Visual communication

Indre Bylaite

Final thesis for a BA-degree

Icelandic Academy of the Arts
Department of Design and Architecture
December 2016
 Visual communication

Indre Bylaite

Final thesis for a BA-degree in Product Design

Supervisor: Steinar Örn Atlason

Product Design
Department of Design and Architecture
December 2016
This paper is a 6 ECTS final thesis for a BA-degree in Product Design.
It is not allowed to copy this thesis in any way without author’s consent.
 Abstract

The following thesis explores the increasing importance of visual communication in the
digital age and traces its origins through to an anticipated future. It seeks to identify what
makes an effective image to capture the viewer's attention with recognition of cultural
differences and differing personal tastes and requirements. The thesis shows how the
advancement of technology has made all perspectives and viewpoints reachable. It also
tracks the development of the image as a representative model of the abstract that can be
manipulated and doctored by anyone with easily attainable equipment and the effect this
has had on modern society. A particular reference is given on the influence of the Bauhaus
and its teachers Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy and Johannes Itten in defining
the boundaries of what is possible through visual communication and how its impact
continues to this day.

A conclusion was made on the increasing dominance of the ever evolving visual
communication as a means of exchanging information: that questions the benefits of it's
technological advancement but that underlines its fundamental importance to our lives and
concept of self.
 Index

Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 8

1. Visual communication: How do we see things? ................................................................. 10

2. Camera, photography – heroism of vision (beauty, perfection, unreal reality)..... 14

3. Bauhaus's influence on photography: Teachers of the Vorkurs ...................................... 17

4. Social media (everyone is the photographer) ......................................................................... 22

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 25

Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................... 27

7
 Introduction

The underlying aim of this thesis is to research a visual communication because it is the
language I understand the best and I can use it better than words. It is ever more prevalent
that images are becoming a huge part of communications. “More people than ever before
read newspapers and books, listen to radio, and watch television; every year more forms
have to be filled in for a variety of purposes; signs and directions confront us wherever we
go.”1 Fewer of us can have our lunch without having our eyes glued to social media in so
doing we are suggested and directed to endless information. But some of it, we see and
some we don't which leads to the question of what attracts us to the image of the product
and focuses our gaze and what makes us just scroll past it.

I am fascinated by the way we read images. “The way we see things is affected by
what we know or what we believe,”2 said John Berger. People are all very different and
believe in different things, but it seems to be that some images capture the attention of
almost everyone and some cater for esoteric niches. In this fast moving world we must
grab the attention at the first attempt or it might be lost forever.

Andreas Feininger said that “no matter how much or how little you may know
about photography, you do know that its purpose is to make effective pictures.” 3 I would
first like to establish what makes photography effective, how “the picture must show
something that is of interest to the intended viewer, that tells him something he might like
to know, something that informs, entertains or amuses him, stimulates his mind, makes
him think or feel.”4 To do this it is necessary to explore the tricks that capture the image
reader’s eyes, how colors can stimulate the reader to feel one way or another and shapes
can determine how long person will engage. It is also my aim to find out how this
phenomenon has evolved throughout the years in parallel with the advancement of
technology.

1
Kurt Rowland, The Shapes We Need (Singapore: Times Printers Sdn. Bhd, Fifth impression, 1971), 59.
2
Johan Berger, Ways Of Seeing (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1972), 8.
3
Andreas Feininger, Total Photography (New York: Amphoto Book Publishing, 1982), 14.
4
Andreas Feininger, The Perfect Photography (London: Thames and Hudson Lts, 1974), 17.

8
 Images are such a strong emotional tool that can make you feel sympathy or
absolute frustration. They can also lead and control the mind of the viewer. It is therefore
necessary to dig deeper to find out what makes effective visual communication.

9
 1. Visual communication: How do we see things?

I often get asked the question “In what language do you think?” I am fluent in three. This
has inspired me to investigate how people think and one thing I am empirically certain of is
that I personally do not think exclusively in any language. Language as a spoken word is
not necessary for thinking and this can be exemplified by people that have been born deaf.
Usually I find myself thinking in images, unless it is a conversation I am thinking about,
and subsequently I have become interested in what the differences in communications are.

Communication can be broken down as the following:

● Visual communication
● Verbal communication
● Nonverbal communication (body language, tone etc.)

