The Social Life of Images

Abstract

Drawing on visual studies, this mixed-media portfolio explores the mixed culture of the US–Mexico border. Emerging around the turn of the millennium as a multidisciplinary study from such diverse fields as art history, aesthetics, film theory, cultural studies, media theory, visual culture, postcolonial studies, and gender studies, visual studies respond to the need to analyze an area of growing importance in contemporary societies: that of visuality. Therefore, I try to account, without disciplinary restrictions, the processes of production of cultural meaning that have their origin in the public circulation of images. I could, thus, describe my work as investigations into “the social life of images”, analyzing the processes of the cultural construction of visuality.