Name: JOLANTA JASIULIONYTE

Student Number: 0903512

Course: CG Arts and Animation, year 1

Unit Title: Perception

Date: 23 November 2009

Essay Question:

IN WHAT WAYS DOES AN UNDERSTANDING OF PERCEPTION HAVE AN IMPACT

ON THE WORK OF ARTIST AND DESIGNERS.

Word Count: 1512 words

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IN WHAT WAYS DOES AN UNDERSTANDING OF PERCEPTION HAVE AN IMPACT
ON THE WORK OF ARTIST AND DESIGNERS?

Introduction:
A better understanding of perception provides the viewer with a grater depth
of knowledge, subsequently to that it brings a better understanding of the
artwork being observed. Therefore I chose to investigate semiotics – the
theory of signs. To get a better understanding of the theory I used Sean Hall’s
book ‘This Means This and This Means That a User’s Guide to Semiotics’. Few
interesting points came from ‘Visual Communication from Theory to practice’
and other relevant internet recourses. What came out of the research was the
understanding, how widely and flexible the theory can be used. Regardless it is
a picture, a sculpture or even a peace of music to be interpreted. The practical
use of semiotics might improve the understanding of complicated art works.
Semiotics itself is divided in to 8 main parts: signs and signing, contextual
structures, visual structures; textual structures, matters of interpretation,
meaning framing an storytelling; and it is when structuring the information in
this parts we might get a better understanding of meaning of the work. For
this particular instance I took one artist’s work and tried to look at it from
different theoretical points of view and find a practical meaning that is brought
by that.

Main body:
At the beginning I will briefly introduce the artist - Michael Kutsche. This artist
is a famous, self-thought German painter, illustrator and a concept designer.
His works can be interpreted easily since he himself leaves a note that “an
artist should always leave some free space for interpretation, giving only some
hints <…> behind it”.( Kutsche, 2008:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=137&t=708840) Therefore I
have picked one of his most interesting works – “Coming Home” to try and
interpret it using the guidelines provided from researching and see, where the
meaning comes from as well as in what ways does an understanding of the
theoretical part of semiotics have an impact on the art work.

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 1st figure: Kutsche, Michael; 2008; ‘Coming Home’

First of all, there’s a need to look which signs bring out what kind of meaning.
As an author of “semiotics for beginners” Daniel Chandler wrote “A sign must
have both a signifier and a signified” (Saussure 1983, 101). To conclude, there
will be no signs that won’t invoke a meaning, and there will be no meanings
“from nowhere”.

To begin with, we might need to take a closer look at the title of the work or
the textual structure in semiotics terms since it takes a very important part in
search for meaning. The title directs, in what particular background we should
think further. Sean Hall, the author of ‘This means This and This Means That a
Users Guide to Semiotics’ noted “Words help to reduce numbers of
interpretations” (Hall, 2007: chapter 5). To add to this point, then title ‘Coming
Home’ links that a subject is returning from somewhere back to home. The
question that remains is where from he comes back. We might now start
reading other signs.

The picture shown is “overcrowded” with symbols (the appearance of

character, the colors, the composition etc.)
But it is when we see all the symbols as a whole rather than separate parts,
we can get a better understanding of what is intended to be said. As Hall Sean
marks that “symbol by itself might not say much, but when gathering and
gathering symbols, making a system of it, a developed and wide meaning can
be produced” (Hall, 2007:chapter 1). Therefore a picture must be read.

The symbols seen usually stand for a bigger meaning and “there is some
resemblance between signifier and signified” states Sean Hall (Hall, 2007:
chapter 1) by reading symbol after symbol we are likely to discover a new
meaning after a meaning.
To begin with, the center of the composition is the subject depicted, therefore
it is on what we should be concentrating, since the simple rule of composition

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state, the character wears a cloth looking much like spacesuit (the signifier),
we might than assume the subject here is an astronaut (the signified) . To be
more concrete, he wears an newly fashioned type of astronaut clothing. So the
clothing not only suggests, he is a space traveler, but also might indicate a
time of his traveling.

2nd figure: Crew of the Columbia wearing the Advanced Crew Escape Suit ;
2003

Observing it further the spacesuit itself looks blemished, spotted and

therefore it looks used. What’s more this plays well along with the appearance
of the subject. The mere physical aspects - the gray hair, the wrinkles and the
more subtle indicators - the deep and smart look on his face, gentle smile, a
slightly bended head position - all these signifiers stand for experienced, smart
and even tired old man. But it’s not enough to discuss the physical aspects,
and the title of the portrayed character. There’s a real need to explore the
facial attributes, which hold a great deal of meaning.