The history of visual communication starts with cave paintings from 40,800 years ago in El
Castillo, in northern Spain. These were made by blowing or spraying pigment around a
hand pressed against rock surfaces.5 This stamp of the hand started new ways of
communication which have led us from simple marks signifying “I was here” through
genres such as Cubism and Abstract Art all the way to making photo-realistic mirror
portraits. The desire to depict the moment 100% was granted with photography, later
through video-making and now by 360° filming.

For visualizing design, dreams or ideas, people need a tool to transfer the abstract
into the physical realm. In the same way that music can be represented by notes, ideas are
so much easier to understand when visualized on paper or as a representative model. It can
be argued, that images and signs are the first form of communication that we learn and is
therefore at the core of our understanding of the world. As a baby we understand images
and signs without being able to understand verbal communication. We read emotions from
facial expressions, tones and situations. As an infant, before our ability to read, we are able
to understand signs and can communicate by drawing. As we become capable of reading

5
Author not mentioned, “Rocks and Caves,” The History Of Visual Communication, last modified 2016,
accessed October 15, 2016, http://www.citrinitas.com/history_of_viscom/rockandcaves.html.

10
and processing letters we open the door to verbal communication through written
language, but still it is arguably one of the least effective ways to learn. Edgar Dale claims
that we remember 10% of what we read, but 30% of what we see. With the assertion that
books with no pictures at all are harder to remember and harder to study from because
there are no images to connect information we receive, Dale says that we remember 50%
of what we see and hear.6 Maybe that is one of the reasons we still remember the images
from our bedtime stories. But if we observe our daily surroundings we may ask ourselves
how many images, signs and adverts we see. Screen Cloud Magazine posed the question
“how many of these ads do you remember?” and went on to explain:

We’re exposed to screens at all times of the day. If this report is to be believed, the
average adult spends 590 minutes on ‘media’ consumption a day, of which they’re
exposed to an average of 362 marketing messages. From that, 153 ads are able to attract
the viewer’s attention for a few seconds or more.7

By becoming increasingly aware that we are being exposed to seeing adverts more
than nine hours a day I think we are also becoming more and more desensitized to it. But
social media is increasingly trying to grab our attention, for example Youtube makes us
watch at least five seconds of an advert before we can ‘skip’ it. Less than a year ago when
Instagram was sold to Facebook, for every six posts we would have to see an advert. In
order to establish what makes us stop and pay attention and why it is that for so many we
just scroll past adverts, it has been said that “we only see what we look at.”8 Because we
observe so much information we just start to predominantly look at things we are
concerned about and interested in. For example, when a person buys a car, after the point
of sale they have a propensity to start seeing the same model of car on the streets
everywhere. The same could be said of adverts – if you are in the process of having a baby,
your attention will be drawn to relevant graphics and even to ‘baby’ colours. It is not
because there are more of those ads around, but because the person is attracted to
information that resonates with their current overriding interests. In other words, “what the
thinker thinks, the prover proves”9 as Robert Anton Wilson said.

6
Author not mentioned, “Dale's cone of learning,” HLWIKI International, last modified September 15, 2015,
accessed November 11, 2016, http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Dale's_cone_of_learning.
7
Author not mentioned, “How many of these ads do you remember?” SchreenCloud, last modified April
2016, accessed November 11, 2016, https://screen.cloud/inspiration/ideas/these-ads-do-you-remember.
8
John Berger, Ways Of Seeing, 8.
9
Robert Anton Wilson, “The Thinker & The Prover,” Prometheus Rising (Arizona: New Falcon Publications
Temple, 1983), 23-33.

11
 The internet knows a lot more about it's users than they are aware of and in this way
companies can effectively target their desired audience. In the same way, it is important for
businesses to target their audience so they don't waste money on people who just scroll
past their ads. The identified demographic have to be attracted by the images they are
looking at and it must reflect what they are themselves looking for. To examine what
motivated the beginning of visual communications, as previously mentioned everything
started with prehistoric hand silhouettes in caves and with sculptures of deities. If you go to
a National Gallery of Art you will most likely start your journey through religious art, from
Egyptian sculptures and wall decoration to gold decorated Christian images. Humans have
always had a need to believe in a higher power and visual communication was the way to
communicate to everyone universally. One of the purposes of churches was that the poor
and rich could read the story through paintings, feel the glory of the upcoming afterlife and
visualize their deity whom they had never seen: all through the power of visual
communication. Images were not just an artist’s interpretation of the bible, but because of
people's ability to decipher images everyone could follow the same story.

