A typical family portrait is usually set with the man or father standing behind the rest of the subjects while the others sit or are short enough to stand. The way that women are made to sit in these types of photos makes surrenders them to the role of "passive/female" as described by Shields, while the men take on the "active/male" role. It may seem like a lot to draw from a simple family portrait but images can convey so many meanings and this is just one image of hundreds of thousands circulating around the globe that portray the power struggle even more vividly than this photo. Hard- and soft-core porn also portray this dichotomy in a more graphic and pressing way. These portrayals of the male/female relationship such as the way a man stares and the way women play into that by worrying about there appearance; all of this turns women into objects and the woman is the one who does it the most because no matter how much they may deny it most enjoy the attention from men as they walk down the street.

This brings me to my next point--There have been many scandals of famous actors and professional athletes (all male) that have been charged with sending pornographic text messages to women. Some men think it is okay to send pictures of their genitals to women they speak to but the reality is that they do not enjoy it--nobody really wants to see that, honestly. On the other hand many women send pictures of themselves to men all the time but the fact is no one ever really finds out about it because they are not repulsed or put off by this action. The media seems to make such a big deal about men exposing themselves to women but you rarely, if ever, here the opposite. It is a bit of a double standard that favors women but it doesn't seem to be going away but something to keep in mind when looking at ads, pictures, books, etc.

The Undependability of Periphery

In the third Elkins' reading "Looking Away, Seeing Too Much," there is a small thing mentioned that a lot of people don't realize unless they truly think about it. That is, our peripheral vision is completely undependable. You might be thinking "What do you mean? My peripheral vision is fine!" While it may be true that you notice things in your peripheral vision, you can't really comprehend them. A little home test - turn on your TV to a random channel and put it on mute, then look just off to the left or right of the screen. After a few seconds, rewind your DVR and watch it again. If you can tell me in good conscience that you saw EXACTLY what was going on on your television screen, then congratulations, you're a medical marvel. Chances are though, all you saw were colors, shapes, and movement. The things that we "see" in our periphery aren't usually all that important, but it is a definite reminder that no matter how clear a picture we think we have of the world we look at, our eyes really can't capture the whole scene. Below I included a link for a little bit more official field of vision test.

http://www.testvision.org/

Elkins chapter 3: Deflected Seeing

Rest In Peace, Grandfather.

I apologize for this blog post being late but I did it intentionally. Earlier this week my Grandfather passed away. Yesterday was the wake and today was the funeral. I wanted to wait until after these two events to reflect on how my vision was deflected over the past week since I had last seen him in his hospital bed looking like half the man (in weight) that I have "seen" and "known" for 21 years. I want to recall three instances of personal deflected seeing related to death from this past week.

First, I want to share with you all that this is my first first-hand experience with death and any horrible illness like cancer, so this is all new to me. The visit I had with my Grandfather about three months ago was the first time physical signs of his illness had become noticeable, although they were not drastic. In this instance I rate my "deflected seeing" rather low because although he seemed to have lost a few pounds and wasn't as mobile as he normally was (this was a man who walked 4 miles everyday for the past 40+years), he was still as mentally sharp, whitty, and characteristically funny as always. Sitting there visiting with him wasn't much different than any visit I had ever had with him, and the physical signs of his illness were similar to someone getting over a cold or fighting the flu, not someone who was fighting cancer. In this instance I saw my Grandfather as someone who was sick, not someone who was dying.

The second instance was when I visited him in the hospital a few days before he passed away. By now the physical deterioration had become overwhelmingly noticeable as it caused severe weight loss and extremely limited mobility of any of his extremities. Furthermore, his speech had become nearly obsolete, a characteristic that has truly made him the man he is with his clever puns, jokes, and witty banter. Although I couldn't deny the sight of him before my eyes, I deflected my seeing by still visioning him as the man I have known my whole life. I can recall how hard it was for me to make eye contact with him and shifted much of my line of sight to the others in the room during conversation, picturing he was just his old self sitting there in the bed. I can recall looking directly at his face and seeing it in my eyes but in my mind I projected the face that I have always seen before he got sick. Although I could no longer deflect the reality of his dying state, I still held on to the image of what he used to look like.

