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November 15, 2005
Wrap-up i.e. Methods work in Visual data research seminar in Pori
On Saturday, after breakfast, we went into specific methods of analysing image. We formed reading groups around three analysis methods and Anita briefly explained what they were about. (Readings related to these methods are found either from Reijo in Pori or the Visual data seminar folder in Aralis library, and we will go through the texts in an extra session next Saturday after lunch.)
Three methods briefly
Content analysis poses specific questions to a relatively large body of data. Comparisons are made and quantitative analysis employed.
Discourse analysis looks into social discourses and power relations, and esthetics related to them. As the name gives away, this is a foucauldian approach.
The Social semiotics approch considers the social life around images, and poses critical questions about images in relation to society at large.
In addition, psychoanalysis was mentioned as an influential method, also one can apply purely semiotics, and there are also mixed methods, for example, discourse analysis and social semiotics are often applied together. Basically, all kinds of combinations are possible, you don't have to stick to one method but you can construct your own regarding what is best for your research questions and data. (In fact, as far as I've understood, this is often considered as a plus when evaluating a study if it is a succesful construction.)
Maarit's workshop and discussion on the artistic research process
In the wrap-up session, we saw Marjo Heino-Fihlman's artworks (paintings), and Jaana Saario presented her work. She studies her own artistic (painting) process as well as 5 other artists' creative process. At this point, she approaches the subject through poetics, in other words, words and writing. (I was not present at Maarit's workshop so I can only document the wrap-up they presented us others.)
On poetics
In our final, common discussion, Maarit pointed out that poetic expression is one way to step in the artistic process, to understand as an artist-as-researcher what one is in fact doing. Anita asked what methods might mean to artists. Maarit replied that in her view, they are at this initial stage still constructing methods, doing pioneering work, and that it is too early to talk of methodology.
Poetics and methods together reminded me of the postmodern and feminist approach to studying and especially reporting. See for example Denzin and Lincoln's Handbook of Qualitative analysis 2nd or 3rd edition (the 3rd also includes a chapter on artistic research!) if you are interested to know more - Holstein and Gubrium's and Denzin's articles tell about this method. Andrew also mentioned performative ethnography and writing (also presented in Denzin and Lincoln, well, it's all there basically if it's qualitative not quantitative), and Maarit referred to her dissertation as a source for these kinds of methods.
On pictures and methods
It was pointed put by someone that in artistic research (and why not other research too), a basic decision is whether you study images or the process of making them.
Maarit reminded us that it is important to remember that we can assemble our own method for our research topic and then face the challenge of arguing for it well.
As a final note, Maarit pointed out that the role of pictures in research is not always only as data but they can also be a method of collecting experiences. Thereby we move from analyzing the pictures to arguing with the pictures.
This was a spot-on thought to end the first part of the seminar, especially as I think Heidi might speak about something along these lines in Helsinki. Catch you there!
Posted by hrantavu at 06:44 PM
Visual data Pori 11.11. Published images workshop
In Anita's and Reijo's workshop Studying published images
Päivi Lahdelma first presented her MA thesis topic, photo material of old Carelia from the viewpoint of gendered landscape. Her material consists of b/w photos in old books of Carelia. We discussed how the photos could be treated in terms of gendered lanscape, and discussed how different the representation of Carelian women in the pictures (gentle, soft) was from our knowledge of the women (strong, determined.) Suggestions for analysis and interpretation from the students varied from reading the images closely and relying on Päivi's own interpretation to also interviewing old Carelian people to ask for their stories, or even tracking down the photographers.
I presented Finnish and Japanese ads of mobile camera phones. My question was why in Finnish campaigns family and significant others are absent, whereas in Japan, apart from all other kinds of campaigns, NTTDocomo has also for long run a big family campaign. It was suggested I check technology advertising style more generally and also check how advertising has changed during the time we've had camera phones. We discussed individual and shared use of phones in different countries, women's representation in these ads (in the Finnish ads, self-standing, in the Japanese ones, often part of family or relationship), the emphasis on irony in Finland in terms of family values and absence of it in Japan, and finally, the clean visual style of Finnish ads and the more realistic one in the Japanese.
In the evening, we saw some colourful art in the Pori art museum.
Posted by hrantavu at 06:28 PM
November 14, 2005
Anita Seppä and Reijo Kupiainen in Visual data research methods seminar
Anita Seppä, Reijo Kupiainen from Pori school of Visual culture studies
Visual culture studies
Is interdisciplinary, drawing from cultural studies, critical esthetics, linguistics, semiotics, and art history. It has grown from the 1980s onwards, along with the proliferation of images in our society due to the evolving reproduction techniques.
The approach followed in Pori
Is the postmodern, poststructural approach which connects images to critical philosophy and social studies. The centre point is the image, but this approach stresses the "culture" part in visual culture: images always have a cultural bear, they reflect values, relations, beliefs, and are operations of power. They never just show reality, they show a construction of it, and they also recreate reality, bringing new levels to it.
