Visual Studies

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Journal: Visual Studies

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Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:11

The Charlesworth Group, Wakefield +44(0)1924 369598 - Rev 7.51n/W (Jan 20 2003) 265565
Visual Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3, December 2007
0 55
Reviews
5 A summer workshop in Japanese visual culture camera (still or video) to Tokyo, and all were advised 60
Richard Chalfen and Lindsey Powell, Temple University that having a laptop computer would help their work.
Japan, Tokyo Students have access to the full range of university
activities and facilities, including visiting lectures and
events (film screenings, sake tasting, earthquake
10 As a contribution to an ongoing series on Teaching exercises, clubs, social events), a comprehensive library 65
Visual Studies, we offer the following account of a (probably the best English-language library in Japan),
summer session taught at Temple University Japan selective presentations in on-going courses at TUJ and a
Campus (TUJ). We provide one more example of how growing student body of Japanese and international
instructors might organize a model of summer training students. In short, they are connected to an active
15 in the Visual Social Sciences, one that could be programme of academic courses, lectures and studies at 70
duplicated and adapted to a variety of countries and TUJ.
alternative settings. This article concludes with several
illustrated examples of students’ work produced during
Organization
this Tokyo experience.
20 After a general orientation to TUJ over the weekend, 75
Between 14 May and 22 June 2007 the fourth summer
classroom sessions are scheduled for 8:30–2:00 Monday,
workshop on Japanese Visual Culture was held at
Wednesday and Friday, and are supplemented by untold
Temple’s Japan campus, located in the Minami-Azabu
hours devoted to field trips and fieldwork. The three-
section of Tokyo.1 This six-week programme was first
hour morning sessions are lecture-discussions devoted
25 introduced in 2004 as a ‘field version’ of two regularly 80
to theoretical and methodological issues of visual
offered courses entitled: ‘The Visual Anthropology of
research with specific reference to Japanese society and
Modern Japan’ (Chalfen) and ‘Anthropological
culture. Key texts for the morning sessions include Joy
Problems in Visual Production’ (Powell). Both were
Hendry’s Wrapping Culture: Politeness, Presentation and
then part of the Anthropology of Visual
Power in Japan (1995), Donald Richie’s The Image
30 Communication programme at Temple-Philadelphia. 85
Factory (2003), Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows (1980
Between six and ten students have enrolled each
[1933]), Fujitani’s Splendid Monarchy: Power and
summer, coming from such schools as Temple
Pageantry in Modern Japan (1996) and Kelts’s
University, University of Pennsylvania, Yale University,
Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the
University of Connecticut, University of Illinois,
West (2006).
35 Evergreen College, Reed College, Loyola Marymount, 90
Lewis and Clark among several others; students have Afternoon sessions focused on questions and practice of
majored in East Asian Studies, Anthropology, Art visual production, emphasizing stills or video,
History, Journalism, History, Communications, connections and applications to ethnographic film,
Advertising as well as the Studio Arts. Students earned posters, PowerPoint presentations, CD-ROMs and
40 six academic credits for their work, available on either DVDs, game software, manga, animation, web display, 95
undergraduate or graduate levels. The curriculum has ‘’zines’, among others. Other topics explored models of
been taught jointly by Richard Chalfen (Emeritus production, connections between camera style, editing,
Temple and now the Center on Media and Child subtitling and voice-over and the major perspectives and
Health) and Lindsey Powell (Temple and Arcadia methods of the social sciences, as well as the political
45 University), both of whom have lived, studied and economy of distribution. 100
taught anthropology courses in Japan, and both have

been undertaking original research and publishing Special emphasis was given, among other things, to
results on different aspects of Japanese visual culture. doing participant observation and ethnography with
recording equipment, ethical issues in general and
50 Students stayed in Temple dormitories, pre-arranged those particular to Japan, problematic visualizations of 105
home stays or, for the two Japanese students, with their qualitative observations, converting data into imagery,
families. All students were required to bring a digital variable interpretations of visual/pictorial phenomena,
ISSN 1472–586X printed/ISSN 1472–5878 online/07/030301-20 # 2007 International Visual Sociology Association
DOI: 10.1080/14725860701657233

302 Reviews
0 and looking for patterns in visual research for both Perspective and course work 55
field data and found data. This second course used
Given that much of culture study is visual, our approach
Barbash and Taylor’s Cross-Cultural Filmmaking: A
has been to address the general and intentionally
Handbook for Making Documentary and Ethnographic
ambiguous phrase, ‘How People Look’. This introduces
Films and Videos (1997) and Nagatomo’s Draw Your
5
a coordinated effort to examine: a) the visually symbolic 60
Own Manga: All the Basics (2003). Screenings of
systems that comprise and support everyday life; and b)
ethnographic and feature films relevant to Japan are
relationships of appearance and perspective, how people
part of both sessions.
from various societies across the globe wish to be seen
Tuesdays, Thursdays and weekends have been reserved and how they prefer to see the world. Once students
10 for explorations of visual culture in and around Tokyo begin to detect patterns in how the Japanese people 65
using a camera. Over the past summers, trips included ‘look’, we examine the ways in which individuals and
visits to syllabus-related locations such as the Imperial groups go about visual practices in their public and
Procession route, museums (the Edo-Tokyo Museum, private lives – that is, how they wield the elements of the
Tokyo National Museum, Yushukan War Museum, the symbolic system that we think we detect, not in passive
15 Studio Ghibli Anime Museum featuring Miyazaki ways, but to make their way in the world and achieve 70
Hayao, the Mori Art Museum), gardens (Imperial Palace certain ends. Attention is focused, with the reinforcing
and Garden, Koishikawa Korakuen Neo-Confucian experiences of fieldtrips and observation exercises, on
garden, Ueno Garden), professional media production how the objects, images, sounds, tastes, smells and
facilities (NHK Studio Park, Sony Media World, textures we encounter in Japan are designed and
20 Hakuhodo/Dentsu advertising firms), significant function to mediate individual or group agency within 75
temples and shrines (Meiji, Hie, Asakusu, Yasukuni complex nexuses of social relationships. Things
Shinto shrines, Engakuji, Meigetsuin, Zenpakuji, circulated to manipulate the senses of others are focused
Daibutsu, Asakusa Buddhist temples in Tokyo and on as types of magical and animated technologies
Kamakura), sometimes including cemeteries and even produced to advance the social agency of the creators in
25 flea markets (Togo Shrine in Harajuku). relation to the recipients of the charms. The summer 80
programme explored this multi-pronged approach to
In addition to classroom and lab work, the production the visual culture of Japan.
course takes place in the field through interaction with
the students on group and individual bases at fieldtrip We asked students to monitor their own ways and
30 sites, on such topics as: choosing subjects, positions, means of entering a culture visually and subtly make 85
angle, focal length, available lighting, sound, comparisons to linguistic avenues of learning what is
foreground/background and focus, movement (how to going on. One key objective has been to develop a
walk sideways and backwards with a camera, how to feeling that every waking moment is of value – to follow
squat and remain steady) and interaction with subjects a familiar communication adage: ‘Nothing Never
35 (how to say, ‘May I photograph you?’) among many Happens’ or ‘One Cannot Not Communicate’. Stepping 90
others. At each stage we discuss the relationships out the front door, walking neighbourhoods, being
between the choices we make and social science confronted with public directives (signs indicating rights
discourse focusing on how effective a choice is in and wrongs), otherwise examining the features of the
furthering our social scientific goals. symbolic and built environment are always worthy of
40 inspection and reflection. In short, we are not convinced 95
The programme also included lectures at both Sophia one needs to travel to Kyoto to gain a meaningful sense
University and International Christian University, trips of Japanese culture. In this way of thinking, a fieldtrip
to the Grand Sumo Summer Basho, several Matsuri can be re-conceptualized and recognized as a trip to the
(festivals), SuperDeluxe (a Roppongi multimedia local convenience store (Lawsons, the Daily, 7-11,
club), a professional baseball game, several art Sunkus and the like) or a walk down a shopping street
45 100
galleries, Print Club shops, Landmark Tower and (Omotesando, Shibuya or the Ginza). Weekly in-class
Chinatown in Yokohama (including a guided tour of reviews of observation sessions provided many examples
the foreign ghetto), traditional Japanese cultural for continued discussion.
performances and folk craft demonstrations (Koto,
;
50
shamisen, archery, sword, Taiko drumming, In tandem, we emphasized taking the understanding of 105
traditional cuisine, Tsukiji Fish Market as well as the visual culture ‘out of the studio and into the street’. The
Pacific Culture Club). visual culture we were exploring was not limited to a

