Category: visuals

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discourse community/community of practice exam readings information representation rhetoric visuals

Exam reading: The rhetoric of visual conventions

On to my next exam reading list, which is focused on discourse communities, and the use of new media technologies and visuals in these communities.

Charles Kostelnick  and Michael Hassett’s Shaping Information: The Rhetoric of Visual Conventions wasn’t exactly what I expected. It presents a rhetorical view of visual design, in a framework of discourse communities. I think I was expecting more specific recommendations from this book, but it does provide a good link between the visual and community-focused materials on my list:

Summary: The authors attempt to construct a framework for analyzing visual rhetoric, based on conventions used in various genres, the social forces that shape those conventions, and the situation-specific interpretation of conventions by users/readers. Visual conventions frame our understanding of the world; they make design coherent and provide shortcuts for interpretation by readers. Three types of factors shape conventions: discourse community (e.g., disciplinary, cultural), rhetorical (e.g., pragmatic, imitation), and practical (e.g., cost, laws). Conventions are generated within discourse communities (and learning conventions is required for joining those communities); they’re mutable but can appear permanent. There are different levels of understanding conventions, e.g., using a physics formula on a t-shirt to evoke “geekiness;” increasing centrality in a specialist d.c. leads to more complex understanding of codes. Conventions have shifting “currency” (size of user pool + frequency of use); designers must make rhetorical choices about what to use. Finally, conventions can be hard to see, because they’re usually deployed with other conventions, and especially in specialist discourse can seem “natural.”

Comments: Emphasis is on the discourse community process as the basis for discussion of convention use in different genres; there’s a large social aspect to visual design for the authors. They discuss the ways conventions can either simplify or complicate the act of perception, but do not include a lot of detail from empirical studies; they do include a chapter on the types of convention “breakdown” that can occur (designers and users are in different d.c.’s, conflict with other conventions in the same work, etc.). They also discuss evolution of conventions, framed by the ways that the discourse communities that gave rise to those conventions changed.

Links to: Tufte 1, 2 (K&H would call his a specific type of rhetoric)

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meetings visuals

Humanities and Sustainability Conference

I’ll be presenting a paper at a conference on humanities and sustainability this weekend. The title is: “Using Photography and Flagship Species to Promote Conservation.” Here’s a summary:

The conservation movement has used photography for many different purposes: from showcasing natural beauty to documenting environmental degradation; from connecting people to small, threatened habitats to showing them how large river systems are affected by drought.  This paper focuses on the use of photography to bring public awareness to flagship species: individual species selected to bring attention to larger conservation issues or to gain monetary support.  While conservation philosophies based upon protecting single species are not considered ideal by conservation biologists, there are some positive aspects to such programs.

This paper explores the rhetorical choices made by conservation organizations in the selection of species to photograph as well as the formatting of photos. Photograph uses vary considerably among different conservation groups who have different communication strategies.  The examples presented in this paper will concentrate on a subset of conservation photography, portraiture, which is a very useful tool for single-species-based conservation.  If what we need, as humans, is to have a personal connection to the plants and animals that we want to protect, then photography is a very important art.

Photographs are effective because they mediate between our inner & outer realities, helping us reconcile what is with what we think should be.  For the conservation movement, photography is a multipurpose tool, one that goes beyond dry recitations of statistics about coral reef degradation and listings of species that have disappeared from a forest to tug at the heartstrings.  While photography can be used logically, to document ecological changes, it is most powerful when used to make emotional or ethical arguments.  One of the strengths of the humanities is the ability to elucidate such arguments and shed light on why they are effective.

There will be many photos of cute animals (and plants.) No rabbits, though.

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exam readings identity information representation visuals

Exam reading: “Simulacra and simulation”

Jean Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulation” is popular among a certain set of postmodern enthusiasts, including the Wachowski brothers. I won’t go into how this book influenced The Matrix- you can go elsewhere for that.

