Visualizing Estonia

The concept of "Estonia" is constituted in different sign systems. Each such sign system models and communicates various aspects of "Estonia", adding simultaneously its medium specific signs to the concept. The dominating visual representations circulating internationally about Estonia are photo albums, postcards, films, web pages and other iconic items. Photo albums in particular are constituted by the orthoscopic parameters of painting and the innocent notion of ‘picturesque’. In Estonia these albums present hardly anything else than architecture and weirdly empty environment. The reason for this might be a long-term impact of ideology of the past that still tends to constitute an idealist kaleidoscopic overview of the country with no social dimension and its problems as a part of it. The modest level of visual literacy is obviously another reason of the endencies of representation that we observe in this research. The scenes offered in the visual façade menu mostly come from the past that refersto the vitality of the "national" model of culture in Estonia. Hence we haveCorrection Form file:///C:/Workdir/PROG/recfolder/111113/STY39736/Correction for So... 1 of 2 11/11/2013 3:39 PM the concept of a city/state as first of all an open-air museum. The status of "visual Estonia" would be more interesting with inclusion of first: heterotopic environment in the visual representations; second: shifing the "orthoscopic parametres" of representations; and third: diversifying scopic positions.