'Ways of seeing' - John Berger (1972)

Ways of seeing in paintings

• The meaning of a painting has now become transmittable and can be manipulated and transformed.
• Paintings/images are modified when sound is accompanied to it
• Words you notice consciously
• Music is more subtle and can work with an image almost without noticing it - music and rhythm change the significance of the imagery.
• Details of images can be cut to fit the music
• Camera movements help to tell the story and selected details are presented to you.
• In a film sequence, the details have to be selected and re-arranged into a narrative, which depends on unfolding time. In a painting, there is no unfolding time.
• When images are re-produced, they become a form of information, which is being continually transmitted - and the meanings of the image are interchangeable and ambiguous
• Images can used by anybody for their own use.

The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled

The way we see things is affected by what we know or believe

We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice

We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves

An image is a sight, which has been recreated or produced. It is an appearance, or a set pf appearances, which has been detached from the place and time

Every image embodies a way of seeing. Even a photograph – our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing.

When an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected by a whole series of learnt assumptions concerning: Beauty, truth, genius, civilization, form status, and taste etc.

http://www.axisweb.org/ofSARF.aspx?SELECTIONID=60

David Hockney has introduced a new and interesting direction to his practice. He has created a film, which is not something that he has undertaken much before.

Using modern technology, Hockney has used 9 cameras fixed to a frame structure, which is attached to his car. The cameras are placed at equal distances to form a 3x3 grid so that they can focus on the lower, midlle and foreground. He then drives down the 'tunnel' road during spring, sumer, autumn and winter.

The multiple cameras help to look more closely at certain aspect aspects of the view, whereas with one camera, you would have to be a lot further back to see entirety of the same view.

I really want to go to this exhibition, but the royal academy seemingly have made it very difficult to book tickets, if you are not already a member. Hopefully I will be able to see it soon, but for now this you tube video will have to suffice.

This exhibition, the 'bigger picture' focuses on the recent paintings that David Hockney has created in his home county of Yorkshire, which is not somewhere he has previously painted before. This aspect of his has interested me because in order to look and visualise this landscape, he has immersed himself within it,drawing it, painting it and looking at it.

the national parks CPRE

Glossop 1900's street view

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouNYsWoRbq8

This short film of Glossop highstreet was actually found in a skip and has been restored. It shows a scene in glossop in the early 1900's. You can't see much landscape, but it does give a good indication about the look of Glossop and its historical context.

the landscape album Westal W.

Michael Dudok De Wit

I really like this animation by Dudok De Wit