FILMP / MEDP 150, Lecture 01, Miranda

Roles of Visual Communication:

Course Introduction: Persuasion, Information, Decoration, Transformation

[Visual Studies] 1. • Visual Studies is generally concerned with images, seeing, perception.

––What is an image and what does it mean to study it, to do visual studies? How can images effect us? How are images popularly used in the media? In this course, you will be image makers, consider it a tool as much as an art

and consider how you want to use these skills as you learn them…

[Illustration of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,”]

• The Republic is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BCE (Before the Common Era), it is a theory of democracy

and politics but a part of it discusses images and the role of images in education. ––In Book VII, Plato’s theory of images argues that we are like

the prisoners in the cave who sit facing a wall and see only shadows.

-- Men move behind us, holding shapes and objects in front of the light from the fire. The objects are held as the men walk

along a raised walkway and as they move shadows of what they hold is projected onto the wall that we see.

-- Plato suggests that we are really prisoners of our perceptions and what we call reality and the world are really only shadows.

• In sum, Reality and the world as it appears to our eyes, for Plato, is fundamentally deceptive and false; a series of simulacra

– an image of reality, not reality itself. Reality must be experienced, lived and analyzed – looked at critically.

[Aesthetics]

• Aesthetics: Broadly, aesth is beauty according to culture. What is beauty and whose culture?

Aesthetics differs across industries and professions. What counts as “beautiful” to mathematician may not be beautiful for

an interior designer.

[Classical aesthetics: ceiling Sistine chapel, Michelangelo 1508 and 1512]

What is treated with importance to the artists / image-maker? Figural forms, ambitious scale, harmony, references to classical

antiquity.

[Van Gogh’s A Pair of Boots from 1887]

What are the aesthetic values expressed here?

[Warhol Diamond Dust Shoes, 1984]

--In contrast, jump ahead 100 years to Andy Warhol’s Diamond Dust shoes.

What are the aesthetic values expressed here? In other words, what is treated with importance to the artists / image-maker?

[Marlene Dietrich, 1901 - 1992]

This is also beauty in our culture, --what values are expressed here?

Another example of beauty in generally the same cultural paradigm (both 20th / 21st century) . Career spanned 70 years

because she continually reinvented herself.

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Now consider your role as a media marker / designer / filmmaker. You are by default playing into or against dominant

cultural aesthetics. –– To make good images, from a non-technical point of view, it is important to understand what these conventions are, but it is

equally important to learn skills and techniques (Lab sections), while also having some enthusiasm and passion about doing it.

–– Hopefully many of you are interested in images and digital technology already and maybe even passionate about it, or even

“inspired” by the idea of image making. ––In the course lecture we will show numerous examples of

artists and designers who are also a passionate and inspired by images, visual forms and use pre-digital and current

technologies to make them. ––We hope you will be able to learn from the many examples we

show you and in turn, model your own work after some of these examples, or others you find outside the class that may also

inspire you. • Inspiration then is also key to making good work, regardless of

the medium.

[Fallingwater house] • Frank Lloyd Wright' (1867 – April 9, 1959) - Fallingwater house,

built in in 1935 and fully completed in 1939 in the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania.

In 1991, the American Institute of Architects named the house the "best all-time work of American architecture"

The house is built using reinforced concrete and it is built on top of an active waterfall that flows beneath the house.

––The fireplace hearth in the living room integrates boulders

found on the site — a ledge rock which protrudes up to a foot through the living

room floor was left in place as a means of linking the outside with the inside. ––a natural spring drips water inside the house, which is then

channeled back out. Its design places importance of interpenetrating exterior and

interior spaces on harmony between man and nature. There is a near seamless integration of the human-made architectural

structure with it’s environment.

• Another prerequisite for making good images is to “see” the world as a creative person

“Abraham Lincoln” Statue—Union Square Does anyone recognize this monument? What does it represent? Public Monuments represent human ideals such as liberty and freedom and/or to memorialize historical personas and events. In public monuments scale, material, location represents greatness and evoke a sense of power and awe. “For Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection, Krzysztof Wodiczko engaged with dozens of American war veterans and their family members to explore the traumatic consequences of war. The artist interviewed a total of fourteen participants, recording conversations about war experiences, the difficult return to civilian life, loss, and guilt. These interviews were then edited into a video that was projected on the statue of Abraham Lincoln In Union Square Park.” “For thirty-two days, their voices and gestures animated the silent sculpture that has stood in the park since 1870. The superimposition of moving image, sound and sculpture worked to create a complex work of art reflecting the incommensurable distance existing between those who went to war and those who didn’t. Speaking through the mouth of Lincoln, the participants

made their experiences starkly public thereby asking the audience to face the wider implications of war, particularly the fate of traumatized war veterans.” http://moreart.org/projects/krzysztof-wodiczko/ His work then extends beyond its own parameters to comment on the social structure and history of the community where it is shown.

Persuasion

Over the last two hundred years the U.S. economy has

transformed from a primarily agrarian economy to an industrial economy to a post-industrial and consumer economy marked by

decline of manufacturing, a rise of the service sector and increases in information, knowledge and creativity. These

transformations mean that we now live in a highly engineered environment. Most of the things that we interact with, wear and

use are mass-produced and have been carefully designed.