Finally, the wake and funeral services proved to be another instance of deflected seeing, although this time it wasn't the sight of his physical face and body, but rather through pictures and storeis. Today was like talking about someone who was supposed to come to the party but missed their flight and couldn't make it - like they were alive and well somewhere else but just not present here. The cheerful mourning and funeral setting were both reminders of reality but also of the past, which I (it is difficult to explain) both consciously and unconsciously saw or "visioned" Grandfather of yesteryear.

Whenever I hear his name or think of a reference or connection to him who do I think of? Who and what do I picture? The cliche is that first impressions are everything and what people most remember, and I believe this to be the case. I think of my Grandfather from my earliest memories. I picture him as all the man who grew old and aged well until became sick. I picture the conversations, the room we were in, the places we went, the things we did overwhelmingly more than the past 5 months. Anytime an image or recollection of him in his illness pops into my head it is hard to tell whether it is conscious or unconscious action that immediately deflects those painful images away and recalls the good ones. Either way, deflected seeing is a reality in itself which allows us to cope with life and move forward as it acknowledges reality but soothes the mind and the soul.




http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/philly/obituary.aspx?n=eugene-p-simonson&pid=151655994&fhid=4331

The Hmaun Mnid: Azamnig or Diecvnieg?

I received an email with this mind game in it and thought of it when I was reading about how our minds can deceive us and how we construct much of what we "see" with our own mind. For example:

I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

from: http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/can-you-read

I was shocked that I was actually able to decipher the paragraph. This shows how our minds "have a mind of their own" for lack of a better cliche. The brain decides what we are going to remember and what we are going to see. This can be a scary thought because we may begin to wonder if our own brains are tricking us and what the world really looks like? Is there an objective way to see objects or is it all dependent on how our mind perceives the object at hand?

Elkins Chapter 2

So Elkins Chapter 2 was very interesting to me when he started to talk about animals and how they see differently. Thus showing how everyone and everything sees differently. Here is an article I found online that talks about the vision of different animals:

Though we might like to think that animals see the world with the same vivid colors and definition as human beings, perhaps just from different angles and perspectives, the truth is that vision differs greatly among animal species.

Animals process visual information in distinct ways, largely a direct result of the specifics of their visual equipment. An animal's eyel and the arrangement of its various structures determine the basis of its visual world. Although all vertebrates utilize an eye that takes in images by focusing on an object in a camera-like manner, many have different eye shapes, and some do not possess all of the same structures (such as cones, which distinguish colors). Of course, some animals have receptors that pick up visual stimuli that humans cannot perceive; birds, for example, can see ultraviolet light, and as a result observe a variety of visual patterns which humans can only view through the use of additional external filters.

Basic visual capabilities are not all that matter when considering animal vision. Though the raw information is important in that it provides a basis for any further brain processing, once a picture is formed it moves on to the rest of the brain and is compiled with all the other sensory information that an animal has taken in. The end product is a perceived view of the surrounding world, otherwise known as an ümvelt.

Though humans can see the entire visible light spectrum and would be able to appreciate the rich greens of the grass in the meadow on the left, prairie dogs and squirrels are red/green color blind, and only perceive the blues, yellows, and greys of the landscape.

From this Website: http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/psych26/umvelt.htm

The social presence of both men and women

In Chapter 3 Berger shows us how men and women traditionally have a different type of social presence. He states, "a man's presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies... a man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you." On the contrary, Berger explains how a woman's presence suggests what can or cannot be done to her. Berger states the following on page 48, "To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allocated and confined space, into the keeping of men...And also so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman." Since her childhood she has been taught and persuaded to constantly survey herself. "A woman must continually watch herself", Berger states.

From a male standpoint reading this is very interesting. As a guy it is very difficult to imagine the social presence someone of the opposite sex has. However, I found what Berger says to be very interesting and stimulating. In a culture that is heavily influenced by status and sex appeal, I feel as though we all in one way or another continually watch ourselves. Wether it is what our body looks like or what we are dressed like we are constantly judging ourselves and how others will perceive us. Even though this passage related directly to women's presence we can also take some of this and relate it to each one of our own lives. As stated in this passage, men tend to survey women and women tend to catch themselves being the surveyed, but how many times have we judged another of the same sex? I think we can all relate to this and I found it to be very interesting to see how Berger depicts the presence of both women and men throughout history.

Just looking... or just stumbling...

