Just finished reading the essay “Commerce and Consciousness” by Ben Davis at the invaluable artnet. The piece is an extended reflection on the tangled relationship between capitalism and visual culture, prompted at least in part by Johanna Drucker’s 2005 book on the subject entitled Sweet Dreams: Contemporary Art and Complicity. I’ve never read […]
Scientists at MIT report that East Asians with strong cultural affinities naturally pay more attention to visual context than Westerners, who focus more closely on individual objects within a visual context. This study is the latest in a number of studies (this one, for example) that attempt to chart how cultural backgrounds affect vision. […]
Fred Ritchin is one of those photographic writers I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, he’s a solid stylist with good motivations—he’s one of the guys trying to enlarge the conversation about visual culture and bring everyone into the fold. On the other hand, his ideological stance often puts me at […]
