Treason of Images

Magritte's Treason of Images illustrates well the way words and images must work together. Without one of them, the entire meanings shifts. "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" translate into "This is not a pipe." If those words were to be take out, this image would be the same as any other image of the briar pipe. What makes this image distinctive and unique are those words.  Not only does it differentiate this image from other image, those words are provocative. It stumps the audience, since it contradicts what is seen.  If the drawing there is not of a pipe, then what is it?
In this situation, the words and image are in juxtaposition. What the audience see is a pipe, but the words immediately contradicts what the eyes see. As a result, the audience would start to question themselves.  This really forces the audience to think outside of the box, in terms of art and design.  Of course that is not a pipe, but rather a drawing of a pipe. Magritte was getting technical.  In other situation, such as the panels of Brian Fies, the words and images, don't juxtapose, but rather compliment one another.
To decided whether the words and image should compliment or juxtapose relates back to the intention of the piece itself. For Fies, it makes sense if his words and images related to one another, since he had a story he wanted to tell. For Magritte, he didn't have a story, but rather was playing with the possible responses of the audience.  Intention is different, and when intention differs, the way words and images relate to one another is different.

Word+Image: Brian Fies

Guest lecture, Brian Fies, discussed his comics, Mom's Cancer, and Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow.  He tied his work as a comic book artist to many of the ideas and concepts presented in McCloud(?).
One thing that he presented was his design process and the specific elements of comic book creation that was important to him.  One aspect of comic book designing that was important and essential to him was an interaction of words and images.  He did not want his words to exist without the images, and visa versa. It was important to him that both the words and images function together to produce a stronger effect in the reader.

Words and images presented a way for Fies to express experiences that other mediums did not.  One example of this is Fies usage of metaphors, such as "drowning in scientific terminology." If Fies was writing a novel, he could have easily written "The scientific terminologies that the doctors used drowned my mother. She could no longer understand what was going on with her anymore." But rather, he understood his mother's experience to be much more than anything that could be expressed through words alone.  He found the answer is visually presenting the experience, through words AND images. With just a few panels, not only will he be able to say so much more, he can also depict the psychological and mental effects the cancer was starting to have on his mother.

One metaphor that I really enjoyed was the tightrope walking one Fies used to exemplify his mom's struggle in balancing her medications. It really captures the difficulty of the experience.  Not everyone can be a tightrope walker, but in this case, Fies' mother is metaphorically forced to be a tightrope walker.

Words and Images: Perfect Two

Youtube users love to create little music videos for songs that they love to listen to. Many of them are probably unaware of the fact that they are unconsciously working to create a necessary connection between the song and their video.  What I mean by this is, their video exist because of the song and its lyrics. If the sounds were to be turned off, the video would probably not make a lot of sense because most of the time, the images in the video reflects the lyrics.
The point of this song is that the speaker and his/her lover are meant to be, just the way peanut butter and jelly goes together for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; the same way you apples are necessary to make an apple pie. You can't have one without the other and expect to create a whole. The lyrics of the song can easily convey that. But once the song was integrated into the video also and images were used alongside the certain phrases of the words, the video cannot exist without the song.  This emphasizes the significance of the interaction between words and images.
Definitely the video here, Auburn's Perfect Two, since the lyrics has a lot of word play in it, such as "You can the peanut butter to my jelly." At this line, the video has a picture of a jar of Skippy peanut butter and then a jar of Welch's grape jelly.  Seeing those two images doesn't say much, and no one would know the message that the video was trying to send if the music was to be turned off.
Even some of the images used in the video itself depicts the whole interaction of words and images. For example, one of the images used during this video illustrates two pieces of a puzzle. One of the puzzle pieces says "You" and the other one says "Me." These two pieces fit together, as shown in the video. If the words were missing from the two puzzle pieces, the strong message that the two pieces truly belong together would be missed.  The words demonstrated that that the image could become something more than just two regular pieces. Once the words were added together, it demonstrated this natural sense of belonging between two people, a 'you' and a 'me.'