MY STUDY: People and Visual Communication

OK, so I am going to study the area of Shockoe Bottom and its people. By, looking and observing people, i am going to establish hypothesis and on obviously personal veiwpoint of certain things that I pick up on. Obviously, the fact that I am the one doing this, a bias has to be taken into account, but in a way everything is bias or particular as it comes from one person or another. But, I want to observe patterns and common actions that I feel most people see, and simply try to pick them apart (from my eyes) and almost come up with a psychology of visual culture as it relates to people. Which, is everything when looking through the eyes of a person.

So heres just some initial ideas and observations:


Visual culture is all about what we are trying to be or to communicate and therefore are communicating. Its the same when we design, thinking about who were speaking to and then how to make it look. Why has the overall aesthetic or image of an elderly person (aside from their obvious aging)established so rather than that of a young club goer. Surely their actions and place in life has something to do with it.

It is interesting to think of how much of a pattern there is in the differences in apparel on a friday night rather than a monday. You are in a way limited to societal norms without knowing it. Can you go out on a monday night and have as much fun as a friday? Sure, but you may be limited to only certain things going on. There are wide possibilities in expressing something visually. Compare to birds or animals and how they say dominance, and then how do we. Some show their colors for mating and some buck for dominance and this is definitely comparable to humans. But is it possible to not express something, would you need void of clothes or even eyes to do that. Can something untouched by your surrounding and its views be created by an individual, or is everything simply a reaction of another. Your wearing a white tshirt and jeans because you want to communicate as little as possible, but by the way people think, this can communicate many things and be analyzed just as much as if you were decked out in highly "fashionable" clothing that seems to cary more of message. Because everything we do communicates something, and what it communicates is sometimes and usually not the same to different people. Take, "gutter punks" for instance. The people you see on the street wearing all black, they seem to rebel from society, but all end up looking the same and therefor creating a conformation of their sect/culture.

-GILKEY