Iconic & Indexical

Before the start of assignment 2, I was taught in lecture about some different ways of representating an object. The 3 types of representations taught are iconic, indexical and symbolic. Basically, it was about coding and decoding of a message by both the sender and the receiver.

The lecturer emphasized on the importance of coding the message. The reason is to allow the receiver to be able to get the right and intended message. After the introduction of the representations, he went on to talk about the levels of abstraction. On the whole, it was teaching us the steps for simplifying an object and an over-simplified one will evetually carry no meaning.

Soon after that, the students in the lecture were told to think and draw one iconic and indexical sign. The attached image was what I thought of that time. Basically, I was trying to use the iconic sign I drew to signify death. Whereas for my indexical sign, I was actually trying to draw a flask of poison which I used the green colour and the skull to further allow others to understand that it is something deadly and undrinkable. Thus by using this flask of poison, I tried to let it indicate and signify death.