Final Notes: Tattoos

We come down to the final duration for this project and start to realize what has been achieved thus far. To wrap things up nicely, you can download below the final paper combining all four subproject deliverables: Second Life avatar, digital image remix, documentary movie, and Second Life museum construction. The size of the *.pdf file is large due to the image sizes. I hope you enjoy this writeup made about tattoos. Hopefully, I will continue this avenue and update more blog entries in the near future. Enjoy!

For more information you can download a pdf file here: [TattooFinalNotes.pdf]

RI - Chapter 8: The third dimension

I need to read this...

Subproject: Construction (Second Life) - Tattoo Theme

The goal of this project was to debut our other sub-projects in Second Life online game that would creatively portray a general theme. My theme happened to be about tattoos, so I built a tepee tattoo village using a cross tattoo as a basis to host my sub-projects. You can visit the display at the following Second Life x,y,z map coordinate (Clemson University Dev 47, 46, 25) by tele-porting there. Here are some sample snapshots of the site:

Figure 1: Entrance to tattoo-tepee village.

Figure 2: Aerial view of construction of tattoo-tepee village.

Figure 3: View from outside the main chamber (Celtic cross tattoo).

Figure 4: Mediterranean underwater walkway down to the main chamber.

Figure 5: Main chamber where the viewer can see all sub-projects.

For more information you can download a pdf file here: [TattooConstruction.pdf]

RI - Chapter 7: Materiality and meaning

This chapter focuses on how the material design of an image is vital to an images representation. I did not get to all of this chapter and have just focused on highlighted points.

Material production of design: not just the execution of something already complete, but a vital part of meaning-making. Resources may be tied to a specific form of material production, that can be realized, for instance, only in the medium of paint or only in the medium of the photograph.

Meaning of inscription: changes the text; presentation, for a marketing executive, would be significant part of the making of the text, increasingly often equal to, or even more important than, other aspects. "Texts are material objects which result from a variety of representational and production practices that make use of a variety of signifier resources organized as signifying systems (we have called these 'modes', and a variety of 'media', of 'signifier materials' - the surfaces of production (paper, rock, plastic, textile, wood, etc.), the substances of production (ink, gold, paint, light, etc.) and the tools of production (chisel, pen, brush, pencils, stylus, etc.)." (216)

Signs in their materiality are fully motivated, though as always the motivations are those of a particular culture in a particular period, and those of the maker of the sign; they are not global, nor are they a-historical. To explore material production is therefore also to explore the boundaries between the semiotic and the non-semiotic, and between individual expression and social semiosis.

Production systems and technology:

• Narrow sense - technologies at the hand; representations are articulated by the human hand, aided by hand-held tools such as chisels, brushes, pencils, etc.
• Recording technologies - technologies of the eye (and ear); allow more or less automated analogical representation of what they represent (audiotape, photography, film).
• Synthesizing technologies - allow the production of digitally synthesized representations; tied to the eye (and ear), these reintroduce the human hand via a technological 'interface' (keyboard, mouse, etc.).

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Semiotic features of colour: monochrome - painting or drawing in shades of the same colour.

• Value - grey scale from maximally light (white) to maximally dark (black).
  
• Saturation - scale from the most intensely saturated (pure) manifestations of colour to its softest (pale, dull/dark) manifestations, ultimately to complete desaturation (black and white).
  
• Purity - scale that runs from maximum (purity) to maximum (hybridity) and has been at the heart of colour theory as it developed over the last few centuries. (e.g. Colours with commonly used single names (brown and green) are considered pure. Mixed colours - specialists (cyan) and non-specialists (blue-green)).
  
• Modulation - scale that runs from fully modulated colour to flat colour. Flat colour - perceived as simple and bold; modulated colour - perceived as subtle; richening texture of real colour - overly fussy, detailed.
  
• Differentiation - scale that runs from monochrome to the use of a maximally varied palette.
  
• Hue - scale of blue to red; red - associated with warmth, energy, salience, foregrounding; blue - associated with cold, calm, distance, background.
  

