#hapkemeyer.andreas

The expression of unambiguous substantive meaning therefore, cannot be accomplished without the word. Language, while incapable of defining an individual object of reality unmistakably — being able at best to approach it through the process of naming — can indeed precisely specify emotional or intellectual content and provoke questions." — Hapkemeyer, ‘Image and Word, Photo and Text' in photo text text photo, p. 10

"[...] as everyone knows or, at least, senses, things only exist once they have been named" — Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow, p. 14

Perhaps Hawking is trying to be reassuring. What he seems to mean is that human language has a limit. We (or at least the rest of us) reach this boundary whenever we ponder the cosmic. We imagine by analogy and metaphor: that strange and vast thing is like this smaller, more familiar thing. The universe is a cathedral, a clockworks, an egg. But the parallels ultimately diverge; only an egg is an egg. Such analogies appeal precisely because they are tangible elements of the universe. As terms, they are self-contained — but they cannot contain the container that holds them. So it is with time. Whenever we talk about it, we do so in terms of something lesser. We find or lose time, like a set of keys; we save and spend it, like money. Time creeps, crawls, flies, flees, flows, and stands still; it is abundant or scarce; it weighs on us with palpable heft. — Maria Popova

“But a few days later he discovered that he had trouble remembering almost every object in the laboratory then he marked them with their respective names so that all he had to do was read the inscription in order to identify them. When his father told him about his alarm at having forgotten even the most impressive happenings of his childhood, Aureliano explained his method to him, and José Arcadio Buendía put it into practice all through the house and later on imposed it on the whole village. With an inked brush he marked everything with its name: table, chair, clock, door, wall, bed, pan. He went to the corral and marked the animals and plants: cow, goat, pig, hen, cassava, caladium, banana. Little by little, studying the infinite possibilities of a loss of memory, he realized that the day might come when things would be recognized by their inscriptions but that no one would remember their use. Then he was more explicit. The sign that he hung on the neck of the cow was an exemplary proof of the way in which the inhabitants of Macondo were prepared to fight against loss of memory: This is the cow. She must be milked every morning so that she will produce milk, and the milk must be boiled in order to be mixed with coffee to make coffee and milk. Thus they went on living in a reality that was slipping away, momentarily captured by words, but which would escape irremediably when they forgot the values of the written letters.“ — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 100 Years of Solitude, pp. 48-49

Re: the images within the cryptics:

"The image [...] essentially provides an ambiguous and therefore vague framework of associations. [...It] defines an object in its visual manifestation without ambiguity but cannot make reliable statements about the possible meanings or implications of that object. [...] If we distinguish — as Michael Titzmann does — between meaning and information, identifying the former [i.e. meaning] with 'linguistic articulability,' then pictures have no 'meaning'. While the image is characterised by the concreteness and completeness of all visual elements, every 'world' depicted via text remains abstract and incomplete." (10 ¶1)

Re: difference between the semiotic systems of image and text

Michael Titzmann (in ‘Theoretisch-methodologische Probleme einer Semiotik der Text-Bild-Relation’ in Wolfgang Harms (ed.) Text und Bold, Bold und Text, DFG-Symposium 1988, 371) states that a basic difference between the semiotic systems of image and text, is that the base unit within an image — i.e. the “simplest element capable of bearing meaning” — possesses a lower capacity to influence or direct a viewer in comparison to that within a text. Grammar imposes specific meanings (or purposes) on each word which function in relationship to other words, whereas, within an image every perceptible element can potentially serve as a “differentiator or bearer of meaning”. Hapkemeyer states then that, “The expression of unambiguous substantive meaning, therefore, cannot be accomplished without the word. (10 ¶3)

(This doesn’t holds true for creative writing or fine art imagery, though… does it? Within poetry, for instance, each word might have a grammatic and symbolic purpose; similarly, the composition of an image give clues to how an image should be interpreted?)

Re: Influence of text on image and image on text

The use of image and text within a single work allows its operation operate on two levels: the image is “semanticised” by the text through which an unequivocal meaning is gained; and the text is “referentialised” (10 ¶5).

The work is, however, split in two parts: one which is viewed and another with is read. (Hapkemeyer describes this as a “disadvantage”.) (10-11 ¶5). Their relationship may be complementary or antagonistic (bringing to mind Sontag’s comment that “All photographs wait to be explained or falsified by their captions”), or might “inject a level of meaning not foreseen in the image” (10-11 ¶5).

But: “textual semantics dominate over the semantics of the image and assume the function of structuring meaning: interpretation, focusing, and establishment of hierarchies with respect to the image are all dependant upon the meaning supplied by the text.” (11 ¶1).

Re: Lessing