ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO VISUAL CULTURE IN EUROPEAN HUMANITIES New Challenges in the European Area Young Scientist's 1st International Baku Forum May 2013 South-West University “Neofit Rilski” Nora Goleshevska, PhD

Visual Culture Studies Visual Culture Studies appeared as a particular Area in North-American and European academic contexts Visual Culture has emerged as a growing interdisciplinary field of study where Visual Culture is not an object orientated discipline but a kind of interface between different disciplines in the humanities and social science dealing with the visuality of the culture

Visual Culture? a postmodern Art History a “Visual Front” of Cultural Studies a model for an alternative Cultural History Intellectual community comes together around the question of the cultural determinations of visual experience. This community considers ‘visuality’ as phenomenon that presents a critical discourse as well as cultural habit of seeing "visual culture" embraces a wide range of pluralistic approaches to the cultural, social, political and heuristic significance of visual images, visual practices and visual experience. Often they are described as:

Visual Culture/ Visual Cultures?

As a theoretical tool Visual Culture intends not just the social construction of vision but also the visual construction of the social sphere itself

From Political theory to Visual Studies Giovanni Sartori HOMO VIDENS * VIDEO-CHILD * VIDEO-PAIDEA* VIDEO AUTHORITY * VIDEO POLITIC THREE MAJOR FIELDS OF HIS POLITICAL SCIENCE: - THE THEORY OF DEMOCRACY; - PARTY SYSTEMS; - CONSTITUTIONAL ENGINEERING

VIDEO-CHILD Watching TV before learning to read and write produces a negative mind-set for school learning Thinking becomes dependent on the images received

With the appearance of television/establishment of the television industry human development was interrupted and reversed, for image perception began to replace abstract thinking Homo sapiens ( zoon politicon /animai symbolicum ) is being dethroned by HOMO VIDENS - with the prevalence of vision, the symbolizing creature becomes the seeing creature

Video-paideia The TV is not only media but also a paideia From Rome to Sofia, from London to New York no matter how different the situation or the culture, popularity dominates the market; the rating rules. Every country in the “global village” has converted society into an audience

Video-paideia paidea - referred to the rearing and education of the member of the polis – The concept incorporated both practical, subject-based schooling and a focus upon the socialization of individuals within the order of the polis Such concepts as nation, democracy, rights, sovereignty, liberty, justice, etc. are ‘invisible’

video politic (videopolitica) – radical transformation of the ‘political being’ and the mode of the political governance - the dimension of the power of the video in the sense of its influence on the political processes in contemporary societies video authority (video potere) - television “strongly conditions the electoral process, whether in the election of candidates” or in “governmental decisions” by distorting the proper functioning of democratic systems Video power implies a direct appeal of the leader to the mass public via the electronic media – personalization of the party system Video Authority

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