Reviews 303
0 myopic focus on such mass media and popular culture week, students were asked to review their entire 55
topics as Japanese film (Kurosawa, Ozu, Mizoguchi), on collections and find themes that had been either
classic art forms (Ukiyo-e prints, scrolls), Manga, intentionally or unintentionally highlighted, and then
tattooing and the like – it could equally focus on street select one or two that they could examine in greater
signs, pictorial warning images, subway art, photo- depth for the final two weeks of journal entries. A
5 stickers, cell-phone photographs, graffiti, costume-play, reconceptualization and refinement of one theme in 60
noran (door curtain) design, just to mention a few. conjunction with course materials (e.g. readings,
Themes of visual representation, expression, lectures, field trips) was then to become the topic of
communication and action were repeatedly stressed their final class presentation and photo-essay.
throughout the six weeks.
10 Second, and in addition, students were asked to consider 65
Weekly written exams given in past summers were a journal theme for their production work, requiring the
replaced by the current primary assignment – namely, writing of a project proposal and treatment, production
making a daily photo-journal for the entire six-week schedule and a verbal description of the imagined
period. Students were encouraged to carry a camera finished piece to come. In this way, the two courses were
15 throughout their time in Tokyo, to actively make connected through more than just fieldtrips. In the spirit 70
photographs every day and to review and study what of the anthropological process of fieldwork (participant
they had done on a regular daily basis. Such a task is observation, in this case with a camera), journalizing
relevant on three fronts: virtually all anthropological (field notes and recordings) and production, we
fieldwork includes and indeed requires some form of required the students to simulate in a small way the
20 journal writing; diary writing is well entrenched in larger process of anthropology: the feedback loop 75
Japanese habits; and amateur photography is a very between fieldwork, journalizing, evaluation and
common activity. Student photo-journals must reflection on one’s experiences; the development of both
contain an integration of verbal/written and visual/ a theoretical framework and a technological platform for
pictorial components to accomplish several important the final dissemination of one’s findings; and then
25 objectives – namely: 1) enacting different models of starting on a new cycle once the piece is circulated for 80
observation; 2) practising how to speak and write some time and feedback from others and self-evaluation
about images in social scientific ways; 3) accumulate.
demonstrating/acknowledging that they have
Third, the journal serves as a platform which the
discovered connections between class lectures,
students carry home that can be a jumping-off point for
30 discussions and readings; 4) developing skills at 85
future coursework integrating first-hand data-gathering.
making ethnographic films and photographs.
From previous years’ programmes several students have
More specifically, each journal-day must contain a contacted us months, even years, later, to acknowledge
minimum of five photographs accompanied by well- how valuable their visual records were for them, often
considered commentary. Students are required to use leading to new insights into Japanese culture long after
35 90
their pictures both to answer questions and to the immediate memory has grown cold. Though the
provoke new ones – in ways they write the text, but long-term benefits are promised, the immediate benefits
also in ways that their text writes them. Throughout, are proclaimed; primarily, the intention of the journal
the students were guided by an interrogatory stance rests on the important premise that recording
40 of the visual sociologist grounded in Howard Becker’s experiences and then writing them up on a daily basis is 95
‘What question is this photograph an answer to?’ most useful at the moment it is done: why this picture
They are meant to establish an active discourse was taken and not that, who these people were, what
between themselves, their observations, pictures, were they doing, and why it was an important shot to
insights and visible components of the Japanese take – these are themselves aspects of immediate
45 environment and society, demonstrating an enhanced reflection and focusing that generate an evolving inner 100
and sophisticated curiosity. Journals are reviewed by dialogue about visual culture and one’s place in it. The
both instructors once each week, supplying each journal becomes a sketch pad from which to develop a
student with abundant comments for discussion and final project, training the eye to see new things, to
improvement. verbalize how one’s images are working or not working,
50 and to develop strategies to ensure a positively received 105
These photo-journals serve as a building block for final ethnographic film or other type of presentation in
additional required course work. During the fourth the end.

304 Reviews
0 The final projects for the production courses have taken anthropologist’s kit. How these manga and anime ‘visual 55
many forms throughout the four years (30+ students). tricks of the trade’ were derived upon and have been
Many students opt to make short ethnographic-like maintained in Japan and the West was one of the foci of
films. Though it is impossible to complete an the course and readings.
ethnographic film in two weeks, and we discuss the
5 reasons why, many of the students do well by making The final day of the programme consisted of student 60
short event films or portions of longer ethnographic presentations and critiques. Each student was required
films. For example, one student arranged to be dressed to give two 20-minute presentations before the group
up as a Maiko (Geisha in training) at a professional and instructors. The morning session was devoted to
photographic studio and then worked with another critiques of PowerPoint presentations highlighting the
10 student to film the process from start to finish, including journal projects and photo-essays. The students began 65
discussions of the different elements of the garments, each presentation with an overall survey of the journal
make-up, wig and accessories with staff and other including highlights from the various areas of
patrons as they chose each element according to season, exploration. Then the students narrated their reflections
personality, tradition and state of mind, and were on finding themes – for example, social control,
15 guided into various poses, expressions and gestures ‘cuteness’, the use of portable electronics in public 70
(with traditional kasa umbrella, fans) by a professional spaces, handheld gaming devices like the Sony PSP and
photographer. Nintendo DS, cellular phones, digital cameras, the
feminization of the Japanese male, Cool Japan,
Other than video, successful projects included a ‘’zine’, a monumental art, among others. The presentations
20 self-published magazine (using colour laser printing climaxed with an overview of the final photo-essays 75
which the school provides for a small per-page fee) completed for the course. These focused on one theme
which mixed handwritten and typed text (English and or topic and were meant to be small portions of larger
Japanese), original hand-drawn manga (cartoon ethnographies or anthropological texts. Topics often
images), magazine and other found-object clippings corresponded to the final projects in the production
25 (chopstick covers, free tissue packets), scanned images course as well, but several students chose to modify their 80
from manga books, magazines and other printed sources projects, expand or contract them, or choose additional
(album covers and flyers, newspapers), photographs and topics to explore.
design artwork. It explored and theorized the complex
interplay between graffiti and popular culture in Japan The second round of presentations highlighted the
and the West. The ’zine was distributed to a number of students’ final projects for the production course. As
30 85
popular hangouts of interested youth in various parts of mentioned, many of these took the shape of
the city as well as to class members, friends and others at ethnographic films. The classrooms at Temple’s Japan
the school. campus are ‘smart-rooms’ equipped with projection
equipment for a variety of formats including DVD, CD-
The 2006 summer programme included three art ROM, Mini-DV, VHS, MPEG, Quicktime, PowerPoint,
35 90
students studying to be professional illustrators in Los among others. The lights were dimmed, and we watched
Angeles (Loyola Marymount). Much of their work was the films after short introductions by the students.
submitted in manga art form. For example, one student Students were required to discuss their work and the
depicted herself doing actual fieldwork but as a cartoon pitfalls and successes along the path to completion, and
40
character entering into the strange world of ‘hentai’ to respond to student and instructor questions and 95
comics (erotic adult cartoons). The manga format criticisms. It should be noted that extensive lab work
resolved many of the issues of ethics surrounding was conducted throughout the course, especially in the
depicting her interactions doing fieldwork of this kind final weeks. One of the positive and essential aspects of
using a camera while additionally allowing for aspects of having a small number of students is that the instructors
45 social setting and interaction to be highlighted through can work one-on-one with each student as they master 100
exaggeration and a new set of conventions. Depicting technical issues involving PowerPoint, Windows Movie
fieldwork in this way was novel and had discernible Maker, i-movie, Adobe Premiere and Aftereffects, Final
benefits we all discussed. Another student contributed a Cut, Macromedia Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator
short anime (animated movie) as an exercise, hand- and the like (there are computers on campus that the
50 drawn, with the added aspect of actual motion, rather students can use, though many opt to edit on their own 105
than suggested motion using slashes or blurring used in laptops). After the final thoughts on the programme and
the manga format, an additional tool in the visual course, and programme and field trip evaluations, we

Reviews 305
0 often ended with a karaoke party and some sharing of E-COLOUR 55

our work with other students and faculty at Japan
FIGURE
campus.
We also suggested that results of this project may be

5 reconstituted into a web page, or posted to important 60
file-sharing websites such as video podcast, YouTube,
personal blogs and Flickr. Many of the students have
continued to maintain the sites created for the
programme, another testament to its value. Grades for
10 the first course are based on periodic photographic 65
exercises, the journal, the final paper/presentation and
class/fieldtrip participation. Grades for the production
course are based on the major assignment (50%), an
ethnographic media product in an appropriate format
15 for the subject; the proposals, treatments, and verbal FIGURE 1. Men Running for Subway. 70
descriptions of their pieces; periodic exercises and
quizzes (if necessary); and class participation, consisting
of attendance and participation in fieldtrips, exercises
E-COLOUR
and discussions. FIGURE
20 We conclude this brief report with six examples of work 75
produced during our summer sessions.
Tokyo Subway Art Project by Michelle Kort

