A dot

by Sander van Heerde 9. March 2010 16:29

My eye was drawn to this picture because of its composition. Now there is no turning back for me, i can never see again what i saw, when i first encountered this picture. The circkel becomes the focus of your view and the orange dot in the middle of it IS the centre of the picture. Taken literally, it becomes the suspect of the picture and the meaning of this dot grows. This Hooligan is wanted by the Dutch police for his participation in a beach riot last year. I thank the police for choosing this picture to put on there website. Maybe they figured that somebody with an abnormal brain could reproduce this image and detect his neighboor. If you gaze long enough then the colors and shapes become shadows and persons and your brain accordingly gives meaning to what is sees. But it can only see this particular thing because it is 'trained' to see it. Our brain knows that police cameras produce these sorts off images, and our brain is programmed to detect 'people' in shapes and faces in a blending of colors. Our world is programmed to always give meaning to what we see, this way we can give it a place and feel it is save. I think it is also the way for sidedness and stereotypes which do not contribute to creativity. The police officer who put this up maybe agrees with my on this one.

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gestalt, police camera

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About this blog

All images have a denotive meaning (direct or literal meaning) as well as a connotative meaning (suggestive or implicative meaning). Sometimes the line between them is clear like for instance in a newspaper, and sometimes it seems not to exist at all as in art images. In our daily lives we mostly read images in a direct way which costs the least amount of energy and time. The way in which we read the ordinary images needs to ‘fit’ in with our dialy lives and thoughts. Art images do the very opposite of this and often ask a second look. Art images also provide more information then is seen on the surface and are more connected to our feelings  and memories.
This blog intents to create more space for the connotations that are attached to ordinary images and the relation between the connotative and denotive meaning of imagery. This blog presents a ‘stream’ of images which tell more about the things you don’t see but do exist. At least in my imagination.

Sander van Heerde is an artist who lives and works in The Hague, Netherlands
www.sandervanheerde.nl

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