Subproject: Film - Tattoo Theme

The main purpose of my film was to somehow represent tattoos. I have always been interested in the tattoo process, but I do not have one and I think this limits my experience somehow. The goal of this movie was to try and gain some understanding of the tattoo process; the film showcases a local tattoo shop (Anderson, SC) where we experience first hand how this operation works. This film is documentary style with the following elements:

1. Interview with the tattoo artist where we reveal the necessary precautions and steps taken before getting a tattoo.
2. Interview with someone actually going to get tattooed and finding out how they made their decision to get inked.
3. Tattoo process - this is where we see the tattoo getting put on and the necessary DHEC (health) forms that need to filled out.

RI - Chapter 6: The meaning of composition

This chapter focuses on composition: how the representational and interactive meanings of an image interrelate through - (Information value, Salience, and Framing).

Composite (multimodal texts) - visuals which combine text and image and other graphic elements. Questions arise whether the products of the various modes should be analyzed separately or in an integrated way.

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Information value- the placement of elements (participants that relate them to each other and to the viewer) endows them with the specific informational values attached to the various 'zones' of the image: left and right, top and bottom, centre and margin. "Many visuals combine horizontal and vertical structuring." (188)

Given and New (information value - left and right): in cultures which write from right to left, the Given is on the right and the New is on the left. "What is taken for granted by one social group is not taken for granted by another. We might expect to find, therefore, systematic differences in the dispositions of material in layout across different magazines - for instance, according to their readership." (184) Can also be found in film and television - interviewer on left of the interviewee (viewer's point of view). Interviewers are presented as people with whose views and assumptions viewers will identify and already familiar with ('GIVEN') ; interviewee presents 'NEW' information and are situated on the right.

• Demand pictures - usually the right page (NEW); dominated by large and salient photographs from which the representative participants engage the gaze of the viewer. Key information for viewer - must pay attention to 'message'.
  
• Offer pictures - usually the left page (GIVEN); dominated by smaller, less salient photographs from which the viewer doesn't have direct contact with the representative participants. Already given information - viewer already knows.

Ideal and Real (information value - top and bottom): less connection (ongoing movement) between the two parts - contrast between the two.

• Upper section - (Ideal); visualizes the 'promise of the product', the status of glamour it can bestow on its users, or sensory fulfillment it can bring. Consumer's supposed aspirations and desires. SALIENT part.
  
• Lower section - (Real); visualizes the product itself, providing more or less factual information about it, and telling the readers or users where it can be obtained, or how they can request more information about it, or order it. Products placed firmly in the realm of the real, as a solid foundation for the edifice of promise.

Centre and Margin (information value): a sense of permanence goes with the central position; in Byzantine churches the dominant image of the divine ruler holds the centre of the apse. In contemporary Western visualization central composition is relatively uncommon, though here too there may be changes in train. "Central composition played an important role in imagination of young Asian designers." (195) Triptychs - polarized with a Given left, New right and centre which bridges the two and acts as a 'Mediator'; used to structure diagrams, websites (vertical).

• Centre - central element; presented as the nucleus of the information to which all the other elements are in some sense subservient.
  
• Margins - elements around Centre; dependent, identical or similar to each other, so that there is no sense of a division between Given and New and/or Ideal and Real elements among them.
  

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Salience - the elements (participants) are made to attract the viewer's attention to different degrees (realized by factors as placement in the foreground and background, relative size, contrasts in tonal value (or colour), differences in sharpness, etc. Not objectively measurable; greater the weight of an element, the greater its salience.

"Regardless of where they are placed, salience can create a hierarchy of importance among the elements, selecting some as more important, more worthy of attention than others." (201)

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Framing - the presence or absence of framing devices (realized by elements which create dividing lines, or by actual frame lines) disconnects or connects elements of the image, signifying that they belong or do not belong together in some sense.

"The stronger the framing of an element, the more it is presented as a separate unit of information... the absence of framing stresses group identity, its presence signifies individuality and differentiation." (203) The more the elements of the spatial composition are connected, the more they are presented as belonging together, as a single unit of information. Ways in which framing can be achieved - by actual frame lines, by white space between elements, by discontinuities of colour, etc. "Emphasized by vectors, by depicted elements (structural elements of buildings, perspectivally drawn roads leading the eye to elements in the background, etc.) or by abstract graphic elements, leading the eye from one element to another, beginning with the most salient element (first element that draws the viewer's attention)." (204)
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Linear and non-linear compositions: "Given that what is made salient is culturally determined, members of different cultural groupings are likely to have different hierarchies of salience, and perhaps texts of this kind are the way they are precisely to allow for the possibility of more than one reading path, and hence for the heterogeneity and diversity of their large readership." (205) Linear reading is gradually losing ground; these are like movies where the viewers have no choice but to see the images in an order that has been decided for them. Non-linear texts, viewers can select their own images and view them in an order of their own choosing.