Throughout the history of art we have always wished to depict the perfect reality
and in 1839 the first photo image was produced which opened the door to another level of
communication. It was quick because it did not take years to make and accurate in that we
could see almost anything exactly as it was at that moment. It was also available in that it
was not that expensive to produce portraits anymore and it therefore became more widely
available for more people. With this progressive leap in technology, art metamorphosised
and with it the freedom to move away from reality and start exploring the effects of shapes
and colours with impressionism, cubism and abstract art.10 Also it took away the
uniqueness of paintings.

The bogus religiosity which now surrounds original works of art, and which is ultimately
dependent upon their market value, has become the substitute for what paintings lost
when the camera made them reproducible. Its function is nostalgic. It is the final empty
claim for the continuing values of an oligarchic, undemocratic culture. If the image is no
longer unique and exclusive, the art object, the thing, must be made mysteriously so.11

10
Michael Archambault, “20 First Photos from the History of Photography,” PetaPixel, last moderated May
23, 2015, accessed November 23, 2016, http://petapixel.com/2015/05/23/20-first-photos-from-the-history-of-
photography/.
11
John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 23.

12
In the digital age we have become capable of having the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci
in every home and making twists of art works we could never lay our hands on. But at the
same time we have become able to share information in new previously unthinkable ways
and photography has opened the door for views we could never have imagined existed.

One more reason why photography is so popular as a form of art and

communication is because it is so easy to produce. The evolution of the art form was so
fast and groundbreaking: from originally being what was widely perceived as a kind of
mystical and esoteric art form available for the select few, it quickly progressed to become
more tenable and ubiquitous with the arrival of film. Later it evolved into DSLR and now
it is in almost everyone's pocket. Mobile photography is the newest and most popular type
of photography that is constantly growing and has made major changes in the way we take
photographs and see images.

13
 2. Camera, photography – heroism of vision (beauty, perfection,
unreal reality)

I'm an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it.
I free myself for today and forever from human immobility. I'm in constant movement. I
approach and pull away from objects. I creep under them. I move alongside a running
horse's mouth. I fall and rise with the falling and rising bodies. This is I, the machine,
maneuvering in the chaotic movements, recording one movement after another in the
most complex combinations.

Freed from the boundaries of time and space, I co-ordinate any and all points of the
universe, wherever I want them to be. My way leads towards the creation of a fresh
perception of the world. Thus I explain in a new way the world unknown to you.12

Our vision has changed drastically since we have acquired a mechanical eye. We have
discovered such revelations as that a horse lifts all of its four legs while running and how
the Earth looks from the Moon. We have since started seeing things from perspectives we
never imagined had existed and our everyday world reality has blended with our fantasies.
All perspectives and viewpoints are now reachable: we now know how a view from the
Alps looks just as clearly as what we can see from the Empire State Building. We can
transport ourselves in the blink of an eye, the turn of a page or click of the screen. Taboos
have been deconstructed and we are able to feed our curiosity from landscapes, nudes and
macro images. That which a painter had once imagined and remade with the help of
brushes, we can now observe on paper with the knowledge – it is a true story.

But what makes good photography? We have different styles and personal tastes
and different places where our understanding of beauty was formed and for that there is no
one recipe to make a perfect photo. Esther Honig made an experiment in which she sent
her own portrait without any makeup or good studio lighting to more than forty Photoshop
aficionados around the world. The adjusted pictures she got in return are a good reason to
believe that in different countries the understanding of beauty is very contrasting. In each
country Esther Honig’s face was transformed to appear as someone very different and in
some countries her skin turned to pale white. How differently, a young woman's beauty

12
Dziga Vertov, Cinephilia and Filmmaking, accessed November 23, 2016,
http://cinearchive.org/post/93902769775/im-an-eye-a-mechanical-eye-i-the-machine.

