Discussion

3

During the act of taking and archiving the visual examples of the Cyber West manifested in the Corporeal Rest, I was encapsulated in a car. Through my intersectional position I recognized the contrast of the realities lived in turban Guatemala, in other words, it was quite dangerous for me to be a pedestrian. Most of the pictures of public spaces were taken from a car–from this fact, I understood two main things. Firstly, being a person perceived as female with a smartphone in a public street might prove to be a fatal task–which I believe stems from the postcolonial condition of an exploited country in the Global South. Secondly, Guatemala City is built for the facilitation of machines, not people–naturally one might associate this with the histories between Guatemala and the US and their need for production.


Figure 30. “Security and technology. Delta Elite.” Pictured on the San Cristóbal main boulevard. 2022.


Based on the previous reflection I want to highlight that this is just one factor among many others that make life in the city a neoliberal fantasy. The intricate web between postcolonialism and neoliberalism has created necessities that greatly burden citizens every day, and these circumstances are clearly reflected in the visual culture (e.g., fig. 30)–therefore visual culture itself becomes part of the burden. On the whole, numerous amounts of western visual content, combined with the lack of control on advertising display in urban Guatemalan spaces and the effects of visual saturation on the human psyche, grant the conditions for a neo-colonization of visual culture. In this context, the role of stock photography becomes an amplifier of neoliberal needs. Therefore, stock photography thus far can be addressed as a visual colonization tool, based on its hegemonic representation of reality through a western lens in addition to its globalized stand as a visual content industry.

4

As illustrated through my personal narratives, the atmosphere I grew up in was clogged with visual pollution that mostly depicted a reality that I could not connect with and therefore felt that my existence was somehow dismissed. In retrospect, the mass usage and distribution of stock photography created a homogenous interpretation of reality that targeted the subconscious. I would like to connect this with what Frosh describes stock photography as: “Part of the background, unremarkable, and effectively ‘invisible’, they are routinely overlooked by most viewers, most of the time. They are the wallpaper of consumer culture.” (1). The crux of the matter lies in the lack of acknowledgement and awareness of our surroundings. The act of ignoring and not challenging visual phenomena like that of stock photography in the Global South is an act of acceptance and that passive acceptance correlates to the hegemonic systems we move by today. Regarding visual culture, we must fight the homogenization and colonization of visual representation, more emphatically on those that depict human diversity.

5

During my scrolling journey through the Cyber West in search of the right stock photos, I got a type of headache I had not experienced before. Eventually, I understood that it was the effect of such an overwhelming amount of visual stimulation–what’s more, this stimulation was accompanied by a level of emotional exhaustion. Naturally, hundreds of images of women seeming scared (fig. 31) disturbed me to a point in which I had no choice but to cease the search and look away. However, the images I was scrolling through were all fake–they all came from stock photography digital banks, but my empathy was still alert. The way in which stock photography causes emotional reactions comes from many general cultural associations and human nature–ultimately, this effect is used to encourage consumerism. Consequently, in association with the previous discussion point and what Frosh stated as the wallpaper of consumer culture (1), I believe that mental health is being constantly threatened by neoliberal visual communication standards.  The use of constant emotional triggers in advertising may reflect the poor conditions that the urban visual culture offers for mental health stability. Therefore, I suggest that a great part of stock photography acts as a bank of emotional manipulation in addition to its neocolonial effects.



Figure 31. Google search for “Woman scared hands up”. 2022. Author’s screenshot.

6

It might be evident by this point that most of the subjects I traced back to digital stock photography in the research methodology had a female appearance (fig. 32). I do not have a clear explanation, but I would like to offer a brief hypothesis. In relation to the use of emotion as a way of advertising, discussed in the Visual Neocolonialism subchapter, I believe that the conservative notion of female and male is used as a manipulative tool. The female figure and character have traditionally been subject to objectification and oppression–therefore, the gentle and complying nature associated with women, idealized by the hegemonic patriarchal state, is a vehicle for emotional impact for stock photography. However, I believe this would be better explained through feminist theories.


Figure 32. Google search for “Woman head in arms”. 2022. Author’s screenshot.

7

I would also like to bring the reader’s attention to the fact that the tools for visual neo-colonization in Guatemala did not stop with stock photography. Throughout the research process I noticed that many images that do not involve the nature of stock photography continued to portray the small percentage of white people in Latin America, or as some advertising experts call them, Latino Internationale (Sarhandi 34). Naturally, the consequences of such an imposed phenomenon have appeared in many forms– e.g., exclusive casting, local celebrities, social media, etc. Currently, in Guatemala, the usage of whiteness as a general representation does not only originate from images obtained from the Cyber West. However, the influence of the images produced within Guatemala is meant to emulate what has been imposed for centuries by Eurocentric systems. This also means that the ethnic diversity endorsed by those that produce new visual materials still mirrors the Eurocentric perception.



Figure 33. Nova MM. Homepage of Guatemalan model management website, 2022. Nova MM, www.novamodelmgmt.com. Author’s screenshot.

In this example (see fig. 33), a Guatemalan model management agency exhibits the Eurocentric perception of ethnic diversity by casting various other ethnicities other than white, but ignoring the real demography that inhabits the country, i.e., indigenous peoples.

8

The juxtaposition of the realities represented on the billboards and the corporeal realities of Guatemala result in a dispute between “what is meant to be” and “what it is”, thus generating neoliberal landscapes. Correspondingly, I would like to refer to abyss thinking (Santos 2). This thinking exemplifies how social reality is divided into two realms–the realm of “this side of the line” and the realm of “the other side of the line” that becomes non-existent in any relevant way of being (Santos 2). This relationship is core to the dichotomy imposed by Western ways of thinking. Abyss thinking illustrates how one reality cannot exist simultaneously with others (Santos 3). I believe that what I have exemplified as neoliberal landscapes are what exists in the urban spaces beyond the other side of the line. These landscapes visually embody the discrepancies of the current globalized capitalist systems. With the help of visual communication design, the pictures that manifest in the global south from the western side of dichotomy act as portals to a dimension, a reality, and an existence that loom from the other side, almost mockingly. Outrageously, the nations that have been and continue to be exploited by the biggest global economies, are burdened to play along in the neoliberal game and construct their own western realities with the scraps of what resources have not been digested by the hegemonies.