The Analysis of Punctum and Semiotics in an Image - Essay Example

The Power of One’ is an extremely powerful image, which immediately causes the viewer to become absorbed in a moment when a Jewish woman clashes withIsraeli security forces who are removing illegal settlers. Yet it is so much more than this – as will be explored, it contains several contradictions, and there are so many ways in which one can view the image. I will be focusing on two most prominent aspects of the image; namely those of semiotics and punctum. These two methods of analysis and photography create intensely powerful results, as can be seen in the image. Semiotics is the use or capturing of visual meaning within an image. It can be described as a language within itself, without the need for words. Indeed, it is clear that ‘The Power of One’ is extremely emotive, its language powerful and vast and immediate. What is the visual meaning of this image? As has been already mentioned, this image has the potential to evoke contradictory visual meaning, depending on what one sees and on whether one solely sees rather than reads into the image. The implicational qualities of images alone create an array of possibilities as to how an image will be read and just what the observer will see both at the beginning and during the observation of an image. That is to say that what one may see or feel or notice, and how one will accept an image when first viewed may not necessarily be, and is usually not the same as that after observing and examining an image for some time. Images are different from texts of actual language, and this causes one to approach an image with uncertainty; ‘The Power of One’ does not tell one how to feel or what exactly it is – there is no actual language. And so, one must decipher the unwritten yet strongly visible language portrayed. This is where the previously mentioned conflicts become apparent. Indeed, it is quite simply an image of a woman, but is she defying the soldiers or protecting her land? The expression on her face is pained, perhaps she is trying to simply protect her land…or it could be determination and anger, perhaps she is defying the soldiers, fighting them. But let us look at the image as a whole, for there is a great deal more language contained in other elements which will allow one to understand perhaps on a deeper level the woman and the purpose of her presence. We can see the language of the soldiers – the clothes they wear are black; a menacing colour of death; they are all male. The woman wears household clothes; she is a woman alone. This plays on the language of stereotypes and the symbolism of the male persona in contrast to that of the female. If viewed in this manner, the male is stereotypically associated with violence and power, where the woman is she who is to be protected – the weaker sex. This brings into play many varied aspects. Firstly, the observer may be caused to feel sympathy for the woman – she is simply a stereotypical weaker sex, an everyday person trying to protect her home. One is then caused to see pain and perhaps even fear on her face. The fact that we cannot see the soldier’s faces allows us to become more familiarised with the woman’s – she appears more human. They are the positive force, coming towards the woman, whereas she defends – she does not appear to be attacking. On the other hand, the clothes the soldiers wear could be protective rather than invasive; they are men, but they are soldiers, with whom we often associate the establishment and preservation of order. Thus one could see determination and defiance on the face of the woman – and perhaps we are brought to the standpoint that she has illegally taken up home on the land. Through the language of stereotypes, the primary symbolism of man and woman is extremely powerful – the photographer has managed to play on objective standards surrounding the personas of males and females. The only textual language we are provided with is the title: ‘The Power of One’. Yet the power of one what? The power of one woman amid cowards, one spirit against the state, one moment amongst years of conflict? It could be all and either of these possibilities, or more. And so we are left with an unanswered question, to which the image itself, without textual words, must answer instead, so that “the meaning of visual syntax becomes fluid, indeterminate, and more subject to the viewers interpretational predispositions than is the case with a communicational mode such as verbal language".1 The plain-clothed crowd along the top left horizon looks on at the scene – they cause the woman to increasingly don the term ‘one’, for she is alone amongst all those who could help her but choose for some reason to merely observe. This again creates an intense sense of sympathy and even admiration for the woman – she is trying to protect her home. The ratios of the image are also deeply emotive; there are around 30 or 40 soldiers against one woman, and the fact that the onlookers are behind the soldiers make the image disjointed and the weight uneven. It intensifies to a titanic proportion the ‘one’ of the image, if we are to see her as the one of the title. And once again, we feel the compassion for her – she is the symbol of single will, left to her own lonely attempts, a woman against masked, armed men while others simply watch. It causes the observer to see the image – and the situation – beyond race or religion; there is very little, if anything in the image to remind the observer specifically of the Arab-Israeli conflict; it takes one back to the very basics of protecting one’s own world; her daring defence of the object of her theft. And so we move to the punctum of the image; the element, as described by Barthes ‘which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me’.2 It is a point that accompanies, but does not necessarily enforce, the main semiotic message of the image. This could be the point of clash between the woman and the soldiers – the shields where two forces, so uneven, come to meet. The shields are transparent – the two sides can see each other through its transparency which conveys the ultimate heightening of the point at which they meet. They can see her through their shields; they know that they are fighting against and pushing one woman. The burning question surrounding this punctum is: why do they no