When we have nothing to look at, nothing to truly see, it might be said that we’re truly bored. When I’m truly bored, I stumble. And no, I’m not referring to tripping over my own two feet, as I often do; I’m speaking of the website StumbleUpon.com. Like a playground of looking, I can set my interests to produce a different website with every click, all of which I am supposed to want to see. Yet in reality, I’m simply browsing. It’s something that we rarely do when we “browse the web”; just look, as though we’re shopping in a store. We go online to check our email, catch up on Facebook, and read the news. But when we stumble, we’re subjected to random images and information from the furthest corners of the Internet.

Yet not everything that we look at is something we are interested in really seeing. If I choose to stumble through photographs of nature, clearly some catch my eye more than others. They often have been expertly staged, edited to perfection, and made to be the most appealing perspective possible, something I would most likely not be able to see in real life. It is this subliminal “advertising” of an image, manipulating it so that I will want to see it, to focus my gaze on the minor details of it, that me want to stay on that web page. As Elkins would put it, I need to desire that image in order to really look at it, and when I really see it, I see everything about it.

In this image that I stumbled upon, it is described as the border between Mexico and the United States, near Tijuana and San Diego. There is so much about it that catches my eye, and makes me want to know that picture more thoroughly. The stark contrast between the sides is what I first see, but with that, I eventually see the fence that separates it, and the different lifestyles that are embodied on each side. The Mexican side is busy, populated, and full of life, but the American side seems empty, and there is a feeling of danger in the multiple walls and military style-buildings. It makes me wonder why there is so much of Mexico pushed up against this barrier, while it seems as though all of America is hiding further away behind bolstered security. When you really see what is going on in this picture, the meaning of the image goes much further, and the mental storage of this meaning will stay in your mind.

In this way, browsing through Stumble is much like looking, and when you see something that stands out, draws you in, and makes you want to know it, you can take the time out to fully see it.

Ways of Seeing (Berger)

Gender has historically influenced the way the body has been made visible and for whom, specifically in the advertisement industry. Even as recent as ten years ago, we would have never seen half of the promiscuous commercials that we see in the media today. Berger makes many points about this dynamic of the body and whom it is visible to. A few of Berger’s points are, “To be naked is to be oneself, To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself. A naked body has to be seen as an object in order to become nude” (Berger, 54).

His argument can be applied to many genres but one that comes to mind is advertisements; specifically television commercials. For example look at the commonality of the role that nudity, being seen naked by others plays in advertisements targeting males AND females. Berger states that “nakedness has a positive visual value in its own right” (58) and I am certain that the media has taken to a similar ideal. In his book Berger writes about women being treated as the object in European art form and how this gender difference is still rooted in our culture today.

I can think of numerous commercials and ads in magazines that have nude or almost nude women in them in order to allude to the idea of men attracting more women if they use the specific product. Not only do certain ads target men but also women. Take for example Kim Kardashian’s Shape Up commercial. This is making women view her body and desiring to have it, therefore believing in the effectiveness of Sketcher Shape Ups.

The women’s’ bodies are to be seen as objects that are obtainable in both the Axe Body Spray and the Sketcher Shape Up advertisement. Kim Kardashian’s body in the Sketcher commercial is obtainable for women by purchasing the Shape Ups and the women themselves as objects in the Axe commercial are attainable for men by wearing the body spray.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9tWZB7OUSU The Axe Body Spray Commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQWG__N9so0 Sketcher Shape Up Commercial

Eyes Playing Tricks?

After reading the blog Gregory emailed to us is got me thinking about the things we see because our mind tells us to interpret them. I went and researched how our eyes play tricks on us sometimes and came across an article that looked at seeing as a very scientific bodily function. This article came from The Independent from the opinion section written by a man named Mike Morgan, http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mike-morgan-our-eyes-can-play-tricks-but-its-not-an-illusion-665066.html

Although optical illusions seem to trick our eyes into thinking they are moving or are various different images Morgan explains that this and something like color are can be explained very simply as our mind interprets what to see and colors are projections of rays. Then he goes on to say that once we stop calling these things illusions we can get down to what they really are and mean.

Throughout our schooling careers we are taught about refraction, defraction, light rays, etc. in science class and although it seems to make sense we are still amazed at the things we sometimes see. After thinking about what Morgan said at the end of his article I think it would be nearly impossible to stop calling things amazing or illusions because new things will surprise us everyday no matter if we know our mind is in control or not.

Colorblindness Does Not Mean You Can't See Color

This Sentence Is Blue

It is a common misconception that someone a color blind person can't see color. Color blindness has been incorrectly named from the day that it was coined. A better way to label it would be color deficient or color vision confusion. As you may have guessed, I am color deficient. When I tell people that, they can’t believe it since I am interface designer which demands the ability to properly use and distinguish between colors. People think that I see black and white.

Color deficiency basically means that I don’t see colors like others may. According to webmd.com, there are different varieties of color deficiencies, red-green (most common), followed by blue-yellow, and a severe and rare case named achromatopsia where you see in grayscale. I am red-green color deficient, which means that red and green might look similar. The next question that I usually hear when I tell people that is; how do I know to stop at a red light. Aside from red always being at the top or on the left, when I look at a red light, I see red and stop, when it’s green, I stop, and when the light is yellow, I speed up like everyone else. I just have trouble when red and green are close in the spectrum and when the ambient light is low. Since a traffic light projects light, there is no issue. I can tell that there are different shades of red and green, but some of the shades of the same color look identical to me. The shades need to be very close in color for me to get confused under normal lighting conditions. As far as I know, I never had an issue where something was green but it was actually red.

Being color deficient also means that I have trouble quickly passing an Ishihara color test. That is test where you can find out if you are color blind. It is not conclusive online since computer monitors display different variant’s of color, but it can be used to guide you if you should ask your optometrist to diagnose you. When I look at all the dots, it looks like a bunch of dots with no shapes present. Given time, I can map out a shape by slowly comparing one dot against another. It’s just not prevalent as you may see them. There is no cure or treatment for color deficiency and it means nothing, but it may help label you as an outcast color blind person and give you an excuse for going through that stop sign (Disclaimer: this will not work and the stop signs with white borders around them are not optional stops either). It can also help you understand why you have on one blue sock and one black one.

I have seen some minor conflicting numbers on several websites, but color deficiency is more common in males at 1 in 10 where females are .4% - 2% of the US population. So if you are a man and a girl ever tells you that sweater is green, you probably should trust her. Take the Ishihara test and comment back to let me know how you did.

Elkins - Chapter Two

Quite frankly, Chapter two of our assigned reading has both freaked me out and intrigued me at the same time. “And for that matter, can I be sure nothing else is watching me?” This is the sentence that really had me thinking. As we look at objects, they certainly cannot be looking back at us – can they?

But, how do we really know? When we look at an object, isn't it looking back?

Elkins goes on to say the world is full of vision, full of eyes. I would agree with that. Vision is everywhere.I have found myself looking at everyday household objects differently since reading this chapter.

In addition, Elkins believes the world is full of things we do not see. After completing my first video this week, I agree with this statement. We pass by so many beautiful things everyday and don’t even realize it.

“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly — you usually don’t use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.” (Eckhart Tolle)

Leif H. Finkel is trying to stress to us the idea that as human beings we create our own realities. “thus, put in the position of both interpreter and forecaster, the cortex adopted a brilliant strategy- the development of a model or representation of the world” (Finkel ,404). With this is mind I was alarmingly reminded of a book I read last summer called A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. Eckhart Tolle is not only a New York Times Best Selling author for two of his books (The Power of Now and A New Earth) but he is one of the biggest philosophers followed by a lot of people today. Tolle tells us is how little we are in the grand scheme of the world. He teaches and stresses the idea that the only thing that we can control is the “now”. This is the idea the past and future do not exist because they are inside of our minds only as a vision. Whenever I feel stressed out or angry about anything, I remember Tolle’s teachings. There is no reason to get angry about anything that has happened before, or feel anxious about the future because the only thing that is real is what is happening right now. This is a lot harder in our society here in America for obvious reasons.

He also informs us about the “ego” which some of you may be familiar with. The ego is basically what Finkel is talking about: a created world, a vision we have of ourselves. Eckhart Tolle reminds us that this is not real life and that there is meaning and importance beyond our egos. In fact, while reading the book, I sensed Eckhart preaching hatred toward our egos. He blames the ego for problems like stress and greed. With his teachings as a spiritual teacher he has helped many people including me. Here is a video that is a must watch. He talks about our visions coninciding with who we are and our self “image”.

Bear with his voice...I thought it was God too when I first heard him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbj4nLOPN8o

I enjoy what Finkel is saying, he really just makes us think of the idea that we are creators of our own realities, but in this reading he doesn’t give us a lot of the conclusions that Tolle can. “The elaboration of this internal reality gave rise, by and by, to the emergence of consciousness and the subjective perception that the internal world was, in fact coextensive with the external” (Finkel, 404)”. Eckhart Tolle makes us think even further in our views, and if you watch that video he can really help you relax and think a lot easier about the world. So if you are intrigued by Finkel, believe me you will be fascinated by Tolle!