14
can be interpreted in different international locations.13 The same rule could be applied for
any image. There are countless objects, situations and feelings to be captured
photographically, for which it will never be possible to make a ‘perfect’ photo. But,
photographers are a special kind of people. “Photographers were supposed to do more than
just see the world as it is, including its already acclaimed marvels; they were to create
interest, by new visual decisions. There is a peculiar heroism abroad in the world since the
invention of cameras: the heroism of vision”14

Photographic visualisation is the ability to find beauty in what everybody sees but
ignores on account of it being too ordinary or in seeing beauty as ugliness. On the other
hand, there is arguably no such thing as ugliness. Photography has a power and ability to
transform the ugly into the interesting, extraordinary, eye-pleasing or captivating. In this
way images can be created to give the illusion of a feeling or framed to avoid it and
becomes more like a portrayal of space, light and a true lie.

A similar effect photography has made on paintings is evident when we start

making replicas of famous paintings. Photography has taken it's uniqueness away. John
Berger explains:

The uniqueness of every painting was once part of the uniqueness of the place where it
resided. Sometimes the painting was transportable. But it could never be seen in two
places at the same time. When the camera reproduces a painting, it destroys the
uniqueness of its image. As a result its meaning changes. Or, more exactly, its meaning
multiplies and fragments into many meanings.
This is vividly illustrated by what happens when a painting is shown on a
television screen. The painting enters each viewer’s house. There it is surrounded by his
wallpaper, his furniture, his mementoes. It enters the atmosphere of his family. It
becomes their talking point. It lends its meaning to their meaning. At the same time it
enters a million other houses and, in each of them, is seen in a different context. Because
of the camera, the painting now travels to the spectator rather than the spectator to the
painting. In its travels, its meaning is diversified.15

From 1827 when it was invented, the ability to edit images has given photography
lots of purposes as a media that depicts reality. And from this point photography was no
longer a mirror reflection of truth. But instead it found it's place in art. Photography was no

13
Ashly Perez, “This Woman Had Her Face Photoshopped In Over 25 Countries To Examine Global Beauty
Standards,” BuzzFeed, last moderated June 25, 2014, accessed November 28, 2016,
https://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleyperez/global-beauty-standards?utm_term=.go3yWkPn1#.exN6JomQn.
14
Susan Sontag, On Photography (London: Penguin Books. 1979), 89.
15
John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 19.

15
longer a reflection of reality, but more so the interpretation of a photographer's vision. At
first editing was difficult and needed a lot of skill and patience. But now it is easy and it
takes away the need for knowing the camera technically inside out and making the perfect
image on the spot. We are able to lighten the surroundings and darken the sky in a few
clicks and instead of a perfect sky, we can simply re-contextualise the sky from another
day or even another location. Photographers become protective of their original photos, not
for security reasons, but because non-edited photos seem like they do not have their own
voice. Also, since Instagram has come along, editing has become something everyone has
the power and capability to do. Equipped with ready-made filters, in a moment of swiping
a finger we are able to modify an image, change the reality and manipulate the mood. But
we have taken it so far that even our self-portrait has become a lie. We take so many self-
portraits that we already adopt unnatural poses and facial expressions which reflect trends
more than natural or personal expressions, for example Snapchat filters which increase
highlights and make our noses a little thinner and eyes a bit bigger. But the biggest issue I
can see is that editing influences our understanding of beauty and self-criticism so much
that we are no longer capable of seeing realistically and instead are aiming to project a
non-existent perfection. Social media body edits have moved so far away from reality that
we have started to think that being normal is no longer beautiful and acceptable.
Surrounded with images, even though we are aware are artificial, we are getting ourselves
caught in traps of dissatisfaction and self-doubt. With the ability to edit and transform
images we have moved so far away from reality and truth that the impact we are making
on our understanding of beauty is becoming a serious issue detrimental to our feelings of
self-worth.

16
 3. Bauhaus's influence on photography: Teachers of the Vorkurs

In its nascent period after photography was first invented it was mostly and ubiquitously
used for portraits and documentation, but things changed in 1919 after the end of the First
World War when architect Walter Gropius (1883–1969) became inspired to change the
way art and design was taught at the Bauhaus School.

