Creative Visualization… Ambiguity, Connotation & Denotation

DAKE, D. (2005b) Creative Visualization. In: K. SMITH, S. MORIARTY, G. BARBATSIS and K. KENNEY (Eds) Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, Methods, and Media. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp23-42.

“Can we trust a message that can be so differently interpreted? Ambiguity provides a vital function in aesthetic visual communication. Ambiguity slows the mind and suggests experiencing the image more fully in many dimensions. An idea is a temporary mental event; thus, words cannot always adequately convey the complex, structural, relational, an contextual nature of interrelationships among aesthetic phenomena.” (pp31-32)

Annotation:
Ambiguity should be a device used only when connotational meaning is required such as layered contextual meanings for adults and children. When only a denotational meaning is required ambiguity should be avoided. This returns the conversation back to a semiotic one to help construct an aesthetic that achieves its intended outcome that needed to be communicated. 

Guerilla Metaphysics… Sensual Qualities

HARMAN, G. (2007) Guerilla Metaphysics: Phenomenology and the Carpentry of Things. Open Court Publishing Company.

“For phenomenology, to name an object is to point to some kind of unifying form that binds together many distinct properties; a name is never just a shorthand alias for the total list of these properties. Sensual qualities are always qualities of an object, even when we fail to distinguish these objects correctly amidst all the confusions of the senses.” (p24)

Annotation:
The sensual qualities of an object are in the perception of it and the connotational potentialities of the object beyond the utilitarian denotational qualities of the physical thing itself. The connotational potentialities exist in the semiotics of its design. Phenomenology can be used to illuminate the interpretation of these sensual qualities and reduce the confusion leading to an understanding of the meanings to the user.