The Paratextual and Precursory Voices of Twilight

Edited by

Mary A. Drinkwater

Beyond Textual Literacy

Series EditorsDr Robert FisherDr Daniel Riha

Advisory Board

Dr Alejandro Cervantes-Carson Dr Peter Mario KreuterProfessor Margaret Chatterjee Martin McGoldrickDr Wayne Cristaudo Revd Stephen MorrisMira Crouch Professor John ParryDr Phil Fitzsimmons Paul ReynoldsProfessor Asa Kasher Professor Peter TwohigOwen Kelly Professor S Ram Vemuri

Revd Dr Kenneth Wilson, O.B.E

An At the Interface research and publications project.http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/

The Education Hub‘Visual Literacies’

At the Interface

2011

Beyond Textual Literacy:Visual Literacy for Creative & Critical Inquiry

Edited by

Mary A. Drinkwater

Inter-Disciplinary Press

Oxford, United Kingdom

© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2011http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/

The Inter-Disciplinary Press is part of Inter-Disciplinary.Net – a global networkfor research and publishing. The Inter-Disciplinary Press aims to promote andencourage the kind of work which is collaborative, innovative, imaginative, andwhich provides an exemplar for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinarypublishing.

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ISBN: 978-1-84888-007-8First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2011. First Edition.

Table of Contents

Introduction ixMary A. Drinkwater

PART 1 Places, Persons and Processes

Children’s Responses to Visual Images: Preferences, 3Functions and OriginsAndri Savva

Regarding Preservation of Nuance: Visual Literacy 15in the Perception of the Human BodyJeanine Breaker

Reading the Visual: Language, Body & Space 27Mark Andrew Thorsby

Pictures and Graphics: The Perception of 37ArchitectureThomas Forget

PART II: Across Visual Lines

Reading the Contemporary Picturebook: 51Negotiating ChangeBeverley Croker

The Paratextual and Precursory Voices of Twilight 61Phil Fitzsimmons, Edie Lanphar and Jess Sanford

Thinking and Talking to Alice: An Antipodean 69AdventureKerrie McCaw

PART III: Outsider and Insider Visions

The Inner Eye and the Outer Space: Planetaria as 81Schools for Visual LiteracyBoris Goesl

Critical Democratic Pedagogy through the Arts: 91Within a Culture of Democracy in OntarioSecondary SchoolsMary A. Drinkwater

PART IV: Places of Seeing and Being

Architectural Analysis Portfolio: Drawn Knowledge, 103A Case Study in Embodied LearningAmanda L. Hufford

PART V: Creating Culture and Consciousness

‘This looks like a hat; I don’t know what it is’: 111Investigating Pictorial Literacy in KwaZulu-Natal,South AfricaKatherine Arbuckle

ABC Milwaukee: The Visual Culture Literacies of 121Growing up UrbanLaura Trafí-Prats

The Visual and Social Semiotics of Toilet Signs 131in GreeceSofia Pantouvaki

PART VI: Seeing Across Even More Divides

How the Gossip Industry Enjoys Visual Literary 143Leila Tafreshi Motlagh

Chorography: Reflections on Its Place in Visual 153Literacy and Creative ArtsJill O’Sullivan

PART VII: Defining, Refining and Realigning

The Interplay of Visual Literacy, New Media 165Technology and Teaching ApproachesMonika Raesch

PART VIII: Discourses, Definitions and Delights

Celluloid Obsessions: Visual Literacy in the Films 177of Martin ScorseseJosé Gabriel Ferreras Rodríguez

The Comfort of Standing Next to Walls: Reading 189the Ill-Literacies in Unica Zürn’s Texts and ImagesEsra Plumer

Screening Subjectivity: A Narrative Analysis of 199Learning Visual LiteraciesMontserrat Rifà-Valls

PART IX: Icons, Inquiry and Intersections

A Plain Language Guide to Multimodal Literacy 211Rick Instrell

Visualising Inquiry 219Tracey Bowen & Penny Kinnear

PART X: Choosing and Chasing a New View

Gender and Critical Visual Literacy: Media 233Monitoring Projects and the Case of TurkeyEmek Çaylı Rahte

PART XI: Places of Being and Seeing

Moral Education and Visual Literacy 245Yael Krimerman-Naveh

Comics in Education: Advocating Visual Literacy, 253Reinforcing Intercultural DiscourseEvangelia Moula

PART XII: Reading Frames and Fractures

Visual Literacy in Film: Teaching First-Year 267Undergraduates How to Read Film using In-Classand Web-Based MaterialsG. S. Larke-Walsh

Reading between the Lines: Visual Literacy 277and FilmFaye Ran

Screen Literacy: Its Social, Cultural and 289Educational Implications and ApplicationsJane Mills

Introduction

Mary A. Drinkwater

This volume contains chapters derived from papers presented at the 3rd GlobalConference on Visual Literacies: Exploring Critical Issues held in Oxford, UK,July 14th through the 16th, 2009. The conference brought together a broad range ofcultural, artistic and academic participants. The authors represent diverse fieldssuch as visual art, architecture, children’s literature, chorography, illustration,education, critical pedagogy, psychoanalysis, scenography, cultural studies, genderstudies, philosophy, human movement-analysis, communications and informationtechnology. True to the interdisciplinary nature of these conferences, theparticipants have been looking through a multiplicity of disciplinary lenses as theyexamine the concept of visual literacy. The chapters included in this volume weavetogether a very intricate and complex web of connections between these disciplineswhich will both broaden and challenge the current notion of visual literacy. Thearrangement of the chapters follows the heading titles from the conference.Although each of the authors in a particular section have been grouped togetherunder a similar theme, their methodologies, theories and practices often end upblurring the disciplinary boundaries.

In the first section ‘Places, Persons and Processes’ the volume begins with achapter by Andri Savva who studied the responses of children, 6-8 years old, tovisual reproductions of images in order to identify factors which could increase thepotential of artistic activities promoting critical reflective thinking. Savva foundthat children identified the human source and the medium used for each visualimage. Additionally, she found that their responses were strongly influenced by themedia. Jeanine Breaker moves the exploration of the visual from single and staticimages into the analysis of multiple and dynamic images as she discusses humanmovement-analysis. The advancing field of visual communication forunderstanding and simulating movement (motion-capture, eye-tracking, body-scanning, digital image-capture) appears to be rapidly replacing the traditionalmethods of art practice and pedagogy, such as life drawing. Breaker cautions thatalthough this new technology has the potential to become a valuable cross-disciplinary movement-analysis resource, an over-reliance on computer modelswithout the highly specialized visual literacy training needed to scrutinize thempresents potentially serious errors in movement training and medical and industrialdesign. Mark Thorsby continues this thread linking the body and visual literacy andstretches it even further as he links visuacy and architecture. In his discussion onspatiality, Thorsby argues that every architectural space contextualises the bodyand that to be visually literate is to be spatially aware. The spatial and architecturalthreads are further woven together as Thomas Forget establishes a discourse in hischapter that is historical, theoretical and pedagogical. He explores the emergenceof three different modes of visual representation (linear perspective, cinema and

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digital modelling) and their respective contributions to the great Modern debatebetween empiricism and rationalism.

Linking literature to visual literacy, in the section ‘Across Visual Lines’,Beverley Croker begins by exploring the place of picturebooks in this radicallychanging multimedia world. She argues that educators need to be able to respondto changing reader expectations based on the availability of increasingly diverseprint and electronic picturebooks. As Phil Fitzsimmons, Edie Lanphar and JessSanford argue in their chapter, even the cover of a book (or series of books) canserve as ‘conceptual framing metaphors’ as ‘paratextual’ entrées to the threads ofmeaning found in the book. They use data drawn from an initial project aimed atunderstanding ‘engagement factors’, ‘aesthetic connectors’ or ‘focalisation’ thatwere embedded in Stephanie Meyer’s book Twilight. Kerrie McCaw utilizes a kindof cultural archaeology as she examines the use of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’ novelsas a vehicle for exploration. The books first published in 1865 and 1871 whichwere written by Carroll and illustrated by John Tenniel have often been used asreference material for visual artists.

In section three, ‘Outsider and Insider Visions,’ Boris Goesl traces the pivotalrole that planetaria could play in training elementary visual literacy. Goesldiscusses the interactive strategies that could be used to enhance ‘re/-productiveimagination’. In my chapter, I add another set of strategies to develop critical andcreative imagination. I argue that education in and through the arts, whichincorporates the principles of critical democratic pedagogy, can provideopportunities for all students to engage in an active curriculum which encouragescritical inquiry and expression of relevant social issues.

Within the following section, ‘Places of Seeing and Being’, Amanda Huffordsuggests that there may still be an important role for some of the traditional media,specifically sketching, in contemporary education. Her study is based onobservations of students’ work in a special topics course entitled ArchitecturalAnalysis Portfolio. This course was created to help bridge a growing disconnect,among architectural students, between architectural design and the understandingof building tectonics.

Insights into the importance of visual literacy in addressing various culturalissues in South Africa, the United States and Greece are shared in section five,‘Creating Culture and Consciousness’. In the first chapter in this section, KatherineArbuckle discusses a research project which was created to help increase the healtheducation/HIV/AIDS education of Zulu-speaking adults newly enrolled in mother-tongue literacy classes through the use of graphic depictions to conveyinformation. In order to maximize the potential value of educational print media inthis and other development contexts, it is essential to find out which graphic styleswork best to convey intended meanings, and what approach to content works thebest to convey difficult concepts. For a group of eight and nine year-olds living in amulticultural working class neighbourhood in Milwaukee, USA, Laura Trafi-Prats

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found that the creation and use of video narratives helped them to create senses ofplace in spaces that they liked or frequented in the city where they live. Herresearch focuses on the province of visual culture connected to the city as adiscursive space of urban imaginaries, spatial practices and forms of visualcommunication that affect the formation of childhood subjectivity. In the finalchapter of this section, Sofia Pantouvaki takes us to Greece to explore the visual,cultural and social aspects of contemporary Greek toilet signs, using a unique andcreative methodology which incorporates compositional interpretation andthematic analysis. The local and/or global cultural characteristics of the visualelements and the potential interpretations of their visual language are examinedfrom the perspective of social semiotics.

Visual techniques and strategies have been used throughout history to bothinform and influence human perception. In the next section, ‘Seeing Across EvenMore Divides’, Leila Tafreshi Motlagh, uses a semiotic analysis of one of thecurrent issues of People magazines to illustrate how the visual is used to influenceB2B (business to business) and B2C (business to customer) relationship. Motlaghbelieves that advertising and visual representation are the tools used to linktogether a triangle of players, leaders and readers in the gossip industry. JillO’Sullivan presents a strong argument to support the viability and relevance of aform of visual literacy know as ‘chorography’ which has been used since the earlyModern period to qualitatively describe the inherent attributes of place and region.Using evidence from both historical and contemporary times, O’Sullivan illustratesthe role that chorographic visualizations have played in embracing and elucidatingconcepts of religion, politics and culture. Finally, she explores the establishment ofa chorographical lexicon which could inform contemporary visual praxis in bothtraditional and new media art.

In part seven, ‘Defining, Refining and Realigning’, Monika Raesch undertook athree-year study in her A-Level media and film classes at a college in the UK toexamine whether, in this era of new media technology, teaching approaches whichuse resources based on traditional material can still be effective in engagingtoday’s learners. Alternatively, has the interaction with new media technologyaltered the literacy skills and/or approach and attention to learning in the classroomso significantly that non-media based materials have lost their effectiveness inengaging and teaching students?

The three chapters in the next section each reflect one of the aspects of thesection title, ‘Discourses, Definitions and Delights’. José Gabriel FerrerasRodriguez begins with a discussion on the use of the discourse of ‘form’ withinboth the written language and in filmmaking. Using the work of movie directorMartin Scorsese, Rodriguez illustrates how visual analysis of form, or recurringtechniques, can be used to outline the development towards refinement whichoccurred during Scorcese’s career. Esra Plumer challenges the reader’s conceptionor definition of ‘walls’ as she explores aspects such as support, confinement and

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boundaries. Plumer uses the drawings and productivity of Unica Zürn, a Germanborn writer/artist who found liberation in being confined in asylums, clinics, andhospitals and considered mental illness a path to creativity. Zürn’s automaticdrawings are often considered visually illiterate while being subjected to contextualand narrative literacies through autobiographical facts and historical analogues.This chapter looks at the contextual and narrative aspects of reading Zürn’s imagesand writing in order to propose a new kind of visual literacy of her automaticdrawings. Finally, you can see the ‘delight’ described by Montserrat Rifà-Valls, asa group of university students create of film shorts and digital media portfolios. Asshe narrates the reconstruction of the process that these students followed increating both the shorts and the portfolios, she explores the role that reflexivity,intertextuality and metanarratives play in creating a new place where learning andsubjectivity intersect.

The inclusion of the visual as an important component in the process of inquiryis highlighted in both chapters in ‘Icons, Inquiry and Intersections’. Based on theargument put forward in the founding or iconic text for multimodal literacy, ‘APedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures’, Rick Instrell seeks toestablish a set of principles to guide the development of multimodal literacy andinterdisciplinary curricula. These principles could enable teachers from differentdisciplines to speak to each other using a simple common language. As TraceyBowen and Penny Kinnear began mapping the process that they were using in anexperimental collaboration of pedagogical strategies, they soon found that simply‘writing in words’ failed to capture many aspects of the inquiry. In addition to text,elements of the mapping process, Bowen and Kinnear included oral dialogue, auralreception, kinaesthetic gesturing, and embodied mark making which ultimatelyresulted in a shared semiosis of symbols and words.

In part ten, ‘Choosing and Chasing a New View’, Emek Çayli Rahte examinesthe role of visual literacy in media activism, particularly with respect to imagemaking and gender. Rahte’s study focuses on women’s media activism groups andcompares the two activist groups, MEDIZ in Turkey and Media Watch in the USA.

The following section ‘Places of Being and Seeing’ introduces the link betweenvisual literacy, culture and perception. Yael Krimerman-Naveh begins byemphasizing the visual basis of perception of human suffering. She argues that atleast one important aim of moral education should be to develop children’ssensitivity to the various forms that human suffering can take. In the last section ofher chapter, she sets out an educational framework which she feels could helpchildren develop the ability to see, and therefore be sensitive to, the suffering ofothers. Both Krimerman-Naveh and Evangelia Moula note the importance ofincluding intercultural dialogue as an important component of visual literacy. Incontinuing the discussion about multimodal literacy, Moula’s study looks at the useof comic books about the Olympic Games to explore the cultural myth of GreekAntiquity. Her methodology uses a semiotic technique to explore these cultural

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myths by comparing and juxtapositioning different texts handling the same subject,within the same or within different genres. Comic books came from three differentcultures, French, American and Greek.

In the final part of this volume, three authors examine the link between visualliteracy and film through different lenses. G. S. Larke-Walsh provides an overviewof a project that was undertaken to create an interactive film analysis tool forblackboard. Larke-Walsh feels that this tool could help to increase the engagementof students in large lecture classes and could help them to understand the processof visual analysis in film studies. Faye Ran takes the task of film analysis furtherand breaks it into three different visual literacy skills which she feels must behoned by anyone desiring to read a film. Ran emphasizes the importance of beingable to read between the lines (using film’s basic elements), along the lines (byunderstanding narrative and genre) and across the lines (by engaging in critical andideological analyses). The section concludes with a chapter by Jane Mills in whichshe describes the success of screen literacy programs for students from low socio-economic and non-English speaking backgrounds in New South Wales, Australia.Mills goes on to questions why, then, there has been no attempt to introduce screenliteracy permanently into the curriculum. Her chapter explores the social, culturaland educational resistances to screen literacy as a means of enhancing studentengagement in order to impact positively the literacy skills among students fromlow socio-economic and culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds.

Each chapter in this volume contributes to a broader conception of andincreased interdisciplinary approaches to visual literacy. The theories,methodologies, practical applications and reflections presented here continue toopen the door to further research in many areas of visual literacy withindisciplinary and across disciplinary boundaries.

PART I

Places, Persons and Processes

Children’s Responses to Visual Images:Preferences, Functions and Origins

Andri Savva

AbstractThroughout history, art educators / researchers have studied the responses ofchildren to art in order to develop programmes that include the critical analysis ofworks of art. While much of the above research is considered significant indeveloping artistic activities for young children, the study of art within visualculture engages the learning of a range of visual forms emphasizing its multiplefunctions and meanings. Thus, an exploratory study was designed to gatherinformation regarding 6-8 year old children’s responses to visual reproductions ofimages. An open-ended interview procedure was used. Four reproductions ofvisual images were selected: a realistic painting, an abstract painting, a photographwith social- political meaning and a popular culture image. The sample included 17participants (8 boys and 9 girls) between the ages of 6 and 8 years, drawnrandomly from nine primary schools in urban areas of Nicosia, Cyprus. Findingsindicated that children identified the human source and the medium used for eachvisual image. In many cases, children’s responses demonstrated a strong influenceby media. The study identified some relevant factors underlying children’sresponses to a range of visual forms and highlights their potential for criticalreflective thinking using appropriate methods and approaches.

Key Words: Responses to visual images, visual culture, young children.

*****

1. Theoretical FrameworkThroughout history art educators/researchers have addressed the necessity of

studying how children perceive and respond to art. Research underlines themessuch as the significance of children’s personal preferences and experiences,abilities to recognize artistic styles and judgment.1 However, a long-standingdebate especially among psychologists refers to questions raised regarding the typeof experiences necessary for perceiving and understanding pictures/visual images.2

Do children have to learn how to read pictures, how to interpret the code thatrelates pictures to the world they represent as Nelson Goodman supports? Arepictures cultural artifacts that must be learned to interpret in contexts asanthropologists suggest? Such questions indicate the multifaceted nature ofpictures and the significance of perceptual abilities, conceptual and pragmaticknowledge (how pictures are produced and used).3 As it is supported:

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…a viewer not only sees the representation-the picture surface-but also sees through it to its referent. At the same time, theviewer must understand and keep in mind the nature of therelation between representation and referent.4

Characteristically visual images are often produced on paper or board but they arealso presented in various surfaces such as wall posters, TV screens, everydayobjects of decoration, on clothing on digital screens or can be also seen andprojected as digital images. As an object, an image is reproduced as a segment oftime and place, which as a physical object remains static in many ways.

Previous research reveals that there were differences in individuals’ responsesacross several ages5 to what typically called fine art. A number of researchers6 whoexamined across ages children’s responses to works of art posited that preference;perception and generally response to art could be explained by cognitive changessimilar to those described by Piaget. Although there are disagreements amongresearchers about the characteristics of different stages, a common finding ofprevious studies is that young children’s preferences rely on two main stimuli:subject matter and colour.7 It is supported that although developmental changeoccurs as children grow up experiencing production of pictures8 and exposure topictures9 remain important factors. Though research suggested that human beingshave an ‘instance of genuine developmental sequence’,10 educationalists andcognitive scientists constantly highlighted through their research the importance ofexperiences and education in fostering children’s learning visual literacy in theaesthetic domain.11

Although aesthetic development research offered significant input to education,in recent times theorists identified the need for a much more aestheticallymeaningful art experiences.12 The different ways art is created and functioned invisual culture reflects the scope of the human imagination, ‘yet how we makemeaning from these images is determined not only by what we see but also by whatwe bring to the experience.’ Whether seen in school or in the street, in a magazineor on TV, in a museum or on the Internet, ‘the visual images used to assist humaninteraction are constructed in particular ways’.13 An image in the visual artsdomain has been expanded; in many cases, a ‘blurring’ of fine arts is obvious inpopular, graphic, digital images.14 If as it is supported one of the most importantfactors influencing learning is what the learner already knows, it is understood thatlearning will inevitably be more successful if teachers can relate to and build uponpupils existing understandings of whatever concept or phenomenon is beingaddressed.15 It is argued that there is much to be gained from broadened cannon inart education, offering a vast number of images and artifacts encountered in oureveryday life and in the context of choropopos (space/place), including the visualimages that children are exposed in their immediate environment.16 It seemsimportant to investigate what kind of meanings underpinned young children’s

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responses to a range of visual art forms, and find out about their preferences andthe ways they understand their origins and multiple functions in our contemporarysociety. Questions like which visual images and under which circumstances thesecould facilitate learning of different age groups remain unanswered. Whilepsychological, philosophical and social-cultural aspects should be seriouslyconsidered when interpreting results, it is believed that such information willenable art educators and curriculum planners to construct children’s learninginvolving a range of visual forms and cultivate their critical thinking from an earlystage in their lives.

2. Research MethodsSample: The sample included 17 participants (8 boys and 9 girls) between the

ages of 6-8, drawn randomly from 9 primary schools, in urban areas of Nicosia,Cyprus.

Selection of visual images-reproductions: Four reproductions of images werechosen. The selection process occurred in three phases. In the first phase two in-service teachers selected one set of two painting reproductions which they considerto be well known but of different artistic style, that refer to a broad category ofartworks belonging to western art tradition as well as Cyprus Cultural Heritage. Inthe second phase, they collected approximately three photographic-poster materialdepicting social-political issues, which usually consist part of classroom displays,documenting historical memory. Three popular culture images were also collectedwhich mainly used by 6-8 years old children (girls and boys) in their privatecollections (e.g. stickers). In the third phase, the two in-service teachers proceededwith the selection of a photographic and a popular culture image reproduction.

Figure 1: Reproductions of Visual Images17

The four reproductions included: 1) a realistic painting by Leornardo Da Vinci,Monal Lisa 2) an abstract painting by Wassily Kandinsky, Red, Blue and Yellow 3)a black and white photograph, Unknown photographer, Cypriot Woman and aChild, 1974, with political and social meaning, 4) a popular culture image – TheSuperman. These visual image reproductions were large (31X 44 cm)photographic, horizontal or vertical prints on heavy weighted paper.

Procedure: Each child met individually with the interviewer in a private room,and it was stressed that there are no right and wrong answers. Reproductions werepresented in sequence and responses were tape recorded for subsequent analysisafter permission had been obtained from the child and its parents. An observer keptnotes during the interview procedure. In order to find the preferences of childrenand how they responded to the four reproductions of visual images, an open-endedinterview procedure was used. Questions used included 1) What does the pictureremind you of? 2) Do you like it or not, 3) How do you think it was made? 4) Whatis the purpose of making such a picture? 5) How do you think is used? and 6)Which one do you like most? A non-sequenced strategy was applied to offer


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flexibility in creating a dialogue with the child.18 Probed questions have planned tobe used to enable children to be aware of the type and meaning of questions.Children left free during and at the end of the interview procedure to ask their ownquestions.

Analysis: The young children’s views about their personal preferences, theorigins and functions of visual images and their responses to different visual formsand styles were analyzed in relation to each of the picture. Content analysis wasused and children’s responses were categorized in each case regarding theirpersonal preferences, origins and functions. In each case different qualitativecategories immerged. For purposes of validation an experienced educationalresearcher read all the interview transcripts and came to almost the samecategorization and themes as the primary author. Percentages of responses andexamples of each category were then calculated.

3. FindingsPreferences: Identification of children’s preferences concerning the four visual

image reproductions revealed that:

A high proportion of children (n=10, 60%) prefer the popularculture image (The Superman).

The younger children (aged 6, n=5) prefer the abstract painting(Red, Yellow and Blue)

Only two children prefer the realistic painting (Mona Lisa). Noneof the children express their interest in the black and whitephotograph (Cypriot Woman and a Child, 1974).

Common and familiar subject matter: Five children expressed their preferencefor the Superman by locating their self as the fictional character demonstrated onthe image (the Superman). ‘I like it because I feel the same power…I think I am thesuperman…’ (boy, aged, 7), ‘I am standing over there…ready to fly over thebuildings of Nicosia’ (Girl, aged 6). Children verbal responses revealed use ofimagination by linking the image with their personal feelings and empathize withthe fictional character (the superman) by naturally made connections with theirown feelings and experiences.19 The popular culture image ‘superman’ was foundto be quite familiar even among girls. They describe him as ‘strong’, ‘kind’,‘powerful’, ‘fair’. It is suggested that favourite subject matters may include avariety of images that children attempt to relate to their own authentic experiences.However, their verbal responses revealed that a fictional character associate withstories, movies, and cartoons, several times reproduced on objects and clothingcould be also regarded as a familiar or favourite object and closely related to theirlives.

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C: I like this picture …the superman. I have seen it so manytimesI: Where have you seen it?C: Ouuuuuu….On T.V, cinema, magazines, on stickers and I havea T- shirt with a superman on it. There is a human superman anda cartoon superman…I like both of them …(Girl, aged 8).

Bright and contrasting colours: Children (aged 6, n=5) justified theirpreferences on a visual image depicting bright and contrasting colors. Theabstractness of Kandinsky’s ‘Red, Blue and Yellow’, was of considerable interestamong the youngest children. They found it amusing, happy and bright and insome cases stated that the inclusion of elements such as a bright sun or colouredmoon, were reasons for preferring the picture. They expressed their selves throughgestures, pointing and naming shapes, forms and colours, without furtherelaboration. Apparently, as it is supported in previous studies, this is acharacteristic of children who based their preferences in terms of the concreteinformation provided in an artwork.20 On the contrary, all children considered assad, unhappy or ugly, pictures with dark colours (e.g. Mona Lisa, Cypriot Womanand a Child) and justified their preference by arguing that these images make themfeel bad because they have dark colours or no colours at all. This finding should beinterpreted cautiously as bright colours linked with favorite subjects seemed tohave a noteworthy impact on children’s likes or dislikes.

It should be noted that children’s expressions, gestures and verbal reactionsduring the interview procedure appeared to signify an emotional responsiveness todark coloured or non-coloured pictures. For example, when exposed to the CypriotWoman and a Child, they mostly describe their emotions by avoiding looking atthe picture: ‘there is much pain…’, ‘I am so sad…the child is suffering’. Theirresponses seemed to imply the strong influence of the subject matter presented. Asit is asserted young children are able when asked to classify visual imagesaccording to emotional states such as happy, angry, and tranquil.21

Origins: Children’s opinions regarding the origins of the visual images wereclassified in to two categories: the human source, materials. Almost all children(n=15, 86.7 %) identified the human source of the visual images indicating thatthese were made by artists. Only in two cases, children have suggested thatpainting reproductions were made by the researchers, while they clarified that the‘superman’ was made by a cartoonist and ‘Cypriot Woman and a Child’ was aphoto taken by a photographer. They also indicated an awareness of the differentmediums used for original visual forms. For example, when referred to thereproduction of Leornardo Da Vinci, Mona Lisa responses indicated an awarenessof the artistic process, how a picture is made and reproduced:


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C: A painter saw that lady somewhere and decided to paint it. Hemade it on canvas with paints and brushes …perhaps he thoughtshe was beautiful. Painters make portraits to sell them and getmoney.I: Is that the real picture? (the interviewer points thereproduction)C: No this is a print…they took a photo of the real one and put iton the computer so that everyone can see it.I : Where we can find the real one?C: This is an old portrait …We could find it in a museum but Idon’t know in which museum (boy, aged 8)

They also answered with much confidence about the process of production ofthe other visual images: ‘Somebody took a photo of them during the war…so sad’(Girl, aged 8, Cypriot Woman and a child,1974), ‘Well some people use theircrayons to make cartoons but some artists made these on their computers’ (boy,aged 6, superman).

Their questions during the interview procedure were focus on how pictureswere made or manipulated. ‘I know that somebody draw the superman on thecomputer…but I don’t really know how they are making this’. ‘…It is better if wecan change it to something else, like they did with Mr Bean…. Can you show me?’

Functions: Children’s responses to the third dimension of the researchconcerned with the functions of visual images revealed that:

Media influence: In all children it was apparent a strong influence of media.Seventeen children (100%) referred to TV series or movies as a source ofrecognizing the reproduction of Superman and seven children referred to TV seriesand chocolate covers as a source of identifying Mona Lisa painting. Familiaritywith certain pictures was found to be affected by how media use, reproduce,manipulate and distribute visual images through advertisements, movies, T.V.series and objects. It was apparent through children conversations that they couldidentify fine art images, but as images embedded in popular culture and blurred inother contexts (in films, news media, cartoon, music and television programmes) ormanipulated and thus produced multiple and different meanings. Examples ofchildren responses to Mona Lisa reproduction are presented below:

I: What does this picture remind you of?C: It’s a woman. I have seen it again in ‘para pente’ …it waspainted by Theopoulla (laughs…..) …and on those chocolates…(Girl aged 7)I: What does this picture remind you of ?C: Well it is on tv… you know ‘Zoi podilato’…have you everwatch it? ..I like the music and the paintings at the beginning.