Based on the concept of the medieval cooperative of artists and craftsmen combining
their talents to build the great Gothic cathedrals, the progressive school of art and design
sought to bring together the fine and applied arts, human ingenuity, and modern
technology in order to help construct a new rational, egalitarian, and ordered society. 16

Gropius´s idea was to take away regular classroom studying and transform it into
workshop training. Because, until Bauhaus, all artistic disciplines were taught as
independent subjects and crafts were taught separately as well. Educational reform in
Germany faced two issues: “the first was that all art education should be based on craft-
training, the second that students were forbidden to specialize, the schools should embrace
as many activities as possible.”17 This led students to get experience in as many media and
techniques as possible so the students would be able to find the subjects they had their
highest aptitude for. Also, because Germany was not as rich in material as Britain and
America, students were taught in a different way. Before experimenting they had to
understand and master technique. That way students could apply a strong technical
understanding to their work and would be able to produce high-quality design. Another
difference in how the Bauhaus was structured was in their labeling: there were no teachers,
but “masters” and students were called “apprentices” and “journeymen” to inculcate a
friendlier and more egalitarian atmosphere. In the system prior to Bauhaus, students could
be in the academy for an unlimited time, but since Bauhaus was a Game Changer in as
such that they put in force the rule that every student had to graduate within four years.

16
Author not mentioned, “Photography at the Bauhaus.“ The Met, last modified October 2004, accessed
November 24, 2016, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/phbh/hd_phbh.htm.
17
Frank Whitford, Bauhaus (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 1988), 27.

17
 Entry to the Bauhaus was open for every woman or man and the base element for
the first year was called Vorkurs: the learning and understanding of basic form and colour.
Students had to gain great skills and understanding of the base course before they were
allowed to select one of the specializations in Bauhaus school. The idea of base course
studies was not new in Bauhaus, it was taught in other German schools too, but what made
it different and unique was its teachers and the way it was taught: the greater amount of
time and input of visual understanding and pressure of good performance, before choosing
workshop speciality. Because Bauhaus was universally accessible, girls were applying in
an abundance and it soon became a contentious issue. And because girls were traditionally
considered unsuitable for most of the workshops they were encouraged to stay confined to
ceramics and textiles. Because of this, female students were getting special Vorkurs with a
focus on ceramics and textiles.

One of the teachers in Bauhaus, Swiss painter Johannes Itten (1888-1967) in his
essay, “The Art of Color”, explained his understanding of colours and tones. Itten was a
believer of the power of colour, that some colours could help the observer to relax and
others build up tension. Also he created a twelve-hue-colour-wheel that explained how to
mix hues and shades.

Two of Itten’s exercises were especially important. The first required students to play
with various textures, forms, colours and tones in both two and three dimensions. The
second demanded the analysis of works of art in terms of rhythmic lines which were
meant to capture the spirit, the expressive content of the original. Before attempting such
exercises the students were asked to limber up their bodies and minds by physical jerks,
controlled breathing and meditating.18

Itten was focused not just on colour, shape and texture outcome, but also on student
understanding and connections within. But what made him even more special in teaching,
was that he taught students not just about forms and colours, but how to relax, connect with
their surroundings and inner-self, through meditation also. Itten was different not just in
the way he was dressed, but that he perceived great connections between form and colour
and between art and spirituality. Though in this writing about his preliminary course in
1963, Itten was trying to say that there was nothing special about his teaching method: it

18
Frank Whitford, Bauhaus, 55.

18
was designed simply to measure and liberate the creative potential of those who followed
it.19

Another noteworthy luminary on the Bauhaus teachers list was Wassily Kandinsky
(1866-1944) a Russian geometric minimalism painter who joined the Bauhaus to head the
workshop of painting in 1922. Kandinsky as well as Itten believed that the crucial part of
understanding the reading of design and art is form and colour.

It can be seen even from this highly abridged summary of the essentials of Kandinsky’s
color source that he was moving towards a visual language which, he believed, would
eventually communicate feelings more clearly than could a verbal language. Since, like
Itten, he believed that color cannot exist independently of form, his theory of form was a
vital part of that language.20

Kandinsky from his early years saw things through the filter of colour. This is apparent
when he wrote in his essay “Reminiscences“ (1913) about three colours, which he
remembered from his childhood without remembering the underlying objects.21 Kandinsky
as well as Itten believed that shapes and colours are a crucial part of our understanding and
communication. He believed that they have a gigantic influence on our feelings and
psychology and “Kandinsky even conducted a survey of his colleagues to study their
psychological responses to colours and other formal elements of design.”22 From seeing his
obsession for form and colour we can make a conjecture that his students were forced to
obtain a deep knowledge of minimalistic basic form and the psychological effects in design
and art. As Andrew Kennedy point out in the book Bauhaus:

