Glossar-English:Image Syntax
Main-Item of: Images as Signs
Original: Bildsyntax
The relevant structure of image carriersThe question of image syntax as the most restricted area in the treatment of images as signs focuses on the properties of pictorial sign carriers and the relations between them, without the meaning or action aspects of the image playing a significant role. That means that those physical aspects that an object must have in order for it to function as an image are primarily considered. However, not all physical characteristics of an object are usually relevant. Therefore, the topic of image syntax is very close to the discussion of the materiality of images in the art historical tradition as well as the more ontologically oriented parts of the image debate in general.
On the sub-itemsThe keywords for image syntax can be roughly subdivided into those that define the subject matter of the image syntax more precisely, those that are dedicated to aspects of the syntactic organization of pictorial sign systems, those that trace the specific elements of the pictorial syntactic structures, and finally those that take into account application aspects. The subject of image syntaxAlthough image syntax only envisages a very limited aspect of image use, its object, the image carrier, is fundamental to determining many image-semantic and image-pragmatic issues. In particular, the question is how extensive the relevant physical properties' variances may still be able to use the image carrier as the same image. The identity of images depends on this question of syntactic material and ultimately leads further to the question of the uniqueness of the original compared to copies and reproductions. Although they are nominally excluded, semantic and pragmatic considerations remain, strictly speaking, of central importance for formulating and aligning the syntactical questions since image carriers, in their function as image carriers, can ultimately only be determined regarding the actual, intended, or hypothetical use as an image (⊳ Image reception as a communication process). The image syntactic organizationOn the other hand, the possible variance of the image carriers indicates that – viewed as a sign – no image can be understood independently: It is always part of a sign system. In analogy to the grammar of a language, one can, therefore, look for combinatorial rule systems about the relevant physical properties of the image carriers, with which precisely the syntactically well-formed images can be distinguished from the syntactically not well-formed images (overall or at least in a sub-area). Whether such an image grammar should be understood more in the sense of a transformation grammar or whether a combinatorial system of image morphology to be distinguished from it leads to more adequate descriptions also depends on the situation in which the particular syntactic rule is used. In any case, it is about the composition of more or less elementary syntactic building blocks, which, in this context, can be differentiated in terms of their intrinsic values, depictive values, and presentational values. The elements of image syntaxThe set of syntactic building blocks can generally be divided into two groups: on the one hand, a relational basic structure that spans a series of dimensions, in which, on the other hand, marker values are arranged. While in musical sign systems, auditory marker values are arranged in a temporal basic structure, and in linguistic sign systems, a net-like, arbitrary basic structure determined by a grammar is equipped with lexemes, for the pictorial sign systems, visual marker values in a flat-spatial basic structure are the focus of interest.[1] Correspondingly, the entry «Space and Geometry» stands for the diversity of the pictorial syntactic basic structure, as geometric calculi have represented an excellent form of rational understanding of space since antiquity. Disturbances in this basic structure are significant for syntactically incorrect pictures. A specific attribute of space, the density of the arrangement of spatial locations, has also played an important role in the recent image discussion. The discourse on image-syntactic marker values concentrates primarily on the complex variety of colors through which the underlying flat-spatial image-syntactic structure first becomes perceptible. However, it should not be forgotten that several arguments exist for understanding color textures as an independent system of second-order marker values based on the color dimensions. Finally, with the topics of reflection and transparency, further fundamental aspects of image-relevant visual properties are addressed, which are not usually taken into account by color theories in the narrower sense but can take on unique image-syntactic functions. The application aspectFor concrete, especially technical applications, the concept of resolution is particularly critical regarding image syntax. The visual syntactic considerations are crucial for the digital storage and processing of image carriers and their mechanical duplication and transmission since here, too, as a rule, aspects of meaning and action are entirely disregarded. Digital image processing, a sub-area of computational visualistics, deals with such algorithmic processes with which – from, among other things, analog images – the most suitable digital image carrier can be automatically created and modified in a variety of ways. MiscellaneousThe aspect of image syntax also plays a role in many media-theoretical considerations. |
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Version 1: 2013 Responsible: Seitenbearbeitungen durch: Joerg R.J. Schirra — (Hinweis) Zitierhinweis: |