Is a Picture Worth a
Thousand Words?
Engaging with
Visual Culture
Outline of Workshop
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Why analyse visual culture?
Using Imagery
Media and Themes
Reading Images
Reading a Building
Objects and Artefacts
What Next?
Further reading
1. Why analyse visual culture?
2. Understanding how we tell stories about
ourselves and others through images and visual
culture …..
3. Key skills : observation, analyses, identification,
description, explanation, argument, awareness,
self expression, oral and literacy skills …..
4. You should treat an image, artefact or building
the same as you would any written text:
INTERROGATE, QUESTION and ANALYSE.
Reference
Images are
relevant to all
subject areas
To illustrate
Provide data
In your
presentation
Using
Imagery
Marketing and
promotion
The focus of
discussion
Your own imagery
Visual planning and
brainstorming
Evidence of
process
What ‘media’?
• The term media in this context means ‘the agency
or means of doing something … the material or
form by which something is communicated.’
[Oxford Dictionary]
Activity 1:
Now we have considered why and how you can
use visual culture within your Extended Projects,
in pairs jot down all the different types of media
which make up visual culture that you can think of.
Media
Photography
Advertising
Maps
Clothing
Packaging
Architecture
Fine Art
Flags
Graffiti
Themes
Race
Sexuality
Gender
Religion
Ethnicity
The Canon
Memory
Space and Place
Digital/ Cyber
Signage
Authorship
Artefacts
Spatial Design
Film/ TV
Viewer
The Gallery
Products
Family
Animation
Performance
Narrative
What theories can
you apply?
What is it (i.e. media)?
Relationship between the image
and written documents?
What’s its relevance
socially, politically,
economically?
Who made it?
When was it
created?
Reading
Images
What codes and signifiers
are used to generate
meaning?
Audience?
Purpose?
Relationship between
text and image?
Where is it displayed?
What is the composition?
How is colour used?
How is it displayed?
Where are you viewing it?
What is present in
the image?
Activity 2: Codes & Signifiers
• In pairs discuss the symbolism or associations of
the colour ‘red’
• This is a basic example. The meanings
generated by this colour would also depend on
the other content of the image, and the country
or culture it refers to
• Do you know of any images, films, posters etc
where red has been used effectively?
Activity 3: Comparing Images
Applying the questions from the Reading Images
wheel, in pairs analyse how the graffiti image on
the left (by an anonymous artist) has
appropriated the Alfred Leete’s World War I Lord
Kitchener recruitment poster (1914).
Other Visual stimuli
Activity 4: Reading a Building
• There might be further questions you need to
consider if you are reading different types of
visual stimuli, other than 2d images,
• For instance, consider a building
– What questions might you need to consider to
analyse or respond to the built environment?
Reading a Building
Age
Stories and
narratives
Style
Inhabitants/
users
Ornament or
decoration
Uses
Spaces
Location
or site
Materials
used
The ‘life cycle’ of an object …….
 Object is made/ created/ ‘born’
 Object is distributed
 Object is then purchased
 Object goes through a process of use
 Object discarded
 …. Thrown away/ lost/ given away/ passed on to
another
 Object begins a new life: in landfill/ recycled/in
someone else’s property/ waiting to be
purchased …..
The ‘life cycle’ of an object ...
For an interesting example of the life cycle of an
object, watch the 18min film Plastic Bag, directed
by Ramin Bahrani (2009). The film can be found
on YouTube and Futurestates.tv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDBtCb61Sd4,
or
http://www.futurestates.tv/episodes/plastic-bag
Objects and Artefacts
Questions:
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What is it?
Where is it from?
What is its age?
What is it made of?
What is its purpose?
What visual details are there?
What does it feel like?
What Next?
• Use the window as a frame – what is the image
in that frame?
• Analyse the front page of a newspaper or
magazine
• Evaluate an advertising billboard
• Examine a company website
• Respond to a personal photograph
• Assess the layout and design of a favourite shop
• Record the images and objects on your street
• Consider the design of food packaging
Further Reading
Barthes, Roland, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography.
London: Vintage, 1993.
Berger, John, Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Classics, 2008.
Fernie, Eric, ed, Art History and its Methods: A Critical Anthology.
London: Phaidon, 1995.
Honour, Hugh, Fleming, John, eds, A World History of Art. London:
Laurence King, 2009.
Howells, Richard, Visual Culture: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity
Press, 2003.
Pearce, Susan M, ed, Interpreting Objects and Collections. London:
Routledge, 1994.
Pointon, Marcia, History of Art: A Student’s Handbook. London:
Routledge, 2002.
Laneyrie-Dagen, Nadeije, How to Read Paintings. Edinburgh:
Chambers, 2004.