On Feb 12, 2009, at 10:44 AM, William Conger wrote:
a fascinating glimpse of how people are so easily coerced to accept
abstract human images as if they were natural and correct
"Coerced"? Maybe, maybe not. But your point is well taken.
All representations are reductions of the totality of the referent to
fit the smaller scale of the referring thing. It's a matter of
mapping, essentially. And with that mapping comes a tacit or explicit
agreement between both parties, the map maker and the user, that
because of the limitations and reductions necessary in the mapped
image, there will be certain abbreviations, abridgments,
approximations, and the like. Eventually, these agreements become
standardized into styles or canons, which serve quite well for a
period of time until external factors introduce variations in the
standards or even an outright rejection of them.
Consider how "dated" movies made in the 70s look to us today. I'm
referring to the cinematography and other filmmaking matters, not to
the sideburns, fashion, and automobiles. These cinematographic
matters--lighting, camera angle and tracking, editorial cuts, use of
music, etc.--correspond to the agreements of the mapmaker and user, to
the standards and canons of representation. For a while, the standards
are almost imperceptible, and the, as time passes and the incremental
changes have accumulated, we can see the independence of style from
referent.
For an example of an abrupt change of style, remember back to when
"NYPD Blue" (American TV series) debuted. It used a jittery hand-held
camera technique, ostensibly to impart a sense of cinema verite to the
scenes, but many commentators criticized it for being annoying or
distracting. That particular technique of representation was still
opaque and easily perceives separately from what it showed.
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Michael Brady
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