From Passive Vision to Multimodal Perception: Changing Conception of the Perceiver as a Factor of Transformation of the Visual Studies

This study demonstrates how the concept of the perceiver has changed in visual studies, and how these changes are related to their institutional and historical dynamics. The main question of this paper is how the changing concept of the perceiver influences the transformation of the visual studies? The paper provides a historical overview and intellectual context of the emergence of the visual culture and visual studies. It describes the approaches to the definition of vision and perception at the early stage in the development of the visual culture. Conceptual difficulties in defining the vision and visuality that occurred in the early visual studies are indicated. As a solution to these problems, this paper clarifies and complements the concept of the perceiving subject, taking into account the changed social and cultural conditions, as well as theoretical shifts. Image theory is used to identify the viewer through active and multimodal perception and imaginative experience. The binary oppositions, which were problematic for the early visual culture, and put the viewer in a passive position, are dismiss on the basis of the theory of image. On the basis of modern sociological concepts, an alternative model of the self is presented and the consequences of changes in its interpretation for visual studies are described. The papers, in which a new way revealing for visual studies the concepts of beauty, art and aesthetic, are analyzed. For this, the following characters are considered: sports competitions spectator, a person of taste and an amateur. The brief history of cultural dimension of perception is given: from the idea of ​​pure art through institutionalization to aestheticization of everyday life. Despite the difficulties of institutionalization in connection with the erosion of the subject (visuality and vision), it is possible to present visual studies as a place of academic freedom, and visual culture as a practice, on a par with theory.