The meaning derives and interpreation of Michael Kutsche's artwork

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Name: JOLANTA JASIULIONYTE

Student Number: 0903512Course: CG Arts and Animation, year 1

Unit Title: Perception

Date: 23 November 2009

Essay Question:

IN WHAT WAYS DOES AN UNDERSTANDING OF PERCEPTION HAVE AN IMPACT

ON THE WORK OF ARTIST AND DESIGNERS.

Word Count: 1512 words

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IN WHAT WAYS DOES AN UNDERSTANDING OF PERCEPTION HAVE AN IMPACT

ON THE WORK OF ARTIST AND DESIGNERS?

Introduction:

A better understanding of perception provides the viewer with a grater depth

of knowledge, subsequently to that it brings a better understanding of the

artwork being observed. Therefore I chose to investigate semiotics thetheory of signs. To get a better understanding of the theory I used Sean Halls

book This Means This and This Means That a Users Guide to Semiotics. Fewinteresting points came from Visual Communication from Theory to practice

and other relevant internet recourses. What came out of the research was the

understanding, how widely and flexible the theory can be used. Regardless it isa picture, a sculpture or even a peace of music to be interpreted. The practical

use of semiotics might improve the understanding of complicated art works.Semiotics itself is divided in to 8 main parts: signs and signing, contextual

structures, visual structures; textual structures, matters of interpretation,meaning framing an storytelling; and it is when structuring the information in

this parts we might get a better understanding of meaning of the work. For

this particular instance I took one artists work and tried to look at it fromdifferent theoretical points of view and find a practical meaning that is brought

by that.

Main body:At the beginning I will briefly introduce the artist - Michael Kutsche. This artistis a famous, self-thought German painter, illustrator and a concept designer.

His works can be interpreted easily since he himself leaves a note that anartist should always leave some free space for interpretation, giving only some

hints behind it.( Kutsche, 2008:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=137&t=708840) Therefore Ihave picked one of his most interesting works Coming Home to try and

interpret it using the guidelines provided from researching and see, where themeaning comes from as well as in what ways does an understanding of the

theoretical part of semiotics have an impact on the art work.

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http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=137&t=708840http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=137&t=708840


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1st figure: Kutsche, Michael; 2008; Coming Home

First of all, theres a need to look which signs bring out what kind of meaning.As an author of semiotics for beginners Daniel Chandler wrote A sign must

have both a signifier and a signified (Saussure 1983, 101). To conclude, therewill be no signs that wont invoke a meaning, and there will be no meanings

from nowhere.

To begin with, we might need to take a closer look at the title of the work or

the textual structure in semiotics terms since it takes a very important part insearch for meaning. The title directs, in what particular background we should

think further. Sean Hall, the author of This means This and This Means That aUsers Guide to Semiotics noted Words help to reduce numbers of

interpretations (Hall, 2007: chapter 5). To add to this point, then title ComingHome links that a subject is returning from somewherebackto home. Thequestion that remains is where from he comes back. We might now start

reading other signs.

The picture shown is overcrowded with symbols (the appearance of

character, the colors, the composition etc.)But it is when we see all the symbols as a whole rather than separate parts,

we can get a better understanding of what is intended to be said. As Hall Seanmarks that symbol by itself might not say much, but when gathering and

gathering symbols, making a system of it, a developed and wide meaning can

be produced (Hall, 2007:chapter 1). Therefore a picture must be read.

The symbols seen usually stand for a bigger meaning and there is someresemblance between signifier and signified states Sean Hall (Hall, 2007:

chapter 1) by reading symbol after symbol we are likely to discover a newmeaning after a meaning.

To begin with, the center of the composition is the subject depicted, therefore

it is on what we should be concentrating, since the simple rule of composition

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state, the character wears a cloth looking much like spacesuit (the signifier),

we might than assume the subject here is an astronaut (the signified) . To be

more concrete, he wears an newly fashioned type of astronaut clothing. So the

clothing not only suggests, he is a space traveler, but also might indicate atime of his traveling.

2nd figure: Crew of the Columbia wearing the Advanced Crew Escape Suit ;2003

Observing it further the spacesuit itself looks blemished, spotted and

therefore it looks used. Whats more this plays well along with the appearanceof the subject. The mere physical aspects - the gray hair, the wrinkles and the

more subtle indicators - the deep and smart look on his face, gentle smile, a

slightly bended head position - all these signifiers stand for experienced, smartand even tired old man. But its not enough to discuss the physical aspects,

and the title of the portrayed character. Theres a real need to explore the

facial attributes, which hold a great deal of meaning.