(2007)
25 80
Michelle arrived for this year’s programme from the
University of Connecticut as an advanced art history
major with Dean’s List in Fine Arts. She decided to focus
her attention on ‘one of the deepest public art spaces in
30 the world’: the new Oedo Subway Line, some 30 to 40 85
metres under Tokyo. The 11-minute DVD she produced
begins with the strange sound of live and recorded
announcements reverberating down the ceramic-tiled
FIGURE 2. Altered Oedo Line Subway Map.
tunnel walls as she walked smoothly towards the
35 platform: ‘The doors are closing. Watch your step.’ 90
Various sounds of mechanical devices like motors, E-COLOUR
brakes and hydraulic doors add to the futuristic aural FIGURE
milieu. The viewer hears the sound of leather shoes
approaching in a quick step, then, suddenly, from both
40 sides, two salary men carrying briefcases dart by and 95
squeeze between the closing doors of the soon-to-depart
train. Michelle’s steady walk ends with a pan of the train
racing towards her, streaming by and then disappearing
into the tunnel.
45 100
The background sound and image goes soft, the title
scrolls in and then voice-over begins. Over a background
montage of images of various sites above and below
ground (which Michelle made for her journal), she talks
50 about the new Oedo Subway Line and the important art 105
project that it houses. Her project focuses on the inner
loop, some 28 stations, with a total of 29 installations. FIGURE 3. Yellow on Black Relief.

306 Reviews
0 E-COLOUR see if the rule was obeyed, she opts to focus first on the 55
pieces themselves and leave the larger project for
FIGURE
another time.
How do the pieces function to ‘create an atmosphere

5 reflecting the character of the station’s respective area’? 60
To answer this question, Michelle created a visual
montage mixing several photographs of the pieces
themselves from various angles (long shots, medium
shots, close-ups and extreme close-ups), sounds from
10 the stations and various forms of music and narration. 65
What emerges is a film which evokes the animated spirit

of the art work and how it functions in its social context.
The pieces become characters in social dramas (the
commute, the friendly visit, the errand, the drinking
15 FIGURE 4. Green Brown Mosaic. 70
binge, the affair), protective deities which invite us
above ground, then draw us back down again for a
second look. Michelle utilizes images and sounds to
invite the art pieces to introduce themselves, their
E-COLOUR textures, the way the light interacts with them, even the
20 75
FIGURE sounds of trains and people bouncing off of them; in
essence, the art work as a social actor. The viewer is
invited to wonder, ‘How did they do that? Why did they
do that? Is it decoration? How does it function to keep
25
bringing us back as consumers?’ The ‘unfinished 80
business’ (an anthropological term we applied to
decorative art during the programme) created by the
piece supplied the tension which invited comparison
and invitation to the outside. Michelle’s video DVD was
30 well received by the group as it touched on many of the 85
themes we returned to in our discussions of the ways in
which objects like art are circulated for effect.
FIGURE 5. Texture and Light.
35 Wooden Dragon by Sean Hamilton (2007) 90

Out of a pool of 358 applicants, pieces were chosen by
Sean Hamilton, communications major at Temple,
15 design firms contracted by the Tokyo Metropolitan
joined this year’s summer programme having already
Subway Construction Company.
studied at the Japan campus for several months. Sean
Michelle’s narration mixes quotes from Japanese and focused on a traditional performance art – the koto, or
40 95
western art historians and critics and her original ideas thirteen-stringed Japanese zither. Videotaping three
to describe the importance of public art in general and primary events – a performance, a lesson and an
the evolving postwar climate for public art in Japan in interview – Sean constructed a 15-minute ethnographic
recent years (with Tokyo as its leading space and video DVD which explored the music, its instruction
45 patron). The one rule to be followed by the and its place in Japanese society. This was a different 100
commissioned artists in the current project was ‘to topic from Sean’s journal project, though his journal did
create an atmosphere reflecting the character of the contrast modern and traditional elements of Japan. The
station’s respective area’, which Michelle emphasizes by video opens with several seconds of a koto/shakuhachi
reading in voice-over the intertitles she interjects into (bamboo flute) duet being performed on stage before a
50 the montage. Recognizing that it would be a daunting live audience. The koto sets the rhythm and pitch with 105
task to go above and below ground as well as to slow arpeggios as the flute twists and turns and hesitates
interview the residents, the artists and station patrons, to then flows through and around the various koto tones.

Reviews 307
0
E-COLOUR 55
E-COLOUR FIGURE
FIGURE
5 60
10 65
FIGURE 6. Koto Performance. FIGURE 9. Koto Demonstration.

15 70
E-COLOUR E-COLOUR
FIGURE FIGURE
20 75
25 80
30 85
FIGURE 7. Koto Lesson. FIGURE 10. Koto Duet.
35 90
As a guide and informant in the world of the koto, we
are introduced to the performer, a Chicagoan living in
E-COLOUR Japan for 15 years named Curtis Patterson. He is giving
a lesson in Japanese to a student in his home: ‘Pluck it
40
FIGURE this way [demonstrating], 2, 3, 5 (strings). Now quieter 95
here.’ The student responds in words (‘hai’, yes) and
sounds (mimicking the master’s directions by plucking
her own koto). We get a sense of the complexity of the
instrument and the steps it takes to achieve anything of
45 note on it. 100
A new theme is introduced: a conversation about the

instrument. Patterson’s image appears and the lesson
disappears, as he sits next to the instrument in the shade
50 of a Japanese garden, a scene reminiscent of one of our 105
recommended texts, Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows. He
FIGURE 8. Koto Discussion. talks about his Japanese master’s theory of the fading art

308 Reviews
0 of koto: ‘It was because of the repertoire. It was too old E-COLOUR 55
and rigid, she said. It didn’t change with the times’. A
conflict is introduced. Patterson introduces the parts of
FIGURE
the instrument, an imagined dragon: the head, tongue,
eyes and back.
5 60
Given the short time he had to edit, Sean seized upon a
prototypical editing plan that could guide his editing
decisions. One of the films we watched in class was
Dennis O’Rourke’s Sharkcallers of Kontu about the dying
10 art of certain shark rituals. The film used an accelerated 65
cycling of three primary themes which came to
juxtapose with one another in predictable ways. Sean did
the same with the performance, lesson and discussion,
returning to each when paces changed or thoughts came FIGURE 11. Studio Patron Posing.
15 to a crossroads. 70
In this way, the film came to a musical, teaching and

discursive climax with revelations about new E-COLOUR
interpretations of the instrument and repertoire, and FIGURE
demonstrations of the more daring pieces in the context
20 75
of the performer’s private home. Closure comes as the
student departs at the front door and says she will be
back next week. The film ends on an upbeat note with
promises of more unfinished business with the
25
instrument. 80
The Index of the Maiko by Anabelle Rodriguez

(2004)
Anabelle came to the summer 2004 programme as an

30 85
advanced graduate student in visual anthropology at
Temple. As an art curator, Anabelle had already studied
many aspects of Japanese culture. She was especially
FIGURE 12. Applying White Foundation.
interested in fine garments and their transformations in
popular settings (another instance of old things
35 90
surviving by transforming). Anabelle focused on an elite
and expensive form of costume play (a theme of
Japanese culture regularly discussed in the programme): E-COLOUR
being dressed and made up to look like a Maiko, a FIGURE
Geisha in training. Anabelle went to Gion in Kyoto to do
40 95
the project, as this was the trend-setting Geisha area. The
video DVD begins with a declaration: the index of the
Maiko is ‘gaman’, toleration. The implication is that
they prove by wearing all the heavy and expensive gear,
45
gear which takes so much time to put on, that by going 100
through the gruelling training which allows them to
wear such a costume/uniform, they are willing to go out
of their way to please a patron and keep his secrets. This
declaration is immediately reinforced as Anabelle
50 squares away the deal and interacts with another patron 105
farther through the process. The Japanese woman
complains of a headache from the heavy wig, but strikes FIGURE 13. Applying Lipstick.

Reviews 309
E-COLOUR
0
FIGURE sped-up portions suggests this theme, one that becomes 55
more apparent later in the piece. These musical
interludes punctuate the light banter and instructions.
Anabelle mixes in images of racks of kimono, silk belts,

5 ribbons, wigs, handbags and other accessories, and 60
shoes. The decisions are overwhelming. But once the
kimono is chosen, everything falls into place, being
narrowed into contention by the colours and patterns of
the dominant gown. Everything has its place, its crease,
10 its fold. Anabelle is looking tired. She can barely keep 65
her balance on the geta and must bend her knees
slightly, straining little-used muscles.
Photograph time comes at last. Anabelle is taken into

FIGURE 14. Anabelle wearing Maiko Geta, Tabi, and Kimono.
the studio. The male photographer, the first male we
15 70
have seen (though we heard him in the distance barking
E-COLOUR out orders to staff), squeezes Anabelle as if she were a
FIGURE life-sized articulating doll on an armature, bending her
this way and that, chin up, shoulder down. A fan and an
umbrella are also used in especially famous poses. The
20 75
video ends with the shots she paid for but manipulated
by Anabelle to resemble the art she is so fond of.
Keiko’s Shudo by Courtney Stoll (2005)

25 Courtney, too, was a graduate student in visual 80
anthropology at Temple when she joined the
programme in 2005. Trained as an archaeologist,
Courtney had a special interest in objects and their roles
in society. For the programme she produced a DVD
30 video on the practice of calligraphy. When a viewer 85
looks at calligraphy, what do they see?
FIGURE 15. Altered Photograph.
To explore this question, Courtney isolated the issue by
a pose anyway. This is the index of the Maiko: posing nestling it in between scenes of busy outdoor activities
35 and performing beautifully while under heavy stress. around the city. A contrast is created between interior 90
The patron got it. It is an indigenous or emic theory, and calligraphy and exterior and daily life. Shots of
after all. perambulating people on sidewalks and cars stopping
and starting at intersections reinforce the first revelation:
To compress time, Anabelle manipulated the video calligraphy is about movement. It is about controlling
40 speed, speeding it up in the middle of long processes, one’s movements in certain ways. Brush strokes are 95
and then slowing it down during transitions between likened to having gas pedals and brakes.
them. This naturally corresponded to times when there
was more talking among the staff and customers about A semiotic analysis of a shudo piece might reveal the
the various processes and decisions to be made. During meanings of the characters (Peace and Love or Harmony
45 the high-speed images, Anabelle mixed in a variety of and Spirit or even Japanese Spirit, with its touch of 100
music formats, traditional and new, to reinforce the wartime nuance), but Courtney takes the investigation a
transformations, both of herself and in the broader step further. Her video sets out to use simple
fashion and society. juxtapositions between shudo and daily life to reveal a
more complex anthropological theory of the practice,
50 There is a group of artists Anabelle is particularly that shudo is best described and portrayed as a 105
interested in who make art featuring psychedelic congealed performance, an act that is a recording of
kimono. Some of the music she introduces in the itself. This leads to the second connection with the

310 Reviews
E-COLOUR E-COLOUR
0 55
FIGURE FIGURE
5 60
10 65
FIGURE 16. Calligraphy Demonstration. FIGURE 19. Signature.

15 70
E-COLOUR
FIGURE E-COLOUR
FIGURE
20 75
25 80
30 85
FIGURE 17. Scramble of Daily Life. FIGURE 20. Bunka Mura Street Crossing.
35 outside that Courtney reinforces with transitions to 90

E-COLOUR stopping and starting in the busy world: Shudo is about
circulation. A shudo piece circulates in physical and
FIGURE social space like people circulating in the street.
Courtney asks Keiko to narrate each step she takes. She

40 95
begins with the sitting and the meditation that takes
place as she prepares the brush, ink and paper. Certain
questions must be asked of the self. What characters
express my inner intentions, attitudes, and emotions
45
right now? Am I feeling bold or timid, calm or agitated? 100
These intentions will be revealed in the strokes, shapes,
and densities that I create. By placing her signature on
the piece, Keiko creates a stand-in for herself as she was
at the moment of creation, an off-shoot which circulates
50 for her and does her bidding in the outside world. The 105
contrast returns, a third revelation emerges: shudo is a
FIGURE 18. Calligraphy Discussion. way of getting the inside out, not just as a short-lived,

Reviews 311
0
E-COLOUR E-COLOUR 55
FIGURE FIGURE
5 60
10 65
FIGURE 21. Bicycle Handlebar View of the Street. FIGURE 24. Bike Messenger Bag.
15 70
E-COLOUR E-COLOUR
FIGURE FIGURE
20 75
25 80
30 85
FIGURE 22. Mama-chari. FIGURE 25. Boom.
35 passive expression, but as an active, long-lasting agent. 90

E-COLOUR In this way, objects in society can be seen as if they were
FIGURE people too, or at least mini-people, mini versions of
their creators pushed into the act of circulation.
40 Courtney returns to the crossroads and video images of 95

perambulating people. She chooses Culture Village
Crossing in Shibuya-ku to reinforce the theory of shudo
she is visually proposing. In the background Keiko
makes some final observations about the practice.
45 100
Bicycles in Japan by Naoko Wada (2007)
Naoko came to this summer’s programme as an

undergraduate visual anthropology major at Temple.
50 She is Japanese and was returning home for the first 105
time after several semesters on main campus. Though an
FIGURE 23. Bike used in Clothing Advertisement. accomplished photographer, Naoko decided to create

312 Reviews
0 her first video for the programme: a DVD exploration of written text and her own journal photographs and 55
the changing world of bicycles in Japan. The opening videos to place blackface in Japan into its social context.
scene is of a bicycle’s view of the street.
We learn that blackface is an important fashion and
Utilizing narration, written text, and video and lifestyle statement popular among youth (especially
5 television clips, Naoko introduces a growing conflict in girls), and that Tokyo is the Mecca of a worldwide 60
Japan: for years Japan has been dominated by a interest in the ‘Look’ (returning to the foundational
homogenous and utilitarian culture of biking, the theme of the course). The practice, stripped of its
Mama-chari (or Momma’s Bike). But now, there are historical context, takes on oppositional meaning in
hints of revolution in the air … Japan. This is an unexpected twist. But how does the
10 ‘Look’ affect those still tied to the historical context? 65
The first signs of revolution appeared in advertising.
There were always ‘otaku’, of course, the rare and Nina turns her attention to the owner of the type of face
mysterious strangers who would whiz by on a road bike. being mimicked in the practice of blackface, an African
But advertising brought these folks (imagined as they youth living in Japan. Nina asks what his views are on
were) to centre stage. Now there are two kinds of bikes, blackface. He responds that he is not sure they know
15 70
Naoko declares with bold titles: Mama-chari and road/ exactly what they are doing. In the end, however, he can
pist. find no real harm in it. In fact he says, ‘I like their ways.’
Maybe he feels it is homage, not ridicule, in the Japanese
Naoko verifies this trend by placing herself in it. While
context. Nina leaves it ambiguous, yet there is tension in
away in Philadelphia studying for two years, she
20 discovered for herself the world of biking she had been 75
missing growing up in Japan (she had sacrificed her
unblemished skin and bones to the road on a bike in
Philadelphia a few weeks prior to joining the
programme). When arriving in Tokyo, she was struck by
25 how much what she was seeing in Philadelphia was now 80
prominent in Japan. Was this just a fad, a boom or a
trend, or was this a new lifestyle genre?
Naoko explores this issue in an interview with a road/

30 pist bike dealer in Tokyo. What emerges is a deeper 85
understanding of how people in the midst of a lifestyle
change verbalize and conceptualize the phenomenon.
Naoko’s piece worked well as an insider’s response to
what we were reading about and discussing in the
35 programme in and around Donald Richie’s Image FIGURE 26. Blackface. 90
Factory.
E-COLOUR
40
Ganguro by Nina Koch (2007) FIGURE 95
Like Naoko, Nina was also an undergraduate
anthropology major at Temple when she participated in
this summer’s programme. She explored the
complicated issue of ‘blackface’ in Japan with a video
45 she placed on YouTube. The video begins with a short 100
archival clip of two white men mocking black men

utilizing charcoal and exaggerated expressions.
Then there is blackface in Japan – called Ganguro – the

50 title of Nina’s film. What does it mean in such a 105
different context? This is the primary issue the film
explores. Nina uses narration, video clips from the web, FIGURE 27. Ukiyo-e Afro.

Reviews 313
0 E-COLOUR how she responds to the practice. Something still bugs 55

her about it.
FIGURE
But now the origins of the practice seem to have been
blurred. It is claimed that any resemblance between
5 Ganguro and American minstrelsy is entirely 60
coincidental. The local discourse claims that it emerged
out of southern California surfer culture where a tan was
a mark of a happiness; the deeper the tan, the deeper the
happiness – hence, blackface (pure happiness). Nina’s
10 video ends appropriately with the ambiguity 65
surrounding the practice of blackface in Japan.
NOTE
FIGURE 28. Ganguro.
[1] This six-week session was sponsored by Temple’s
15 70
International Studies Office located on the Main Campus
in Philadelphia. Started 25 years ago as the Japan Campus
of Temple University, the school offers undergraduate and
E-COLOUR graduate degrees. TUJ is the only American university
FIGURE recognized as such by the Japanese government. The
20 school supports four summer workshops as well as a full- 75
length, 11-week summer semester; our Japanese Visual
Culture programme is one such workshop.
25 80
Home truths: Gender, domestic objects and everyday

life
by Sarah Pink
Oxford, New York: Berg, 2004, 192 pages
30 85
ISBN: 1859736912 Price: $25.95
Review by Lisa Jane Hardy, Temple University
FIGURE 29. African Interview.