The persuasive function is to convince or effect a change in

thought or behavior. Objects have a rhetorical function – an

intention to impress or make a statement.

The logo informs us of the identity of the company and seeks to

persuade us in favor of the company. Colors are employed to evoke specific ideas i.e. green – nature; blue – cleanliness,

something pure.

Persuasion

Chase logo – 4 units to create a whole, something complete.

San serif font – clean, sharp, the future, strong. Blue – may represent integrity, power…

Persuasion

Ribbon - strip of fabric used for tying things together… unity, bringing many people together under a specific cause.

Borrowed from the Red Ribbon for AIDS Awareness, the color

pink is considered feminine in modern Western countries. It evokes traditional feminine gender roles, caring for other people,

being beautiful, being good, and being cooperative. Global resonance of a simple yet powerful icon in the struggle

against breast cancer.

With each of these examples there is an interaction between

myself and the objects documented. There is a production

and exchange of meaning. These objects are attempting to

convey particular associations and values, but I must be an

active observer to construct an interpretation. My

interpretation is informed by several factors from education

to how I’ve been socialized in our culture. The elements

used to design a product’s labeling from color to font to

photographs and illustration are designed to make me

understand something, to notify me and ultimately it’s an

attempt to impose itself upon us. It’s important to also

recognize that my interpretation may be very different from

another person’s reading from a different culture or

education. Today, logos seek to be universal and they do so

by being SIMPLE, VERSATILE (in size & color scheme),

UNIQUE, DYNAMIC and MEANINFUL (attempt to tell a story).

Easy to remember.

Transformation

So if we are constantly barraged by signifiers, logos, and advertisements… how do we make this highly engineered and

constructed environment our own… Through education, critical analysis and making we may deconstruct the signifiers and

reinterpret them with our own meaning. Part of the beauty of the personal computer and cheapening means of mass production is

that we can create our own language. We can subvert the learned codes to defamiliarize or interrupt the world around us. GreenPeace logo redesign call following the gulf oil spill. Visual

communication has the power to make things appear and to transform one thing into another.

Persuasion

Josiah Wedgwood (12 July 1730 – 3 January 1795) was an

English potter, founder of the Wedgwood company, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A

prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not a Man And a Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. - Wikipedia

Wedgwood mass produced cameos depicting the seal for the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and had them widely

distributed, which thereby became a popular and celebrated image. The Wedgwood medallion was the most famous image of

a black person in all of 18th-century Western Art.

Cameos are oval shaped jewelry pieces consisting of a portrait in profile carved in relief on a background of a different color. They

were extremely popular during the 18th century and Wedgwood's company produced over 1700 different cameos,

Transformation

this is the only museum piece.

In 18th century Britain, slave traders, slave-owners and the

consuming public all benefited, either financially or materially from the exploitation of over 11 million African lives… However, by the second half of the century slavery was beginning to be

questioned by a powerful minority. The change is due to Enlightenment philosophy of the human being as a social being

whose own happiness would ultimately depend on living in a thriving community, a state which in turn depended on the liberty

of all its members, whatever their class, creed or color. Deconstructing the medallion

Color: Black chained figure against a white ground enables the viewer to immediately grasp in an instant that the figure

portrayed was an African slave and evokes the crime of white society.

The words and pose: Centuries of captivity lead to many slaves speaking European

languages and worshipping as Christians. The depiction on the medallion is clearly westernized - the words he utters are in

English and mirror the language of scripture - "Am I Not a Man And a Brother?"

The figure resembles supplicant figure from Christian iconography. A dignified figure - rather than breaking out of his chains and

taking liberty by force, the figure is patiently begging for a change in Parliament - a much greater transformation than

merely his own escape to liberty. The British Slavery Abolition Act did not pass Parliament until

1833.

[Critical Thinking with Visual Images]

• Learning how to see, think, and create images of the world critically means studying those who came before you, i.e.

• History is crucial for Critical thinking --all of the lectures will discuss will be grounded in historical and cultural context and it is essential that we understand this history

too Understand the images we see and consume on a daily basis

Transformation

Devin Allen self-taught photographer had used his Instagram

account to post vibrant street portraits and landscapes. In a sharp turn, the first image Mr. Allen posted from the protests was

a high-contrast black-and-white image of a man raising a clenched fist. While mainstream media focused on the damage

and violence caused by the riots, Allen captured the emotions of the rioters.

Before we blindly take major media outlets for their word or our government, let’s keep in mind:

- who owns/controls those media outlets, their agendas and history of power in America

- that protest and riots don’t just happen out of no where/for no reason

- who is supposedly rioted in Baltimore and why they were there before the swat teams showed up

- the history of America. It is important the question the images presented to us.

Getting back to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave – in this class, we ask you to look at the world around you as a critical thinker and to not merely be an image consumer, but be an image maker with the analytical strength to consider the function of visual elements such as color, shape, form, composition to create unique interpretations.

Ideally by the end of the semester, you will have a powerful body of work that combines various design elements and utilize the digital tools that we have at hand.