JOUR 170 Visual Communication

(1 Term; 3 Credits)

When we are reading a book, the act of reading would involve at least two elements. First, our eye-sight scans through the pages - it is an act of 'seeing'. Secondly, there are 'words' (and/or pictures) being scanned. It is interesting to ask which comes first: 'seeing' or the 'words'? John Berger says that "Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak." To put it in a more intriguing cultural context, 'seeing' seems to be more fundamental than 'the emergence of words'. We used to employ words, verbal and/or non-verbal, to explain the world we live in. Thus, Berger asserts: "It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world." Hence, seeing comes before words. What about pictures, and moving images? It is interesting to examine the relationship between what we see and what we know. This course serves as an introduction to the study of our visual culture: how we see, and what actually we are seeing.