• Is it mostly between hetero couples? 
• What age is most depicted? 
• Is it mostly between humans?
• Is it mostly romantic love or are other types of love represented? Mother and child? Father and child? Friendships? 
• Are there more positive or negative renditions of love? 
• Are there pertinent themes?
• Are they mostly serious or are some funny? 
• Did it bring out anything new that may have been unintentional?
• Are there any depictions that defy conventions?
• Does it remind you of something or have specific references?
• On the whole, does the arrangement of images brought in on love give an adequate and full understanding of such a complex subject? Is the idea of love complicated?  Do the images show this complication or do they reduce it to one or two conventions? Are any images testing conventional representational systems? 
• What might be missing, overlooked, purposely ignored or deleted, taken for granted, or broken down to normalized/general/common conventions? 
• Through how these images represent, is the idea of ‘love’ arranged in the classroom inclusive?
  Feel free to add your own questions, especially in conversation with what the students bring in!  Have students discuss the following prompts as a large group or in smaller groups, record their participation.  From here you might lead to questionable conclusions such as “Is love only for the young?”

Step 6: Methods of Analysis (20 minutes, for example 4 minutes per method)
This class is set to introduce students to different ways of analyzing an image, therefore show them a targeted approach, identify or read images by particular introductory analysis methods.  You can introduce students to 3-5 of the following strategies if you wish, select the ones you are close to and will inform future teaching in the course:

• Technique and Medium – What material is it made of? How was it made? Were there any specific techniques (time-lapse, microscopic, etc)?  How was it executed?  How is scale tied into medium and/or technique? What was the process to make it?  How does the medium it is made in inform the content?
• Audience Analysis – What was the agency/agenda of why the representation was made? Who is it for, and what purpose does it ultimately serve?  Who does it speak to in particular and for what reason?  Is it to make meaning?  Sell a product and direct desires?  Provoke new understanding? etc…
• Genre/Type Analysis – What community does the work belong to, in that it has a shared communicative goal by a particular discourse, what is the shared discourse? For example, Manga, Advertising, Impressionism, Pop, Still Life, etc… This can also relate to the purpose of the audience’s use or consumption of the image (above).
• Iconographic/Iconography– Icon derives from the greek term meaning ‘likeness’, ‘image’ or ‘picture’, and Graphy means ‘writing’, so iconography is literally “writing about images”. These are motifs that happen in a work, for example, a cowboy hat in a Western- American image. This type of analysis developed during the 19/20^th centuries as a corrective to the formalist art approach, that there is more to images than their formal qualities, a movement from surface appearances to depth understandings. Panofsky identified three levels or kinds of content:  first, primary or natural subject matter (depiction of things and how they are depicted); second, secondary or conventional subject matter (personifications and attributes, can include symbols); third, intrinsic meaning or content (underlying meanings which relay the basic attitudes of a nation, a period/time, a class, a culture, a religious or philosophical persuasion). Therefore, an iconographic reading would bring in knowledge from other fields of inquiry, social, religion, philosophy and politics, in order to treat it as a symptom of the wider culture.  Therefore, reading into iconographic qualities means we must account for everything, including its circulation within a specific time, patronage or economics, intention, societal values, etc..
• Mythological – much like an iconographic reading, a mythological reading decodes from surface to depth, and treats an image as a symptom of society. Understood in a more recent sense by Roland Barthes, argues that myth transformed history into nature, as “depoliticized speech” and it is the duty of critical theorists (readers) to analyze and denounce our reading of certain narratives into unconscious beliefs.  Barthes wants to expose the reactionary messages of mass communications in order to counter dominant ideology.
• Allegorical – A form of fiction that represents immaterial things as images, not as prevalent today as it was in medieval and renaissance, mainly parables, the bible, etc… Allegorical is different than metaphorical because it usually ties into a specific story that ignites meaning.
• Metaphor – Seeing something as…. A thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract. Metaphors can be triggered by a conceptual system towards a new understanding and thus new meaning or idea. Think of the clocks by Felix Gonzalez Torres’ work from lecture, Untitled (Perfect Lovers). However, while the work might have metaphorical elements, there are grander narratives and social/artistic implications behind the work (for example. homosexual image of love in the time of the AIDS epidemic).  So while a metaphorical analysis might happen easily when you read an image, you must go further!
• Semiotic – The word ‘semiotic’ derives from Greek ‘semeion’ meaning ‘sign’. A sign can stand for something in some respect or capacity.  Any process of communication or experience involving signs, this can include text, clothes, comics, diagrams, facial expressions or gestures, photographs, architecture/building, etc…  It can be a real referent (for example a photograph of a living person) or it can exist only in the human mind (an angel), all sign systems can be used to make truthful statements but they can also be used to lie or construct fictional worlds.  To some extent, semiotic studies is more about the logic of culture, and considered more scientific towards decoding.  The main components by Saussure are Sign, Signifier and Signified, but I suggest using Pierce as it is less jargon/confusing for first year students:
  • Main components by Pierce
    Divided signs into index, icon and symbol, very much used for visual culture.
    Index – footprint in the sand, pencil trace on paper, light’s trace on light-sensitive paper or film, therefore direct causal connection between what made the mark and the mark itself
    Icon – have a resemblance or look like what they depict in some respect but not all respect, such as a bronze sculpture of a man, resembles but does not have same characteristics or material, it ‘stands for’
    Symbol – arbitrary or conventional signs in respect of their referents, there is simply an agreement that they connect to their referent, such as a mark, sound, text, or object standing for something else
    These three do not necessarily work in isolation, and can work in combination/overlap, and sometimes the boundaries get crossed and can be arbitrary dependent on the viewer.
    Overall, signs have a signal aspect and a meaning, something implied or brought to mind
• Structural – A structuralist view is very much tied into a semiotic reading, therefore you may want to do this with “semiotics”. Structuralist interpretation treats human culture and social behaviour as if they were articulated like a language, therefore it studies them to reveal hidden structures and social structures.  This is a complex discussion to fully flesh out, (please advise them to take VISA 183 if they are interested in getting in deeper!) but some noted applications of a structuralist reading would be to analyze meaning of a culture based on symmetry or asymmetry of a face, or (Bourdieu) dissect meaning of a peasant’s dwelling in Algeria via binary oppositions, such as; inside/out, male/female, day/night.  Mostly structuralist theory can be applied to advertising campaigns to carefully clarify their myths and symbolism.  Unlike iconography, structuralists may pay less attention to cultural significance, social changes or external influences, etc.. of the moment on the material.  Structuralism believes we cannot get beyond these systems, as we are ultimately controlled by the structure of these systems.
• Deconstruction – This came after structuralism, as a ‘post-structuralist’ approach, and it is not really a method, critique or analysis, not a dismantling of a system but a demonstration of the fact that it has already dismantled itself, that it was impossible to begin with, and unmasks internal contradictions and inconsistencies, gaps, so it is always questioning or critiquing itself in its own properties, and refuses to accept the truth and knowledge claims of an existing philosophical system, and exhibits that they are internally contradictory or illogical. The critical stance of deconstruction identifies the nature of ‘meaning’ as unstable. For example, Pipilotti Rist’s work from lecture which deconstructs the belief systems attributed to concepts of ‘love’, that the myths that exist about love never fully reach their promise.
• Feminist – Informed by feminist theory, this perspective seeks to analyze and describe ways in which an image portrays the narrative of male domination in economic, social, political and psychological forces.  This can also include a look at authorship and agency.
• Marxist – In broad terms, marxist critique can include an assessment of the political or economic tendencies in a work, and if it exists to perpetuate the ruling class ideology, or does it subvert it? It can reveal the way in which society is formed by class-structures, and how it keeps them strong in order to keep certain powers

