Are We Students of Images?
Images, photographs, visual advertisements, logos, and even “fine art”. We are bombarded with pieces of visual communication. In each image, there is a message. However, there are so many images that we become numb to them. We soak up the message without either realizing it or taking the time to diagnose the meaning and agree or disagree with it. It is not possible to individually interact with all of these messages. Should we sift through and find images that have a more lasting impact?
A student of images may learn to categorize the images upon first impression and then engage the ones that for some reason draw the viewer’s attention. However, the problem with this is that these images may tend to be “journalistic” in nature. When this is the focus of the work, then it will often, like the newspaper, drop away from importance soon after. Another person may be drawn to particular subject matter and averse to other subjects. This is dangerous because it immediately cancels out possible works that are significant in or beyond their first impressions.
The average person is not a student of images. Due to the immediacy of our culture, this individual wants to get no more then a phrase out of it. Someone has made the point that in our culture language has broken down over the past hundred years. No longer do we find long and elaborate sentences in books or long elaborate sentences in letters. Our culture texts. I have heard that the average sentence has become shorter. This same effect has also occurred with the visual image. Often times instead of a thousand words, it seems to shout a phrase or idea.
Does this shortness of thought in communication reflect shortness in the depth of our minds? Length of words does not equal impact or profoundness. (Often times it is the opposite.) Still, length of time engaged in thought may affect how thoroughly we understand ideas.
Take a moment today and search for a meaningful image. Discern what you are looking at. Search for the meaning and look for the intention of the person putting the image in front of you.
Tags: aesthetics, art, culture, images, meaning
