1. Wrt 105: practices of academic writing
Dr. Rusty Bartels
Friday, November 9th, 2018
Week 11, Day 3

2. Overview
Finish Barthes
Danesi
Small Group
Wrap-up

3. Denoted Image Almost pure representation
As opposed to “resemblance” --> see: Birdsell & Groarke (1996)
“Since it is both evictive and sufficient, it will be understood that from an aesthetic point of view the denoted image can appear as a kind of Edenic state of the image; cleared utopianically of its connotations, the image would become radically objective, or, in the last analysis, innocent.” (158)

4. Denoted Image
To get at this idea – of the denoted image as Edenic, as innocent -- he looks at the difference between a photograph and a drawing,
Photograph:
seems to operate without a layered code,
Drawing:
is coded by nature in at least 3 different levels
Something being coded requires not just to be recorded, but to be transformed
The denoted then also “naturalizes the symbolic message…nature seems to spontaneously produce the scene represented” (159)

5. Denoted Image: Freewrite
Do you accept Barthes’ distinction between photography and drawing?
How do you think technological advances since this text was published contribute to the distinction - or not - between photography and drawing?
What is the cultural value of photography? Of Drawing?
How do we produce, consume, or otherwise access photographs or drawings in our day to day experiences?

6. Rhetoric of the Image
Symbols and icons are embedded in knowledge - that knowledge is based in “a normal system whose signs are drawn from a cultural code” (160)
He names these knowledges as:
Practical
National
Cultural
Aesthetic
Discussion:
In a group of 1, 2, or 3…
Name at least 1, if not more, examples of how each of these knowledges can be seen or deployed.
i.e., what is an example of “practical” knowledge?

7. Rhetoric of the Image
“It is precisely the syntagm of the denoted message which “naturalizes” the system of the connoted message.” (162)
It is this idea for him which distinguishes the difference between the coded and the non-coded iconic message.
Now that may still seem kind of not clear to us
BUT
We can start to see the ways that images can both be nothing more than what they are, and latent with additional meanings and values.
Which uses language/linguistics to guide the viewer

8. Danesi
“Visual Rhetoric (VR) is a field of inquiry aiming to analyze all kinds of visual images and texts as rhetorical structures” (1)
“The basic method of VR…is to unravel the connotative meanings of visual images” (1)
“The key insight of VR is that connotation is anchored in rhetorical structure” (1)
“VR is showing that visual objects are rhetorical objects, and that, therefore, they can be used to influence and persuade people as effectively as rhetorical oratory, if not more so.” (1)

9. Danesi
Semiotics
“The meaning and interpretation of visual images vary along cultural lines” (2)
Ex: imagine triangle
QUESTION: imagine an object that you would consider a circle.
Share out
Deconstruction
Via French theorist Jacques Derrida
“The meaning of a text cannot be determined in any absolute way because it shifts according to who reads it, when it is read, and what critical theory or philosophy is involved in the reading. Every text has built-in assumptions” (3)

10. Danesi Visual Semiotics Visual Images Visual Texts
Summarize the conversation
Identify the main point
Articulate the relevance or significance of this to the specifically visual approach
Think of ways that this could inform your composition of a visual approach to a portion of Assignment #3

11. Danesi – VR Analysis
Pedagogical & ethical orientation —> power of visual persuasion
“We read images at a connotative level and thus rhetorically. Its goal is not to just illuminate the structure of a visual text but to show its ethical, social, political, and ideological functions” (8)
QUESTION: Not just as visual consumers, but as potential visual producers, how might you think about each of these elements in making visual design choices?

12. Danesi – VR Analysis
Bimodality, as an analytical tool, allows for us to view how singular choices contribute to a holistic view
A question we can ask is: if I changed [this 1 element] of any visual object, how would its holistic meaning change? Would it?

13. Danesi
what is the cultural significance, cultural utility, of visual images and visual communication?
What role does it/do they play not just socioculturally, but in our day-to-day lived experiences?

14. Danesi Baudrillard: Simulacrum Effect
“That the power of visual images is such that we can no longer distinguish, or want to distinguish, between the real and the hyperreal (the world created by images)” (11)
And that “Hyperreal worlds are experienced as more meaningful than real worlds, which are perceived as banal and boring” (11)

15. In Conclusion…
But, to wrap this all up, our purposes of looking at visual objects and rhetorical objects is in that element of argument, of persuasion, of communication with a purpose.
So, how will you consider the visual in your composition?

16. Wrap-up Today we: Finished Barthes
Made further connections between Barthes and the work of Visual Rhetoric
Next time:
Reading: none
Peer Review
Bring as much as you have of both portions of the assignment
I do encourage you to have at least something for both