Staged Interactions

When I was in the fifth grade, my best friend's grandparents moved into the house across the street from me. The day they moved in, it rained. No cable had been set up yet, and there were no toys in the house either. So, to keep us from constantly unpacking boxes into the wrong places, her grandmother, Mrs. JoAnne, told us to watch a movie. The only movie in the house was Gone with the Wind, which surprisingly the two of us Southern girls had yet to see. So, we popped the tape into the VCR and sat back to watch Miss Scarlett O'Hara in action for the first time. But as the Title Card began to roll across the screen, we realized something was wrong: there was no sound. We shook the TV, banged on the volume controls, but to no avail. Rather than going back to digging through boxes, we decided to watch the movie anyway and make up the words ourselves. So, we did. For 224 minutes - stopping only to change tapes midway through.

This is my earliest and most obvious remembrance of truly interacting with the screen and negotiating a meaning with images. Of course, I had been doing so for as long as I can remember, but as I read the first few chapters in Sturken and Cartwright's Practices of Looking, I kept reminiscing of this experience. For, though we certainly were not able to discuss the elements of the war or the social and cultural strife occurring, certain elements of the film's cultural significance couldn't help but spill over. The producers had effectively created the film so that even in black and white and without sound it was able to be understood on some level.

As Sturken and Cartwright point out in the book, much of the message/interpretation that is gleaned from a signifier comes from the cultural conventions to which the viewer is accustomed and from the elements against which an image/film/signifier is juxtaposed.  As children of the south, we certainly were already aware of Southern conventions that marked racial distinctions and a "love of the land" (both of our grandfathers were farmers). These elements resonated with us through the faces and landscapes on the screen. In addition, many of the themes that were appearing in the film were practically being physically represented in the house while we were watching it or had been throughout much of our lives. That day while we were watching, my friend's grandmother's African-American housekeeper, Mrs. Stella, was cooking lunch and ironing the linens. And we'd heard our relatives time and time again deliver many of the well-remembered lines. We were certainly standing ready to deliver Rhett Butler's all-too-famous last-line. So, even without sound and with never seeing the movie before, we gathered some of what the producer had intended (as much as could be gathered by a 10 and 11 year old under the circumstances). Yet, we were still able to make the film our own by creating a new dialogue among the characters and many new story lines.

Sturken and Cartwright, in Chapters One and Two, repeatedly refer to the importance of personalization within images and to the levels of interaction that occur between individual viewers and producers (whether they be artists, lead designers, directors, corporations, etc.). A "central tenet of [the] book," as they claim in the introduction is that "meaning does not reside within images but is produced at the moment that they are consumed by and circulate among viewers" (6). In order for an image to connect with a person, an interaction must take place, an interaction that elicits some sort of emotional response - whether anger, happiness, distrust, excitement. And the more elements - that are executed well -  (historical/cultural relevance, personal experience, context when receiving the image) that are reaching from the image that can pull the viewer in, the stronger the connection. Sturken and Cartwright explain that image interpretation involves not just how the image is created or framed or even how the viewer understands it but also by against what it is juxtaposed - physically, socially, culturally, and historically. They explain that we naturally decode/interpret images, often without even realizing it. And, one of their primary ideas seems to be that the more natural the interpretation/interaction, the more powerful the image or message. For interpretation to be organic, the elements within the image must work together well so that images will interpellate viewers, who can them - together - create meaning.

In reading through their examples of "successful/powerful" art/images/film, I kept Dr. Howard's question from our first class in the back of my mind (loose quotation): how will this book shape my understanding of usability and interaction design, and how will it teach me how to create a better user experience when I create images/art/film? Relevancy to the culture is, of course, going to be of key importance. Using techniques such as framing, bricolage, isolation, and countless others can help producers achieve the desired effects. And executing the final incorporation of images, techniques, and text will assist in the image's interpretation feeling more organic to the viewer. But most importantly, I think creating additional ways for viewers to interact with an image will allow for a better user experience. Much of this can be done by placing the image within the context of a social media outlet with commenting features enabled (such as the one in this blog - feel free to use them). It could also be done through modes such as The New Yorker's caption contest. Just as a caption or other symbols on an image can help a viewer better understand its intended interpretation, purposefully creating interactions for viewers can help them to see that they are interacting with the image and can likely create a stronger connection between the image and the viewer.

When my friend and I as children "poached" Gone With the Wind, we created a stronger connection with the film than we likely would have had we sat down and watched it with all of the sound and with our parents/grandparents informing us of the meaning as we went through. Rather, we were able to create a meaning for ourselves because we had been given an avenue of interaction. Certeau would've said that we were "making do" with the text, and it's true: we were merely trying to make the best of our rainy moving day. It was natural, organic, and not forced. I'm not sure that we came away with a renewed understanding of Southern history or racial relations or anything for that matter. But, we enjoyed the film and will forever remember the experience we had that day. It wasn't until years later that I realized Gone With the Wind wasn't intended to be a comedy.