Visual Communication - Metaphors

I have decided to put my blogs about Metaphors together as I believe it shows how they all link together clearer.

In the first session with Susie we looked at 2 different famous artist paintings. The first one was, 'Ich Habe Angst' by Rosemarie Trockel 1993. 

When first looked at it is hard to understand what the image is about. 'Ich Habe Angst' translates roughly into something like, 'I have fear'. Once that is understood it is easier to have an opinion on what the image is about. It looks like it is set at an altar. To many people religeous buildings can be scary places, and to same they are the most homely. My opinion is that it could be about somebody having fear there when others feel so welcome there, maybe they are calling out for help, whether it be from God, or from other people.

The second image we looked at was 'The Scream' by Edvard Munch in 1893. Noteably a long time before the previous one. As a class we all sat around together and discussed what we think the image is about. We noted the people in the background look like they are walking away from the 'scream', and everything else around him seems a bit mixed up, hense the swirling lines in the painting.








The second theme we looked at in Susie's sessions were metaphors. At first I didn't understand how this could be linked to 'a sense of place' but as the sessions went on it became clear how the work and tasks we were doing could be linked in with our project.
For the first session we worked in pairs or small groups to make a collage of different cut-outs from magazines to display things that relate and had meaning to us. Some of the images we found were just things we liked, such as make up, cars etc but other things had more significat meaning such as family and friends, however we found they all linked in together. We split our collage into 3 different sections; home, university and things we liked. Our home section included images of beds, and homely scenes like cosy fireplaces. The university section had images such as books, and a butterfly which we made into our own metaphor for the butterfly flying into a new start, as we have done with a new start in September coming to University. Finally, the things we liked section consisted of images of partying, socialising and shopping. 

 

Above you can see the collage. Once we had finished, we had to present it to our class and explain why we have included the things that we have.

  

The next task was 'metaphors in advertising'. We were given a number of advertisements from worldwide organisations and companies that used metaphors in their adverts. Some of them were shocking images, and some of them were funny. We had to take the images and try and work out what the image was trying to say. Some were easier to guess than others, as some were charities for example against animal testing, so the image was closely linked with that. After looking on the internet briefly after the session I found many more adverts with a strong image. 

 The images above are ones I found myself on the internet. They are from the German Animal Rights Organisation NOAH. They show the animals being captured, tortured and locked up just for humans to have perfume. I think this is an excellent example of images in advertising. 

For the second part of this session we listened to Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech. Whilst listening to this we had to write down all the metaphors that he used in this. I was quite suprised how many metaphors he did use, but I thought they were very strong metaphors and expressed his point very well. Some of these metaphors were;

• 'Let us not seek to  satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred'
• 'We cannot walk alone'
• 'It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream'