Visual transgressions
Pier Pietro Brunelli
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There are images that are created with the precise purpose of provoking and shocking our consciousness showing us what we would rather not see.
Often images are more shocking than words and their power lies in their ability to surprise. In fact there are no ‘surprising’ words, because even when they are unusual or strong, they are still part of the language of a certain community.
Provoking and shocking images are not always surprising in fact pornographic images can be morally transgressing but they may not break the rules of vision.
Therefore the real transgressing image depends on ‘how’ a subject is represented and not by the subject itself.
In front of transgressing images we are surprised and at times shocked, first of all because it is a new image and the surprising effect comes from the perceptive dimension and from the logical interpretation. Secondly the disturbing effect comes from the consciousness crises caused by the perception and interpretation disorientation.
These images are able to subvert the official belives and way of thinking as they go beyond the symbolic guideline that determines an accepted social and individual behavior.
These images are not totally insane and in fact if advertisement generally proposes conforming and not transgressing images, it could also choose to follow the nonconformist trend using irony, sex and drama to provoke.
In the advertisement world scandals have been used since the very beginning but it was only in the 60’s that provocative images begun to appear as the reflection of a transgressing way of life and thinking.
This transgressing attitude of commercial communication receives the approval of those customer that consider themselves as nonconformist, alternatives and antiestablishment people. But even the most conservative ones are captured by the scandals’ effect that sometimes seduces them.
To surprise with all kinds of transgressions becomes a need and a trend.
Obviously there are also advertisement strategies inspired by the New Age philosophy that propose more reassuring and tender images.
Beside the message studied by advertising agencies to capture customer’s attention, this transgression research has produced an interesting visual communication experimentation. In fact there has always been a special bond between art and advertisement and since the XX century art is characterized by a transgressing vocation and the desire to emotionally shock the society, advertisement has sometimes been its mirror and at times its projector.
Those transgressing images have the purpose to attack the official empire of images and logos that ‘globalize’ not only the world’s political and social life but also the individual consciousness.
They are obtained thanks to always more powerful digital tools that can cut and paste each micro point of any image to transform and deform any official and usual images into something transgressing and surprising.
At the same time the growing complexity of living and the consequent need for interface sign systems has stimulated the creation of signs that have the typical characteristics of the signaling and that become visual metaphors for chaos, social denounce and emotional destabilization.
Nevertheless when transgressing images are over abundant the risk is to create a sort of grotesque carnival with no more authentic transgressions having lost the original emancipation functions.
Probably visual communication is already at the point when to be really transgressing images should be able to play a more subtle psychological game evoking a silent thrill in peoples’ consciousness to have a critical inward and outward perspective keeping the mind open to the construction of the best possible world.
It is hard to say if this kind of research could be interesting for advertisement but for sure it is interesting for all visual communication disciplines because images are not only useful to sell but also to produce culture, society and humanity values.
Pier Pietro Brunelli
