Response to Wysocki

I like the way she organized her text and how she combined her personal experience when looking at the Peek ad and the theories to analyze it. I agree with the author that we need to be conscious that the ways we read and analyze visual texts nowadays are a result of our cultural history. Actually, science is a product of society so it will always be an account embedded in socio-historical and material conditions. I like the way she reflected how the mode of production of our historical era is reflected in the theoretical apparatuses that we use to analyze products of our culture. On the other hand, it was a little hard for me to understand how she tried to bring together the universal (in Kant’s aesthetics) to the particular when analyzing visual texts. I felt that not knowing much about Kant’s aesthetic theory I missed a great deal of what Wysocki was proposing. However, I was able to grasp and agree with the notion of beauty not as something that can be possessed but as something that we build in relation to others. I think this is also consistent with our historical era and the emergence of postmodernism. I related the universal of beauty expressed in Kant’s aesthetic with the monolithic discourses that Lyotard states the modern era brought. On the other hand, I related the concept of beauty as something that is built in “the interaction between two beings” (p. 169) with the multiplicity of discourses that the postmodern era claim and with the falling or inexistence of fundamental truths.
I think the activities proposed by Wysocki are really good. I picture students being really engaged with the activities. On the other hand, I do not know if I could implement these activities right away, since I lack computer skills and basic vocabulary to talk about visual work. Nevertheless, I especially liked activity number 6 since the students are producing or re-designing a real web page and I think that there is nothing better that propose to students compose texts that will be actually published and will impact a real audience (one that it is beyond the classroom walls). In addition, students have the opportunity to analyze professors’ web pages, which I also consider academic texts. One last thing that I think it is really good about this assignment is that students can have the opportunity to relate to faculty in a different way and seriously take and practice the role of designer and teacher. At the same time, I was thinking about how many constraints we can find in the classroom if our students do not know how to build web pages. I think this is a kind of literacy that should be taught at the university. And I should learn it!
On the other hand, reading Josh's blog, his last words are still kind of bouncing in my head... maybe lady visual composition should fight for have her own classes... something to think about.