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This woman is but I like her on TV because you know it’s funny…there is a bike traveling on that picture…on her head.. (Boy,aged 8)

Popular culture image influence is evident in children’s conversations,drawings and life style. It is found on clothing, tableware, household items andtoys and although appealing, function in different ways. At the same time, fine artimages have been reproduced and manipulated in many ways and become popularcultural artifacts. The findings acknowledge the breaking of boundaries betweenfine art and popular art and corroborate the views of those who believe that arteducation should give opportunities for meaningful learning and critical thinking inthe world in which children live.22 Kerry Freedman states that:

when representations of fine art are attached to popular cultureobjects and images that are interesting of children, children asgroup learn associations. The associations are often madewithout the previous knowledge that adults have, so theinformation is attached to other knowledge.23

Purposes and meanings: Eleven children made a distinction between thosepictures made for expressive/ aesthetic or decorative/aesthetic reasons and thoseused for advertising or social-political reasons. Children (aged 7-8) identifiedseveral different functions.

Painting Reproductions: When they were exposed to ‘Mona Lisa’ and ‘Red,Yellow and Blue’ they reported that these ‘can be hanged on the wall of houses’,‘can be found in museums’. In some cases they described aesthetic dimensions ofthe paintings, or referred to ‘famous paintings’: ‘well this one is very famous …Iknow it because my mum went to a museum abroad and brought me a poster ...butI didn’t really like it so I didn’t hang it on my wall’.

The image reproduction of ‘superman’: Most of the children (n=12) referredto the visual image of ‘superman,’ their verbal responses appear to show theirtendency to understand the purpose of reproducing certain images associated withmedia for the rational of advertising, promotion and selling. ‘Well it is anadvertisement …I know that companies buy those pictures and make them movies,posters and various other things so we can buy things.’ (boy, aged 8), ‘They haveto show as that somebody is strong and can save the world…so that everybodywould like to watch his stories’ (boy, aged 6).

The photographic reproduction of Cypriot Woman and a Child: This image wasnot found to be recognizable or familiar for most of the children. Although elevenchildren stated that this is a photograph showing the pain of a woman and a childduring a war or other tragic events, contextual information was only evident inthree children: ‘this is a photograph taken during 1974 during the war in


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Cyprus…these are refugees and they probably crying because many of they havelost their own people…we still have refugees and thus we used to talk about this insome lessons in our class’ (Girl, aged 8). Most of the children (n=14) faceddifficulties in identifying when and under which circumstances the photo wastaken. In many cases they referred to what is exposed to the media at the time ofconducting the research ‘this is about IRAQ war…Americans bombarded them andnow they don’t have any place to go’ (Boy, aged, 8). Apparently children werefound to be able to relate to the emotions depicted in the visual image, but many ofthem couldn’t realize its multiple meanings or functions across time and place.This finding could be interpreted in multiple ways. It could be asserted that currentmedia influence (transmitting information through visual images around the world)is very dynamic and dominant. Children could be affected by those current,fragmented and provoking visual images which in many cases refer to tragicevents, political and war conflicts around the world. At the same time, it could beclaimed that children rarely discuss, reflect and construct meanings about thevisual images of their immediate environment (natural and man-made/technological). It is suggested that children should have the opportunity tocritically reflect on visual images (which constitute part of their everyday life) bycomparing the past and present, the familiar with the unfamiliar and talked abouttheir origins and functions.24

4. Implications and ConclusionsAlthough the sample is too small to make comparisons and generalizations, the

present study raises several issues associated with the role of visual images inyoung children’s lives and education. The findings corroborate the view of thosewho believe that popular culture is of equal importance as other visual forms andthat engagement in new technologies have enable children to build a wide range ofknowledge,25 and thus from an early stage in their lives are able to identify andclassify into categories a range of visual images made by different mediums andreproduced on several surfaces.

It was apparent that they recall easily the stories embedded in popular cultureimages even this was not among all children’s preferences and in some casesrevealed information concerned with the context of their production. The studystrengthens the findings of previous research regarding the younger childrenpreferences to abstract art and their positive reactions to images depicting brightcolors and familiar/favorite subject matters.26 Though the content of youngchildren’s talk was influenced by the visual images and the questions asked, eachchild had an individual style when responding to the pictures. The study supportsthe ability of young children: a) to use their imagination and senses in linking theimage with their experiences and b) to empathize with the picture27.

The use of reproductions and not original visual images could be considered asa limitation in the present study, 6-8 years old children referred particularly to the

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ways these were made, clarifying in many cases that the present visual imageswere in fact the print of the original ones. Though children found to be familiarwith certain ways of producing art such as photographic material and technologythey constantly asked questions related to the ways technology is used to create art.This finding may indicate a lack of experience in using certain media during theirown art production.

Though children faced difficulties in realizing the different functions of visualimages across time and place, their responses indicated a tendency to perceive thata certain visual image (Mona Lisa) was not originally made for the sake of films oradvertisements. In some cases the children insisted that the photograph CypriotWoman and a Child, 1974 is linked to IRAQ war, which found to be familiarthrough recent TV news. It could be assumed that whilst children are exposed toprovoking or social-political in nature images they do not have opportunities toreflect, compare and discuss them. However, it is argued that children at this age(6-8) have the potential to critically reflect on various visual forms and identifytheir various functions if appropriate methods are used, through which they will beallowed to incorporate their everyday cultural experiences.

In most cases, children provide evidence that they come across fine art byviewing media representations of fine art.28 For example, they had identified MonaLisa painting through viewing famous Greek or Cypriot TV series, a TVadvertisement and a chocolate cover. While they made a distinction between thefunctions of each visual image, referring to beauty and decoration or to socialfunctions, they couldn’t identify their multiple meanings: how, when and whyvisual images such as Mona Lisa, Cypriot Woman and a Child are used, recycledor reproduced. It is asserted that since visual images are recycled in films oradvertisements and are part of popular/ graphic art or media should be used as asource of learning in, through and about art, encouraging meaningful experiencesand critical reflective thinking.

From pre-school to graduate levels all learners need 21st century skills that relyon multiple forms of literacy, including visual literacy. Children through creatingand observing can gain skills to understand visual concepts and meanings,necessary for an increasingly visual world which needs to be seen critically andwith fresh eyes. Perhaps more powerful than the viewing of a visual image is ourcapacity to understand their potential for transformation in our lives and thereforewe should ask our selves as educators what we can do and how, in response toimages. Many children do not experience critical dialogue in their homes -educators must engage them in meaningful discourses and production that open uppossibilities of alternative views. Thus the findings of the present research: a)highlight the potential of young children to observe and reflect on various types ofvisual culture production, b) raises questions for further research in exploringchildren responses of various types of images, the ways children choose and make


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meaning of visual images and the factors influencing their responses such as age,gender, social-cultural background and education.

Notes

1 A. Savva, 2003, p. 313.2 For the purposes of this study when referred to ‘pictures or visual images’ theseshould be interpreted as iconic mental representations, produced in several ways.3 J. De Loache, S. Pieroutsakos & D. Utall, 2003, p. 116.4 Ibid., pp. 116-117.5 H. Gardner, E. Winner & M. Kircher, 1975, p. 15.6 Ibid., p. 11; See A. Housen, 1987, p. 41; M. Parsons, M. Johnston & R. Durham,1978, p. 81.7 See J. De Loache, S. Pieroutsakos & D. Utall, op. cit. p. 118; H. Gardner, E.Winner & M. Kircher, op. cit., p. 46.8 A. Savva, op. cit., p. 301.9 Ibid., p. 312.10 F. Haanstra, 1994, p. 29.11 Ibid., p. 118.12 P. Sanderson, 2008, p. 468.13 G. Sullivan, 2004, p. 24.14 K. Freedman, 1997, p. 144.15 A. Brown, 1990, p. 108.16 E. Trimis & A. Savva, 2009, p. 538.17 Figure 1: Reproductions of Visual Images, please navigate to images via links,Superman: http://www.supermanhomepage.com/images/games/gameboyadv5b-tb.Html, Woman and a Child, 1974: http://www2.cytanet.com.cy/gogreek/second.Html, Wassily Kandinsky, Red, Blue and Yellow: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kandinsky/kandinsky.yellow-red-blue.jpg, Leonardo Da Vinci http://www.artist-biography.info/gallery/leonardo_da_vinci/43.18 P. Duncum, 1999, p. 35.19 A. Savva, op. cit., p. 306.20 S. Kerlavage, 1995, pp. 56-62.21 S. Wright, 2002.22 J. Ashton, 2005, p. 39.23 K. Freedman, 1997, p. 144.24 J. Ashton, op. cit., p. 36.25 Ibid.26 A. Savva, op. cit., p. 310.27 Ibid.28 K. Freedman, loc. cit.

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Bibliography

Ashton, J., ‘Barbie, the Wiggles and Harry Potter: Can Popular Culture ReallySupport Young Children’s Literacy Development?’. European Early ChildhoodResearch Journal. Vol. 13, 2005.

Berelson, B., Content Analysis in Communication Research. Hafner, New York,1971.

Brown, A., ‘Domain-Specific Principles Affect Learning and Transfer inChildren’. Cognitive Science. Vol 14, 1990.

De Loache, J.S., Pieroutsakos, S.L. & Utall, D.H., ‘The Origins of PictorialCompetence’. Current Directions in Psychological Science. Vol.12, 2003.

Duncum, P., ‘What Elementary Generalist Teachers Need to Know to Art Well?’.Art Education. Vol. 52, 1999.

Freedman, K., ‘Curriculum Inside and Outside School: Representations of Fine Artin Popular Culture’. International Journal of Art and Design. Vol. 16, 1997.

Gardner, H., Winner, E. & Kircher, M., ‘Children’s Conceptions of Art’. Journalof Aesthetic Education. Vol. 9, 1975.

Haanstra, F., Effects of Art Education in Visual Spatial Ability and AestheticPerception: Two Meta-Analyse, Thesis Publication, Amsterdam, 1994.

Housen, A., ‘Three Methods for Understanding Museum Audiences’. MuseumStudies Journal. Vol. 2, 1987.

Kerlavage, S., ‘A Bunch of Naked Ladies and a Tiger: Children’s Responses toAdult Works of Art’. The Visual Arts and Early Childhood Learning. Thompson,C.M. (ed), National Art Education Association, Reston, 1995, pp. 56-62.

Parsons, M., Johnston, M. & Durham, R., ‘Developmental Stages in Children’sAesthetic Responses’. Journal of Aesthetic Education. Vol. 12, 1978.

Sanderson, P., ‘The Arts, Social Inclusion and Social Class: The Case of Dance’.British Journal of Educational Research. Vol. 34, 2008.


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Savva, A. ‘Young Pupils’ Responses to Adult Works of Art’. Contemporary Issuesin Early Childhood. Vol. 4, 2003.

Sullivan, G., Ideas and Teaching: Making Meaning from Contemporary Art’.Contemporary Issues in Art Education. Gaudelious, Y. & Speirs, P. (eds), PrenticeHall, New Jersey, 2004.

Trimis E. & Savva, A., ‘Artistic Learning in Relation to Young Children’sChorotopos: An in Depth Approach to Early Childhood Visual Culture Education’.Early Childhood Education. Vol. 36, 2009.

Wright, S., ‘Multi-Modality in a New Key: The Significance of the Art in Researchand Education’. Australian Association of Research in Education. 2002, Retrieved1 Jun 2009, http://www.aare.au/index.htm.

Andri Savva lectures on courses related to art and aesthetic education in theDepartment of Educational Sciences, University of Cyprus. Her research interestsare concerned with art in early childhood education, artists in education and theprofessional development of art teachers.

Regarding Preservation of Nuance: Visual Literacy in thePerception of the Human Body

Jeanine Breaker

AbstractVisual literacy in human movement-analysis is critical in fields such as dance,theatre, industrial and medical design, fashion, and animation. Exciting advances invisual communication for understanding and simulating movement (motion-capture, eye-tracking, body-scanning, digital image-capture) are rapidly replacingthe traditional methods of art practice and pedagogy, such as life drawing.However, is reliance on this new technology affecting our visual literacy? Can anunderstanding of past methodology help us to monitor the quality of the tools wehave come to rely on today? For example, training in computer animationtechnology has the tendency to develop expertise in the technology and not theunderlying movement perception. This tendency has its affect on even the mostcurrent and sophisticated movement-analysis such as motion-capture. Althoughmotion-capture itself is a precise tool with the potential to become a valuablecross-disciplinary movement-analysis resource, much of the accompanyinganimation software is substandard. For example, the standard virtual softwareprovided within most motion-capture systems is extremely disproportionate andincomplete. This anomalous juxtaposition of such an inaccurate skeleton providedwithin the most current and sophisticated motion-capture systems, is presented, andoften accepted as accurate even within advanced scientific research andapplication. Acceptance of such substandard models can contribute to a visualculture of deficient movement and synthetic form, and presents potentially seriouserror when applied in movement training and medical and industrial design. Aspractitioners and programmers increasingly rely on computer models withdecreasing figural and movement-analysis training to scrutinize them, we facepotential loss of the highly specialized visual literacy required for identifyingproblems and creating solutions for the body and its movements. This chapterintroduces five years of AHRC movement-analysis research that merges new toolswith traditional skills to enhance visual literacy.

Key Words: Anatomy, depiction, human movement analysis, technology,traditional highly skilled practitioner.

*****

1. ContextThis chapter introduces five years of movement analysis research1 motivated by

thirty years of visual art practice and pedagogy. The core of the research andoutput was visual - emergent from the fusion of new technology and traditional

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tools - with the aim to create new resources that enhance visual literacy formovement analysis and simulation of the human body.

Visual literacy in human movement analysis is critical in fields such as dance,theatre, fashion, industrial and medical design, and animation. Promising advancesin visual communication for understanding and simulating movement - motion-capture, eye-tracking, body-scanning, centre-of-pressure measurement and high-definition digital image capture - are rapidly replacing those used in traditionalmethods of art practice and pedagogy such as life drawing. However, is an eagerand perhaps premature reliance on this new technology affecting our visualliteracy? Can an understanding of past methodology help us to monitor the qualityof the tools we are so eager to embrace?

The acquisition of skills such as life drawing has recently encounteredpedagogic devaluation, as evidenced by the disappearance of life drawing coursesfrom many college curricula. Yet depiction of the human body continues topermeate the visual arts in one form or another. Some artists/educators worry thatthe refined knowledge of the body’s structure acquired from rigorous life drawingstudy will compromise individualism with a propensity for realism. Theacquisition of such knowledge and skill, on paper or screen, can intentionally orunintentionally take precedence in an artist’s visual repertoire during an intensiveperiod of practice; however output is ultimately a matter of choice. Concern thattoo much knowledge eliminates choice seems the most likely way to compromisechoice. How can educators - or their students - value choices afforded throughperceptual skills that they have not (yet) experienced?

A discussion of the affects of technology on visual literacy in movementanalysis might begin with the cumulative affects of the personal computer onstudent perception. An article in The Independent in July 2008 entitled The BrainDrain states:

Research recently published by scholars from the UniversityCollege London2 suggests that we may well be in the midst of asea change in the way we think… [We] now expect to take ininformation the way the net distributes it: in a swiftly movingstream of particles… chipping away the capacity for concentrationand contemplation… As the media theorist Marshall McLuhanpointed out in the 1960’s, media are not just passive channels ofinformation. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shapethe process of thought.3

Such research suggests that prolonged and constant use of personal computershas caused our thinking to take on a ‘staccato quality’.4 This lack of perceptualfluidity is particularly disruptive to accessing the liminal state often associated withthe ability to understand and depict the figure with ease and assurance.5 In my

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experience, as students increasingly struggle to access and sustain focus tounderstand and simulate movement, they also tend to lose the ability to scrutiniseit. If ‘the process of thought’ is being shaped into perception with less fluidity, itstands to reason that the critical ability to perceive, simulate and scrutinise fluidityof movement is likely to decrease with each generation of learning and teaching.

The advent of new movement analysis tools used to simulate and evaluate thebody in motion can also seduce us into believing that the perceptual and technicalskills such as those used in traditional life drawing are outdated and unnecessary.Educators and practitioners who no longer have access to the perceptual skills toscrutinise images created with elaborate movement analysis tools are led to believethat the software provided within them are high quality resources for movementanalysis and simulation. However, the benefits of such technology are only in theearly developmental stages.

Training in computer animation technology has the tendency to prioritisedevelopment of expertise in the technology and not the underlying movementperception. This has its affect on even the most current and sophisticatedmovement analysis such as motion-capture. Although motion-capture itself is aprecise tool with the potential to become a valuable cross-disciplinary movementanalysis resource, much of the accompanying animation software is substandardand systemically difficult to rectify.

For example, the standard virtual skeleton provided within most motion-capturesystems (below) is extremely disproportionate and poorly jointed.6 Axial rotation isderived from the central volume of the torso instead of rotating naturally about thespine in the back.

Figure 1: Standard Virtual Skeleton

This causes the ribcage to drastically shrink when the figure bends forward and toswell well beyond the body contour when the figure bends backward.Misalignment of the thorax and pelvis throws the bones well outside the bodycontour. This anomalous juxtaposition of such an inaccurate skeleton provided


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within the most current and sophisticated motion-capture systems, is presented, andoften accepted as accurate even within advanced scientific research andapplication.7

Acceptance of such substandard models can contribute to a visual culture ofdeficient movement and synthetic form, and presents potentially serious error whenapplied in movement training, and medical and industrial design. As practitionersand programmers increasingly rely on computer models with decreasing figuraland movement-analysis training to scrutinise and rectify them, we face potentialloss of the highly specialised visual literacy required for identifying problems andcreating solutions for the body and its movements.

2. Movement Analysis ResearchThis chapter presents movement analysis research8 using both cutting-edge

technology and traditional technical and perceptual drawing skills to provide theindividual with an enhanced resource for understanding and depicting humanstructure and movement - one which might at least expedite the acquisition ofperceptual skills such as those used in life drawing.

The research objective was to reveal the anatomical structure of movement bycreating a series of visually ‘transparent’ key-frame drawings of Muybridge-stylemovement sequences (below is a ‘chalk-walk’ sequence).

Figure 2: Chalk Walk Sequence

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These drawings illustrate the nuances of skeletal movement and placementbelow the skin at key anatomical landmarks. The key-frames were chosen toarticulate extreme moments of balance negotiation to reveal anatomical specificityduring - and between - these critical temporal moments.

3. Research MethodologyA nude model was simultaneously filmed with video and motion-capture.

Motion-capture analyses each movement in three dimensions by interpretation of aseries of reflective markers. The research was conducted at Vicon andAudioMotion, the largest motion-capture production companies in the UK andEurope, neither of whom were aware of research that used video and motion-capture to film a nude model, as most motion-capture systems require the subjectto wear a bodysuit. To prepare for the motion-capture, thirty-three markers wereattached by a biomechanist onto specific landmarks of the model’s body using theVicon IQ motion-capture system9 - in our case each marker was taped directly ontothe model’s skin with wig-tape. The data is then transferred to a ‘Polygon’software program to enable analysis of the movement from the marker placementand anthropometric data.

As described above, a very crude virtual skeleton is generated from thestandard Polygon software program. This incomplete and inaccurate skeletoncauses great difficulty in adapting it to images of the corresponding film of thesubject. After much experimentation to adapt a range of existing virtual skeletonmodels (e.g., experimentation with Visible Human software at Anglia RuskinUniversity10), collaborative research with Andreas Rohr at the FilmakademieBaden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg, Germany resulted in a greatly improvedvirtual skeleton to be used with the motion-capture data.11

Rohr developed a computer animation plug-in that generates exact digital bonereplication from full body MRI scans of any live model. A full body MRI scan wascreated of the model filmed for the research project, depicted in one thousandmicro-thin computer generated images. An exact digital virtual replica skeletonwas derived from the filmed model’s MRI scan data, which was depicted in a one-hundred-frame turntable (one side frame is pictured below.) A bespoke rig wasthen meticulously fitted to this virtual replica skeleton through which to drive itsmovements (using MotionBuilder software program), and then integrated with themotion-capture data of the filmed motion sequences.

Figure 3: Side Frame


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In spite of the improved anatomy of the replica skeleton, the subtlety ofmovement would have been greatly compromised had the image integration reliedsolely upon current motion-capture technology, and the limitations of existingsoftware to accommodate the rig that drives the skeleton. As a result,synchronization of the model’s replica skeleton with her simultaneously capturedvideo footage required manual manipulation by the designer of the software plug-in. To accommodate for the potentially subtle, naturalistic movement of our replicaskeleton’s rig, new motion-capture software would need to be designed. Thisrepresents only one example of the shortcomings of current movement-analysistechnology.

Our replica skeleton was a valuable resource for the research investigation andoutput. Composites of the replica skeleton and the simultaneously captured videofootage were produced into animated movies of the filmed model’s ownmovements. These composites provided anatomical accuracy derived directly fromthe subject, enabling much more precise movement simulation than that of thePolygon skeleton.

Figure 4: Series of Still from the Video/Skeleton Overlay Movies

A series of stills from the video/skeleton overlay movies (above) were importedfrom each selected movement to be used as sources to produce key-frame drawingsthat describe the anatomy of the model’s movement (illustrated earlier). The hand-drawn key-frame drawings were then animated to describe nuances of basicmovements such as bending, reaching, twisting, sitting and walking.

Walk sequences were selected as examples of extremity of torso action andaxial balance during locomotion. Torso movement during a fast-paced natural gaitis generally too subtle for easy detection and the anatomical structure of weightshift in the torso would be difficult for the viewer to decipher, whereas an

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exaggerated walk sequence visually clarifies the manner in which the skeletondrives the body as the weight redistributes to maintain balance during locomotion.

The benefit of the ‘transparent’ drawings over the video/skeleton overlaymovies is that they describe precise movement of the skeleton at key anatomicallandmarks as though seen through the skin without one layer obscuring another.(Each motion-capture marker is indicated with an ‘x’.)

4. Perception and Pedagogic ApplicationNeurological research (Gregory,12 Ftytch,13 Hodgson14), and eye-tracking

research (Tchalenko,15 Hodgson and Hawes16) sheds light on the complexity ofvisual perception and how these complexities affect our visual literacy. Dr. TimHodgson, Cognitive Neuroscientist at the University of Exeter School ofPsychology states:

Our vision is akin to watching a fuzzy old black and whitetelevision set where the picture keeps cutting in and out ratherthan a side screen high definition monitor. But why don’t wenotice this and the other defects in our vision [e.g., blind spots,constant rapid eye movement, optical defects and impurities]?The answer is that it is not our eyes which see the world but ourbrains.17

Perceived movement is ‘not a retinal process... - but a cortical process.’18 Wetake in only twenty percent of what our eyes see and our brains construct the rest,often depicting a preconceived expectation of a gesture to make sense of what ispresented to us visually.19 The success of the result depends upon our knowledgeas well as our expectation. Gregory’s ‘hypothesis testing’ model20 characterizesvisual perception as a dynamic search for the best interpretation of the availableinformation. The influence of preconceived notions of an object or scene isreferred to in psychological research as ‘subject matter bias’,21 and has been thefocus of recurring discourse among artists, teachers, and theorists such as Leonardoda Vinci, Leon Battista Alberti, John Ruskin22 and Ernst Gombrich.23

Evolved from the necessity to quickly identify friend or foe, fight or flight, wetend to prioritise shape recognition for an immediate read of the body instead ofevaluating its complex structures.24 However, the essence of figural movement isoften not at all evident from the body’s silhouette.

An accurately proportioned depiction of a figure without adequate structuraldescription can cause the figure to appear flat and wide, as in the first of the fourstudent drawings illustrated below. The same drawing, repeated in the secondillustration with the addition of very few anatomically descriptive lines, depictsthree-dimensional subtlety and convincing proportion.


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Figure 5: Student Drawings

The third drawing above illustrates another common response to lack offamiliarity with placement, size and shape of the pelvic bone, by depicting thelower torso as a teardrop shape. Without an understanding of structural clarity inthe lower torso, the inclination is to shorten it, causing the buttock to appear toosmall, and the upper torso too large by comparison.

Exaggeration can be a useful tool when an understanding of the anatomy isused to full advantage. The fourth drawing above is much more exaggerated thanthe third; however, its extreme elongation is depicted with convincing structuralintegrity. As in Alberto Giacometti’s figural sculpture, the emotional charge of thisfigure owes much to the artist’s visual literacy.

5. In ClosingDepiction and simulation of the human body in the future will undoubtedly be

tied with new technology, however new technology never remains new. Keepingabreast of advances in technology can prevent us from allowing our minds towander outside of a software programme, to feel the curiosity and invention thatcomes from the ‘still time’ to think deeply.

The advances in personal computers literally at our fingertips often seduce us tonarrow our expertise as it deepens, and advances in other fields that could bevaluable resources are often applied in disciplinary isolation even when in closeideological or physical proximity. Art students and faculty often have littleopportunity to engage with other departments within their own disciplines toinvestigate and possibly enhance resources in, for example the performing arts.Once outside the university setting, access to facilities is a constant financialstruggle for the practicing artist.

As art borrows technology from science, the subtlety, if not the integrity of thecraft that it is replacing, can easily be lost. Yet the practice of practice - unfetteredcritical assessment and skill – need not become a struggle with the limitations of acomputer program. If our tools are not allowed to overbear, if we negotiate with

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our medium and not be dominated by it, free of an addiction to the keyboard, thesetools, whether old or new, simple or sophisticated, can serve the process of art-making, not the reverse. If we can de-mystify our new tools and not feel threatenedby sophisticated use of the old ones, artistic maturity can form as a cumulativeprocess. To elaborate on a John Ruskin quote, if we can balance ‘the head, theheart, and the hand’25 to make work with care and intelligence in a way that neednot disavow the past, we can carry its wisdom forward with visual literacy.

Notes

1 J. Breaker, Leverhulme Trust Visiting Research Fellowship, 2002, and Arts andHumanities Research Council grant in the Creative and Performing Arts, 2003 atthe Royal College of Art, AHRC Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts atCentral Saint Martins College of Art and Design, 2004-7.2 University College London, ‘Information Behaviour of the Researcher of theFuture’, Cyber Briefing Paper, Retrieved 11 Jan 2008, http://www.bl.uk/news/pdf/googlegen.pdf.3 N. Carr, ‘The Brain Drain’, The Independent, 18 July 2008, Extra, p. 2.4 Ibid., quote from B. Friedman, University of Michigan Medical School.5 J. Tchalenko, ‘Eye–Hand Strategies in Copying Complex Lines’, Cortex: AJournal Devoted to the Study of the Nervous System and Behavior, 2007.6 In conversation with A. Head, Subject Leader, Sport Sciences, RoehamptonUniversity and AHRC CPA Fellowship technical advisor, 2007.7 Ibid.8 J. Breaker, AHRC CPA Fellowship at the Royal College of Arts, 2004-2007.9 Vicon I.Q. Motion-Capture System, 2005, http://www.vicon.com.10 A. Sudbrack, medical scan data extrapolation and reconstruction, and rig designof Visible Human skeletons using Materialize software, Anglia Ruskin UniversityBiomechanical Laboratory, Dr. Rog Mootanah, advisor, 2005.11 A. Rohr, ‘Visualization of Medical Scan Data’, A Post-Graduate ResearchProject at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Ludwigsburg, Germany, 2006.12 R. Gregory, Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing, Weidenfield andNicolson, 1979.13 D. Ffytch, ‘The Anatomy of Conscious Vision: An FMRI Study of VisualHallucinations’, Nature Neuroscience, Vol. 1, Issue 8, 1998, pp. 738-742.14 T. Hodgson, ‘The Role of the Ventrolateral Frontal Cortex in InhibitoryOculomotor Control’, Brain, 2006, pp. 1525-1537.15 J. Tchalenko, ‘Eye Movements in Drawing Simple Lines’, Perception, 2007, pp.1152-1167.16 T. Hodgson & R. Hawes, Private View The Nature of Visual Process, AnInternal Imprint, University College, Falmouth, 2007, p. 22.17 Ibid.


