Vision & Power

"We look to communicate, to influence, and to be influenced" (Sturken/Cartwright)

Vision is a privilege, that should not be taken for granted. The power that is associated with vision depends on how you see yourself in society. If you see yourself as someone who is in a position of power, then you put yourself in situations in which you see and know a lot of things. Vice versa, if you see yourself as a peasant than you will only see that which people allow you to see. How you see yourself plays a large role in the how much you see in the world around you.

For children what they see is heavily monitored due the fact that parents do not want their children to be exposed to that which is inappropriate. Sex, drugs, alcohol, blood, brutality, these are all words that can be visually disturbing and parents want to protect their children because at a certain age they can not fully process and understand what they are seeing. Eyes are a window into the soul, and my parents would tell me to protect my soul. They heavily monitored what I watched on television as a child. Fortunately for them, iphones, ipads, ipods, and laptops, were not as prevalent in society as they are now. With the advancement of technology it has become harder for parents to monitor what their children see. It’s important to know that, “we look to communicate, to influence, and to be influenced.” (Sturken/Cartwright)

The communication aspect comes from conversation. Humans communicate through speech, imagery, text, sound, expressions, ect. In this text savvy world that we live in, I find it best to represent my feelings and emotions through the uses of GIFs via text. As millennial as that sounds, I’m not ashamed to admit it. Yes, I can express emotions and meaning through my words but sending a GIF seems to be more accurate than my words. Humans are becoming lazier by the day, people are not taking the time to truly read things. Time is precious and images are fast, thus being a common way of communicating. Representation through imagery is a beautiful ability, but it can also be dangerous within certain contexts.

So many people I know hinder themselves from seeing certain things. I understand why but I also think, ‘are they stopping themselves from understanding something new and foreign to them? Are they being a barrier to their own education and growth?

Some GIF’s I use regularly: