reading blog 1 - some food for thought

As someone who intends to build their career around images, it hadn’t occurred to me that there are people who ignore or don’t notice images, what they’re trying to communicate, or at the very least deciding how they feel about how or what is being communicated. Sure, I can’t claim to give each image I encounter the same attention or thought, and with brain-rotting platforms at my fingertips it would be impossible to even try and do such a thing. 

I do find it interesting that Mirzoeff points out the visual culture shift. I hadn’t really considered how conditioned to text-oriented communication we are historically. I do fear for the majority of my generation that isn't so concerned with art and the visual as a means of communication. Even worse, in my lower-level art history courses I notice the majority of my peers lose respect for the discipline because of its subjectivity and seemingly obvious principles. 

I agree with the sentiment that everyone should be required to implement these skills and also utilize them in their daily lives, but I worry that we’ve entered a cultural era that yields a very self-referential and ironic, and occasionally apathetic attitude towards literally everything; from current events to memes and trends to daily life.

It’s not cool to care or to try, and I think that translates to the way many people in my generation approach something as fundamental as looking closely. This got more pessimistic than I intended, I don’t believe its a lost cause, I just think there’s a lot of work and re-learning to be done.