Mechanical Icon

Though photographs have a symbolic aspect, they don't rest easily in the category of “symbols.” This is primarily because they are not really arbitrary. We couldn’t substitute, say, the letter “b” for any element of the photograph above and expect for it to “mean” the same thing. If we replaced each figure with “b” the photograph wouldn’t mean anything at all, other than “I’m abstract art; try to understand me.”

Mechanical Icon: "A 'Book' of Video Essays on Historic Photographs"
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