Reading Guerin and Hallas introduction to their book, their assertion that "the image is at its most stable when its functional, goal oriented, silently reinforcing a textual discourse" (2) is quite an intriguing one, and one I believe rings true. As they note earlier on, there is such a proliferation of images that we do not take the time to reflect on them, and often only see them for a brief span of time.
Having the textual discourse, be it a traumatic event, a video game, or a message for a brand, allows the image to become more important, to be representations of something more. In the case of video games, our groups focus for our seminar, a central character or a picture/video of an event can represent much more than just the image. Be it Master Chief from Halo, Mario from the Super Mario series or others, those images now represent much more than just a cartoon or CGI character, as a textual discourse has been attached to them in the form of games and experiences by those gamers.
Guerin, Francis and Roger Hallas. "Introduction." The Image And The Witness. Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture. Ed. Frances Guerin. New York: Wallflower Press. 2007. 1-12. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment