I've decided to analyze picture #3 (the black and white of the guy and the drawing) and to apply a semiological method of analysis. As Rose's text states, semiology "confronts head on the question of how images make meanings." To me, this picture was the most subjective of the three--very minimal, simple, and quiet--and so it offers many different ways to interpret signs and meanings. Semiology explores connections between signs and meaning, and since I'm an audience of one (for the purposes of this analysis anyways) I want to talk about the signs and meanings this picture conveys to me.
According to semiology, the sign consists of two important parts--the signified and the signifier. Two separate things are being signified in this picture. One is "sight" and the other is "lack of sight." The signifier then, are the two men. The drawing of the man is the signifier of 'lack of sight," (I see a blind caricature feeling around as to not bump into anything as he is walking along). The actual man, who is physically looking at the drawn man, is the signifier for "sight."
All other elements in this picture (plain, black t-shirts, black and white, simple poses) defer to (in my opinion) the central meaning, which is the sharp contrast between seeing and not seeing. According to Rose, these signs are paradigmatic because they gain their meaning from contrast with other possible signs. Unless you have an extremely wild imagination, I think that "sight" and "lack of sight" come to the forefront of meaning in this picture.
Going one step further, we can physically diagram this photo to evaluate how the images transfer to one another. I imagined a line down the middle of the two men, with arrows coming from particular places. An arrow would be coming from the blind drawn man's hand (his way of seeing the man), and another arrow could go from the actual man to the blind man (his way of seeing). The fact that they are both looking at each other suggests they are aware that each other is there, only they are each using their methods of "sight".
So, whether through personal interpretation or diagraming, a semiological approach indeed offers a variety of ways of determining meaning. I've always believed that art (I think we can assume this is not advertising, but hey, thats my call,) is a personal way of deciphering, and this approach really works well for picking apart the signs that strike you as meaningful. However, this is also why this method is restrictive, because people interpret signs in different ways.
Monday, February 4, 2008
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2 comments:
The person in the image is actually a woman! Interesting then, to think of gender "semiotically"! What about the space, placement, body language, etc., of images do we use to conjure up cultural ideologies and make gendered meaning?
I'm interested in your questions about sight. Specifically, the drawing "seeing" with its hand. I was a little stumped by the fact that it had closed eyes, too. If it is "seeing" then it bring into question not only the notion of how we gather information, but also, self-reflexively, the picture itself, which we are seeing. I start to wonder if we're supposed to touch the picture to appreciate it completely. Why would touching be "better" or more appropriate than simply using one's eyes?
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