Visual Culture

For many people around the globe, life in contemporary times is mediated through the swirl of visual imagery. Television, film, the Internet, medical imaging devices, cell phone cameras, satellites, newspapers and magazines, and a host of other multimedia devices enhance our sight, represent ideas, and help human beings see and be seen. Attempting to understand this cultural condition, its material and symbolic manifestations, and the effect on our individual and collective identities is the project of visual culture. As a hybrid enterprise recently formed through the convergence of a variety of theories and methodologies, visual culture examines relationships between individuals, societies, and images. Visual culture is the characterization and examination of meaning making through the visual—how we see, what we see, what we [Page 860]can't see, what we are not allowed to see, and so on—beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Beginning in the early 1990s, scholarly texts, professional journals, new course and program descriptions, and conference proceedings specifically focusing on the concept of visual culture began to flourish across disciplines. These disciplines included art education, art history, cultural studies, English, and media studies. There are three interrelated definitions of visual culture woven through the literature emerging from these areas. The definitions suggest that visual culture is (1) a cultural condition in which human experience is profoundly affected by images, new technologies for looking, and various practices of seeing, showing, and picturing; (2) an inclusive set of images, objects, and apparatuses; or (3) a critical field of study that examines and interprets differing visual manifestations and experiences in culture. The three definitions often overlap, converge, and inform one another. In some cases, scholars use the term visual culture to mean all of the definitions simultaneously. The potential source of confusion notwithstanding, all three definitions of visual culture deal largely with the process and pressures of constructing individual and collective identity.