The presence of the famous Kandinsky, and the other fine artists among the senior
teaching staff, helped to give the Bauhaus prestige. However, the tension between their
presence and the school´s increasing orientation towards industrial design was never
entirely resolved. Nevertheless, Kandinsky´s classes on form and color were extremely
influential on his students. His paintings of this period share in and helped shape the
visual vocabulary of the new machine aesthetic.23

After Itten was forced to resign, László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) took over the

teaching of the Vorkurs. His teaching was significantly different to Iteens. Moholy-Nagy

19
Frank Whitford, Bauhaus, 103.
20
Frank Whitford, Bauhaus, 111.
21
Kandinsky, “Reminiscences,” in Modern artists on art: ten unabridged essays, ed. Robert L. Herbert
(New York: A Spectrum Book, 1964), 19.
22
David Raizman, History of Modern Design (London: Laurence King Publishing, 2003), 174.
23
Andrew Kennedy, Bauhaus (London: Flame tree Publishing, 2006), 36.

19
no longer focused on form and colour, but more so to encourage his students to find the
connection with the machine, technology, and new media. In the same way that Kandinsky
had a passion for form and colour, Moholy-Nagy had a kind of fetish for the machine. In
his own words in his essay “Constructivism and the Proletariat” (1922): “Everyone is equal
before the machine. I can use it, so can you. It can crash me; the same can happen to you.
There is no tradition in technology, no class-consciousness. Everyone can be the machine´s
master or its slave.”24 Even though photography was never thought of as a subject, he
encouraged students to experiment with different creative approaches to photography. The
camera was just another machine to master. “Moholy-Nagy placed photography on an
equal footing with the fine arts and experimented with kinetic sculpture.”25 His images not
only had unique and ground breaking compositions, but he utilised photography for
painting with light.

Moholy-Nagy made his ´photograms´ from the early 1920´s onwards by placing ordinary
objects on a light-sensitive plate or paper and developing the results. [...] but in the spirit
of the new unity of art and technology, it was useful to show that artists, like scientists,
could produce technical inventions, and the photogram was heralded as such.26

It can be implied that Moholy-Nagy´s love for machines and photo cameras has made a
huge lasting influence on modern photography. He inspired students to use photography as
an art form and, along with guidance from the other Vorkurs teachers, students were made
to understand and learn form and colour first and foremost: this strongly influenced their
compositions and freedom to explore the potentials of the camera with the creation of
tropes that are still visible to this day, best demonstrated in the photography of architecture.

Bauhaus was not just another design school, it was fundamentally different and its
revolutionary designs altered the accepted ethos from not only implicating “less is more”27
but in giving a new freedom to photography. Before Bauhaus, photography was mostly
used for documentation and portraits.

24
Frank Whitford, Bauhaus, 128.
25
David Raizman, History of Modern Design, 184.
26
Andrew Kennedy, Bauhaus, 312.
27
Author not mentioned, “What did Mies van der Rohe mean by less is more?” Phaidon, accessed
November11, 2016, http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/architecture/articles/2014/april/02/what-did-mies-van-der-
rohe-mean-by-less-is-more/.

20
 Photography was exploited, not only as an art form, but also as a means of visual
communication. Experiments were made with photo-montage, double exposures and
overprinting. Typography and graphic design made commanding statements: bright, bold,
simple and devoid of every kind of decoration. Even seraphs were banned. Typefaces and
layouts were rethought in terms of optics and communications theory. So were
advertising and display. All traditional solutions were ignored. Everything was possible.
The face of the twentieth century was designed, manufactured and staged at the Dessau
Bauhaus.28

We are living in the 21st Century and it has been a long time since the Bauhaus school of
art was closed, but influences of Bauhaus Vorkurs can be found in any photography
magazine, Instagram or design book, for example in the way we photograph tall buildings
and products. Bauhaus teachers taught students that there were more formats other than
landscape and portrait, that the camera can be tilted and that there are in fact endless ways
to explore the possibilities of photography.

28
Frank Whitford, Bauhaus: The Face of the 20th Century, documentary movie, directed by Julia Cave
(1994; London; Films for Huamnities and Scieance).

