Barnard claims that there are two intellectual traditions from which stem all understanding [of visual culture]: the “structural tradition” (fairly self-explanatory) and the “hermeneutic tradition” (understanding and meaning as the business of individuals.) I’m wondering if anyone else finds this dichotomy bizarre or troubling in any way. While I certainly won’t argue with Barnard that these may be two of the most fundamental foundations for understanding [visual culture] I feel uneasy accepting these as the only two – especially since hermeneutic seems like a bit of a cop-out to me. After all, some structural interpretation is certainly subjective to personal perspective; but then again, Barnard even specifically cites that there is overlap, methods that inhabit both traditions.
I guess my problem is that he is saying we either understand because of the structures inherent [in visual culture] or because how we as individuals bring our unique perspectives to our perceptions and understanding of cultural norms and artefacts. Now, I’m as much an interpretivist as the next girl, but is Barnard suggesting that there is no discovery way of knowing, no real “Truth” that can be known? Where does Barnard draw the line between “knowing” and “understanding?” Can we truly ever “know” what visual culture means? In that case, as scholars, how do we reconcile the need for a class such as this, for an “understanding” or interaction culture, when there is no real truth?
I don’t have answers for all of these questions, but I think they open the door to some potentially interesting questions…
***I forgot to update my post last night, but I realized after completing the second (Cross) reading for this class that I had read the incorrect Barnard for today. By the time I realized this and rectified that reading snafu, I had forgotten about coming and updating my blog post to be more relevant. Sorry! 
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January 30, 2012 at 3:32 pm
colinmgray
Interesting thoughts…I can understand your initial hesitation with the two intellectual traditions of criticism. Much as I was uncomfortable with seeing design as an intellectual tradition in its own right apart from science. But looking at these two categories, I can’t think of an example that would be squarely outside of these categories. There are many aspects of a piece that might overlap, like in our reading about Van Gogh’s studio painting: the colors can be analyzed from a purely structuralist/formalist perspective, where you could analyze dominant color themes, saturations, and hues, including their incidence in the painting. A hermeneutic approach builds on this formalist understanding to include potential psychoanalytic rationale for these color choices, or other interpretive reasons for these choices.
I also understand the lack of comfort regarding a lack of Truth about a specific artifact. But I don’t think you can ever join an individual’s experience of an artifact fully to that artifact…in doing so, you violate the agency of the individual and miss out on cultural and societal changes that slowly introduce new readings of a work.
January 30, 2012 at 3:56 pm
jeffreybardzell
Great question Shannon and great reply Colin.
I think the structuralist/hermeneutic distinction really hinges on whether your reading is foregrounding impersonal considerations (mainly its qualities as an expression of a “language”–including a vocabulary and grammar–that is external to all of us) or subjective considerations (including intentions, experiences, feelings, reactions, and the individual act of sensemaking).
If I interpret a dress with reference to the way its forms and materials reference the countercultural movement of the 1960s and women’s liberation while also hinting at 21st-century globalization via references to developing world colors, I am offering a structuralist account. These references and their meanings are, in an important sense, external to me. (The women’s liberation movement and Indian or African or Chinese ethnical styles all exist independent of me, and to point out how a dress references them is primarily independent of me.)
If I interpret the same dress by trying to understand the aesthetic signature of its designer, or if I try to imagine whether it might make a good gift for my wife or mother-in-law, wondering what it might say about me and my relationship to her if I get it, then I am operating in a more hermeneutic space.
Of course, it is possible to blend these two approaches. I might anticipate that a given woman would like this dress because I’ve seen her favor this visual language in her dressing habits.
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Finally, the question of “truth” goes back to that issue of overdetermination. It’s not that we never access truth; it’s rather that we can access any number of truths that all have their own legitimacy. Moreover, as Colin notes, times change and so the meanings and truths of works change with them. Whatever else we might say about Triumph of the Will, it clearly means something different today than it did in the 1930s. Did the Nazis understand it more “truthfully” than we do? That seems like an impossible question to answer.
January 30, 2012 at 4:02 pm
jeffreybardzell
Also, please categorize this post! Nag! Nag!