Preparation for presentation and idea collation!

The above diagram depicts how I believe visual culture is formed. Initially I was torn between Character and Environment influences. Both of these are huge regions to cover. However, these two attributes are interchangeable, and codependent. I realised a few things:

• People (or characters) are shaped by the environment around them. Physical attributes, how the characters look are visually reflected by their environment. Clothing is created from available materials, whilst the source of available food will affect the populations build.
  If these people were born in subterranean lava caves, would they need to breath oxygen?
  Would they be slimmer and more agile, or motionless to preserve energy?

• Environments are equally affected by the presence of people. Whether this is direct, like architecture and housing, or indirect such as footprints, destroyed monuments from a past era. There are also examples of deserted environments, which are defined exactly by that, the lack of inhabitants.

An example was given to me today, explaining why farmers and country folk can visibly tell the difference between their own kind and city folk. This is obvious in a sense, as their clothing would not be of a farmhands, but they would also have smaller details such as an adjusted vocabulary to suit their environment, they may also have a completely different accent.

Artists:

One concept designer whom I find is particularly effective at creating "lived in" environments, is Nicolas Bouvier, more familiarly known as Sparth. These environments collate both natural formations such as mountains, as well as buildings and structures that draw influence from all over the world.

I feel that repetition of domed structures creates a sense of visual culture, as it reflects our own repetition of architecture. As we saw in Assassins Creed with the flat rooftops and tightly-packed cities, human beings like repetition. We like having an architectural "style" that is native to whatever area we inhabit. By having these repeating structures, Sparth creates a wider sense of depth and further builds the world that he has painted. The environments look "lived in".