We should pay a good attention to the face, since it holds a great deal of
information. At the first glimpse the face might appear somehow strange to us.
Observing it further we become aware of the strange proportions and odd
forms of the subject’s face. Eyes are higher than they are likely to be in an
average man’s face. Furthermore, Nostrils appear to be wider, lips thinner and
longer. To add even more there are only mere hints of eyebrows, and the ears
appear smaller but at the same time we see a better volume of them than we
would typically be seeing in a human’s face. It could be considered only as odd
attributes, that a man’s face can own, if we be reading all the signs as parts,
whereas the whole of the signs (all the facial attributes being summed up)
undoubtedly indicates that the creature painted here is not entirely human. It
rather appears like a “mixture” of a man and a monkey. Therefore it brings out
a great deal of new interpretations.

To continue observe the image, we might need also to discus briefly the main
colors of this work and the effect it brings. There seem to be only two main
colors which are dominant in the image; those are orange (spacesuit) and fair

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blue (the background). It’s important to know what the effect is brought by
this palette. According to Kendra Van Wagner, who is a writer specializing in
psychology, “Orange calls to mind feelings of excitement, enthusiasm, and
warmth” whereas “Blue calls to mind feelings of calmness or serenity. It is
often described as peaceful, tranquil, secure, and orderly”. So the color palette
should evoke peacefulness and calm as well as feelings of appeal and warmth
to our minds. Having discussed the coloring as well as other main points we
might than move to interpretation of the picture.

To my mind, here is where the complexity starts. Since the author himself
indicated, he is willing to leave some space for the observer to interpret the
overall meaning for himself; there is still no straight answer, or only one
meaning, which might come from the picture. As the author himself mentioned
“Though the content is the same, by changing notional position of the viewer,
changes the meaning”. What he means is that we all can have personal and
different interpretations even about the same object.

So if I as a viewer would need to sum up the meaning and what this picture
signifies, the story read from the symbols probably would be something like
this. An astronaut, who spent a lot of time in space and has seen “a lot of
things”, comes back home. Now this space traveler has plenty of experience, a
formed feeling and view about the life and “how everything works”. At the
same time he is calm, sincere, honest and very smart and… he is not quite
human. Maybe he was a monkey, who took over (or was given) a role which
ought to be man’s, therefore started resembling the man himself, but still
remaining a creature he originally was. The other version of interpretation
would be this. The picture intends to remind us the fact that it was a monkey
first who did what man is doing now in as astronauts; it’s he who experienced
space traveling. So this is what I would read out of all the symbols.

Conclusion:
Firstly having made separate observations on each of the fields, (the coloring,
the physical attributes, the pose the separate symbols, the text) we than could
generalize the overall outcome. It was the deeper understanding of perception
theory, that was helpful when structuring the information correctly; when
reading signs who had indexical relationship with the meaning; even when
understanding the importance of, for instance, the context of the work (in this
case only the very few points about the author and his intentions).The
knowledge of this theory leads the viewer throughout the observation
interpretation and conclusion processes. As Sean Hall insightfully remarked “By
knowing the rules we’ll be able to read the “codes”, raise questions coming
from the right understanding and find new meanings”.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Illustrations:
1st Figure: Kutsche, Michael; 2008; ‘Coming Home’; Germany;
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=137&t=708840
(accessed 6 November 2009)
2nd Figure: 2003, Crew of the Columbia wearing the Advanced Crew Escape
Suit; http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://chriselyea.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/09/3-STS-107-Crew-NASA-
image.jpg&imgrefurl=http://chriselyea.com/failure-analysis-lessons/part-3-
shuttle-depressurization-
lethal/&usg=__3AX48969aALVktHl5o2bShPULw8=&h=480&w=600&sz=97&hl
=en&start=15&um=1&tbnid=D0NEiWkKNGgXqM:&tbnh=108&tbnw=135&prev
=/images%3Fq%3Dfirst%2Bastronaut%2Bsuits%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
%26um%3D1
(Accessed 11 November 2009)

Books:
Hall, Sean. (2007). This Means This This Means That a Users Guide to
Semiotics. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd

Bloomer, Carolyn M. (1990) the Principles of Visual Perception. New York, NY :

Design Press

Baldwin, Jonathan; Roberts Lucienne. (2006) Visual Communication From

Theory to Practice. London: AVA Publishing SA;

Websites:
Michael, Kutsche. (2009). www.mistermk.de (Accessed 28 October 2009)
Chanler, Daniel. (2008). Semiotics for Beginners
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html
Van Wagner, Kendra. (2009). Color Psychology- orange and Color Psychology
– blue.
http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/color_orange.htm
and
http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/color_blue.htm
(Accessed 15 November 2009)