Tuesday 15 February 2011
Thursday 10 February 2011
First Trip to Stonehouse
I am currently doing a project with a group called part exchange called hidden city. I am going to be photographing the Stonehouse area of Plymouth. This is some of the results from my first shoot.
Tuesday 8 February 2011
The Will to Knowledge
"The Will to Knowledge" is the first book in Michael Foucault's series of the "history of sexuality". In it he looks into the idea that sex was repressed, and finds that in contrast to idea of complete silence on the subject there was an explosion of people talking about it obsessively.
He looks at the western practice of the Confession, the idea that you should reveal and confess every thought and desire, that you should continually search yourself for evidence of deviants.
He then examines how this was then taken up by the emerging field of psychology, which the categorised it and reinforced the idea of the pervert.
He describes this medicalisation of sex as creating a form of power knowledge, power created by knowledge, that became the main argument for repressing sexuality. He final state explicitly that sexuality is a social construction and that what we think as normal or natural is made purely by society.
He said that that their where 4 technologies of power used to create and control sexuality.
1. The use of contraception to control population, either by arguing that we need more or less people
2. The hysteria of women, how’s mind is constantly on sex
3. The creation of the perverse (the homosexual, the paedophile, the zoophile)
4. The idea of the masturbating child
His work has been a significant cultural and academic text and has been a major influence in queer theory. I am currently reading his second book, “The use of Pleasure” and have already brought his third book.
He looks at the western practice of the Confession, the idea that you should reveal and confess every thought and desire, that you should continually search yourself for evidence of deviants.
He then examines how this was then taken up by the emerging field of psychology, which the categorised it and reinforced the idea of the pervert.
He describes this medicalisation of sex as creating a form of power knowledge, power created by knowledge, that became the main argument for repressing sexuality. He final state explicitly that sexuality is a social construction and that what we think as normal or natural is made purely by society.
He said that that their where 4 technologies of power used to create and control sexuality.
1. The use of contraception to control population, either by arguing that we need more or less people
2. The hysteria of women, how’s mind is constantly on sex
3. The creation of the perverse (the homosexual, the paedophile, the zoophile)
4. The idea of the masturbating child
His work has been a significant cultural and academic text and has been a major influence in queer theory. I am currently reading his second book, “The use of Pleasure” and have already brought his third book.
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