Framing, with no construction or art works necessary

In my current journey through visual communication, No Caption Needed (which is quite interesting, by the way), I've stumbled across a brief mention of one the concepts that I have wondered about- framing.

The idea that this was more than a department at my grandmother's favorite craft store came up in a classroom discussion led by an architecture professor. I was surprised, but not unpleasantly so, that 'art history' class I registered to take in Italy focused much more on the history and philosophy of architecture than any of the other arts. Our professor, an aging but still limber Florentine native, had such stories to tell, such wisdom to impart. Yet for the sake of honesty, I must admit that I listened to only a small portion of his lectures and remember even less. However, one day I happened to be taking notes and happened to take down something to this effect, "The building acts as a frame, a way to see reality. The museum, it is the same way. You take the art outside of the museum and it is different" During this time, My communication professor and I were in the midst of our ongoing conversation about the rhetoric of museums and this idea of framing caught in my mind.

This is one of the topics that I feel a great many scholars have a good understanding of, but that I, as a baby scholar, don't and would like to explore further. So, onto our discovery in Hariman's work in which he focuses on iconic pieces of photojournalism and in this part, what makes them iconic:

"Photography is grounded in phenomenological devices crucial to establishing the performative experience. Framing, for example, whether by the theatrical stage or the rectangular boundaries of any photo, marks the work as a special selection of reality that acquires great intensity than the flow of experience before and after it. As they are framed, photos become marked as special acts of display."

Still mulling this over in my mind... and trying to figure out how exactly the devices are phenomenological, but wanted to get this down before I forgot. I shall return to the topic, and with a greater understanding (for in the notes, the authors point us towards further reading, yea!).

On another , the second biggest issue on my mind is what exactly I'm doing studying and reading through my spring break. Not that I'm not enjoying it immensely, especially since yesterday I didn't do much more than sleep in the sunshine and read romance novels, but perhaps next year I should put some more effort into being more adventurous for break.

Referenced:

No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy (2007) by Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites

Take a deep breath.

Curiosity being the wonderful motivator that it is, I utilized our wonderful library and picked up three books for spring break. On the way home after class, I stepped into what looks to be the most interesting- Robert Hariman's No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy. I'm looking forward to diving in for the idea really intrigues me; however, those first few pages caused a bit of a panic.

The introduction is written in a very approachable, almost conversational tone, which I adore and hope continues through the rest of the book. Despite this, I still feel more than a little out of my element. This is no longer reading a text book to highlight key points for a test or scanning an article for a intelligent quote for a research paper, this is self-motivated study of a subject that I know very little about. It's that learning curve, if you will, that scares me the most. I understand the fact that I will never know everything but I was tempted (and probably will end up returning to the text to do so) to pull out a piece of paper and write out every sentence with the many, many terms that I don't fully understand highlighted so I could do further in depth study.

Oh, but I'm so excited- and my enthusiasm perpetuates my self-image of youth and naivety. However, I'm okay with that. I'm a newborn... or not even, I'm still developing in the womb. I'm allowed to be a little excited about getting out and participating in life.

Whoop for reading over spring break!

And the award for dedication goes to...

Would you believe it? I actually forgot about creating this blog. I've been avoiding the one that I began for my trip (and never really finished... this is not looking good, is it?), so blogger obviously hasn't been frequented by myself these past few months.

However, now that I've found it, I think it's a brilliant idea. What better way to expound on my writing skills and perhaps keep better record of all this fun reading than the blog format?

This week, I'm through adjusting to classes and for the most part my life as a whole, and I've begun to search for some more reading material, mainly academic. I haven't started yet, but I've stumbled up on several scholars who look extremely interesting. Really looking into visual communication, museum rhetoric, and public memory; as much of a broad tangled web this will make in my mind, I've been quite pleased by the results of each and foresee me weaving threads between each topic for future research.

Now that Curious and Curiouser has been rediscovered, updates will follow soon.