Mid term Synopsis

In Chapter 3 from the Practices of Looking, the main points that were articulated throughout the chapter focused on gaze and spectatorship. Even though the reading was difficult, I tried to focus on the words on those to main words. As I tried to come up with an understand of why these words have so much power, I found a quote that struck me. “When we look at images, we look within a field that includes much more than just our own gaze and the image. This field includes, among other things, the medium through which we see the images and the architectural, cultural, national and institutional context in which we see the image” (Pg 93). This statement reminds me a lot of our last passage that we had to read, The Medium is the Message, by Marshall McLuhan. The Medium, which could be represented through multiple forms, such as newspapers, radio, cell phones, televisions, computers and many more have been used to express messages in so many different forms that it has left society wanting more. This quote is true, because we gaze and analyze the objects around us.
When reading the chapter, Modernity, it focuses on our senses and how we use them to grasp the attention of our surroundings. “Spectatorship allows us to talk about this broader context in which looking is enacted in an interactive, multimodal and relational field” (pg.93).. “The concepts of gaze and spectatorship remain important cornerstones of visual studies because they provide a set of terms and methods through which to consider some aspects of looking practices that the concepts on the view do not really allow us to consider in depth (Pg 102). I felt like this meant that these concepts are extremely important to use because they help people interpret, their surroundings, with both their conscious and unconscious mind. While reading it talked about how people “gaze” at certain types of medium, such as paintings and photography and how it creates the process of a person trying to see themselves in the picture at the point in time that in image is trying to capture. “In reacting to images of other human subjects, do we experience the person in the image or on the screen as a object of our desire? Or do we fanaticizes ourselves in the place of the person on the canvas or screen” (pg. 122). The term gaze may help people respond and allow people to become part of the subject. Allowing people to interpret their surroundings and have a reaction to what they are seeing creates the ability for having the feelings of being a part of the object they are looking at.
As the reading looks back on history, from the Enlightenment to today’s advertisements and big screen movies, it gives me as the reader a sense of the change over time that has shaped society into what it is today. The reading focused on how people as “spectators, view the subjects and objects that surround us everyday through multiple forms of media.
The concept of being a spectator requires people to engage and gaze at the objects that are in front of them. The understanding of the terms gaze and spectatorship will give the ability to grasp the depth of objects by truly stepping back and looking. As we practice looking we will connect with the world around us.