introduction | cognitive linguistics | technopoesis | reusable images | conclusions

Reusable Images on the Web
In Web-based hypertexts, it becomes possible for Web authors to download and reuse pre-created visual images and include them as part of their own sites in a way not easily paralleled in print. How does this copying/borrowing/reusing and reappropriate of Web images change our understanding of authorship, design, and the overall poesis of hypertext?
          I suggest that this makes possible a new type of analysis of the Web, one that is not limited to individual pages and sites, but extends across them to examine how they draw on shared elements and use them in different ways.
           A unique aspect of the Web is that images can be borrowed from sites, or found on clipart sites, and reused by any number of Web authors for different purposes. While the image becomes a design element that can just be picked out and plugged-into a Web document, it still can greatly affect both the aesthetics and meaning of a site or page. This type of image borrowing and recycling is not common in other forms of text, and is made possible solely because of the nature of the Web as a medium. Celestial Spirit – Copyright Sue Dawe
           "Celestial Spirit" by Sue Dawe (shown left) appears on multiple pages, very often on different types of pages with different purposes. The image takes on different meanings depending on the context of the rest of the Web site around them, each site drawing out metaphorical and cultural connotations of the images. By comparing the metaphorical mappings of the static image, it becomes possible to notice how the images are used in context to further certain aesthetic and meaningful ends.
           Usually, the image appears in slightly modified form from site to site.
For example, background colors may change, in some cases the Pegasus is animated, and in some cases words will also be added to the image. Often, the image will be presented only in part, focusing just on the head, as the image to the right.

The Static Image
Even before taking stock of the different types of sites that use this image, we can begin to make sense of the metaphor or "Image-Schema" that the image invokes. First, we notice the following aspects about the Pegasus in this image:

  • wings up
  • ears forward
  • curve neck,
  • motion (flight) suggests a travel metaphor, and the direction "up" (source-path-goal).
Keeping this in mind, we can now look some of the sites the image appears on and then begin arriving at some preliminary conclusions.

Additional Sites
The images appears on a variety of sites, from fantasy, writing, and art sites, to the commercial pages of sewer companies. This means that while the image may have an association in our culture with fantasy and inspiration, there is also a reason for businesses to also find the image useful or appropriate, and this seems to suggest that in the choice of the image, some underlying metaphors may come into play. When placed into each new context, it's meaning shifts slightly, creating somewhat different metaphorical meanings. Below are links to pages featuring the image, including a bank and a sewer company: