The Gaze in the Media

Helen Clarke
Helen.clarke@leeds-art.ac.uk

‘according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome – men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.’ – John Berger 1972
commonly misunderstood quote? - implies hat women are vein?
what he means – women cant get away from this complex based on the female heavy imagery

Hans Memling – ‘vanity’ 1485
title itself makes a moral judgement, as does the placement of the mirror
woman presented as desirable by painter, mirror makes it seem like she wants to be looked at. The painter wants us to look at her body, not the woman. Recreated in various advertising campaigns, women presented, mirror implies vanity, mirror shows what we cannot see.

Alexandendre Cabanel – ‘Birth of Venus’ 1863
stature of venus gives permission to look, shielding of the eyes implies shyness or self-awareness.

Sophie Dahl – Opium
body arranged in a much more sexual manor.
Image turned vertical and thus deemed allowed to be shown in public, horizontal image gave too stronger level of sexual connotations.

Titian’s – ‘Venus of Urbino’ 1538
Reclining nude, giving a contemplating look. Complete awareness of us looking at her but also a level of modesty with the crossed legs and hand placement.

Manet – ‘Olympia’ 1863
Very Similar position but subject is a prostitute, selling herself – not presenting the beauty of the female form. Doesn’t acknowledge the gift of flowers, but body is adorned with jewellery. Black cat – powerful femininity and independence?

Ingres – ‘Le Grand Odalisque’ 1814
Guerilla Girls – Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Musuem?

Manet – ‘Bar at the Folies Bergeres’ 1882
Barmaid stood at bar, see the rest of the bar reflected in the mirror. Barmaid holds eye contact as if we were the customer. Manet also shown in the reflection, looking her in the eye, we are seeing the scene through Manet’s eyes.
Jeff Wall – ‘Picture for Women’ 1979
Modern recreation of previous example. Camera is central, both subjects presented either side of it – however if they were in front of the camera it wouldn’t work. (really not that similar)

Coward, R 1984
‘The Look’ – the camera in contemporary media has been put to use as an extension of the male gaze at women on the streets. – normalisation of nudity implied. Wearing underwear and sunglasses, juxtapositon of clothing choice but also the sunglasses take away her returning gaze.

Wonderbra Campaign – ‘Eva Herzigova’ 1994
‘Hello Boys’ – printed on billboards and busses. Looking at her own breasts, empowerment of herself or looking away to avoid returning the gaze? OR massive billboard woman looking down on you? She’s aware people are looking at her but it is wonderbra that want you to look, not Eva.

Coward, R 1984
The profusion of images which characterises contemporary society could be seen as an obsessive distancing of women – a form of voyeurism

‘Peeping Tom’ – 1960

Men Objectified in advertising too – Calvin Klein
However the quantity and frequency of images shows that women are objectified much more frequently and severely. (Gender Ads website)
Marliyn: William Travillas dress from The Seven Year Itch 1995

Artemnisia Gentileschi – ‘Judith Beheading Holofernes’ 1620

Pollock, G 1981
Women’margianalised within the masculine discourses of art history’.

Cindy Sherman – ‘Untitled Film Still 6’ 1977-1979
she is the model and the photographer – creating and viewing the image

Barbara Kruger – ‘Your Gaze hits the Side of my Face’ 1981
found imagery and text, playing at the preconceptions and understandings of the gaze, satire imagery

- ‘ I Shop Therefore I Am’ 1983
Consumer society forming identity on physical objects and not morals and ethics.

Sarah Lucas – “Eating a Banana’ 1990
low-fi black and white photograph of person eating a banana, sexual connotations? Are normal everyday activities objectified by sexual undertones?

‘Self Portrait with Fried Eggs’ 1996
Ridiculous

Tracy Emin – ‘Money Photo’ 2001
‘stuffing money inside herself’

The Gaze IN the Media
Amanda Knox case
Joan Smith – Guardian Article – Accused of being a Witch, medieval?
The Mail esposes itself as guilty of fabrication
Susan Sontag – ‘On Photograaphy’ 1979

Paparazzi shot of Princess Diana
A market created by the public, they want to see images, paparazzi must provide them.

Not dissimilar to the concept of Reality TV – Big Brother
- gives the feeling of an all-seeing power
- allows a voyeuristic passive consumption of a type of reality
- editing means there is no reality
- contestants are aware of their own representation

The Truman Show

Victor Burgin – ‘Looking is not indifferent’

Panopticism

Richard Miles

Institutions & Institutional power

Principles of the Panopticon - Jeremy Bentham
Michael Foucault's concept of 'discipline society' - 1926-1984

Panopticon - round
- Foucault - allegory of the way the world is
- Madness and civilisation
- Discipline and Punish - Birth of Prison

Great Confinement, late 1600's
- 'Homes of Correction' to curb unemployment and sickness
made to work with the threat of physical punishment

Birthplace fo the Asylum - treated like children, rewarded/punished accordingly
physical control turns into subtle mental control

emerge of Knowledge - biology, psychiatry, medicine - legitimise the role of the doctor
- careers created - who decides who's healthy?

The Pillory and historical stocks
- public humiliation and degradation
- shows the kings ultimate power over your body

Disciplinary power and disciplinary society
-"discipline is a technology to keep someone under surveillance and how to control his conduct' - Foucault
- The Panopticon Building - perfect institute, multipurpose building, school, hospital, prison

Jeremy Bentham - design 1791
Foucault - metaphor 1970

Panopticon - internalises the individual, the conscious state that he is always being watched
- not actually watched in theory, they become self regulating

'The major affect of the panopticon, to induce the inmate to a state of consciousness and permanent visibility that confirms the automatic function of power' 1975 Foucault

allows scrutiny and permanent visibility and a chance to experiment on subjects
aims to make them more productive

Panopticon - a model of how modern society organises the knowledge, its power, in the surveillance of bodies and its training of bodies

Modern examples of panopticons
open plan offices - closed offices
open plan bars - traditional pubs
the register as a record of attendance

Uni cards, surveillance cameras, cctv
cameras in classrooms - panopticon gone too far?
- has a damaging affect on learning?
- uni can see your computer files/visited websites
- keystrokes per minute etc

"But the body is also directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs. This political investment of the body is bound up, in accordance with complex reciprocal relations, with its economic use; it is largely as a force of production that the body is invested with relations of power and domination; but on the other hand, its constitution as labour power is possible only if it is caught up in a system of subjection…the body becomes a useful force only if it is both a productive body and a subjected body” Foucault 1975

Disciplining society creates 'docile bodies'
self monitoring, correcting, regulating, obedient

Foucault and Power
- his definition is not a top-down model as with marxism
- power is not a thing - it is a relation between individuals and groups
- the exercise of power relies on there being the capacity for power to be resisted - where there is power, there is resistance

1984 - George Orwell
Winston Smith

Vito Acconci - Following Piece 1969 - stalking
- Seedbed 1972 - masturbating under the floor

Chris Burden - Samson 1985
- pushes the building apart via turnstile and vice

Key Points
- Foucault
- Panopticism as a form of discipline
- Techniques of the Body
- Docile Bodies