Reading Response 4

In this article, it talks about how many visual artists express the different aspects of the human body and mind through their visions. All visual culture views the mind and body as a "complex machine" in which can be expressed through various different media. This usually explores the relationship between the body/mind and the industrial society.  After the industrial revolution, the culture of cybernetics and technology hit an all-time high, intriguing visual artists all over the world. Both Amelia Jones and Geoffrey Batchen compare how photography has become considered visual art, and what impact that had on society overall. The big reason they focused on is contiguity-- the condition of being in contact. This, meaning, you never (or hardly ever) actually see what the photographer saw in front of them because you were not there. Through the concept of contiguity, viewers of that photograph are able to conceptualize what they are looking at and therefore can get a realistic appearance of what the photographer saw. The article then goes on to explain how several artists, such as Cornelia Parker and Anne Ferran, incorporate contiguity through both photographs and digital media in their work. I also really enjoyed when they referenced the movie, "Cyborg Manifesto." I watched this film for a class about three years ago, and was immediately interested by it. The cyborg is said to have placed limitations on society, later on reflecting on the aspect of race. According to the Cyborg Theory, the limitations placed on society (the cyborg) was race. This then led to the discussion of the frequency of Latino bodies in art. They compare workers in a field in Mexico to Jennifer Lopez, a Latina woman who was on the top of the charts. Their appearances are different because there are countless numbers of gene combinations. The Cyborg Manifesto suggested a world without gender, but if that's the case, then are we trying to create a world without race? This posed a really interesting thought that I'm not quite sure how to answer. Some artists have been "defeated" by the unavoidable triumph of technology in developing societies. The idea of a cyborg suggests a combination of technology with the human body, and nowadays that is much more apparent through visual art.