Ways of Seeing

I was 11 years old when this documentary series aired in 1972.  I never even heard of it until today, when I ran across a mention of it from a fellow student posting at the OCA forums.  For those that might want some background, have a look here.  Much of what Berger discusses doesn't seem particularly new, though it may have been when the series was produced.  Still, he makes valuable points about how we view art.  Perhaps his most fundamental assumption is that images are like words, which can be used in different ways to elicit different feelings or behaviors.  Advertisers and promoters are widely aware of this.  (See Adam Curtis' documentaries for more powerful evidence of this.)  Consumers typically are not, and Berger's ambition with this project seems to be raising awareness, in particular with regards to what he sees as the pseudo religious air surrounding high art.  He performs a number of interesting experiments, including juxtaposing clips of a painting with clips of dancing girls and a firing squad execution to illustrate how context shapes meaning.   He finishes the first episode with a reading from an art critic whose work seems to be struggling to justify itself, followed by a visit with school children who respond without affectation.  I think Berger would agree with Suzuki: In beginner's mind we have many possibilities, but in expert mind there is not much possibility.

Episodes 2 and 3 deal respectively with The Nude and The Oil Painting, one a subject, the other a medium.  Both, Berger says, functioned as objects of ownership and reflected back at owners their status as property holders.

In Episode 4 Berger observes that where the oil painting was nearly documentary, modern commercial photography has no such pretensions.  Its purpose is to convince you that your life will be better for having spent your money on the advertised product.  It seeks to entice, seduce, and incite. He goes on to "read" a magazine, flipping back and forth between images of starving South Asians and the colorful, glamorous models in the adverts, demonstrating the radical disharmony between reality and publicity.  Despite huge changes in technology and information delivery, it seems we are still quite able, in fact probably better able, to blithely dismiss what are otherwise rude disjunctures in  experience.  

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