26 April 2013
Lens:
Wall Art, Newark, Delaware, iPhone 4s, December 2012; © Sally W. Donatello and Lens and Pens by Sally, 2013
Let me know what you think of this photograph.
Pens:
Billboards and other signage are engrained in the popular culture. They vie for our attention.
Our visual communication has changed radically. We are inundated with so much in our field of vision that much gets lost, and other pieces rise to the surface with gusto.
When I read about this week’s theme for WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge, my mind started listing numerous ways to interpret culture. For me, I wrestled with the possibilities. When I began to muse about the way technology has redefined our lives, I knew that I had to move into the arena of digital innovation with its punch to everyday design.
Visual culture is so layered within society that it has become an area to study. It crosses disciplines, merging the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences (both locally, regionally, nationally, and globally).
Visual Culture, Google Images
Its effect has already altered the way generations navigate. Our social norms are spiked with these new influences.
Visual communication and its culture has reinvented how we live. While we moved from t.v. and typewriter to an iPhone, iPad, PC, and other devices, a gold mine of innovations await for what is yet to be.
Metro Logo Design, Google Images
In the Lens section is an image that I took at the end of last year. For me it bridges old and new cultures that stream through our visual fields. Murals as wall art are just a miniscule part of what we see daily, but it is indicative of the constancy of design that infiltrates our view.
Note: As always I welcome comments about this post or any part of my blog.
Lens and Pens by Sally 
Love the wall Art. Pure, artistic, beautiful!
Thanks, my small city is beaming with art.
I love that top picture and the B&W works perfectly for it.
janet
Thanks for your comment and visit.
Really great Blog Sally especially the Lens section Image!
Thank you, I appreciate your comment and visit.
You are talented as can be!
I’m humbled. Enjoy the week.
Good post Sally! Love the shot, especially love the art!!
I believe one of the most engaging and inspirational of human inventions is public art. Thanks.
I like the photo very much – it works well in black & white. I’m thinking about the Culture challenge and not coming up with much – you did well – Visual Culture is a great idea.
Thank you, and enjoy the rest of the weekend.
I’m ‘ols school’, I like graffitti to say something…… either through a cool drawing or through words. I cannot get behind tags or mindless squiggles………… but thats’ me……… old guy.
Terry
That’s what is wonderful about our individuality. We can follow our minds’ delights. Thanks.
I’m with this spidery old guy: I take the distorted-letters kind of graffiti as a sign of our culture’s increasing acceptance of illiteracy, or worse, even a glorification of it.
Of course, graffiti is its own art form, and does make a statement about the times in which it appears. But the image that I used was commissioned by the city. These kinds of murals are dotted throughout our small town, and art is often found in expected and unexpected places. Thanks.
That is wonderful street art. We have quite a lot of it now as artists throughout our broken city try to bring beauty and life to the remains. I think I have not heard the term visual culture before but it is very apt. Note that I use the word “heard’ whereas today’s younger folk might say ‘seen’. This makes me wonder if the visual culture has the ability to be an inclusive culture and not simply a dominant culture.
Visual culture is interdisciplinary, and discusses how today’s society communicates more through the seen than the heard. But we still have heavy influences from such behemoths as film and t.v. So, yes, it is inclusive, just leans more to what John Berger urges us to do, which is see in new ways. Thanks.
Great interpretation of culture. Your photo really drew my attention.
Thank you, I appreciate your comment.
Great picture!
Thank you, and enjoy the weekend.
Love this!
Thank you and welcome.
That’s a pretty cool find, Sally! I love a good street art, especially when done properly. Great choice converting it to B&W.
Thanks, you and I are such devotees to the monochrome. Enjoy your weekend.
Awesome pic. Street art is a love or hate thing according to me. I love it and think it nicely characterises a place.
Oh, I agree. We have local artists that were commissioned to execute their vision. Thanks.
I love street art-it is such a vibrant expression of a neighborhood or community-wonderful image-I especially like the use of the b/w-it really adds drama to the photograph.
Thanks, my small city has public art dotted throughout the Main Street. It’s quite energizing.