Discourse Analysis II: Institutions and Ways of Seeing

Since I have explained the method of discourse analysis I in the prior blog post, I will now focus on Rose’s second method of discourse analysis called discourse analysis II. This method focuses more on how institutions and spaces structure our human behaviour and society rather than images and texts.

Rose (2001) explains that discourse analysis II, although it works with comparable kind of materials as the first method, “is much more concerned with their production by, and their reiteration of, particular institutions and their practices, and their production of particular human subjects” (p.164). Rose exemplifies this through an example of a study on an archive. She states that a study with this method would look at the archive itself and examine how its specific practices of classification would affect the meanings of what it being organized there. This method is thus mainly focused on the power relations in institutions and practices and is greatly derived from the work of Michel Foucault. He namely examined the structure and power relations in institutions such as prisons with his famous example of the Panopticon and its effect of creating docile bodies. This happened because inmates never knew if they were being watched due to the architectural structure of the Panopticon and thus had to decently behave all the time and consequently disciplined themselves. Foucault mentioned that institutions work in two manners, through their apparatus and their technologies (Rose, 2001,p.166).

An institutional apparatus is, according to Rose (2001), “the forms of power/knowledge which constitute the institutions such as the architecture, regulations and laws and the discourse articulated through all these”(p.166). Rose mostly focuses this method on the examination of  power in the institution apparatuses of  museums and art galleries and how this shapes the design and practices of the institutions through, for instance, the internal layout. Rose (20010 furthermore states that one can look at how discourse creates social positions in museums, such as visitors (p.174). This happens through the spatial or visual elements of museums which embody  a feeling of surveillance which is already present in the design of museums which consequently regulates visitors’ behaviour.

The other manner are institutional technologies. These are practical techniques used to exert power/knowledge and consist of various tools. Rose (2001) explains that this kind of discourse analysis examines what the consequences of such technologies are regarding what they produce (p.175). One of such technologies is displaying which focus on how an object is framed and its effects on the spatial organization. These kinds of techniques work together with other written and visual technologies such as labels or catalogues and how they produce  certain knowledge about objects.

Since the method of discourse analysis II is now established, I will continue by explaining what kind of case study you can examine with this method. Since this method focuses on institutions and its practices I chose, in line with Rose’s text, to pick a museum as my example, namely the Kröller-Müller Museum of modern art situated in Otterlo. When applying the method of discourse analysis II to this case study you want to examine how this institution and its practices structure and depict certain objects, create knowledge about them, and how the museum produces human subjects such as visitors. In order to explore this you would have to look at both the institutional apparatus and the institutional technologies of this museum.

When looking at the institutional apparatus you could look at the architecture of the museum and how this produces certain subjects or how certain established rules or laws discipline the visitors not to touch any of the paintings or to talk very loudly.

When looking at the institutional technologies you could look at, for instance, the decoration of the rooms and how this affects and disciplines visitors. Some of the rooms in the museum, such as the ones dedicated to the collection of Van Gogh, are very sober and almost have a clinical feeling to it since the walls are completely white with grey floors and without any pattern. The only elements in the rooms are the paintings, who are displayed in a row around the whole room, and benches. This particular layout and decoration thus really aims at guiding the way of seeing of the visitors since the rooms are all sober, which has as a consequence that the visitor is not distracted by anything and can fully focus on the painting.

One could also look at the institutional technique of layout in this museum and how this influences visitors. Most of the rooms in the Kröller-Müller Museum are not completely sealed off from each other but rather meld together through open passages. This open feeling of being able to be seen from multiple spaces by both wardens and visitors can discipline visitors to keep from touching any art objects because they can constantly be viewed from multiple directions.

Another example of how the technique of layout can influence  the visitors is by the position of the bench in the room depicted. Since the bench is placed in the middle of the room this has as a consequence that none of the paintings have a dominant viewing position because every painting can be equallywell seen from the bench.

 

References:

Rose, G. (2001). Visual methodologies: an introduction to researching with visual materials. London: SAGE.