Representation of Time in (Static) Visual Narratives
Year: 2009
Editor: Chakrabarti, A.
Author: Pimenta,Sherline; Poovaiah,Ravi
Section: Human Factors, Aesthetics, Semantics, ans Semiotics
Page(s): 355-362
Abstract
The depiction of a story by pictorial means involves the problem of a relationship between literature on the one hand and the representational arts on the other. The protagonist of the story together with elements of space and time are the major components of the visual narrative. The linguistic representation of time or tense is based upon a spatial metaphor: time is a path or a trajectory. This metaphor has an analogy in visual narratives where through certain indicators the readers temporally orient themselves within that narrative. Time is not perceived, but its existence is inferred while viewing the visual. Representation of time plays a key role to differentiate between the modes of visual narrative. This article addresses the technique of presentation of stories, and analyzes the structure of visual narratives with an aim to study how `time' is represented in visual narratives.
Keywords: Visual narrative, Representation of Time, Monoscenic mode