INTERPELLATION

the way an image seems to call out, or address a viewer as an individual, even though viewers know that images are being seen by many other people

AESTHETICS

philosophical term regarding the pleasure that comes from beauty; hence refers to our assessment of style, formal elements, technical skill evidenced in its making

REFERENCE

French sociologist and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu’s book Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (1979): good and bad taste reflects social class, education, and implies connoisseurship or lack thereof.  He also showed that taste is oneway people try to enhance their position in a new social group

KITSCH

art or literature judged to have little or no aesthetic value, yet that has value precisely because of its status in evoking the class standards of bad taste.  Afficionados of kitsch thus recode kitsch objects, such as lava lamps and tacky 1950s suburban furniture, as good rather than bad taste.

HIGH/LOW CULTURE

terms that has traditionally been used to make distinctions about different kinds of cultures.  High culture distinguishes culture that only an elite can appreciate, such as classical art, music, and literature, as opposed to commercially produced mass culture presumed to be accessible to lower classes. 

The distinction of high and low culture has been heavily criticized by theories since the 1980s for its elitism and its condescending view of the popular consumer as a passive viewer with no taste. 

SUBCULTURES

Distinct social groups with wider cultural formations that define themselves in opposition to mainstream culture.  Subculture and fashion are often intertwined.

(Ref: punks, “Grunge” Seattle music scene)

APPROPRIATION

The act of borrowing, stealing, or taking over others’

“meanings to one’s ends.”

REAPPROPRIATION / COUNTER BRICOLAGE

process of appropriation by which the counter-hegemonic bricolage strategies of marginal. Cultures are reappropriated by mainstream designers and marketersand then parlayed into mainstream designs that signal “coolness”

BRICOLAGE

USING THINGS FOR UNEXPECTED PURPOSES, OROUT OF ORIGINAL CONTEXT

(Ref: safety pin in punk dress)

IDEOLOGY

The dominant common sense beliefs of one group imposed on another.  Karl Marx (1818 1883) circa 1860 German Social, Political and Economic Philosopher

CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGY MODIFIED BY LOUISE ALTHUSSER

“Ideology represents the imaginary Relationship of individuals to theirreal conditions of existence.” Louis Althusser (1918-1990) French Neo-Marxist Philosopher

HEGEMONY

 is a state or condition of a culture arrived at through negotiations over meanings, laws, and social relationships . . . No one group of people “has” power; rather power is a relationship within which classes of people struggle.  Term used by Antonio Gramsci (Italian Marxist philosopher writing in 1920s and 30s)

Viewer

Audience

• a person who looks

• a collective of lookers