The social effect of images
Is that they bring in ways to see the world. An image has power to point, name, label things to be looked at, and how to look at them. Referring to Maarit's presentation: Who has been producing the Marilyn images all these years? There are looks and counter-looks, as an example, the recent Animalia campaign which got sensored from the streets (although returning soon it seems). This is called intertextual play in visual culture studies.
For long, art theory held that culturally innnocent, pure representations exist in images. It is still a common notion that for example news images are universal, documentary. Now, in research, however, most people say such images do not exist but that images always create power divisions and social differences of race, class, gender, and so on.
Roland Barthes says image needs text to accompany it, because it is a direct imprint of reality (don't ask me, read Barthes :) ). On the contrary, in their book Reading images Günther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen say picture is not dependent on text, because there is no direct realtion to reality, an image is not a window to reality but a representation of it. Conventions of taking and looking at photos are not chosen but they are inherent in us (a photographer can also consciously choose a convention but often it is not a conscious decision.)
These conventions include framing, camera position, gaze ( of which there are the intradiegetic gaze, camera gaze, our gaze, someone elses's gaze looking at the photo with us), and context.
Literature:
Gillian Rose: Visual methodologies
Janne Seppänen: Visuaalinen kulttuuri
Günther Kress, Lee van Leeuwen: Reading images (social semiotics on which more in a later post)
Van Leeuwen & Jewitt: Handbook of visual analysis
W.J.T. Mitchell: Picture theory. (He talks about the pictorial turn: from typographical culture, linguistic era, we enter a new era of image culture and epistemology. It means there are more pictures, but also that our way of formulating knowledge has turned into image form. Text and image work together, there is no clear distinction between them, they need to be looked at together to understand what kind of knowledge is related to our understanding of pictures. Picture and text together constitute how we understand and form knowledge of image. All media are mixed media, just visual media do not exist. Therefore, what are visuality and pictures in fact? What in fact is the constitution of meaning? It is difficult to find the difference of image and text, theoretically thinking, Mitchell claims.)
Hal Foster's writing: from (art) history to culture and visuality
Posted by hrantavu at 05:37 PM
Maarit Mäkelä in Visual data research methods seminar Pori 11.11.
Sorry to be a bit late - connections were scarce in Pori. I will be completing my report along the week.
DA, ceramics artist Maarit Mäkelä's lecture on the artistic research process
Maarit's artistic research method consists of, first, the artistic work she does, then turning her curious gaze on it and reading theory and texts around it. For Maarit, Michael Polanyi's notion of tacit knowledge is important. The heart of the process for her is in the making, the body and brain working together. Theoretical knowing is something different. This is how she worked already in her MA work on representations of femininity, which is a topic she continues to work on today.
Here is Maarit's idea of a practice-based research process. In brackets, my notes.
1 Question (in the form of)
2 Intuition
3 Working process (Maarit's point of interest)
4 Artefact (driving force)
5 Interpretation or analysis (for example, the reason for this seminar)
6 Words (tool for interpretation)
7 Practice + theory (how to combine them? Combining artefacts with words, for example.)
Current work
At the moment, Maarit is working on turning two-dimensional photos of women, imprinted on her ceramics, into three-dimensional. On femininity, she asked in her dissertation, what is stereotypical femininity? Now, she asks: What is my relationship to it? She starts from elements that constitute stereotypical femininity such as colours (reds, pinks) and decorative forms, which she studies both in professional ways as well as on the everyday level of trying to wear the colours and shapes.
The feminine is closely linked to ceramics: its origin is in women making food, and its shapes are considered as feminine. Recently, Maarit has studied and made decorative shapes, and she referred to in comparison to the tradition of 'pure' shapes in Finnish design, which in ceramics, too, has traditionally rtejected decorative, ornament shapes.
As a part of her study of stereotypical femininity, Maarit showed us some recent material: a photo documentation of a performance style photo therapy session where she poses as Marilyn Monroe. To these photos, she associated the theoretical discussion of scopophilia (Charcot's hysterics and Freud, Lacan's mirror phase, Mulvey.)
Observations and comments from the audience:
Our visual culture is very quick, but ceramics is slow both as a process of making and to change as a visual form. Therefore, e.g. Hannah Wilke's nude photos, when imprinted on Maarit's ceramic work, get associated to ancient imagery, get a different time frame, and consequently, we see different things in them. Like that the representation of femininity has changed very little over time.
Posted by hrantavu at 04:57 PM
November 09, 2005
Next up: Pori
Fish is good for you, especially your brain, they say. (These darlings should be, they are thin enough. The fatter ones from the Baltic Sea contain dioxane which is not good for you at all.) Tomorrow I will travel to Pori to work my brain, perhaps by eating fish, too, but mainly through a seminar. We will study different visual materials from art to ads as data in studies in the art and design field. Very interesting, if I may say so myself as a co-organiser. This serves as an introduction to my documentation of the seminar starting on Friday the 11th in the morning, continuing until Saturday the 12th midday (and in Helsinki the following weekend). Do post me comments and requests on what you would like to see and hear from the seminar and I'll do my best.
Posted by hrantavu at 04:10 PM