Parsing the Visual Language of Nano-related Images

Jo Mackiewicz, Assistant Professor
Lewis Department of Humanities
Illinois Institute of Technology

The images we see in the media without a doubt influence our attitudes toward emerging technologies, such as nanotechnology's potential effects on human health. To understand better how images of nanomedicine convey meaning, we can parse their visual language much the same way that we analyze the syntax and semantics of verbal language. Understanding the "parts of speech" of visual language helps us understand how the subtle meanings that nano-related images convey to mass audiences.

My purpose in this short article is to illustrate the benefits of parsing images. To do this, I use an image that won first place in the "Science Concepts" category of the 2002 Vision of Science Awards. The image, created by photographer Coneyl Jay, shows a "nano-louse" injecting medicine into a red blood cell. (Due to copyright issues, the image cannot be posted here. However, it is available for viewing at: http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/1/9/16/1.)

To parse the visual language of an image like that of the nano-louse, it is first necessary to understand the participants involved with it. The interactive participants are producers of images and viewers of images. In this case, the producer is Coneyl Jay (as validated and lauded by the judges of the Vision of Science Awards), and the viewers are the individuals looking at the image. Besides the interactive participants, images also have represented participants -- those who appear in the image. In this case, the represented participants are the nano-louse and some red blood cells.

In the process of parsing a visual image, it is also helpful to determine the extent to which an image calls attention to the relationships between and among the interactive and represented participants. For example, a cut-away drawing -- such as a cut-away drawing of a rocket booster -- makes clear that it is prescribing a particular relationship between its viewer (an interactive participant) and the rocket booster (its represented participant). It accomplishes this because it saliently shows an impossible view -- a view through the casing of the booster and into its guts. Therefore, it highlights -- rather than obscures -- the fact that it carries out its producer's intent.

In contrast, other images, such as the nano-louse image, situate the viewer and the represented participants in a particular relation to one another, but do not call attention to the relationships that they prescribe. In the nano-louse image, the relationships between and among the viewer, the nano-louse, and blood cells are prescribed, and the image does not flag these prescribed relationships it depicts. Rather, it takes a bit of visual language analysis to make out how they contribute to the image's effect.

To parse the imagešs visual language, we can analyze it in terms of the relationships between its viewer and its represented participants. The "parts of speech" that I will analyze are: 1) the distance between the viewer and the represented participants; and 2) the perspective from which the viewer looks upon the represented participants.

In relation to distance, the nano-louse is shown at a "close personal distance," a distance from which one could hold or grasp it. In many cultures, this proximity signals an intimate relationship (Hall 1966, pp. 110­120).

We can also analyze the meanings conveyed by the viewer's perspective on the represented participants. Specifically, we can analyze vertical angle and horizontal angle. The viewer looks up at the nano-louse from a low angle, a perspective that conveys the nano-louse has power over the viewer (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006, p. 140). The horizontal angle, constituted by the vector between the viewer's eyes and the nano-louse, is oblique. This perspective conveys detachment, unlike a frontal, direct viewpoint, which conveys involvement (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006, p. 136).

In contrast to the viewer's perspective of the nano-louse, the viewer gazes directly -- vertically and horizontally -- at one of the red blood cells (the one centered at the bottom of the image). The eye-level perspective suggests equality between the viewer and the cell, and the frontal perspective associates or involves the viewer with the cell. Together, the two direct viewpoints connect the viewer with the blood cells -- the represented participant that is receiving treatment.

What does this analysis of visual language say about the relationship between humans and nanotechnology as depicted in the nano-louse image? One could assess the meaning this way: the relationship between the viewer and the nano-louse projected via their distance from one another conveys that nanotechnology can and should intimately exist within and around us. The relationship between the viewer and the blood cells projected via perspective equates the viewer with humanity and designates the viewer and humanity, as a whole, as potential recipients of nanotechnology's benefits. The image's perspective implies that the nano-louse, manifesting science's power and using science's detachment and objectivity, injects the cell and, by extension, cures human disease.

Of course, distance and perspective constitute just two elements of visual language, two "parts of speech." Further analysis of this image's language could focus on the narrative it conveys, on which represented participants act, and on which participants receive action. It could also analyze visual features that create the appearance of naturalism, such as shadow; the image's naturalism helps dissimulate the relationship between the viewer and the represented participants that the producer prescribes. Many other visual parsings are possible (e.g., perhaps a feminist one, for example).

As we heed the call to assess social and ethical concerns related to nanotechnology, human health, and the human condition, it is critical that we understand the images that will play a significant role in shaping the public's perception and opinion. Thus, analyzing the visual language of mass communicated images is necessary.

Jo Mackiewicz, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Technical Communication Program within the Lewis Department of Humanities at Illinois Institute of Technology.

References
Hall, S. (1966). The hidden dimension. New York: Doubleday.

Jay, C. (2001). Micro-syringe. (http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/1/9/16/1)

Kress, G. & van Leeuwen. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design, 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge.