Dhruv Aggarwal (Drew)

Prof. Liz Hirsch

Introduction to Visual Culture (AHCS-120-N)

25th September 2022

Reading Response 1, ‘Viewers Create Meaning’

Visual culture is impossible to avoid. Regardless of where in your life you might be,

whether or not you are in a village or a sprawling metropolis: visual culture will be part of our

lives in some way or another, in different contexts and ideals. Sturken and Cartwright argue that

the meaning of a piece of art vastly changes based on who is looking at it. Or in other words,

'Viewers Make Meaning.'

Considering the importance of context, prior experiences, and beliefs in our day-to-day

life, it is hardly surprising that art is viewed in different contexts. The authors of this piece

proposed various ways visual culture may affect how someone views a work of art, the most

basic of which, in my opinion, is encoding and decoding.

While this is a topic they cover relatively late into the chapter, I believe it is the basis of

interpretation and should have been accentuated more. When artists create a piece, they infer

their own meaning, which Sturken and Cartwright call 'encoding.' This meaning is shown in the

work of art in varying degrees of clarity. For example, an advertising specialist may want the

sense of their work to be straightforward to interpret in the way they wrote it. However, an

abstractist may create work they intend for people to interpret in their own way. Either way, the
viewer 'decodes' the piece and infers its meaning in their way. The concept of encoding and

decoding can be seen in almost every work of art.

The authors talk a lot about the context of artwork and how different cultural, aesthetic,

and classist-based contexts may significantly alter the meaning of a piece of art. For example,

they mention how two people of entirely different lives watching the T.V. show 'M.A.S.H.' may

interpret it differently. This is hardly surprising, but a more intriguing thing they talked about

was the idea that 'artistic taste' was classist and enforced societal standards. I can see how this

could be true, considering the example they gave regarding how 'high-class' people are expected

to like things that are considered more posh, such as operas, fine wine, certain forms of abstract

art, and so on. One could likely be conceived as a high class just by pretending to enjoy those

things. On the other hand, if you come from a high societal standard, you may be discouraged

from enjoying things that don't have the same posh value, such as beer, some forms of metal

music, and certain clothing styles.

The world's creators and artists often overlook the context of their work in the global

sphere. It is always important to know who might see your work and what you would like it to

convey to them.