"Text und Bild"
Liu Ding, Thomas Draschan, Ken Lum, David Robilliard, Thomas Draschan
L.A. Galerie Lothar Albrecht
Domstrasse 6 60311 Frankfurt GERMANY
T: + 49 – 69 – 288687 e-mail:
May 12 > July 28, 2018
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Andreas Hapkemeyer: Word versus Image
[…] The image (photograph) generally provides an ambiguous and therefore vague frame of association: Images, especially photographic images/representations, are able to move on an emotional level, to express memories and desires, to activate or to correspond to frightening images of the human heart and soul. The picture clearly defines an object in its visual appearance, but cannot make any clear statements about its possible meanings or implications: this is exactly what Roland Barthes' sentence, which has been elevated to a motto, is saying. Images have no "meaning" if – as Michael Titzmann does – meaning is distinguished from information and is identified with "linguistic articulability."1
While the image is characterized by the concreteness and completeness of all visual elements, every "world" depicted by the text remains abstract and incomplete; semantics speak of the "zero positions" of the text. […] Exceptions are of course concrete texts where the text does not have a reference character to the non-linguistic, but wants to be the subject of consideration itself.
"The fundamental difference between the sign systems of images and texts is known to consist in the low codedness of the primary signifiers [i. e., the simplest elements that already carry meaning themselves] in the pictorial realm, and the high codedness in the linguistic one. For where the linguistic system regulates what are meaning-differentiating and meaningful elements […], this does not apply to the primary signifiers in iconic expressions. Every perceptible element – a line, a shape, a color, every part of such an element, every combination of such elements – can, but does not have to, be meaning-differentiating or meaningful […]".2 Semiotically, an image is therefore a continuum of not clearly defined signs, which is structured only by the projection of possible meanings (in the form of linguistic statements) onto the image.
For unambiguous statements in terms of content, therefore, the level of the word is required, which – while it may not be capable of unmistakably defining an individual object of reality, at best identifying it by naming it – can specify emotional or intellectual contents or provoke questions.
By changing media within one and the same work, by combining two systems, photo texts – like all picture-text combinations – can work on two levels. The images undergo semantization through the direct assignment of texts, an explicit level of meaning enters the image; the texts, on the other hand, undergo unmistakable referentiation through the assignment of images. The disadvantage: the work falls apart, into one part merely to be looked at and one to be read.3 The advantage: information is enabled that is more complex in an aesthetic sense. Text and image can complement each other, e.g. the text specifies a process represented in the image by naming it. […] However, the text can just as well run counter to the image’s message […].
As a general rule: "When the image is embedded in the text or when image and text have equal priority, text semantics dominates over image semantics and assumes a function that structures meaning: depending on the meaning of the text, the image's potential for meaning is interpreted, focused and hierarchized, insofar as its characteristics allow […]. Thus, for example, a title of an image will control the interpretation of the image."4
1 Michael Titzmann, "Theoretisch-methodologische Probleme einer Semiotik der Text-Bild-Relation", in Text und Bild, Bild und Text, DFG-Symposion 1988, ed. Wolfgang Harms, Stuttgart: Metzler 1990, p. 371
2 lbid., p. 377
3 S. J. Schmidt analyzes the different functions of seeing and reading and their antithetical relationship in such works (“Sehen oder Lesen? Vom Umgang mit Texten, die keine Bilder sind und umgekehrt,” in Kunst und Sprache. Beiträge des Heinz Gappmayr-Symposions 1990, eds. Günther Dankl and Andreas Hapkemeyer, Piesport: Ottenhausen 1991, p. 38-45).
4 Titzmann, p. 382
Translated from fototexttextfoto, eds. Andreas Hapkemeyer and Peter Weiermair, Edition Stemmle: Kirchberg 1996
[…] The image (photograph) generally provides an ambiguous and therefore vague frame of association: Images, especially photographic images/representations, are able to move on an emotional level, to express memories and desires, to activate or to correspond to frightening images of the human heart and soul. The picture clearly defines an object in its visual appearance, but cannot make any clear statements about its possible meanings or implications: this is exactly what Roland Barthes' sentence, which has been elevated to a motto, is saying. Images have no "meaning" if – as Michael Titzmann does – meaning is distinguished from information and is identified with "linguistic articulability."1
While the image is characterized by the concreteness and completeness of all visual elements, every "world" depicted by the text remains abstract and incomplete; semantics speak of the "zero positions" of the text. […] Exceptions are of course concrete texts where the text does not have a reference character to the non-linguistic, but wants to be the subject of consideration itself.
"The fundamental difference between the sign systems of images and texts is known to consist in the low codedness of the primary signifiers [i. e., the simplest elements that already carry meaning themselves] in the pictorial realm, and the high codedness in the linguistic one. For where the linguistic system regulates what are meaning-differentiating and meaningful elements […], this does not apply to the primary signifiers in iconic expressions. Every perceptible element – a line, a shape, a color, every part of such an element, every combination of such elements – can, but does not have to, be meaning-differentiating or meaningful […]".2 Semiotically, an image is therefore a continuum of not clearly defined signs, which is structured only by the projection of possible meanings (in the form of linguistic statements) onto the image.
For unambiguous statements in terms of content, therefore, the level of the word is required, which – while it may not be capable of unmistakably defining an individual object of reality, at best identifying it by naming it – can specify emotional or intellectual contents or provoke questions.
By changing media within one and the same work, by combining two systems, photo texts – like all picture-text combinations – can work on two levels. The images undergo semantization through the direct assignment of texts, an explicit level of meaning enters the image; the texts, on the other hand, undergo unmistakable referentiation through the assignment of images. The disadvantage: the work falls apart, into one part merely to be looked at and one to be read.3 The advantage: information is enabled that is more complex in an aesthetic sense. Text and image can complement each other, e.g. the text specifies a process represented in the image by naming it. […] However, the text can just as well run counter to the image’s message […].
As a general rule: "When the image is embedded in the text or when image and text have equal priority, text semantics dominates over image semantics and assumes a function that structures meaning: depending on the meaning of the text, the image's potential for meaning is interpreted, focused and hierarchized, insofar as its characteristics allow […]. Thus, for example, a title of an image will control the interpretation of the image."4
1 Michael Titzmann, "Theoretisch-methodologische Probleme einer Semiotik der Text-Bild-Relation", in Text und Bild, Bild und Text, DFG-Symposion 1988, ed. Wolfgang Harms, Stuttgart: Metzler 1990, p. 371
2 lbid., p. 377
3 S. J. Schmidt analyzes the different functions of seeing and reading and their antithetical relationship in such works (“Sehen oder Lesen? Vom Umgang mit Texten, die keine Bilder sind und umgekehrt,” in Kunst und Sprache. Beiträge des Heinz Gappmayr-Symposions 1990, eds. Günther Dankl and Andreas Hapkemeyer, Piesport: Ottenhausen 1991, p. 38-45).
4 Titzmann, p. 382
Translated from fototexttextfoto, eds. Andreas Hapkemeyer and Peter Weiermair, Edition Stemmle: Kirchberg 1996
 Liu Ding |
Thomas Draschan |
|
Ken Lum |
David Robilliard |
|
Thomas Draschan |
Opening :
Saturday, May 12th , 2018 from 11am until 6 pm.
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