Lecture 3, psychoanalysis & 'the gaze' - notes

Not psychology, but related to it.
A form of reading

• EGO - consciousness - 'the side that we show the world'
• SUPER EGO - what lies beneath the surface
• morals etc
• our conscience, formed through childhood.
• ID - desire, basic and fundamental
• inhibited by the super ego.

'A precarious situation of desiring something but having to repress it'

(simpsons example) - when your super ego fails you, that is a trauma, and the ID bubbles to the surface.

(left lecture for print session - continuing with notes from catch up seminar.)

THE GAZE

'men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at’ John Berger.

              - men objectifying women etc..

Female nudes..

Examples used that do not appear in lecture presentation...

1st painting - woman with a child's face, obedient.

2nd painting - Manet - Olympia? prostitute. different gaze, woman is more powerful, challenging the male viewer - independence + power.

Victoria Beckham example. (narcissistic damage - .Coward)

• panoptic male gaze
• self regulates as she is constantly aware of being watched
•   (potential dissertation)

What is girl power then?

Do women that dress like men (power dressing) just support male superiority? 

MAY WEST - "Is that a gun in your pocket? Or are you just pleased to see me?"

• similar to Olympia, a 'whore' but feminine and powerful. A 'man eater'.

WOMENS MAGAZINES

       - the problem is accentuated by women themselves!

• Magazines promote anxiety and unconfidence
• Examples show the magazines are geared towards mens needs?
• Portrayed as female empowerment, but they are not.
• sex and the city..

To what extent are men objectified?

      -are they still projected with a male gaze on sexuality? 

Bob Hope quote "Pretty girls..." ?

     - stereotypical feminist... - plain, fat, can't get a man etc..

Sarah Lucas - visual gags - two fried eggs and a kebab 

• The language of our culture
• Sarah uses that language and exposes it as idiotic. 

Lecture 2, Media Ideology - notes

(missed lecture, notes from catch up seminar)


main aims of lecture

• sociological approaches of art + design
• marxist philosophy
• 'politics, a philosophy of action'
• 'ideas of the many'
• marxist approach to art and design
• marxist approach to mass media

IDEOLOGY - a system of ideas or beliefs that can often distort or give false consciousness.

• i.e. - RELIGION
• 'The kings position as appointed by God'
• supports the ruling class, and tricks the lower class into thinking the interests of the upper class is 'the interest of the many'
• Differences between men and women 
• conditioned behaviour

Types of ideology,

• Law
• Advertising - capitalism
• Newspaper - supports ruling classes
• Religion - justifies Iraq war
• Education - the institution for the indoctrination of ideologies!
•  = Maintain the status quo

'Meritocratic'

             - work hard, get a job, marriage, kids, nice house in the suburbs = happy life

Althusser (1970)  'ideology and ideologic state apparatus'

Physical control                                                    Psychological control

Repressive (army, police etc)                                   Ideologic (religion, education etc)

MARX base / superstructure.

Base 

forces of production           -         materials, tools, workers, skills, etc.  

relations of production     -         employer/employee, class, master/slave, etc

     

Superstructure

social institutions              -           legal, political, cultural

forms of consciousness    -          ideology 

• dynamic relationship between base and superstructure
• all ideologies emerge as a response to the base
• this is materialism
• superstructure emerges from the base and in turn supports it

(gets quite complex here... additional discussion to the lecture)

• Thesis - social force
• antithesis - exact opposite
• works like a spiral - synthesis 

eg - cold war, communism dead since 1989 - synthesis = capitalism since then

eg - punk music scene - synthesis = absorbed into normal society

Lecture 1, Panopticism, contemporary society and surveillance

• Project - The great confinement 'houses of correction'
• beggars, disabled - physically and mentally, criminals, drunks etc.
• Project failed: They just corrupted each other more
• Project - The asylum - treated like children, monitored 24/7

Panopticon

• Designed by Jeremy Bentham in 1785
• Originally intended as a prison 
• Bentham says "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind"
• Institutional gaze - guards can monitor prisoners without being seen themselves. 
• Shift from lower society being hidden away, they are now under constant surveillance
• Idea of the assylum (17th century)
• Discipline through surveillance and monitoring
• Shift from physical to psychological discipline.
• still exists today, legitimised by knowledge and institution
• Paranoia increases productivity,
• this feeling is INTERNALISED and thus encourages SELF REGULATION after leaving the panopticon.

Michel Foucault - French philosopher

• Wrote Discipline and Punish
• uses the panopticon as a model to be used in other areas of modern society.
• Panopticism.
• Transformation in western society  from a power imposed by a ruler to - panopticism. 
• a similar shift to that of physical to physiological discipline 
• The DOCILE BODY created by panopticism
• obedient, malleable
• 'visibility is a trap'

Modern Examples

• Gym craze - live longer, be healthier 
• live longer, more productive.
• Nazi Germany - social hierarchy, everyone watching and listening
• T.V
• CCTV (dummy ones especially)
• Bars, clubs
• Police support officer
• Newspapers
• 
  

My question: Is panopticism false power or actual power?

• "power is a relationship", "where there is power there is resistance"
• i.e. If you don't let it control you then it cannot.