Imagery has a protean character. Images not only represent; they
actually shape, form, and constitute subjects. Cognitive
processes of association are better supported visually than in
language. Through images, people are effectively encultured,
i.e., given the identity which they cannot experience at the
abstract level of acculturation through language. The world of
avatars, dynamic graphic representations of a person in the
virtual universe of networks, is one of concreteness. The
individuals literally remake themselves as visual entities that
can enter a dialogue with others.
Within a given culture, images relate to each other. In the
multitude of cultures within which people identify themselves,
images translate from one experience to another. Against the
background of globality, the experience of images is one of
simultaneous distinctions and integration. Distinctions carry the
identifiers of the encultured human beings constituted in new
practical experiences. Integration is probably best exemplified
by the metaphor of the global village of teleconnections and
tele-viewing, of Internet and World Wide Web interactions.
The characteristics of images given here so far need to be
related to the perspective of changes brought about by imaging
technologies. Otherwise, we could hardly come to understand how
images constitute languages that make literacy useless, or
better yet, that result in the need for complementary partial
literacies.
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