There are more, but let us get to the next topic!

Give students a 10 minute break

Step 7:  The Work in the World (1/2 hour)
Now that we’ve gone through ways to analyze and interpret, let us continue towards judgement or how the works function in the world, how the images are working to relay meaning and a bigger picture of what this meaning suggests.  You may want to give students “scales” or “bridges”  of binaries to rate the effects of each of the images and discuss why they read that way.  I’ve provided some scale ideas here, but please feel free to add more of your own in class or as a post/comment below.  Everyone will have binaries to share as we all think of things in very different ways, and our students might also inspire new scales in their generalizations or conventions.  Do take some time to talk about the benefits of each side, or how they may limit space for an audience, why this is good or bad for each particular case on each particular end.

Trite or Cliché  —— Authentic/Particular
Scared ————————————– Brave
Subjective —————————- Objective
Representational ————–—– Abstract
Didactic ———————-—— Ambiguous
Personal ————————-—- Universal
Cynical ———————————–Idealistic
Break Down (Deconstruct) — Build Up (Construct)
Apolitical ——————————- Political
Culture ———————–———— Nature
Violent ———————————– Passive
Autobiographical ——————-Detached
Poetry ————————————-Thought
Topical/Timely ———————– Timeless
Retinal ————————-——— Cerebral
Conventional ————— Creative/Unique
Generous ———– Mean or Ungenerous
Ugly ——————————— Pleasurable
Transcend —————————-Actualize
Action —————————— Knowledge
Abstract ———————Representational
Spiritual ———————————Scientific

• Discuss if there were images that led to different ways of reading the images function in the world and why, and might want to talk about the place of the viewer in reading images, and what they bring, perhaps something about their background, gender, age, culture, etc… might have different references that see the images in a different way.  For ones that always led to the same interpretation, why did you think it worked out that way and what did that mean for the reception and codes of the image?  Where does that leave the viewer? (passive vs. active)
• You should probably lead on to ideas of how images create meaning through messages that lead to powerful ideas, we absorb the ideas and internalize them as images speak to a very innate part of us. Perhaps this is manipulative, to direct our desires to purchase produces or to believe certain things? Images can create codes that we then believe to be true, how does the creation of representations influence certain ideas as the norm, and others as not the norm?  As well, does “beautiful” actually mean it is a better depiction of love or just an easier contrived one?  Doesn’t love hurt sometimes?  Doesn’t it sometimes cause pain?  Have your students practice being very critical, even about an idea like love!

Step 8: Reflection (10-15 minutes in class)
As a final component to this activity, have students sit down and write out answers to the following questions using handouts provided by Christine. This component must be done in class, therefore do not accept random completed handouts that weren’t done in class, it requires the in-class experience to fully comprehend the reflection.

1. Today we learned different ways to analyze and image, after the experience, what became your preferred method(s), and why do you value this method?
2. How would you interpret the role of “judgement” of an image and how it leads to representation? Why do you think this is an important part of the act of looking at image?  What are the criteria you feel are important to making and circulating images? What personal values does this represent? Feel free to refer to other images from the class to explain your point.
3. Now that you have finished a major exercise in ‘looking’ revisit the image you brought in, what did you learn about how the image was received? Would you change your image if you were to do it again?  What would that change be? If you wouldn’t change anything, please explain why not.