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Visual culture is central to how we communicate. Our lives are dominated by images and by visual technologies that allow for the local and global circulation of ideas, information, and politics. In this increasingly visual world, how can we best decipher and understand the many ways that our everyday lives are organized around looking practices and the many images we encounter each day? Now in a new edition, Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture provides a comprehensive and engaging overview of how we understand a wide array of visual media and how we use images to express ourselves, to communicate, to play, and to learn. Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright--two leading scholars in the emergent and dynamic field of visual culture and communication--examine the diverse range of approaches to visual analysis and lead students through key theories and concepts. Using clear, accessible language, vivid examples, and more than 250 full-color illustrations, the authors both explain and apply theory as they discuss how we see paintings, prints, photographs, film, television, video, advertisements, the news, the Internet, digital media, and visualization techniques in medicine and science. This truly interdisciplinary text bridges art history, film, media, and cultural studies to investigate how images carry meaning within and between different cultural arenas in everyday life, from art and commerce to science and the law. Sturken and Cartwright analyze images in relation to a wide spectrum of cultural and representational issues (desire, power, the gaze, bodies, sexuality, and ethnicity) and methodologies (semiotics, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, and postcolonial theory). Thoroughly updated to incorporate cutting-edge theoretical research, the second edition examines the following new topics: the surge of new media technologies; the impact of globalization on the flow of information and media form and content; and how nationalism and security concerns have changed our looking practices in the aftermath of 9/11. Challenging yet accessible, Practices of Looking is ideal for courses across a range of disciplines, including media and film studies, communications, art history, and photography. Beautifully designed and now in a larger format and in full color throughout, Practices of Looking is an invaluable guide to understanding the complexities, contradictions, and pleasures of the visual world. Instructor's manual availalbe online.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is not an easy reading, it is actually a very comprehensive treaty on the presence of images in our modern culture. Every aspect of the visual experience is analyzed in depth. At the end of the reading one has the tools to understand better how the images, still or moving, influence and sometimes determine our understanding of the cultural world.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Good content hampered by poor presentation
9 Oct 2010
Format:Paperback
This book is one of two required texts for my "Visual Arts Today" course at university. While I find the content interesting, I am very sorry to say I cannot rate it higher than two stars. Its slow, meandering text comes across as pompous, and at times seems to present subjective information as though it were objective fact. As such, it bothers me. Much of the book seems to concentrate on building a vocabulary, rather than explaining any deep or startling facts about "looking." The occasional tidbit of interesting information is not enough to warrant the sixty dollar plus price tag, at most it should be forty dollars, if not thirty or less.
I would only recommend this book to those who are deeply involved with the philosophical side of art, and only if they turned down more interesting texts. Like I said, I wish I could rate it higher but the presentation of the information and the price point seriously damage any score I can give it.
--Edit--
It's come to my attention that the price has gone down to fifty five dollars or something like that. Whoop-de-do. The book still sucks, and unless you find it at a used book store, don't bother picking this one up.
I would only recommend this book to those who are deeply involved with the philosophical side of art, and only if they turned down more interesting texts. Like I said, I wish I could rate it higher but the presentation of the information and the price point seriously damage any score I can give it.
--Edit--
It's come to my attention that the price has gone down to fifty five dollars or something like that. Whoop-de-do. The book still sucks, and unless you find it at a used book store, don't bother picking this one up.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Great insights, painful read.
12 Mar 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
It's a fascinating topic, and Sturken has some wonderful insights. I learned some great things from this book. That said, I believe it could easily have been written with half as many words. The massive, unbroken blocks of text can become very difficult to continue reading.
0 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Practices of Looking An Introduction to Visual Culture
5 Mar 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I am sorry I'm still waiting for my book that was due on the 17th of February and it is urgent because I need it for University for my son.
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