Liang Wendao: The benchmark of TV programs

Viewing precedes language. When we fall to the ground, before we learn to speak, we are already trying to communicate with the world, and the way of communication is watching.

We seem to be born with the ability to choose what we look at and assign meaning to it, but is it really that simple?

Viewing is never just a simple behavior, it will be affected by language, culture, value orientation and other acquired factors. In short, what do you see? Why are you looking? What did you see? In fact, they are all prescribed.

"Way of Seeing" is an excerpt of a TV cultural program broadcast on the British BBC in 1972 by John Berger, a famous British art critic, writer, and a staunch Marxist. , this book can be said to be one of the must-read books for communication studies, art history, photography, film and other visual-related majors. It is also called the benchmark of TV programs by Liang Wendao.

The value of this book lies in the fact that people who are surrounded, confused, and overwhelmed by modern information can re-understand the act of viewing itself.

When a famous painting is placed in front of you, what words would you use to describe it? Perhaps it is beauty, truth, genius, civilization, form, status and taste, etc. This is also an aesthetic value highly praised by traditional art history.

But John Berg said: Instead of clarifying, these words create a sense of mystery. The reason why previous artworks were tended to be mystified was because of the orthodox meaning of class behind them. They strive to beautify the history they and their families carry.

John Berg took two works by the famous Dutch painter Hals in his later years as examples. They depict the male and female stewards of the elderly workhouse in Haarlem, the Netherlands, in the 17th century. ", "unforgettable contrast", "reached the peak of vigor and strength" are these expressions to describe this great work, but Berger said grimly: Hals was in poverty at that time and needed to rely on state relief. It is the characters in these paintings who are dying and receiving relief. Shouldn't what deserves our attention here be the look in the eyes of a poor painter looking at the nobles?

Throughout all history, the authority of art has been inseparable from the special authority of the place where it was collected. Modern reproduction methods destroy the authority of art, moving it away from all collection places, or worse. To put it more appropriately, move all the copies of themselves out of the collection. On the one hand, this makes artworks easier to spread, but it also destroys the sacred aura of artworks.

Where does the image of a woman come from? When a woman observes the outside world, she also needs to use one eye to observe whether her appearance is standard, the way she walks, and the way she eats. Even when she was in such a state of grief when her father died, she still had to take care of her own etiquette.

This is because a woman’s image is completely shaped by others. She must observe her own role and behavior, because the impression she gives to others, especially the impression she gives to men, will become the judgment of others. The key to her success in life. Others' impressions of her replaced her original sense of self.

It repeatedly emphasizes the existence of a male-dominated perspective: the condition for becoming a woman is to be the object of male sexual desire projection. Women who do not meet this condition are not women, so over time, women are in their own minds. Another pair of eyes was born, a male eye. She used this eye to observe herself as a woman at any time, regulate her words and deeds, and make herself like a woman. As Beauvoir said, women are not born. But it is formed the day after tomorrow.

But others here not only refer to men, but also include women in this society who identify themselves as men. They work hard to dress themselves up and make themselves conform to the aesthetic regulations of the male world. The so-called The fat girls and ugly girls are an indispensable part of completing this construction. They become victims and complete the structure of the subject's meaning by confirming the existence of the other.

The situation of men is relatively better. Because the image of a man is what he creates in the world, and it is an image that is given back to him. Men firmly believe that their power is potential, and it can be moral, physical, temperamental, economic, social, and sexual. In short, it is not dictated by the outside world.

When this aesthetic preference gradually becomes a social norm, it will naturally be reflected in image records. John Berg went on to say that for a long time, nude figures have always existed in Western paintings (note : Different from nudes, nudes exist as being watched, and have the "consciousness" of being watched. Their eyes are always directed outside the painting unconsciously)

In general European nude oil paintings, the protagonist Never seen, he is the spectator in front of the work and is assumed to be a man. Everything in the picture appears in response to his presence. For him, the figure in the painting posed nude. And he was, of course, a stranger—a stranger who still had his clothes on.

The only value of this kind of female nude is to seduce men. The male side is the consumer of desire. On the other hand, he serves as a critic of morality.

While commenting on these nude figures, they also made some sanctimonious accusations against them. On the one hand, they used them as objects to gain pleasure from peeping and examining them, and on the other hand, they accused and criticized them from a moral level as people.

As stated in Chizuru Ueno's "Misogyny", to otherize women is actually to put women into the category of others that they can control. Both full of charm and contemptible, whether worshiped as a saint or insulted as an adulterer, they are two sides of the same coin.

Beauty actually has a gender. Art is actually a male-dominated world. The existence of female nude paintings corresponds to the projection of male gaze. In fact, women have no way to experience beauty from it and are naturally attracted by it. Deprived of the ability to evaluate beauty, if you want to join, you must first recognize this male gaze and turn yourself into a male.

