“Do you hear what I’m saying? If you do, you better have your ears checked, because nobody said a word.” Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics

The Treachery of Images

“This visual, secret dependence on language…is ‘the treachery of images.’” – Nerdwriter1, “What Is The Treachery of Images?

This is the limitation of language and art as a whole: icons can never really hope to be reality; they merely resemble reality. And if they only resemble reality, is what we know as reality really an icon of something else? We witness a mere three out of the ten dimensions under which the universe operates, according to string theory, and if we were to suddenly “awaken” to the other seven, we would have obtained an entirely new skillset of senses to aid us in interpreting it. This is perhaps why they are called “senses.” As we sense the wind but do not “see” it, we sense reality, but do not witness it directly.

If that makes you suddenly feel existentially blind, not to fear: the icons of our world do well enough for our purposes of everyday existence: yet, because icons are up for interpretation, all of us are at risk of interpreting the icons that make up our world differently. This is perhaps why we have so many disagreements on how it should be–because we have so many disagreements what it is we’re seeing. I, for one, literally cannot imagine twenty different forms of snow off the top of my head, because unlike the eskimos, I do not have the language for it. Speak to someone on ketamine therapy, and their words will only start to lose their logic when their “trip” begins, not only because they’re “high,” but supposedly because, as they report, language itself becomes nonsense; it fails to resemble anything close to the reality they’re experiencing.

How do we bridge this gap between words and art as interpreters of reality, and reality itself?

Try this: Much like you stripped away the name for sound in the music exercise and found different names for those you were experiencing, allow us to play with the arbitrariness of language to our benefit once more in trying to see things in a different way (much like the visuals we viewed in the photography lesson). Draw an image of a brick and write “This is a brick” beneath the image. Cross out “brick” and replace it with another noun that might resemble the image.

For example:

“This is a stepping stone,”

“This is a stage for tiny ballerinas,”

“This is a weapon.”

When we apply a new name to a thing of previous meaning, we interpret a novel concept of what that thing is depending on the relationship between the word(s) and thing(s) paired. This is how children see a cardboard box and pretend it’s a rocket ship. Like mad libs, see how the concepts vary in uniqueness depending on the abstraction of the relationship:

“This is food.”

“This is Utah.”

“This is a child.”

If you still don’t see it, try the reverse and extrapolate on the relationship–paint a clearer picture:

“A child is a brick hurled through your plate glass window.”

“Utah is a brick in the heat of summer.”

“Food is a brick in the pit of your stomach.”

We have now arrived at “metaphor.”

Which is better?

“I felt sad.”

Or, “I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.” – Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

One is more “accessible,” but the other, because of the metaphor, is ironically more precise in interpreting and defining sadness. This is by extension why we hate cliches: you did not write them, someone else wrote them. You are merely repeating the same material. Write with precision, and you can illuminate invaluable insight on the human condition. 

However, the usefulness of vagueness and precision varies by context. 

On the other hand, sometimes the argument is too complex for us to leave as-is. We must simplify it to keep the reader’s understanding.

Closure

“Our identities belong permanently to the conceptual world. They can’t be seen, heard, smelled, touched or tasted. They’re merely ideas. And everything else—at the start—belongs to the sensual world, the world outside of us. Gradually we reach beyond ourselves. We encounter the sight, smell, touch, taste, and sound of our own bodies. And of the world around us. And soon we discover that objects of the physical world can also cross over—and possess identities of their own, or, as our extensions, begin to glow with the life we lend to them” (40-41).

Imprinting of identity might be a cousin of closure, but the two are different. Closure is the conscious or subconscious act of filling in missing pieces of information using the best available evidence. This can be applied in a physical sense (i.e. filling in the gaps between the panels of a reel of film as though it were an endless stream), or a conceptual sense (as in the spaces between the words–when you read, you are quite literally “reading between the lines,” for you pad the skeleton of the narrative with details only you know (the main character may have red hair, but only you know the exact crop and shade of red hair imagined).

