Scientific Looking, Looking at Science

This chapter dealt with a completely different side of visual studies than we have looked at until now. Where as we had always talked about interpreting images from our own experiences and points of view, it would seem that one would be unable to draw any conclusion but the "correct" one when looking at cases of scientific visuals. I thought it was interesting how science and anatomy used to be such a spectacle, being made open to the public and viewed like a performance in a theater. On the other hand, some art was too chocking and graphic and was rejected during its time period, like we saw with Portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross.
This also dealt with the invention of the camera as the modern principle of an eternal truth. The camera can't lie or interpret in and of itself, and so anything that is captured by this technology must be "true." Photographs are used as evidence to prove points. People often leave disposable cameras in their car just in case they get into an accident and must document the scene and the damage. Photographs are also used for cataloguing and showing the evolution or time elapsed via visual images. Also, as we saw in Principal Varieties of Mankind, it isn't even just the depiction itself but the composition as well. By placing Europeans in the center, a larger political statement was made about the way we categorize people.
I remember last year there was a big display outside of the student union about abortion including very graphic images. The point is made by pro-lifers that it is shocking and graphic and inhumane and that is what they are trying to prove. It is human anatomy, they are not making any of it up. But again, we know from studying visual communication that a picture is never just an image. The way they were presented on huge posters in an area that many students had to walk through to get from their dorms to their classrooms, and the way that the presenters stood around the images all made for a very biased presentation, even though only "truthful" photographs were used. Intimidation tactics were evoked to send a certain message.
As technology expands, our place in "truth" amongst all of the images we can be exposed to is likely to get lost. Between DNA imaging, digital body visuals, medication and pharmaceuticals... we will never stop developing technology and visuals to go along with it. I think of the Bodies exhibit where you walk through and look at actual human bodies in all different forms, and then at the end can even sign up to have your body donated to science. It's something that will keep developing until a line has to be drawn somewhere.