those are icon. please don't steal my identity from that school id card. my room, my keys, my macbook, my graduation photo, and a pen sketch.
these are index. although, if you don't know me personally, they could bleed a little into symbolic territory. my room, my bags, my clothes and hats and scarves and phone and class ring and keys and car.
these are symbolic. mostly. some of them are kind of indexical, like the double apple. although i'm inclined to think that that means it's a successful symbol because it's already attached to me without any real indexical reason? i dunno. a quick rundown of my symbolic intentions: owls are supposed to be smart. i want to be smart. the trouble is my owls are also kind of twee and kitschy. the thing is, owls are actually really stupid. i love that contrast. i hope i am smart. this takes care of several photos. the unicorn is kind of about how i don't want to grow up and lose that little-kid-magic, and how i hope i can carry some of that with me, because it's not really my choice if i grow up or not. as for the cat, well... i kind of meow. i dunno why. most people who spend any amount of time around me would agree that i'm kind of a cat sometimes. the plastic beads are about how i'm cheap and self-referential even while how i look is important to me. the feather has a dual meaning: super obvious, i have a great love for birds. less obvious, it looks like a quill and represents writing. the apple is vintage and new at the same time, indicative of the divide in my tastes. keyboard is about how much i love typing and how deeply i am related to my macbook. and the wire text again refers to the act of writing.
we're to take one of each and create a french fold book, two small images and one large one. i am thinking of using the little silver owl, my fedora, and the picture of me in the owl-hat. owl+hat=owl-hat. honestly, i am so simple. hopefully it turns out looking very nice.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part I would say you understand the core concepts of symbol, icon, and index.
ReplyDeleteThis is the way i learned it.
Symbol is a social convention. In other words, the "symbols" "C" "A" and "T" next to one another is a social convention to convey the signifier of an actual animal cat. If one was to take the symbols CAT to a place like, say, Japan it would have no meaning.
Icon is some form of signifier that represents the actual thing. So a sculpture or drawing of a cat that resembles what is received as the actual cat animal. Think cave paintings of stick figure-like people hunting wild deer or even the bull or horse figures in "Guerinca".
Index is the existential bond or physical record of the manifested human. Think CSI when you think of Index. The left behind remanence of something's physical action. The best person to refer to Index is Jackson Pollock. Imagine him walking over his canvas swinging his arms like an artist's dance, of some sort, flinging his arms about. While doing so, Pollock's paint and movements are making a record of his exact flow through time.
The best, and easiest, way to form an example of all three is a driver's licence. The hard computer text is an example of "symbol" which is the combination of symbols in tandem that, in our social convention, refer to you. The example of "Icon" is the picture of you on the licence. The photograph is a signifier that represents the actual real thing. Lastly, the Index is your hand written signature on the card itself. The movement of your hand records your physical record of scraping an object across another to leave an existential bond.
There ya go, hope this helps to sharpen your view on what seems to be an already becomingly clarified concept for you.