The shape of the reading path: conveys a significant cultural message; they may be circular, diagonal, spiraling, etc. - these different paths can themselves become sources of meaning. Interactive - no chronology, nor a clear hierarchy of salience (Water Parks of the Damned! - newspapers, billboards, comic strips, advertisements, websites).

Movie: Untergang, Der (2004) - Hitler's Downfall

I would just like to say that I really liked the movie. Bruno Ganz really did a great job acting as Hitler; his expressions were notible and gave me the sense that I was seeing the real-life Adolf. How does one make a movie about a ruthless dictator (monster) and give him the ability to be more noble or even empathetic toward himself or others? The director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, showed us an exclusive look inside Hitler's last moments as the setting takes place mainly in an underground bunker.

The movie intros us with an older woman whom explains to us her remorse for helping out Hitler; she acts as the narrator for the movie and I think this helped elevate the situation some. Throughout the movie we see more dialogue and less chaos; this helps the viewer understand better what the people were going through in these desperate times. Only seeing the Russians a few times helped keep the focus on the Germans; this was a smart move and helped keep the intensity of the invasion up.

The expressions on everyone's face says it all... the adults tried to show that they were not frightened, discouraged, etc., while the children soldiers kept more of a determined and focused look. The movie definitely needed the suicides, nudity, and even laughter to help us grasp the monstrosities of war and how one person, Hitler, could cause this disaster for reasons of religion or racial beliefs. It was also important to emphasize the comments by Hitler and his officials, that the German people wanted this type of government and they should deal with their decision (even if they would die because of it).

Subtitles!!!! I had a hard time getting into the movie because of this, but I think it was the right approach. I kindof liked the mystery behind this time in history, and I actually preferred this style of viewing the movie because it allowed me to stay interested and focused. If they changed it to english dialect, I wouldn't get involved, as much, and I think that would interfere with the realism that the movie portrays now.

Overall the movie was very enjoyable and I would probably not watch it again mainly for the duration. This movie could have been shorter, but I think it gave a since of foreboding (future misfortune). I do like the final outcome where Traudl Junge, our young secretary narrator, frees herself from the cluches of Adolf's leadership. The movie gave me a sense of realism because of the directing style and confined space.

Wikipedia says...
der Führer means... "the term referred to a commander lacking the qualifications for permanent command." This makes me wonder why they called Hitler the Fuhrer; maybe he lacked the leadership skills.

Subproject: Digital Remix - Tattoo Theme

Here are some of my images for our second project - Digital Remix. The goal of this subproject was to try and create three images worthy enough to be displayed on http://www.worth1000.com website. The central theme focuses on tattoos here for this is my goal for projects this semester. Hope you enjoy.

For more information you can download a pdf file here: [TattooDigitalRemix.pdf]

RI - Chapter 5 - Modality: designing models of reality

Here are my notes from reading this book from authors Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen.

This chapter looks at the truth behind and image to understand if it is valid or not; social groups can change the validity of a given image because they foster different beliefs and reasonings.

Modality definition: reliability of messages; truth value or credibility of statements about the world; visually, we regard our sense of sight more reliable than another other sense (hearing, taste, etc.). While the camera may not lie, those who use it can and do. Modality cues - "motivated signs which have arisen out of the interest of social groups who interact within the structures of power that define social life, and also interact across the systems produced by various groups within a society." (154)

Representation of visual - people, places, and things as though they are real (exist), or imaginings, fantasies, caricatures, etc. (non-existent).

Reality is in the eye of the beholder: what is regarded as real depends on how reality is defined by a particular social group.

• Naturalism reality - basis of how much correspondence there is between the visual representation of an object and what we normally see of that object with the naked eye. Hyper-real shows 'too much detail', 'too much depth', 'too much color' to be true, which makes it have less modality for this naturalism reality.
  
• Scientific reality - defines reality on the basis of what things are like regularly; goes beyond the visual appearance of things.

Realism is produced by a particular group: as an effect on the complex of practices which define and constitute that group. Particular kind of realism is itself a motivated sign, in which the values, beliefs and interests of that group find their expression.