Sometimes we call closure “inference.” When a text is trying to say something it doesn’t wish to say directly (a message it wants the audience to participate in) it will leave as much evidence as necessary for the reader to fill in the rest of the information themselves. In other words, “subtext.” “Good” subtext will ride the line between being vague enough so as to allow for individual interpretation yet specific enough to point out the author’s interpretation, too.

The more abstract we get in interpreting a piece of information, the more we’re forced to “close” the gap with whatever interpretation we choose based on the evidence we present to it (poorly or intelligently, consciously or subconsciously) to help us understand what it is we’re looking at.

Try This: Consider the word, “Dog.” What did you think about? Odds are every one of you saw an image in your head of slightly different qualities, because “dog” is so encompassing and you are all so unique. When you consider “the dog,” you get a bit more specific (this isn’t just any dog anymore). Now consider a dog with specifics: “The spotted dog,” or, “the brown-spotted dog.” The image in our heads might still vary, but the images get much closer to overlapping in interpretation, and so we get closer to agreeing on what it is we’re talking about.

On the other side of the same coin, “amplification through simplification” is why it’s so easy for certain politicians to run on platitudes rather than actual policy: specifics will win you a population more in line with your ideals, but generalities will win you a population larger in scope. Consider the Patriot act: it’s easier for people to agree on “patriotism” than on “warrantless search and seizure.”  Consider the vagueness of “democrat,” or “republican.” Lots of people consider themselves these; because they’re so universal, they can fill in what it means to be either one with just about anything they like, even at a subconscious level. With specificity (“democrat who wants universal healthcare”) the thing in question is less encompassing and becomes a more adequate label for a smaller population, but it’s a population with a clearer identity–a more “realistic” image. We’ll call this, “precision through specificity.”

This is what we seek in our writing: precision through specificity.

We don’t want the shadow of a thing: we want as close of an image to the real thing as possible, otherwise every one of your readers will read your words through a simplified lens that reveals to them an image different from the one you wish to impart. Has your teacher ever written in the margins of your essay, “vague,” or, “unclear?” It’s because unless you’re specific in what you present to us as an argument, your reader will likely fill in the missing gaps with the wrong information. We don’t want that.

On the other hand…

“By stripping down an image to its essential “meaning,” an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can’t” (30).

They Say, I Say & Children’s Literature

But what amplifies these meanings?

Well, we do. Through participation in the investigative process. What are we investigating? What that “thing” really is. The more vague, the more participation required, and therefore, the more assumption involved in understanding the thing presented; the more specific/direct the thing presented, the less assumption needed. This is why reading books is a different experience from television, at least in concept of medium: one requires more participation in visualization and conceptualization while the other gives you all the information you require.

Going slightly against McCloud’s theory, is this ironically why we seek books with fewer and fewer images as we grow up? Not only because it is a societal norm, but because as our brains develop and our sense of identity refines, we naturally seek out more refined conceptual mirrors, ones that cartoons can possess but that most do not not, at least at first glance? (Past a certain age, it’s easier to stimulate your brain through the latest medical drama than through Teletubbies.) However, it’s also true that McCloud’s comic is much more engaging to us than a typical, dry academic essay, perhaps because the essay has no easy protagonist onto which to project our identity. How do we solve this conundrum? Perhaps these amplifications of simplicity and precisions of specificity have limits that prove different to each individual.

Reflection: Let’s imagine for a moment this is the case: what are your limits? When does something become “too simple” or “too complex?” Do they carry any guiding principles, or do they vary depending on far too many variables, such as the message’s medium, the message itself, your general mood, etc.?

But then, there was something magical about those stories we read in childhood, for reasons that go beyond the fairy tale aesthetic. There’s little variety of interpretation when it comes to Clifford the Big Red Dog. But then, we also had likes of The Giving Tree, and even when we didn’t, the simplicity of messaging in the books we read allowed us space to breathe and turn our attention to where it really wanted to go all along: the imagination.

A message in a book can only mean one thing—what the author wants to say—until it reaches you. You are a participant in the long and interconnected discourses of academia, of the literary world, of existence. You have a say in what it means, and meaning is limited only to the imagination. What you can imagine, you can name, and what you name, you can understand and help others to understand.

The world is what you name it.

Take care for now.