And in life, meaning is not instantaneous. Meaning is discovered in what connects, and cannot exist without development. Without a story, without an unfolding, there is no meaning. Facts, information do not in themselves constitute meaning... Certainty may be instantaneous; doubt requires duration; meaning is born of the two. An instant photographed can only acquire meaning insofar as the viewer can read into it a duration extending beyond itself. When we find a photograph meaningful, we are lending it a past and future. (89)
The photograph's absence of certainty allows a reader potential to grant the photo a past and future. The presence of doubt gives enough room for the photo to be as potentially meaningful. The process of creating a narrative tailored to the photo's ambiguity, a process marked by doubt and time, grants the photograph meaning. Berger's implication is that a photo which only transmits information cannot have meaning. I'm not sure what a photo like that may look like. Maybe something like a stock photo or a photo we see in newscasts?Bruce brought up an idea that add something to Berger's quotation, "[W]e make narratives out of numbers and it is the narratives that are more important than the numbers." I am reading numbers here as pieces of information, and I think that Bruce is right. As readers or viewers or thinkers, the narratives that we compose about pieces of information -- data, arguments, statements -- can be more important that the data itself. I am not trying to reduce arguments or statements to pieces of data. They have complex meaning without my reading. But for me, for the sake of growing in understanding, I have to take everything that I read and internalize it through narritivizing it. I have to let time pass to allow doubt to become articulable. Then, I return to my narrative, reexamine it, and weigh its merit. So, initially, I "lend" information the past and future that it claims , granting it the benefit of the doubt. That is how I find gaps, questions, and deeper understanding.
I am talking about to written text here, but I think that the idea for images is the same. On the composing end of making images and visuals, there has to be a point of critical mass where a reader can focus on what is present to draw associations between what is absent and what they know. That is what counts as a meaningful contribution. Drawing from Helmer, "[T]he creator assembles and arranges 'blocks of meaning' so that the descriptor becomes yet another meaning" (17). Blocks of meaning must exist for there to be a narrative. The visual must have a degree of ambiguity to be lended a past and future.
"As readers or viewers or thinkers, the narratives that we compose about pieces of information -- data, arguments, statements -- can be more important that the data itself."
ReplyDeleteThis quote reminds me of the debate we were having in class about "correct" interpretations. We narratives we compose are often based around our own cultural assumptions, our individual histories, and frequently our own biases. Yet, as most of us I believe will attest, there are moments when our students (or even our peers for that matter) present an interpretation that we feel is outright wrong.
So, in the end, I wonder if our judgments of interpretations sometimes are less about the interpretations and more about the narratives used to create them. I think back to Christine's example from her class. Was it the student's interpretation that troubled her or the narratives used to create said interpretation (or possibly both)?
That's an interesting proposition. So if I am understanding you, the narrative (or lens) that we use to construct narratives (or interpretations) of data has more to do with our judgement of an interpretation than the initial data. I know that I cannot do without lenses. While I was reading your comment, I was thinking co-construction between data and lens to create interpretation. I wonder if we can mis-select lenses.
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