Sidenote: Tolle’s book A New Earth was recommended to me by somebody who was very close to me and he told me if I was ever confused about the book to contact him and ask him questions while reading the book. I took him up on his offer. I know I am not an expert on his work, but if any of you do end up reading the book, feel free to contact me if you have any questions about it, because it does get confusing!

Driving: Blinded, but in Control

HYPNOTHERAPY
WHAT WE ARE LED TO BELIEVE

The fact is we are all in some level of trance all day every day. You might think is rubbish. But no, it's true.

Do we not, each and every one of us spend most of our days absorbed by thoughts, planning events, and picturing the outcome? How sad it is that at school as children we are told, "Wakey wakey, come on, stop daydreaming!" Children are especially susceptible to going into a quite deep trance, (daydreaming), and it is at this level of mind new ideas, inventions, and intuition come into play.

Many activities in life are so hypnotic. Driving a car for instance. In this country lorry drivers call it "autopilot", and in the USA it's called "highway hypnosis". The classic is motorway driving, and presumably you'll be aware of this if you are a driver. You are travelling a long distance on the motorway and before you know it you've reached your destination, or you are aware you've passed Junction 3 only to notice the next one is Junction 6, and you have no recall of missing the services. Or even travelling from A to B and then forgetting which route you took. All drivers have experienced this. We have all noticed how on a long journey the return trip seems shorter. (From Article Below)

http://www.dangers-of-hypnosis.co.uk/hypnotherapy.html

I have always found this interesting and I thought this related to how we sometimes see, but do not know what we are seeing at the time. I thought of driving, say on a highway. I know I've caught myself driving (even today) in total control, but thinking of other things as well. Then I'll "wake up" from this "day dream" and question how I was driving in total control without really knowing it. Is it because I may know the path? So how does our brain work this way? While driving, we are seeing, but not knowing how we are driving because we are blinded by the "day dreams" we are having. This relates to Elkins' chapter 2, The Object Stares Back. He states, "The world is filled with things we do not see, even though they are right in front of us" (54). When driving, many things are in front of you, but when stuck in the "day dream" we are blinded and cannot see.

The Human Need for Order in Chaos

Leif H. Finkel posits interesting ideas concerning the realm of the human psyche in regards to vision. According to Finkel, through evolutionary steps, the human race has composed a view of reality that is subjective from person to person. Finkel says the world is, "...a complex and dangerous place, and survival requires vigilance, adaptability, and creativity" (403). According to Finkel, humans have adjusted to that notion. Humans, unconsciously, have applied order to chaos. In order to get along in the world and to survive, the brain developed a world to make sense of. Finkel goes over the scientific development of the brain in the reading, but concludes that, "The world, to a large extent, is a vision of our own creation....And amid this tenuous situation, our cortex makes up little stories of the world, and softly hums them to us to keep us from getting scared at night" (404).

I have always been enamored with this idea: that our image, or vision, of the world is nothing more than our own personal creation. A prime example of this in film is from "The Matrix." Specifically, the scene where Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) attempts to explain to Neo (Keanu Reeves) that reality is not as ordered, definite, and external as most humans believe it to be.

Like Finkel stated, there is something unsettling about this idea. We, as humans, tend to not enjoy entertaining the idea that the world may not appear to be what we think it is, for we fear the unknown. We have our own preconceptions and notions about what the world "should" be. When faced with a view of the world that we find contradictory to our own, we may become defensive, angry, confused, and frightened. I believe differing views and conceptions of the world is an idea to be embraced.

James Elkins, in chapter two, talks of animals and how they perceive the world differently from humans. He states, "Some animals see different wavelengths than we do; this raises curious questions about how they perceive the world...they (bees) see mixtures of their two extreme colors (ultraviolet and orange) as a third color, which we cannot even begin to imagine" (65). This is fascinating! It is so cool that a species on our own planet can experience and perceive colors that humans can't fathom. So why limit this idea to just species? Why accept for a fact that all humans perceive the world the same way? We believe that we are complex and intricate beings. If this is true then not only do I find it easy to believe that a person's construction of reality is projected by his or her own mental image of the world, but I find it to be a truth.