Potentiality and evocation in the meanings conveyed by the image

Abstract

The aim of the investigation in this study was to understand how the evocation power is produced in an image and the influence of its incorporation into the meaning yielded by the visual content. A correlation was established between a list of properties drawn from these images, considering the end to which there are meant, and their ability to preserve the artistic appeal featured on them at the moment they were composed. Three key fundamentals were focused as presuppositions: a) Nowadays, images are conveyed by the cultural industry in a frenetic and continuous path; b) A great number of such images are capable of producing such an evocation power that can induce the viewer to changes in attitude, persuading him/her to uncontrolled consumerism and to standardization; c) Others are capable of a considerable strength to evoke violence, through high dramatic and tragic contents. Data were collected from photography and pictorial works, sorted by criteria of their being built for a purpose. The analyses were effected by way of three correlations from their technical plasticity: image and a travel experience, image and urban chaos experience, image and aesthetic experience. The methodological procedures were built through the semiotic concepts as stated by the theory of signs by Charles S. Peirce and their dialogue with the notions of informativity, Jackobson?s language functions, and the constitution of poetic communication. The indications found in these images made it possible to infer on the presence of an immanent artistry that can either be responsible for instigating the receptor, as well as projecting him/her to the multiplicity of meanings found within the miscellaneous hybrid languages and styles typical of the complexity of contemporary society.