Monday, March 09, 2009

word versus image

I have to be honest: I still believe the word to be more powerful than the image. Maybe, in our age, the opposite seems more believable. I say: never believe in convenience! The opposite may (also) be true. And there is a new power the word is being invested with as we look upon what’s happening: people don’t really read, they don’t think in proper appreciation of what text can do for them. Language and words are being underestimated, we see it well. As we speak, we understand. That is frighteningly little already. Shockingly, diminishing ever more, and not gradually but in a torrent. The new power stems from there. The depreciated quantity in a backlash: the striking word - revenge against the pose. The image is convention, its dominance tyranny. Each icon turns out a hydra and words into a guerrilla of reason and humanity. And we remember…
I perceive of the world as textual, not a pictorial screening before my eyes and in my mind. If tomorrow I turned blind the world would still continue to make its customary sense to me. So I don’t just watch. I read. That’s a way of engaging, of interacting and reciprocity. Colour isn’t a visual property exclusively and text is happening all the time, all around us, enveloping us – it really is us, think of it! Better read well…

1 comment:

Thierry Kron said...

Well, Images don't need to be translated and Visual Art neither.