A response
focusing on reading from Practices of
Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture as well as reading from Document Design: A Guide for Technical
Communicators
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In Chapter 1 of Practices of Looking, Strurken and
Cartwright present the key idea of framing as it relates to social context.
Using the O. J. Simpson trial as a prime example, the authors offer evidence
for how even the slightest manipulation to a photo or modification in context
or placement can alter the way an image is received with the public eye. Sturken
and Cartwright make the point that, nearly 20 years later, this idea still
holds true for how images are received and the meanings they may or may not
intend to unveil. This idea of framing is expanded within Charles Sanders
Peirce’s explanation of the three signs or representations.
The text states:
“The creation of signs semiotically is usually the result of a combination of
factors in an image, and this means that meaning is often derived through the
combination of text and image” (32-33). This is seen in many commercials;
viewers are initially unsure of what the commercial is really about until the tagline appears at the end of it. Take for
example, a well-known Super Bowl commercial that aired in 1984. The commercial advertised
the release of Apple’s Macintosh;
however, it was not until the last frame of that commercial that viewers were
told this via text. Common day examples might include commercials that appear
to advertise jeans and t-shirts but in actuality are advertising religion and
the word of god.
Similarly to the
earlier mentioning of the value of beauty and its adapted definition in
relationship to time, is the discussion regarding the value of art. Sturken and
Cartwright write that certain economic value is gained, “in part through
cultural determinations concerning what society judges to be important in
assessing works of art” (35). This statement is nearly synonymous to the statement
regarding the value of beauty: the “idea that different looks are favored and
become the standard in different eras” (22). The authors further elaborate on
this during the discussion of icons and particularly so in regard to Marilyn
Monroe. This relationship forms a question: If what is once valued as art
(e.g., Van Gogh’s Irises) then loses
its value as it is reproduced for popular consumption, how will ‘beauty’ ever
be valued if its criteria is always being duplicated? (I’ve been working with this thought and have had trouble getting this
question out on paper the way I mean to ask.)
Sturken and
Cartwright reiterate the importance of context in their discussion of icons.
The text states: “For whom is this image iconic and for whom is it not?” (42). Translated,
the following might read true: what is important for one is not for another;
another person’s trash (so to speak) is another’s treasure. The authors use the
various images to communicate this idea of context as it relates to culture,
history and background. The chapter’s final examples confirm the statements the
authors end with. They write: “These codes build on one another, incorporating
these historical legacies of image codes at the same time that they rework,
play off, and recode them. To interpret imagines is to examine the assumptions
that we and others bring to them as different times and in different places and
to decode the visual language that they ‘speak’” (46).
In their text, Document Design: A Guide for Technical
Communicators, Kimball and Hawkins discuss certain theories and their applications
to several of the themes projected in Practices
of Looking. In Chapter 3 of Kimball and Hawkins’ text, the authors write: “In
fact, our visual perception is so central to our personal experience that
we often don’t think consciously about what we see” (39). This statement may
suggest that instead of seeing a woman and her child as a symbol of a
biological importance and passion or snapshot of historical influence (as
discussed in Practices of Looking),
viewers see only the image of a woman and her child, without additional
context, because they simply are not looking. Viewers see only what their
personal experiences allow them to see. This statement is then argued from the
various viewpoints of neurophysiology, Gestalt theory and constructivism.
Kimball and
Hawkins refer to the same “visual culture” that Sturken and Cartwright do in Chapter
1 of Practices of Looking. Kimball
and Hawkins state: “These aspects of visual communication start with our visual
perceptions, but they focus more fully on the connections we make between those
perceptions and our culture… visual culture influences how we ascribe meaning to what we see” (54). These
words directly correlate with those from Sturken and Cartwright; however,
Kimball and Hawkins further the connection to include the relationship with the
documents we use in our day-to-day lives.