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18 E. Boring, A History of Experimental Psychology, Appleton-Century-Crofts,1950.19 M. Land, ‘Eye Movements and the Control of Actions in Everyday Life’,Progress in Retinal and Eye Research, 2006, pp. 296-324.20 R. Gregory, ‘Knowledge in Perception and Illusion’, Phil. Trans. R. Soc.London, B 352, 1997, pp. 1121-1128.21 P. Van Sommers, Drawing and Cognition Descriptive and Experimental Studiesof Graphic Production Processes, 1984, p. 132.22 J. Ruskin, The Elements of Drawing, Wiley and Halsted, New York, 1856.23 E. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, 5th ed, Phaidon Press Ltd., 1977.24 M. Land, op. cit., pp. 296-324.25 J. Ruskin, A Joy For Ever, 1857, note 6.

Bibliography

Anstis, S., ‘The Perception of Apparent Movement’. Philosophical Transactions ofthe Royal Society of London. 1980.

Calabrese, L. & Marucci, F., ‘The Influence of Expertise Level on the Visuospatial

Ability’. Cognitive Processing. Vol. 7, (Sup. 1), 2006, pp. 118-120.

Dreyfus, H., ‘Merleau-Ponty and Recent Cognitive Science’. The CambridgeCompanion to Merleau-Ponty. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, pp.129-150.

Gibson, J., The Perception of the Visual World. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1950.

Gregory, R., The Artful Eye. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995.

—, Eye and Brain. 5th ed., Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1997.

Landy, M., Exploratory Vision: The Active Eye. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1996.

McMahon, J., ‘An Explanation for Normal and Anomalous Drawing Ability andSome Implications for Research on Perception and Imagery’. Visual Arts Research.Vol. 28, 2002, pp. 38-52.

Merleau-Ponty, M., Phenomenology of Perception. trans. Smith, C., Routledge,London, 2002.

O’Regan, J. & Noë, A., ‘A Sensorimotor Account of Vision and VisualConsciousness’. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Vol. 24, 2001, pp. 939-973.

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Shiffrar, M. & Freyd, J., ‘Apparent Motion of the Human Body’. PsychologicalScience. Vol, 1, Issue 4, 1990, pp. 257-264.

Yarbus, A., Eye Movements and Vision. trans. Haigh, B., Plenum Press, New York,1967.

Jeanine Breaker, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom.

Reading the Visual: Language, Body & Space

Mark Andrew Thorsby

AbstractTo speak of visual literacies is to invoke an analogy between the signs of alanguage and the domain of the visual. And while a close parallel between thesetwo fields of perceptive activity is certainly comprehensible, there are peculiarlogical differences between linguistic and visual literacies that must beconceptually delineated before the task of ‘reading’ the visual. This chapterexamines and articulates the limits of the analog between these two modes ofperception and interpretation by drawing from the work of both LudwigWittgenstein and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. By activating an investigation into thephenomenological differences between seeing and speaking, it becomes apparent,that the body itself plays a crucial role in the former that is not readily transmittedin a comparison with the later. Namely, the interpretation of the visual is notsimply a matter of ‘reading’ signs, but also fundamentally evokes, involves, andreferences the activity of the body. As such, sound interpretation requires morethan just the recognition, negotiation, or juxtaposition of cultural symbols; an acuteawareness of the bodily relation between the perceiver and ‘text’ is critical. Oncethis conceptual differentiation is made, I then turn to and conclude with adiscussion on spatiality and its relation to visuacy in architecture. Everyarchitectural space contextualizes the body; thus adding, reorganizing, or possiblytransforming the texture, perception, and meaning of any visual media. Themuseum, as an architectural motif, perfectly embodies the bodily relation to thevisual, although we might as easily speak of the hospital, the cinema, the highway,or the garden. In essence, to be visually literate is to be spatially aware.

Key Words: Architecture, interpretation, language, Ludwig Wittgenstein, MauriceMerleau-Ponty, phenomenology, space, the body, visuacy.

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1. IntroductionAt its core, philosophy can be understood as a worry and puzzlement over the

basic problems, possibilities, and manifestations of meaning. The question I wouldlike to entertain today, however related, is to ask how exactly things that areperceived visually are meaningful. It is actually quite peculiar, for meaning andvisual perception seem to occur simultaneously. When one looks out over alandscape and sees a house in the distance, they do not interpret what they see in aprocedure of input-output and, as it were, calculate that due to a certain pattern ofsense datum that an object called a house stands before them. No, not at all – onesimply sees the house; and this is to already understand a particular visual field. In

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a reverse sense, we could consider the fact that art professors constantly mustcounsel their novice students to paint what they see and not what they think theysee. What this reveals is that meaning and visual acuity are delivered together. Soif we are to ask what it means to be visually literate, then we will need to offer anexplanation that can make phenomenological sense of the fact that meaning andvisuacy are integrally interwoven.

To speak of visual literacy is to evoke an analogy between the signs of alanguage and the domain of the visual. In A Primer of Visual Literacy, DonisDondis writes that ‘language is a means of expression and communication and,therefore, is a parallel system to visual communication.’1 But there are limitationsto the parallel between visuacy and the hermeneutics of a language. Certainly wemight speak of the visual field as a text to be read, but this sort of analog, takenalone, does not fully encapsulate the phenomenology of visual understanding andcould lead to a false view about how meaning manifests itself in perception. Whatis at issue here in the limit of the analog is the role of the body. As Gary Madisonhas argued, ‘We must recognize the existence of a body-subject: we must view thebody as our living bond with the world and as the umbilical cord which attaches usto it.’2 If we are to gain a fully satisfactory picture as to how meaning and visualperceptions are integrally interwoven we will need to supplement our account witha meditation on the role and centrality of the body within visual perception. I arguethat because the body is the locus of spatial horizons for any thinking andperceiving human being upon which visual perception is a priori dependant, wecan say that to be visually literate is to be spatially and bodily aware.

French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty stands as the mostoutstanding philosopher who has gone further than any other in situating thecentrality of the body within visual perception. By pulling from his philosophicalvernacular and phenomenological inquiry in his Phenomenology of Perception wediscover the enormous importance that the body has for the very possibility ofvisual meaningfulness. At one section of that text he writes,

thus the connecting link between the parts of our body and thatbetween our visual and tactile experience are not forgedgradually and cumulatively. I do not translate the ‘data of touch’into the language of seeing’ or vice versa – I do not bringtogether one by one the parts of my body; this translation and thisunification are performed once and for all within me: they are mybody, itself.3

What we read here is a pronouncement of the unravelling of just that mysterywe set out to solve at the beginning - and it is concerned with thephenomenological primacy of the body for visual understanding. As such, byextrapolating the basic moves of his argument we can augment our understanding

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of visual literacy into a fuller picture that will allow for a greater illumination as tothe operation of visual meaning.

Accordingly then, in the following chapter I will begin with a discussion of theanalogy between the signs of a language and the idea of a visual text.Subsequently, I move to an examination of Merleau-Ponty’s argument for theprimacy of the body for understanding spatiality and its role in ‘reading’ the visual.I conclude with a brief discussion on the role of visuacy and architecture thatexemplifies how the body ought to figure into the thematic conception of visualliteracy.

2. The Signs of SeeingThere is a reductive temptation to think of the signs of language as something

like names that either ostensibly or in some other manner signify or represent itemsand situations in the world. Here one might be inclined to think of reading assomething like the ability to coordinate signs semiotically with their referentialpairs. Frege’s distinction between sense and reference, for instance, follows thisvein of thought. Both Merleau-Ponty and Ludwig Wittgenstein have famouslycombated this alluring view of language. Understanding a language, they contend,is not simply a matter of reading signs according to a correspondence set. In thissection I recount both Wittgenstein’s and Merleau-Ponty’s view of language togive the argument its full density that understanding a language is first andforemost a matter of living in the world. Wittgenstein stresses the sheermultiplicity and contingency of language and the grammatical forms that manifestthemselves therein. Language, as an activity, is a mode of living in the world. Theconceptual upshot of this view is that understanding a language is not dependant onan ability to correlate signs with referents, but rather on whether or not a speaker(or reader) is familiar with the type of life that is home to a linguistic utterance.Hence, the meaning of a visual sign is neither something that exists beneath thesign, as it were, nor is the meaning a mental image conjured forth by a symbolism.A crude view of reading in which the signs and symbols of a text are mechanicallycorrelated to specific referents makes the mistake of ‘looking for the use of a sign...as though it were an object co-existing with the sign.’4 There is a deepphilosophical temptation to say that our signs mean for metaphysical reasons. Atone point Wittgenstein adds that one ‘is tempted to imagine that which gives thesentence life as something in an occult sphere, accompanying the sentence. Butwhatever accompanied it would for us just be another sign.’5

I have recounted Wittgenstein’s views here in order to stress the idea thatreading must not be understood as a semiotic correspondence process which isboth alluring and all too common; so that when we evoke the analogy of readingthe visual we are not speaking about a process of communication in which readingmeans something like looking up the signs of seeing in a conceptual lexicon. Tospeak about reading is to speak about the adherence of a particular form of life.

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Reading is always already an embodied activity. Visual symbols are meaningfulnot because they represent, but because they contextually relate to a form of livedactivity.

While there are certainly distinctive features that separate Wittgenstein’s viewof language here and Merleau-Ponty’s, there is, I think, enough similarity to adoptWittgenstein’s vocabulary of Lebensform from a phenomenological perspective.Merleau-Ponty’s view of language by contrast is highly influenced by the Frenchanthropologist Ferdinand de Saussure. The central claim made by Saussure is thatthe meaning of a language is a systemic operation where the parts or units of alanguage are meaningful only in accordance with the whole. As George Freerecently put it, ‘individual units of language are constituted not by their materialproperties but only by their relation to other units of the system.’6 Saussure likenedlanguage to the playing of a chess game. The material properties of a bishop, forinstance, are immaterial regarding the play of the game. The fact that the bishophas such and such a shape, can move in such and such a way, will never clarifyhow the game as a whole is played. Indeed, one can know the bishop’s meaningonly from the perspective of knowing how the game as a whole is played. Theunits do not reveal the language; rather, the language reveals the units. ‘Thesignifier is not an image but an identity constituted on the basis of a formalorganization…[that] is not itself an object of perception.’7 The ability to ‘read’ and‘understand’ signs is not a matter of calculating the symbols but of knowing thelanguage as a whole.

The other key insight is a distinction between language (langue) and speech(parole). Language conceived as a system of signs arises from out of the activityactual speaking so that it is speech that has claim to logical priority and not thesigns themselves. Parole precedes langue such that the signs of a language aremeaningful because linguistic use is the source for meaningful expression. Theview of Merleau-Ponty here bears a remarkably strong affinity with Wittgenstein’snotion of Lebensform. Both an analytic and continental perspective deliver overthe same basic idea of what ‘reading’ a text might possibly mean. That is, in orderto be able to read a text one must, as it were, already be acquainted with how touse the language of the text; or in other words, one must already have anappropriate form of life. Reading is henceforth to be understood as a process basedupon lived experience and not simply the juxtapositioning and negotiation of thesigns themselves.

It is imperative, henceforth, to understand that reading the signs of the visualrequires the embodiment of a lived activity. The visual ‘text’ is not foreign orabsolutely separate from its readers, the lives they live, or the activity of speakingitself. Conversely, texts that are too opaque to be read are likely ones that existoutside an active life form. For example, consider the inability of most people torecognize the shape of their own country if it is portrayed upside down from itsnormal orientation on a typical map. This inability corresponds to the absence of a

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life form. But the idea of a life form is not enough to fully situate what visualliteracy might actually mean, for that we turn to Merlea-Ponty’s discussion of thebody. It is the explicit factor of the body to which we now turn.

3. Bodily SpatialityIn order to fully understand and appreciate Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of

visual perception, it is important to understand whom he is arguing against. On theone hand, his intellectual crosshairs are aimed at a version of empiricism in whichperception is conceived as nothing more than a flooding of sense data upon themind’s eye. His contention against this view is that it does not sufficiently locatethe role of subjectivity or give weight to our experience. A proper phenomenologymust be able to explain the manifestation of our actual lived experience and theempiricist seemingly trades in the motifs of lived experience in favour of amechanistic explanation that reductively wipes away the factor of livingintentionality. Perception is more than simply the movement of sense organs; it isitself an active engagement. Accordingly, visual literacy should not be conceivedon this model.

The other primary target the philosopher sets his aim against is a version ofintellectualism akin to Cartesian intellectualism that places the subject outside andseparate from the world. ‘The mistake of intellectualism is to make [consciousness]self-subsistent, to remove it from the stuff in which it is realised...’8 Intellectualismis akin to the idealist tendency to deflate the role that the world has on subjectiveexperience and to assume a stance of transcendental objectivity. These twintendencies, an empiricism that deflates the subject or an intellectualism thatdeflates the world, have a common theme in that both move toward a reductionthat fails to recognise the ambiguous relationship between subjectivity and theworldliness wherein we move, perceive, and think. As Samuel Mollin has written,‘There is, then, dialectic between the two sides of a situation.’9

Indeed, central to a phenomenology of perception is ontology of the situation.Every phenomenological field is given according to an existing situation in theworld. The situation is essentially an ambiguous state of affairs in which theseparation of consciousness from the objective features of the world cannot beneatly broken apart. The actions and attitudes of consciousness help organiseperception on the one hand, while the constancy of those articles in the world isdue to a feature or set of features independent of my perceiving such and so.Another way of thinking about the objective constancy of the articles in the worldis to note the degree to which they go beyond a given situation. In like manner, myown subjectivity is given to me insofar as it stretches past a given situation. Bothan intellectualist and an empiricist schema ignore the ontology of situations,adopting reductive models that trade in experience for the expediency ofexplanation. As Madison has noted, the empiricist takes consciousness as passivitywhile the intellectualist adopts a schema in which consciousness dominates the

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world. What links the two is they both take the universe as utterly explicit initself.10 Consequently, an adequate explanation of visual literacy should not fail togive account of the notion of the situation. Reading a visual ‘text’ always alreadyoccurs within a given situation where both lived intentionality and the objects ofthe world ambiguously co-mingle.

The very capacity to see and make sense of visual perception can bephenomenologically traced to two key concepts: (1) the motor intentionality of thebody, and (2) the temporal synthesis of perception in which particular patterns ofperception harmonize together over time. Consider the tourist at the Tate ModernMuseum who walks around a sculpture by Auguste Rodin for instance. At noparticular point will the whole shape come into view despite the fact thatconsciousness can and does become aware of its entire form. At each point in theprospectively concatenated visual field, only particular finite forms becomeapparent against a background which recedes away from the intentionality ofconsciousness. As one moves around the object, new perspectives are gained whileothers are lost; never does consciousness perceive the whole. Within the visualfield, perception of the sculpture is made known through what seem to be aconcomitant manifestation of presences. The unity of the object in perceptiondepends upon this motor intentionality as a temporal synthesis. Bodily motilityproves to be the key feature through which the varieties of visual horizons areintegrated into a unity. ‘The unity and identity of the tactile phenomenon do notcome about through any synthesis of recognition in the concept, they are foundedupon the unity and identity of the body as a synergic totality.11

Additionally, bodily motility reveals both the inner and outer horizons of anobject within a perceptive visual field. A horizon generally conceived can bedefined as that which ‘guarantees the identity of the object throughout theexploration’12 of consciousness. The inner horizon refers to the identity of detailthat reveals the plenitude or richness of an object. When I look closely at Rodin’s‘The Kiss,’ I am amazed at the detail in which the two marble bodies fall into andenvelop one another. The closer I look, the more I see the rich movement of theirembrace, for instance. By contrast, the outer horizon refers to a determinacy ofform. The farther an observer stands from the statue, the greater the determinationof form that is revealed to consciousness; or in other words, the greater the distancemy body is from the statue the less I see two bodies in favour of one embrace.What is key to see here is that the position of the body plays the mediating rolewithin the situation. The gross motility of the body is inherent in every perceptionand one’s epistemic proximity can occur only through a balance of all the body’sregions. Accordingly, every epistemic situation directly equates with a particularbodily stance. It is for these reasons that we can speak of the body as the umbilicalcord which links the perceptive activity of consciousness to the constancy of theobjective world.

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The body is thus the locus for the spatiality of my experience. There is atendency to view space as a three-dimensional geometrically organized set ofplanes which extend into the vast reaches of infinitude; but this ‘objective’ space isnever one I experience. The mathematical models that represent the entire topologyof an object are as foreign to perceptive consciousness as the string theorist’smodelling of eleven space-time dimensions. The spatiality of perceptioncorresponds to the directions of intentional comportment. There is that which isnear, that which is far, high, low, behind, beneath, or above. The dimensions ofperspective intentionality conform to the body’s involvement in lived experience.Objective space is founded upon this primordial notion of spatiality asinvolvement.

My body teaches me what space is, because it is itself theauthor of space... The perceived world is structured accordingto the hold that the body has or can have on it. The spatiality ofthe perceived world is thus a reply to the body’s dimensionsand its possibilities for action.13

When we take the phenomenology of the body seriously we discover that notonly is the body central to an understanding of visual literacy but that the bodyitself is the criterion for spatiality. To be visually literate is to be at home in a formof life in which the body’s role is familiar within a series of spatial involvements.In essence, to be visually literate is to be spatially aware.

4. Visuacy in Practice: The MuseumIn recalling the phenomenological insights of Merleau-Ponty on the role and

primacy of the body, we have adopted a paradigm of understanding in which thevery notion of the visual literacy functions according to a bodily form of life thatstructures our experience of spatiality. The signs of the visual are neither to beconceived as empirical sense datum nor as idealistic conceptualizations, but ratheras an embodied relation the perceiver’s stance takes. The relation one takes to thevisual text is therefore richly ambiguous and reductive explanations to the contrarylead to abstract conclusions that gain no ground in teasing out the structure ofmeaning. Architecture, as a medium of creative involvement, is thus a splendidindex for thinking and speaking about how the meaning of a visual text isstructured according to the body’s involvement in space. Architecture, as a modeof spatial awareness, should always be understood as the contextual catalyst for thebody’s awareness of visual meaning. The museum, as an architectural motif,perfectly captures the bodily relation to the visual.

First and foremost, the museum as a space is designed for no other purpose thanto facilitate the reading of visual texts. And while a crude understanding ofspatiality leads to the view that the optimal museum allows for an objective

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viewing of the artwork, we can see now that there is no such thing as an objectivespace. Every space is mediated by the play and involvement of the subject’s body.The very kernel of post-modernist critique is to view objectivity with suspicion;yet, the temptation to return to a view of objectivity remains. Theorist JosieAppleton gives voice to this temptation:

The enduring legacy of the cultural left has been its hostility tothe idea of objectivity itself... Collections were deemed no longerto have meaning distinct from the subjective interpretationsimposed on them by scholars and curators... Freed from thediscipline of objective knowledge, those in museums now hadunprecedented scope for the exercise of whim and fancy.14

Intriguingly, we should first notice that the brand of subjectivity that is impliedhere falls in line with a form of intellectualism we meant to combat above wherethe meaning of a text is mistakenly seen as falling solely on the side ofconsciousness. Appleton is wise to be wary of that sort of subjectivity but ismistaken if the implication is that we should view the situation solely along thelines of this crude dichotomy between an absolute objectivity and a relativisticsubjectivity. Both sides of this dichotomy are a mythology of reductiveexplanation. The museum, as space, manipulates the involvement of the body,structuring the possibilities for reading the visual ‘text’. The echo for a return toobjectivity in which texts ‘speak for themselves’ simply ignores the role of thebody within the system and production of meaning. The meaning of a visual textarises from the co-mingling between a perceiver’s stance and the object inquestion. If this brand of spatial ignorance persists, a clear view of the museum’srole in the production of meaning for visual literacy will remain obscure andopaque.

In order to speak about the possibility of visual literacy, we must remember thatin order for a space to enable the meaningfulness of a text the museum must allowfor a spatial involvement in which the forms of life [Lebensform] indicative of thattext can arise. In a slightly different context, Merleau-Ponty criticizes the typicalmuseum for precisely the removal of the artwork from the form of life out of whichit came to exist in the hands of the artist. He writes, ‘The Museum adds a falseprestige to the true value of the works by detaching them from the chancecircumstances they arose from...’15 The structure of this detachment, of course,concerns the ways in which the movement of the body effect, or rather infect,visual perception. The task of the architecture of the Museum must be to facilitatethe movement of a body that is at home with the work of art.16 The architect, bycontrast, ought to be acutely aware of the systemic role that bodily motility plays invisuacy. Although we can speak about the museum, we might as easily speak of

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the hospital, the cinema, the highway, or the garden’s role in organizing themeaning of visual ‘texts’.

To conclude, we ought not to divorce the role the body plays in the perceptualorganization from the conceptual appropriation of a visual text. The upshot is thatwe should be highly suspicious of explanations of meaning that see the body asperipheral to the ideas, themes, or concepts that visual media gesture towards.Every discussion of visual literacy must come to see that ‘Bodily spatiality,inherently dynamic, is the very condition for the coming into being of a meaningfulworld.’17

Notes

1 D. Dondis, A Primer of Visual Literacy, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1973, p. 182.2 G. Madison, The Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, Ohio University Press,Athens, 1973, p. 21.3 Ibid., p. 172.4 L. Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, Harper Row, New York, 1958, p. 5.5 Ibid.6 G. Free, ‘Language, Speech and Writing: Merleau-Ponty and Derrida onSaussure’, Human Studies, Vol. 13, Issue 4, Springer, Netherlands, 1990, p. 293.7 Ibid., p. 297.8 Ibid., p. 14.9 S. Mollin, Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy, Yale University Press, New Haven,1979, p. 12.10 G. Madison, pp. 21-22.11 M. Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, p. 369.12 Ibid., p. 78.13 G. Madison, pp. 23 & 29.14 J. Appleton, ‘Museums for the People?’, Museums and their Communities, S.Watson (ed), Routledge, New York, 1997, pp. 115-116.15 M. Merleau-Ponty, ‘Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence’, p. 62.16 An interesting example would be to think about The Museum of Natural Historyin New York, which houses Peloponnesian totem poles. The totem pole in its homespace would not have been housed at all and would likely imply an idea of movingup into the heavens. But when the same artefact is enclosed in a space with aceiling, the resonance of meaning is likely to be lost for the thousands of visitorswho visit the museum each month. The space of the museum impacts andcontextualizes the litany of ways in which one might be able to read that text.17 M. Lange, Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, Florida StateUniversity Press, Tallahassee, 1989, p. 47.

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Bibliography

Appleton, J., ‘Museums for the People?’. Museums and Their Communities.Watson, S. (ed), Routledge, New York, 1997.

Cavel, S., ‘The Availability of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy’. ThePhilosophical Review. Vol. 71, Issue 2, Duke University Press, Durham, 1962, pp.69-93.

Dondis, D., A Primer of Visual Literacy. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1973.

Free, G., ‘Language, Speech and Writing: Merleau-Ponty and Derrida onSaussure’. Human Studies. Vol. 13, Issue 4, Springer, Netherlands, 2004, pp. 293-301.

Heidegger, M., Being and Time. trans. Macquarrie, J. & Robinson, E., Blackwell,New York, 1962.

Lang, M., Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception. Florida State UniversityPress, Tallahassee, 1989.

Madison, G., The Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty. Ohio University Press,Athens, 1973.

Merleau-Ponty, M., ‘Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence’. Signs.Northwestern University Press, Chicago, 1964.

—, The Phenomenology of Perception. Routledge, London, 2005.

Mollin, S., Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1979.

Wittgenstein, L., The Blue and Brown Book. Harper & Row, New York, 1958.

—, Philosophical Investigations. Macmillan Company, New York, 1953.

Mark Andrew Thorsby, M.A. is a lecturer at New Jersey City University. He iscurrently completing his dissertation on environmental ethics and phenomenologyat the New School for Social Research in New York City. His research interestsinclude the philosophy of language, the history of logic, and social and culturalcriticism.

Pictures and Graphics: The Perception of Architecture

Thomas Forget

AbstractThe objective of this chapter is to establish a discourse on architecturalrepresentation that is historical, theoretical, and pedagogical. The focus of thediscourse is the way in which modes of representation challenge, alter, and createideas of space. More specifically, I examine the dialectical exchange between twodistinct types of spatial representation: pictures and graphics. A historical casestudy of late-medieval and Renaissance art and architecture reveals the emergenceof a distinction between pictures (linear perspective) and graphics (orthographicprojection). Artists and architects of the Renaissance, however, undermined thealleged clarity of the distinction codified by Alberti and established a dialecticalexchange that questions the roles of realism and abstraction in the perception andcomprehension of space. A theoretical inquiry into the relationship betweencinema and the architecture of early Modernism (1910-1930) suggests that theinvention of motion pictures inspired a similar interrogation. Finally, a pedagogicalinquiry into the relationship between digital modelling and contemporaryarchitecture challenges architects today to undergo a similar exploration. Theproject proposes a cyclical, as opposed to a linear, reading of Modernity. Linearperspective, cinema, and digital modelling are three cycles of picture making thatcontribute to the great Modern debate between empiricism and rationalism. In eachcase, new modes of representation redefine visual practices and give rise to thedialectic between pictures and graphics that affects architecture. Each mode revealstruths and fallacies of realism and abstraction. Here, I focus on the first cycle andintroduce the others.

Key Words: Abstraction, architecture, cinema, graphic, linear perspective,modernity, pictorial.

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1. IntroductionIn the early Renaissance, Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) codified a

distinction between pictorial and graphic visualizations of space. In De Pictura(1435), a treatise on painting, Alberti promotes the use of linear perspective, whichis a pictorial method of drawing that allows painters to construct a systematic (andallegedly flawless) depiction of the world, as seen from a specific point in space. InDe Re Aedificatoria (1443-1452), a treatise on architecture, he asserts theimportance of orthographic projection, which is a graphic method of drawing thatallows architects to analyse proportional and tectonic relationships, boundaries ofvolume and enclosure, and other spatial qualities that escape the scrutiny of

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pictorialism. Whereas linear perspective alludes to an empirical point of view,orthographic projection is ideal and abstract. It assumes a viewing position that isinfinitely distant from the represented object or space, which eliminatesperspectival depth. According to Alberti, architects address underlying ideas, notspecific impressions.1 Pictorial qualities are irrelevant to an architect becausearchitecture ‘looks good’ only when it adheres to proportional and formal ideals. Apainting, by contrast, ‘looks good’ only when it looks good, which is why paintersmust rely on the rules of linear perspective. Alberti’s distinction foreshadows thegreat debate within Modern philosophy between empiricism and rationalism. In theearly Renaissance, these two modes of knowledge are not only compatible, but alsocomplementary. The extremes coexist within the same worldview, albeit inseparate disciplines.

Alberti is one of the first theorists to articulate a position on the curiousrelationship between architecture and vision. Although his embrace of classicalproportion motivates his anti-pictorial understanding of architecture, the core of hisposition is relevant even to architects who reject the notion of eternal ideals.Architecture is clearly different from visual art. Space is not an object that weobserve from a detached viewpoint, but rather a visceral environment throughwhich we navigate. Pictures, or even movies, do not capture the embodiedexperience of spatial perception. Our occupation of space transcends the mechanicsof vision. Architects, however, rely on visual material, such as drawings, models,and renderings, for the realization of their spatial ideas. Representational tools arethe vehicles through which architects interrogate the design process and buildersexecute the construction process. Likewise, representational paradigms are thelenses through which philosophers consider the nature of space. Architecture andphilosophy are therefore inseparable from visual practices. In Alberti’s world, thegraphic reality of orthographic projection is the only visual practice relevant toarchitecture, but most architects and theorists conduct their practice through acombination of pictures and graphics. The extent to which they understand theresonance between the two modes signals the depth of their discourse.

In A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China, or Surface is Illusionbut so is Depth (1989, Philip Haas), David Hockney (1937- ) underscores therelevance of visual practices to theories of space and reveals an inherent fallacy ofpictures. The artist compares two works of art: a 70-foot scroll by Wang Hui(1632-1717), which is an example of Eastern parallel perspective with multipleoverlapping viewpoints, and a painting by Canaletto (1697-1768), which is anexample of Western linear perspective with one centralized viewpoint. To Westerneyes, the scroll appears graphic (or abstract) and the painting appears pictorial (orreal). The opposite is true for Eastern eyes. Hockney, however, demonstratesthrough a series of diagrams that both works are equally abstract and that pictures(like graphics) involve complex cognitive processes. Each work is rooted intheological and political motivations that determine its form, and neither work is an

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objective or unmediated transcription of human visual mechanics. Hockney assertsthat there is, ‘a great connection between the way we depict space and the way webehave in it.’2 The act of seeing is neither universal nor immutable, and therelationship between representation and perception is dialectical. Hockney’s thesisdoes not invalidate the distinction between pictures and graphics prescribed byAlberti, but it does qualify it. Pictures still adhere to an empirical model ofepistemology, and graphics still depict underlying spatial ideas that eludepictorialism, but pictures are far more relevant to conceptual discourses on spacethan Alberti suggests. Architects and philosophers must address both pictures andgraphics.

