The Word-Image Transaction
input
output
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"The appetite of end-users, hungry for images, is rarely sated" 9
"If something works well, it can go unnoticed and remain the same" 3
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This hunger leads to our uncritical engagement with online search engines.
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Whether we search using Google images or a smaller, more specialized database, we engage in a silent transaction - one that flashes by so quickly, we barely notice.
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"Images and verbal processes are viewed as alternative coding systems, or modes of symbolic representation." 8
So its just a translation of a word to its image equivalent, right?
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Plain and simple...
wait a minute!
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Let's reconsider how trustingly we trade our words for supposedly synonymous images -- a lot can happen in the seconds between input and output.
WHO is translating these mediums? HOW are they doing it? WHAT does it mean?
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The goal of this website is to externalize and deconstruct this transaction
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Along the way, we will find that...
Rather than being a simple in & out equation, the transaction of words and images is deeply subjective, fluid, and complex
The unseen process of equating words and images has the power to construct our ideas of the world, and the many variables involved allow for unexpected creativity