In Home Truths: Gender, Domestic Objects and Everyday
35
Life Sarah Pink brings readers into participant 90
perceptions of the sometimes sticky and other times
E-COLOUR dusty corners of attics, kitchens, bathrooms and private
FIGURE spaces of the home as she explores sensory experiences
of cleanliness and everyday performances of gender.
40 Pink also delves into the equally sticky and challenging 95
terrain between ‘pure’ academic anthropology and client
driven ‘applied’ ethnographic research and analysis.
Home Truths emerged out of Pink’s desire to bring the
results of a Unilever-funded study into the realm of
45 academically salient ethnography by situating it within 100
current social science literature. Through an analysis of
participant practices and research methods, and a
discussion of anthropological debates, Pink lends
transparency to ethnographic methods and analysis, and
50 offers suggestions to the role of visual anthropologists. 105
Pink suggests opportunities for cross-fertilization
FIGURE 30. Tan Japanese Girl. between non-academic and academic research and offers

314 Reviews
0 Home Truths as an example of a monograph that is, understanding the multilayered background knowledge 55
‘informed by, but unfettered with, theory’ (22). and data that inform ethnographic research when it is
undertaken by a social scientist. This work serves as an
Pink’s descriptions of the sensory observations of example that may further debunk the all-too-common
participants in Spain and England, along with her client idea that ethnographic research is composed of a
5 analysis of gender performativity, add to ethnographic few questions, a video camera and an observation or 60
examples on home. For example, she offers an two. Pink illuminates how underlying contextual
examination of aural, tactile, olfactory and visual understanding and literature on method and theory are
experiences of cleanliness and décor. Pink suggests integral to effective ethnography.
that participants perform and contest gender in the
10 kitchen and other spaces within their homes: spaces On the academic side, however, while Pink offers an 65
that ultimately serve as sites for the circulation of important example of how theoretical frameworks can
ideologies of gender. Everyday activities lead to a influence client-driven research, this work does not
‘ritualization’ of gender, which, she suggests, fully bridge the gap between academic and client-
sometimes serves as resistance to hegemonic gender driven anthropology as I hoped it would. Throughout
15 ideologies and creative self-expression and agency. She the work I cannot help but hear the echo of social 70
discusses how the notion of ‘housewife’ is symbolic in scientists located in what Pink describes as the ‘pure’
different ways, and how personal behaviours reflect side of anthropology asking questions of the
that notion in illustrative ways. Her work draws on complexities of identity. These are the very same
Paul Stoller’s Taste of Ethnographic Things (1989) and questions that clients (like those at Unilever) have
20 Sensuous Scholarship (1997) as she brings culturally neither time nor interest, but which academics < 75
grounded attention to her analysis of pluri-sensory determine to be vital and grounding dimensions of
experience. ethnographic research. It appears to me that this and
future work would benefit from a more thorough
While Pink situates her work within visual analysis and de-familiarization of ‘gender’ itself and the
25
anthropology, she is careful to identify visual research ‘modern western home’, as well as a more deeply 80
and visual experience as one dimension among others, rooted analysis of local connections as well as political
downplaying a scholarly inclination to privilege the and economic contexts for the ‘home’. Though Pink
visual. For instance, while Pink videotapes her nods to race, ethnicity and class as important structural
interviews, she also pays particular attention to and personal markers of identity, an investigation of
30 participant descriptions of smells, textures and other these would strengthen the link between Pink’s 85
sensory experiences. In this vein her research considers consulting work and more academic literature. I
the ways in which people see and understand sight – wonder how this or future work would look should
who ‘sees’ dirt, for example – as well as other senses, Pink and others apply such skillful illumination of the
allowing participants to lead her into their own complexity of local identity, including nation state
35 personal experiences of space. In addition, Pink ideologies, ethnic identities, class formation and 90
suggests that visual anthropologists locate the visual notions of sexuality (particularly homosexuality, which
both as a method and as an object of study. A major is absent from this text), in relation to ‘housewives’ in
strength in this work is the descriptive detail that Pink the same way that Home Truths discusses method and
brings to her analysis of the home as she explores how participant experience. Such analyses might provide a
40 textures and smells interact with identity and gender further bridge for a work such as this, one that seeks to 95
ideologies. Pink tucks fascinating examples of tactile cross the chasm between the two sides, giving light to
and sensory aspects of cleanliness and atmosphere the dust, dirt and grime that litter the scary place in
inside the house into the text, such as a description of between.
a woman with horses who allows for a cyclical
45 revolution of straw in her house in order, Pink Still, Pink’s reminder that senses are ‘pluri-sensory’ and 100
suggests, to resist a sense of ‘domestication’. that textures, sounds and smells are often just as
important as, or sometimes more important than, sight,
Home Truths will be most useful to those interested in deepens ethnographic analysis of participant experiences
adding direction to their inductive, visual research of the home. This book offers a direction for visual
50
methods for rapid research projects while including the anthropologists either within or outside university 105
senses in their research design. This work might also be research settings, widening the lens and increasing the
informative for clients who are interested in places where inductive research may go.

Reviews 315
0 REFERENCES communities and reflect its unglamorous ordinariness. 55

Many of the photographs are descriptive, with captions
Stoller, Paul, 1989. Taste of ethnographic things: The senses in
explaining who is in the picture and the significance of
anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press. what they are doing.
———. 1997. Sensuous scholarship. Philadelphia: University of
5 The photo-essays and personal stories are given equal 60
Pennsylvania Press.
status in the book. Both the photographs and the stories
could stand alone, but there is synergy from combining
them together. In effect the book is saying, ‘Look at my
world, listen to my story, this is what has happened to
Communities without borders: Images and voices from
?@
10 the world of migration me.’ The problem, though, given the low-key everyday 65
by David Bacon, with forewords by Carlos Muñoz Jr and approach to the subject, is that nothing really stands out.
Douglas Harper In one sense this is fine and honest because migrant life
ILR Press/Cornell Paperbacks, 2006, 235 pages is mostly hardship with little drama. But perhaps there
ISBN: 978-0-8014-7307-4 are too many stories and photographs for the reader to
15 Review by Rod Purcell, University of Glasgow deal with. By the end of the book we have consumed too 70
much detail for us to be able see the issues as clearly as
This is an ambitious book in terms of both the subject we might wish.
matter and the combining of photojournalism with oral The value of this book is that it takes a global issue and
history. David Bacon has followed the migration route both makes some of the people affected by it visible and
20 from Guatemala through Mexico to the USA. This 75
gives them a voice. In doing so it helps to shift and
process of migration has created new transnational humanise the debate about migration, from simply one
communities, informal support networks and of policy responding to faceless numbers of people, to a
organisations linked to economic and social issues. consideration of individuals, families and communities.
Whilst the book is focused on these communities, it also In doing so, David Bacon has produced an important
25 mirrors to some extent the experience of migrant 80
and recommended piece of work.
workers in Africa, Asia and Europe. The book explores
these processes through interviews with the migrants More of David Bacon’s work is available through his
themselves, photographs of everyday life and individual website: http://dbacon.igc.org/IndexPS/news.htm;
portraits. INTERNET.
30 85
The book is split into four sections, each introduced by a
REFERENCE
photo-essay and followed by personal narratives and
portraits of migrant workers. The first section, Salgado, Sebastiao. 2000. Migrations: Humanity in transition.
‘Globalizing Farm Labor’, focuses on indigenous people New York: Aperture.
35 from Oaxaca and their journey through Mexico to 90
California onwards. ‘Transforming Nebraska’ explores
Guatemalan and Mexican meatpackers; ‘Miners and
Mayos’ is concerned with gold- and copper-mining Maquilopolis (city of factories)
towns in northern Sonora; and finally, ‘Braceros and http://www.maquilopolis.com/; INTERNET
40 Guest Workers’ considers the current debate around a Produced and directed by Vicky Funari and Sergio De 95
possible amnesty or guest worker status for migrants. La Torre
California Newsreel, 2006, 68 minutes, Spanish with
Overall there are 104 black-and-white photographs in
English subtitles/English with Spanish subtitles.
the photo-essays and 56 individual stories.
Review by Stephen J. Sills, University of North Carolina
In visual terms, the challenge faced by Bacon is the Greensboro
45 100
inevitable comparison with Sebastiao Salgado’s book
and globally toured exhibition on migration. Salgado Globalization has been blamed for many of our current
produced an epic and some would say romanticised social problems: environmental degradation,
view of global migration. Salgado’s images attack the marginalization of women and children, global
50 emotions and are hard to forget. In contrast, Bacon’s stratification and continued disenfranchisement of the 105
photographs are smaller scale and more intimate. His working class. Many of these problems are attributable
photographs illustrate day-to-day activity in migrant to a shift in the economic structure brought upon by

