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Module 1-2 Understanding Visual Literacy

This document discusses visual literacy and its importance. It defines visual literacy as the ability to construct meaning from visual images and discusses how it is an essential skill in today's media-driven world. The document also outlines some key revolutions in communication, including cuneiform writing, printed images, and digital images. Finally, it discusses different approaches to developing visual literacy, such as art history, understanding design elements, and studying symbols and meanings.

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Gab Bautro
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
287 views

Module 1-2 Understanding Visual Literacy

This document discusses visual literacy and its importance. It defines visual literacy as the ability to construct meaning from visual images and discusses how it is an essential skill in today's media-driven world. The document also outlines some key revolutions in communication, including cuneiform writing, printed images, and digital images. Finally, it discusses different approaches to developing visual literacy, such as art history, understanding design elements, and studying symbols and meanings.

Uploaded by

Gab Bautro
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Reading Visual Art

Module 1-2 Understanding Visual Literacy

At the end of this module, you are expected t0:


1. Know the definition visual literacy
2. Know the importance being visually literate
3. Identify the revolutions in communication
4. Discuss approaches to being visually literate

Art, Communication and Visual Literacy


Art is in fact a language; it is a form of communication. To be “literate” means be having to know the
basics like the alphabet, grammar and vocabulary.

Everything we see is an image, a text, a photograph or a sign but in our times today, we are living in a
media-driven and imagine-saturated age. Being “literate” is not only confined to the above mentioned
definition. It is nor important to widen our knowledge and understanding of different cultures. It is more
than reading and writing

The graph above shows how 21st Century students are consuming images at
a large rate. The use of different types of media has shown a significant
increase in the last 10 years, except reading. There is a need to learn how to
read and read images.

Visual Literacy is essential because we as humans need to construct meaning


in order to make sense of the things that we see.
Course Module
What makes person visually literate?
This is a person who can read and write visual language

What is visual Literacy?


This is the process of sending or receiving messages using images and the ability to construct meaning
from these visual images. These literacies are them combined in order to read images in our present
multi-media world.

According to Brian Kennedy


(director of Dartmouth's Hood Museum of Art)

“Visual literacy is the ability to construct meaning from images. It’s not a skill. It uses skills as a toolbox.
It's a form of critical thinking that enhances your intellectual capacity.” He further adds that visual
literacy is a universal language that is crucial and necessary especially now that we live in the digital age.

Importance of Visual Literacy


1. To interpret the content of visual images
2. Examine the social impact of visual images
3. Discuss the purpose to an audience
4. Make an individual have the ability to visualize internally (human imagination)
5. Helps in communicating visually
6. Read, understand and interpret visual images
7. Caution oneself in making judgements about the accuracy, validity and worth of images.
Reading Visual Art
3

Today’s education system emphasizes on teaching textual literacy (like letters and numbers) and
computer literacy, but it neglects sensory (human senses) literacy as core curriculum. Visual literacy
must be taught because it is the key to sensory literacy. Although we dominantly use hearing, but we
mainly use our sight.

Revolutions in Communication

1. Cuneiform Writing
>Invented by the Sumerians about 5,000 years ago.

Course Module
2. Printed Image
>started in 15th Century Europe, it is also called the printed book revolution or the
Guttenberg Period

3. Digital Images
The internet went live on Christmas Day in 1991.
Reading Visual Art
5

It is now imperative to teach the youth to develop visual literacy because…

The eyes have become the great bank of memory images that informs the way that we view the
world. It seems that seeing is an action often take for granted, but we need to be trained visually in order
interpret and understand the world around us.
The figure below depicts the process of learning how to look.

Course Module
We have to be more visually literate and train people how to see. We need to take time and pay
attention. When we see things, we often make assumptions or conclusions because we may have seen the
image before. But we really have to take a closer LOOK at an image I order to SEE it, after which we can
begin to DESCRIBE it accurately. After that we can ask ANALYZE it and ask analytical questions and after
going through this process, we can then begin to give meaning and make sense of what we see.

Approaches to be Visually Literate


1. Art History
>analyzing works of art

2. Form
> Understanding elements and principles of art

3, Iconology
>Studying symbols and what they mean

4. Ideology
>Studying ideas, values and beliefs

5. Semiotics

>Studying signs and signifiers


6. Hermeneutics
>Studying literal and intended meanings

References:
https://news.dartmouth.edu/news/2010/04/tedx-dartmouth-brian-kennedy-presents-visual-literacy-
why-we-need-it
https://encrypted-
tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSS1XzvnIToRqeAPB6TPmXxCfq65kV9gXJ5pFSANIJLXxgM5jnyht
tp://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/rethinking-strategy-for-the-digital-age-an-executive-primer/

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