Dominant criterion for what is real or not: based on appearance of things, on how much correspondence there is between what we can 'normally' see of an object, in a concrete and specific setting, and what we can see of it in a visual representation.

Judging a pictures modality: pictures which have the perspective, the degree of detail, the kind of colour rendition, etc. of the standard technology of colour photography have the highest modality, and are seen as 'naturalistic'. As detail, sharpness, colour, etc. are reduced or amplified, as the perspective flattens or deepens, so modality decreases.

Modality markers: realized by a complex interplay of visual cues below. The same image may be 'abstract' in terms of one or several markers and 'naturalistic' in terms of others.

• Colour saturation - a scale running from full colour saturation to the absence of colour (black and white).
• Colour differentiation - a scale running from a maximally diversified range of colours to monochrome.
• Colour modulation - a scale running from fully modulated colour (use of many different shades of red, to plain, unmodulated colour.
• Contextualization - a scale running from the absence of background to the most fully articulated and detailed background (e.g. depth of field - standard lenses have accustomed us to images in which the background is less articulated than the foreground).
  
• Representation - a scale running from maximum abstraction to maximum representation of pictorial detail.
• Depth - a scale running from the absence of depth to maximally deep perspective.
• Illumination - a scale running from the fullest representation of the play of light and shade to its absence.
• Brightness - a scale running from a maximum number of different degrees of brightness to just two degrees (black and white / dark grey and lighter grey / two brightness values of the same colour).

Coding orientation: the ability of modern colour photography to render detail, brightness, colour, etc. constitutes for our culture today a kind of standard for visual modality. The world 'as we see it' has become the measure for what is 'real' and 'true'. "So visual modality rests on culturally and historically determined standards of what is real and what is not, and not on the objective correspondence of the visual image to a reality defined in some ways independently of it." (163) Set o abstract principles which inform the way in which texts are coded by specific social groups, or within specific institutional contexts.

• Technological coding orientations - 'effectiveness' of the visual representation as a 'blueprint' (e.g. colour is useless for the scientific or technological purpose of the image - low modality)
• Sensory coding orientations - pleasure principle is allowed to be dominant: certain kinds of art, advertising, fashion, food photography, interior decoration... (e.g. colour is source of pleasure and affective meanings - high modality - vibrant reds, soothing blues).
• Abstract coding orientations - used by sociocultural elites - in 'high' art, in academic and scientific contexts (e.g. higher modality - achieved when an image reduces the individual to the general, and the concrete to its essential qualities).
• Naturalistic coding orientations - dominant in society; all members in culture share. (e.g. watching television or reading a magazine...)

Abstract realism - naturalism modality does not apply: attitude which does not equate the appearance of things with reality, but looks for a deeper truth 'behind appearances'.

RI - Chapter 4 - Representation and interaction designing the position of the viewer

Here are my notes from reading this book from authors Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen.

This chapter focuses on the interaction between the viewer and the representational image that the producer creates; below is a recap of quick notes I highlighted while reading the book.

Two types of participants that images involve:

• Represented - people, places, and things depicted in image.
• Interactive - people who communicate with each other through images (producers and viewers of image.

Three kinds of relations:

• relations between represented participants
• relations between interactive and represented participants
• relations between interactive participants

To see their work spread, Producers must: work within more or less rigidly defined conventions, and adhere to the more or less rigidly defined values and beliefs of the social institution within which their work is produced and circulated.

Context of production and reception: image itself, knowledge of communicative resources that allow its articulation and understanding (social interactions and social relations can be encoded). Disjunction causes social relations to be respresented rather than enacted. "When images confront us with friendly smiles or arrogant stares, we are not obliged to respond, even though we do recognize how we are addressed. The relation is only represented." (116) ... because we do understand the way images represent social interactions and social relations.
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Image act and the gaze: difference between pictures which represented participants look directly at the viewer's eyes, and pictures in which this is not the case. Visual configuration (two related functions) - 1) Acknowledge viewers explicitly ('you') 2) Constitutes image act (producer uses the image to do something to the viewer.

Choice between 'offer' and 'demand':

• offer - real of imaginary barrier is erected between the represented participants and the viewers, a sense of disengagement (e.g. feature film, television drama, scientific illustration)
• demand - require a sense of connection between the viewers and authority figures, celebrities and role models depicted (e.g. television newsreading, posted magazine photograph)

Illustrations in education: served to involve students emotively in subject matter, then gradually dropped out as higher levels of education are reached.

