DigitalPenny

Barry, Ann Marie Seward. Visual Intelligence: Perception, Image, and Manipulation in Visual Communication. Albany: SUNY Press, 1997. 1-68

SUMMARY:
In the "Introduction" Barry begins with a dictionary definition of intelligence. What she's found that complicates this simplistic, general knowledge definition is the idea of being able to *see* what we learn, reason, and manipulate in order to "survive" is also a form of intelligence. She believes images we see on TV, in magazines, newspapers, flyers, and so on, dictate how we see ourselves and how we live. That we are influenced by the social patterns passed on through images. That the visual is "replacing" (the tools we normally use to perform actions, e.g.,
cash registers in grocery stores are more visually intensive) how we see and synthesize our world. Barry insists the more we become reliant on the visual, the more proficient we become in perceiving the emotional and "cognitive aspects of the message" (6). Traditional ways of analyzing objects and events must include ways we observe, notice, and reason with what's before us. Seeing relationships between social patterns and visual problem-solving are our means of becoming visually intelligent. We must also address what visually moves us to action and how we are deceived by images for "commercial, social, and political purposes" (6). Her overarching question seems to be how do we become focused enough to reason using available images to communicate that which can easily be manipulated to distort reality?

In Chapter 1, "Perception and Visual 'Common Sense', Barry asserts that we can't just be visually literate, that we must also be visually intelligent. This means that we are to see images such that we understand what is meant by connecting parts and identifying how they relate to the whole. That many of us accept what we see as true without any further examination. Barry never identifies out right what she means by "common sense", but I will make the assumption after reading this chapter she wants her readers to realize that as visual learners, we see first, and what we see usually evokes emotion, and then meaning comes. What we don't take time to do is analyze what we see, and we don't question the truth in what we see.

WHAT FASCINATED ME:
I was really excited to see mention and discussion of the relationship of the visual to patterns (relative to software programming and social interactions amongst people) and fractals (a mathematical discussion of seeing patterns in images). It's a relief to know that I don't have to start this discussion from scratch. Its an on going discussion relative to Chaos theory, fluid dynamics, Gestalt theory, and Howard Gardner (Frames of Mind, 1983), a professor, at the time of publishing at Harvard University. This also ties back to Berkenkotter's book, The Reader, The Text, The Poem (?) that I read last semester in Louise's class.

What bored me was all of the scientific medical explanations of how one sees. This reminded me of another text that I read while in Louise's class about how a person (student) learns to read. I also thought that Chpt 1 was too long and contained more information than I could truly absorb in one reading.

QUESTIONS:

• How can our perceptual logic increase our aesthetic appreciation of our natural environment?


• Barry says that the more we are exposed to an object (seeing it) will result in our having a more positive attitude toward it. What if the object is something horrific (seeing it)--what's the positive in that? And what does something like that do to an individual or a society as a result?

KEYWORDS:
visual field, visual world, reality, perception, map, fractals, replacement, musical intelligence, bodily intelligence,
linguistic intelligence, spatial intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, patterning, raw patterning ability, gestalt, inner logic, Chaos theory, unconscious, perceptual biases, geons, primitives, textons, magno and parvo pathways, hologram, phi phenomenon, Apparent Movement, real motion (RM), truth

Posted by Digitalpenny at 09:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mitchell, W. J. T. Picture Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. 11-34

Summary:
In this chapter Mitchell questions the shift of the "pictorial turn". In his mind the pictorial turn has to do with how philosophers theorize about events relative to the history of philosophy. For example, when new problems occur the old problems fade. It is in this shift that philosophers locate their theory. What makes this significant for Mitchell is that the shift involves what constitutes the bipolar rift between theories on image and language. In sorting these differences, Mitchell uses Edwin Panofsky's theory on "perspective", which discusses how the mind/body thinks on images and Althusser's theological theory of imagery in language to identify what Mitchell refers to as "common space" (33).That when theorizing image and language, one cannot avoid the fact that we recognize the scene (image and language juxtaposed/meshed) is at the "center of [our] reflections" (33). This "recognition" denotes the shift that links ideology and iconology. It moves the subject from knowing about an object to knowing about subjects.

Keywords:
iconoclasm, iconophobia, grammatology, phonocnetric (12); iconophilia, public memory (15); presence, pectatorship, reading, level of culture, visual literacy, visual culture (16); subject (18); Kunstwollen, spectator, object (19); iconomachias (23); cybervisual technologies, contemporary visual culture (24); critical iconology, fractal concept (28); visual-spatial culture (31)

Questions:

• What are pictures and how do we study them?


• How do images create presence?


• Why is computer-generated imagery thought to take the observer to a different visual level (outside the mind/body-phychophysiological experience)?


• How is the human constructed by language and image?

What Fascinated Me:
There was heavy discussion of Panofsky's book, Perspective as Symbolic Form, trans. Christopher Wood (1991). Mitchell says that this book is extensively used and disputed in art history because of how Panofsky positions his theory of visual representation. Mitchell believes that anyone interested in the visual must read Panofsky's essay; that anyone theorizing about the visual usually ends up either discussing Panofsky or using his theory.

After reading Shirley Wilson Logan's, We are Coming, I enjoyed reading her discussion of presence (she uses theory from classical rhetoric to build her argument). She talks about the presence of how people perceived African American women and how they spoke during public engagements. One of her defining questions was, what available means of persuasion did these women use to captivate their audiences? Working in line with Panofsky's thoughts on how the subject acknowledges the object within the scene, I am curious to find out how presence works in images. What is it that the subject acknowledges about the objects within the scene? Mitchell proposes that we suspend reference to concrete for grounded images (like bodies, cars, etc.) and look at the landscape or the background, and then think about what's being socialized, politicized, and historicized. When we look at digital images or images in magazines and newspapers, what available means of persuasion do subjects
use to captivate subjects, and how are the subjects acknowledging the background of the image, or do they acknowledge the background? What makes digital or cybervisual images **more captivating** than one dimensional images? What is language is conveyed, and how does that language help to define and create presence for the image?

Posted by Digitalpenny at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)