从阅读到观览:图像时代的文化接受与主体问题

From Reading to Viewing:Cultural Reception and the Question of Agency in the Image Era

我们生活在一个由现代技术支撑的图像时代,随着印刷复制技术、现代影像与传媒技术的发展,图像成为越来越广泛的文化信息载体。从文化接受的角度看,一种以文字为核心的“阅读”接受形式正在向以图像为核心的“观览”接受形式转换。在图像时代,人们倾向于用图像化主导的观览形式来进行文化接受和交流,不再执着于权威性意义的阐释,而是更愿意一切都能“眼见为实”,从而获得某种自我需要的文化消费和选择的自由。在观览“事件”中,“阅读”的精英性质和权威依赖日益被自我朝向的“观览”所动摇,阐释权力逐渐从精英向大众转移。支配意识形态的价值导向逐渐被图像所具有的非符号化区域所阻挡,进而被接受主体立足于自身情感与欲望的图像阐释所分散。图像对主体的“诱导”最终形成了观览者主体意识的力量凝聚,从而为主体的自我重塑打开了新的可能性空间。

We live in an era of images supported by modern technology.With technological developments in printing and reproduction,as well as image-making and the mass media,images have increasingly become widespread carriers of cultural information.In terms of cultural acceptance,a transition has emerged from word-centered"reading"towards image-centered"viewing."In the era of the image,people no longer clinging to interpretation of the authoritative meanings implied in reading;rather,they are inclined to receive cultural information and communicate by way of image-led viewing,preferring to believe that what they see is all there is.They thus obtain the kind of freedom of choice and cultural consumption they require.In a selforiented viewing"event,"the elitism and authority-dependence of"reading"is shaken off,and the power of interpretation thus shifts from the elite to the public.The value direction of the dominant ideology is gradually interdicted by the non-symbolic regions of images,and then dispersed and replaced by an image interpretation based on the subject's own feelings and desires.Images"induce"the viewer,who ultimately accumulates subjective awareness,thus opening up a possible new space for the subject's self-reconstruction.