316 Reviews
0 Neoliberal reforms. Production in the Neoliberal global other workers unite to confront Sanyo through the 55
economy has changed dramatically since the mid- Labor Arbitration Board to obtain their unpaid
twentieth century, when most international trade was severance. Lourdes participates in the formation of the
linked to manufacturing needs of core countries. Collectiva Chilpancingo to challenge Metales y Derivados,
Natural resources were shipped from low-income an abandoned battery reclamation factory (owned by the
5 countries in the global South to the industrialized North San Diego firm New Frontier Trading Corporation). 60
where they were made into finished products. This trade Lead, acid and other containments have been found to
model has all but disappeared in today’s post-industrial be seeping out of the factory and into the groundwater
global division of labour. Today companies favour used by the residents of Chilpancingo. Through protests
outsourcing their manufacturing to assembly plants in at the PROFEPA offices (Procuraduría Federal de
10 low-cost labour markets. This has led to the creation of Protección al Ambiente or Federal Ministry for 65
Export Processing Zones (EPZs) where factories import Environmental Protection) and a binational media
raw materials and produce finished goods for export campaign, they are successful in convincing the US EPA
without tariffs, thus reducing costs and increasing and the Mexican PROFEPA to engage in a clean-up of
profits for transnational corporations like Sanyo, Sony the site.
15 and Panasonic. In the last twenty years there has been a 70
dramatic increase in the number of EPZs. According to The greater part of the film is a series of video diaries
the United Nations International Labour Organization and interviews conducted by Carmen, Lourdes and
(2007) there were over 2700 EPZs in 116 countries other members of the collective. These auto-
employing more than 63 million people (http:// ethnographic accounts are interwoven with background
20 www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/sector/themes/epz/ information on the maquilas and artistically shot video 75
stats.htm).The majority of those employed in the EPZs montage interludes (no doubt influenced by Sergio De
are in China, Bangladesh and in the maquiladoras La Torre’s background in performance art). The film’s
(export assembly plants) along the US/Mexican border. website (www.maquilapolis.com) provides the back-
story on the process of working with several non-profit
25 Maquilapolis is a film by Vicky Funari and Sergio De La environmental and women’s rights groups to train the 80
Torre. I first became aware of Vicky Funari’s work at the women to document their story.
2001 Pacific Sociological Association showing of Live
Nude Girls Unite! (2000), a film she co-directed and I have shown Maquilapolis to a third-year undergraduate
edited on the unionization of exotic dancers at a strip course on Globalization. The film could easily be used in
30 club in San Francisco. Like Live Nude Girls Unite!, the other social science and humanities courses to discuss 85
focus of Maquiloplis is on the everyday lives of women social movements and collective action, gender and
and their efforts to combat marginalization and globalization, poverty, the environment, labour rights,
exploitation through collective action. The documentary global economics or development. While the 68-minute
is set in a Tijuana squatters’ camp called Chilpancingo film leaves little time for discussion in some class
35 located in a gulch just below the factories. It describes formats, students were engaged and curious to learn 90
the economic, social and environmental impact of these more. One student noted, ‘I thought the use of personal
assembly plants on the residents of Chilpancingo. The life narratives in the film helped connect the audience
difficult, repetitive and labour-intensive work within the with life in the Maquilas.’ However, several students
factories is shown, as well as the hazardous conditions noted that the artistic montage sequences felt overly
40 outside where air pollution and water contamination manufactured and took away from the reality of the 95
threaten the residents of the areas surrounding the workers’ situations as well as slowing the pace of the
factories. film.
The film follows two women, Carmen and Lourdes, as While less focused on the macro-structural issues that
45 they fight for economic and environmental justice. We create situations of global injustice and environmental 100
learn that in the global ‘race for the bottom’ many ruin, the film fits well with other anti-globalization/
workers in the maquilas have been abandoned as labour rights films like: Life and Debt; No Logo: Brands,
factories move to even cheaper labour markets in Globalization & Resistance; and Maquila: A Tale of Two
Southeast Asia. Carmen was employed by Sanyo until Mexicos. Maquilapolis is engaging and informative,
50 the company moved its operations to Indonesia, leaving focusing on the human impact of complex international 105
her not only unemployed but without the legally economic relations and the manufacturing zone at the
required severance pay. The film follows her as she and US/Mexico border.

Reviews 317
0 Snapshot chronicles: Inventing the American family reportage, the vernacular photo albums…[here] are sites 55
album where art, culture, history, and private life intersect’
by Barbara Levine and Stephanie Snyder (Snyder, 25). She stresses women’s efforts and
New York: Princeton Architectural Press and Reed responsibilities, and the female-created albums featured
College, 2006, 192 pages, 576 illustrations in this book. She reminds readers of certain antecedents
5 ISBN: 1-56898-557-6 (hardback) $40.00 60
of vernacular photo albums and forerunners to album
Review by Richard Chalfen, Center on Media and Child
essence and structure – namely, signature books,
Health
remembrance books, scrapbooks, folk art and home art,
more often than not the province of women.
Levine and Snyder have produced an attractive, soft
10 green velvet-covered book, comprising four short essays In the book’s middle and largest section, entitled ‘An 65
accompanied by many pages of images, mostly black and Album of Albums’ (34–169), we view a sequence of
white but sometimes amber tinted and sometimes irregularly captioned album covers and individual
captioned as part of ‘Albums made between 1890 and pages, often exerting an informal model of narrative
1930…[that] are the first generation of photographic analysis. The pages offer many demonstrations,
15 storytelling – evidence that you don’t need machinery to including ways that photographs have been used as raw 70
think inventively’ (20). The book resulted from an materials for explorations in pattern and decoration
exhibition at the Douglas R. Cooley Memorial Art (40), as collages of individual pictures or specially cut
Gallery at Reed College. It has been designed as shapes of pictures, ‘cut and shaped with exact precision
seemingly a visual echo of the album pages contained to fit one another’ (97); we also see the intentional use
20 within. Their stated objective is to enhance an of negative space, the arrangements of small 75
understanding of albums as ‘social history, narrative photographs to form letters/words or numbers (see ‘24’
complexity, and material richness of vernacular photo on p. 53), elaborate and sometimes cleverly humorous
albums’ (13); ‘I’m interested in these albums as objects, captioning and inscriptions, still-life compositions and
as visual explorations, as storytelling, and as visual interior views that ‘mirror fine art conventions’ (68), a
25 concepts . . .’ (none of which are defined . . .). Readers ‘detailed, layered visual narrative’, picture arrangements 80
are presented with an interesting interface of collector, to show movement over time, among others. Readers
museum and academic approaches to vernacular may want to ask if these albums, full of image
photography, even with a commercial touch as Levine juxtapositions that create ‘moody, painterly, and
mentions selling her collection via a website. almost surreal page constructions’ (Snyder, 37) were
30 very common. 85
In curator Barbara Levine’s first essay, ‘Collecting Photo
Albums – Musing On’, we see her primary interest in The third essay, by Matthew Stadler, offers an analytic
album-makers, and less with the actual content of frame with specific reference to textual strategies found
individual images or the photographers. She says she in novels by Marcel Proust and the pictorial content and
35 looked for albums where shape of ‘the Logger Album’ (c.1900 as presented on 90
pages 97–109) linking Proust’s ‘habits of mind to the
the voice of the maker is palpable. I looked for dynamics of the snapshot album’ (174). Stadler gives
albums that contain compelling photographs
readers a stimulating and provocative attempt to
and interesting subject matter. Sometimes. You
compare and contrast verbal and visual narratives as
are not sure if you are looking through the eyes
40 of the maker, the camera, or both. But what is related modes of representation. In the fourth essay, 95
most important is what the person did with the Terry Toedtemeier discusses origins of the snapshot as
photographs…[W]hat I consider to be ‘photography’s love child’ (183).
distinctive about my collection is the presence
and expression of the unconventional On the critical side, we spot an important conceptual
45 imaginative voice. (19, emphasis in the error possibly derived from hyperbolic demands of the 100
original) text, as when the author says: ‘These outstanding
examples [of photograph albums]…construct
In the second, more scholarly essay, ‘The Vernacular biographical picture stories that speak as passionately to
Photo Album: Its Origins and Genius’ by Stephanie us today as they did to their creators so many years ago’
50 Snyder, Director and Chief Curator of the Douglas F. (35). Given the unlikely case that pictures can speak, it 105
Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, we read, ‘Equal parts may be far more interesting to compare the kinds of
visual diary, lay ethnography, family history, and meaning we afford these visual examples today as

