You're Looking at a Lie!

In my Creative Problem Solving class last year, one of the big topics that we had to consider was how our brain interprets things around us. When we look at things around us we see different values, hues, and forms. We see compositions of light and color. However, odds are this is not what is going through our minds when we open our eyes and look around us. We see a wall with a painting, a red mug with a tea bag floating in it, dirty boots tossed on the rug by the door… we see distinct things that have a label and a purpose. We make certain associations with different things based on their form and function, or their color and symbolism. This idea is the study of signs and symbols and their function, known as semiotics. In connection with images (photographs/paintings/video, etc), this implies that an image/object is a sign(s) and that that sign has a meaning(s).

The Relationship Between Images and Signs

So how did we come to see things as hands, mugs, and boots? What made us characterize these forms as such things. How do we identify anything? In psychology, we learn about this in connection with schemas.

Schemas, introduced by Jean Piaget, are frameworks by which we organize information in our minds, to more easily interpret things around us. It takes what is known about certain things, and generalizes it, so we can quickly make deductions. So, for example, if we see a square thing that opens and has a lot of vastly thinner squares inside, with black words all over them in lines, we deduct that it is a book, based on what we know about books.

Schemas are why when we draw a hand, we can almost always tell that it is a hand, even though it's not very accurate. Take a look at this hand for example.




Source:http://images.hellokids.com



Does this hand have any kind of value, showing the mass of the hand? Showing how 3-dimensional it is, and showing that it is made up of bones and muscles and flesh? No.

Are hands normally blue? No (Unless we have hypothermia..)

Do our hands have smiley faces and… suction cups (??) on them? None that I know of.

But yet, because it has five digits, attached to one main blob, in approximately the right proportional size we know right away that it is supposed to be a hand. It is close enough to our schema of what a hand should be to understand it.

Now look at the following picture.

Source: http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/021/8/4/Drawing_of_My_Hand_by_Rowen_silver.jpg

This still is not accurate. It does not have the pale fleshy color of our skin. It doesn't contain quite all of the intricate wrinkles and 'imperfections' of our hands. But yet, the lighting is understandable, and gives it form. There is a lot more information (convincing information) than the first drawing, showing us the folds of skin, the nails, the smooth texture of the skin… It is more convincing, even though it's not an actual hand, because it gives more information that fits even more with our schemas of what hands should look like.

So schema's help us understand the world around us. This implies that the more we know or think about (the more things that may affect our schema), the more different interpretations we may have of things. Also, schemas are important to consider when we look at things, because how we associate things is directly influenced by how we think about things. I'll hopefully make this a little clearer.

So… why does this matter?

Being aware of schemas and how we interpret images help us understand how we can be deceived by it all.

Preconcieved notions that we have about different things (schemas?), experiences we've had, the society we live in, how much knowledge we have about a certain thing, how something is presented to us and by whom are all things that affect how we interpret things.

How Images Can 'Lie'

1) The Sway of What Isn't Actually Said

"The first chapter of "Practices of Looking", by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, says the following:

An image can denote certain apparent truths, providing documentary evidence of objective circumstances. The denotative meaning of the image refers to its literal, descriptive meaning. {So, when we look at an image of a horse, for example, we see a horse. That is the literal reading of the image} Connotative meanings rely on the cultural and historical context of the image and its viewers' lived, felt knowledge of those circumstances- all that the image means to them personally and socially." {So, we see that the horse is sweaty, and we insinuate that it was just active… or we see that there is a certain blanket on the horse which causes us to assume that the horse belonged to a certain someone who took part in that certain something back in that one year. These are the implications we get from the image based on what we know or imagine to be true, cultural or historical context (Ie: if we saw this picture posted by an animal rights group during a time in which animal cruelty is a big issue, we might assume that the horse was being abused…) In different situations we might read different things from the image, just as different people might take away different feelings from it, even though they are all looking at the exact same image. Put in a different context (seeing a photograph of a crazy phenomenon on a news station vs. someone's Facebook page for example) can give the image an entirely different meaning or validity. Just as it's good to know your sources and both their biases and their credentials when reading articles or writing research papers, it's good to consider context (both placement, social, economic, historical, religious, etc) of the image (or piece of art), where it came from, and what you might be reading into it that isn't actually there. Or… how it was framed (presented) to make you react differently to it than you would if it were given in another setting.

Schemas themselves can make us blind to what may actually be there. Say you know a few girls with freckles that are total klutzes. You subconsciously begin to associate females with freckles and klutziness, so when you are introduced to a girl you've never met before, you assume she's a klutz. She's not, but you envision her as that, because what you "know" about freckled girls makes you see that in her. If you think an image is a certain thing, or is trying to make a certain statement, because that is what your schemas are dictating, but it actually isn't, your brain has been tricked. Noticing when a schema is wrong, though, is very interesting, because it can arise curiosity and make you slow down and perhaps try to figure it out. Sarah Cwynar used this idea a bit less subtly in her "Flat Death" flower bouquets. The image here is obviously not of a flower bouquet, but is in fact made up of random plastic objects. We can see it as a bouquet, though, because it fits what we think a bouquet should look like.




Source: uarts.edu


Sturken and Cartwright also write that "A photograph is often perceived to be an unmediated copy of the real world, a trace of reality skimmed off the very surface of life. We refer to this concept as the myth of photographic truth."and then "It is a paradox of photography that although we know that images can be ambiguous and are easily manipulated or altered, particularly with the help of computer graphics, much of the power of photography still lies in the shared belief that photographs are objective or truthful records of events." Which leads to the next point.

2) Images Themselves Are Lies

For one thing, they can be manipulated both by context and presentation, as we just covered. But they can also be completely made up. Art can both be created from "scratch" or can take something real that exists and manipulate it into something else (ahem… Photoshop????), in a way that still passes off as real. The most convincing manipulations are those that change things, but do it in a way that they so closely match our schemas of what they should be, that we "accept" it.

However, images, and artwork, in its very essence is really a trickery, if you will. It is merely a representation of something. René Magritte poked at this idea in his painting "La Trahison des Images" (The Treachery of Images). Underneath the painting we read in Latin, "This is not a pipe." Because it is not a pipe. It is merely a painting of a pipe.




Source:foucault.info

Here is a spoof on Margritte's photo by Bansky:


Source: https://c2.staticflickr.com

This picture is a bit more truthful, perhaps, because there is an actual pipe contained within the piece (as in, a real pipe was actually used), rather than a mere painting of one. However, it is still a "lie" because if we reached out to touch the pipe we would just touch the screen of our computer. There is no tangible pipe there… it is just an image.

The key, then, to getting people to think and see what you want them to in art, is to present it in a way that convinces them that what you have put in front of them is believable, no matter how crazy it actually is. Even if (like in Sarah's bouquets), you can tell by looking at it that it's not quite right. And in viewing media and photographs and such like? Always be aware of what is being shown (and how it is being presented)… as well as what isn't being shown.


http://psychology.about.com/od/sindex/g/def_schema.htm
http://matthewjamestaylor.com/img/art/large/tonal-hand-study.jpgSurken, , and Cartwright. Practices of Looking. N.p.: Oxford University Press, 2012. N. pag. Print.