The Politics of the Superficial: Visual Rhetoric and the Protocol of Display
Brett Ommen, "The Politics of the Superficial: Visual Rhetoric and the Protocol of Display "
English | ISBN: 0817319182 | 2016 | 176 pages | PDF | 2 MB
English | ISBN: 0817319182 | 2016 | 176 pages | PDF | 2 MB
In The Politics of the Superficial: Visual Rhetoric and the Protocol of Display, Brett Ommen explores the increasing reliance on images as a mode of communication in contemporary life. He shows that graphic design is a layered experience of images and space. Before images, viewers engage in the personal experience of aesthetics and individual identity. In space, viewers engage in the negotiation of meaning and collective belonging. Graphic design, then, fits the consumerist present precisely because it prompts viewers to differentiate between our collective commitments and individual sense of self.
Ommen argues, for example, that on viewing a billboard, a driver isn’t merely being exposed to a set of commercial messages or exhortations, but rather responding in a self-aware way that differentiates her from her collective associations like Democrat, Republican, rich, poor, Catholic, or Jewish.
By examining graphic design—as a profession, practice, and academic field—as the nexus for understanding visual display in public culture,
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