Glossar-English:Image in reflective use

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Sub-Item of: Types of image usage

Original: Bild in reflexiver Verwendung

The reflective use of sign acts

All signs or, more generally, all communicative and, thus, medial acts can be used not only for their actual (direct) purposes but also for symbolically extended communicative acts (metaphorical uses): They can, moreover, also be used to draw attention to aspects of communicative acts of precisely this type themselves. Because of this reference back to the performed communication action itself, this usage is called the reflexive usage of a communicative act. It includes example actions presented for the purpose of teaching, through which attention can be drawn to more or less all aspects of execution, as well as cited uses, in which, for instance, very specific conditions for the production of a corresponding sign carrier are (or are intended to be) brought into view.[1]

Related to language, reflexively used verbal signs would, therefore, be such verbal utterances that are less about simply actualizing the speech act that is normally carried out with them. Rather, the performance of such a speech act, or at least a certain aspect of it, should be emphasized as an example. Thus, the example sentences, which should not be lacking in any linguistic article or textbook, are all to be understood as used reflexively: With the (repeated) utterance of the sentence ‘Jonas went home’ in the first section of Searle's «Speech Act Theory» ([Searle 1971a]Searle, John R. (1971): Sprechakttheorie - Ein sprachphilosophischer Essay. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M.
), for example, it is not intended to communicate or assert what is usually communicated or asserted under normal use conditions with the utterance of that sentence.[2] Rather, Searle's utterance serves here as an example for the utterance of sentences as such and for a mental phenomenon typically associated with it (that one means something with the utterance).

In principle, there is a close conceptual relationship between reflective uses and exemplification. However, the latter is usually understood primarily as a positive exemplification: The exemplifying action itself exhibits the aspect demonstrated as an example. However, the reflexive use of signs also includes cases of negative exemplification: With the use of a sign, for example, the absence of certain aspects that are normally important or unavoidable for sign acts of this type can be pointed out. For this reason, if communication fails, a reinterpretation can be employed as a reflexively intended usage to recognize (and possibly cover up) the mistake or mistakes in the communication action on the meta-level.[3]


Images in reflective use

Since all communicative or medial acts can be used reflectively, this type of use must also occur for the use of images – understood as media actions. In fact, one will sensibly analyze image quotations or images cited in other ways as reflective image uses since attention is drawn to aspects of the respective (direct, symbolically extended, or even already reflexively used) image use itself, just as the definition of reflective usage requires.

Figure 1: Series of images of the «Utah Tea Pot» with the actual aim of illustrating computer-graphic processes

Here, too, typical examples are images used in textbooks, which are intended to draw attention to certain aspects of the creation and reception of images in the sense of positive exemplification: When, for example, a textbook on design theory uses an image with a particularly striking ›image-determining point‹ becomes the subject of the concept of »image-determining points« or a picture with particularly obvious groups of shapes as an example of the laws of shape in visual perception. Also, the frequent occurrence of images of a particular type of teapot – the much-cited «Utah Tea Pot» – in textbooks on computer graphics is accordingly not to be interpreted in such a way that teapots of this kind represented an almost indispensable utensil for the operation of computer graphics. Rather, the focus here is on the effects of certain variations in the process of creating such images using a standardized (albeit virtual) object (Fig. 1).[4]

Negative exemplification is also possible and is not uncommon with images that are used reflectively: Breaking with an expectation serves as a reference to the meaning of this expectation as part of the “normal” medial context of use. Accordingly, even monochrome surfaces can be analyzed as images with negative exemplification via the reflective mode of use: They can be used to draw attention to everything that they lack in comparison to a “normal” image.[5]

Figure 2: (Initially) difficult to understand image of a Dalmatian

The effect of certain picture puzzles can also be analyzed as an attempt to communicate with an image that initially fails. Only the reflective use of the image as a strategy for recognizing and eliminating the medial error provides clues as to what is missing in this use of the image. That insight can be employed to understand the picture in a different way. The «Image of a Dalmatian» (Fig. 2), which is well-known in perceptual psychology, works in this sense.[6]

Apparently, in principle, all factors that are theoretically understood to be involved in the use of an image are also candidates for a positive or negative exemplification in a reflectively employed image, in particular all sub-phenomena of image use that are defined by concepts from the theories of signs, media, and perception.


