Reading Blog #1

I have had many discussions with older people about how my generation is saturated with ’technology’ (referring to visual culture), and they often claim we have lost the ability to analyze for ourselves. Constant exposure to images through social media, TV entertainment, advertisement, and other platforms may be overwhelming and have detrimental effects, however, it is important to learn how to engage with visual culture critically. When it comes to understanding visual culture, we must disregard what we think we already know and embrace the endless opportunities. Maria D. Avegarinou reminds me of the ‘hacker mindset’ that we embrace in class; technology is always evolving and we must evolve with the technology. 

The definition of ‘Visual Literacy’ is always changing and has many components (which makes sense using the hacker mindset). First, we must acknowledge that visual literacy is legitimate and that there is real value in understanding visual statements. A professor from my American Art History course introduced the importance of visual literacy and how art can explain the social values of that particular culture. For example, a conquistador commands a native artist to make an art piece that represents the wealth of a catholic saint. The native artist decides to replace the gold crown of the saint with a feather crown. The feather crown translates the wealth of the catholic saint to the native people because the feathers are considered an extremely rare and valuable resource. The native artist understood the power of visual communication. 

I wanted to see what AI would generate if I put in "Visual Literacy"