In one of our more recent readings for Media 1, I was initially taken aback by the sheer deepness and abstractness of this extract on Perspective and Social Distance. It took me a minute to notice that what was being discussed was essentially how perspective in a piece of media reflects, literally and figuratively, the distances between the audience addressed and the subject being represented.

That may seem a little confusing at first, so let’s try a better interpretation:

Let’s say you’re watching an ad on TV for the upcoming footy season. Any particularly exclusive shots you see of significant individual players may look at them from a slight low-angle, and depict them at full length in the frame which would place them a couple of meters away from the camera/the audience. This positioning of the player in this manner subtly suggests that their significance makes them superior to the audience; they are tall, powerful, and untouchable, far from our screens; at the same time, they are essentially framed so that the audience wants to be on their level, and join them on that platform several meters from the camera where there is apparent glory. That is the essential gist that I got from Perspective and Social Distance.

The reading looked closer at this idea of perspective by referring to its modern roots in the Renaissance era, spanning roughly from the 1500s-1600s. As I am fond to say the least of art, particularly classical art, this exploration clarified what the reading meant by ‘perspective’ in a tangible sense. A sense of hierarchy within artistic and mediated texts clarified for me how there is a distance both literal and figurative between an audience and a subject. In the foreground of a photograph for instance, there are the things considered most accessible to the audience; perhaps normal people, everyday objects, items, pets and animals. The further towards the background of the photo you go, subjects represented would be the ones difficult to attain for an audience; perhaps a representation of fame, fortune, glory, etc.