Real producers cannot refer to themselves directly: they must speak impersonally ('I's' are repressed); the public is addressed directly.

"What can be 'said' and 'done' with images (and with language) does not only depend on the intrinsic and universal characteristics of these modes of communication, but also on historically and culturally specific social needs." (123)
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Size of frame and social distance:

• Size of frame: second dimension to interactive meanings of images (e.g. choice between close-up, medium, long shots ...); film and television production define it to be defined in relation to human body using set of distinct cut-off points.
  
• Social distance: everyday interaction, social relations determine the distance we keep from one another; invisible boundary is determined by senses - this creates different fields of vision (e.g. choice between intimate, far personal, public distances...).

Distance patterns can become conventional visual genres: television 'voices' of different status are framed differently (expert/interviewer get breast pocket shot, subjects revealing feelings get bigger close-ups) - used to signify respect for authorities of various kinds.

Objects and the environment framing: no visual guide like human form; many objects come in many shapes and sizes. Three suggested distances: 1) close distance - viewer is engaged with it (e.g. reading a book or map) 2) middle distance - object shown in full, without much space around it; within viewer's reach, but not actually used (e.g. advertising product displayed in front of viewer - close, steep angle) 3) long distance - invisible barrier between the viewer and the object (e.g. shop window, museum exhibit)
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Perspective and the subject image: another way images bring about relations between represented participants and the viewer perspective; producing an image involves selection of angle (point-of-view), which implies subjective attitudes that are socially determined and are encoded as individual or unique.

Naturalized socially determined viewpoints: recording images of reality. Pre-Renaissance forms, viewers were positioned by structure of its environment. Renaissance forms, viewers were positioned by internal structure of work because the producers of said images used perspective with a centralized viewport; this image became detached from its surroundings, movable, produced for impersonal market, rather than for specific locations (window on the world).

Subjective and objective images came out of Renaissance:

• Subjective - the viewer can see what there is to see only from a particular point of view (with central perspective - built-in viewpoint)
• Objective - the image reveals everything there is to know about the represented participants (without central perspective - no built-in viewpoint) - disregards the viewer.

"... Chinese do not use the art of perspective. They do not like to see everything from a single point of view... rejects the subjugation of the observer." (131)

Modern magazine and website layouts: not based solely on compositional principles of perspective - form another category of visual works.
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Involvement and the horizontal angle: function of the relation between the frontal plane of the image-producer (what they're looking at) and the frontal plane of the represented participants (subject of producer). The two can either be parallel (aligned with each other), diverge from one another. Involvement of viewer and represented participants: 1) frontal angle - 'What you see here is part of our world, something we are involved with.' 2) oblique angle - 'What you see here is not part of our world; it is their world, something we are not involved with.' (136)

Double message - represented participant: The body may be angled away from the plane of the viewer, while his/her head and/or gaze may be turned towards it - vice versa. 'although I am not part of your world, I nevertheless make contact with you, from my own, different world' (138)

Perspective barrier - between viewer and represented participant. Frontal angle: the viewer looks at the represented participants and has an attitude towards them, but does not imaginarily engage with them.
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Power and vertical angle:

• High angle - make subject look small and insignificant; interactive participants (producer of image / viewer) has power over represented participant (e.g. school textbooks we look down on people - workers in hall; children in school yard... knowledge is power.)
  
• Low angle - makes subject look imposing and awesome; represented participants has power over interactive partipant (producer of image / viewer) (e.g. models in magazines advertisements and features; newsworthy people and celebrities in magazine articles... depicted as exercising symbolic power over us.)
  
• Eye level - point of view is one of equality, no power difference involved.

Omniscient knowledge of reader's mind: the power of an image-producer must be transfered on to one or more represented participants; understand the reader needs (must do, should think, will feel, and so on) - lack of reciprocity between the writer and reader / speaker and hearer cannot be realized in the same way in images. Revlon advertisement - "Wrinkles. They don't start where you think they do. They start underneath your skin. That's why Anti-Aging Daily Moisturizer goes beyond mere surface treatment." (142)
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Objective images: (e.g. scientific / technical pictures - diagrams, maps and charts, etc. - not always true though - oblique angles for instance.)

