Schrodinger Cat is a famous illustration of the principle in quantum theory of superposition proposed by Erwin Schrodinger in 1935. The cat serves to demonstrate the apparent conflict between what quantum theory tells us what is true about the nature and behaviour of matter on the microscope level and what we observe with the unaided human eye. Put a cat in a box with a small flask of poison and a radioactive source (sealed). If the internal monitor detects the radioactivity the flask is shattered releasing the poison that kill the cat. The idea being that according to the laws of quantum physics the cat is both alive and dead because until it is perceived both scenarios are simultaneously true.
The gaze
Reflections - Bruno Zabagglio
This was commissioned by a group called `Branch` for the cover of a CD Reflections is a stunning painting of colour and gesso at first it is the explosion of colour and texture that pulls you in. An organic Rorschach that makes you want to both define its patterns and yet not dare to do so. As with any great painting, photographs are pale representations of the original you must be in its presence up close and personal to fully appreciate its impact.
The gaze decides the relationship of the subject with the desire to look and the awareness that one can be viewed.
In Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood' Little Red is an object of desire for the wolf and Droopy Dog a prize to be won, and curves to be admired. In many comics and cartoons woman are introduced as isolated body parts rather than characters.
A Quote from Jacques Lacan I can feel myself under the gaze of someone whose eyes I do not see, nor even discern. All that is necessary is for something to signify to me that there are others there. This window (which we all have) of it gets dark and if I have reasons for thinking that there is someone behind it, it is straight away a gaze.
In the song by Sisters of Mercy these lyrics appear " I don't exist when you don't see me' so does this mean that the external gaze makes the singer real (Schroeder's experiment)? Does this tie in with Lacan suggesting that the gaze is not what we do to an object but the means by which the object impinges on our consciousness, an object not of ourselves. The act of photographing people has made them act in a way for the camera - perhaps with instructions from the photographer so the act is not of the photographed but the photographer.
Chiara Aime born in Italy 1991 self taught - depiction of the human face - these faces seems to be modelled pictorially speaking - paying attention to the areas such as the eyes, expression of the soul, individual
The Ambassadors bu Hans Holbein the younger
The painting contains an optical illusion that seems out of place in it, relatively mundane subject matter. If we stand in a particular spot in relation to the painting we see what appears to be a vague sliver instead this becomes a skull. This skull is waiting inside the painting to catch our gaze and throw it back at us. This reminds us of our own status as potential objects and for our mortality.
The spectator gaze - gaze of a viewer at an image, this being the most common form of gaze. You look at me,can also see you looking at others.
Intra-diegetic gaze - this is a gaze of one depicted person at other with the image i.e. Degaz Le Vol (the Rape)
This gaze is intra-diegetic the characters in the image that gazes at the subject (the young girl) may feel disgusted and upset by the image- but do not really feel any guilt. We are not the perpetrators of the assault.
Extra - diegetic gaze this is the direct address to the viewer the gaze of a person in an image looking out as in job of a newsreader.
Inter- diegetic gaze - defers our guilt someone else is hurting that person (or has) which makes us feel guilty
Different forms of the gaze evoke different structures of power. Cinema, adverts, computer games thrive on contradictions. Psychoanalysis seek to evaluate and identify the architecture and symptoms of the gaze
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