Here’s my summary:

Summary: Baudrillard’s main concern is for cultural impacts of mass/electronic media. Our culture of simulation has progressed to the point that simulation no longer refers to the real world- it is “hyperreal.” Reality has been replaced by nested systems of sighs, all referring to one another; he calls this “precession of simulacra.” Images began as reflections of reality, became masks for reality, then masks that mask the absence of reality, and are now not related to reality (but to other images). Examples include the Lascaux caves (we now only experience the simulation of Lascaux II) and Disneyland (an imaginary world, set up to mask the fact that America is itself only a simulation, in which people take on roles but never truly interact). In some sense, electronic media make everything a simulation (e.g., political scandals mask broader truths about the capitalist system, nuclear deterrence and how MAD means no one will ever have to use nukes since we know what will happen). He also discusses historical movies, which are more “real” than the reality was; history is no longer an active force-all cultures are congealing into one, and all that’s left is nostalgia. Takes “medium is the message” to extreme: e.g., culture (content) in museums is merely a support for the medium to operate (the visitor experience)- the point is to have visitors, not transmit the culture; also, advertising/propaganda are becoming the dominant features of mass media- publicity is all that matters (not ideas or meanings).

Comments: Briefly discusses how cloning & medical research are another expression of mass-production (reproducible, without aura)- rather than taking a cyborg approach, he links this phenomenon to Benjamin’s ideas. I’m glossing over education- says the only ways for non-conformists to not conform are either dropping out entirely or committing terrorism.

Links to: Benjamin (mass-produced society; body); McLuhan (medium)

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exam readings hypertext identity transparency visuals

Exam reading: “Writing space”

I’ve probably read at least parts of “Writing Space,” by Jay David Bolter, in three different courses so far. It’s clearly been an influential book in the T&T field (though of course some authors love it, while others use it to argue against):

Summary: Bolter explores the ways in which digital media are changing traditional “writing spaces:” the material & virtual fields of writing that are determined by both technology and the ways it’s used. One important way this happens is through remediation: a new medium taking the place of an older one while borrowing its conventions. For Bolter, one of the reasons new media are adopted is that they bring a greater sense of immediacy, derived from either increased transparency of the medium (“looking through”) or increased hypermediacy (awareness of the medium; “looking at”). Bolter focuses on the ways that the Internet, particularly hypertext, remediate older technologies (e.g., linking is a rhetorical tool that allows associational (non-linear) expression; lack of closure; increased participation from reader). One key feature is the use of visuals in online writing that are not constrained by the text; visuals may replace text or serve as visual puns, and text may try to become as vivid as visuals (ekphrasis). If writing is a metaphor for thought (and writing systems for our sense of self), then “multilinear” hypertext may be more like the associational mind thinks and reflect our postmodern identity. Writing spatializes time (i.e., speech)- going from print to hypertext is in some ways like returning to conversational modes of oral dialogue.

Comments: Bolter suggests that the increased use if visuals is an attempt to get rid of arbitrary symbol systems (i.e., the alphabet) and return to picture writing. However, modern picture writing differs from preliterate picture writing in that more abstraction can be expressed (e.g., icons). Also discusses semiosis (movement from one sign to another via reference); to read is to interpret semiotic meaning in the difference between the signs (e.g., intertextuality, linking).

Links to: Hayles (hypertext literature); Ong (writing systems and thought)

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exam readings tech design visuals

Exam reading: “Language of new media”

Well, class started this week- I have no idea what the historical basis is for starting school in Florida in the middle of August when it’s 95 degrees out and there’s 90% humidity. It’s bizarre: it makes our “Spring Break” a winter vacation. Maybe it’s because August is one of the only months without a national holiday (Florida is stingy about state holidays– I miss Hawaii, where we got at least one day off a month.)

Anyway, to business: in this exam reading, I tackle Lev Manovich’s “Language of New Media.” The rest of my books came in this week, so I have a big stack of them staring at me. Moving on quickly…

Summary: In this book, Manovich discusses new media in the context of visual media (especially cinema) and computer cultures. “New media” are computer-based, but more specifically: data are numerically represented, objects are composed of modular parts, functions are automated, both data and structures are variable (e.g., updatable, scalable, customizable), and viewable in multiple formats (transcoded). It is not enough for a medium to be computer-based, digital, interactive; it has to have the former properties to be “new media.” Manovich discusses four key aspects of new media in detail: interfaces, operations, illusions, and architectural elements. “Interfaces” are important because the mediate the human interaction with the database; constraints on interface design include print and cinema conventions, as well as general computer-interface conventions (e.g., tensions between icons vs. work surfaces). There are three “operations” that characterize new media: selection of ready-made parts from a database, which are then composited into an object; and teleaction, realtime action at a distance. The “illusions” he discusses are primarily the move toward photorealism in computer animation; the important characteristics of such images that differentiate them from photography are that they are moving, and non-iconic. Finally, the “architectural elements” (my term) he discusses are databases and virtual spaces. These are important because they are cultural forms newly characteristic of new media.

Comments: Manovich’s background is in cinema, and much of his theoretical discussion is centered on theories of visuality. He also discusses how cinema has both influenced and been changed by new media. Since that’s not my main focus, I’m skipping this material here, but one could certainly read this book while paying more attention to the visual material. A comment on databases: M. states that the virtual world is composed of data structures and algorithms, but does not infer a rhetorical or political motivation for such things (unlike Brooke). For M., politics seems to enter into the process at a later level, during selection, compositing, and teleaction.

Links to: Brooke (M’s “death of rhetoric”); Benjamin (visual media, concepts of aura & flaneur); Gee (gaming; G. discusses learning with games, while M. focuses on the overall forms)

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exam readings visuals

Exam reading: “How images think”

“How Images Think,” by Ron Burnett, explores whether/how images help us think. Nope, they don’t actually think on their own- in fact, they have no meaning outside of what we interpret them to be.

Summary: Burnett argues that images are central to how humans conceptualize the world. In modern society, our (physical) experience is so mediated by human-created technologies that the distinction between nature and artifice is blurred; we also make sense of the world through “image-worlds” (psychological image-based constructs that mediate our experience with reality). These image-worlds make images intertextual- interpretation is dependent on our experience with other images. Our vantage point with respect to images is crucial for how we interpret them, and vantage point is largely culturally determined. Although images mediate our relationships with the world (including those with machines and other people), our interpretation of the images is more important to the images themselves. With respect to virtual worlds and simulation, Burnett believes that they are useful for overcoming distances between observer and subject, or tangible experience and the event (or object) being pictured. Simulations are “enhanced” reality, rather than illusions. Burnett also discusses the interactions between humans and machines, and how these affect our definitions of consciousness, humanity, etc. He argues that modeling communication as a sender-receiver model (or the brain as an input-output device) is too reductive, omitting context (materiality) while focusing on content.

Comments: While Burnett’s main focus seems to be on how images mediate our experience, in several chapters, the link between images and his subject is fairly tenuous. He seems to be trying to throw a little bit of everything into his book, e.g., embodiment, consciousness, online networked communities, gaming culture, models of communication. While these examples fit into his thesis that we live in intensively technologically-mediated communities, his emphasis on the overarching importance of images in each of these examples is not clear. One useful point for me is his contention that images of “unseeable” scientific concepts, while “virtual,” are what make these ideas “real” to people (i.e., “virtual” here =/= “fake”).

Links to: Haraway (cyborgs, embodiment); Hayles (HCI, consciousness); Tufte (images for communication); McLuhan (importance of medium); Baudrillard (Bur. disagrees with Bau.’s equation of virtual with fake/illusory)

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exam readings visuals

Exam reading: “The Work of Art…”

As fascism was creeping through Europe, Walter Benjamin wrote “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility.” In it, he lays out a politically-driven, positive view of the effects of new representational technologies on the relationship of society to art. While Benjamin’s view of the effects of this  new relationship was positive, his essay also warns of the forces of fascism trying to subvert this process and marry art to politics. A German Jew, he committed suicide in 1940 when detained in fascist Spain while trying to escape Germany for the U.S. A depressing ending, considering some of the optimistic(?) ideas in this piece.

