Ofness
Ofness is a concept used in analyzing images. It is a concept suggested on the basis of Panofsky (1955) and his three levels of meaning: pre-iconographical, iconographical, and iconological.
Ofness is the naming of objects or events in the image, and aboutness is determined by interpreting themes, activities, and events in completed products. These constitute the first two levels of meaning. Panofsky's third level relates to the intrinsic meaning or content and domain knowledge is required to make an interpretation.
Research in this area mostly centres around the
model developed by Erwin Panofsky, which describes 3 levels of meaning:
pre-iconographical, iconographical, and iconological.
The first two correspond to “ofness” and
“aboutness” which we find in the library science literature in relation
to subject access.
The pre-iconographical or “ofness” level, which has
to do with identifiable objects, people, or events, “the class of
primary or natural meanings” (Panofsky, 1955, 27) [e.g., a picture of an
apple].
The iconographical or “aboutness” level, which has
to do with meaning discerned by interpretation. It involves
acculturation to societal convention [e.g. the apple representing
agriculture, children's nutrition, the juice industry]." (Turner,
1997).
Literature:
Angeles, M. (1998, Fall). Information Organization and Information Use of Visual Resources Collections. VRA Bulletin, 25 (3), 51-58. http://urlgreyhot.com/personal/publications/information_organization_and_information_use_of_visual_resources?PHPSESSID=05f07e15bb719a05b4c621657f8cd897
Moriarty, S. (1996). A Philosophical discussion of representation. International Visual Literacy Association, Cheyenne. Version 1: http://spot.colorado.edu/~moriarts/reprsntn.html
Version 2, 1997: (ED408973): http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2/content_storage_01/0000000b/80/26/be/ca.pdf
Müller, A. & Everts, A. (1996). Interactive Image Retrieval by Means of Abductive Inference; In K. Aberer et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 9th ERCIM Database Research Group Workshop on Multimedia Database Systems, Darmstadt, March 1996 (pp. 7-21); ERCIM Workshop Reports ERCIM-96-W001 . http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=da&lr=&q=cache:dtNCY85FcRYJ:www.ipsi.gmd.de/~everts/papers/riao97.ps.gz+ofness
Turner, J. M. (1997). Indexing pictures: some considerations. Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries. Annual Meeting. Jardin botanique de Montréal. Wednesday June 4, 1997. http://www.mapageweb.umontreal.ca/turner/english/texts/cbhl97.htm
See also: Aboutness; Image classification and indexing; Subject
Birger Hjørland
Last edited: 18-05-2006