318 Reviews
0 compared with the significance we infer from their endless possibilities for modeling space. Yet, most cyber- 55
original constructions. architects eventually work with urban planners to
actualize their ideas in built form. This requires
Much of the written commentary is not new to
differentiation: structural adaptation of some aspects of
interested scholars; additional references to past studies
the original design. Munster strips the exaggerated linear
5 would have been beneficial. The general objectives are 60
relationship between computers and humans of its
not centred on a search for normative behaviour; rather,
apocalyptic tone by citing examples of interactions
the emphasis is placed on these extraordinarily
between the virtual and the actual world. Throughout
interesting examples of album construction and the
the book she engages similar continuums between the
afforded status of an emergent folk art. But little is said
limits and possibilities of digital media, which will
10 of underlying principles of communication. While we 65
frustrate readers looking for respite in essentialist
read of gender significance, very little attention is given
arguments.
to other social variables such as ethnicity and social
class; the intricacy of social variables that are responsible Chapter 2, titled ‘Natural History and Digital History’,
for this genre of expression and representation is focuses on dynamic baroque aesthetics. Munster shows
15 overlooked. how the art of natural history collections re-emerges in 70
the marvels of information aesthetics. Both intersect
Many readers will marvel at the creativity and detailed
natural and artificial objects (artificial life/intelligence
work seen on these album pages. The authors introduce
projects an example par excellence). Both also rely on
a valuable subtext on human needs for inscription
encyclopaedic qualities such as cross-posting and
provoking additional speculation on social and cultural
20 networking information. Relational databases, for 75
context as they add parenthetical significance to
example, represent modern-day curiosity cabinets. The
recognizing connections between early ‘ideas of self-
labyrinthine qualities of baroque and digital spaces
expression in their fledgling state’ to current examples
similarly engage viewers. However, information
found with digital technology and current blog activities
aesthetics aim to increase the visibility of objects by
(173). Levine and Snyder have provided us with a
25 cataloguing them. Information and baroque aesthetics 80
handsome book containing problematic insights for the
differ in that the former privileges access and connection
next round of visual analysis.
speeds over perusing oddities and obscurities.
New media artists work in virtual reality, animation and

Materializing new media: Embodiment in information
30 high-tech digital and audio imaging. They create sensory 85
aesthetics
experiences with computers. The second half of the book
by Anna Munster
Hanover, NH and London/University Press of New uses new media (and sometimes entertainment and
England, 2006, 238pages research applications of virtual environments) to take on
ISBN: 1-58465-557-7 (cloth). Price: $65.00 multiple issues of embodiment. Three in all, they pertain
35 ISBN: 1-58465-558-5 (paper). Price: $24.95 respectively to virtuality, interfaciality and digitality. 90
Review by Jason Whitesel, The Ohio State University Chapter 4, titled ‘Interfaciality: From the Friendly Face
of Computing to the Alien Terrain of Informatic
Anna Munster critically reflects on the interface between Bodies’, focuses exclusively on experimental art forms.
the body and the aesthetics and ethics of a digital They range anywhere from cybernetic body art, to
40 society. At a conference in the mid-90s, she observed artwork that incorporates medical imaging, to 95
techies celebrating technology’s ability to transcend the technological grafts and prosthetics used in transhuman
body, and academics and artists who saw its pervasive performance art.
influence as enslavement. Struck by this
The title of Chapter 5, ‘Digitality: An Ethico-Aesthetic
misunderstanding about what it means to live in a
45 Paradigm for Information’, echoes the anti-reductionist
digital age, she aims to disrupt dichotomous notions of 100
philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari that Munster’s book
the body and technology. Through her experiences with
begins with, using examples of artistic experiments in
the computer-aided artistic movements, Munster
distributed aesthetics. This refers to media that exists as
explores the possibilities of differential embodiment.
common property. Through computer technology, users
50 Munster concludes her first chapter, titled ‘Sampling can share and reuse this material in more than one place 105
and Folding: The Digital and the Baroque’, with her first and time. In the language of Deleuze and Guattari, such
case study: computer-aided design. Computers offer media creatively resists homogenized culture. Discussion

Reviews 319
0 of mashed-up audio recordings, for example, illustrates they argue, includes a seemingly unending succession of 55
Munster’s argument that digital media art forms horrific, traumatic events. Modernity, with its
represent mixing and folding, where discordant aspirations to rational progress, has instead offered
elements come in close proximity to one another, yet numerous failures which have necessitated a history of
retain some of their original properties. visual representation that is specific to modernism.
5 60
Readers interested in critical visual studies that This juncture between representation, events and ideals
emphasize the body will benefit from the author’s parallels notions of trauma as a psychic injury. The term
focus on contemporary visual experiences from the trauma is used to refer to experiences that overwhelm
unique vantage point of the Neo-Baroque. This book the senses and negate efforts to make sense of what is
10 looks at materiality, spatiality, temporality and occurring. Indeed, traumatic events are those beyond 65
visibility as characteristics in the framing of digital narration, beyond meaning and beyond explanation.
media, which moves beyond orthodox, photo-centric Such events are experienced in a pre-verbal context that
forms of visual inquiry. It would be difficult to maintains the primacy of the event and thus, argue
visualize the interactive digital art from the book’s Saltzman and Rosenberg, retain the centrality of the
15 black-and-white photographs and screenshots. It is visual – of images that deny full expression and offer 70
only through Munster’s vivid descriptions of what only mediation and negotiation of the event’s
these artists do that new media materializes. However, unrepresentability.
one need not be a digital media scholar to learn from
In contrast to modernist art, the editors offer the
this exciting, cutting-edge approach to contemporary
immediacy and repetitious representations of 9/11 as
20 visual culture. 75
marking a new kind of relation between event and its
expression. Technology now allows for instantaneously
Trauma and visuality in modernity sharing images of events that foreclose traditional
edited by Lisa Saltzman and Eric Rosenberg belatedness and reflection in constructing expressions.
Lebanon, NH: University of New England Press, 2006, The cultural and social experience of 9/11 ‘collapsed the
25 80
282 pages difference between event and representation, implying
ISBN: 1-58465-516-X, paper. Price: $29.95 the evisceration of adaptation to the circumstances of
ISBN: 1-58465-515-1, cloth. Price: $75.00 trauma by way of the very visual culture that accounted
Review by Tracy Xavia Karner, University of Houston for it in the first place’ (272). This loss of deferral and
the immediacy of representation moves witnesses into
30 85
This intriguing collection takes a new perspective from the realm of victims – experiencing the event as it occurs
which to explore the roles of visuality, art and with the primacy of the shared image. Thus, any psychic
modernity. Trauma and its representations become the space for negotiation, mediation, reflection is denied
organizing principles for Saltzman and Rosenberg in this and the role available for artistic expression has shifted
collection of ten contributed essays bracketed by their into the broader, collective need for commemoration.
35 90
introduction and epilogue. The essays are organized by This volume, the first to address trauma so directly in
artistic medium (Image, Monument, Performance and terms of art and modernity, will clearly become a core
Installation, Film and Historiography) to enhance the text for those cultural analysts exploring artistic
focus on the visual forms, particular to modernity, in expressions of trauma. Visual Studies readers from other
40 which traumatic representations are made manifest. backgrounds may not find the work so central – though 95
Each manuscript attempts to work through a specific it offers interesting discussions of the relationship
artistic expression in the context of theorizing cultural between the object and representation that is the core of
trauma. all reflexive, informed visual work, making it of general
Saltzman and Rosenberg propose the centrality of interest to all visualists.
45 100
visualizations of trauma to an understanding of
modernity. Visual representations, whether film,
Pin-up grrrls: Feminism, sexuality, popular culture
photographs, paintings or performance pieces, hinge
by Maria Elena Buszek
upon the role of the visual object as mediation between Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2006,
50
the historical event and its expression – an expression 464 pages, 103 photographs (9 in colour) 105
that can bear witness to a traumatic event, yet can only ISBN: 0-8223-3746-0 trade paperback. Price: $24.95
account for it imperfectly or partially. Modern history, Review by Simon Lindgren, Umeå University, Sweden

