Who, what, where, when, why and how?

The lectures in this course all deal, in different ways, with the question of representation.
This is one of the central practices that produce culture. You are probably asking yourself
what representation has to do with culture. To put it simply, culture is about "shared
meanings". Language is the medium in which we "make sense" of things, in which
meaning is produced and exchanged. Visual culture is one language through which
meaning is shared. However, by the end of this course you will come to understand that
seeing is a great deal more than believing these days. Architecture, monuments in stone,
paintings, books, ceramics, film, photography, clothing and performative and oral
traditions are the conduits through which we can gain an understanding of peoples
cultural practices—that is, their world-views, history, social, economic and political
organization and identity.

The emphasis on cultural practices is important. It is participants in cultures who give

meaning to people, objects and events. Things "in themselves" do not have any one,
single, fixed, unchanging meaning. Even something as obvious as stone can be merely a
stone however, if you picked it up and threw it, it would become a projectile. If you
chipped and/or sanded the stone it could become a sculpture or a tool. It is by our use of
things, or their "context", and what we say, think and feel about them—that is, how we
represent them—that we give things meaning.

The analysis and interpretation of visual material produced within the various cultures
that this course introduces will be an investigation of what things mean. This course uses
a wide range of examples from different cultural media and disciplines of knowledge,
mainly concentrating on visual language as representation. Representation can only be
properly analyzed in relation to reading and interpretation: and these require analysis of
the actual concrete forms which meaning assumes, in the context that meaning is
circulated. Every choice—to show this rather than that, to show this in relation to that, to
say this about that—is a choice about how to represent “culture”; and each meaning is
thus produced. Those meanings are inevitably implicated in relations of power—
especially between those who are representing and those who are being represented.

The introduction of questions of power into the argument about representation is one of
the ways in which this course consistently seeks to probe, expand and complicate our
understanding of the process of representation.

As you will learn, the more we look into the process of representation, the more complex
it becomes to describe adequately or explain. The following questions offer a
methodology for exploring this process of meaning construction. These questions are
inter-related in that each cannot be answered independent of the other questions as
meaning is never simple or straightforward but rather involves interconnected meaning
systems. You will need to keep these questions in mind while viewing, reading, analyzing
and interpreting images and texts.
What is the thing [form]? Usually the answer to this question is straightforward.
However, the answer to this question might involve more than mere recognition. For
example, can we assume that objects that resemble things we know necessarily have the
same meaning cross-culturally? What is the subject of the thing? What is the theme? For
example, the subject of a map may be Europe while symbols may refer to mineral
deposits making the theme of the map, economics or mining.

When was the thing produced [historic setting]? In order to understand what things
meant in their original setting we must consider the geographic/space and historic/time of
their production and reception. Again, keep in mind that peoples of different cultures
represent, and thus think about, time and space in different ways.

Where was the thing located [context]? Context produces meaning through the internal
ordering and relation of the separate components of an assemblage of things. For
example, a table in the context of a dining room is for eating. The same table when
placed in the context of a classroom has the meaning of a desk.

Who commissioned and/or produced the thing [author]? In much of the material that
you will be looking at in this course the author/artist is unknown. It is the context of use
that will inform who possibly produced the thing.

How was the object used or what was the purpose of the object [function]? Who saw
or used the thing [audience, social context]? How did the object communicate its
message/meaning to its audience [means of representation, iconography]?

Why was the object produced [power, identity]? In order to answer this question we
further need to ask: Who benefited from its display or use? Did the object serve to
promote particular social ends [e.g. religious, economic or political power]?