ABSTRACT
This chapter traces some of the central ideas of why we decode texts in particular ways, and how the ‘truth’ effect (or reality effect) of visual experience works to communicate ideas and ideologies within cultures. Seeing is on the one hand an automatic, physiological function we perform without thinking and, on the other, a complex and absorbing process. Photographs and other communication technologies may give us very recognisable images but they are no more reliable at retrieving reality than any other medium. Besides, what we count as real or realist depends on the context in which we are looking, and what we expect from it. So truth-to-reality, transparent communication, tradition or utility are not the only ways to understand visual representation. For well over a century now, many practitioners have deliberately rejected the idea that they are producing mimetic works, or realistic images of the world out there.
