Iconic Sisters
Sometimes things turns out a little different. You get a bit more that you bargained for. At least a little more then you dared hope for.
This can happen in every type of communication. In texts as well as in visuals. In other forms of communication as well, I would say. In commercial and non commercial communication
We know that there are at least two levels involved in every act of communication. The first one being that content that we all can agree on. The manifest that is there for everyone to see. The horse in the field, the car on the road, the couple on the bench. This is the denotative level.
Second there is the connotative level. That overlay that always comes with denotations in the ways that denotations are presented to us. The horse that is running and connotes speed, the car that is broken and connotes damage, the people on the bench that sit close and connotes intimacy.
Are there levels beyond that. Ask Roland Barthes and he will say yes and point to at least one more level. He talks about an obtuse meaning as the third level. This is highly subjective and therefore hard to speak about in objective terms (I will have a specific post on that some other time). And Barthes even talks about a punctum as a specific item within a visual. The punctum attracts special attention.
Leave Barthes’ third meaning and his punctum aside in this post. The questions is then if there could be a third meaning other than that indicates by Barthes. I think thet there could be such an alternative third meaning. It occurs when the obvious meaning content of an image, or any other act of communication, transcends itself and move the spectator from specifics to generals. When the pair on the bench, the horse in the field and the car in the street contentwise moves beyond that of a specific pair, a specific horse and a specific car and tells a story of pairs, horses and cars in general. This is when you get that bit extra. Something more than you could hope to expect.
I call this third level for the iconic level. Combine the word icon with that of notation and you will get icon + notation: iconnotation.
Let me show you a photograph to illustrate what I mean. It is a portrait of two sisters sitting on a bench (what coindence :-)).
As a picture of these sisters it is rather saying for those who know them. The more, however, I looked at the picture it took on an extra dimension. I know these people well, but the more I looked at the picture the sisters disappeared as people that I know, and took on a dimension on simply “sisters”. They could be any pair of sisters. The image turned into an icon for the notion sisters.
So here is the deal then. Pictures (let’s limit the discussion to that) consists at least of three possible levels of meaning:
1. Denotation, 2. Connotation, 3. Iconnotation
Do I hear you say that these two people does not have to be sisters? They could be anyone. Could just be friends. Well, that does not really of matter. The important thing is that their likenesses; both facial likeness and likeness of bodily position indicates strongly (connotes) they they have some kind of intimacy beyond sitting on the same bench. Right? So, if your prefer the picture be be an icon on intimacy, that would be quite ok with me. Please remark that hand that turns out behind the back of the right hand sister. It wraps up the ideas of intimacy very well, in my opinion.
Of course all of this can be contested. Please do. The good thing with blogs, however, are that they very seldom are contested.
Should I mention that denotations and connotations are default levels in all images, and all types of communication, and that iconnotations are not. The two first are a question of quantity and the latter a question of quality. As sloppy image will hardly ever aspire for iconic status, since e. g visual distractions will not likely help concentrating the message. Any message.
Stay tunes and I will return to that 