In most cases, including that of the Renaissance, pictures and graphics aredifferent articulations of the same idea of geometry and space. Alberti’s distinctionbetween linear perspective and orthographic projection, in fact, relies on arhetorical omission of this correspondence. In his painting treatise, the authorpromotes a ‘visual pyramid’ method for the construction of a linear perspective.While this method is not an explicit example of orthographic projection, it isessentially a combination of a plan view and an elevation view. In Perspective asSymbolic Form, Erwin Panofsky notes that this method is a ‘shortcut’ that achievesthe same results as the full method, which involves the projection of a perspectivalview from a plan and an elevation.3 In a sense, linear perspective is just anotherorthographic projection. Like plans and elevations, linear perspectives depict anabstract system of space, not the world as we experience it. The viewpoint of alinear perspective is located within the depicted spatial system, which distinguishesit from the infinitely distant viewpoint of orthographic projection, but it isnonetheless a component of an idealized spatial system. Why, then, would Albertiignore this obvious correspondence and accentuate the distinction between the twotypes of drawing? It is likely that Alberti inherited the idea of the distinction fromthe culture of his era. In order to understand his treatises, and how they helped toinaugurate the Modern era, it is important to examine the artistic and culturaldevelopments that led to the Renaissance.

2. Proto-ModernThe distinction between graphics and pictures promoted by Alberti fulfils the

aspirations of the proto-Modern world to depict God’s creations with visualaccuracy and to create architecture through proportional reasoning. In many ways,Alberti’s treatises resonate more with the orthodox visual culture of the proto-Modern era than with the imperfect ambiguities that characterize the developmentof architecture in the Renaissance. A clear distinction between pictorial andgraphic knowledge exists in the proto-Modern (or late medieval) world, which wasa divine composition of visual (and specifically pictorial) signs. As Otto Georg vonSimson notes in The Gothic Cathedral: The Origins of Gothic Architecture and theMedieval Concept of Order, ‘Everywhere the visible seemed to reflect the


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invisible.’4 Appearance and reality were indistinguishable, so appearancesmattered. Not surprisingly, artists and patrons of this time believed that visuallyaccurate depictions of biblical events better honoured God. Because God createdthe world, to depict space in a naturalistic manner was to revere that creation. Thework of Giotto (1267-1337) exemplifies the drive toward pictorial realism in thisera. The Scrovengi Chapel in Padua (1305), for example, exhibits anunprecedented level of naturalism, and its formal attributes cannot be isolated fromits cultural context. The achievement of realism was not simply a technical feat,but also (and more significantly) the realization of a social goal.

The abstraction of orthographic projection is also prevalent in the proto-Modern world. Throughout the medieval era, the theological science of St.Augustine, in particular his notions of musical proportion, had a great influence onarchitecture. Architects, for example, sought proportional systems to regulate theconstruction of the great cathedrals.5 The ordering of space according to divinerhythms and scales was essentially a cognitive, as opposed to an empirical,operation, and the process required a non-pictorial, or graphic, form ofrepresentation. Drawings that informed the design of Regensburg Cathedral inGermany (c. 1300) reveal the importance of proportion to medieval building.Actual dimensions were far less important than proportional relationships. Theearliest known example of orthographic drawing is the Reims Palimpsest (c. 1230).Some of the drawings in this set include perspectival elements, which mean theyare not strictly orthographic, but the overall abstraction of the drawing set faroutweighs its slight illusionary digressions. The emphasis on line and surface in thedrawings, as opposed to volume and space, is particularly striking.6 One drawingshows the interior and exterior condition of the same wall, which is a sophisticated‘split-screen’ technique that Renaissance virtuosos began to use in the sixteenthcentury. It is difficult to determine if the drawings were instructions for theconstruction of the cathedral or records of a completed structure. Regardless, theyconvey an understanding that architecture is more conceptual and less pictorialthan painting and sculpture.

Two orthographic elevations from the fourteenth century reveal a curiousdistinction between the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance. TheStrasbourg Elevation (c. 1330) is one of the purest examples of pre-Modernorthographic projection, as it displays no perspective at all. A contemporarydrawing within the Sanssedoni Contract (c. 1340), a real estate document fromSiena, is a less orthodox elevation that includes perspectival rendering.7 In general,as James Ackerman notes, the Italians were less willing, or able, to resist theinclusion of perspectival elements in their architectural drawing than their Northerncounterparts, perhaps because of their exposure to the writings of Vitruvius (80-15BC). In the earliest known treatise on architecture, Vitruvius outlines three types ofarchitectural representation: ichnografia (plan), ortografia (elevation), andscaenografia (perspective). The term scaenografia is widely debated, and some

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scholars do not believe that it refers to a pictorial form of representation.8

Regardless, Ackerman believes that the legacy of Vitruvius justified the inclusionof not only perspective elements, but also the rendering of light and shade inarchitectural representation, which Alberti also rejected. Ackerman further notesthat many architects in Italy at the time were also figural artists and thereby hadnatural inclinations to render light and volume in their work.9 It is apparent thatarchitects had to be convinced of the merits of abstraction. Like any language,orthographic projection follows rules that are not necessarily instinctual.

3. A DialecticAlberti’s treatises on painting and architecture are the culmination of the

instincts that led to Modernity, as well as the starting point of the revolutions thatfollowed. The author, in a sense, is a hinge between the foundation of Modernity,which resides in the late-medieval era, and the structure of Modernity, whichbegins in the Renaissance and advances through the Enlightenment and theIndustrial Revolution. Artists and architects of the Renaissance, for the most part,either resisted or outright rejected Alberti’s distinction. As the clarity of thedistinction evaporates, true Modernity arises. As Michael Baxandall explains inPainting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy, the mercantile culture of theRenaissance promoted widespread use of both analytical geometry andproportional arithmetic.10 Graphic equations, or diagrams, were relatively commontools within the merchant class, and most patrons of painting and architecture wereeducated in mathematics. Abstraction was a fact of everyday, and it affected visualcognition. Painters recognized this fact and constructed paintings that were meantto be read, not simply received. Pictures were objects of analysis, not immediatevisualizations. At the same time, architects embraced linear perspective andtransformed architecture into an experiential, as well as a proportional, art. Thelocation of an observer in space became a driving force in the design ofarchitectural and urban space. The details of the story are complex, as Renaissanceart and architecture are case studies that reveal both the promise and the problemsof vision in the Modern era. As artists and architects of the era interrogated the ideaof visual truth through an exchange between pictures and graphics, they redirectedthe debate between ideal form and actual appearances that begins in Plato’s cave.

The story begins around 1415, when Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), anarchitect and engineer, invented an objective process of pictorial construction, orlinear perspective. He thereby fulfilled a goal that many generations of painters hadfailed to achieve. He used his skills as a surveyor to mathematically extractdrawings from two works of existing architecture in Florence.11 He constructed afrontal depiction of the Battistero di San Giovanni and an oblique depiction of thePalazzo de’ Signori. The pictorial technique, therefore, was more of a discoverythan an invention, and it took a scientific, as opposed to an artistic, impulse torealize it. Brunelleschi placed each drawing on a viewing device that included


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mirrors and a peephole. When used at the precise location of the surveyingoperation, the device created a thoroughly convincing illusion of space.Brunelleschi probably did not intend his device to become a theory of painting, butit quickly inspired artists, even before Alberti codified the surveying technique as apainterly technique in his 1435 text. The first several attempts, such as a SaintGeorge Killing the Dragon (1417), a marble bas-relief by Donatello (1386-1466),had minor flaws or inconsistencies in their construction. Later in the Renaissance,as we will see, artists intentionally subvert the drawing system to challenge itsclaim to visual accuracy, but these early mishaps are likely due to the fact thatproper instructions were not yet available.

The first perfectly accurate use of linear perspective by an artist is a muralpainting by Masaccio (1402-1428), The Holy Trinity (1425) in Santa MariaNovella in Florence. The artist, as an analysis by Martin Kemp illustrates,meticulously calibrates the construction of the linear perspective to align with aprivileged viewpoint in the church.12 Although the mural depicts a heavenly spacethat is distinct from the earthly realm of the church, it engages the viewing space ofthe church in a specific way. In Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan (1482),Donato Bramante (1444-1514) uses linear perspective to engage the physical spaceof a church in a more literal way. A constrained site prevented the construction of achoir behind the altar, so the architect constructed a perspectival view of a choirinstead. The tromp-l’oeil mural allows him to complete his intended spatialcomposition. Despite their significant differences, both of these murals use linearperspective to engage the architectural space in which they sit, and this sets themapart from perspectival paintings in frames, which create a strict separationbetween the space of viewing and the space viewed. The murals reveal a rarestraightforward correspondence between painting and architecture, and it suggestsa synthesis between pictures and space that is missing in the medieval era. Throughtheir alignment with the orthographic measurements of the spaces in which theysit, these works understand the inherent correspondence between linear perspectiveand orthographic projection. They thereby endanger the Albertian separationbetween pictures and graphics.

The paintings of Piero della Francesca (1415-1492) demonstrate anotherblurring of the distinction. They are linear perspectives of the highest order thatmotivate and reward close reading. Like the works referred to by Baxandall, theyare pictorial and graphic at the same time – abstract, analytical, naturalistic,immediate. The painter exploits the syntax of the drawing system in order toarticulate several layers of religious meaning that a proto-Modern painting couldnever achieve. The Flagellation of Christ (1460), for example, goes far beyond astraightforward (or storybook) explanation of the biblical event. An analysis byMartin Kemp reveals an extremely subtle calibration of the location of the figuresin space and proportional logic that reinforces religious themes. In addition, Kempreveals a hidden light source within the painting, the location of which underscores

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the divinity of Christ.13 This work, which is philosophically engaged with itsaudience and technically exquisite, epitomizes the ability of an artist to engageanalytical processes through pictures. Empirical form and theoretical contentmerge seamlessly.

A series of Ideal City paintings executed in Urbino in the mid-fourteenthcentury by unknown artists are equally rigorous in a formal sense but altogethersecular in content. These painting uphold the pictorial abstraction found in thework of Piero della Francesca, but they emphasize the graphic world ofarchitectural design more than the pictorial world of religion. These works depict,in strict linear perspective, imaginary cities filled with fantastic works ofarchitecture. Some of the buildings in the paintings have referents in the real world,but most are purely fictional and highly indebted to the systematic rationality andcheckerboard rigor of linear perspective. These painters use linear perspective todesign architecture, which is precisely the technique that Alberti warns architectsagainst in his treatise on architecture. The evocative power of these paintings isundeniable, and it is not surprising that architects emulated the architecturedepicted in them. The fact that linear perspective is so closely aligned withorthographic drawing makes the translation of the paintings into architecture quitestraightforward. Any artist who understands the system can generate orthographicprojections of the ideal cities. Bramante saw these paintings when he was a youngartist in Urbino, and his Tempietto of San Pietro in Montorio (1502) appears to bea reinterpretation of a circular building in one of the Ideal City paintings. As Rowesuggests, the actual work of architecture, however, is far more volumetric andplastic than the one depicted in the painting.14 It is likely that Bramante developedthe building through orthographic projections, which could have helped him toevolve the project beyond a mere copy of the one in the painting. The Tempiettotakes advantage of its architectural medium and illustrates both the independenceand the interdependence of Renaissance painting and architecture. This caseperfectly expresses the dialectical nature of the exchange at the time: a work ofarchitecture derives from an idea of architecture portrayed in a painting, and thepainting originates its idea of architecture through a pictorial technique that was theinvention of an engineer and surveyor. In a sense, the Battistero di San Giovanni(via the survey drawings of Brunelleschi, the writings of Alberti, and the ideal citypaintings of Urbino) is the deeper inspiration for the Tempietto.

This dialectical exchange between painting and architecture coincides with adialectical debate within painting itself. In the work of Piero della Francesca, linearperspective obeys strict laws of geometry and serves religion in an unqualifiedmanner. Reason complements faith. The second generation of linear perspectivepainters, however, overturn the unity of form and content that characterizes bothproto-Modern painting and the first wave of Modern painting. Form for form’ssake begins with Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Five centuries before Hockney,Leonardo understood that the accuracy of linear perspective is cognitive, not


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visual. In a diagram, the artist illustrates that linear perspective aligns with actualhuman vision only under an extreme circumstance: through a one-eye peephole at aprecise distance from a perspectival mural.15 Linear perspective assumes that theworld is flat, and it fails to account for either the curvature of the human eye orbinocular vision. It is, as we have seen, a unique form of orthographic projection.The alleged pictorial realism of linear perspective is thereby a special case of thegraphic realism of orthographic projection.

Beginning with Leonardo, painters mostly reject the notion that linearperspective is an eternal truth that records the universe as God made it and as wesee it. They begin to manipulate the system for the sake of formal objectives.Religious content remains paramount to painting for centuries (until theEnlightenment), but a new interest in the perception of space leads to formaldevices that do not directly address religious content. Leonardo’s interest inanatomy and physiology led him to depict spatial environments that dissolve intoindistinct zones and wholly reject the checkerboard rigor of strict linearperspective. His famous depiction of The Last Supper (1498) inspires endless arthistorical bickering on its meaning and message. It is a spatial enigma. Analyticaldrawings by Martin Kemp prove that the space depicted in the painting defiesEuclidean geometry, even though it appears naturalistic.16 The spatialmanipulations in the painting are subtle, but they loosen the severity ofconventional linear perspectives and seem to invite viewers into the world of thepainting. A comparison to a depiction of the same event by Andrea del Castango(1447) underscores the extent to which Leonardo challenges the early Modernorthodoxy of Piero. Linear perspective, however, is still the paradigm. Leonardo’sThe Adoration of the Magi (1482) is almost Impressionistic in its depiction ofspace, yet a preliminary sketch for the painting reveals that a masterful use oflinear perspective underlies the final work. Throughout the Modern era, the rulesand rigor of linear perspective provide a foundation for experimentation,exploration, and questioning.

Leonardo and Bramante worked side-by-side on different projects in Milan atthe end of fourteenth century. It is no surprise, then, that The Cortile del Belvedere(1506) by Bramante is an architectural expression of the spirit of Leonardo’spaintings. Bramante orchestrates a complex system of spaces that provides aprivileged point-of-view from the papal balcony. The idea of a privilegedviewpoint in a work of architecture rejects Alberti’s emphasis on ideal proportion.In fact, Bramante distorts the proportions of the colonnades in the upper courtyardin order to create a false sense of depth from the papal balcony. As an analysis byAckerman illustrates, the columns in the rear of the courtyard are shorter, so thatthe vanishing point of a linear perspective of the space would appear higher than itactually would be.17 The pope, or anyone else for matter, would never perceive thespace in true linear perspective, so (again) there is a tension between empiricismand rationalism: an ideal space is subverted for the sake of an ideal bodily

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viewpoint, which does not in fact exist because perception does not occur in linearperspective. The architect articulates a distinction between experience and idea, butit is unclear which one he privileges more.

4. CyclesI propose to expand this chapter into a work that addresses both the relationship

between cinema and the development of early Modern architecture (1910-1930), aswell as the relationship between digital modelling and contemporary architecture.The larger project posits a cyclical, as opposed to a linear, reading of Modernity.Linear perspective, cinema, and digital modelling are three cycles of picturemaking that contribute to the great Modern debate between empiricism andrationalism. In each case, new modes of representation redefine visual practicesand give rise to the dialectic between pictures and graphics that affectsarchitecture. Each mode reveals truths and fallacies of realism and abstraction.While not a repeat of the interaction between linear perspective and architecture inthe Renaissance, there are significant similarities in the case of cinema and earlyModern architecture. We must understand cinema, like linear perspective, as aquasi-graphic form of picture. It is not the truth, but rather a highly mediated ideaof vision that affects how we inhabit space. Like the story of the Renaissance, thestory of early Modernism is complex and multifaceted. New conceptions of builtspace affected visual culture, as much as visual culture affected ideas of space.After we understand the resonances between the first two cycles of Modernism, wecan begin to understand how to operate in the third cycle, which is just beginning.Digital modelling programs overemphasize the pictorial at the expense of thegraphic. We must fight this tendency and engage in a dialectic that valuesempiricism and rationalism.

Notes

1 L. Alberti, The Ten Books on Architecture, trans. J. Leoni, J. Rykwert (ed), BookII, Chapter 1, A. Tiranti, London, 1965.2 D. Hockney in P. Haas, A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China, orSurface is Illusion but so is Depth, Milestone Films, New York, 1989, time code43:25.3 E. Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, trans. C. Wood, Zone Books, NewYork, 1997, pp. 130-138.4 O. von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral: The Origins of Gothic Architecture andthe Medieval Concept of Order, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1988, p.xviii.5 Ibid., p. 21.6 Ibid., p. 13.


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7 F. Toker, ‘Gothic Architecture by Remote Control: An Illustrated BuildingContract of 1340’, The Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 36, Issue 2, 1982,pp. 73-75.8 A. Perez-Gomez, ‘Architecture as Drawing’, The Journal of ArchitecturalEducation, Vol. 36, Issue 2, 1982, p. 3.9 J. Ackerman, ‘Villard de Honnecourt’s Drawings of Reims Cathedral: A Study inArchitectural Representation’, Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 18, Issue 35, 1997, p. 48.10 M. Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer inthe Social History of Pictorial Style, Oxford University Press, New York, 1972, pp.

94-108.11 M. Kemp, Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi toSeura, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1990, pp. 11-14.12 Ibid., pp. 17-19.13 Ibid., pp. 28-32.14 C. Rowe & L. Satkowski, Italian Architecture of the 16th Century, PrincetonArchitectural Press, New York, 2002, p. 28.15 M. Kemp, op. cit., p. 49.16 M. Kemp, op. cit., pp. 47-49.17 Drawings made after Ackerman’s analysis are available at http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/dbcourses/publicportfolio.cgi?view=1328.

Bibliography

Ackerman, J., ‘Architectural Practice in the Italian Renaissance’. The Journal ofthe Society of Architectural Historians. Vol. 13, Issue 3, 1954, pp. 3-11.

—, Distance Points: Essays in Theory and Renaissance Art and Architecture. MITPress, Cambridge, MA, 1991.

Alberti, L., On Painting. trans. Spencer, J., Yale University Press, New Haven,1966.

—, The Ten Books on Architecture: The 1755 Leoni Edition. trans. Leoni, J., DoverPublications, New York, 1986.

Baxandall, M., Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in theSocial History of Pictorial Style. Oxford University Press, New York, 1972.

Haas, P., A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China, or Surface isIllusion but so is Depth. Milestone Films, New York, 1989.

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Kemp, M., Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi toSeurat. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1990.

Panofsky, E., Perspective as Symbolic Form. trans. Wood, C., Zone Books,Cambridge, MA, 1991.

Rowe, C. & Satkowski, L., Italian Architecture of the 16th Century. PrincetonArchitectural Press, New York, 2002.

von Simson, O., The Gothic Cathedral: The Origins of Gothic Architecture and theMedieval Concept of Order. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1988.

Westfall, C., ‘Society, Beauty, and the Humanist Architect in Alberti’s de reaedificatoria’. Studies in the Renaissance. Vol. 16, 1969, pp. 61-79.

Thomas Forget teaches architecture at University of North Carolina at Charlotte.He is currently studying the relationship between cinema and linear perspective asit pertains to ideas of Modernity and representation/perception in architecture.

PART II

Across Visual Lines

Reading the Contemporary Picturebook: Negotiating Change

Beverley Croker

AbstractIn this multimedia world, technology has challenged the place of the book and,indeed, the way in which we might read texts. The digital culture has providedopportunities for radical changes in books for children and adolescents. Inparticular, one form of multimodal text, the picturebook, provides enormouschallenges in its capacity for what Lewis calls an ‘endless metamorphosis’.1 Itsintended audience has expanded to embrace young adults as well as youngerreaders. The picturebook constantly borrows and exploits genres and manipulatesinteranimation of word and image. Its flexibility means that it has the ability torespond to social and cultural changes and technological developments. Inparticular, the very nature of the picturebook allows for the incorporation ofelectronic modes of expression in both obvious and subtle ways. The diversityprovided by print and electronic versions of picturebooks has led to changes inreader expectations. This chapter explores ways in which educators might respondto these changes, draw on this interactivity and provide new navigation skills toallow the reader to engage with such texts in the twenty-first century. Recentresearch has emphasized an examining of picturebooks through a visual literacyframework, with a focus on function and form where tools are developed formeaning-making. Yet, if picturebooks provide, as Lewis suggests, opportunities forreaders to not only absorb but interpret and re-present, then an understanding ofpicturebooks as literature is also significant. This chapter searches for a rigorousapproach that would allow the reader/viewer to respond to the new challenges oftime.

Key Words: Hybridity, interactivity, interanimation, literature, metamorphosis,multimodal, picturebook, re-presenting.

*****

1. Image, Text and Contemporary CultureIn this new media age, there are two significant movements that impact on

contemporary culture. The first is the shift from the dominance of print text to thefavouring of the image to communicate meaning. The second is the move from thesupremacy of the book to a wider use of the medium of the screen so that the pagecompetes with the screen. Together, these movements ‘are producing a revolutionin the uses and effects of literacy and of associated means for representing andcommunicating at every level and in every domain’.2 Such movements have a hugeimpact on the forms and functions of writing and the way in which we read textand image.

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Existing definitions of ‘text’ and ‘writing’ are no longer adequate.Traditionally, the medium of the book and the mode of writing dominatedcommunication of written text. Now the use of images challenges the dominanceof writing and allows texts to be seen not just as print but also as a combination ofword and image or image on its own. However, texts, in book format or on thescreen, need not be seen as alternatives but rather as serving specificcommunication needs. In general, book text may simply involve print or print andimage but screen text can also include other modes such as music or sound trackand moving images.

A knowledge of how best to approach the ‘reading’ of images is constantlyevolving and changing emphasis. The reading path for images, unlike text, isrelatively unstructured. The reading of text is framed by the order of words andtime. Yet, the variety of elements in an image including size, colour, perspective,shape, and so on, allow viewers to construct meaning in different ways.

Our world has become a computer-mediated culture. In recent times, there hasbeen a conjunction of social, economic, political and cultural trends. In aninformation-based economy such as ours, the World Wide Web with its emphasison visual forms of communication has assisted this conjunction. Parallel to thisconjunction, electronic communication and information processing technologiesare now central to our contemporary culture. The influence of technology on theprocess of text creation, storage and retrieval as well as the final product hasaffected the literary world whose responses to these changes has been mixed.While there is some concern that the new will replace the old and that the book isdead, there is also a sense of excitement as authors and illustrators explore newprocesses. There is also an accompanying concern that educators are unprepared torespond to new literary practices that emerge as a result of these changes: that wedo not have the ‘tools’ with which to understand and critically respond to thesepractices.

While the digital culture has provided opportunities for radical changes in allliterature, this chapter focuses on one form of multimodal text, the picturebook,which provides enormous challenges in its capacity for what Lewis calls an‘endless metamorphosis’.3 Technology has added a new repertoire of means ofrepresentation, especially in relation to interactivity.

2. PicturebooksContemporary picturebooks reflect the complexity of the 21st century,

constantly transforming them to respond to cultural and technological changes.Cultural changes, where images now compete with language to convey meaning,offer opportunities for more sophisticated techniques in contemporarypicturebooks. Technological changes enable picturebooks to use more highlycharged technical devices to enhance understanding. Techno-enhanced texts, itmay be suggested, have the potential to be more open to interpretive variety. In

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particular, the flexible nature of the picturebook allows for the incorporation ofelectronic modes of expression in both obvious and subtle ways, adopting andadapting illustration techniques used in this form. Further, it lends itself to bothconventional print and electronic forms.

Picturebooks usually have an interdependent meaning-making systemcharacterized by intertextuality and hybridity. Because picturebooks consist ofboth text and image, they are polyphonic, that is, they have many voices, whichprovide the potential to produce a variety of meanings. The interaction of thesewords and images can adopt varying patterns. Meek suggests that the ‘pictures andwords interanimate each other’.4 Lewis, borrowing from Meek, has coined theterm ‘interanimation’ which highlights the contemporary reading experience ofpicturebooks, suggesting images of film and computer animation .5

The diversity provided by print and electronic versions of picturebooks has ledto changes in reader expectations ‘where communication in this digital culture ismarked by interactivity, immediacy and complexity of both image and text’.6

Electronic media demands that readers/viewers explore and interact with texts tocreate meaning, skills which are also necessary in reading contemporarypicturebooks. Any exploration of such texts encompasses the analysis of images,image-text relationships and the impact of multimodal elements. However, any‘reading’ should also recognise picturebooks as literary texts offering thematiccomplexity where they demand that the reader work hard to find meaning or evenbe challenged to create it.7

To engage with such texts, the reader must be provided with appropriatenavigation skills and a language with which to discuss them. To this end, thischapter investigates possible theoretical frameworks that have been proposed todate and ‘tests’ their effectiveness.

3. Theoretical FrameworksIn order to understand how picturebooks affect readers and thus create new

ways of reading, we need an appropriate approach to exploring texts. Kress askswhat might be ‘the characteristics of a theory which can account for the processesof making meaning in the environments of multimodal representation inmultimediated communication, of cultural plurality and of social and economicinstability?’.8 What might a theory appropriate to this multimodal world look like?How can it be applied to picturebooks?

The work completed to date on how to ‘read’ picturebooks draws on and adaptsa number of theories of English but also ‘borrows’ from other disciplines. Threemajor approaches might be considered: the critical analysis approach, thefunctional approach and the aesthetic approach.

The critical analysis approach focuses on a critical understanding of the socialnature of textuality and assumes a culturally critical position. This approach hasdominated the interpretation of texts, drawing on theories including


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postmodernism, feminism and Marxism where there is a focus on meaning andhow it is crafted. An application of a critical analysis approach to picturebooks,allows us to recognize that texts are unstable, as Morgan reminds us, offering amultiplicity of meanings, developed by the readers’ different ideologies and by thetext where word and image can generate many meanings.9 The reader/viewer mustbe able to think relationally and to identify the techniques of composition. S/hemust be aware of the interanimation of word and image.

The second approach concerns the process of production of texts. This takestwo forms. Firstly, readers can draw on new taxonomies and a metalanguage todiscuss visual texts using critical social models. Secondly, a useful tool of visualanalysis, Kress and van Leeuwen’s grammar of visual design, explores thestructures and rules of meaning in texts, through three metafunctions.10 Theideational metafunction considers the representational meanings to be found in avisual text, the interpersonal metafunction focuses on interactive meaning and thetextual metafunction looks at the compositional meaning.

A third approach focuses on the aesthetic which offers a particular kind of‘reading’. A ‘new’ aestheticism, Eaglestone suggests, unlike an old aestheticismthat concentrated on the unit of text, focuses on what moves us, how it does so andwhy we are moved.11 It allows the reader to respond affectively to the formalfeatures of the text. The aesthetic has the ‘capacity to encompass the intellectualand the affective, the particular and the general’12 which makes it so powerful. Anaesthetic reading might include the valuing of text, the appreciating of theexperiential elements of text and the individual response to text.

4. Exploring a Text within the Identified Theoretical FrameworksTo test whether these current approaches are adequate to explore the changing

nature of the picturebook, this chapter examines an award winning picturebook bythe Australian author/artist, Matt Ottley. The title of the book, Requiem for aBeast: A Work for Image, Word and Music13 immediately alerts us to the fact thatthis is a multimodal text in which all three modes are interwoven to form anarrative tapestry. It has been chosen to exemplify how the social semiotic ischanging the style of text and, in turn, ‘reading’. While Requiem for a Beast wonthe 2008 Children’s Book Council of Australia Picturebook Award, it has beenvariously identified as ‘a graphic novel’ and ‘an illustrated book’. Although it hasbeen publicly acknowledged as a picturebook in this award, it has attractedextensive debate over the nature of its genre. It can be argued that these twodescriptors are inaccurate as they suggest that the images in this book merelyenhance the words and, by implication, are thus less significant. However, this isfar from the truth. This book embraces existing expectations of a picturebook,involving the interanimation of text and image, but takes them to a new level in ahybridity of styles. The inability of members of the community to accuratelyidentify the genre is at the heart of the extensive controversy raised by the

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Australian tabloid press and the community, criticizing the book for its language,its mention of suicide and its compassion for the plight of Aboriginal people of theStolen Generation. Such criticism shows a lack of understanding of thecontemporary picturebook and its intended audience.