Medial effects of the reflective usage of images

Compared to the “direct” use (⊳ immersive mode), the reflective image use has specific consequences: It should be particularly emphasized that the reflective use usually presupposes the “normal” use conditions of the image but at the same time (partially) overrides them. As already indicated in the above example of the «Utah Tea Pot» images in computer graphics, the semantic aspects often take a back seat to normal uses: It is no longer important what the image normally shows – such as a teapot. The usual semantic content is just one of an infinite number of others that are also possible, all of which could serve as carriers of a completely different message, which is actually what is at stake now, namely that one can create such an image with this or that form of a computer-graphic procedure.[7]

Such a shielding of the actual semantic content is also known from quotations and citations in other media or sign systems. In fact, it is a special manifestation of a more general receding from normal pragmatic aspects in reflective versus non-reflective use. For example, those who merely quote a promise are generally not willing to guarantee that they will keep it – something that is part of the normal use conditions of the promise. The following example may serve as a visual equivalent: Let's compare the image of a surveillance camera, on the one hand, in normal use and, on the other hand, in reflective use, for example in the catalog of the manufacturer of the surveillance system. In the first case, one of the normal conditions of use is that the image users focus their attention on the situation in front of the camera with the image and react accordingly to the scene seen in the image. Nothing of the kind applies if the very image carrier is to be used in the catalog to advertise the surveillance system – and, thus, to draw attention to certain aspects of the creation and normal use of that (kind of) image.

The switching off of the normal pragmatic connections is due in particular to the fact that in the case of reflective uses, the image users themselves are not simply actors in a communication action, but also focus on themselves as communicators in this action (⊳ Image reception as a communication process). Thus, even those who consider a very specific picture, for example by Picasso, to be a ‘typical Picasso’ are already using this picture in a reflective manner. The same applies to those who confront a picture as an observer of their viewing of the picture. With this use of the image, they also focus on a certain aspect of the non-reflective use of the image. The act of communication that is actually carried out differs significantly from the direct use of images, with the consequence that completely different pragmatic rules have to be followed.

The reflexive usage of a sign can itself be employed in a reflexive way. We have done so, for example, in this text when we have given examples of reflexive use. Such intensified reflexive uses occur rather seldom in everyday life but could play a certain role in the field of art criticism.


Connections with other concepts

The reflectively used image and the self-referentiality of the material: Occasionally, especially in the context of non-figurative images but also in the context of the reference discussion of digital media, we encounter the formulation that such images are self-referential, that they merely refer to their own materiality. This talk of the self-referentiality of the material is closely related to reflective uses of images that draw attention to (in the broadest sense) syntactic aspects of the image being viewed or, more generally, to its type of image (⊳ Materiality and Image Syntax). The special feature of non-figurative images – such as monochrome surfaces, abstract ornaments – consists in the fact that they do not seem to have any (obvious) semantic dimension. Assuming that images normally (i.e., when intended for direct use) have a more or less obvious meaning or a meaning assigned via a legend, this break with a communication expectation should trigger the switch to reflective use. So the thesis suggests itself that purely non-representational images are only images in reflexive use (⊳ Semantics of non-figurative images).

The reflexively used image and the fine arts: The concept of reflective use also seems relevant to the distinction between everyday images and artistic images: Everyday images, like all images, can also be used reflectively; in the case of pictures in the fine arts, on the other hand, reflective usage seems to be the norm since here when encountering the picture, attention is always directed to aspects of its production, materiality, or effect. At most, potentiated reflexive uses are added to this. [8th] [8]

The reflexively used image and the emphatic images of the Image debate: The so-called ‘emphatic images’ – G. Boehm also speaks of ‘strong images’ (cf. [Boehm 2007a]Boehm, Gottfried (2007): Wie Bilder Sinn erzeugen. Die Macht des Zeigens. Berlin University Press, Berlin.
: p. 252) – consistently are pictures used reflexively; after all, the pictorial quality of these pictures should show in a particularly emphasized way, or more precisely: should be able to be demonstrated. But when an image is used to draw attention, among other things, to what characterizes images (generally or of a particular variety), then it is obviously used reflexively.