320 Reviews
0 Reading Pin-Up Grrrls reminds me of a key argument in and Jameson is something different from ‘pin-up 55
Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990, 179): ‘Gender culture’. Hard-core pornography rather represents the
ought not to be construed as a stable identity or locus of form of sexualized representations ‘used to limit
agency from which various acts follow.’ In this spirit women’s growth and opportunities’ (13). But where do
Buszek questions that pin-ups are simply expressions of we draw the line? Sometimes the male heterosexual hand
5 oppressive powers constructing the female body as an controls, sometimes it does not. Instead of fixed 60
object of male desire. Butler (1990) continues: ‘gender is identities, Butler talks about ‘socially constituted
produced through the stylization of the body and, subjects in specifiable contexts’. Buszek’s argument
hence, must be understood as the mundane way in would gain from a clearer distinction between the type
which bodily gestures, movements and styles of various of contexts which allow for ‘resignification’ and those
10 kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self’. that do not. 65
Buszek obviously works on these premises. She claims
that pin-ups are visual, stylized expressions (Butler REFERENCES
would call them ‘acts’) which may appear objectifying
but still have the potential of miming, reworking and Buszek, M. E. 2006. Pin-up grrrls: Feminism, sexuality, popular
15 culture. Durham, NC & London: Duke University Press. 70
resignifying ‘the signs and stability of specifically female
Butler, J. 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of
sexual ideals’ (12).
identity. London: Routledge.
Buszek’s ambitious enterprise is to investigate the Jameson, J., and Neil Strauss. 2004. How to make love like a
cultural and art history of the pin-up, from its inception porn star: A cautionary tale. New York: Regan Books.
in the 1860s up until today. Referring to a collection of Lords, Traci. 2004. Underneath it all. New York:
20 75
HarperCollins.
over a hundred pin-up images, she manages to unravel
their visual language as well as illustrate their potential
for bridging the culturally constructed divide between
Color monitors: The black face of technology in
feminism and sexuality. Convincingly she puts across America
25 the idea that the pin-up has often presented women by Martin Kevorkian 80
‘with models for expressing and finding pleasure in their Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006, 224 pages
sexual subjectivity’ (12). Even though created, and ISBN: 10: 0801472784
recreated throughout its history, as a visual fantasy ISBN: 13: 978-0801472787 Price: $17.95
aimed to satisfy the male gaze, the pin-up has – Buszek Review by David A. M. Goldberg, University of Hawai’i
30 states – always had its revenge by finding ‘ways to reject 85
this role to reflect and encourage the erotic self- Readers of Martin Kevorkian’s Color Monitors should
awareness and self-expression of real women’ (364). consider the following proposals which contextualize his
project: 1) whites fear the intensified deployment of
Pin-Up Grrrls represents a unique and impressive
systems of digital instrumentation and representation
research effort. It is well written and refreshing in its
35 (‘cyberphobia’); 2) the sum total of (un-)conscious 90
theoretical stance. However, Buszek’s perspective
white privilege and power adapts to new social
sometimes borders on the too benevolent. When she
conditions; 3) representations of human engagement
writes that ‘the hand that creates does not necessarily
with technology affect actual engagement with
= control’ (ibid.), she risks underestimating existing
technology.
40
relations of dominance as well as the persistence of the 95
male gaze. It seems as if her argument presupposes a The book is grounded by an astute (and profoundly
clear distinction between ‘hard-core’ and ‘soft-core’: The accessible) observation of a race-based narrative pattern
emancipatory powers of the pin-up stem from its subtle in many Hollywood films: black males are frequently
> ‘soft-core’/‘appropriately covert’ characteristics (cf. 11). cast in supporting roles as computer experts.1
45 But this delineation is, Buszek admits, ‘slippery’. The Kevorkian shows how their aptitudes are consistently 100
porn star biographies of Traci Lords (Lords 2004) and undermined by the unmediated approach of the white
Jenna Jameson (Jameson and Strauss 2004) may indeed hero who cannot be bothered with technicality. He
tell stories of mistreated women becoming empowered analyzes the logic of the narratives, the scripts
and rising to glory and success on their own terms – but themselves and the visual framing of black characters
50 still at the cost of rape, abuse and addiction within immobilized by injuries, white characters, the 105
confines dictated by men. Buszek would probably say technology itself and dutiful absorption in data.
that the billion-dollar porn industry exploiting Lords Kevorkian identifies the same visual logic operating in

Reviews 321
0 television, photojournalism, high-end technology I see Kevorkian’s project as a constellation of practices, 55

advertisements, the visual assets of tech-related narratives and strategies, with literary criticism
philanthropy and corporate annual reports. Here too providing the tools with which to construct his
we find white executives and benefactors in poses of cosmology. However, a constellation is a two-
freedom and agency while black technicians and dimensional flattening of vast distances – and differences
5 children are constrained by physical and perceptual – in 3D space. Though Kevorkian effectively and 60
engagement with machines. Kevorkian argues that in appropriately invokes Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison and
all of these cases, the black body is deployed to ‘absorb James Snead as theoretical touchstones, and briefly
the menace’ (24) of information technologies. discusses some non-cyberphobic (majority literature-
based) narratives, what he terms ‘cyberanalysis’ may be
10 Kevorkian situates these media in a larger model which limited to identifying symptoms. The user interfaces of 65
represents the complexity of digital capitalism as a global capitalism are expressed and sustained via black
hazardous yet resource-rich territory best understood in iPods and chocolate cell phones, at speeds that make
terms of neo-colonial relationships. This land is academic developments look geologic, while most
inhabited by ‘natives’ imaged as technically proficient Americans store a few hundred megabytes of black
15 black people who, as servants or sacrificial victims, musical labour on their hard drives, often ‘stolen’. 70
introduce a welcome narratized layer of manageable Kevorkian provides a clear and remarkably reliable
abstraction. Of course, the actual world of tech-workers constellation with which to navigate, but I fear that his
is a complex and multi-hued amalgam of people who selected instances of visual culture represent the iceberg
are building, servicing, programming and maintaining tips of cyberphobia.
20 technology in contexts that span the entire range of 75
locations, incomes and environmental conditions.
Nevertheless, in America this diversity is paved by NOTE
representations of black people and figurations of
[1] Some films include: Clarence Gilyard Jr. as Theo the black
blackness: a commercial voice synthesis system that safe-cracker in Die Hard, Joe Morton as Dr. Miles Dyson,
25 samples a famous black actor, network management bringer-of-apocalypse programmer, in Terminator 2: 80
tools called ‘Dark-o’ and ‘Black Rocket’, prison labour Judgement Day, Ving Rhames as the computer expert in
programs providing PC phone support and repairs, and the Mission Impossible franchise, Cuba Gooding Jr. as
white tech-workers who self-identify as slaves and serfs. Major Salt in Outbreak.
30 85
35 90
40 95
45 100
50 105


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0 Authors Queries 55

Journal: Visual Studies

3 Does ibid refer to the same page number—

20 4 Do you mean ‘see’? 75

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:11

taught anthropology courses in Japan, and both have

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:29

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:29

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:29

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:29

0 often ended with a karaoke party and some sharing of E-COLOUR 55

We also suggested that results of this project may be

Tokyo Subway Art Project by Michelle Kort

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:29

How do the pieces function to ‘create an atmosphere

What emerges is a film which evokes the animated spirit

FIGURE 5. Texture and Light.

35 Wooden Dragon by Sean Hamilton (2007) 90

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:30

FIGURE 6. Koto Performance. FIGURE 9. Koto Demonstration.

FIGURE 7. Koto Lesson. FIGURE 10. Koto Duet.

A new theme is introduced: a conversation about the

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:31

In this way, the film came to a musical, teaching and

The Index of the Maiko by Anabelle Rodriguez

Anabelle came to the summer 2004 programme as an

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:32

Anabelle mixes in images of racks of kimono, silk belts,

Photograph time comes at last. Anabelle is taken into

Keiko’s Shudo by Courtney Stoll (2005)

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:32

FIGURE 16. Calligraphy Demonstration. FIGURE 19. Signature.

35 outside that Courtney reinforces with transitions to 90

Courtney asks Keiko to narrate each step she takes. She

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:33

FIGURE 22. Mama-chari. FIGURE 25. Boom.

35 passive expression, but as an active, long-lasting agent. 90

40 Courtney returns to the crossroads and video images of 95

Bicycles in Japan by Naoko Wada (2007)

Naoko came to this summer’s programme as an

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:34

Naoko explores this issue in an interview with a road/

archival clip of two white men mocking black men

Then there is blackface in Japan – called Ganguro – the

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:35

0 E-COLOUR how she responds to the practice. Something still bugs 55

Home truths: Gender, domestic objects and everyday

FIGURE 29. African Interview.

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:36

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:37

0 REFERENCES communities and reflect its unglamorous ordinariness. 55

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:37

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:37

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:37

New media artists work in virtual reality, animation and

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:37

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:37

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:37

0 television, photojournalism, high-end technology I see Kevorkian’s project as a constellation of practices, 55

Visual Studies vst131994.3d 27/9/07 17:58:38

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