Junk for Code : another way of looking

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October 17, 2003

We often think of images in terms of a visual language signifying a world. We assume an outside world that is then re-presented through through a separate system of signs. The images in our urban visualscape that form our language then represent, construct, or organize some of the outside world.

Consider the above image as being about Australia as the new sheriff of Southeast Asia.

It is unclear that this image represents some underlying reality. Australia is not the sheriff of Southeast Asia in the war on terror just because the imperial president in Washington said so in a news conference.

Can we not see this in terms of intensity and effect? Does it possess a power of its own? Does it not create the affect of surveillance? Of fear? Does it not convey the menacing affect of being watched by a powerful and wrathful authority?

Does it not disrupt the everyday and habitual links that we make between our words and experience of Australia's role in the war on terror?

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:28 PM | Permalink

| Comments (4)

Comments

Dunno.

I played cricket today with a heap of people who give no indication of being in the slightest bit concerned about the war on terror or any sort of political issue.

Is it really an issue with traction in the public imaginiation?

Posted by: Scott | October 19, 2003 12:01 AM

Scott,
I was talking about the politics of culture and the way images impact on us, not about the polls.
Even if you play cricket on the weekend and habit the everyday cricket world you still live in a visualscape of images. I can remember images about some fella called Hayden in Perth that were flashing all around me ten days or so ago;

lots and lots of images of images of professional sporting heroes that can way beyond picturing what actually happened.

So what are those images doing? What affects do they have?

Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson | October 19, 2003 9:11 AM

A picture speaks a 1000 words? These really are philosophical questions, I guess. Not for those of us that field at mid-wicket and bat at six.

We're too busy keeping an eye on the ball.

Posted by: Scott | October 19, 2003 2:17 PM

I'd call it acquiring basic visual literacy myself. The sort of skills that you need to cope in a postindustrial world.

Equivalent to the old three r's in an industrial society.

The sort of humanities stuff you dismiss over at the Sasha Castel blog by calling it a hobby.

Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson | October 19, 2003 10:59 PM