21
 4. Social media (everyone is the photographer)

We are living in interesting times when we are exposed to social media every day and for
at least few hours. It now seems you are no longer a fully functioning part of the
community if you are not a user of Facebook. The three most popular social media
platforms are:

● Facebook with 1.79 billion monthly active users in 201629

● Instagram with 500 million monthly active users in 201630
● Twitter with 317 million monthly active users in 201631

Though all of them are very different, visuals play a big role in all of their functional
operations and success. With them everyone can share their personal vision, life and
interest. To make information more accessible people use information and location 'hash'
tags and for expressing their interests people ‘like’, ‘follow’ and ‘share’. “Show your
photograph to someone – he will immediately show you his: “Look, this is my brother; this
is me as a child,” etc.; the Photograph is never anything but an antiphon of “Look,” “See,”
“Here it is”; it is pointing finger at certain vis-á-vis,...”32 said Roland Barthes in 1980, an
observation that is more relevant today than ever. Through social media we create and feed
our ego. By taking images of ourselves and life surrounding us we are doing nothing more
than creating – “look, see, here it is”. Through Facebook we are connected with family,
friends and people we want to impress or just show a filtered best part of our life. We
could imply that there are few types of social media people: ones who do everything to
show their best and impress, ones who show everything, good or bad and others who share
very little.

29
Author not mentioned, “Number of monthly active Facebook users worldwide as of 3rd quarter 2016 (in
millions),” Statista, accesst at Novermber 29, 2016, https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-
monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/.
30
Author not mentioned, “Number of monthly active Instagram users from January 2013 to June 2016 (in
millions),” Statista, accesst at Novermber 29, 2016, https://www.statista.com/statistics/253577/number-of-
monthly-active-instagram-users/.
31
Author not mentioned, Number of monthly active Twitter users worldwide from 1st quarter 2010 to 3rd
quarter 2016 (in millions),” Statista, accesst at Novermber 29, 2016,
https://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users/.
32
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (London: Vintage, 2000), 5.

22
 The first type of people might be inspired by celebrities, as for them, social media
opens the door to give an insight into the real life they are living. This type of people
spends hours arranging and polishing every image they post. Very often they have a lot of
followers and social image for them is really important. It is already scientifically proven
that social media is addictive. It is possible to get a hugely impactive feeling from little
effort requested, for example a few hundred “likes” per posted image. Our brains release
dopamine and thus social media can become really addictive.33 Images this type of people
post will be “selfies”, food, expensive goods, activities and “look, see, her it is” my
flawless life. This type of people often share their work and try to gain other people´s
interest in their passion.

People who post all the time are more of a sharing or attention seeking type. This
social media type tends to post too much and less attractive information. Although this
type of person is maybe seeking “likes” and social attention similar to the first type, their
“look, see, here it is” is more engineered to get attention and reaction, not to impress us.
Usually this type of social figure does not gain a lot of followers and because they post in a
less calculated way and more often they are usually not as selective and polished.
Subsequently they do not receive as many “likes”. Users who share very little are voyeurs,
really selective people or non-social media-reword driven people. For this type of people
social image is usually less important.

Instagram is the most popular platform used by professional and amateur

photographers. Because it is free of charge and easy to reach an audience it has become
popular amongst the ranks of all sorts of photographers. Since in the beginning of 2016
that it has been owned by Facebook, Instagram has become an essential marketing tool for
business. In recent photo camera development, Instagram has become one of our everyday
accessories and brought with it a few new image taking phenomena. One of which is the
“selfie” whereby a person holds a camera only a short distance away from their own face.
Dr. Lev Manovich with this team made a research of selfies culture in five biggest cities –
Bangkok, Berlin, Moscow, New York and San Paulo. From this research we know now
that just about 3-4% of images on Instagram are self-portraits. And in all the cities most of
the selfies posted are captured by females, but surprisingly: “more older men (30 +) post

33
Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown, “5 Crazy Ways Social Media Is Changing Your Brain Right Now,”
Asap Science, last modified September 07, 2014, accesed December 1, 2016,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HffWFd_6bJ0.

23
selfies on Instagram than women.”34 Also research proves that most of the time selfies are
taken to express positive emotion, because more than a half of the self-portrait subjects
were smiling and a significantly higher amount of women were making expressive poses
by tilting the camera and their bodies.

