Visceral Response

Richard Seymour describes beauty as a subjective experience, something one feels inside that’s difficult to describe. For me the first thing to come to mind based on his definition of stupefying beauty is this image of a needle being dragged across a record magnified some 1000 or so times. This is something that creates a rare true sense of wonder in me not just in context but as an image.

Some of the things discussed in class help explain this. For one, the image is filled with texture. This is especially present in the jagged record grooves that look like they might give you splinters. The way shadows accentuate these features, particularly in a photo as desaturated as this one, makes the grooves almost pop into reality. One could even expect to feel them as they run their hands down a print of this image. The textured grooves themselves function as lines that draw one into the photo’s heart. Likewise, the needle appears somewhat organic; like a giant shark tooth plunged into slopes of music. The framing of the picture helps suggest the needle’s size, and the amount of space occupied makes it feel much larger than it is in reality.

Altogether these elements unnaturally present a subtle process as some sort of climactic event of consequence. To magnify something like this provides a unique perspective with potential to amaze.

However, Seymour also emphasized how context can be a great source of beauty, and that’s the real kicker here. To Seymour a plastic bag was beautiful only after he realized its ability to cleanse, and a particular water bottle design impressed him simply because he recognized how difficult it must have been to craft. First, this photo is impressive in the technology it must have taken to capture it, but more so I find this image stupefying because I know that somehow this process can relay David Bowie’s “Life on Mars”. I can look at this picture and say, “so that’s music…”, and that impresses me deeply. I spend a few bucks or so most every month on the “outdated” vinyl format, and this exact image is a contributor to that on account of how incredible I find it. Considering Seymour’s final comments on beauty being a motivator, specifically a motivator to purchase things, it’s safe to say this image is beautiful and meaningful, to me.