The Greeting is a film which pretends to be a painting
Bill "Viola's The Greeting is pretending to be a picture, hanging on the wall of the National Gallery, as part of 'The Passions' exhibition in 2003. The context of the gallery space and the badging of The Greeting as a picture give the work something different, making it more than just a film. The significance is in the context of where it is shown and the pretence occurring that this is a picture. Indeed, when walking downstairs in the National Gallery towards 'The Passions' exhibition, it is seeing it hanging on the wall that strikes immediately; I am being invited to believe that this animated film is pretending to be a picture. The analogy is of the picture becoming an actor, pretending to be something else. In terms of form, The Greeting is a film. Therefore, what is it that makes it now defined as an exhibition, a part of Viola's 'The Passions' in 2003? It is only the fact that it's part of a gallery that makes it an exhibition, although in reality it is also actors directed by a video artist into this film, slowed down and with no sound, which is pretending to be a painting. Therefore, it is conceptual art, in that what the artist is doing is not just making a painting, or having the idea for a painting, but having the idea of where it should be staged. The inscribed text of the space in which it is viewed makes a difference to what the viewer or spectator sees, and what is going on."
(Alison Oddey, 2007, p.70)
Fig.1 Bill Viola (1995). "The Greeting".
Fig.2 Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo "The Visitation".
3). Alison Oddey (2007). "Re-Framing". In: "Re-Framing the Theatrical", Palgrave Macmillan. 1-21.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Defining visual thinking and visual literacy
"Wileman (1993) defines visual literacy as 'the ability to 'read,' interpret, and understand information presented in pictorial or graphic images' (p. 114). Associated with visual literacy is visual thinking, described as 'the ability to turn information of all types into pictures, graphics, or forms that help communicate the information' (Wileman, p. 114). A similar definition for visual literacy is 'the learned ability to interpret visual messages accurately and to create such messages' (Heinich, Molenda, Russell, & Smaldino, 1999, p. 64). The ERIC definition of visual literacy is 'a group of competencies that allows humans to discriminate and interpret the visible action, objects, and/or symbols, natural or constructed, that they encounter in the environment' (http://searcheric.org/). Robinson (as quoted in Sinatra, 1986) describes visual literacy as 'an organizing force in promoting understanding, retention, and recall of so many academic concepts with which students must contend' (p. v). And lastly, Sinatra defines visual literacy as 'the active reconstruction of past visual experience with incoming visual messages to obtain meaning' (p. 5), with the emphasis on the action by the learner to create recognition.
The use and interpretation of images is a specific language in the sense that images are used to communicate messages that must be decoded in order to have meaning (Branton, 1999; Emery & Flood, 1998). If visual literacy is regarded as a language, then there is a need to know how to communicate using this language, which includes being alert to visual messages and critically reading or viewing images as the language of the messages. Visual literacy, like language literacy, is culturally specific although there are universal symbols or visual images that are globally understood."
(Suzanne Stokes, 2002)
[1] The Occasional Wife
[2] Stokes, S. (2002). "Visual literacy in teaching and learning: A literature perspective." Electronic Journal for the Integration of Technology in Education 1(1).
Branton, B. (1999). Visual literacy literature review. Retrieved December 26, 2001, from http://vicu.utoronto.ca/staff/branton/litreview.html
Emery, L., & Flood, A. (1998). Visual literacy. Retrieved September 22, 1999, from University of Canberra, Australian Centre for Arts Education Web site: http://education.canberra.edu.au/centres/acae/literacy/litpapers/vislit.htm
Heinich, R., Molenda, M., Russell, J. D., & Smaldino, S. E. (1999). Instructional media and technologies for learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Sinatra, R. (1986). Visual literacy connections to thinking, reading and writing. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Wileman, R. E. (1993). Visual communicating. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Educational Technology Publications.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
