Last night I went to a lecture giving by a man known by the name of Sven Birkerts. He talked about the exhibit “On reading” and shared with us what he felt about the collection of pictures taken that were displayed in the museum that our class had seen earlier on in the year. Although he did not pull me into all of what he said one thing that made me listen more than the others is thought about watching people while their reading and their demeanors. I thought it was interesting because he talked about the way they held their self depending on where they were and how they looking in that setting of at the time. I was interested because we had just talked about the theorist Foucault in class yesterday and the stuff Birkerts was talking about went with Foucault ideas and how we are always being watched and this made perfect sense when looking at the photos earlier in the semester. It was almost scary how much we don’t realize people watching us.
Foucault says three simple words that we would never think about in a day to day setting that are “inspection functions ceaselessly.” But when we step back and look at what Foucault says, it all makes perfect sense. We are being watched ALL day long! We are being watched when we think don’t want to be seen by anyone and our contemporary society feels that we must look and act a certain way when we are being seen. In class someone said she must put on makeup before going out because she would never want to be seen without it. Why do we care so much about what others think of us? I think that the “On reading” was a perfect example of looking at people being put in this situation of being watched. I can remember seeing a photo of a woman on the top of a building and she was sun bathing but she probably had no idea that there was someone watching her and her actions and it resulted in a photo ending up in a college museum. Who knows where else the photo is now?
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I'm glad that you went to the talk and were able to connect the material to Foucault. There is this idea of watching people and being watched whether aware of it or not. And along with the idea of photos getting posted anywhere that you don't know were taken - think back to our museum trip and the peoples' whose photos were taken while they were reading? Do you think he went about getting all of their permission to be photographed? And on another note, where do you see books in the future, in physical form or digital? Which theorist do you think would most strongly relate to this argument? :)
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