From ABC:
Can you tell the difference between the picture on the left and the picture on the right? In the photo on the left, look at the middle, far-left side. A smiling black face was inserted into the crowd to create the appearance of diversity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Ostensibly this was a quick solve via quick manipulation of a digital image.
But it’s interesting to dig a little deeper and contextualize the the disembodied head of the black guy.
Bell Hooks runs interference:
…Hal Foster contends, “Difference is thus used productively; indeed, in a social order which seems to know no outside (and which must contrive its own transgressions to redefine its limits), difference is often fabricated in the interests of social control as well as of commodity innovation.”…
When the dominant culture demands that the Other be offered as sign that progressive political change is taking place, that the American Dream can indeed be inclusive of difference, it invites a resurgence of essentialist cultural nationalism. The acknowledged Other must assume recognizable forms.
While it takes no critical thought to manipulate the images of minorities for a color spread to promote an institution, it takes a lot of critical thought to examine the underlying semiology of racial politics in America.
I am hoping the transhuman logic of the digital age doesn’t represent an escape from the latter.
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I do think the logic of digital culture is already claiming the human body as a victim.
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