• Frontal angle - 'this is how it works', 'this is how you use it', 'this is how you do it'.
• Top-down angle - angle of maximum power.
• Cross-section - X-ray view; does not stop at appearances, but probes beyond the surface, to deeper, more hidden levels.
  

RI - Chapter 3 - Conceptual representations: designing social constructs

Here are my notes from reading this book from authors Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen.

Classificational process do not reflect 'real' or 'natural' things. For participants to be put together into a classificational means, they need to be judged and read as members of the same class. The more general idea is represented similar to a greater 'power'.
(def. Taxonomy - the science or technique of classification.) (e.g. Cosmopolitan magazine - Xpose watches by Sekonda)

Classificational structures represent participants by their place in a static order. Verbal labels and explanations which accompany them do not always do so.

Classificational diagrams, if rotated 90 degrees and final orientation is along horizontal axis. This has the orientation similar to narrative diagrams - dynamic connotation but retains the structure of classificational diagram (represented as a system).

Here is are some diagrams of UNIX and WINDOWS operating system, with programming languages. These diagrams reminded me of the trees in this book... horizontal axis.
http://www.levenez.com/unix/history.html#04
http://www.levenez.com/windows/history.html#04
http://www.levenez.com/lang/history.html#06

Taxonomy: modeled on a static, hierarchical organization in which everything has its pre-ordained place in a grand scheme unified by a single source of authority.

Flowchart: modeled on the principle of authoritatively prescribed, structured, goal-oriented activity.

Network: modeled on a form of social organization which is a vast labyrinth of intersecting local relations in which each node is related in many different ways to other nodes in its immediate environment, but in which it is difficult, if not impossible, to form a coherant view of the whole.

Subproject: Avatar Character - Tattoo Theme

The goal of this project was to create an avatar in Second Life online game created by Linden Labs. My project focused on tattoos, so my character reflects someone in general that would get tattoos in real life. A good point to make here is that this character represents your second life, not your first (current) life; this allows you to represent yourself visually without having the constraints of permanently manipulating your body. Here are some images from creation of my avatar for Second Life.

Figure 1: Final tattoo avatar in Second Life.

Figure 2: Close up of back.

Figure 3: Face UV Layout for avatar skin.

Figure 4: Upper torso UV Layout for avatar skin.

For more information you can download a pdf file here: [TattooAvatar.pdf]

RI - Chapter 2 - Narrative representations: designing social action

Here are my notes from reading this book from authors Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen.

Comments about the image with the British and Aborigines. The thing to point out would be the difference in structure. The Aborigines tools are arranged symmetrically (equal in size, distance, oriented same way, static) and they tend to be somewhat impersonal; the British image represents technology in action, giving it a more dynamic, dramatic, and personal touch. Main thing to get from these visual structures is that they produce images of reality which are influenced greatly by varying cultures. Transactional structure - two men form one participant; together they have the role of "Actor." Analytical structure - two men form two distinct participants, linked by the lines formed by the hand of the man on the right and the gun of the man on the left.

Interactive vs. represented participants. Interactive participants speak and listen, write and read, make images or view them in the act of communicating; represented participants compose the subject matter of communication (people, places, and things (could be abtract)).

How hard is it to tell who the represented participants are? Diagrams are much easier to determine this than naturalistic images because they are abstract representations. The authors claim that detailed naturalistic images may be "difficult, even futile, to try and identify the represented participants" because an image of this kind lends itself to multiple interpretations ('worth a thousand words').

Can naturalistic images be analyzed into participants and processes much like diagrams? Artist do this by reducing the visible world to simple geometric forms, and children do this by building basic forms and gradually "fusing the parts."

Antartic explorer image comments. This picture describes the way participants "fit together" to make up a larger whole; it does not explain the notion of "doing" something to other participants. Antartic explorer represents the carrier that contains all the parts (e.g. balaclava, windproof top, fur mittens) - possessive attributes.

Communication model comments. Not all meanings conveyed visually are conveyed verbally. The diagram is constructed of boxes and circles (multiple shapes) which surround the participants (Communicator and Recipient, source-encoder-signal); these shapes are left unexplained.

