THE EFFECTS OF PHOTOGRAPHIC PRESENTATION MODES ON SEMIOTIC UNDERSTANDING OF LAND ART AMONG IRANIAN ART STUDENTS
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Date
2014-09
Authors
NAJAFI, FARZANEH
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Abstract
Land art consists of sculptures, carvings, and performances located at specific natural surroundings to deliver messages of love and concern for the environment. As they are ephemeral or located in inaccessible places they are documented for reference in the form of photographs taken by the artists or by people interested in the works. Like all works of art, each piece could be classified as abstract or realistic and would be created using signs and symbols from the artist’s semiotic system to code the messages and feelings but unlike other works of art, the photographs of land art could, on the one hand, be embellished with additional photographic or dramatic elements that are added by the photographer, or on the other hand, have many important signs and symbols omitted, or sizes and contexts blurred to fit the photograph. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of different modes of photographic presentation, namely, Close-up (CU) shots, Long Shots (LS), or the combination of these on the viewers’ ability to extract the intended meaning and messages from the land art pieces. Semiotics theories of Peirce (1950) and Barthes (1978) as well as various aspects of Gestalt theory apply in interpreting the viewers’ ability to extract meaning and understanding from the photographs of the art works. This study employed a quasi-experimental approach using a 3 x 2 factorial design method to collect the data. The first factor was the mode of presentation, which comprised of Close-up Shots, Long Shots and Mixed Shots of ten land art pieces created by renowned Iranian artists in the form of photographs, and the second
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factors comprised of three separate attribute variables, namely, gender, art knowledge, and types of artwork. The dependent variables were Message understanding, Emotion and Feelings, Identifying and Interpreting symbols, Clarity of presentation, Identifying the title of the art works, and Change of views towards environment. The sample comprised 120 third- and fourth-year undergraduate art students selected from two public Iranian universities in Tehran with equal number for male and female students from each university. The students were all Iranians and shared similar culture and practices. The instruments comprised a test of visual art knowledge that employed multiple choice test questions, and a set of open-ended response items for students to write their responses. One group was randomly assigned to view the projected images in CU mode, another in LS mode, and the third in the MX mode. Data was analyzed using one-way ANOVA. The results revealed that the MX presentation mode produced significantly better results for Total Overall scores and the sub-factors of Message understanding, Identifying and interpreting symbols, Clarity of Presentation, and Change of views towards environment compared to either CU or LS. However, the CU presentation mode was also significantly better than MX for Identifying the title of the art works. There were no significant differences between the three modes of presentation in terms of Emotion and Feeling. Analysis by gender revealed that the MX presentation mode produced significant higher scores for Clarity of presentation and Change of views among the female students but there were no significant differences for other factors such as Message understanding, Emotion and feelings, Identifying and interpreting symbols, and Identifying the title of the art works. However, for male students, the MX presentation mode produced significantly higher scores for all dependent variables except for Emotion and Feelings. These findings indicated that male and
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female students were processing the images differently in extracting and understanding semiotic messages from photographs. The findings also revealed that students with high knowledge of art performed equally well across the three modes of presentation for Message understanding, Emotion and Feelings, Identifying and interpreting symbols, and Identifying the title of the art works with the MX presentation mode reporting significant improvements only for Clarity of presentation and Change of views. However, for students with low art knowledge, the MX presentation mode produced significant improvements for all the dependent variables except for Emotion and Feelings. These findings indicated that students with high knowledge of art were able to extract meaning and understanding from any type of shots and the students with low knowledge needed more detail or information for the tasks. Further analysis by overall results revealed that the MX presentation mode was significantly better than CU and LS for realistic land art works and significantly better than LS for abstract land art works.
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THE EFFECTS OF PHOTOGRAPHIC PRESENTATION MODES ON SEMIOTIC