Tag Archive: Ways of Seeing


Looking and learning with Mark Cousins

Filed under: Books, Modern Art, Movies, Photography, Television — Leave a comment
December 27, 2017

THE STORY OF LOOKING by Mark Cousins (Canongate Books, 2017)

mark1As with his previous book – The Story Of Film (the tie-in with the brilliant Channel 4 series) , Mark Cousins acts as an articulate and able guide in the same way that E.H. Gombrich did for ‘The Story of Art’ in 1950.

Like Gombrich, the language is kept simple and jargon free in order to appeal to readers of all ages.

It’s easy to imagine Cousins carefully preparing each chapter in the same way as teachers put together lesson plans. He’ll have pack of slides to show and discuss in the classroom but he’ll be ready to shuffle these up to keep students on their toes and to relieve boredom.

There is clearly an educational purpose behind such an ambitious study but there also a desire to keep things as light, accessible and entertaining as possible. Continue reading →

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SUSAN SONTAG ON THE ETHICS OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Filed under: Books, Photography, Politics — Leave a comment
August 22, 2014

REGARDING THE PAIN OF OTHERS by Susan Sontag

"Narratives can make us understand. Photographs do something else; they haunt us"

This book was first published in 2003 but couldn’t be more topical. Images of James Foley’s beheading at the hands of ISIS terrorists that briefly circulated via You Tube and Twitter this week are just the latest in a never-ending sequence of atrocities that raise ethical, and politically charged, questions about what the media should show in print, online or on TV.

It is human nature to be torn between fascination and repulsion when confronted by such images. The late Susan Sontag understood that deciding whether or not to view such graphic representations of man’s inhumanity to man makes us either spectators or cowards. Being neutral is not an option.

Regarding The Pain Of Others is both a companion piece and an updating to Sontag’s 1977 collection of essays On Photography. In it, she explores how still photographs come to influence and, in some cases, define the way we regard war and conflict.

Her starting point is the Three Guineas essay published in 1938 in which Virginia Woolf wrote of the horror and disgust she felt at seeing photographs of victims of the Spanish civil war. These  forced Woolf to conclude “War is an abomination, a barbarity, war must be stopped”. This outrage is perfectly understandable, even praiseworthy, but also naive.  Sontag asks pointedly: “Who believes today that war can be abolished?” Continue reading →

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PAULINE OLIVEROS AND THE LIBERATION OF SOUND

Filed under: Music — 1 Comment
May 11, 2012

On May 30th 2012, Pauline Olveros will be 80. To mark this occasion Important Records are releasing a massive 12 CD box set entitle Reverberations: Tape & Electronic Music 1961-1970; a collection of  mostly unreleased works along with essays by Oliveros, Alex Chechile, Ramon Sender, David Bernstein, and Cory Arcangel.

Oliveros is one of the key figures in experimental electronic music. I first encountered her work through the album she made with Stuart Dempster & Panaiotis in 1989 called Deep Listening.

I wrote a piece about this a few years back and I’m posting this article by way of tribute to her innovative and inspirational work. Continue reading →

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