Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words? Engaging with Visual Culture

Outline of Workshop Why analyse visual culture? Using Imagery Media and Themes Reading Images Reading a Building Objects and Artefacts What Next? Further reading

1.Why analyse visual culture? 2.Understanding how we tell stories about ourselves and others through images and visual culture ….. 3.Key skills : observation, analyses, identification, description, explanation, argument, awareness, self expression, oral and literacy skills ….. 4.You should treat an image, artefact or building the same as you would any written text: INTERROGATE, QUESTION and ANALYSE.

Using Imagery Images are relevant to all subject areas To illustrate The focus of discussion Provide data Your own imagery Evidence of process Visual planning and brainstorming Marketing and promotion In your presentation Reference

What ‘media’? The term media in this context means ‘the agency or means of doing something … the material or form by which something is communicated.’ [Oxford Dictionary] Activity 1: Now we have considered why and how you can use visual culture within your Extended Projects, in pairs jot down all the different types of media which make up visual culture that you can think of.

Photography Architecture Fine Art Advertising Clothing Performance Signage Packaging Artefacts Digital/ Cyber Products Maps Flags Spatial Design Film/ TV Animation Graffiti Media Themes Gender Race Religion Authorship Viewer The Canon Space and Place Memory Sexuality The Gallery Family Narrative Ethnicity

Who made it? What is it (i.e. media)? Audience? Purpose? Where are you viewing it? What is present in the image? Relationship between text and image? When was it created? How is it displayed? Where is it displayed? What codes and signifiers are used to generate meaning? How is colour used? What is the composition? Reading Images What theories can you apply? What’s its relevance socially, politically, economically? Relationship between the image and written documents?

Activity 2: Codes & Signifiers In pairs discuss the symbolism or associations of the colour ‘red’ This is a basic example. The meanings generated by this colour would also depend on the other content of the image, and the country or culture it refers to Do you know of any images, films, posters etc where red has been used effectively?

Activity 3: Comparing Images Applying the questions from the Reading Images wheel, in pairs analyse how the graffiti image on the left (by an anonymous artist) has appropriated the Alfred Leete’s World War I Lord Kitchener recruitment poster (1914).

Other Visual stimuli Activity 4: Reading a Building There might be further questions you need to consider if you are reading different types of visual stimuli, other than 2d images, For instance, consider a building –What questions might you need to consider to analyse or respond to the built environment?

Reading a Building Age Style Ornament or decoration Spaces Materials used Location or site Uses Inhabitants/ users Stories and narratives

The ‘life cycle’ of an object ……. Object is made/ created/ ‘born’ Object is distributed Object is then purchased Object goes through a process of use Object discarded …. Thrown away/ lost/ given away/ passed on to another Object begins a new life: in landfill/ recycled/in someone else’s property/ waiting to be purchased …..

The ‘life cycle’ of an object... For an interesting example of the life cycle of an object, watch the 18min film Plastic Bag, directed by Ramin Bahrani (2009). The film can be found on YouTube and Futurestates.tv or

Objects and Artefacts Questions: What is it? Where is it from? What is its age? What is it made of? What is its purpose? What visual details are there? What does it feel like?

What Next? Use the window as a frame – what is the image in that frame? Analyse the front page of a newspaper or magazine Evaluate an advertising billboard Examine a company website Respond to a personal photograph Assess the layout and design of a favourite shop Record the images and objects on your street Consider the design of food packaging

Further Reading Barthes, Roland, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. London: Vintage, Berger, John, Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Classics, Fernie, Eric, ed, Art History and its Methods: A Critical Anthology. London: Phaidon, Honour, Hugh, Fleming, John, eds, A World History of Art. London: Laurence King, Howells, Richard, Visual Culture: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press, Pearce, Susan M, ed, Interpreting Objects and Collections. London: Routledge, Pointon, Marcia, History of Art: A Student’s Handbook. London: Routledge, Laneyrie-Dagen, Nadeije, How to Read Paintings. Edinburgh: Chambers, 2004.