Abstract
The formal setup of this study is primarily based on the connection between visuality, visual communication, and visual culture. Subsequently, information is given about illustration as a visual culture product. How illustrations focusing on the problems of the modern world can present a visual message with aggressive drawings will be analyzed through examples and shown. This study deals with the representation of the image through representation and explores the meaning behind the depiction of the messages to be conveyed through illustration in visual communication. The illustration chosen for limiting the study focuses on the problems of the modern world and conveys the focus on the subject with a critical line in the reflection of aggressive linear violence.
TopIntroduction
The human has created reality by putting the sense of sight in the foreground in perceiving the world and attributed meaning to the image. This situation has raised the importance of visuality in communication. The transformation of any visual into a form of expression by gaining a meaning initiates the visual dimension of the communication process. Although visual communication is a type of communication that has always been used, it has strengthened its current importance as the basic communication method of the age. Visual communication is communication messages transformed into visual forms. In this case, it would not be wrong to indicate that images have an impression on the human being, and even seeing itself is a form of being impressed. It is known that as a result of the impression that images create on people, they turn into a certain meaning in the human mind. Expressing these meanings with a common perception creates an accumulation to interpret the visual. At this point, a visual understanding of culture has occurred. Undoubtedly, every tool that the human has discovered in expressing himself/herself has been produced to convey emotions and thoughts. Because message transfer with visuals has gained very much importance especially since the twentieth century and after, the ability of visual tools such as text, figure, photograph, picture, graphic, and illustration to encode a conceptual message in a short time by providing meaningful integrity is a highly emphasized subject.
Illustration, which is the final result of the drawing attained with semantic integrity by gaining a shape, emerges as a result of aesthetic orientations. When the message conveyed in the name of communication is formed with a symbolic coding that is visualized, it will not consist of only an image. The image seen now has turned into a visual word or a visual text that both affects the person who sees it and is affected by the meaning formed on it. If the impact of an idea is important, the way it is expressed requires adopting different methods. The communication message intended to be conveyed by utilizing the visual is the product of an effort that is different from the effect created by word in terms of the effect it will produce. It is possible to picture the image with its traditional expression or to be illustrated in technical ways within digital possibilities. The fact that the meaning of the illustration can appeal to the common perception and its meaning can be understood in a very short time affect the cultural texture created by the visual.
The fact that visuals have a semantic value in the communication type developed with the visual communication method makes it necessary to evaluate visual communication and visual culture together. In the process of interpretation of visual communication based on image, the image is formed on an aesthetic basis. For this reason, it is possible to state that the tools that make up the visual culture have artistic content. The content of visual culture that feeds on art can be generally diversified with examples such as text, images, graphics, drawing, video, animation, cinema, painting, photography, cartoons, and illustrations. A meaningful message can be transferred with each of these tools. In today’s world where digital technologies develop rapidly, it is possible to indicate that visual culture products are also in a certain transformation in the digitalization process.
In this study, the subject of illustration, which is one of the application examples of visual culture, will be examined. The evaluations will involve what the visual communication messages encoded through illustration images are. By creating visual forms, messages to be conveyed in terms of communication can be in any subject. The limitation of the study was subjected to a preliminary research process because the population of the study consists of a large number of samples. By choosing a way of limitation between the subjects of the messages conveyed by the illustration images, the sample of the study has been reduced to the illustration examples chosen randomly among many alternatives that present critical messages to the problems of the modern world. The selected illustration consists of examples that complement modern world problems. In the content of the study, illustrations that contain themes that can be addressed within the scope of modern world problems and reflect this theme with drawings of violence and fear will be discussed. The issue of dealing with the dimension of linear violence, which is aestheticized with illustration art, is considered important because violence increases every day taking part within the boundaries of human life in various ways.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Linear Violence: It is the illustration using violence itself as a language, a way of expression. They are aggressive emphases reflected on the drawing, including fear and violence.
Illustration: It is the art within the art that emerged by using the techniques of drawing. Illustrations are talent outputs that have been artistically turned into a product. Today, although it is fed by digital possibilities, at present, it is the hand drawing ability and aesthetic skill that add meaning to the technical use skill.
Visual Communication: It is the semantic equivalent of what is seen. The image has a language in communication. This language gives meaning to every image. However, every meaning also has a cultural reflection that fills it.
Visual Culture: Visual culture, which is an upper language created by images, feeds on art. It improves the aesthetic taste of society. It creates a practical space for the mind to rethink about images and meanings.
Aesthetics: It is an effort of the mind to integrate something. It is the definition of what is beautiful in itself at the point of perception of artistic works.