In “Happy Objects,” Sara Ahmed argues that happiness is affective, meaning that “to be happy is to be affected by something” (29). Ahmed shifts happiness from a body-centric and body generated response, to a response to a contingent proximity between yourself and objects around you (31). By stressing that happiness is produced by being “directed […]
The Periphery
I’m intrigued by Kauffman’s discussion of the center, the periphery, and their relationship in both the political sense and the artistic sense. The first distinction between these two realms is that capital cities are very rarely the cultural centers of the areas he deals with – something that is true even today (New York, Lahore, St Petersburg […]
Hyphens and Spaces
In “Does That Come with a Hyphen? A Space?” Kency Cornejo examines the systemic exclusion, and subsequent erasure of Central American artists from Latino art discussions and exhibition spaces. Cornejo highlights that the invisibility of the Central American artists reflects the larger stigmatization of Central Americans as marginal, less-than, and dangerous others which ultimately led […]
Week 8 Response
Andrea Noble argues in her essay “Visual Culture and Latin American Studies” that modern visual cultural studies are characterized by a strong Euroamerican-centric perspective. Although the collective “visual turn” of various disciplines are valorized as a method of grappling with a context of globalized image production and circulation, in reality, visual culture remains, in her […]
Categories and Space
Margo Machida’s Unsettled Visions probes the idea of a category as either imposed from outside or constructed from within. She shows how, for the development of the category of Asian American, it was often seen as prescriptive rather than descriptive. In other words, the category as an identity was used as a restriction. What if, as […]
Meaning Over Time
Margo Machida’s Unsettled Visions offers a comprehensive and nuanced look at the plural, changing meanings of the “Asian-American artist” category, its social and political role, and the overlaps and differences in the themes these artists tackle. To be an Asian American artist is more than to be Asian and American and an artist, or to […]
(Week 5 Post) Resistance and Analysis in the Society of the Spectacle
In The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord argues that modern society is dominated by the “spectacle,” that transforms life into “mere representation” (1) alienating the individual from direct experience and the real nature of production and interaction. In the society of the spectacle, life is abstracted into images and illusions which replace “the satisfaction of […]