MAJA NYDAL  

Den teknologiske udvikling har hurtigt bidraget til en øget produktion og konsumering af billeder. Billeder betragtes i dag som den dominerende form for kommunikation over tekster.

 

Alle billeder er en form for social aktioner som bliver indlejret i det større billede af sociale og økonomiske praksisser og magtforhold.

 

Det at fortolke billeder skaber i sig selv et rum hvor deltagerne lærer om hinanden. Fotografiet er ikke objektiv dokumentation men en meningsbærende konstruktion, der indeholder subjektiv mening og viden.

 

Processen afslører skjulte eller underliggende ideer og har derfor stort potentiale til at ”aflære” mange af de ting vi tager for givet og genlære de marginaliserede perspektiver.

 

Art education students interpret the issues-driven staged photography they have constructed.

Through creating and interpreting this photography collaboratively, the students are engaging

in critical dialogue about social issues relevant to their everyday lives.

 

Photographic images, regardless of how intuitively or deliberately they are created, are

likely to generate different, if not conflicting, readings dependent on the respective intertextual resources deployed by the individual readers who interpret them.

 

exploring the possibility of promoting critical dialogue using issues-driven staged photography in an art education classroom to help students develop greater social awareness.

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Rapid advances in technology in recent years have greatly facilitated the production and consumption of visual imagery. Textual materials are no longer considered the dominant form of communication in a visually saturated society.

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Noter: hvordan kan udstillingen bruges til at bringe elevernes egen erfaringer i spil? Hvad betyder deres erfaringer for fortolkningen af billederne?  

 

Social semioticians see all texts as social action, as embedded in larger economic and cultural practices and power relations

 

The meanings of an image can never be simply self-referential or completely objective; rather, individual viewers bring their own lived-through experiences and respective funds of knowledge to the formation of these interpretations.

 

 

Because photography has often been used to depict reality, it is often viewed as reality itself or a transcription of reality rather than as an opinionated construct carrying situated knowledge and meanings. A photograph should be regarded as a discourse anchored in social relations.

 

Using staged photography to promote social dialogue: After learning about photography as a medium for artistic creation and storytelling.

 

Metode: the students were evenly divided into five groups. Each group was asked to produce three staged photographs depicting scenes that would be thought provoking, mysterious, or that raised issues of greater social importance, and then write about the intent behind their photograph. The students used the school environment as their setting and were encouraged to photograph several scenes, change the background and idea, and consider photographing each scene from different perspectives.

 

All group members were expected to be in the scenes and to work together in playing out the ideas in the scenes. In taking each photograph, the student participants were to pay attention to the form (use of design principles) and the content (meaning) of their creations. Each group was to then choose one final photograph to share with the class for its interpretation.

 

Once the students in the groups finished taking their photographs, they chose one piece over which to collaborate on writing about their intent.

 

Conversations lead [sic] to richer reflection as participants moved from the ‘personal space’ of their own perception into the ‘community space’ of wider insights”

 

Collaborative writing about art creates a balance between personal and communal interpretation, “allowing students to follow their insights from an initial spark of understanding, to a fully executed idea”.

 

 

Each group of students also interpreted the several other photographs created by their peer groups. They were asked to work collaboratively in interpreting these photographs and writing down their ideas. In creating art and interpreting it collaboratively, the students were thus given a unique

opportunity to experience art production and interpretation as a social activity.

 

In my analysis, I drew upon the work of Barthes (1977a) who, approaching visual communication from a linguistic lens, claimed that visual signification can be articulated in terms of denotation and connotation. The level of denotation addresses the literal meaning of an image, whereas the level of connotation corresponds to its ideological meaning as inscribed by cultural codes.

 

The notion of intertextuality refers to the relationship between texts—in this case, a piece of art and its personal, cultural, and sociopolitical connections made by the author and readers—that goes beyond the literal depiction of the photograph.

 

The intertextual resources upon which the students drew to interpret the depicted controversial scene thus included personal beliefs and assumptions, everyday experience, heterocentric social norms, the current sociopolitical climate, and historical context.

 

Forskellige mennesker ser forskellige ting i det samme billede.

 

Billeder åbner samtaler:

 

Differing slightly from the intertextual resources used in Photograph A, the interpretations of Photographs B and C demonstrated the intertextual resources of personal experiences and assumptions and social norms, coupled primarily with the texts of visual metaphors and psychoanalysis, to generate narratives.

 

As the interpretations of these three images revealed, those interlinking the current social climate, political conditions, and historical context added more relevant and deeper layers of meaning to the

interpretations since they were engaging the participants further in examining their dominant views and perceptions of the issues being presented.

 

The interpretations of Photograph A unraveled the prevalent heterocentric social norms and agendas held by the participants as a basis for decoding and interpretation of which they may have been unaware.

 

This interpretive process allowed the participants to recognize how heteronormality is a taken-for-granted, naturalized standard in measuring social behavior. The unraveling of hidden or implicit beliefs and values from semiotic discourse thus has great potential for unlearning normalized beliefs and ideologies and relearning those that have been marginalized.

 

Social semiotic discourse aims to reveal systematically normalized conventions in order to promote

social change. Semioticians such as Charles S. Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure see ideology as “a set of socially constructed meanings or norms that become embedded and naturalized in the cultural fabric, to the extent that they become invisible or common sense”

 

interpretations of the participants in this study led to further discussion about social norms and conventions.

 

The three photographs examined in this study unveiled many hidden stereotypes and biases that come with art interpretation that the participants might not have recognized.

 

From this study, I conclude that photographic images, regardless of how intuitively or deliberately they are created, are likely to generate different, if not conflicting, readings dependent on the respective intertextual resources deployed by the individual readers who interpret them.

 

A semiotic discourseframework could help both educators and students alike recognize the

nature and impact of visual imagery and its interpretation, and become more aware of the correlation between the meaning of visual culture and the specific intertextual resources used to generate meaning.

 

More importantly, creating and interpreting issues-based staged photography could be approached as a way to promote critical semioticdiscourse and social awareness.

 

By recognizing that students use their own life experiences and personal values to give meaning to visual imagery, an assignment that asks them to produce and interpret an issues-driven image will necessarily unveil their value positions regarding their worldview of particular social situations.

 

In this sense, they are not merely passive observers of visual culture, but are active constructors of meaning as persons who engage in visual projects of possibility.

 

Issues-driven photography offers relevant points of discussion for all participants to reflect upon and problematize taken-for-granted values and beliefs as a premise for enabling further social

action.

 

 

 

Min Praksis gør det samme, med forskellig resultat; Landbruget – alle landbrugsdyr i Danmark, hvad ser de forskellige aktører nå de ser et givent dyr. Hver dyr får sin serie, Børnebogen om bondedyrene. Følg interessekæderne for og imod på hvert dyr. Hvad mister vi, hvad vinder vi, hvilke dyr bliver og hvilke dyr ryger ud? Hvilke dele af dyret bruger vi til hvad? / Kina dyrets år. / AI WEIWEI dansk version af dyrehoveder. Alle dyr fotograferes ens.