How shapes intergrate into society. Squares and rectangles are elements of mechanical and technological order of world of human construction (in Western society - cities, buildings, roads). "In all fields life grows increasingly abstract while it remains real..." - quoted in Jaffe, 1967:64. I also like the comment about "the more abstract the sign, the greater its semantic extension..." Organic and natural order can be constructed with circles and curved forms, while the inorganic world of technology (built by humans) can be thought of being constructed from angles. We can rationalize our world but the organic world will always be mysterious to us.

RI - Chapter 1 - The semiotic landscape: language and visual communication

Here are my notes from reading this book from authors Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen.

Images away from 'expression' and moot a; this goes for all groups.ll meanings conveyed visually are conveyed verbally.re towards technicality. A child's image may not disappear in expression, but become more specialized in function over his/her lifetime.

Writing remains expected and dominant mode of visual communication. For materials demanded from children, this medium remains superior for various forms of assessment.

Can layout of new communication mediums, with emphasis on 'visual rather than verbal', produce illiterates? Newspapers, magazines, CD-ROMs or websites, public relations materials, advertisements or information materials all play into this part of meaningful interplay of written text and images, with more focus on visual aspect. "... seen as threat, a sign of the decline of culture." Emergence of visual could be an alternative to writing - seen as potential threat.

Images are too open to a variety of possible meanings. This image-text relationship extends the meaning of either the image or text given; one side of this relation increases the understanding of the other. "...nature, rather than discourse..." shows that source ofovert authority is verbal text over images. Each side to this relationship has their own independently organized and structured message.
; this goes for all groups.
(e.g. 'classic' documentary - viewer is first confronted with images, second comes voice of narrator who interprets the images.
anchorperson - viewer is first confronted with verbal discourse, second or simultaneously comes illustrations to recount the the verbal.)

Not everything realized in languages can be realized in images, vice versa. Images need angles of vision to gain perspective and spatial disposition of elements for syntactic relations; language does not adopt either one of these approaches.

Understanding cultural history can inform us of the blind misnomers of visual communication that exists in literate cultures. The authors discuss how closely they would like to investigate how visual representation and languages interact. They explain that in some cultures "one form of representation 'took over' the other..."

Images can be structured, such that, there could be a message derived through a given analysis. Do all images impose a 'coded' message? What makes us want to "constituent and analysis" on an image? How can words help emphasis a image's meaning?

Can the layout of text vs. image render different interCommunication modelpretations or help clarify one's interpretation? The picture of the 'Bath' has the text first; this imposes a meaning on the image, which allows you to change the image out because it solely acts as an intensifier to the text given (no loss of meaning with different images of bath).

Are images subject to linear structure? In the case of the "Bird in tree" book you can have a 'non-linear' approach; the authors say that the parents can choose the order in which they want to deal with the various elements arising in the book. Would this non-linear method derail you from the implied meaning of the book? Parents attitudes towards a character or reactions from the story could impact their child in an indirect fashion.

(e.g. bird and cat - a) political story b) powerful predators coming from another continent and native birds killed and threatened with extinction c) survival of the fittest.)

Coherant sequence is a must for a book to communicate its' code. We should not focus only on the elements of a given page, but how multiple pages could interact with each other; specific relations come out of doing this.

Why get a tattoo?

To better acquaint myself with the understanding behind why people get tattoos, I plan to focus my strategy on the following deliverables:

** Using (http://secondlife.com) online video game created by Linden Lab as a medium for visual communication.

1) Second Life avatar - character should represent self; specific tattoos need to be selected to gain insight into how people perceive the visual appearance of others. Variation in layout and design of tattoos will be applied to the avatar to obtain different results for study.

2) Digital Remix - create a portfolio of different tattoo images worthy of being displayed on (http://www.worth1000.com/default.asp).

3) Film - this movie should reflect how others interpret meanings from tattoos; it should also demonstrate how people observe and reflect upon people's appearance. Tattoo artist and tattoo enthusiasts will be interviewed for this insight.

4) Virtual Exhibit - construct a new world in Second Life to teach others about tattoo meanings; a tattoo parlor is at the top of my list.

If you were able to get this far, it's safe to say that I don't have a tattoo! You heard me correctly. The problem with this decision is that I don't have the complete information to be able to rationalize an informed commitment. Tattoos are permanent and there are numerous designs to choose! The book above is very helpful to get a broad sense of many tattoos around ("The Tattoo Encyclopedia").