A meditation on our graphic-driven culture.

“While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Midsommar (2019)

Today is a world of images. Our experiences, our products, and our fantasies are no longer that of stories, myths, or words. Today, this modern world is one of image, presentation, and the outward body.

Now that we have created our avatars to exist on the digital plane, we have put efforts into curating not only our physical image in the waking life but also our image in the digital space. Graphic “content” on social platforms is rewarded. Well thought out ideas, carefully crafted in the written word, seemingly dissolve under the influence of graphics — but now the word plays a different, more acute role.

Now, the word is the backbone of the graphic. The graphic is seen by so many, so quickly, and as a result, its interpretation varies tremendously. But to politicize an image, to charge an image, to arm that graphic, is to equip it with words. The word is written to incite, to suggest, or to conjure.

The word today is often associated with the graphic to restrict the image from being freely interpreted. It is, quite often, a rather aggressive way to restrict the meaning of a graphic, especially during the age of information.

In an era of learning through sound and images, people find even fewer reasons to turn to the written word as a source of education or inspiration — instead, the written word is only viewed as a mechanism of control, order, and contextualization. Words have now become the side-kick to the graphic.

It is my understanding that the word is used merely as a utility to secure…. but the word’s poetic, wizardry, is still out there somewhere…

Today we should feel the poetry in the image, and we should use language and written words more poetically. The current word can take some poetry from the graphic.

It is quite an aggressive way of expression, that every image must have a caption.