Approaches to the analysis of visual culture: "reading" and "vision"

Kulemin Artemii Eduardovich ORCID: 0009-0003-8325-2819 Postgraduate student, Department of Sociology and Philosophy, Smolensk State University 214000, Russia, Smolensk region, Smolensk, Przhevalskogo str., 4 artjomkuljomin@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Introduction

At the end of the twentieth century, due to the technological development of production and the spread of "imaginative worlds" (television, digital media, the Internet), cultural studies have seen an increase in attention to the field of "visual". The main directions of such research include the discussion of questions about what images and images can actually mean, how they function and interact with a person, shape and define his life ^[1-2]. In the 1990s, these trends led to a rethinking of the entire concept of the image, which was designated by many researchers ^[3-4] as a "visual turn" - a certain violation of the established relations of visual and verbal in public life in favor of the visual ^[5]. The visual turn opened up new theoretical perspectives for thinking about the nature of images, which had previously been studied primarily from an aesthetic and art criticism point of view, or were considered as purely cognitive phenomena.

The visual turn is integrated into a series of "cultural turns" ^{[6, p.7]}, we can say that it is compared or even polemicizes with the logic of the "linguistic" turn ^{[7, p. 3]}: the image is reinterpreted as an independent system, just as language was reinterpreted. It is believed that in the paradigm of linguistic turn, the verbal represents a more "perfect, rational, objective-factual communicative" system ^{[8, p. 304]} than the "intuitive, emotional, deceptive" visual ^{[8, p. 304]}; in the paradigm of visual turn, this approach is critically interpreted. Here, the problem of visual perception is clearly traced: whether it can be considered as a structure similar to language, to which "reading" is applicable, or whether they are fundamentally different from each other, and "vision", its visibility, is more likely to apply to the visual. The purpose of this article is to analyze, disclose and contrast the main cultural approaches within the framework of these two classifications.

Visual as a language

Since the middle of the twentieth century, semiotic analysis of images (in particular, objects of art), aimed at searching for the "meaning" of works, analyzing the context in which they were created, has been primarily characteristic of art criticism and emerging studies of visual culture. In line with the linguistic turn, the visual was considered as a text, a system of signs, or even a language that can be analyzed using the same methods as in linguistics; the main purpose of the analysis was interpretation, search, and isolation of meaning. The metaphor of "reading" was applied to the visual. Such optics implied the initial possibility of having any meaning outside the observer: either in the image itself as an object, or in its social codes.

The approach remains relevant and widespread even after the "visual turn". He inherits the theories of F. Saussure ^[9] and Ch. Peirce ^[10] in the field of semiotics, and one of the key works that influenced the study of visual art is R. Barth's article "The Rhetoric of the Image", in which the author demonstrated how images can be read and interpreted using the example of an advertising poster ^{[11, pp. 297-318]}.

R. Barth identified several levels of image values. The denotative level is what we can directly observe in an image without any context or prior knowledge; the direct, literal meaning of what we saw. However, there is also a connotative level.: a hidden, unobvious meaning triggered by associations, emotions, affects, or cultural codes that reflect the ideology and values of the producer and consumer of the image. This classification significantly influenced the methodology of visual analysis: the main task of image analysis within the framework of the semiotic approach was to decipher the complex, hidden rhetorical structure of visual "texts". Visual images have come to be seen as a source of powerful influence on "unconscious forms of visual thinking that inexorably guide the interpretative abilities of the mind" ^{[12, p. 134]}.

In the late 1980s, a separate field of semiotics emerged - visual semiotics. It is based on the works of R. Barth and a more traditional semiotic methodology, but it also intersects with developments in the field of anthropology and psychology: studies of visual communication, visual thinking and mental images. Among the first representatives of this trend are M. Santaella-Braga ^{[13, pp. 59-78]}, F. Saint Martin ^[14], G. Sonesson ^[15].

Within the framework of visual semiotics, images are considered as a complex semiotic form constructed by combining small iconic elements, such as colors, shapes, or textures. However, an image as a text is interpreted not only as the sum of the individual meanings of its component parts put together, but also holistically and uniformly as a separate structure. At the same time, the composite elements guide or limit the holistic interpretation of the image, introduce their own shades of meaning: during their processing, an internal "bimodality" arises ^[16], in which individual elements form a common text due to syntactic connection. To show how this bimodality works in visual texts is one of the central tasks of visual semiotics.

The next area of research based on semiotic methodology is visual rhetoric. If semiotics focuses directly on signs (some forms that have a certain meaning), then rhetoric focuses on how language and speech can be used for purposes of persuasion or a certain impact. In the field of visual, it concerns the communicative and persuasive power of images and images. Visual rhetoric, therefore, explores the rhetorical structures of visual "texts", their emotional and cognitive impact on a person, and the mechanisms of the emergence or creation of ethical, social, political, and ideological contexts with their help ^{[1, p. 141]}.

The key authors in this field are D. Blakesley and K. Brooke ^[17], L. Odell and S. Katz ^[18], S. Foss ^{[1, p. 127]}. Research in visual rhetoric usually focuses on one of three areas: the nature, function, or evaluation of a visual artifact. The real and assumed components, qualities and characteristics of the object, as well as the aspect of its communicative impact on the audience are considered.

The visual as a special experience

In parallel, there was a strategy that was the opposite of the semiotic one, which emphasized the fundamental difference between visual and language. Here, interaction with the visual appears as a special, specific experience. This shift in optics was largely influenced by the post-structuralist interest in what is "hidden behind structures" and is not amenable to semiotic reading ^[8].

Traces of this logic have been traced in the mainstream of art criticism since the 1960s: in particular, S. Sontag's well-known essay "Against Interpretation" ^[19] emphasizes the importance of focusing on the forms and style of art instead of focusing on its content or hidden meaning. According to S. Sontag, images are fundamentally different from language, since they do not "mean" anything. By the end of the twentieth century, the transition to a certain "desemiotization" of the visual, the attempt to abandon the paradigm of the linguistic turn is spreading more and more actively. Visual researchers are shifting the focus of attention to the impossibility of a total "reading" of the visual, to areas beyond the possibilities of semiotic interpretation. In this case, the metaphor of "reading" is replaced by the metaphor of "seeing" ^{[6, p. 417]}, which emphasizes perception and sensuality.

Thus, W. Mitchell argues that the visual should be considered independently of language, as something that escapes our linguistic ability to describe or interpret ^{[20, p. 11]}. Words and images, despite their close connection and intertwining, nevertheless represent separate orders of knowledge that cannot be equated with each other. "The images themselves can be platforms of theoretical discourse, rather than just passive objects awaiting an explanation from some mainstream discourse," Wu notes. Mitchell. "For example, with regard to the tame tendencies of semiotics with its taxonomy of signs and sign functions, I like to think of an image as a "wild sign," meaning an entity capable of undermining meaning, opening the realm of absurdity, madness, randomness, anarchy, and even "nature" itself in the midst of the cultural labyrinth of "second nature" that people create. around yourself" ^[21].

W. Mitchell considers the semiotics of images to be limited, since it does not cover the full potential of emotional impact, is built by analogy with language and relies on decoding and decoding. In his opinion, in the future, thinking through images will be as valuable as thinking over images ^{[6, p. 394]}.

In a similar vein, D. Elkins emphasizes the inferiority of the semiotic approach, pointing to the subjective, sensual nature of images, regardless of their original purpose. Even purely representative visual objects (for example, scientific illustrations) carry more than just a representative meaning: their perceptual status, influence on our optical experience, aesthetic qualities and affectivity also have value and interest ^{[22, p. 104]}.

In the most radical form, theories claiming access to the "real" claim that perception allows us to "know" the world in a way that can circumvent the function of language. Thus, the philosopher and literary theorist G.W. Humbrecht argues that persistent attempts to "read" the world around us – understanding it as a system consisting solely of signs – in some way blind us ^[23]. He compares the dimension of interpretation with the dimension of "presence", in which cultural phenomena and cultural events become tangible and influence our feelings and bodies. G.W. Gumbrecht questions the universality of the "culture of meaning", the "hegemony" of interpretation as an epistemological paradigm, emphasizing that it arose only in Modern times. He contrasts it with the "cultures of presence" that existed before, for example, pre-Socratic or medieval.

While W. Mitchell and D. Elkins pay attention to the physical status of visual objects, their ability to create affects, their nature and structure, N. Mirzoev focuses on cultural and political functions, the ideological potential of visual artifacts ^{[24, p. 125]}. He considers an image as a cultural representation, the importance of which lies both in the content with which it is endowed and in its inner nature. In his deep conviction, the image should be studied not only for its own sake, but also for the sake of the range of social effects that it can produce.

In the same vein, I. Rogoff shifts the focus from the study of the visual object to the perceiving subject and the resulting relationships. I. Rogoff focuses on such properties of the visual as the ability to give pleasure and displeasure, determine consumption, and mediate power relations. Of interest are the questions "who do we see and who do not see; who is in a privileged position within the regime of speculation; which aspects of the historical past really have circulating visual representations and which do not; who owns fantasies about what is fueled by certain visual images" ^{[25, p. 20]}. This approach to visual research assumes that each interpretation differs depending on the subject's position in relation to the image.

Conclusion

In practice, we are faced with a range of different approaches to the analysis of the visual, in which it is considered both as a language and as a special system. Despite the contradictions, the approaches do not necessarily have to be opposed, as many researchers point out. Thus, D. Bachmann, a physician, emphasizes the effectiveness of the polyphonic model of a multitude of "image sciences" ^{[6, p. 412]} instead of one, unified, comprehensive science. The same approach is pointed out by W. Mitchell, for whom the study of the visual presupposes "a disorderly collection of ideas, ancient, modern and postmodern, bricolage methods, frameworks and issues" ^{[26, p. 268]}. Semiotic and "desemiotic" strategies can thus be synthesized in a peculiar way.