Response to 'Pictorial Turn'

Just like Joe, I also was pretty stuck on the term from last class. While I was working through the reading last Wednesday I struggled to grasp the concept of pictorial turn as well. I really liked how Joe interpreted the quote that Mitchell paraphrased Derrida saying, "there is nothing outside of the picture." (41) I struggled with interpreting this statement also, so I am glad Joe brought it up. I really liked how he explained that the meaning of this phrase relates to pictures just like it does when said by Derrida about text. The idea behind the original statement about text is that anything outside of the text is influencing the text so thus it is not outside of the text but a part of the text. This is also true with pictures... anything outside of the picture, that gives context to it, is not outside of the picture but part of the picture itself. (Picture frame?)

Joe branched out and found other sources written by Mitchell to help explain the concept of pictorial turn. This is what really set his explanation apart from anything else I had read. Not only did this show an interest to truly understand what the term means but it also gives us another reading to use to help interpret the meaning of pictorial turn. The one quote that Joe uses states, "it does seem clear that another shift in what philosophers talk about is happening, and that once again a complexly related transformation is occurring in other disciplines of the human sciences and in the sphere of public culture. I want to call this shift “the pictorial turn." ("Picture Theory", 11-13) 

Based on this vague definition that Joe used, I was able to grasp that Pictorial Turn is not something that is private, but social. It affects an entire population and how the people interpret and are effected by the reading. This definition is not just limited to pictures and text, but to everything a person comes in contact with. The attitude and feeling that the receiver has at that particular point in time will change the meaning and emotion associated with whatever they are encountering.