Essay On Visual Culture

Visual culture “involves the things that we see, the mental model we all have of how to see and the things we can do as a result.” (Mirzoeff, How to See the World Pg.10). Visual culture doesn’t just involve what we see, it also involves how we interpret what we’re seeing. We interpret what we’re seeing based on our previous knowledge and previous experiences. Visual culture came about around 1990, around the time of the end of the Cold War. The end of the Cold War essentially divided the world into two zones and also marked the rise of postmodernism. Postmodernism changed simple skyscrapers “from austere rectangular blocks into playful towers.” (Mirzoeff, How To See the Word Pg.11). People also begun to see themselves differently and started challenging old definitions of race, gender, and sexuality. At this time visual culture also came into the academic scene, “mixing feminist and political criticism of high art with the study of popular culture and the new digital image.” (Mirzoeff, How to See the World Pg.11). Visual culture is a little different nowadays, and is now the study of how to understand such an enormous and diverse world.

As I mentioned above, a lot of people will look at images of Muslim women wearing burqas and just assume that they’re oppressed without truly knowing whether or not wearing the burqa was something forced upon them or if they’re wearing it by choice. There’s also a lot of times where people will look at these images or situations in general and use their previous knowledge, as opposed to speaking to local agents, to conjure up issues and try to create solutions for these issues that aren’t even there in the first place. There’s also been plenty of times where people will watch a video or maybe read about a different culture and try to say it’s wrong because it’s different from their own