Anchorage and Polysemy

AS PhotographyExternally Set Assignment

Externally Set Assignment

Review some semiotics

Discussexamples

Create own examples

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FIRSTSOME THEORY

Anchorage and Polysemy

• Images are POLYSEMIC – they can have many meanings; we are all different so see things differently

• Adding text to an image can ANCHOR or guide the reader/audience to make the PREFERED meaning (the one the artist intended) or tomake it more polysemic

• This all came from Roland Barthes

John Hilliard, cause of death, 1974

Artists use ANCHORING

text to either change themeaning or make it morePOLYSEMIC

NOW SOME

EXAMPLES

Jim Goldberg

Amandine Alessandra

Duane Michals

Jeff Wolin

Babara Kruger

Robert Frank, Halifax Infirmary

Text scratched onto images (polaroids).

Gillian WearingGillian Wearing

Signs that say what you want them to say andnot Signs that say what someone else wants you to say,

TASK

• Choose one or two images that relate to the theme you have chosen in your exam

• Write on, under or around the image to either make it more polysemic or to anchor it

• Be prepared to explain back to the group why you wrote what you did and how it changed or anchored the original meaning

Summary

• You have one minute to write down one thing you learned from today

• You have one more minute to share this with the class and write down at least one other thing someone else has learned.

Keith Arnett

Sally Mann

ConicalGordon Matta-Clark, 1975

Tina Branney

Thomas Hoepker

‘Dust Breeding’Man Ray, 1920

Jim Kazanjian

‘New York at Night’Berenice Abbott, 1933

‘Calveras Dam II’Alma Lavenson, 1932

Richard Billingham

Arturo & Anton Giulio Bragaglia - Alchimia musicale, 1932

Jim Marshall

Samantha Maple

Rukes

Alexander Titerenko

‘Typologies - Gravel Plants’Bernd and Hilla Becher, 1981

SEBASTIAO SALGADO

Nan Goldin

Zoriah Miller

Ralph Eugene Meatyard