Defining Public Visual Culture and Public Historical Culture

<v ->The basic definition of visual culture</v> is the visual media of a people. The movies, the art, the games you play on your phone. But a broader definition of visual culture is more intertwined with your everyday lives. What you see. Visual culture is everywhere. It’s the buildings, it’s the monuments, it’s the landscaped environment, it’s signage and advertising. What is the visual culture of where you live? I’m here in Detroit, Michigan, United States, at the corner of Washington Boulevard and Michigan Avenue. The visual culture here, you have a older building behind me and with some painted mural on the side of it. There’s some scaffolding there.

There’s some barriers here and a plinth on which there stands a monument to General McComb. And some cannons. This is sort of a park area designated between rows of buildings. This is the visual culture of this immediate area. Some sites are given a historical status through a marker, such as this one, registered as a Michigan historic site. The David Whitney, Jr. residence.