When you go to an art exhibition one day and see an authentic work of art through layers of heads and thick glass curtain walls, you feel as if you were struck by a thunderbolt from thousands of feet high in the sky. Generally, I can't help myself for a long time. It wasn't until a flood of people came from behind and pushed you out dozens of miles away that you took a few more glances as if you were waking up from a dream. You took out your phone from your trouser pocket, took a photo, and left reluctantly. In order to make up for this regret, you find high-definition pictures from the Internet, slide your fingers up and down quickly, and look at every detail carefully, and then you are sure: the original is different.

In this era where replicas are everywhere, when we can retrieve photos of artworks from the Internet at any time and can see them more clearly than you can from a few meters away, what is the significance of these original works?

Benjamin pointed out in "Works of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction": The original work of art has its own aura. It is this aura that makes it stand out from the many copies. Sounds abstract doesn't it? What halo is not halo? John Berg believes that the specific performance value of this halo in this era is actually the measurement of money.

What’s interesting is that the value of paintings in history lies in showing off status and proving one’s wealth. Therefore, the painting itself must be able to express that everything money can buy is worth the money. of. The visual value for money for a painting lies in its materiality and the way it rewards the collector's touch and feel.

Especially in some mythological themes, buyers will ask the painter to incorporate their own image into it, perhaps a saint or a historical witness. In such works, buyers will get Great satisfaction and self-validation.

Is it possible that this kind of work is what we worship now? I had a conversation with someone before, and there was an interesting concept mentioned in the conversation: tag is what kind of background you put on it. Label, what attitude do you have when looking at paintings? Have you set a context for yourself? To put it more harshly, you came all the way here, went through a lot of effort, and spent some money. These all build your psychological expectations invisibly. Do you still allow yourself to "not understand"? Do you allow yourself to see a "de-sacralized" work?

The world is filled with so many products that it is dizzying just to choose. How to stimulate people’s imagination and make people willing to pay for the products? Advertising has become an irreplaceable form of publicity. It opens up a huge, fascinating and intricate net for consumer capitalism, and everyone caught in the net becomes its believer unknowingly.

What the advertisement shows is the things you don’t have or want to have, and what is shown behind it is an ideal life. If we don’t have a specific idea of ??middle-class life, it actually means a happy family with a house, a car, sons, daughters, cats and dogs.

What advertisements always show is an ideal life, and this ideal life is closely related to the product she sells. In essence, what it sells is not even the product itself, but what they sell. It is an idea, a civilization and a symbol of life. For example. When you buy a diamond ring from a certain brand, your marriage will become happy and your lover will be loyal to you. After you buy a suit of a certain brand, anyone who puts it on will immediately feel like he has integrated into an elite society. People around him will look at you with admiration. When you enter a restaurant of a certain brand. Friends are harmonious, families are happy, and children seem to have become particularly filial.

But advertising never pays attention to the current world, but is committed to describing the future. The promises made to us by advertising always fail again and again. We are addicted to the beautiful illusion created by advertising. Once someone breaks it, This bubble tells us that the world is so chaotic and dirty that we cannot accept it. We have never given up the pursuit of an ideal life. Just like what is said in "Food on Earth", the next oasis will be more beautiful. Always next.

An even more ironic thing is that advertising occasionally reveals some suffering, but it never really pays attention to suffering. All indigestible suffering will be swallowed up by the ruthless evil of capitalism, and then Products are delivered one after another through advertisements. This fast-paced image dissemination allows us to enter a non-content world, or an emotional world. It is entirely possible that you were looking at the injustice and indignation happening around the world just a second ago. Unusually, the next second I saw a video of cats and dogs, I was suddenly healed, and reality became fragmented.

As a result, emotion replaces content, and the most representative one should be news (for example, the kind that broadcasts news for half an hour every day), because it is necessary to tell mixed news in a limited time , so often the last news has not been fully digested, and the next news follows closely. The span of the two can be said to be irrelevant, and the content becomes secondary, and emotion is the dominant one. Yes, it’s no wonder that many journalists said that they had forgotten all the news they reported yesterday. Who would remember how many times they were angry yesterday?

I can tell you about my own observation. When I travel to Xi'an, I have a particularly slow feeling. I experienced it carefully and found that there are very few advertisements on their subway, but in Hangzhou has a strong atmosphere of the Internet, and the Internet itself is a fast iteration product. This is today, and that tomorrow, and the atmosphere is very commercial. However, what is displayed in Xi'an are some daily necessities, such as soap, pants, and billboards. They are also extremely simple, without any design language, and are very cheap things. At least they are completely within the purchasing power of ordinary people. You will not feel that you are out of touch with the entire consumption standards of the entire era, and are in a very slow state. In an iterative environment, many impatient moods will suddenly calm down.

Finally, let’s end with the ending words of John Berg:

This program started from examining the European oil painting tradition and ended today with the way of viewing advertisements. I believe that in many On the one hand these images follow this tradition, I have criticized this tradition a lot but also on our culture and the value of celebrating this tradition, I used modern reproduction techniques to make my point graphic, but in the end what I said Everything shown, like everything else shown and talked about through modern reproduction techniques, must be judged by your own judgment.