven Biel
Robert Goldman and
Stephen Papson
Taste
High culture
Low culture
III.
In-class Activities/Assignments
1.
Vanity Fair—2008 Hollywood Issue, Hitchcock Stills Recreations
In the March 2008 issue, Vanity Fair magazine reshot some of the most famous
stills from Alfred Hitchcock movies with 2008’s Hollywood A-list actors. The original
stills can be seen by clicking on the new photos. The link to the slide show is:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/03/hitchcock_stills200803?slide=1#glob
alNav
Questions for students:
A.
How do the new versions interpellate viewers in 2008?
B.
Do the new stills create a different meaning for viewers?
2.
The Value of Art
Watch PBS’s Independent Lens, Stolen (2007)
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/stolen/index.html
A. How is art valued by art thieves? By law enforcement? By museums?
B. How does the quote by Katherine Weber (on the “Famous Heists” page), stating
that art theft is about power, not love of a painting, challenge or agree with the
theory of Foucault and the work of Fred Wilson?
3.
Guernica Appropriation Exercise
Have students read the story and study the original Guernica painting on the PBS
site. Then show the Belfast Guernica mural and discuss how the muralists appropriated
the artwork to create new meaning for the artwork as a bridge between sectarian politics
and violence in Northern Ireland.
PBS site URLs on Guernica:
http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/guernica_nav/main_guerfrm.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/powerofart/view.php?page=picasso
Guernica Mural—International Wall—Belfast, Northern Ireland
This mural illustrates the lasting impact and resonance that Guernica—arguably
Picasso's most famous work and the most famous antiwar painting ever created—has had,
repainted here in the context of the conflict in Belfast and Northern Ireland as a universal
antiwar symbol. By using an iconic work in the canon of modern art to illustrate their
stance against the violence of war, the muralists have discredited the Belfast art
establishment's claim that their work is nothing more than sectarian propaganda.
Painted by Mark Ervine (Loyalist) and Danny Devanney (Republican)—a
collaboration across political lines—painted in August of 2007 in conjunction with the
annual Feile Festival and the seventieth anniversary of the Spanish Civil War.
Link to photo of mural:
http://thestory.org/photo-galleries/murals-of-danny-devenney-and-mark-ervine/timrobbins.jpg/view
For more mural photos, see Appendix (Photo Credit: Sarah McDonald, 2007).
IV.
Chapter 2 Journal Assignments
1.
Appropriation in Popular Culture
On page 83, the authors discuss the phenomenon of “appropriation” as the act of
borrowing, stealing, or taking other’s meanings to one’s own ends and cultural
appropriation as the process of “borrowing” and changing the meaning of commodities,
cultural products, slogans, images, or elements of fashion.
From popular culture today (TV, film, magazines, Internet, advertising), find an
example of how the creator appropriates another’s meaning to his/her/its own end.
Answer the following questions, citing evidence from the image or artifact to
support your answers:
A. What is the original intended meaning?
B. In what way is the image or artifact appropriated?
C. What is the new meaning intended through the appropriation?
D. Attach the sample to or include the URL in your entry.
2.
Aesthetics and Taste*
Read the following book:
Postrel, Virginia. The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking
Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
Postrel argues that aesthetic value is real and that appearance counts in our society.
A. Compare Postrel’s argument with Bordieu’s. How are they similar? How are they
different?
B. What support does Postrel provide for her argument? Is this persuasive? Why?
*This could also be a larger Think Paper assignment.