To begin to understand this picturebook, it is useful to consider the threeapproaches discussed earlier in this chapter. A critical analysis approach revealsRequiem for a Beast to be a confronting book that has attracted such descriptionsas ground-breaking14 and harrowing.15 It is intended for the late adolescent/ adultreader who is taken on a young man’s quest for self identity and his attempts tofind personal healing. On this journey, there is an exploration of what the editor’sblurb quaintly calls ‘the processes that bind and blind us in society’. Themes ofmemory, loss and grief, fear and bravery are explored. Consequences of power andpowerlessness are considered. However, the title of the book probably bestindicates what the book is really about. A requiem, a burial mass, is characterizedby judgement, remembrance, reconciliation and an ultimate resolution, states ofbeing that form the structure of this text. To reinforce this idea, Ottley takes a 12thcentury prayer to create a classic Western musical accompaniment to the requiem.The text is divided into four movements, each titled in Latin with an accompanyingEnglish phrase that loosely reflects something of the sense of the text. Dies Irae(Day of Wrath) is concerned with judgement, Mors Stupebit (Death and Nature)explores remembrance, Lacrymosa (Tears) examines reconciliation and Pie Jesu(Gentle) turns to a resolution. The picturebook reflects these four movements asthe text is divided into four sections, each developing a step in the requiem. Part 5,Requiem (Rest) concludes the text with music and poems.

Ambiguity surrounds who or what the beast is. It appears that it is at the sametime real and metaphorical, mythical and allegorical. The book offers twonarratives of people searching for self-identity – one of a young white man and theother of an Aboriginal Elder whose dark secrets become fantasy beasts that inhabittheir dreamscapes and threaten to destabilise their daily lives. These frighteningfigures are half man, half beast, reminiscent of centaurs and minotaurs. The youngman, called ‘the boy’, is Everyman who realizes that he and his society mustrecognize the mistakes of the past before he can confront the future. In his quest tobe rid of his past memories, the beast within him, the young man hunts a rogue bulland in the confrontation with the bull, he faces his inner beast. Interwoven with thisquest is that of an Aboriginal Elder, a member of the Stolen Generation, who seeksmemories of her race and culture, taken away by processes of assimilation. For herrace, perhaps the beast represents past Australian governments and theirassimilation policies.

The process of production explored through a functional approach reveals thatthis book takes hybridity and intertextuality to a new level in its use of visual,verbal and multimedia elements. Requiem for a Beast is noted for its hybridity,borrowing and exploiting. Visually, the book is a pastiche of gentle landscapes,


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portraits and allegorical fantasies that generate powerful moods. The illustrationsemploy a range of media of oil on canvas, oil on paper and coloured pencil andinclude collage, comic strip drawings, overlaid texts and a range of fonts. Thevisual story is told through double page spreads, a collage of images and a numberof small cells. It draws on cinematic elements in its use of storyboards to tell mini-narratives. The visual text, for example, creates a collage of the events of the boy’schildhood, at first paralleling the text but then as the boy’s emotions reach acrescendo, the images intensify, each horrific memory framed like a series ofpanels until they overlap in a collage of chaos. The visual narrative uses a range ofmetafunctional devices. It offers a world that is largely vectorless, in terms ofhuman interaction, reinforcing the sense of isolation of the boy and the Aboriginalelder. The use of social distance is another significant element of interpersonalmetafunction in this picturebook. There are remote longs shots of distant blurredfigures and many middle distance shots that lack salience as the images are blurred.It is, however, the close up images of the victims, the aboriginal woman/child andthe bull, which dominate intimate space and appeal to the reader/viewer, fixing uswith a beseeching eye.

The written text, too, draws on many elements to convey meaning. It usesEnglish, Latin and an Aboriginal language from the Bundjabung Nation. Itsexploration of a range of modes and genres including a third person recount, firstperson thoughts and a factual text about centaurs and minotaurs creates a range oftones and allows the text to draw on many narrative voices to build an image ofhumanity. The theme central to the book of the influence of memory on characteris introduced with the words of an aboriginal elder and is taken up through thevoice of a third person narrator alternating with that of the young man, attemptingto find psychological freedom from his memories. These voices are interspersedwith the aboriginal elder’s story of child abuse and genocide. Finally, a musicalwork on CD in which each movement of the Western music is paralleled bytraditional songs from the Bundjalung Nation integrates the elements to create anemotional impact.

Intertextuality is also significant in the highlighting of the themes of Requiemfor a Beast. It draws on diverse examples of music, poetry and mythology tointertextually fuse elements of two cultures and to highlight their similarities in thehope of countering the views of the past.

There is always a danger that so many elements may not fuse into a meaningfulwhole, but, by and large, here they effectively blend to form a tapestry ofAustralian culture against which serious themes are explored.

This is a picturebook where interanimation between image and text (and tosome extent the music) is crucial to the affective and intellectual meaning. Anaesthetic approach offers opportunity for responses so that the reader/viewer mightvalue and respond to experiential elements. To illustrate this point, the boy’sjourney through external landscapes, mirrored by an internal journey of self-

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discovery, is conveyed through diverse forms of interanimation of image and textwhich is powerfully used to create an affective climate that sets the readers’emotional response in a range of registers. The first five oil paintings of a gentle,green Australian landscape stand in contrast to haunting statements of loss: ‘I’msupposed to be a fully initiated woman, but that knowledge, that memory, isgone’.16 The emotional impact of interanimation is probably no more powerfulthan in Illustration 1 where a terrifying minotaur-like creature dominates the page.Three small-framed pictures at the bottom of the page show two ropes and onesmall Aboriginal child tied to a rope. The text simply says ‘Roaring’. Thereader/viewer is left to fill the narrative gaps.

Allegorical fantasy illustrations convey psychological issues through literal andmetaphorical use of interanimation. In Illustration 2, the text states, ‘I have beensuch a beast’17 but the image is of a metamorphosis of the young man to a beast.Like many contemporary picturebooks, Requiem for A Beast uses genreeclecticism of realism and fantasy in which temporality is challenged as the textmoves back and forth through the boy’s memories, the aboriginal past and forwardto the man’s challenge with the bull. A mix of high and low modality imagesweave the representational and mythical into the tapestry of the whole picturebook.Portrait-like mimetic images alternate with surreal indeterminate shapes andunnatural colours. Both text and illustration blur genres, manipulating thecommunication process.

Illustration 1 Illustration 2

From this brief exploration, it appears that the hybridity of the text does notconfound attempts at meaning-making but rather enhances them and gives them arichness. Far from destabilising the reader/viewers’ faith in the interpretiveenterprise itself, technology can enhance understanding. The indeterminacy of thenarrative forces the reader to create causal elements in order to make meaning from


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the text. For such a text, Nikolajeva and Scott believe that readers must bring theirown resolutions and collaborate with the author/ artist to create the story and itsinterpretations.18

5. The Way ForwardThis chapter has attempted to demonstrate that the reading of new multimodal

texts does not make traditional literary practice obsolete. If Requiem for a Beast isa literary text, then it opens itself to literary analysis, no matter what itsdeployment of technological resources. It requires the reader to think relationally,to develop what Iser called ‘consistency building’ where there is an accumulationof the elements to form a meaningful whole.19

While the analysis of Requiem for a Beast offered here is far from complete, itdoes, it is hoped, illustrate that the tools used to read this book are helpful incoming to a better understanding of the critical, structural and aestheticperspectives. However, it must be asked if the current approaches are adequate?Lewis suggests that the picturebook is ‘ideally suited to the task of absorbing,reinterpreting and re-presenting the world to an audience to whom negotiatingnewness is a daily task’.20 Do such approaches recognise that picturebooks, asLewis suggests, offer opportunities to not only absorb but interpret and re-present?In an attempt to find ways to extract meaning, to ‘absorb’ and ‘interpret’ suchtexts, current approaches to multimodal texts acknowledge that these texts focus ontwo elements of change: a uniqueness of voice and a hybridity of representationalresources.21 However, the re-presentation and reconceptualisation of designelements and the recognition of the relationship of the modes as suggested by theNew London Group are still not fully addressed.22 It appears that there is some wayto go to find a rigorous approach that will allow the reader/viewer to engage inwhat Leavis calls ‘a power...of creative response to the new challenges of time’.23

Notes

1 D. Lewis, Reading Contemporary Picturebooks: Picturing Text, Routledge-Falmer, London, 2001, p. 136.2 G. Kress, Literacy in the New Media Age, Routledge, Abingdon, 2003, p. 1.3 D. Lewis, op. cit., p. 136.4 M. Meek, ‘Children’s Reading - Now’, After Alice, M. Styles, E. Bearne & V.Watson (eds), Casswell, London, 1992, pp. 176-177.5 D. Lewis, op. cit., p. 39.6 L. Unsworth, et al., Children’s Literature and Computer-Based Teaching,McGraw Hill/Open University Press, London, 2005. p. 6.7 M. Nikolajeva & C. Scott, How Picturebooks Work, Garland Publishing, NewYork and London, 2001.8 G. Kress, op. cit., p. 68.

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9 W. Morgan, Critical Literacy in the Classroom, Routledge, London, 1997, p. 100.10 G. Kress & T. van Leeuwen, Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design,Routledge, London, 1996.11 R. Eaglestone, ‘Critical Knowledge, Scientific Knowledge and the Truth ofLiterature’, The New Aestheticism, J. Joughin & S. Maplas (eds), ManchesterUniversity Press, Manchester, 2003, pp. 151-166.12 R. Misson, & W. Morgan, Critical Literacy and The Aesthetic, NCTE, Illinois,2006, p. 26.13 M. Ottley, Requiem for a Beast, Lothian, Sydney, 2007.14 T. Bray, ‘Requiem for a Beast by Matt Ottley’, Hachette Childrens’ Books,Media Release, 2008.15 T. Cairney, ‘Requiem for a Beast in Literacy Families and Learning, 2008,Retrieved 25 May 09, http://trevorcairney.blogspot.com/2008/08/requiem-for-beast.16 M. Ottley, loc. cit.17 Ibid.18 M. Nikolajeva & C. Scott, op. cit., p. 259.19 W. Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response, John HopkinsUniversity Press, Baltimore, pp. 16-18.20 D. Lewis, op. cit., p. 136.21 B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (eds), Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Designof Social Futures, Macmillan, Melbourne, 2000, p. 204.22 New London Group, ‘A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies’, Multiliteracies: LiteracyLearning and the Design of Social Futures, B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (eds),Macmillan, Melbourne, 2000, p. 28.23 F. Leavis, Two Cultures? The Significance of C.P. Snow, Chatto and Windus,London, 1962, p. 27.

Bibliography

Bray, T., Requiem for a Beast by Matt Ottley. Hachette Childrens’ Books, MediaRelease, 2008.

Cairney, T., ‘Requiem for a Beast’. Literacy Families and Learning. 2008,Retrieved 25 May 2009, from http://trevorcairney.blogspot.com/2008/08/requiem-for-beast.

Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M., ‘Designs for Social Futures’. Multiliteracies: LiteracyLearning and the Design of Social Futures. Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (eds),Macmillan, Melbourne, 2000.


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Eaglestone, R., ‘Critical Knowledge, Scientific Knowledge and the Truth ofLiterature’. The New Aestheticism. Joughin, J.J. & Maplas, S. (eds), ManchesterUniversity Press, Manchester, 2003.

Iser, W., The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. John HopkinsUniversity Press, Baltimore, 1978.

Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T., Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design.Routledge, London, 1996.

—, Literacy in the New Media Age. Routledge, Abingdon, 2003.

Leavis, F., Two Cultures? The Significance of C.P. Snow. Chatto and Windus,London, 1962.

Lewis, D., Reading Contemporary Picturebooks: Picturing Text. Routledge-Falmer, London, 2001.

Meek, M., ‘Children’s Reading - Now’. After Alice. Styles, M., Bearne, E. &Watson, V. (eds), Casswell, London, 1992.

Misson, R. & Morgan, W., Critical Literacy and the Aesthetic. NCTE, Illinois,2006.

Morgan, W., Critical Literacy in the Classroom. Routledge, London, 1997.

Nikolajeva, M. & Scott, C., How Picturebooks Work. Garland Publishing, NewYork and London, 2001.

Ottley, M., Requiem for a Beast: A Work for Image, Word and Music. Lothian,Sydney, 2007.

Unsworth, L., Thomas, A., Simpson, A. & Asha, J., Children’s Literature andComputer-Based Teaching. McGraw Hill/Open University Press, London, 2005.

Beverley Croker is a lecturer at the University of New England, Australia whereher main teaching interest is in children’s literature. Her current research exploresthe role of multimodal texts in education, with a particular focus on the changingnature of literary texts.

The Paratextual and Precursory Voices of Twilight

Phil Fitzsimmons, Edie Lanphar and Jess Sanford

AbstractThis chapter reports on the findings of an initial project that aims at understandingthe ‘engagement factors’, ‘aesthetic connectors’ or ‘points of focalisation’1 thatwere embedded in Stephanie Meyer’s book Twilight and subsequent film of thesame name. As part of a long-term nested research agenda focusing on Meyer’sentire book series and ensuing films as well as through our initial ‘reader response’discussions as ‘denizen surveyors’,2 we came to a realisation. Before even openingthe books, the covers of these texts used a series of ‘conceptual framingmetaphors’3 as a ‘paratextual’4 entrée to the threads of meaning found in each book.Also the images on all of the covers acted as ‘problem spaces’5 and connected thefour books as vivid ‘thresholds of interpretation.’6 In the case of Twilight, theimages were seemingly simple, but in actuality, they spoke as a powerful ‘extra-diegetic voice’7 through the use of ‘archetypal metaphor’,8 ‘liminal transitions andspatiality’9 and several of the typical tools of visual literacy such as ‘line, vectorand colour’.10 The latter were formed as binaries in a matrix with the other formsthat Mattingly and Garro describe as an ‘autobiographical memory’,11 the meetingplace of past and present’. The ‘plane as paratext’ on this cover spoke of thethemes of ambiguity, the sense of the ‘abject’ and development of adolescentsexuality found in the actual text, but also entwines the mutually exclusiveopposites of death and life, decay and growth, wetness and aridity into acomplementary whole.

Key Words: Critical reading, paratextual facets, subtext, Twilight.

*****

1. Every Picture Tells a StoryFirst published in 2005, Stephanie Myer’s book Twilight has grown into a

worldwide reading and viewing phenomenon over the past few years that has thepotential to rival the reader-viewer base of the Harry Potter series of books andfilms. While the target audience is young adolescents and perhaps adolescentfemales, a second generation of much more mature readers have also developed.Perhaps for the first time, a text for adolescent readers has genuinely moved out ofwhat has been recognised as ‘that uncertain territory between the more realms ofchildren’s books and adult books, … neither in the free market of adult books norin the closed shop of children’s books’.12 As educators who believe that popularculture is the entrée into developing genuinely connected readers, as Generation Xand Y have a mindset that is ‘deeply embedded in engagement with popularculture, which for many children and adults is not only the means by which they


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communicate, relax, reflect and play; but has become their raison d’etre’,13 weasked the question, ‘what were the elements of appeal of these texts?’ Surprisingly,McGin argues that this is a question seldom asked of film or popular culture ingeneral.14

Out of the swirl of reading the book through a critical-appreciative lens,watching the movie multiple times, a series of focussed conversations andconcentrated email discussions all focussing on what we could each ‘see’ in thebook and the movie, we realized that we had overlooked one important feature.The cover of Twilight was seemingly a ‘paratextual’15 visual summary of thesubtext of the entire book. Thus our focus turned to these initial images and whatemerged from an even more intense ‘thinking with a story and thinking about astory’16 analysis, was the realization that here was an apparent double codingprocess in which the images made further comment on salient intratextual points.

A good cover must be recognisable or ‘readable’ enough to buysome immediate attention, but in order to hold the audience,there must be something that demands more than passiverecognition, a more imaginative explanation.17

2. Every Story Tells a PictureThe main entrée into the paratextual facets of Twilight is the use of a vector line

that at first glance immediately draws the reader’s eye down a seemingly verticalcentral axis of the cover. Breaking the ‘typical diagonal visual application of thisvisual tool’18 this particular vector serves to focus the reader gaze onto seeminglysimple set of illustrations that include a pair of cropped almost glaringly whitelower arms and hands that are holding an apple. These facets are apparently aphotographic print and are layered on a black background. The immediate visualreaction of this quick eye catching focus belies a multilayered set of related sub-narratives.

At a holistic level, the first polyvalent narrative is the use of colour asmetaphoric triptych. While the use of the black backdrop in contrast with thealmost luminous white hands is typical of the Manichean good versus evil binaryoften found in adolescent literature, in this textual instance it has three otherintratextual forecasts. Firstly, throughout the entire text there is a constantresistance to touch or being touched. As a vampire, Edward resists coming close toBella firstly in a proxemical sense as he is afraid of not only all relationships butalso he senses he could easily slip into his primeval need to kill and taste humanblood. Although he recognizes a passion in her that he has never felt, he alsorecognises that he could just as easily pin her with his hands and enjoy thesensation of the touch of his fangs on her white neck and the taste-touch sensationin his throat. This use of colours also conjoins the concept of the vampire being thearchetypal ‘other of penetration’ with the culturally based ‘black male and white


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female’ sexual anxiety. The vampire has always been seen as a signifier of the‘dark stain’ or a marker of the giving and partaking of licentiousness.

However, the notion of the feminine is often coded as death in narrative, and sothe use of the colour as a referent to both Edward, the taker of blood and the giverof death, and Bella, the giver of blood and taker of death. The implication is thatwhile they desire to be one, in order to reach this point they must come fromopposite world-views and actualities. This concept is also realized archtextually inthe text both as plot and colour signification in that Bella, the white non tanninggirl arrives from the harsh Arizonan desert to finally meet a potential ‘outcast’lover in the darkness of the rain sodden skies of Washington State. Both, it seemshave to give up their lives to reach fulfilment in that symbolic vampiric point ofbeing suspended between two worlds.

A sexual inference also links the third element of colour usage as well as theapplication of iconic facets. As indicated previously the hands are holding a redapple. While the colour red is an emblem of the Biblical fall, it is also conjoined tothis metaphoric symbol through the related polyvalent facets that give a hint of thefeminine, love and blood the apple itself is slightly imperfect. These slight tingesof yellowish imperfection also give other intertextual echoes. This facet not onlyadds weight to the Gothic elements in this text and overall swing of adolescentliterature towards the breaking of cultural patriarchal taboos through this mode, butBella’s relationship with the lineage of ‘blood drinkers’ also gives another societalvoice as the ‘lost to the world female child’ she becomes identified with. Allgroups have become ‘othered’. In particular, beginning with Bram Stoker’s Mina,the doomed archetypal path of forbidden love with the ‘undead’ has come tosignify the right of woman to find their own sexuality and space within in society.

However, it is at this visual point the notions of transgressions, the forbiddenand choice literally and symbolically fuses with that the use of colour and theiconic usage of the hands. Adding further gravity to the notion of ‘the womb of thespecies’19 finding its genuine sense of place and equality in Western culture, it isimpossible to tell whose lower arms and hands are pictured on the cover of thisbook. With hands typically representing the notion of the entire self, in not beingable to discern whose hand belongs to whom, the cover illustrations also create ametaphoric palette that speaks of the loss of place that adolescents find in theircontext of culture and situation. While in many ways Bella comes across in the textitself as a mix between ‘Bambi’ and ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ the cover of thistext tells a pictorial vignette of a woman trying to find her sense of self by herself.In doing so it breaks the Calvanistic and Rousseian notions that young people arewild in nature and must be tamed by adults in order to find a sense of peace.Through these particular paratextual elements and then as found in the text itself,both Bella and Edward can only find who they are individually and as a coupleonly by finding out the nature of the ‘wild’ in themselves and by themselves, and


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only then will they be free to live a life of peace in the culturally ‘wild places’created by adults.

Hence the unplaced and disconnected arms on the black backdrop form anotherset of oblique vector lines linking with the central line. In joining this verticaldivide with the force that is signified by these diagonals they suggest the centralcore of the book will also be dealing with issues of finding a central a centralemotional core of stability and associated life focus. Not one dominated bypatriarchal demands, cultural imprints of what it means to be happy or the crowdedconvergence societal values, but one where they can rest in and with each other.They can only genuinely shine as individuals and as a couple when they choose toimagine themselves in a loving relationship and overcome the blackness of a worldthat is based on the ‘likeability principle of identification that forever rebuilds thegroup’.20 It is the ‘likeability principle’ that produces societal acceptance but alsocreates the regret of not living the life we as humans want, but are afraid toundertake.

The realm of potential possibilities is promising but risky as well.To guide our walk through this territory we have createdboundaries that eliminate options that seem immoral or risky. Inmany circumstances, these boundaries may seem suitable asgeneral guidelines but they cannot cover all the variouscircumstances. Accordingly, overstepping the boundaries seemsinevitable.21

The three vector lines without an origin, in company with the other visualelements of the disconnected arms and blackness without borders, generates anexophoric sense of space as well as the tension between risk and the incessantdriving force of love. In regard to the sense of ‘outside, and over there’, theseelements generate a sense space characterized by emptiness, loneliness andexclusion that lie outside of the cover area. From the outset this visual combinationbreaks the typical central metaphoric focus of the home and its representativeboundaries of security that are core archetypal elements of adolescent narratives.These visual tools link with the vampiryic notion of in that its origin lies inTransylvania; the prefix being space a referent to a lack of fixed space andconsequently a switching or movement across spaces. In stark contrast to thecircumscribed description of places and spaces in the text itself, this broadsurrounding imaginary outer space represents an empty gloom beyond theblackness of the front cover. This symbolic ‘out of borders’ emptiness reflects notonly the emotional state of the two central characters that is the catalyst for thisnarrative, but is also a possible prescient shadow of their future bloodless ‘undead’lives. However, the visual mapping of the hands over this blackness also infersanother possibility in that the bleak blank potential can be overridden by a deep


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intimate and highly personal connection. Despite they come from the polaropposites of human and non-human, human time and vampyric timelessness andthe need to expel to give life and the need to consume blood to give death, theirupturned hands with its associated significance of supplication inscribes the coverwith similar possibilities. This ‘close association between love and death’22 isrevealed visually with the suggestion that both are willing to offer themselves toeach other with the purpose of finding life in love in and for each other as well astaking on the mantle of death with the same purpose. This is visual pose issomewhat confirmed in that the hands are offering an apple with its significance ofeternal life or eternal damnation, dependent on the choice of to eat or refrain. Thischoice lies at the heart of Bella’s and Edward’s relationship.

The notion of black undeterminable space as a place of choice is not only a keyreferent for the two main characters’ understanding of self and world view but forthe entire set of human and non-human beings throughout the entire text. This thirdspace’23 out-of the border projection is an all-encompassing allegory representingthe emotional state of all of the characters and social groupings. To some degree allare feeling isolated and ‘othered’, they just cannot see past their own self-determined limitations and the choices that are available to them. Their ownborders and the perceived limitations of their worlds hem them in both as aphysical and emotional space. It is Bella’s and Edward’s relationship that providesthe catalyst for greater personal vision and an opportunity for each individual andgroup to change.

3. A ‘Chick Flick’ with Paratext, … or PalimpsestWhile Meyers’ Twilight has an obvious paratextual narrative that on the surface

appears to have the visual look, feel and touch of the typical female adolescentlove meta-narrative. But a closer analytic inspection reveals that this cover, whilerevealing intratextual echoes of romance and sentimental love, is actually suffusedand inscribed with visual motifs that visually scream of a definitive break from theon-going tropes of adolescent literature that often rest on ‘socially and politicallyconstructed views of femininity as maternity, the adolescent as victim and thesentimentalised family’.24 The central vortex and its accompanying themes insteadrealign the adolescent viewpoint with elements of liberation, boundary breakingand the need for transcendence. The theme of love is not lost, just framed as itshould be as the most powerful force in humanity, as well as for the ‘undead’.

A love that hardly has any boundaries and tries to open all doors isvery different form a love that is tamed by boundaries andsurrounded only by closed doors.25


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Notes

1 G. Winch, et al., 2004, p. 344.2 R. Van Noy, 2003, p. 29.3 G. Lakoff, 2006, p. 13.4 G. Genette, 1997, p. 31.5 D. Bordwell, 1989, p. 32.6 G. Genette, 1980, p. 9.7 Ibid., p. 214.8 J. Campbell, 1993, p. 17.9 P. Fitzsimmons, 2000, in press.10 M. Anstey & G. Bull, 2000, pp. 181-182.11 L. Matingly & C. Garro, 2000, p. 71.12 H. Scutter, 1992, p. 2.13 P. Fitzsimmons & B. McKenzie, 2007.14 C. McGin, 2005, p. vii.15 G. Genette, 1980, p. 231.16 C. Ellis, 2004, p. 197.17 S. Tan, 2005.18 G. Kress & T. Van Leeuwin, 2006, p. 59.19 H. Scutter, 1999, p. 242.20 L. Rickels, 1999, p. 218.21 A. Ben-Ze’ev & R. Goussinsky, 2008, p. 121.22 A. Ben-Ze’ev & R. Goussinsky, p. 245.23 E. Soja, 1996, p. 37.24 H. Scutter, 2003.25 A. Ben-Ze’ev & .R Goussinsky, p. 145.

Bibliography

Anstey, M. & Bull, G., Reading the Visual: Written and Illustrated Children’sLiterature. Harcourt, Sydney, 2000.

Ben-Ze’ev, A. & Goussinsky, R., In the Name of Love: Romantic Ideology and ItsVictims. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008.

Bordwell, D., Meaning Making: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation ofCinema. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1989.

Campbell, J., The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Fontana, London, 1993.

Ellis, C., The Ethnographic I. Altamira Press, New York, 2004.


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Fitzsimmons, P. & McKenzie, B., ‘The New Symbolic Space: The Use of PopularCulture as Tools of Engagement’. 3rd Global Conference on Creative Engagementswith Children, Retrieved 16 Dec 2007 from http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/education/creative-engagements-thinking-with-children/project-archives/3rd/.

Fitzsimmons, P., ‘The Labyrinth, Lustrate and Liminal in Requiem for a Beast: TheArchetypal Monster Resurrected as Multi-Modality’. Monstrous Deviations in theArts and Literature. In Press, Santos, C. & Spahr, A. (eds), 2009.

Genette, G., Paratexts: The Thresholds of Textuality: Literature, Cultural TheorySeries No.20. trans. Lewin, J., Cambridge University Press, New York, 1997.

—, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree. University of Nebraska Press,Nebraska, 1998.

Kress, G. & Van Leeuwen, T., Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design.Routledge, New York, 2006.

Lakoff, G., Whose Freedom? The Battle over America’s most Important Idea .Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 2006.

Mattingly, L. & Garro, C., Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness andHealing, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2000.

McGin, C., The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact. Pantheon, NewYork, 2005.

Rickels, L., The Vampire Lectures. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis,1999.

Scutter, H., Displaced Fictions: Contemporary Australian Fiction for Teenagersand Young Adults. Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 1999.

Soja, E., Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real and Imagined Places - ShouldOne Be Born before Time: Equal Birth Rights for All. Blackwell, Cambridge,Mass, 1996.


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Tan, T., ‘Can You Judge a Book by Its Cover?’ and ‘Does Book Design reallyMatter?’. The Third Millennium: Read On!, Proceedings of the 5th Nationalconference of Children’s Picture Book Council of Australia, 2005, Retrieved 20Dec 2008 from http://www.det.wa.eud/au/education/cmis/eval/fictions/classroom/picturebooks.

Van Noy, R., Surveying the Interior: Literary Cartography and the Sense of Place.University of Nevada Press, Las Vegas, 2003.

Winch, G., Ross-Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L. & Holliday, M., Literacy:Reading, Writing and Children’s Literature, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press,Oxford, 2004.

Phil Fitzsimmons is a senior lecturer at the University of Wollongong, Australia.

Edie Lanphar is curriculum coordinator at San Roque School.

Jess Sanford teaches English with the middle school years at San Roque School.

