The Evolution of Communication: Textuality vs. Iconography
Textuality is the quality of text that conveys meaning, while iconography refers to the use of images to communicate. Are these two modes of expression really at odds—or do they represent an evolution in how we process and share ideas?
From Letters to Stories
Consider this: if I take a picture of three letters—T, H, and E—and frame them, what do you see? Your mind tries to make sense of it. Perhaps it begins constructing a story. Now, imagine I write a sentence: “The life of the Siberian boy in a turmoil of emotion…” Instantly, an image forms in your mind. Your imagination takes over, building a narrative.
How is this different from the magic of a photograph? True, a picture often “speaks louder than words,” but can we truly pit pictorial imagery against textuality? Both trigger stories and emotions in our minds.
The Power of Multimodal Media
Let’s take another example. Picture a slow-motion video: dark water reflecting an orange sunset, playing on a loop. Your brain begins crafting a story. It might be about life, eternity, or something deeply personal. This power to evoke meaning exists across all mediums—text, image, or video. It’s not about one being superior to another.
As I reflected on this idea while reading Ways of Seeing by John Berger and The Future of Writing by Vilém Flusser, I noticed a common thread. Text and image, though different in their form and technology, are intertwined in communication. Image culture doesn’t destroy textual culture. Instead, it absorbs and evolves it into something new.
Yet, today’s image culture is fundamentally different from that of early humans. For prehistoric people, images were magical—symbols of the unknown. Today, images are almost textual, indexical, even symbolic of understanding itself.
The Gene vs. The Mind
This brings me to another thought, inspired by Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene and my studies in evolutionary psychology. Imagine an eternal battle: The Gene vs. The Mind.
The gene is the biological unit of life, passing from one generation to the next. For millions of years, it was the sole driver of evolution. Humans were mere vessels for its survival. But with the evolution of consciousness—our ability to think and reflect—came a shift. Our brains, designed by genes, began charting their own course, moving away from purely instinctual behavior.
In this separation lies the story of our communication. Yesterday’s world and today’s world are vastly different, shaped by this cognitive leap. Early humans communicated with cave drawings—magical symbols meant to influence survival. Later, text structured our thoughts, enabling us to list, organize, and innovate. Now, we’ve returned to images, but these are not the magical symbols of the past. They are virtual realities, extensions of our consciousness.
The Virtual and the Multimodal
Today’s communication is nonlinear, multimodal, and multidimensional. It exists in a virtual world where the laws of physics no longer apply. Artificial intelligence mirrors our minds, extending our presence into an artificial universe of electronic impulses. This parallel world reflects our evolved consciousness, blending textuality and iconography into something magical once more.
In the caveman’s era, a drawing served to ensure a successful hunt. In modern times, a text provided a structure for improvement. Now, virtual images guide us in new ways—whether to navigate survival or thrive in this interconnected, digital reality.
Our physical reactions to primal dangers like snakes or spiders persist, but we drive cars without fear. This separation of mind and body mirrors the evolution of communication: textuality represents the structured processes of the past, while iconographic communication reflects the evolved consciousness of today.
References
Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene.
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing.
Flusser, Vilém. The Future of Writing.
Mikhail Oparin 