Visual Journal - Transcription Research

Goya's painting 'The Third of May' (1814) is an iconic war painting, originally created to represent slaughter and sacrifice of the Spanish for victory. It had been transcribed and reinterpreted by countless artists, who have in effect altered its meaning.

Here, Picasso reimagines the image - to represent the South Korean/ American aggressors killing the innocent in the Sinchon Massacre. He emphasises the aggressors' lack of emotion by making them look like machines or robots. - the image has been reimagined by lots of artist in history to represent different times of conflict.

 

 



The imagee also continues to be remade across lots of different media - in paint, leggo etc. In doing so, it has essentially lost its original meaning. It is essentially just its aesthetic qualities that have been transcribed.

 

I feel like the same sort of thing has happened with the photograph of Che Guevara but through mass production. It has been remade and remade as a print. You see it everywhere now and everyone would recognise it but not necessarily know who it is or that it that it is an image that represents revolution.

The image's aesthetic has also been adopted by pop stars in contemporary culture. This transcription has also lead to a loss of meaning.

Through transcribing these images, all of these artists have altered their meaning and therefore their status. Even though through transcribing my image (using lots of different media) I am doing something slightly different, I am still interested in how the transcription alters an image's function and therefore its status.