Another new trend is to take images from the viewer's point of view in a point and
shoot style: this is not something new, street photographers and advertising photographers
have been doing it for years, but Instagram has made this style of photographing explode in
usage because some of the users of Instagram share images as part of their lifestyle as if to
say “see through my eyes”, “look what I am drinking”, "see what I'm eating” or “here it is,
my new watch.” It could be deduced that one of the reasons this style has become so
popular is that a lot of celebrities cause us to reflect on what they like and show what their
everyday life looks like.

Instagram is very powerful tool for professional photographers and amateurs as it

easy to share and easy to follow what you are interested in. Also, it is not a closed media as
Flickr or Tumbler where most of the users are more professional or budding professional
photographers. Instagram gives an opportunity to share work with not just professionals,
but also to build up your audience by using the aforementioned hashtags and locations.

34
Author not mentioned, “A Digital Thought Facility,” Selfiecity, last modified 2014, accesst Novermber 30,
2016, http://www.selfiecity.net/#imageplots.

24
 Conclusion

The pace of life is becoming ever faster. The amount of information we expose ever
greater and visual communication is leading the way. As humans have a tendency to
choose the path of least resistance in their way of doing things, videos and gifs are taking
over social media and the way we exchange information.

According to a recent study by Usurv, if you want visitors to visit your site to share and
interact with your content, delivering it via video is the best way to go. Consumers are 39
percent more likely to share content if it’s delivered via video, and 36 percent more likely
to comment and 56 percent more likely to give that video a coveted “like.”35

Even though the Internet is dominated by video and visual content, people still choose to
read text if they are interested in the subject and seeking a better understanding of it.

In the near future we will see even more information sharing through visuals. For
example drones have become more and more accessible to the public. As much as it is a
very good tool for Landscape Photographers to explore locations from the air and to move
to Aerial Photography it also provides an opportunity to explore hard to reach places and
visuals provided can help rescue teams, the police and scientists. Visuals can be received
without risking lives and the big costs of helicopters. It is also a quick way to get
information about a current situation without the cost of transportation and for getting a
view of the inside of a hurricane or even 3D mapping.

Another exploding visual communication innovation which has just become more
easily accessible is virtual reality. The quest for a simulation of VR is as old as panoramic
paintings and that has since developed to Stereoscopic photography and viewing goggles.
In the 20th century virtual reality has potentially reached almost every consumers´ hands.
SEGA was the first company to create a gaming headset in 1993 but just now it is
becoming more and more adaptable for everyday use. Because of smartphones and 3D
graphics, virtual reality has become within reach of everyone. 36 The benefits of virtual

35
Liraz Margalit, “Video vs Text: The Brain Perspective,” Psichology Today, last modified May 01, 2015,
accesst December 4, 2016, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/behind-online-behavior/201505/video-
vs-text-the-brain-perspective.
36
Author not mentioned, “History Of Virtual Reality,” Visual Reality Sociaty, accessed November 29, 2016,
https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/history.html.

25
reality is endless: from the biggest market at the moment – gaming, to education and
travel, VR is used for therapy to help people fight phobias. It is still a bit complicated to
film in 360° but in the near future I believe we will be able to watch the news in VR.

Visual communication is as old as 40,800 years, but since we are exposed to it

every day and in so many different media we have become accustomed to it as a regular
thing. But what if Joseph Nicephore Niepce had not developed Camera Obscura?

It is difficult to grasp just how much would be lost to us under those circumstances. Most
of all, I suspect, the inhabitants of the future would miss out on pictures of simple
appearances: the look of a volcano erupting, or a close-up of a dragonfly´s wings; the
pattern made by a drop of water, or the record of a daft outfit worn at a party. The world
would seem much less knowable in the absence of these images: our familiarity with
tropical islands and deserts, anacondas and aardvarks, stems, in the main, from lens-based
imagery.37

We could no longer say – “hey I look like my great grandmother” or "look at this picture.”
Without photos we would lose so much of our personal information as well as never being
able to revisit moments. Of course the amount of images we produce today is enormous,
but we there has been a renaissance of film camera usage for the creation of images which
feel more valuable, precious and everlasting when developed on paper or on film.

If I could save one thing from my burning house – it would be my photographs.

Because memories fade away, but images have a capability to take you back to that
moment and relive it all over again.

37
Steve Edwards, Photography, A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 5.

26
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29