The reflexively used image and the identity of pictorial signs: Finally, one must ask whether it actually makes sense to say of one image that it can be used directly or reflexively (even at different levels of reflexivity), or whether with the different uses of the same image carrier quite different images are constituted. After all, the former is more in line with our everyday language practice. However, different opinions have been established in the formation of theories (⊳ Identity of Pictorial Signs and Identity Criteria for Image Carriers).

Siehe auch:

Notes
  1. ↑ It should be made clear that the reflection carried out is by no means the first in the overall complex of the use of signs: Even the simplest communicative behavior is necessarily associated with an act of self-portrayal, i.e., a simple form of reflection (⊳ Interaction and Communication). In the case of sign-like communications, another level of reflection occurs, insofar as the sign users are now aware of their communicative activity (⊳ Sign, Sign Carrier, Sign System). The reflective use of signs therefore already represents (at least) the third level of reflection within the complex overall actions under consideration.
  2. ↑ For example, in that context it remains completely unclear who is actually meant by 'Jonas'; ⊳ nomination.
  3. ↑ In that case, I present the deficient sign to myself in a reflexive manner in order to draw my attention to faulty aspects of its use.
  4. ↑ Such a reading can be strengthened in particular by the fact that the image appears as part of a corresponding series so that the effect of different production procedures (or different parameters of a procedure) can be compared using the same image content.
  5. ↑ That doesn't mean that positive examples aren't possible with monochrome surfaces used as pictures: They can also be used to refer to certain effects – such as affective ones – that can be triggered with them, although or precisely because of the usual local color variations and everything related to it is missing here.
  6. ↑ The reflective self-presentation of the picture after the first failed attempts to recognize anything in it at all leads to the realization that the lack of clear object contours makes it difficult to see objects and, thus, to interpret figurative images; with this understanding (and the knowledge that it is supposed to be a Dalmatian) it is usually possible after some time to show to oneself the Dalmatian in the picture – a change in perception that persists afterward so that further presentations of the picture do not necessarily have to be received in the reflective mode.
  7. ↑ The variously expressed criticism of the conception of an actual semantic content in images – or signs in general – must also be seen in this context (cf., e.g., [Derrida 1988a]Derrida, Jacques (1988): Signatur Ereignis Kontext. In: Derrida, J. (Hg.), Randgänge der Philosophie. Passagen, Wien.
    ). For the concept of reflective usage, however, it is irrelevant whether such content is considered plausible or not since it is the standard use that is reflected and, if necessary, partially overridden. For the more general critique of the speech act theory ⊳ Illocution.
  8. ↑ It follows, at least historically, from the designation of works of fine art as signs that are used reflexively, that subsequently newly created works are (should) always be viewed with an additional level of reflection: namely as signs used reflexively, which are used reflexively in their reflexivity.
Literature
[Boehm 2007a]Boehm, Gottfried (2007): Wie Bilder Sinn erzeugen. Die Macht des Zeigens. Berlin University Press, Berlin.[Derrida 1988a]Derrida, Jacques (1988): Signatur Ereignis Kontext. In: Derrida, J. (Hg.), Randgänge der Philosophie. Passagen, Wien.[Searle 1971a]Searle, John R. (1971): Sprechakttheorie - Ein sprachphilosophischer Essay. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/M.

Version 1: 2013

Responsible:

Editing:

Contributions by: Joerg R.J. Schirra und Marcel Lemmes — (Note)

Quote as:

[Schirra 2013g-d]Schirra, Jörg R.J. (2013). Bild in reflexiver Verwendung. (Ausg. 1). In: Schirra, J.R.J.; Halawa, M. & Liebsch, D. (Hg.), Glossar der Bildphilosophie. (2012-2026). [bildglossar.org/index.php?title=Bild_in_reflexiver_Verwendung].
Webadresse: bildglossar.org/index.php?title=Bild_in_reflexiver_Verwendung

Schirra, Jörg R.J. (2013). Image in reflective use. (Ausg. 1). In: Schirra, J.R.J.; Halawa, M. & Liebsch, D. (Hg.), Glossar der Bildphilosophie. (2012-2026). [bildglossar.org/index.php?title=Glossar-English:Image_in_reflective_use].
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