Visual Communication as a Form of Relaying Message - Essay Example

Reflection Essay on Visual Arts Visual communication as a form of relying message involves conveying ideas and information through forms and means that either readable or those that can be looked by the audience. Although visual communication appears as a simple subject, it is however, a deep and extensive subject covering a number of areas as I came to realize in the course of this class. Some people hold the belief that they are great visual communicators, while the result of their visual communication process proves opposite. Personally, I thought of myself as a great visual communicator, while in real sense I was not. Attending the visual communication class taught that there are many factors responsible for effective visual communication. Through the various lessons that we have undertaken in class, especially those focusing on the images and viewer meaning, have all contributed to my ability to visually communicate successfully. Not only have I had the opportunity to improve my visual communication skills, I have also learnt the various factors that lead to poor visual communication, perception and meaning of what we see are the major factors. Visually, I can analyse anything that I see from different perspectives and later make a conclusion. Earlier, I used to make conclusions without going through the analysing process. Subsequently, I made numerous mistakes in most of my decisions. However, being a visually literate person, I make decisions without any fear or worry of making mistakes. Thus, I am more confident, surer and more decisive when am making my decisions from visual communication. Art is emotional and sentimental, as I have come to realize from the various classes that we have taken. The purpose of art is diverse and has a broad meaning. Not only is art a form of entertainment, it is also a form of communication that artists use to convey different messages to the audience. Artists use art to communicate on different social issues and problems generally affecting the society. Art influences our thinking and reasoning about life. Personally, I perceive art as a method in which artists use to educate people on important issues affecting the society. Moreover, I have come to realize that art takes many forms, not just the cultural art or art by a certain group of people. Media is a form of art in the post modernism era. However, there is a rift in the reasoning behind the modern and post modernism forms of art. While postmodern art holds that all stances are unstable and insincere, and therefore irony, parody, and humour, by critique or revision prevails, the modern art thinks otherwise. As such, many events happening around us incorporate the use of art, especially in advertising and explaining consumer behaviour and character. For an advert to be captivating, it should be creative and attractive. Beauty is attractive and captures the attention of the people. Through this understanding, businesses provide beautiful commodities to people especially those that capture their attention for the purpose of ma king a sale. Thus, even in the modern world, the art is still alive, only that this time, its application falls in different categories than in the past. Throughout the class, I came to realize several things that I was not aware about in the past. Although initially they appeared obvious, the reality in them did not occur to me until after taking the class. It was during the topic on “the experience of looking” that I experienced a break-through moment in my artistic abilities as well as visual communication. The different concepts learned in the class were a form of revelation that I did not have in the past. Positivism as I realized assumes that meaning exists out in the world, independent of our feelings, attitudes, or beliefs about them. Positivism holds that only the scientific knowledge is genuine knowledge, while other views are simply some forms of suspicion. Moreover, the empirical truths of experience of looking assumes that things exist independent of language and other forms of representation, and can be known independent of any specific content. According to the photographic truth, images produced by camera have the power to project images whose description is unmediated copies of reality. However, even as we look at images in our surrounding, we get two meaning, which are either denotative or connotative. To get the meaning of an image, it is imperative for us to understand that for the capacity of mages to affect us as viewers and consumers largely depends on the larger cultural meanings they invoke and the social, political and cultural contexts of their viewing. Meanings of images are not within their image elements alone but acquired whenever consumed, viewed and interpreted. In in looking, there are codes, which mean implicit rules through which meanings get into social practice and are thus readable by their users. According to coding language, we decode images by interpreting clues to intended, unintended and even merely suggested meanings. Lessons learnt from this class significantly have influenced my identity as a student, artist and citizen in a number of ways. While being a student the class has taught me the essence of being a good artist as well as the opportunities available for me through art, as an artist, the class was a form of revelation that opened my eyes to look at art in a different manner. Today, art is diverse and covers numerous areas. Its meaning of communication is still alive, only that this time it conveys a different kind of information, which is mostly advertisements. Creative advertisements are appealing to the people due to their beauty and anaesthetic value. As a citizen, the class puts me in a position to know the right content to send across to the people, aiming at educating them and providing them with informative information on the various aspects of life. For instance, there are differences in intended meaning and viewer meaning of any form of art produced. As such, being a student, the class has taught me to focus my artistic presentations in a manner that blends both the intended and the viewer meaning to avoid ambiguity. This helps in sending positive messages to the people in the society. The media is at the forefront in this, with its portrayal of women as items for men to look at. This notion, although culturally instilled in us, needs to change. Alternatively, just as the idea suggests, even men should be objects of looking for men. My perspective of the meaning of images has changed throughout the course of class. I have understood that the meaning of images change over time. Therefore, the meaning that people give to an image in one period could be different from another period. Meanings change with time and so does peoples’ reasoning and thinking. Moreover, media plays a big role in the development of art and art related topics. Especially the visual media has a significant impact on the lives of those people who depend on it on various ways. Read More