A/V Analysis
In the A/V world, there is room for interpretation. There have been many examples of this through time on social media. There was one photo that sparked much controversy on the internet. This photo was; the dress. The dress is a simple dress that a woman took a photo of in England. What colors do you see? Is the dress blue and black OR gold and white?
Once the dress made its way to the internet many people got in a disagreement about the color. People could not agree on what color the dress truly was. Some saw one combination whereas others saw something completely different. Many would voice their opinion using various hashtags such as #thedress #blackandblue #whiteandgold. The argument seemingly became a meme in itself. Although the woman saw the dress in person and confirmed the dress is blue and black people were still in disbelief. What could be the reason people could look at the same picture and see completely different dresses? There became a scientific explanation for the variations of the dress. A yellow-tinted illumination or a blue-tinted illumination can make different colors appear to be the same. In this photo, the illuminations make the white and black look the same, and the black and yellow look the same. This is why the illumination of the photo makes the colors so open to interpretation.
This similarly happened with a heeled shoe and nail polish. Although the nail
polishes are clearly different colors they both seem to be the same color as the
shoe. If you only cover one nail polish bottle at a time and compare the other to
the shoe, you will see they both match. This is because the nail polishes are both
shades of Pantone only the one on the right is actually the same shade as the shoe.
This is also caused by the illumination and lighting of the photo. Both of these
examples relate back to the Bogost article we read in class and the topic of
#NOFILTER. There is essentially nothing that is changing these photos to make them look different besides the lighting in the room or the viewer's perceptions. The way we perceive images is affected by the camera itself as well. That is exactly what happened with the orange skies that had #NOFITER on them.
Illumination is not the only thing that can change our interpretation of pictures. Take a look at this photo: ​​
​
What animal do you see first? This illusion can wither be seen as a duck or a rabbit. Sometimes people are able to only see one or possibly see both. It is also sometimes proven that your interpretation of the photo proves some 'deep truth' about you. It’s like those ink splatter pictures that you are left to interpret for psychoanalysis. The internet is full of these kinds of “what do you see first” photos. These different photos, otherwise known as optical illusions, are all used in ways to analyze a person’s brain. In this case, the options are duck or rabbit. It was found that most people could only see the duck. This seems to be the easier or the two to notice. If you see both, you are apparently more creative than others. For me, it took some time but I was eventually able to notice the rabbit with a lot of squinting and head tilting. There is more study done on how fast people can switch between the duck and the rabbit rather than which you can actually see. The faster one can switch between the two it was proven that they can find more uses for everyday objects.
​
Please take a brief moment to listen to this breif clip before you continue reading:
​
Did you hear any words? Did you interpret anything at all? This is the ‘Yanny’ or ‘Laurel’ debate. A video surfaced on the internet where people began to hear different ‘words’. The term ‘word’ is used lightly because ‘Yanny’ and ‘Laurel’ aren’t exactly words. As I write this my computer actually attempts to autocorrect these ‘words’ to something that makes more sense. The first explanation in this has to do with priming. By having you listen to this video without any preconceived notions I allowed you to make a clear interpretation of what you were hearing. If I had told you the options you would have been primed to hear one or the other. The explanation of the sound interpretation is because of the soundwaves. This is explained by a Professor of Speech, Language, and Hearing named Brad Story. He says that the acoustics of the ‘words’ are much more similar than they would appear. This can also be affected by the device you are listening to due to different sound qualities. The one difference between these ‘words’ is the frequency, Yanny has a higher frequency than Laurel. This can explain why people of different ages may hear different things. If the pitch is edited digitally we are able to simulate older or younger ears. Although there is a correct answer here just like the dress it is, Laurel. The original tape was saying Laurel although different frequencies were overlaid to create this controversy. Personally, I can only hear Yanny so I guess I am wrong.
​
Circling back to Bogost and his idea of #NOFILTER these examples all have their own perception of that idea. There is essentially "no filter" on any of these examples. Meaning that there is no trick to them to confuse the audience or make one interpretation more true than another. The audience is not being toyed with in any sort of way using anything that is similar to a filter on a photo or even a sound filter such as the Yanny Laurel debate. There are scientific explanations behind each of the examples above. Just like Bogost and his #NOFILTER that a phone camera simply is not the same as the human eye, however, the skies were truly orange. There was no sort of editing to make the skies different than their usual blue hue, instead, the photo captured the situation. All of the examples above along with Bogost's #NOFILTER have a deeper ideal. They all are open to interpretation however they have a common idea that it is not exactly a difference in perception at all. Sometimes our opinions or thoughts on certain matters are not as surface level as they may seem. Each of these have scientific explanations as to why people interpret them differently. This relating to us as humans having different percetions for not only our own opinions but for reasons out of our control.
​