Summary: Benjamin discusses the ways in which, he contends, the ready availability of photographs and film have changed the relationship between spectators and artistic works. For example, the original context of artistic works was that they were one of a kind (“authentic”), and viewed in ritualized ways (e.g., as religious icons, or contemplated during a museum visit). Mechanical reproducibility lets one take these works out of context and view them anywhere- particularly in distracted settings. He contends that this demystification of art is positive; art now becomes political (i.e., can be used for political ends in the education of the masses), not cultish. (One place in which cult value is hanging on is in portraiture.) With film, spectators are now “quasi-experts,” because they can also be on camera themselves- there is less reverence for the actors. The relationship of the masses to art is changed; critical appraisal and simple enjoyment are unified in works with high social impact (in works with low social impact, the converse is true). We now internalize art while in a state of distraction (e.g., in a movie theater), rather than placing ourselves into the artwork in traditional art appreciation; he likens this state of distraction to that of experiencing architecture while taking part in day-to-day activities.

Comments: As a Marxist, Benjamin frequently links the demystification of art with the advance of the proletariat, and the attempt to re-mystify art (and aestheticize politics) with fascism. I’m not sure how well his predictions have borne out re: the easy accessibility of art and raised political consciousness in the masses (I think that advertising research, for example, suggests something different). On another note, there are links here to some authors on scientific visuals. For example, Benjamin states that, with photography and cinema, artistic and scientific (informational) content of art is identical- I think the situation is more complex than that: there are multiple levels of meaning that can be experienced in such representations.

Links to: Ong (representational practices); Headrick (technologies of representation)

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exam readings information representation visuals

Exam Reading: “When Information Came of Age”

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, since I’ve been wrapping up an internship at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I’ll post about what I’ve done there later… For now, I’ve got a new book summary. “When Information Came of Age”, by Daniel Headrick, was actually interesting to read at this point. Circling back to the internship (which I really will discuss later), I’ve been dealing with issues of representing information about bird families in different formats. This book discusses the histories of information systems that were a big part of this process. But more on that later…

Summary: Headrick proposes that the current “Information Age” is only one of many historical information revolutions; in this book, he focuses on the information revolution of the Enlightenment. He outlines five categories of information systems: classifying/organizing, transforming, display, storage/retrieval, and communicating. His thesis is that developments in these information systems in this time period, coupled with subsequent technological inventions, laid the groundwork for the Information Age. During this period, demographic, cultural, political, and economic changes helped create an information build-up that could only be made sense of by inventing new information systems. So, for example, scientific nomenclature and classification systems were developed that suggested explanations for phenomena (e.g., the chemical classification system suggested possible new compounds). Statistics were used to transform demographic, political, and economic information that was beginning to be collected. Visual information displays (maps, graphs, and thematic maps) were used to display large datasets efficiently and in an easily-recalled manner. Cross-referenced dictionaries and encyclopedias were successful at disseminating current, easy-to-access information to the general public (in contrast to dense, thematically-linked former formats). Postal and telegraphic systems (visual and electric) were devised to transmit messages; these went from private messenger services to restricted government systems to more open government systems.

Comments: This book gives a good overview of the development of information systems, though some of the chapters are more comprehensive than others. His emphasis on information systems, rather than previous technologies that facilitated them (e.g., the printing press) or subsequent technological innovations, was an interesting choice (though apparently he’s addressed later periods in other books.) This would probably be a useful book to use in a History of T&T course. While heavy on the names and dates, it covers a really interesting period of history (see my Blituri project, and I will add that the Baroque Cycle is a mostly-excellent series set right before this period :).

Links to: Tufte (information representation); Benjamin (technologies of representation); Ong (social and technical aspects of changing representational practices)

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exam readings visuals

Strategizing and mapping, part 2…

For my candidacy exams, I’m focusing on two subject areas: public understanding of science (PUoS) and informatics of community science (or, how communities use cyberinfrastructure for science projects).

Both of these areas contain a wide variety of concepts, and there are many connections between the two. I’ve created a concept map to help me organize how these ideas fit together. You should be able to click on it for a legible version.

Concept map for ideas connected during my dissertation research

What I’ve tried to do here is connect up the concepts from various readings to some of the key ideas. Three key topics on the left (in hexagons) primarily come from the PUoS literature: participatory genres of science learning, more traditional “communication” genres, and some key concepts that are critical to address in order to have public understanding of science. These three represent important areas of focus in the PUoS literature.

Jumping to the right, the oval for PUoS is what I plan to do research on. I’m interested on how we can use online tools to improve PUoS. The general idea with this map is that we use the two diamonds (and connected ideas) in the center to get to this point. The topics in the diamonds are primarily from the informatics/community literature: physical and social components of community science networks, and theories for understanding these networks. These topics either mediate or theorize specific approaches to PUoS, so we can get to an endpoint where we can evaluate PUoS. Hopefully this will all make sense.

A good concept map shouldn’t need this much explanation, but this is a working draft, mainly intended as a tool to help me put a wide variety of readings together into some sort of coherent form. What I’d ideally like to do with this is connect up these concepts with the readings, which will add on another layer to this diagram. At least, that’s the plan.

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exam readings pedagogy research methods/philosophy transparency visuals

Exam reading: “E-crit”

This post is a summary of E-Crit: Digital media, critical theory, and the humanities by Marcel O’Gorman. I’ve read this book before and used some of the concepts in a paper- I thought I would read something that was a bit review after the last book I read… After reading Opening Spaces, it was interesting to see how this book really focuses on postmodern methods without taking ethical considerations into account (though political considerations are part of it). The intersection of these two texts makes me think of a series of blog posts on iblamethepatriarchy.com which look at the intersection of feminist criticism and postmodern evaluations of art (pretty thought-provoking). Anyway, one of the comments to a post there said that exposure to feminist interpretation ruins all art, because you can no longer look at art without thinking about the material and social conditions under which that art was made. (Not entirely sure what the connection is here, but O’Gorman does a lot of postmodern art analysis as part of his argument.) So if you’re an art lover, maybe better not to follow that link…

Summary: O’Gorman is trying to lay out a shift in academic methods that will revitalize humanities work by taking advantage of possibilities inherent in digital media.  For him, academic disciplines are fragmented, hierarchical and print-centered, which leads to interpretation (hermeneutics) and repetition rather than creativity (heuritics).  He foregrounds three types of “remainder”/“others” of academic discourse: puns/nonlinear transitions, digital media, and imagery.  He introduces “hypereconomy”- the use of “hypericons” to connect a network of discourses and lead to intuitive exploratory linkages between them. One big emphasis is on picture theory: images are subjective (non-transparent) and in a struggle with text (think LOLcats-text and image can be contradictory and create new meanings).  He contrasts the educational strategies of Ramus (classifying & compartmentalizing knowledge without reference to random mnemonic devices) to the work of Wm. Blake (image/text contradictions, opposition to creating conformist students).  He calls hypereconomy a “technoromantic” method of expression- using subjective, affect-based interpretations of print and images to create a bricolage of sorts.  These constructs incorporate four primary images: personal, historical, disciplinary, and pop-culture (he adds in a written interpretive component when assigning them in his classes).  Part of what they do is promote shifts in the figure/ground relationships in images (via subjective interpretations, “nonsense” connections, and hyperlinking).  O’Gorman speculates that constant exposure to visual stimuli is leading to increased abstract & spatial reasoning.  He concludes by laying out a plan to rejuvenate humanities departments by incorporating digital media studies and criticism: this would add technological “rigor” but still let departments teach criticism of the changing social/technological environment.

Comments: O’Gorman’s main focus seems to be the hypereconomy method as a tool for invention, and the call to incorporate digital media into humanities departments as a way to subvert “technobureaucratic” management of universities seems a bit tacked-on.  Some of the visual theory he builds his argument upon (e.g., Gombrich’s “mental set” of interpretations) isn’t empirically supported (as I recall).  His concepts about non-transparent visuals & language have been the most useful things for me.  I probably fall into the traditional linear-enlightenment camp & am not convinced that hyperconomy projects can actually lead to useful critiques of institutions (a bit too materialist, I guess).  When I first read this book, I had a much stronger reaction to the anti-Enlightenment thread that runs through it- I’m either becoming inured to such a position or starting to reconcile the cognitive dissonances from my previous training…

Links to: Bolter (remediation, transparency)