We should pay a good attention to the face, since it holds a great deal of

information. At the first glimpse the face might appear somehow strange to us.

Observing it further we become aware of the strange proportions and oddforms of the subjects face. Eyes are higher than they are likely to be in an

average mans face. Furthermore, Nostrils appear to be wider, lips thinner andlonger. To add even more there are only mere hints of eyebrows, and the ears

appear smaller but at the same time we see a better volume of them than we

would typically be seeing in a humans face. It could be considered only as oddattributes, that a mans face can own, if we be reading all the signs as parts,

whereas the whole of the signs (all the facial attributes being summed up)undoubtedly indicates that the creature painted here is not entirely human. It

rather appears like a mixture of a man and a monkey. Therefore it brings out

a great deal of new interpretations.

To continue observe the image, we might need also to discus briefly the maincolors of this work and the effect it brings. There seem to be only two main

colors which are dominant in the image; those are orange (spacesuit) and fair

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blue (the background). Its important to know what the effect is brought bythis palette. According to Kendra Van Wagner, who is a writer specializing in

psychology, Orange calls to mind feelings of excitement, enthusiasm, andwarmth whereas Blue calls to mind feelings of calmness or serenity. It is

often described as peaceful, tranquil, secure, and orderly. So the color palette

should evoke peacefulness and calm as well as feelings of appeal and warmthto our minds. Having discussed the coloring as well as other main points we

might than move to interpretation of the picture.

To my mind, here is where the complexity starts. Since the author himself

indicated, he is willing to leave some space for the observer to interpret theoverall meaning for himself; there is still no straight answer, or only one

meaning, which might come from the picture. As the author himself mentionedThough the content is the same, by changing notional position of the viewer,

changes the meaning. What he means is that we all can have personal and

different interpretations even about the same object.

So if I as a viewer would need to sum up the meaning and what this picturesignifies, the story read from the symbols probably would be something like

this. An astronaut, who spent a lot of time in space and has seen a lot ofthings, comes back home. Now this space traveler has plenty of experience, a

formed feeling and view about the life and how everything works. At the

same time he is calm, sincere, honest and very smart and he is not quitehuman. Maybe he was a monkey, who took over (or was given) a role which

ought to be mans, therefore started resembling the man himself, but stillremaining a creature he originally was. The other version of interpretation

would be this. The picture intends to remind us the fact that it was a monkeyfirst who did what man is doing now in as astronauts; its he who experiencedspace traveling. So this is what I would read out of all the symbols.

Conclusion:

Firstly having made separate observations on each of the fields, (the coloring,

the physical attributes, the pose the separate symbols, the text) we than couldgeneralize the overall outcome. It was the deeper understanding of perception

theory, that was helpful when structuring the information correctly; whenreading signs who had indexical relationship with the meaning; even whenunderstanding the importance of, for instance, the context of the work (in this

case only the very few points about the author and his intentions).Theknowledge of this theory leads the viewer throughout the observation

interpretation and conclusion processes. As Sean Hall insightfully remarked Byknowing the rules well be able to read the codes, raise questions coming

from the right understanding and find new meanings.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Illustrations:1st Figure: Kutsche, Michael; 2008; Coming Home; Germany;

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=137&t=708840

(accessed 6 November 2009)2nd Figure: 2003, Crew of the Columbia wearing the Advanced Crew Escape

Suit; http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://chriselyea.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/3-STS-107-Crew-NASA-

image.jpg&imgrefurl=http://chriselyea.com/failure-analysis-lessons/part-3-

shuttle-depressurization-lethal/&usg=__3AX48969aALVktHl5o2bShPULw8=&h=480&w=600&sz=97&hl

=en&start=15&um=1&tbnid=D0NEiWkKNGgXqM:&tbnh=108&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfirst%2Bastronaut%2Bsuits%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

%26um%3D1

(Accessed 11 November 2009)

Books:Hall, Sean. (2007). This Means This This Means That a Users Guide to

Semiotics. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd

Bloomer, Carolyn M. (1990) the Principles of Visual Perception. New York, NY :

Design Press

Baldwin, Jonathan; Roberts Lucienne. (2006) Visual Communication FromTheory to Practice. London: AVA Publishing SA;

Websites:Michael, Kutsche. (2009). www.mistermk.de (Accessed 28 October 2009)

Chanler, Daniel. (2008). Semiotics for Beginnershttp://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html

Van Wagner, Kendra. (2009). Color Psychology- orange and Color Psychology

blue.http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/color_orange.htm

andhttp://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/color_blue.htm

(Accessed 15 November 2009)

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