Thinking and Talking to Alice: An Antipodean Adventure

Kerrie McCaw

AbstractThis chapter will examine an intricate journey that involves an interdisciplinaryapproach to visual culture. The Alice novels of Lewis Carroll are used as a vehiclefor exploration because of their thematic concerns and the way in which thoseconcerns have been interpreted and disseminated into visual culture. The Alice’sAdventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What She FoundThere books written by Carroll and illustrated by John Tenniel first published in1865 and 1871 respectively, have provided an ongoing conversation with artists.Through Tenniel’s illustrations, this conversation may be seen to reach back toLeonardo Da Vinci, as well as reaching forward through modernism, post-modernism and on to current art practices. The intention of this chapter is toexamine the use of Carroll’s text and Tenniel’s illustrations as reference materialfor visual artists, with particular focus on a dialogue created with Australiancontemporary art practitioners and the ‘Alice’ stories. This enquiry is longitudinal,by means of both a subjective, personal practice-based research method thatconverses with the text and illustrations, and by an examination of relevantliterature. Such an employed exploration is in order to highlight the broaderramifications of the use of historical material and memory through a kind ofcultural archaeology. These Victorian-era children’s novels then become a site forexamining artistic practice and its place in twenty-first century Australian culture.

Key Words: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Australian artists, CharlesDodgson, conversation, interdisciplinary, John Tenniel, studio practice, Throughthe Looking Glass.

*****

This chapter addresses one of the main themes of an on-going research projectbased in studio practice and on an examination of textual material. The process ofworking between practice and theory in the studio likened itself to the processinvolved in a conversation. Information that was gathered in one way becamereflected in, and inferred the other; back and forth just as in a conversation. Itfollowed from this that the notion of conversation could be used as a ‘travellingconcept’, allowing an interdisciplinary investigation into different kinds of culturalartefacts and ideas in order to link the diverse areas of history, aesthetics andculture.1 As Richard Rorty writes,

If we see knowing not as having an essence, to be described byscientists or philosophers, but rather as a right, by current

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standards, to believe, then we are well on our way to seeingconversation as the ultimate context within which knowledge isto be understood.2

Conversation is a much over used term but treated as a concept it enables thecrossing of disciplinary divides. The main characters involved in this conversationare, beginning with Alice, the child for whom the tales were written and the manyother Alices who were the subject of the authors photographs. The author himselfCharles Lutwidge Dodgson writing under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll is alsokey to the discussion as is Sir John Tenniel the illustrator and lastly, and mostimportantly, three specific Australian artists who have all engaged with the Alicestory and its legacy.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Oxford don, mathematician and photographer wasa regular visitor to art galleries and his use of painting as reference for his writtenwork has been commented on by others. Interestingly in the preface to, Sylvie andBruno, he explains his process of writing. ‘I jotted down ... all sorts of odd ideas,and fragments of dialogue’, and that although the dialogue could sometimes betraced, ‘they also had a way of their own of occurring’.3

Sir John Tenniel was a popular artist who created political cartoons for Punchnewspaper illustrated the Alice books. There have been links made between hiswood block prints of the Duchess and early drawings by Leonardo da Vinci.4

It is however the conversation between Australian artists and the children’snovels of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass that forms the focusof this chapter. Whilst not the only Australian artists to have drawn on these works,I have chosen three for their extensive and differing interactions.

In 1950 the painter Charles Blackman began a series based on the novels. Thepaintings were produced, according to Felicity St John Moore, from listening to thestory on a talking book machine. It appears that Blackman, who grew up in a housewithout books, first heard the story as a talking book borrowed from the locallibrary for his wife Barbara. This takes place at a time when his wife was pregnantand losing her sight, and while Blackman was working as a short order cook.5

Blackman recounts, ‘So I took the rabbit with me into the kitchen as a kind ofmedium. The rabbit helped me in the Kitchen and I helped the rabbit when I wenthome’. He then painted the pictures his Alice series during the daylight hours.6

According to St John Moore, ‘The Blackmans had identified their own surrealadventures with the Alice story and Charles would use the series to evoke hispersonal poetic image’.7 Blackman became the white rabbit and his wife, Barbara,was Alice in his paintings.

Interestingly, although Blackmans paintings did not rely on the iconicillustrations of Sir John Tenniel they still depicted a very recognisable and iconicAlice. This raised questions that seemed unasked in the catalogue along with thoseregarding the roles of adults and children.

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Robert Nelson noticed too commenting on further possible motives for thepaintings when he says, ‘questions arise that remain unanswered and troublesome’,and he then postulates further, ‘what would it be for an adult to play these games?’8

This might lead us to ask if the use of the Alice texts is an excuse for artists torevisit childhood fantasies or could there be different meanings?

Polexini Papapetrou is another Australian artist who addresses some of thesequestions in her three series. Using photography as a medium she portraysdaughter Olympia as Alice. Some of these images are based on the illustrations bySir John Tenniel, while in another series; she makes use of the photographs ofchildren by Charles Dodgson. They too form the base of a doctoral thesis titled,‘The theatricality and performative aspects of the child subject in photography’.Her intention she says is to, ‘explore the transformative power of fancy dress andscenography in its ability to disrupt the traditional and romantic representation ofthe child as an innocent’.9 In pursuit of these ideals she has produced three series ofAlice themed works.

The first in 2002 Phantomwise, a title taken from a Charles Dodgson poemmakes use of Victorian masks to transform her daughter Olympia’s persona fromchild, exotic, chef, legal counsel, gypsy queen, sailor and grandmother. In aninteresting essay on the exhibition a critic contends that, ‘Phantomwise returns tohaunt us precisely because it would conflate photography’s own self-memorialising or cryptographic practice into the ghostly deployment of the self’.10

A second series Dreamchild produced in 2003 extends on the above venturingmore closely into the photographic world of Charles Dodgson. PhotographingOlympia, this time in reconstructed Dodgson like tableaux the artist references thesorts of photographs of Alice Liddell and other child friends which were staged inromantically constructed, theatre like sets.

The position of the child in Victorian society as described by Zara Stanhopewas moving away, ‘from being a small adult to a junior member of the familyneeding a protective and nurturing domestic environment’. Stanhope continues,‘Papapetrou’s images celebrate and test the field of play between adults andchildren’.11

Recently many questions were raised in a public debate over the photographingof children and especially in the nude resulting in new protocols for artists. Thedebate was in response to another artists work but Papapetrou’s was caught in thefurore. Dodgson’s photographs also attracted similar controversy. Adding to themystery is the missing diaries for a particular period that can’t be explained.Perhaps they are as Papapetrou states, ‘not the usual Victorian sentimental imagesof children and they transcended all the social barriers of the time’, she continues,‘may-be he just loved the whole (childhood) world of fantasy’.12

Amy Leal comments that, ‘they are not fetishistic embarrassments by a belovedauthor, but inextricable from his aesthetic vision of childhood’.13


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Sherry Ackerman further asserts that, ‘many of the myths that surroundedCarroll sprung up ... out of failure to understand Victorian esoteric trends’. Shesays too, ‘the Victorian cult of the child was, more accurately, a reappearance ofthe Orphic theogony for the belief in a divine child’.14

A dialogue surrounding these issues opens up the debate into other areas. In myown practice an attempt has been made to explore overlooked characters such asthe Duchess, a matriarchal figure, in order to make visible those that are usuallyexcluded not only from visual culture but also from discussions surrounding thetexts.

A third series by Papapetrou is Wonderland (2004) which depicts Olympia inJohn Tenniel tableaux. The backdrops for these works are life size canvasespainted by, Olympia’s father and Papapetrou’s partner, Robert Nelson, and basedon Tenniel’s illustrations. The images are described by Kendra Morgan as,‘Olympia’s interpretation of Alice’s reactions to the characters and situations sheencounters’, and that, ‘these settings distinguishes her Alice from the girl inTenniel’s illustrations’.15

Here then is Olympia’s Alice in conversation with Tenniel and also with LewisCarroll. This, it seems to me, is an example of a child of the present day, engagingor conversing, through her mother, with a narrative from another era. Papapetrouhas produced a series related to the illustrations and then expanded her oeuvre toinclude the photographs of Charles Dodgson.

Zara Stanhope, suggests that Papapetrou is delving into the, ‘relations betweenphotographer and subject and the interpretative possibilities generated by theviewer,’ and that, ‘the staged child tableau in photography has an intriguinghistorical legacy’, she goes on to say that, ‘it is this affect of ... ambiguity, residingin Dodgsons images ... that strikes contemporary viewers’.16

Another contemporary artist Harmony Nichololas displays her photographicseries ‘Jabberwocky’ on an electronic website. Here she explains a photographicimage as, ‘part of my Alice in Wonderland series’, and adds, ‘very heavilyinfluenced by Anna Gaskell and my own crazy head’.17 Nicholas’ graphic imagescould be seen to hover between fashion and art photography. Her model is dressedin opportunity shop clothing with a platinum blond wig, striped stockings andchunky high heels. Alice has had an extreme make over bringing her intocontemporary Australian culture.

Nicholas’s Alice, lies face down in a bed of ivy which evokes visually,Dodgson’s famous photograph of Alice Liddell, titled Beggar-maid, where she isclothed in a ragged dress and posed against an ivy-covered wall.17

On a television program, ABC Sunday Arts, in 2008 she explains her methodand style of work; ‘And yes, I’m part of the u-tube generation’, continuing, ‘Istarted off as a painter and switched to photography’, and further says she, ‘veeredaway from the metaphysical to fairy tales, and Alice in Wonderland especially inan ongoing series called Jabberwocky that started in 2003’.18

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Several new notions now come into view; what are the effects of an on-linegallery; the way perhaps Alice has changed to conform to society; and how societyhas perhaps interpolated Alice into many aspects of visual culture. The newcyberspace has a melange of data, text, dialogue, images that contain high and lowart, in a space that creates its own visual culture and cultural identity.

Julian Stallabrass, said that, ‘the great advantage of the internet for artists, andfor culture and political agitators of all kinds is that it cuts through the regularsystems of media dissemination’.19

Very often there are no barriers to sharing of images; no curators, nodistinctions between high or low art and a greater accessibility. However there aredisadvantages too; issues of authorship, reproducibility, image overload, thedistancing from the real world.

Nichloas’s work is displayed on an on-line gallery with many other images thatrelate also to the Alice texts and images, resulting in a conversation then with anunknown collective voice.20

Sherry Turkle, who first began writing about the human experience withcomputers over twenty years ago, suggests ‘virtual space ... made it possible forpeople who had never met physically to relate to one another[in that]computerusers cycle through personae, cutting across ‘real life’ distinctions of gender, race,class, and culture’. It is in the domain of computational objects she contends, ‘fromdigital pets to advanced humanoid robots’, that Turkle says we need to now focusour attention.21

The questions asked of an online gallery might be similar to some of those thatare asked of Turkles ‘relational artefacts’. What are the human connections withthe objects? What are the possibilities for empathic responses? 22 Is it a newversion of wonderland with the same or new dilemmas?

In brief the three artists focussed on here seem to demonstrate divergentperspectives. Charles Blackman produced images from a conversation with the textas a way of negotiating his personal life issue. Questions were raised though aboutwhat it could mean for adults to engage with children’s games. PolixeniPapapetrou raised issues regarding children’s games too through an intenseconversation not only with Alice but also with Charles Dodgson and hisphotographic images. Harmony Nicholas placed Alice in a very adult game,combining contemporary cultural imagery with that of a derivative Alice in orderto traverse a different Wonderland in cyberspace sharing her adventures with aglobal audience. It can be seen that even though each artist had a different reasonsfor an engagement with the novels, that each engaged in an extensive conversationwith images from the past and within culture.

My own studio-based research allowed other conversations to surface and otherquestions to be asked. What about the images from the past? How do these imagesfunction in the present? Is it an act of nostalgia or memory? I chose one of the less


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explored characters in the novel to extend the dialogue from the perspective of theDuchess in a contemporary antipodean landscape.

It can be seen, I think, that open engagements or conversations allow images todivest of their meaning, fostering an understanding of visual literacy, which in turnencourages the development of a richer visual culture. It ultimately makes manifestthe coming together of the conscious and unconscious mind in the studio-basedpractice.

The inference that can be drawn is that the dissemination, reception andproduction of images are an intricate process inextricably tied to the visual cultureof the time and place, intersecting with that of personal experience.

The final words are from Alice, ‘what is the use of a book without pictures orconversation?’23

Notes

1 Bal describes this theory as, ‘interdisciplinarity in the humanities ... must seek itsheuristic and methodological basis in concepts rather than methods’, M. Bal,Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide, University of TorontoPress, Toronto, 2002, p. 5.2 R. Rorty, Philosophy of the Mirror of Nature, Princeton University Press,Princeton, New Jersey, 1979, p. 389.3 C. Dodgson, in M. Cohen, Lewis Carroll: A Biography, Macmillan, London,1995, pp. 367-368.4 M. Hancher, ‘Lineage of the Ugly Duchess’, The Tenniel Illustrations to the‘Alice’ Books, Ohio State University Press, Columbus, 1985, pp. 41-47.5 F. St. John-Moore, ‘Conception to Birth: The Alice in Wonderland Series’,Charles Blackman: Alice in Wonderland, (exhibition catalogue), G. Smith & F StJohn-Moore (eds), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2006, pp. 10-18.6 N. Armadio, Charles Blackman: The Lost Domains, Reed, Sydney, 1983, p. 26.7 F. St. John-Moore, loc. cit.8 R. Nelson, ‘Bringing together Blackman’s Alice in Wonderland Paintings fromthe ‘50’s is a Fine Achievement’, The Age, 23 Aug 2006.9 P. Papapetrou, ‘A Studio Investigation into the Theatricality and PerformativeAspects of the Child Subject in Photography’, PhD Thesis, Monash University,Melbourne, 2006, p. 1.10 R. Moore, ‘Olympia, Faciality and the Punctual Play of Darkness’,Phantomwise, (exhibition catalogue), Monash Universty, Melbourne, 2004.11 Z. Stanhope, ‘Series Play’, Dreamchild, (exhibition catalogue), Johnston Gallery,Monash University, Melbourne, 18th August-18th September, 2005.12 P. Papapetrou in R Lancashire, ‘Exploring Wonderland’, The Age, 10 May 2003.13 A. Leal, ‘Lewis Carroll’s Little Girls’, Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 54,Issue 10, 2007, p. 65.

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14 S. Ackerman, Looking for Lewis Carroll, Presentation at Cambridge Centre forWestern Esotericism, 11 Oct 2008.15 K. Morgan, The Plot Thickens: Narratives in Australian Art, Heide Museum ofModern Art, Bulleen, 2004.16 Z. Stanhope, loc. cit.17 A. Higonnet, Lewis Carroll, Phaidon, London, 2008, plate 17.18 H. Nicholas, Sunday Arts Program, television programme, ABC Television,Broadcast 17 Feb 2008.19 Retrieved 24 Mar 2009 from http://www.myspace.com/dalaiharma.20 Retrieved 24 Mar 2009 from http://www.redbubble.com.21 J. Stallabrass, Internet Art: The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce, TatePublishing, London, 2003, p. 9.22 S. Turkle, The Second Self, Twentieth Anniversary Edition, The MIT Press,Massachusetts, 2005, p. 288.23 L. Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Macmillan and Co. Limited,London, 1933, p. 1.

Bibliography

Ackerman, S., Looking for Lewis Carroll. Cambridge Centre for WesternEsotericism, 11 Oct 2008.

Armadio, N., Charles Blackman: The Lost Domains. Reed, Sydney, 1983.

Bal, M., Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide. University ofToronto Press, Toronto, 2002.

Carroll, L., Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass andWhat Alice Found There: The Centenary Edition. Penguin Books, 1998.

—, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Macmillan and Co. Limited, London, 1933.

Cohen, N., Lewis Carroll: A Biography. Macmillan, London, 1995.

Hancher, M., The Tenniel Illustrations to the ‘Alice’ Books. Ohio State UniversityPress, Columbus, 1985.

Higonnet, A., Lewis Carroll. Phaidon, London, 2008.

Leal, A., ‘Lewis Carroll’s Little Girls’. Chronicle of Higher Education. Vol. 54,Issue 10, 2007.


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Lancashire, R., ‘Exploring Wonderland’. The Age. 10 May 2003.

Moore, R., ‘Olympia, Faciality and the Punctual Play of Darkness’. Phantomwise.(exhibition catalogue), Monash University, Melbourne, 2004.

Morgan, K., The Plot Thickens: Narratives in Australian Art. Heide Museum ofModern Art, Bulleen, 2004.

Nelson, R., ‘Bringing together Blackman’s Alice in Wonderland Paintings fromthe ‘50’s is a Fine Achievement’. The Age. 2006. Retrieved 24 Jun 2009 fromhttp://www.theage.com.au/news/arts-reviews/charles-blackman/2006/08/23/1156012592129.html.

Nicholas, H., Sunday Arts Program. Television Programme, ABC Television,Broadcast 17 Feb 2008.

—, Retrieved 24 Mar 2009 from http://www.myspace.com/dalaiharma.

—, Retrieved 24 Mar 2009 from http://www.redbubble.com.

Papapetrou, P., ‘A Studio Investigation into the Theatricality and PerformativeAspects of the Child Subject in Photography’. PhD Thesis, Monash University,Melbourne, 2006.

Rorty, R., Philosophy of the Mirror of Nature. Princeton University Press,Princeton, New Jersey, 1979.

Stallabrass, J., Internet Art: The Online Clash of Culture and Commerce. TatePublishing, London, 2003.

Stanhope, Z., ‘Series Play’. Dreamchild. (exhibition catalogue), Johnston Gallery,18th August-18th September, Monash University, Melbourne, 2005.

St. John-Moore, F., ‘Conception to Birth: The Alice in Wonderland Series’.Charles Blackman: Alice in Wonderland. (exhibition catalogue), Smith, G. & St.John-Moore, F. (eds), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2006.

Turkle, S., The Second Self. Twentieth Anniversary Edition, MIT Press,Massachusetts, 2005.

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Kerrie McCaw is a research student at the University of Ballarat, Australia and aVisual Art Practitioner whose main interest lies where visual images, culturalartefacts and literature operate dialogically.

PART III

Outsider and Insider Visions

The Inner Eye and the Outer Space: Planetaria as Schools forVisual Literacy

Boris Goesl

AbstractThis chapter traces the pivotal role of planetaria in training elementary visualliteracy. Planetaria address a quite different visual system than all other visualmedia: as one never can see all stars at a planetarium’s dome prima vista butinevitably has to wait until dark adaptation is completed, a culture of ‘deferredvisual gratification’ is established there. The artificial stars – minimal visual units;‘pixel avant la lettre’ – challenge visual literacy regarding ‘just noticeabledifferences’ in brightness. ‘Re/-productive imagination’ is practised in planetaria asthe constellations are explained according to ancient mnemonic attributions ofshapes to the poor visual cues of the orderless stellar distribution. Before theconventionalized constellations become visible by superimposed illustrating slidesthey have to be ‘seen-in’ certain clusters with the ‘inner eye’. To this end thespectators cooperatively have to apply the ‘gestalt laws’. Beyond this instructedmental imagery of traditional constellations the inner vision of individualalternative asterisms is also stimulated. Equally the ability to express oneself interms of images can be exercised when guiding lines which can be sketched oninteractive touchscreens are projected onto the dome, permitting a hands-on‘gradual production of visual thinking while drawing’.

Key Words: Conventions, dark adaptation, gestalt, just noticeable difference,perceptual patience, pixel, visual expression.

*****

1. Introduction: Facing SpaceThis chapter wants to explain the pivotal role of projection planetaria in

training visual literacy. Modern planetaria show an ideal night sky while the realone is more and more opaque due to light pollution, as it were astronomical ‘visuallittering’. As the perfect firmament is almost anywhere inaccessible, meanwhile itis the better choice to visit the planetarium in order to learn about stars andconstellations, although the show indeed also encourages the post-performancediscovery of the remaining visibilities of the real sky.

2. Considering ‘Sidereal Time Course’: As Time Goes ByPlanetaria address a completely different system of vision than all other visual

media. One never can see all stars at a planetarium’s dome at once but inevitablyhas to wait for minimum 7 minutes until the less bright stars – albeit alreadyprojected – get visible, because only then the time-course of dark adaptation

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transgresses the so-called rod-cone-break,1 the duplex receptor system’s transitionpoint between detection via cone- and the more sensitive rod photoreceptors.While Laura Mulvey yet points out the specific darkness of cinema2 (isolatingspectators from each other), the planetarium in fact is even more a really darkvisual setting, rather than cinema where still bright adaptation prevails. So only theplanetarium actually enlightens the dark side of vision which otherwise is mostlyfactored out in visual studies. Thus, not only spatial visual literacies are welltrained in a planetarium but also corresponding skills concerning the temporalaspects of vision. Hence with this dramaturgy of ‘just wait and see’ theplanetarium sight contributes to a (re-)establishment of a time-aware visual cultureof deferred gratification, as simply instant gratification of the scopic desire here isphysiologically impossible previous to dark adaptation.

3. ‘Small Is Beautiful’: Envisaging Stellar VisionThe synthetic stars, alike the real ones elementary and minimal visual units, or

as it were pixel ‘avant la lettre’ appear only in six discriminable brightnessnuances (‘apparent magnitudes’ m) to the naked eye, thus constituting a challengefor visual literacy regarding ‘just noticeable differences’ in brightnesses. TheEnglish nursery rhyme ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star [...] little light [...] tiny spark’thus already contains a notable observation: the absolute smallness of any star’svisual appearance. The historic main goal of planetarium projection technology hasalways been to minimize star diameters for perfect naturalistic illusion. Unlike thefirst Carl Zeiss projector of 1923 with an angular resolution of about 25 minutes ofarc for the brightest stars, still seen clearly as a disc, modern fiber optics canproject ‘diameters subtending one minute of arc, so that all stars appear as needle-sharp, beaming points’.3 As for the most natural impression, the apparent diametersof the artificial stars have to be in the order of the human eye’s resolving power ofabout one minute of arc, this 1989 introduced fiber optics technology changed thelevel of illusion in planetaria categorically. Jonathan Gilmore, referring to a theoryof realism as resemblance and especially to its rejections e.g. by Nelson Goodman,notes that the resemblance view of pictorial realism need only be commited todescribing a relation in virtue of only certain optional features of a depiction andwhat it depicts ‘such as color, shape, and scale, but not felt texture or absolute size[my italics]’.4 However in the special case of the planetarium’s image of eachsingle star, the above factored out and negated criterion of absolute size is thenfulfilled, as below the resolution threshold of the human eye – where the sizes ofmodern ‘fiber-stars’ do rank – there are no further internal size differences visible.Hence the visual appearance of planetarium stars is always already ‘true to scale’and features absolute size for the eye, therefore complying an elsewhere in visualmedia rarely locatable criterion for resemblance. One should keep in mind that realstars cannot get optically/telescopically magnified in terms of angular measureever: they always appear as nothing but punctiform.

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The semiotic pictorial status of the star projection in a planetarium isfurthermore peculiar. Altough the result is a strong impression of photorealisticnaturalism, the manner of preparation is quite the opposite of photography’s statusas a trace of light, as an index. For gaining small enough star projections in theplanetarium’s history there had first tiny holes been punched and later cauterisedinto projection-plates.5 Nowadays the mentioned fiber optics represent the stellarlight points. So the overall impression of a perfect photograph-like representationof the firmament is due to a method which in reality represents nothing more thanthe exact location and specific brightness and sometimes colour of light dots. Soinstead of being caused by a photographic ‘pencil of nature’,6 only by the agencyof light alone as W. H. F. Talbot has formulated, the planetarium’s main projectionthrough the so-called ‘star field plate’ hence was rather due to a ‘stencil ofmanufacture’. Visual literacy can therefore also mean to understand properly andunveil the producing methods of visual representations beyond their apparentresults.7 In planetaria visual literacy is also trained related to specific observingtechniques: due to the ‘Arago phenomenon’ in the planetarium one can also learnthat in the state of dark adapted vision one will see certain faint stars only if onefocusses on a spot off to one side8 instead of directly fixating the respective stars inthe fovea, as there are no rods in the fovea, the retinal area of most acute visioninto which the optical image is projected when fixating an object. Hence the fainterstars, only visible when not fixated can also be seen as a certain sort of RolandBarthes’s punctum, which means according to Barthes a visual element whichdisturbs the chosen studium, which is not pointedly sought out, but rather emerges,which ‘shoots out [...] like an arrow, and pierces [...] for punctum is also: sting,speck, cut, little hole’.9 Hence artificial stars, formerly literally punched into walk-in celestial globes and later into copper foil for planetarium projection, couldfurther enlighten the notion of the punctum.

4. Reading The Conventionalised HeavensIn the planetarium one visual literacy task is to mentally add details to the

highly abstract dot patterns of the stars in order to imagine the shape of aconstellation. Donis A. Dondis illustrated this progressive sequence of constitutiveelements for visual structures, ranging from ‘the dot, the minimal visual unit,pointer, marker of space’10 via the line to the extensive shapes. ‘(Re-)productiveimagination’ is trained in planetaria as the constellations are explained according towhat ancient cultures have attributed as navigational, educational and entertainingmnemonic shapes to the poor visual cues of the orderless distribution of the stars.Before the conventionalized constellations become disambiguated bysuperimposed slide projections of ornamented shape illustrations, theconstellations have to be ‘seen’ with the ‘inner eye’. After the concretized imagesof the constellations have been presented by the slides, these physically and defacto then already seen shapings from then on act as perceptual priming stimuli.


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The images of thought in the aftermath of the once seen illustrating slideprojections then are rather taught and hence re-thought images. By turning thespotlight on the stellar light spots with a light-pointer an ‘instructed mentalimagery’ is furthered by many planetarium operators, too. The indication of singlestars, asterisms or constellations by a light pointer helps then to raise one’s visualconcentration to the highest degree in order to mentally blind out all the othermomentarily irrelevant ‘distracting’ stars in the surrounding of the currentlydiscussed celestial structure.

One further aspect of visual literacy in the planetarium therefore is the trainingof the ability to recognise the conventions of the traditional imaginary structurescalled constellations as such. Paul Messaris notes that the term visual literacyreflects the agreement that ‘the comprehension of [...] conventions is indeed anaquired skill, comparable to fluency in reading or writing’.11 The skill of discerningthe highly conventionalized images of the constellations reminds very much of theso-called ‘cooperation principle’,12 originally meaning that a representationalsystem demands from the readers to act according to the tacit contract that one hasto cooperate in a way with the ‘text’ that one should bear passages of highambivalence. In a comparable way one has to show good will in order to ‘see’ orimagine the constellations in the visually poor star patterns and this ‘reading’ ishighly protected by cultural conventions demanding interpretative cooperation:‘per aspera ad astra’. Peter Sloterdijk resumed in this context that one basiccognitive change in the 19th century was that one that with the generalalphabetisation the constellations passed out of minds and so the pictorial scripturein the night sky had from then on few readers any more.13 Planetaria in returnrevitalize the ability to see or ‘read’ the constellations.

But of course one cannot place a simple equation between reading a text andanalytically viewing images. The somehow misdirecting metaphor of reading thesky must not refer to a textual model of reading. As Rachel Bailey Jones notes:‘Some theorists equate the linguistic text and the visual quite directly, whereasothers seek an alternate discursive space for visual literacy’.14 The only so to speak‘textual element’, really ‘readable’ in the sky would be the so-called ‘sky’s W’,composed of the five main stars of the ‘w’-shaped constellation Cassiopeia.Instead of the comparison to ‘reading’ one could apply Stanley Cavell’s distinctionof two basic different modes of perception for planetarium images, too. While‘monitoring’15 means a diffused reception mode noticing only something irregularwhich pops out of the invariant, the mode of reception trained in the planetarium isa mode of ‘viewing’, meaning here a scanning view with the purpose to detectsignificance and structure. The planetarium’s presentation of constellations alsoteaches that vision is learnt, too, just as reading texts has to be learned with somedifficulty and effort. As vision seems to be an automatic ability by birth one forgetsall too easily the transformations of vision by what one has learned and bysupplementary semantic construction. The mind tends to engage in a sort of

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attractor state when recognising a structure easy to remember. So once an asterismor constellation is noticed as the ‘Hunter Orion’ or as the ‘Cancer’ it will bedifficult not to see this mental projection anymore in the future when seeing therespective star dot patterns as cues again. As Michael Lynch and Samuel Y.Edgerton remarked, the once established constellations ‘still persist in modernWestern civilization, prejudicing our perceptions to this very day’.16 Memory itselfturns out to be the foundation of all sensory perception. In order to imagine formsand shapes of the asterisms or constellations the viewers have to apply the basic‘gestalt Laws’. The gestalt psychological principles of grouping, our innatetendency to constellate single elements that look alike, i.e. similarity grouping orthat are close together, i.e. proximity grouping,17 can be most coherently illustratedby studying the universal grouping of single elements to higher-level shapes calledconstellations. Often established asterisms, namely the ‘Pleiades’ (‘Seven Sisters’),or the ‘Plough’, typically consist of 7±2 stars. The principle of the ‘magicalnumber seven’18 as a measure for the capacity limit associated with short-termmemory and perceptual tasks certainly has a bearing on this.

