Project 3: Analytical Essay I (The Cultural Work of an Image)

Write an five-to-seven-page essay analyzing a single image. Talk about the image in terms not simply of what it shows--as if it were just a window we happened to be looking out of--but as an example of cultural work that the creator of the image is performing.

First, a definition:

Cultural work is the process by which writing or pictures reinforce current structures of feeling, thinking or acting in a society, or enable individuals in a culture to rehearse new patterns of feeling/thinking/acting that history has made necessary.

To explain the cultural work of the image, look at the image in three ways: the context, the information design (Tufte), and the visual design (Bang).

Context

To discuss the cultural work of a picture from the news, from an advertisement, from an album cover, etc. you'll need to find out and discuss the images' context, which might include:

• who made the image and perhaps when/where,
• where the image was/is originally presented,
• what audience the image was intended for
• the "cultural moment" of the image (what the subject matter signified when it was first presented)

A Tufte Working Over

Once you've established the cultural context of the image, you're ready to look specifically at how the image itself performs its cultural work within that context. First, discuss the work as Edward Tufte would, using terms and critical concepts from Visual Explanations. Be sure to quote and cite Tufte using MLA format. Using Tufte is particularly helpful in talking about the words that are included in or with the image.

A Bang Out of It

Next, "read" the image with the critical tools that Molly Bang provides in her book Picture This. While you may look at the very same details as you did in the Tufte section, here you'll use Bang to explore how the image performs its cultural work emotionally in terms of visual design. Be sure to quote and cite Bang when appropriate.

Turning the Tables

Having read the image through the critical lens of Tufte and of Bang, then turn the tables on these writers in your conclusion: use your two readings to characterize what essentially differentiates these two writers' approaches to images. If one writer's approach is more revealing than the other's for understanding the cultural work of this particular image, don't just conclude that one is always best. Instead, think through what this suggests about the style and means of the image's work. Naturally, in this discussion of Tufte and Bang, you'll want to remind us of your opening analysis of the cultural work the image is/was doing.

Sample Images and Contexts

• Tianamen Square Tank Man
• Victory
• George Mahlberg's In-A-Gadda-Da-Oswald (a.k.a. "Oswald in a Jam") with his commentary.