walk around her? Indeed, a question which again causes one to feel sympathy for the woman – why do they not walk around her? Her head is turned away; either from fear or from sheer exertion of force and energy; again we see her struggle – she is the absorber of their impact; she did not go to them, they came to her. The punctum is accentuated by the mirror images of the woman and the front solider in the foreground. They have the same stance on either side of the thin shield that delicately keeps them so closely apart. Yet, this mirrored stance – what does it say? How does it speak to the observer? It suggests that after all, they are the same – they are people fighting for what they believe in and what they feel is theirs. It causes one to momentarily look past the soldiers in the background and reduces the image to a clash between these two single people. Perhaps this is the ‘one’ – the point of clash, no matter how many people are behind it, is always the collision between one and one; the one point where they meet. So, just as the people watch from a distance, so the remaining soldiers are reduced to the distance also, and their participation in the situation lessens dramatically; they too become but onlookers. And so, as stated, the ‘one’ becomes the one against the one; no matter who follows, it comes to the one at the front of it all – the one who is responsible for the outcome of the clash. And one thus perhaps begins to see the futility of this, and everything begins to come into play as an irrelevant concept of the image. Each has power, but of a different kind. She is in front of the shield, he is behind it. He covers his face – she bares hers for all to see. He is uphill, she is downhill – he is protected and she is in everyday clothing. This causes the punctum – the shield – to act as a form of mirror, a line of opposites. It portrays to an extremely high degree the absolute opposites of the situation that we are seeing, and thus why we may tend to favour the stance of the woman. He has his followers behind him, whereas she has none or they simply stand and watch her. The asymmetry is almost unbearable, and creates a platform upon which one cannot help but fall mercy to the complete unfairness of this image. And so we begin to read this ‘one’ and the woman, as the point of meeting the soldier who is her mirror. Indeed, the punctum can be seen as a different element by different observers, despite the personal view that another may find it difficult to locate anther punctum. This could be due to the suggestive title of the image – one immediately has in mind a ‘one’ single element, and it would be difficult to look past the single figure of the woman, and not see her as the one. Another aspect which causes her to be the punctum is the colouring of her clothes – the surrounding image is somewhat dull and neutral in comparison to what she wears, especially the dark, black clothes of the guards. Again, this increases her figure as the main point of the image. Yet not only her clothes create this punctum; as has already been explored – her facial expression and the fact that she is downhill of the soldiers. Would this have been the punctum had the female been male? Would it have been as powerful had the woman had 40 followers supporting her? It is highly likely not, and the fact that the answer is most likely to be negative, one can arrive at the conclusion that she is indeed the punctum. Indeed, the accompanying elements of the image serve to somewhat compliment or enhance the punctum. The smoke in the sky; a typical image of war and destruction heightens the situation of the woman and one views her as a single soul caught up in conflict. Interestingly, the figures to the left edge of the image walk with their back to her, calmly; they do not run, and there is in fact no other element of direct conflict in the image. This is a subtle yet powerful element of the piece – the people to the left edge accentuate the isolation in which she is viewed, yet again increasing her singular presence and stance. Her stance on the downhill position serves to increase her situation as disadvantageous; she is against a big group of armed soldiers and is downhill. The people simply watch her from the background – she is totally alone in this image; nobody helps her. And so, her presence as the punctum, complimented by all of these semiotic elements becomes, or is realised as, titanic. This is the true capturing of a singular struggle, and she becomes the protector and the defiant all at once, yet despite her disadvantageous position, she is (and has) the ‘power’ of one. For although one may consider the aftermath of the image; that perhaps she was trampled; that perhaps the land she is fighting for was captured after all, this image is all that one sees. And for this precise split second caught by Oded Balilty, she really is ‘The Power of One’ – one is brought face to face with this single moment independent of anything before or after it. For this one moment she has succeeded in providing resistance against the armed soldiers, for protecting her land. Both the analysis of punctum and semiotics in an image such as this are bound to produce a much more profound and intense insight into such an already powerful image. With the capturing of non textual semiotics within this image, Balilty has caught a scene which speaks so much louder than a textual description of such a scene could. By placing the punctum to the bottom right of the image, he has heightened the unbalanced theme which runs throughout the whole image. And so one comes to realise that both methods compliment and heighten the effect and impact of the other, to create a truly momentous image which is able to manipulate the observer’s view and cause ‘The Power of One’ to truly be a power. BIBLIOGRAPHY Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography trans. Howard, Richard. New York: Hill & Wang, 1981 Fried, M. Barthes’s Punctum. Critical Enquiry vol 31, no 3: UChicago Press, 2005 Messaris, Paul. Visual Literacy: Image, Mind and Reality. Boulder: Westview Press, 1994 Sebeok, Thomas Albert & Sebeok, Donna Jean. Advances in Visual Semiotics: The Semiotic Web 1992-1993. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1992 Smith, T.R. Roland Barthes: Images and Word in Barthes’ Autobiography. Semiotics: Plenum Press, 1980 Read More