Wednesday, 1 August 2012

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. 

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