I gave this presentation as part of a PechuKucha-style colloquy held with colleagues at the Australian Digital Futures Institute on Wed 17th July, 2013. I aimed to give a few hints as to why I began using visual studies method, and some approaches. There is no voice over, so I have added some explanatory thought bubbles.
2. Contradictions:
45,000 more women killed than men
in Boxing Day tsunami, 2004
I first became interested
In visual studies when I
encountered
contradictions between
images of the Boxing
Day Tsunami in 2004
and women’s lived
experiences.
3. Contradictions: Women aren’t
strong enough to be fire fighters
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adjourned/
I also encountered
contradictions between
the hard physical labour
of women in the
majority world and
negative attitudes
towards the capabilities
of female firefighters
4. We make the road by walking
We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change by Myles Horton, Paulo Freire 1990
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26609376@N00/sets/72157594290816252/show/
This presentation
reflects a conceptual
space that photographs
construct meaning,
through representation;
rather than capture
“reality”.
10. Through visual images
Curating and analysing
Google images provides
insight into how lived
experience (in this case
female firefighters) are
represented at a
moment in time
18. Visual studies provides one way of
encountering and interrogating
beyond words by exploring the
contradictions that can exist
between words and images.
Analysis of visual representations
can be used as a basis for problem
solving, by expanding the social
imagination.