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<!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal">All, </p><div><br></div><p class="MsoNormal">Thanks for this excellent exchange, which is prompting me to take the opportunity
to comment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I want to propose a
theory of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">feminist perspective</i> as an
extension of our group endeavor here. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Some of you will recall that the feminist film journal
founded in the 1970s in Berkeley was named <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Camera
Obscura. </i>The title implied an engagement with the analysis of the
mechanisms of the cinematic apparatus, a phrase that included psychoanalytic
theory of subject formation, in combination with feminist critiques. The image
of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">camera obscura</i>, as well as the
specific technology by which it operates, inscribes a static monocular position
as the place from which and the place within which the image is produced. Early
images of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">camera obscura</i> all bear
its masculinist origins in a optics and mechanics that supports and reifies
constructed perspective: depictions of male artists in full mastery of their
gaze, the world projected for them onto a surface they control. Following
Stephanie Strickland’s astute comments last week, I would suggest that we
explore our engagement with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">camera
obscura</i> as a way to consider a theory of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">feminist perspective</i> in which the monocular point of view is always
subject to at least a splitting into two views, which cannot be reconciled. The
principles of this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Feminst Perspective</i>
would be to demonstrate and embody epistemological principles of situatedness
(within cultural, historical, gendered, class-based, and other conditions), of
partial knowledge (the parallax between two views demonstrates the processes of
selection that give rise to a representation, rather than obscuring it),
constructedness (the enunciative, aesthetic, deliberate decisions of making).
To me, these are the foundation of a political epistemology that recognizes
specificity in every instance, differentiation as fundamental to identity, and
positionality as an explicit feature of human experience and expression. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I do not, however, think we can get to that place through
images of the deep penetration of a mechanical device through a domestic space
that has been softened with earth. Really? Please. That image is a parodic
refutation of our conversation here. Made me laugh, but that’s about it. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">For those interested in a bibliography of discussions of
perspective and also mechanical devices for optics, theories of vision, and
other related matters, here is a brief list of fundamental texts:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Erwin
Panofsky, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Perspective as Symbolic Form</i>
(finally translated into English by Christopher Wood and published in 1997 by
Zone Books)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>John
White, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Birth and rebirth of pictorial
space<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Marilyn
Bunim, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Space in Medieval Painting<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Richard
Lindberg, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Theories of Vision</i> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Victor
Burgin, “Geometry and Abjection,” still one of the best pieces on subjectivity
and vision. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> A good bibliography on devices, mechanical and visual, also exists and Wolfgang Lefèvre's edited volume, <i>Picturing Machines</i> is a good place to start on that. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Much remains to be done to bring these historical models,
critical concepts, and feminist principles into an applied politics of
representation/construction of knowledge. Great to think that there is so much
interest among this diverse community of practioner-scholars.</p><div><br></div><div>Johanna</div><div><br></div>
<!--EndFragment--><div><div>On Jul 26, 2016, at 9:49 PM, Cortez, Beatriz wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
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</p><p>Since we are talking about the eye and vision, I wanted to share a few ideas that I have been thinking about as I have been putting together a proposal for a site specific installation. My intention is to build a Camera Obscura:</p><p><br>
</p><p>Throughout history, philosophers have theorized about our perception of reality. In the Ethics, and in his Letters, Baruch de Spinoza wrote about the dislocation between the idea of man and the scientific idea of man. Marx also wrote about a skewed version
of reality in 1846, in The German Ideology. For Marx, consciousness emerges out of the material conditions of existence. Within that context, ideology functions as a Camera Obscura because it shows an inverted perspective of reality. However, Marx believed
in the possibility of overcoming the distorted vision produced by ideology, in the possibility of seeing reality as it actually is, of achieving objective vision. Wilfrid Sellars stated in Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man, a lecture he delivered
at the University of Pittsburgh in 1960, that the "manifest image is a refinement or sophistication of what might be called the 'original' image; a refinement to a degree which makes it relevant to the contemporary intellectual scene" (7). In other words,
for Sellars, the original image gained content as it was placed in relation to the historical context of Western philosophy. In this sense, the manifest image was based on the construction of the concept of a "person" (10), a concept that is linked to one
of the most prevalent ideas of Western philosophy, the idea of the transcendental identity of man. For Sellars, however, the combination of the manifest image and the scientific image has the potential of producing a stereoscopic vision, a virtual reality
of sorts. As Ray Brassier explains in Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction, Sellars' concept of the manifest image is inscribed within humanist (5-6). Brassier is interested in Sellars' stereoscopic vision, as he strives to move beyond historically
conditioned meaning," and therefore, towards other speculative possibilities that are beyond humanism, beyond a transcendental construction of identity, and that are closer to what Rosi Braidotti calls nomadic collective identities. </p><p><br>
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<div class="PlainText">Beatriz Cortez<br>
<a href="http://www.beatrizcortez.com/" id="LPNoLP">Http://www.beatrizcortez.com</a><br>
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<span style="color:black; font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:10pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:10pt"><a href="http://www.csun.edu/humanities/central-american-studies/beatriz-cortez" target="_blank" id="LPNoLP">http://www.csun.edu/humanities/central-american-studies/beatriz-cortez</a></span></span></div>
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