As humans, we have been endowed with a capacity of feeding our minds with information that is normally obtained by our senses including our eyes. This information is then processed by our mind that has a kind of a software system that enables us to come up with various conclusions. Unlike a computer machine that can be expected to perform consistent operations on data fed to it through input devices to give us specific results, our minds can come up with diverse conclusions depending on our capacity of knowledge, our current mood, and the perspective we have chosen to understand our scene among other variables that come into play. I will describe a scene from a positive perspective and then describe the same scene from a negative perspective. I will then explain the rhetoric of the scene. To introduce you to the scene, it is an attorney’s office located in a sky crapper building in the middle of New York City.
I am sitting in the attorney’s office. I can not stop admiring the obviously expensive furniture that has been used to furnish the office. In fact, I rarely enjoy the sitting comfort of this degree like the one that is being provided by the high-quality sofa that I am sitting on. The carpet that I am stepping on is thick, of high quality, and reddish in color. Sitting opposite, a beautiful secretary whose unique smile that welcomed me can still be seen vividly in my mind is frantically typing a document. I take a moment of thought and hope that I will one time enjoy this kind of success, comfort, and professionalism in my career. My eyes idly wander to the walls where I catch a glimpse of enviable certificates from high-class law institutions and professional bodies that hang admiringly. This attorney is obviously well learned and has also achieved so much. Outside, I can see the success of the man and I feel proud to be part of humanity. This is because of the towering buildings that stand majestically and the transport machines that move like ants on the amazing highways.
This ecstasy does not however last for long. It is very interesting that the scene changes completely to me. The outside traffic reminds me of the busy lifestyle in the modern world and I pause to think sadly that we do not even get time for ourselves and others. I take some time to look at the secretary. She must be very good at pretending maybe because she wanted to please her master (the attorney) and had perfected the art of smiling at visitors. She looks tired, sad, and overworked. With this information in my mind, I look at the hanging certificates with an evil eye. They must be a gateway to manufacturing money and misusing others. The opulence of this office appears disgusting at this moment. I pause to think what purpose the obviously too expensive and I think unnecessary furniture serves. I feel sad to confirm again that it is a world of pride and showing off to others. On seeing a stack of magazines, I pick one and start flipping through. I happen to read a common story that I have been continuously coming across about yet another drug baron who has been released for lack of ‘substantial’ evidence. I feel sad that there is really no justice in our legal systems.
The setting in this scene that I have described above was similar and it is a set that I was able to interpret from two opposite perspectives. Any scene at any given time is unique since it is determined by a number of parameters that cause our minds to interpret it differently. There is the visual aspect of a scene. This included what our eyes can see from a scene. Things like lightning conditions color, aesthetic beauty among other things come into play here. The arrangement of physical objects is also of significance. Some visual aspects of the scene that I have described include things like an expensive reddish carpet and expensive furniture, the physical appearance of the secretary which gave me the impression that she was tired. Our eyes tend to focus on certain things more than others due to the following reasons among others. (Welles)
First, objects that are bigger in size can be easily noticed, like the expensive furniture in this scene. The same thing can be said of the towering tall buildings that I saw outside the attorney’s office. Besides, we also tend to focus on our fellow human beings in an environment that predominantly consists of objects. This explains why I was able to observe the secretary in the attorney’s office closely. Moreover, I think we tend to notice easily an object that is in motion as compared to other objects. This can explain why I easily noticed that moving cars on the highways could be seen outside the attorney’s office. Of course, more lit areas and objects that reflect brighter colors as compared to others are easier to notice. This can be said of the reddish carpet in the attorney’s office that I described in the scene. This among other factors comes into play to draw our sight attention into some areas affecting our angle of vision in our physical environments.
I think that some things like aesthetic beauty that can be appreciated by our eyes are standard although it may vary to small degrees depending on people’s preferences. I, therefore, think that the visual scene in the scene that I have described is nothing but beautiful. Everything in the office was neatly arranged and of high aesthetic quality especially the furniture and the thick reddish carpet in the attorney’s office. This can explain why my first impression was very positive. However, we normally place a physical scene in a context where it integrates with other variables to be properly understood.
One such non-physical variable is the purpose of the physical objects/people that we see. For example, when I realized that the purpose of hundreds of cars moving down on the highway was to transport people to and fro, I related this to our busy lifestyle that has made life lose its meaning in my opinion. The same can be said of the hanging certificates in the attorney’s office among other things.
Experience is another parameter that influences our judgment of a particular scene. We tend as people to relate physical things that we see to incidences that have occurred in our lives which may be bad or good. This can be used to explain why I related the expensive furniture in the attorney’s office to unnecessary extravagance. Besides, I think that the character, condition, and behavior of people in a scene affect our judgment.
Moreover, one single factor, object, or anything that we dislike in a scene can start a chain reaction that would change completely the perspective from which we understand our scene. For me, the moving cars that I saw outside the attorney’s office were enough a reason for this chain of reaction to start from a negative angle of vision.
We see with our minds more than with our eyes. After all, it is our minds that process information passed to it by our eyes in order for us to see things the way we see them. Our perspective of a particular setting is therefore affected by other things apart from the physical setting in the scene. While the physical setting may draw our attention and focus to particular things besides eliciting a certain thinking pattern, other variables like our experience and the role of the physical objects in the scene play together to put the scene in a particular context.
Works Cited
Welles, O.Visual Rhetoric/Visual Literacy: Writing about Film. 1962. Web.