Let’s talk about…

Nope, not what you’re thinking! We need to talk about the significance of visual culture.

Let’s play a mind game – close your eyes and try to imagine a world without visual culture. Now open them again – what do you see? Not much, right? That is exactly what I was thinking.

It reminds me of how we take visual culture for granted; we see it every day, everywhere – it is in fact omnipresent. But are we aware of it? Do we appreciate its existence?

Let’s go back to the mind game: close your eyes again and imagine a world without visual culture – how would the world look like? How would this affect our daily lives? I am pretty sure that we would not be able to function or make decisions properly – as I can speak on my behalf only, I can say that I am a very visual person and that most of my decisions are based on visual impressions. Advertising is part of visual culture, images have an influence on us – would you be able to differentiate your favourite snack (on condition that it is packaged and you cannot see it) from others? Without a picture on the box it would, at least for me, be difficult. This is a rather trivial and random example but let’s go further. What if the Eiffel Tower in Paris would disappear or the Buckingham Palace in London? These monuments belong to visual culture as well – cities would lose their landmarks, their identities. We would not have television, magazines or any other “visible” culture. The world, in fact, would be quite boring without media, art, architecture, graphic design, fashion and the list could go on forever. What I am trying to say is that we should be aware of this and that we should recognise the significance and influence of visual culture on our daily lives.

So open your eyes and immerse yourself to visual culture and appreciate it!

GZM