Artist Rudy Whitehead-Lopez explores the un-examined situations that imagery in contemorary culture tends to ignore. These micro-narratives, intimate and quiety lived domestic moments, reflect a reality far removed from the Debordian'spectacle'. Delineating the process that governs our perception and generation of meaning, Whitehead-Lopez creates a structural model for visual communication based on the code/message models of Roman Jakobson, Wolfgang Iser, Roland Barthe and Umberto Eco. Through the example of his own post-colonial journey from the influence of seventeenth century Spanish artist Diego Velasquez, the Mexican muralists, Californian painters as well as contemporary New Zealand artists, Whitehead-Lopez's theories and insights are illustrated and confirmed in a lucid and compelling read.