The ability to imagine the constellation merely supported by the poor visual‘starting material’ broadly corresponds to Richard Wollheim’s concept of ‘seeing-in’, which he explains as something over and above ‘straightforward perception’.Wollheim elucidates that in order to attain to

seeing-in a crucial development has to occur, and that is that therelevant visual experiences cease to arise simply in the mind’seye: visions of things not present now come about throughlooking at things present.19

In this sense the star dots of the planetarium projection are the scaffold orframework, the c(l)ues for the mental images of the constellations. The stars are thepresent visible things looked at which induce and trigger the occurrence of mentalimages of constellations not present to the eyes.

Furthermore the mere necessity of having to look tilted upwards to the stars atthe overhanging dome is a crucial factor for the kinesthetic mode of perception in aplanetarium. Withdrawing the observers from their ‘straight forward looking’ dailyviewing routines, the dome virtually dominates vision. After all vision worksinterdependently to other senses such as equilibrioception. Hence theaforementioned slogan ‘per aspera ad astra’ receives a second meaning as thepermanent upward gaze during the planetarium show is indeed exhausting. Allafter all, a perception you have to bring up more effort for will also better be keptin mind and memory. Not entirely coincidentally the Greek word for ‘humanbeing’, ‘anthropos’, literally means ‘he who looks upwards’.


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5. Free Choice And Imaginative Imagery: Alternative AsterismsBeyond the instructed, predefined mental imagery of traditional constellations

the imagery of individual alternative ‘constellations’ is another goal of planetariumeducation. As John Barrow says, ‘the constellations have names that were pickedout by other ancient cultures, who attached their own images on them. Today, wewould no doubt make different choices’.20 Thus constellations are appropriateexamples for a concept of pictorial complexity in terms of irreducibilty. Theirreducibility of images as a feature of their complexity which is not a property ofsingle stimuli, but rather a property of an imagined – or inferred – set ofalternatives21 can be clarified in this respect.

6. Gradual Visual Expression: To Lend Visual Literacy A HandThe desirable trinity of visual literacies, meaning the use of images one

likewise can see, imagine and draw is visualised itself by the McKim-diagram. R.Pettersson summarizes that this depicts the ‘idea that visual thinking is experiencedto the full when seeing, imagining, and drawing coalesce in active interplay’.22 Insuch planetaria, where connecting lines between stars can be drawn with anelectronic pen onto an interactive touchscreen and instantly become projected ontothe dome firmament – vividly shown in Iain Softley’s film K-Pax (Universal,2001) located in the Hayden Planetarium New York – the ability to express oneselfby means of images can be practiced in real-time. This instructive technique allowsa hands-on ‘gradual production of visual thinking while drawing’, quite analogousto Heinrich von Kleist’s concept of a ‘Gradual Production of Thoughts WhilstSpeaking’, furthering the mentioned trinity of visual literacies. The ability to plotthe ‘disegno interno’, to ‘draw visibly’ (like ‘thinking aloud’), to outline the fuzzy,incomplete by nature inner images and hence to make them publicly visible can bedescribed by continuing Kleist’s analogy, which says, ‘The French say ‘l’appétitvient en mangeant’ and this maxim is just as true if we parody it and say ‘l’idéevient en parlant’.23 Extending the argument towards visual literacy one might say‘l’imagination vient en dessinant’. The public setting even improves theperformance of the one who may draw as the pressure of an already initiatedperformance – or with Kleist words ‘[...] the gradual completion of thought out ofa beginning made under pressure’24 – becomes operative then. The epistemicbenefit of the mere process of committing one’s images of thought to ‘chapter’means more than the mere recording of what was previously perceived. Rather, itproduces effects of its own due to the particular usage techniques. The pen tracingvisibly the connecting lines between the stellar dots has ‘the power to mediate’.25

Drawing the constellations while and after the planetarium show, reflecting uponthe visual features of stars and asterisms, all this triggers sophisticated andambitious visual literacy. The sky(-dome) is the limit!

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Notes

1 S. Schwartz, Visual Perception: A Clinical Orientation, 3rd ed, McGraw-Hill,Health Publishing Division, New York, 2004, p. 37.2 L. Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Screen, Vol. 16, Issue 3,1975, pp. 6-18.3 ‘Planetarium Technology: Shrinking of Apparent Star Diameters’, Retrieved May28, 2009 from http://www.zeiss.de/planetariums.4 J. Gilmore, ‘Pictorial Realism’, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Vol. 4, M. Kelly (ed)Oxford University Press, New York & Oxford, 1998, p. 109.5 C. Hagar, Planetarium: Window to the Universe, Carl Zeiss, Oberkochen, 1980,p. 98.6 W. Talbot, The Pencil of Nature [1824], Anniversary Facsimile, L. Schaaf (ed),Kraus, New York, 1989.7 P. Geimer, ‘Weniger Schönheit. Mehr Unordnung. Eine Zwischenbemerkung zuWissenschaft und Kunst’, Neue Rundschau, Themenheft‚ Bildkompetenzen, H.Balmes, J. Bong & H. Mayer (eds), Vol. 114, No. 3, 2003, p. 37.8 J. Elkins, ‘How to Look at the Night’, How to Use Your Eyes, Routledge, NewYork & London, 2009, p. 216.9 R. Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. R. Howard, Hilland Wang, New York, 1981, p. 27.10 D. Dondis, A Primer of Visual Literacy, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA,London, 1974, p. 15.11 P. Messaris, ‘Film: Visual Literacy’, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Vol. 2, M.Kelly (ed), Oxford University Press, New York & Oxford, 1998, p. 189.12 M. Pratt, ‘Literary Cooperation and Implicature’, Essays in Modern Stylistics, D.Freeman (ed), Methuen, London, 1981, pp. 377-412.13 P. Sloterdijk, Sphären II, Makrosphärologie: Globen, in Sphären I-III,Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1999, p. 78.14 R.B. Jones, ‘Visual Literacy’, Encyclopedia of the Social and CulturalFoundations of Education, Vol. 2, E.F. Provenzo Jr., J.P. Renaud & A.B. Provenzo(eds), Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2009, p. 850.15 S. Cavell, ‘The Fact of Television’, Themes out of School: Effects and Causes,University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1988, pp. 235-268.16 M. Lynch & S. Edgerton, Jr., ‘Abstract Painting and Astronomical ImageProcessing’, The Elusive Synthesis: Aesthetics and Science, A. Tauber (ed), KluwerAcademic Publishers Dordrecht, Boston, 1996, p. 103.17 M. Kubovy, A. Holcombe & J. Wagemans, ‘On the Lawfulness of Grouping byProximity’, Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 35, 1998, p. 71.18 G. Miller, ‘The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits onOur Capacity for Processing Information’, The Psychological Review, Vol. 63,1956, p. 97.


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19 R. Wollheim, Art and Its Objects, 2nd ed., with Six Supplementary Essays,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1980, pp. 217-218.20 J.D. Barrow, The Artful Universe Expanded, Oxford University Press, Oxford,2005, p. 191.21 M. Kubovy, ‘Visual and Design Arts’, Encyclopedia of Psychology, Vol. 8, A.Kazdin (ed), American Psychological Association and Oxford University Press,Washington D.C., New York & Oxford, 2000, pp. 188-193.22 R. Pettersson, ‘Visual Literacy’, The International Encyclopedia of Education,2nd ed., Vol. 11, T. Husén & T. Postlethwaite (eds), Pergamon, Oxford/Elsevier,New York, 1994, p. 6622.23 H. von Kleist, ‘On the Gradual Production of Thoughts Whilst Speaking (1805)’,Selected Writings, trans. D. Constantine, D. Constantine (ed), Hackett Publishing,Indianapolis, 2004, p. 405.24 Ibid., p. 407.25 C. Hoffmann, H-J. Rheinberger & B. Wittmann, Knowledge in the Making:Drawing and Writing as Research Techniques, Berlin: Max Planck Institute for theHistory of Science, 2009, Retrieved 23 May 2009 from http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/research/projects/DeptIII_HoffmannWittmann_KnowledgeMaking/index_html.

Bibliography

Barrow, J., The Artful Universe Expanded. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 2005.

Barthes, R., Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. trans. Howard, R., Hill& Wang, New York, 1981.

Cavell, S., ‘The Fact of Television’. Themes out of School: Effects and Causes.Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1988.

Dondis, D., A Primer of Visual Literacy. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, London,1974.

Elkins, J., How to Use Your Eyes. Routledge, New York, London, 2009.

Geimer, P., ‘Weniger Schönheit. Mehr Unordnung. Eine Zwischen-bemerkung zuWissenschaft und Kunst’. Neue Rundschau, Themenheft‚ Bildkompetenzen’,Balmes, H., Bong, J. & Mayer, H. (eds), Vol. 114, No. 3, 2003, pp. 26-38.

Gilmore, J., ‘Pictorial Realism’. Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. Vol. 4, Kelly, M. (ed)Oxford Univ. Press, New York, Oxford, 1998, pp. 109-110.

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Hagar, C.F., Planetarium: Window to the Universe. Carl Zeiss, Oberkochen, 1980.

Hoffmann, C., Rheinberger, H.-J. & Wittmann, B., Knowledge in the Making:Drawing and Writing as Research Technique. Max Planck Institute for the Historyof Science, Berlin, 2009, Retrieved 23 May 2009 from http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/research/projects/DeptIII_HoffmannWittmann_KnowledgeMaking/index_html.

Jones, R., ‘Visual Literacy’. Encyclopedia of the Social and Cultural Foundationsof Education. Vol. 2, Provenzo Jr. E., Renaud, J. & Provenzo, A. (eds), SagePublications, Thousand Oaks, California, 2009, pp. 850-852.

Kleist, H. von., ‘On the Gradual Production of Thoughts Whilst Speaking (1805)’.Selected Writing. trans. Constantine, D., Constantine, D. (ed), Hackett Publishing,Indianapolis, 2004.

Kubovy, M., ‘Visual and Design Arts’. Encyclopedia of Psychology. Vol. 8,Kazdin, A. (ed), American Psychological Association and Oxford Univ. Press,Washington D.C., New York & Oxford, 2000, pp. 188-193.

–––, Holcombe, A. & Wagemans, J., ‘On the Lawfulness of Grouping byProximity’. Cognitive Psychology. Vol. 35. Article no. CG970673, 1998, pp. 71-98.

Lynch, M. & Edgerton, S. Jr., ‘Abstract Painting and Astronomical ImageProcessing’. The Elusive Synthesis: Aesthetics and Science, Tauber, A. (ed),Kluwer Academic Publishers Dordrecht, Boston, 1996.

Messaris, P., ‘Film: Visual Literacy’. Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. Vol. 2, Kelly, M.(ed), Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1998.

Miller, G., ‘The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on OurCapacity for Processing Information’. The Psychological Review. Vol. 63, 1956.

Mulvey, L., ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’. Screen. Vol. 16, Issue 3,1975, pp. 6-18.

Pettersson, R., ‘Visual Literacy’. The International Encyclopedia of Education. 2nd

ed, Husén, T. & Postlethwaite, T. (eds), Pergamon, Toronto, 1994.


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‘Planetarium Technology: Shrinking of Apparent Star Diameters’. Retrieved 28May 2009 from http://www.zeiss.de/planetariums.

Pratt, M., ‘Literary Cooperation and Implicature’. Essays in Modern Stylistics,Freeman, D. (ed), Methuen, New York, 1981.

Schwartz, S., Visual Perception: A Clinical Orientation, 3rd ed, McGraw-Hill,Health Publishing Division, New York, 2004.

Sloterdijk, P., Sphären II, Makrosphärologie: Globen: Sphären I-III, Suhrkamp,Frankfurt am Main, 1999.

Talbot, W., The Pencil of Nature [1824], Anniversary Facsimile. Schaaf, L. (ed),Kraus, New York, 1989.

Wollheim, R., Art and Its Objects with Six Supplementary Essays. 2nd ed,Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1980.

Boris Goesl, M.A., writes a Ph.D. thesis, promoted by the German NationalAcademic Foundation, at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Media Studies atFriedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Department of Theatre- andMedia Studies. [email protected].

Critical Democratic Pedagogy through the Arts: Within aCulture of Democracy in Ontario Secondary Schools

Mary A. Drinkwater

AbstractCritical democratic pedagogy sees education as an on-going, two way dialecticprocess that is built around the experiences of the student and allows for criticalthinking and action to help students grow. In a truly democratic school, studentsare given the opportunity to have their voices heard and to build on their previousexperiences and interests to plan for their continuing growth. Moreover, itexplicitly focuses on issues of power, equity, social justice and diversity. Educationin and through the arts provides opportunities for all students to engage in an activecurriculum which encourages critical inquiry and expression of relevant socialissues. Additionally, it can help to build community through increasedunderstanding and tolerance within schools. This chapter will build on aconception of a culture of democracy in Ontario secondary schools which had beendeveloped by this author in an earlier paper.

Key Words: Arts, critical democratic pedagogy, critical inquiry, equity, socialjustice, student engagement.

*****

1. IntroductionGlobally, over the past three decades, both neoliberal and neoconservative

agendas have driven educational policy reform initiatives. The adoption of aneoliberal agenda by many Western nations brought with it reform initiatives basedon market-principles, such as decentralization, privatization and standardization.1

In education, policy initiatives were sold based on their potential to addresseconomic issues, prepare students to be competitive in a global work environment,and reduce inequities.2 Granted, as educational researchers have discovered, overthe past two decades, these reforms are beginning to increase both literacy andnumeracy levels in Canada.3 However, inequities still exist. In fact, many criticalresearchers would argue that these reforms are actually causing an increase instudent disengagement and an increase in the achievement gap between the richand the poor, particularly with respect to youth who have already beenmarginalized due to race, class, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.4

Disengagement in school has been identified as one of the key contributing factorsto early school leaving. Additionally, standardization both in curriculum and inassessment has also been linked to increasing student disengagement, both inmarginalized youth, as well as in youth who have been identified as ‘gifted’. Theuse of externally imposed standards creates a set of power dynamics in schools and

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classrooms and reduces opportunities for teachers and students to engage inrelevant, meaningful, and critical work that draws from their own livedexperiences.5

The role of schools, in the wake of both neoliberal and neoconservativereforms, is being questioned by many as democratic principles and practicescontinue to be eroded locally, nationally and internationally.6 I would argue thatthe use of critical democratic pedagogy through the arts could be an effectiveeducational policy tool to increase the critical engagement of students in the areasof equity, social justice and democracy. I would further argue that a paradigmaticshift in the role of schools is needed and that educational reforms must beundertaken in order to return to a vision of education as a vehicle for democratictransformation. The chapter will begin with the rationale and theoreticalframework that provide the grounding for this thesis. Next, an overview of criticaldemocratic pedagogy (CDP) and critical democratic leadership will be given.Thirdly, six arguments will be presented which support the use of CDP and thearts. The chapter will close with a brief outline of some of the challenges whichmust be addressed in order to pave the road for a policy initiative which uses CDPthrough the arts as a key contributor to education for a democratic society.

2. Rationale and Theoretical FrameworkThis chapter will build on a conception of a culture of democracy in Ontario

secondary schools which had been developed by Edgeworth in an earlier paper.7 Itwill follow Freire’s notion of praxis, in making a connection between theory andpractice and through conscientization (being critically aware of one’s thinking anddoing to bring about change).8 In building the conception of a culture ofdemocracy, the frame was drawn from critical democratic theory. Manyeducational theorists and researchers have promulgated the values of democracyand democratic practice in education.9 Democracy is a value, a policy, a practicethat respects protects, and promotes human rights. For the purpose of this chapter, Iwill be using the conception of a developmental and robust democracy, whichnecessitates a ‘way of life’ and which holds as its non-negotiables the values ofopenness, respectful dialogue, serious inquiry, reason, equity and comfort withambiguity. As a way of life, this ‘framework of principles’ can serve to guideprocesses in the classroom, school and community.10 Critical democracy will beframed as an ideal, recognizing the ‘contradictions between an espoused theory ofdemocracy and a lived experience of inequality’.11 I will argue that this ideal canand should stand as a vision of what our democracy aspires to and could become.

3. Critical Democratic Pedagogy and Critical Democratic LeadershipCritical democratic theory sees education or learning as an on-going, two way,

dialectic process that is built around the experiences of the student and allows forcritical thinking and action to help students grow. Critical pedagogy, as outlined by

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Freire must include critical and creative thinking, not just skills.12 It also takes intoaccount the affective domain in which the analysis is guided by what Woodsdescribes as navigational feelings and it requires action.13 The critical aspect mustexamine not only political issues, but also issues of social justice and equity. Thedemocratic aspect involves bringing multiple voices together, seeing thingsthrough multiple perspectives, dialoguing, discussing, debating and workingtogether to form action plans to create a difference. In a culture of democracy, thedialectic nature of both critique and possibility go hand in hand. However, thetough questions which must always be held at the forefront when criticallyexamining any issue include: Why? To what end? and In whose interest?

A significant component of this conception of democracy is that of ‘criticalinquiry’ in which students and teachers develop knowledge, skills, values,dispositions and actions that are called for by a reconstructive conception ofdemocracy. In the current transnational and global contexts, it is even morepressing to consider alternatives that are informed by how people come to know,understand, and experience themselves both as members of a community andcitizens of a nation state.14 Student engagement includes both a procedural and asubstantive aspect and is present in the iterations that emerge as a result of thedialectical process between teachers and students and the differing patterns thatevolve out of transformational actions and interactions.

It is in this regard that critical democratic pedagogy (CDP) could be a valuableinstructional tool. In a truly democratic school, students are given the opportunityto have their voices heard and to build on their previous experiences and intereststo plan for their continuing growth.15 Traditional hierarchies must be broken downand teachers must also be learners (particularly learning from their students) andbeing critically reflective about their practice to bring about conscientization.16

Teachers become facilitators and guides to help students as they: share experiencesand learn from each other; undertake critical inquiry and create their own plans ofaction. The importance of dialogue (between students, teachers, administration,parents and community) must be stressed. The process is particularly valuablewhen contradictions arise. Critical democratic pedagogy welcomes the tension andaccepts the possible ambiguity knowing that life is dynamic and constantlychanging, and that situations or events can be viewed quite differently in differentcontexts. In a truly robust democracy, students need to be encouraged, supportedand provided with opportunities to express and give reasons for their opinions, andchallenge policies with which they disagree, based on their lived experiences.

Neoliberalism promotes a market-driven and a reductionist mentality, due totrue standardization. Students who do not fit the mold or who may bedisadvantaged (due to physical, intellectual, cultural, socio-economic, orgeographic factors) often hit systemic barriers which limit their ability to besuccessful in training for the work-force, and may be ‘left by the wayside’. Criticaldemocratic engagement is realized in the processes and relationships within which


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learning for democratic reconstruction occurs. Portelli & McMahon found thatengagement is generated through the interactions of students and teachers, in ashared space, for the purpose of democratic reconstruction, through which personalgrowth or transformation occurs.17 In contrast to the notion of engagement assomething that is either the responsibility of students, or something teachers do tostudents, bell hooks envisions engagement as a method of empowerment forstudents and teachers alike.18 Fine & Weis found that this approach to learningsupports the empowerment of student voice, and the resulting learning happens ontwo levels: meaningful student learning, and enhanced understanding by adultsabout how young people experience schooling and education.19

4. Why Use the Arts?In the early 1970s, the notion of aesthetic education and aesthetic pedagogy

began to receive increased attention, primarily due to the work of writers andtheorists such as Phillip Phenix, Harry Broudy and Elliot Eisner.20 In the earlyyears, it was thought that the problems of introducing aesthetic education into theclassroom were allegedly solvable through the adequate and appropriate training ofteachers. More recently, scholars such as Landon Beyer have argued that it willtake much more than the pedagogical training of teachers to implement a seriousaesthetics program that may serve, in Habermas' terms, an emancipatory function,due to the role schools continue to play in reproducing the social and political orderof North American society.21,22 In the following section, six examples will be givento illustrate the diverse nature and value of the arts and aesthetic education whencombined with critical democratic pedagogy.

In discussing the value of works of art, Dewey’s argument that ‘experience isessential to growth’ is poignant.23 Smith & Smith argue that with respect to thevalue of works of art,

what is desired is not the object as such but the pleasure orsatisfaction of possessing, using, or experiencing it…. works ofart are instrumental to or a cause of a type of experience whichmay be called aesthetic enjoyment, satisfaction, pleasure, or someother denotation approximately synonymous.24

I would take the Smiths’ point even further to argue that an aesthetic experiencethrough the arts may also produce feelings of anger, frustration, confusion,empathy and compassion. Denzin argues that through their performative nature, thearts provide both youth and those around them the opportunity to see, hear and feeltheir artwork. In order to deepen their learning, I would argue that criticaldemocratic pedagogy during both developmental and post- performance or‘exhibition’ phases would aid self-reflection and promote further action andgrowth.25

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Secondly, as Ernest Boyer has argued the current educational system pays littleattention to the benefits of visual literacy as an important learning and teachingtool. The current conception of literacy, in most schools, has been narrowlydefined and focuses primarily on reading and writing, with the majority of teachingand assessment occurring through reading and writing.26 I would argue that thecurrent conception of literacy promotes a deficit mentality and further marginalizesmany youth. It also contributes to the sorting and streaming of individuals, at avery early level, particularly those individuals who are already marginalized.27 Theinclusion of ‘visual literacy’ broadens the whole area of literacy and offersadditional modes of learning and expression. The conception of ‘multipleintelligences’ proposed by Gardner initiated the growth in new educationalapproaches that facilitated the inclusion of students whose talents and capabilitiesare not being identified through current standardized assessments.28

Thirdly, arts education can serve as an important tool to help increase culturalawareness. In the Early School Leavers Report, Bruce Ferguson noted racism anddiscrimination as one of the risk factors that affect youth.29 Much prejudice in oursociety centers on culture. In a multicultural country like Canada, the schools havean important role to play in helping youth critically examine different cultures intheir own country and globally. Innovative curriculum and programming, usingarts as a base, can help to change attitudes and increase cultural understanding. Ina study conducted by Carol Butler, she found that use of a program, which she hadcreated, entitled Cultural Awareness through the Arts, was highly successful inhelping students develop positive attitudes toward Native People.30 The datasuggested that the arts were the instrumental factor in making the personal linkbetween the students and the First Nations People. The most important finding wasthe fact that the classes who demonstrated the most significant change in attitudewere those classes that involved not just the viewing of the arts but also doing thearts. This combination of viewing and doing the arts of the First Nations culturewas a powerful agent of change.

Fourth, the arts can provide a medium in which adolescents can ‘share theirstories’ and probe diverse societal issues. At the Canadian Education Association’sconference in 2007, Kathleen Lundy spoke about her work with elementary andsecondary teachers which focuses on helping them understand and advocate for thecrucial role that the arts and the imagination play in every student’s education.Lundy describes the powerful teaching tool provided by the dramatic arts,particularly for youth at risk. Not only can drama be used to teach, but it can alsobe used to warn, lead and heal.31 Lundy spoke of the important voices of youthwho joined together to produce a documentary which touched on topics such ashomophobia, equity, race and different learning styles. In addition to presentingtough curricular topics to their peers, seeing the passion and hearing the voices ofadolescent learners can often teach teachers, parents, and administrators aboutsome of the real life challenges that youth often experience in their lives. In order


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to deepen the learning resulting from the performativity aspect of the arts, anopportunity for dialogue between the student artists and the audience must beprovided, either during an exhibition or following a performance. Kincheloe arguesthat it is these interactions, dialogue and discussions and the subsequent process ofself-reflection, particularly when contradictions have arisen, that help to open thespaces in which meaning-making and transformation are possible.32

Fifth, given the power and impact that music has in the lives of adolescents,critical democratic pedagogy can be used to challenge students to intellectuallyengage with the world so that they become less dependent on external authoritiesand others who might not always have their or society’s best interests at heart.Many adolescents may not be aware that music is the propaganda tool of choice ofpoliticians, corporate executives and others who would subvert democratic idealswhile rendering us passive citizens and consumers. Numerous examples can befound to illustrate the way in which politicians, military personnel, and corporateexecutives use music and the arts to dress up and sometimes disguise theirmessages, such as the Right Wing Australian government did in 2005, when it co-opted rock musician and social activist Joe Cocker’s music to help sell increasedtax cuts that would be detrimental to social programs.

Finally, and most importantly in critical artistic practices, there is the politicalfunction of art. As Chantal Mouffe reminds us there is an aesthetic dimension inthe political and there is a political dimension in art. From the point of view ofhegemony, artistic practices play a role in the constitution and maintenance of agiven symbolic order or in it’s challenging, giving it the political dimension.33

Mouffe sees ‘critical art’ as art that makes visible what the dominant concensustends to obscure and obliterate. Additionally, Maxine Greene’s work on socialimagination, the place of activism, the role of the arts, and the meaning of freedomin the modern world lays a strong foundation from which to argue the importantrole that CDP through the arts can play.34

5. Taking the Vision ForwardThe growing inequities in educational systems around the world demand new

approaches in both educational policy and pedagogy. The arguments in this chaptersupport the important role that critical democratic pedagogy with the arts,integrated across the curriculum, could play in helping to re-create our schools asmodels of democracy and social justice. Realizing this vision in secondary schoolsacross Canada would be no quick and simple feat. It would necessitate a paradigmshift with respect to the role of arts education in secondary schools. However, thegreatest challenge lies in the need for a much larger paradigm shift with regards tothe role of public education itself, from an economic, market-based model to oneof democracy and social justice. As many critical theorist have argued, it will takea concerted social movement to create a disruption in the current Western,hegemonic model of education. It must be remembered, however, that throughout

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history, many of these social movements were successful because of communityorganizations and the centrality of youth.35 If democracy is more than rhetoric atthe educational policy table; it is time to bring the voices, passion and creativity ofour community members and youth to the table. However, as I have furtherdeveloped the argument, the need for a pedagogical shift towards a criticaldemocratic approach, in classrooms and in schools, is essential if we wish to usethe arts to pursue democratic goals and education for a democratic society.

Notes

1 D. Hill & R. Kumar, 2009.2 Ibid.3 M. Apple, 2004.4 Critical theorists and researchers including J. Anyon, 2005; M. Apple, 2004; G.Dei et al., 1997; B. Ferguson et al., 2005; H. Giroux, 2005; Kincheloe, 2008 havelinked student disengagement and increased achievement gaps to many neoliberaland neoconservative educational reforms.5 M. Fine & L. Weis, 2003; P. Freire, 1998.6 J. Kincheloe, 1999; J. Portelli & P. Solomon, 2001.7 M. Edgeworth, 2008.8 Paulo Freire’s work laid some key foundation principles for critical pedagogy. P.Freire, 1975, 1998.9 J. Dewey, 1938; P. Freire, 1998; H. Giroux, 1989; J. Portelli & P. Solomon, op.cit.10 J. Kincheloe, op. cit.11 A. Darder, 1991, p. 63.12 P. Freire, op. cit.13 P. Woods, 2005.14 T. Popkewitz, 2000.15 J. Dewey, op. cit.16 P. Freire, 1998, p. 55.17 J. Portelli & B. McMahon, 2004.18 B. hooks, 2003.19 M. Fine & L. Weis, op. cit.20 P. Phenix, 1964, H. Broudy, 1972, E. Eisner, 2002.21 L. Beyer, 1979, 2000.22 J. Habermas, 1971.23 J. Dewey, op. cit.24 R. Smith & C. Smith, 1971, p. 127.25 N. Denzin, 2007.26 E .Boyer, 1988.27 G. Dei et al., op. cit.


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28 H. Gardner, 1983.29 B. Ferguson, et al., op. cit.30 C. Butler, 2000.31 K. Lundy, 2007.32 J. Kincheloe, op. cit.33 C. Mouffe, 2007.34 M. Greene, 1995.35 J. Anyon, op. cit.

Bibliography

Anyon, J., Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education, and a NewSocial Movement. Routledge, New York, 2005.

Apple, M., ‘Creating Difference: Neo-Liberalism and Neo-Conservatives and thePolitics of Educational Reform’. Educational Policy. Vol. 18, Issue 2, 2004, pp.12-44.

Beyer, L., The Arts, Popular Culture, and Social Change. Peter Lang, New York,2000.

