Visual Literacies
Images in the Production Process of Cyber Physical Systems
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Andreas Schelske
The successful media logic of images in communication society lies in the fact that syntactic codes of iconic representations are transculturally, visually accessible to anyone. From a semiotic point of view, iconic images do not articulate a word because of their lack of vocabulary or collective grammar. The success of image communication is based on the syntactic code, e.g. currently the central perspective as a legisign (C.S. Peirce). The current success of the syntactic code was only an evolutionary transitional stage for iconic image communication. The postmodern 3D image overwhelms the viewer by offering him a three-dimensional world of experience which he does not need to understand as a sign for communication. The function of the 3D image is less communicative, but it is both productive and immersive. The iconic constructions of computer-aided design, CAD for short, illustrate the evolution of the image. The CAD system places the image out of the context of communicative action into the context of producing action. The image as a 3D model produces more than 1000 hands. The evolutionary step of the prospective image logic lies in the further developed overwhelming strategy of the iconic 3D production template and of the iconic immersion.
Visual Literacy in the Digital Age
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Siu Challons-Lipton
Addressing the theme of seeing in the age of big data, this paper proposes the vital need for visual literacy in learning. Historically, images have played an important role in developing consciousness and the relationship of self to surroundings. We learn who we are by seeing ourselves reflected in images, and we learn who we can become by transporting ourselves into images. Images and the pictorial world are powerful communicators and creators of culture. Literate societies have been surrounded by visual rhetoric, overt or subliminal, since before the dawn of the “optical age.” Most people are overwhelmed by the flood of images in this digital world. Beyond seeing a thing is attaching value to it. The acts of perception and evaluation are generally experienced as inseparable phases of the same process. If art is an expedition to the truth, then critical analysis and communication provide the path, and it would be both frustrating and frivolous to approach art without the necessary training and intellectual equipment. Visual literacy enables us to better understand, critique, communicate, and ultimately contribute to the culture. Many in higher education passionately plead that it is time to embrace visual literacy and revamp the educational system.
A Transformative Approach to Meaningful Interaction in the Visual Arts
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Meg Lomm
Deep engagement and meaning making (Sullivan, 1993) when studying images and artworks was a premise for this research study. Designed as an outwardly facing digital platform and with associated face-to-face activities, the study connected an art prize collection and some of the artists selected for acquisition with students. The researcher believed that authentic learner experiences, with artworks and the artist practitioner, provided students with opportunities to engage in meaningful interactions with artists and their works in an online MOODLE context. For secondary students studying Visual Arts, images are always dominated by experience through mediated reproductions. This convention should be moderated with the real and the original, while offering opportunity for interactive discussions with artist practitioners. The employment of online technology as a vehicle to achieve this is one way of shifting to a new paradigm of teaching and learning in the Visual Arts. Offering immersive encounters, redefining students as critical audience by engaging, questioning, integrating and confirming the meaning of images, artworks and objects. Evidence suggests that blending art, technology, collaborative online experiences and authentic face-to-face engagement can lead to meaningful interactions.
