what does visual culture signify to you? what role does it play in your everyday life? – what you eat, how you communicate etc. why do you think visual culture is so widely studied?
To me, visual culture is important because it is a universal way to communicate everyone’s cultures to one another through a single image or artwork as opposed having to translate and read a bunch of text to understand a simple idea or tradition. I find that I often create art that reflects my culture because it is something that I am comfortable expressing and relatively knowledgable about. I am very interested in exploring human behavior/interactions in my art and culture is an essential part of what makes us who we are. Therefore to me, visual culture signifies a fundamental aspect of our lives through which we express ourselves for others to see. It affects my day to day life because visual culture surrounds me constantly. In our day and age, we are constantly surrounded by ads which pop up on our phones and laptops, graphically designed logos and packaging of the food we eat. It’s something we can’t avoid.
Visual culture affects what I eat and the things that I consume. Although we are told not to judge a book by its cover, no one ever told us not to judge a box of cookies based on its packaging. I tend to buy food with better packaging or unconsciously assume that the food would taste better if the packaging is nicer. Shops or posters that are promoting products or services with nice designs that draw my attention are usually what draws me in. Designs and strong visual images often dictate the things I buy or place I want to go to. I think that visual culture is widely studied because humans are very complicated beings and in order to study and understand visual culture, a tool that is used the manipulate the choices we make and the emotions we feel, there are a lot of concepts and ideas that need to be studied and discussed about in order to create effective imagery.
