English 680V: Visual Rhetoric in a Technological Age (Purdue)

>Watch this video... No... Really...   (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc)                                                "Just Looking" by James Elkins was very interesting to me.  We assume our vision is directed and that we are not being seen: I am looking at the ball.  I am the active agent of the looking—not the other way around.  The ball is looking at me sounds like a silly if not damn crazy way of talking… right?  Maybe not right.  The way that we approach language and seeing is very similar: the way we note who is in control makes an assumption.  This is less easy to do with being who we equate as similar (the cat looks at me or the bunny or dog, or even snake…) but the rock and tree are outside of the seeing game. This youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc) I think intensely articulates this homo-centrism, communication assumptions.   I don’t want to say too much, because I am curious to see what you all think.  Let me know….