—, ‘Aesthetic Theory and the Ideology of Educational Institutions’. CurriculumInquiry. Vol. 9, Issue 1, 1979, pp. 13-26.

Boyer, E., High School. Harper & Row, New York, 1983.

Broudy, H., Enlightened Cherishing: An Essay on Aesthetic Education. Universityof Illinois Press, Urbana, 1972.

Butler, C., Cultural Awareness through the Arts: The Success of an AboriginalAnti-Bias Program for Intermediate Students. Queen’s University, Kingston, ON,2000.

Darder, A., Culture and Power in the Classroom: A Critical Foundation forBicultural Education. Bergin & Garvey, New York, 1991.

Dei, G., Mazzuca, J., McIsaac, E. & Zine, J., Reconstructing ‘Drop-Out’: ACritical Ethnography of the Dynamics of Black Students’ Disengagement fromSchool. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1997.

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Denzin, N., ‘The Politics and Ethic of Performance Pedagogy: Toward a Pedagogyof Hope’. Critical Pedagogy: Where are We Now? McLaren, P., Kincheloe, J.,Steinberg, S., Giroux, H. & Macedo, D. (eds), Peter Lang, New York, 2007.

Dewey, J., Experience & Education. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1938.

Edgeworth, M., ‘The Role of the Principal in Ontario Public Secondary Schools:Creating a Culture of Active Citizenship’. OPC Register-Ontario PrincipalsCouncil. Vol. 10, Issue 2, 2008, pp. 21-24.

Eisner, E., The Arts and the Creation of Mind. Yale University, New Haven, 2002.

Ferguson, B., Tilleczek, K., Boydell, K. & Rummens, J., Early School Leavers:Understanding the Lived Reality of Student Disengagement from SecondarySchool. Ontario Ministry of Education and Training, Special Education Branch,Toronto, 2005.

Fine, M. & Weis, L., Silenced Voices and Extraordinary Conversations: Re-Imagining Schools. Teachers College Press, New York, 2003.

Freire, P., Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy and Civic Courage.Rowman & Littlefield, MA, 1998.

—, Pedagogy of the oppressed, Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro, 1975.

Gardner, H., Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligence. Basic Books,New York, 1983.

Giroux, H., ‘The Terror of Neoliberalism’. College Literature. Vol. 32, Issue 1,2005, pp. 1-19.

—, Schooling for Democracy: Critical Pedagogy in the Modern Age. Routledge,London, 1989.

Greene, M., Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and SocialChange. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, 1995.

Habermas, J., Knowledge and Human Interests. Beacon Press, Boston, 1971.

Hill, D. & Kumar, R. (eds), Global Neoliberalism and Education and ItsConsequences. Routledge, New York, 2009.


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Hooks, B., Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope. Routledge, New York,2003.

Kincheloe, J., Critical Pedagogy. Peter Lang, New York, 2008.

—, ‘Critical Democracy for Education’. Understanding Democratic CurriculumLeadership. Henderson, J. & Kesson, K. (eds), Teachers College Press, ColumbiaUniversity, New York, 1999.

Lundy, K., ‘Imagine a School....What Young People Want: Using Their Stories’.Presentation at Canadian Education Association Conference – Getting it Right forAdolescent Learners: Design for Learning, Montreal, May 14-16, 2007. Retrieved2 Apr 2009 from http://www.cea-ace.ca/dia.cfm?subsection=the&page=del&subpage=lundy.

Mouffe, C., ‘Artistic Activism and Agonistic Spaces’. Art & Research. Vol. 1,Issue 2, 2007, pp. 1-5.

Phenix, P., Realms of Meaning: A Philosophy of the Curriculum for GeneralEducation. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1964.

Popkewitz, T., ‘Reform as the Social Administration of the Child: Globalization ofKnowledge and Power’. Globalization and Education: Critical Perspectives.Burbules, N. & Torres, C. (eds), Routledge, New York, 2000.

Portelli, J. & McMahon, B., ‘Engagement for What? Beyond Popular Discoursesof Student Engagement’. Leadership and Policy in Schools. Vol. 3, Issue 1, 2004,pp. 59-76.

Portelli, J. & Solomon, R., The Erosion of Democracy in Education: FromCritique to Possibilities. Detselig Enterprises, Ltd., Calgary, 2001.

Smith, R. & Smith, C., ‘Justifying Aesthetic Education’. Aesthetics and Problemsof Education. Smith, R. (ed), University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1971.

Woods, P., Democratic Leadership in Education. Paul Chapman Publishing,London, 2005.

Mary A. (Edgeworth) Drinkwater is a PhD candidate in Theory and PolicyStudies, Educational Administration at the Ontario Institute for Studies inEducation/University of Toronto, Canada. [email protected]

PART IV

Places of Seeing and Being

Architectural Analysis Portfolio: Drawn Knowledge, a CaseStudy in Embodied Learning

Amanda L. Hufford

AbstractThe intent of this chapter is to re-evaluate the role of a traditional media,specifically sketching, in contemporary architectural education. It suggests thatsuch practices are a valuable tool for understanding architectural design andbuilding tectonics. The study draws directly from observations of students’ workfocusing on the output from a special topics course entitled Architectural AnalysisPortfolio. The course was instigated by the apparent, growing disconnect, amongarchitectural students, between architectural design and the understanding ofbuilding tectonics as students are increasingly reliant on digital media. The primaryscope of the course is to challenge students to visually document the builtenvironment from an analytical position allowing them to draw knowledge.

Key Words: Architectural education, pedagogy, representation, sketching,embodied learning.

*****

This chapter is a survey based on observations while teaching architecture atVictoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and the University of Ferrara,Italy, during the 2006 academic year. It suggests that there is a growing disconnectbetween students’ design output and evidence of their knowledge andunderstanding of building tectonics.1 Upon reflection, I propose that this disparitymay be the result of students abandoning traditional visual literacy practices, in thiscase sketching with traditional media in favour of digital media as the soleapproach to their study of architecture. This survey also suggests that this tendencymay be a disservice to contemporary architectural education and re-evaluatestraditional practices as a means of learning with a focus on re-presentation.

Organized into three parts; 1. conveys my observations while tutoringarchitectural design studio and building construction courses and acknowledges thecurrent tendency towards digital media as the primary tool for architectural design,2. assesses the special topics course entitled Architectural Analysis Portfolio whichresponds to this disparity by employing visual literacy exercises entirely withtraditional media to strengthen students’ understanding of the built environment,and 3. summarizes my experience delivering the course and reflects upon theoutcome. The conclusion raises questions, which in answering, I anticipatestrengthening the course in its response to disembodiment in contemporaryarchitectural education.

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1. ObservationThis chapter stems directly from observation of student work while tutoring

third and fourth year architectural design studies and second and fourth yearconstruction studies at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.Tutoring consisted of direct communication with students by way of individualdesk critiques and periodical group reviews to monitor progress in a structuredsetting. During this period, I observed students’ inclination towards using digitalmedia as the prevailing tool for designing and visual communication. Thistendency was not isolated, but overwhelmingly present in each study group.

Furthermore, I became aware of an increasing disconnect in design output andlack of understanding and communication of building tectonics. Students oftenpresent their final design solutions without suggestion of structure, material, orcontext. It is possible that the disparity results from the lack of visual note-takingwhich in the past was compulsory to the architect’s education. Many students seemto prefer the immediacy found in digital applications, failing to acknowledge thatintuition results from sketching’s patient work.2 However, the gap in-betweenstudent, embodied design and building tectonics is further exaggerated whenstudents shrug the haptic nature of sketching from and within the existing builtenvironment. The act of sketching nourishes intuition and provides a catalyst forthe cognitive design process leading to output which is the product of thoughtfulcritique, exploration, and reflection. Unlike the computer, drawing requires time,attention, and a focused acknowledgement of place, all of which stimulatethinking. Digital media, in contrast, displays only what has been entered by thekeyboard or mouse.3

The very nature of our built environment is based upon its physical andexperiential qualities and its understanding lies in our corporal experience of it.4

Thus, the human attribute ought to be included in its creation. Also, in architecturaleducation with the use of traditional media creating embodied learningexperiences. Martin Heideggar writes, ‘the relationship of man to place andthrough places to spaces is based on his dwelling in them.’5 The problem ariseswhen students rely indiscriminately on the medium which detaches themselvesfrom the conceptual and intellectual components of the discipline of architecturaldesign.6 When designing digitally one’s body is transfixed before a computermonitor creating a barrier to the empathic way of conceptualizing buildings andobjects relative to our own bodies through a series of metaphors and projections.7

It is not my wish to argue against the many positive attributes of computeraided design, particularly within professional practice. However, withincontemporary architectural education, we must consider; the disembodiment ofdesign and a lack of tectonic knowledge. In the article ‘Design Software WeakensClassic Drawing Skills,’ Jim Christie writes that art students in the United Statesspend so much time with computer graphics that many wind up without needed

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drawing skills. Additionally, tech-savvy students lack the initiative and persistencedeveloped by drawing, resulting in uninspired work.8

It is my belief that on the occasion that traditional media are integrated intocoursework a greater opportunity for the understanding of tectonics is possible aswell as a more empathetic approach to the designing of spaces. For example, whena student does not know the specifications of an architectural element, sketching anexisting example, measuring and observing its relationship to his or her own bodyis sufficient for the student’s understanding of its design and possibly its tectonicdetails.9

2. Architectural Analysis PortfolioWhile tutoring architectural design and construction studies at Victoria

University of Wellington, New Zealand, I observed that many students bypass theconceptual and schematic phases of the design process committing to an initialdigital gesture without any further exploration or critical thinking that emergesfrom sketching. Instead of fostering creativity, by relying on digital media we arerunning the risk of becoming passive and lulled by the seduction of our productsthat have little to do with ourselves.10 In response, this case study investigatescoursework entirely using traditional media.

During my participation in an overseas study program I was invited to createand deliver the course entitled Architectural Analysis Portfolio. The program tookplace at the University of Ferrara, Italy and included architectural design studio,collaborative construction studies with students from the University of Ferrara, andArchitectural Analysis Portfolio. This study group was specific to twelve fourth-year students and sought relevance to the spirit of the program while satisfyingcurricular requirements of the School of Architecture at Victoria University.Coursework relied heavily on visual journal-keeping.

Keeping a notebook of observations and experiences is a very old custom andsketching was once a compulsory part of travel and education for the architect.11

Today, this momentum is being disrupted by digital media which eliminates humaninscription.12 Inspired by the tradition of the Grand Tour13 and sketching as aphysical and experiential connection to the built environment, the course aims toalter students’ disassociation with the built environment which occurs when we nolonger employ this methodology. Sketching with traditional media may be a tool toebb the disparity between design and tectonics. Specifically, Architectural AnalysisPortfolio explores sketching as a means of enhancing the understanding ofarchitectural design and building tectonics.

The course visits fundamental themes of architectural design14 to establish theframework for analysis. In contrast to the model of the artist’s Grand Tour, whichwas primarily concerned with creating postcard-like representations, the courseseeks to establish a more meaningful experience by being analytically positioned.Looking and ‘seeing’ beyond the façade fosters genuine knowledge and the haptic


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exercise of visual journal-keeping contributes to the intuitive understanding ofarchitecture which students will continue to reference throughout their endeavoursas designers and practitioners. The course’s methodology is organised into threecomponents; research, visual journal-keeping, and a final Disegno Inquisitivo orinquisitive drawing.

While the bulk of coursework is situated in visual journal-keeping, a precedentstudy provides a research component defining a point of departure for individualinvestigations by asking students to examine the influence of on-site drawnanalyses in the design work of prominent architects. These initial inquiries guidestudents’ investigations throughout the course.

A journal-keeping praxis grew from a series of entries and field assignmentsplacing students within the built environment to record and analyze what theyobserve. Architectural themes were introduced to guide the entries providing theframework for analyses expanding as each theme is introduced. A serial visionexercise recognises the genus loci or spirit of place, made up of the characteristicswhich define a place’s identity. By observing and recording these characteristicswe began to see beyond isolated architectural elements, for example wall or roof,to the broader context and rationale behind architectural design. As discussed byGordon Cullen in The Concise Townscape,15 serial visions facilitate a sequentialanalysis of spaces. We do not experience architecture as a two-dimensionalcomposition but rather by assimilating a series of experiential snapshots as wemove through the built environment.

Throughout the course, students’ journals serve as laboratories and visualrepositories for reference. This is not, however, the final statement. Once inFerrara, students chose and investigated, through verbal research and visualanalysis, a local architectural subject. Disegno Inquisitivo is the final drawing-intensive assignment providing the platform for culminating the course’s elementsof; research, analysis, and re-presentation. This visual conclusion to the course ispresented in a way that relies on effective visual communication to illustrate bothconcrete and experiential characteristics of the subjects. Though well-intended andambitious, this assignment proved to be the least successful element of the courseowing in part to; my communication of expectations for the project and timeconstraints within Architectural Analysis Portfolio as well as coinciding courses.

3. OutcomeThe outcome suggests, thus far, that human inscription is often not present in

projects that are conceived and composed with digital media alone. The analogicallink between architectural design and building tectonics is often weak ornonexistent. As an educator, one can easily identify a distinct lack ofembodiment.16 Within the framework of the course, students discarded beliefs thata drawing must contain conventional beauty to be of value and were self-motivatedby the awareness that their efforts have a greater consequence beyond picturesque

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representations. The visual journals which were once intimidating became anindelible extension of the cognitive experiences evident beyond ArchitecturalAnalysis Portfolio as students referred to these journals while developing othercoursework.

Concluding that, while this case study remains a point of departure, it suggeststhat drawing, by hand, is valid for comprehending the built environment,pollinating intuition, and supporting the design process. As this case study, atpresent, is a singular experience the following questions, specifically concernedwith pedagogical exercises, remain to be addressed:

1. Can, or perhaps should, the visual journal be the primaryoutcome of the course? Suggesting that the visual journal is farmore valuable, in its rough-hewn state, than the contrivedcomposition of the final project?

2. Does the analytical query into the built environment becomethwarted once you ask the student to interpret the rawinformation into a polished composition in fact, mimicking thedisembodied approach observed in computer generated design?

Notes

1Associated with a construction or structural system. J. Curl, Encyclopedia ofArchitectural Terms, Donhead Publishing, London, 1993, p. 313.2 P. Zumthor, Thinking Architecture, Birkhauser, Basel, 2006, p. 21.3 M. Trieb, Drawing/Thinking Confronting and Electronic Age, Routledge,Abingdon, Oxon, 2008.4 P. Zumthor, op. cit., p. 65.5 Ibid., p. 37.6 H. Dimitropulos, ‘On the Lack of Human Inscription in Digital Process’, Paperdelivered at The Role of Humanities in Design Creativity International Conference,2007.7 Ibid.8 J. Christie, ‘Design Software Weakens Classic Drawing Skills’, Retrieved 15 Jun2009 from, http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/458688/design_software_weakens_classic_drawing_skills/.9 H. Dimitropulos, loc. cit.10 Ibid.11 P. Laseau & N. Crowe, Visual Notes for Architects and Designers, Wiley, NewYork, 1986, p. 1.12 H. Dimitropulos, loc. cit.


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13 Popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, a tour of the main European cities andcultural centres undertaken by young upper-class Englishmen as a way ofcompleting their education. K. Rooney (ed), Bloomsbury English Dictionary,Bloomsbury Publishing, London, p. 809.14 Themes explored during the course; composition, scale and proportion, mass andvoid, rhythm, light and shadow, texture, ornamentation, balance.15 G. Cullen, The Concise Townscape, Architectural Press, Oxford, 1971, p. 17.16 H. Dimitropulos, loc. cit.

Bibliography

Christie, J., ‘Design Software Weakens Classic Drawing Skills’. Retrieved 15 Jun2009 from http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/458688/design_software_weakens_classic_drawing_skills.

Cullen, G., The Concise Townscape. Architectural Press, Oxford, 1971.

Curl, J., Encyclopedia of Architectural Terms. Donhead Publishing, London, 1993.

Dimitropulos, H., ‘On the Lack of Human Inscription in Digital Process’. PaperDelivered at The Role of Humanities in Design Creativity InternationalConference, 2007.

Laseau, P. & Crowe, N., Visual Notes for Architects and Designers. Wiley, NewYork, 1986.

Rooney, K., (ed), Bloomsbury English Dictionary. Bloomsbury Publishing,London, 2004.

Schank-Smith, K., Architects’ Drawings: A Selection of Sketches by WorldFamous Architects through History. Architectural Press, Oxford, 2006.

Trieb, M. (ed), Drawing/Thinking Confronting an Electronic Age. Routledge,Abingdon, Oxon, 2008.

Unwin, S., Analysing Architecture. Routledge, London, 2003.

Zumthor, P., Thinking Architecture. Birkhauser, Basel, 2006.

Amanda L. Hufford, M. Arch, Architectural practitioner in the United States andNew Zealand; educator New Zealand and Italy.

PART V

Creating Culture and Consciousness

‘This looks like a hat; I don’t know what it is’: InvestigatingPictorial Literacy in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Katherine Arbuckle

AbstractThe adult literacy rate in South Africa is contested, with official figures hoveringaround 85%, although some researchers argue that at least a third of the adultpopulation are functionally illiterate. In this context, educational print materialsrely heavily on graphic depictions to convey information, often with surprisinglylittle consideration of visual literacies affecting understanding. For example,comics are often assumed to be an effective, easy-to-read medium, but interpretingthis genre demands complex conceptual processes and well-developedunderstanding of pictorial conventions from readers. To maximise the potentialvalue of educational print media in this and other development contexts, it isessential to find out which graphic styles work best to convey intended meanings,and what approach to content works the best to convey difficult concepts. Areiconic, ‘naturallistic’ depictions better than symbolic-abstract depictions? Is there adifference between pictorial literacy levels in rural and urban areas? Are generalguidelines for illustrators and materials developers appropriate in the electronic erawhere diverse media abounds? This chapter describes a research project whichassessed the extent to which the visual portrayal of health information isunderstood by Zulu-speaking adults newly-enrolled in mother-tongue literacyclasses. The investigation considered different illustrating styles and conventions,as well as different approaches to content, through individual interviews conductedin rural and urban areas of KwaZulu-Natal, where participants responded in theirmother-tongue to a range of pictures. Participants viewed pictures only, withoutwritten text, in order to attempt an assessment of the pictorial mode ofcommunication alone. The intention was to confirm or disprove existing (anddated) guidelines on illustrating for readers with limited exposure to educationalmedia, and to offer insights for future practice in similar contexts.

Key Words: Adult basic education, health education, HIV/AIDS, illustration,literacy, pictorial materials development.

*****

1. IntroductionThe ability to understand (‘read’) pictures has too often taken for granted as an

inherent human ability.¹ While many working in the field of visual studies andinformation design subscribe to the ‘universality hypothesis’ (which suggests thereis little difference in the understanding of visuals by viewers with differenteducational levels and backgrounds) research into visual literacy and work in

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development contexts suggests otherwise.² According to Linney ‘the literature ofvisual literacy is full of examples of pictures that have been misunderstood by non-literate people. Difficulties arise because people do not understand perspective andpictorial conventions relating to scale or size, movement and so on.’³ There havebeen many studies worldwide on how ‘illiterates’ interpret pictures of differenttypes, although the findings of different studies are often contradictory, and usuallylacking ‘purposeful theoretical orientation.’4

Working from an informed perspective, an illustrator is conscious of the stronglikelihood of information in pictures being misinterpreted, particularly by low-literate audiences. Sejake’s local study titled ‘Exploring the Appropriateness ofthree central visual literacy conventions for illiterate people in the Pietermaritzburgarea’ found that restricting shading (particularly on faces); the use of photographs,and a careful or limited use of background detail were ‘appropriate’ for illiterates.5

She identified criteria for ‘visual perception and preference in illiterate people’,namely clarity and context (including viewers’ ‘own experiences’, and ‘self-relevance’), and mentioned the need to distinguish between urban and ruraldwellers, while cautioning not to assume visual literacy amongst urban dwellers!6

The literature suggests that visual literacy is a developmental skill acquirednaturally over time through exposure to variety of visual materials, experiences andstimuli. It follows that audiences in communities lacking a variety of media andeducational resources would have a greater likelihood of misinterpreting thevisuals they do access than would audiences in better resourced environments.However this raises questions, in the light of the extent to which the mediasituation has changed over the past decade. Fifteen years ago South Africa becamea democracy. Since the opening up of this society to global trends and influences,the electronic mass media has exploded. Visual media saturation is evident inurban areas of the country and even though many rural communal areas remainunderdeveloped, lacking roads, electricity, water and sanitation infrastructure, itseems impossible that the information age has not had some impact on visualliteracy levels among audiences where low levels of visual literacy could bepredicted.

KwaZulu-Natal is a province with many economic, social and politicalchallenges – not least the devastating effects of the advanced HIV/AIDS pandemicon disadvantaged communities – and the information one strives to communicatethrough print materials is often important, with the potential to improve quality oflife. This research sought to gain insights into the ways in which low-literate adultsin the province process pictorial information in order to maximise that potentialthrough improved materials development practices.

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2. Methods and ProcessIllustrations from existing health education materials were separated from their

accompanying text. This was done to allow the extent to which the visuals couldstand alone as transmitters of meaning to emerge.

The illustrations were grouped for two different purposes: one group ofdrawings were chosen in order to assess styles of depiction, such as black andwhite line drawing, versus shading, versus greyscale tone. The other groupassessed different ways of portraying content, realist images compared with thoseoperating at the level of symbols or metaphor. In each group were several sets ofdrawings, each set offering alternative ways or styles of depicting the same subjectmatter and message.

Altogether twenty-three individual interviews were conducted, twelve in ruralareas and eleven in urban centres. The participants were all adults registered to doLevel One mother tongue Zulu literacy courses at adult literacy centres. Fourdifferent organisations participated, in order to minimise the influence of aparticular organisation’s approach on the results.

Sixteen of the participants were female, seven were male. Their ages rangedfrom nineteen years to seventy-six years, the majority evenly spread betweentwenty to forty years of age. Fourteen of the participants reported no formalschooling at all before joining the adult literacy class, and, surprisingly, half ofthese were among the urban group, and the youngest was twenty years old. Sincethe end of apartheid formal education has in principle become more accessible, andone does not expect to encounter young adults with no schooling at all.

Participants were interviewed individually, away from the others. Theparticipant was shown twenty-four depictions on which he or she offered commentand interpretation. The interviews were conducted in Zulu through an interpreter,and recorded using a digital audio recorder and handwritten notes on a form.

The different sets of pictures were mixed up and interspersed with each other,in an attempt to lessen the cumulative effect on comprehension of viewing severalpictures consecutively which depict the same subject in different ways. This meantthat in the course of each interview individual illustrations were shown in thisorder of content: symptoms of TB; stages of HIV infection; the HI virus; thedigestive system; safety precautions for caregivers, and so on, repeated.

To fit into the constraints of this chapter, responses to one set of illustrationsare discussed as an example, the set of three illustrations which attempting todepict the Human Immuno Deficiency Virus (HIV).

3. Depictions of the Human Immuno Deficiency VirusThis set of pictures explored different ways of depicting the Human Immuno

Deficiency Virus (HIV). In practical terms, the purpose of depicting the virus is notto create an accurate visual representation, as it is not critical for people to be ableto identify by appearance something never ordinarily visible due to its microscopic


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size. However a variety of depictions of the virus’ structure and outwardappearance are used in treatment literacy materials and training programmes, to aidconceptual understanding of the manner and speed with which HIV reproducesitself in the body and the implications this has for treatment.

In tests conducted prior to the commencement of the research, it was clear thatan out-of-context image of the virus was extremely likely to be incomprehensible,and therefore the images in the research needed to have some recognisable contextor object.

The first picture in the set showed a woman standing next to a board, gesturingto a paper with a typical drawing of the virus on it. As a visual cue, the womanwears a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Stop HIV’ and a ribbon – supposed to be the redAIDS ribbon logo. (A hoped for ‘model answer’ or intended interpretation couldinclude the following: A woman is standing at a board. She has an AIDS ribbon onher T-shirt and she is pointing to a picture of HIV. She is teaching others aboutHIV.)

The next picture in the set depicted a man, looking serious and thoughtful, witha large, detailed depiction of the virus hovering near his head, as he contemplateshis HIV status – in other words the virus is there to show what he is thinking about,

almost like a thought balloon.The picture was developed with input from members of a local HIV support

group who recommended ‘scary monster’ facial features on the virus shape. (Ahoped for ‘model answer’ or intended interpretation could include the following:This person looks worried; he is thinking about this scary HIV virus andwondering if he is infected, or he knows he is infected.)

The last image in the set attempting to depict HIV had been used to illustratematerial on the immune system and HIV and is visually and conceptuallydemanding despite attempting to show the reality of something that cannot be seenwith the naked eye. The illustration had been supported by text in Zulu, themother-tongue of the target audience, and was recognised from the outset as beinglikely to be misinterpreted or ignored due to its unfamiliar nature. The imagefeatured a hand with a cut on the finger, bleeding, with a drop or patch of blood. Acircular shape contained a representation of a microscope image of blood cellsincluding different types, along with HIV. (A hoped for ‘model answer’ orintended interpretation could include the following: This hand has a cut on thefinger and it is bleeding. The arrow points to the blood and shows us what is in theblood: cells, and viruses/HIV. HIV can spread in blood.)

These three images intended to show HIV, can be summed up in the followingway: Figure 1 attempted to show a depiction of the virus by contextualising it inthe familiar life situation of a workshop or training session where indeed such adepiction may be used. Figure 2 attempted to show HIV using a metaphor,personifying the virus as a monstrous presence which weighs on one’s conscience.Figure 3 conflated types of representation to depict in simplified terms the literal

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context of where HIV is found and attempts to show both what can be seen (blood)and what can be known but not easily seen (what blood is made of).

4. ResponsesDuring the interviews it became clear, as fully expected, that few of the

illustrations conveyed the intended meanings on their own, without discussion orprompting, and that the participants indeed brought their own experience anddiffering skills to construct alternative but valid interpretations. The sense ofvalidity of many of the unintended meanings attached to the illustrations issupported by the fact that many participants’ misinterpretations coincided. Bothrepeated and isolated unintended interpretations are welcomed as food for thoughtand possible pointers towards further investigation and improved practice withinthis context.

Initially it was illuminating to examine the alternative readings of theillustrations, and there is a diverting novelty factor in the unexpectedinterpretations. For example, the HIV ‘monster’ hovering metaphorically in figure2 was identified as a watch (by four participants), a sun (five participants), and byone as a pig or porcupine head. One participant remarked on the fact that theperson in the drawing had no arms and half a body. Four participants articulatedthat they saw eyes, mouth and/or teeth but did not identify what the owner of thosefeatures might be.

In such cases, where alternative interpretations become the rule, it is more of anovelty when an explanation approaches the producer’s intended meaning. Oneparticipant described Figure 2 thus: ‘I see a drawing. I think it’s blood cells. Thisman, I think he is now sick.’ An almost ‘correct’ interpretation seems startlingamongst the majority of alternatives expressed. In this case, the participant was anurban female, aged forty-four, who reported no prior formal schooling. If herexplanation of the picture cannot be linked to formal education levels, then itseems likely that close personal experience combined with increased exposure tovisuals and health resources in an urban context equipped her to make thisinterpretation. (The interview process in this study had not allowed for deeperexploration of factors contributing to particularly significant responses, and onemay but speculate and build this consideration into future studies.)

Regarding Figure 3, the hand in the picture was named as such by all but oneparticipant, who noted only that the arrow looked like a road sign, and said of thedrop of blood from the finger ‘This looks like a hat. I don’t know what it is.’ Eightparticipants openly stated that they didn’t know what the circle with shapes insidewas. Other responses signifying confusion yet attempting to assign a descriptionincluded ‘a circle with many things, they look like worms’, ‘a finger pointing tosomething from a river’, ‘…its either a honeycomb or a cake’, ‘… a spear pointing.Looks like its pointing at a dish’ (indicating blood drops), and ‘Sun, clouds, a heartand a star.’


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In terms of the shapes inside the circle, flowers, trees stones and ‘decorations’were mentioned several times. A seventy year old rural female participant offered abeautifully logical interpretation possibly reflecting experience of craft-making:‘This is a hand. A round thing with decorations. The hand is decorating the roundthing.’ Although not mentioned, it is likely the blood drops represent paint in thisinterpretation. Only four out of twenty-three participants mentioned that the handwas cut or bleeding. Against expectations, one of these hit the proverbial nail onthe head by expressing an inference of the intended message: ‘A cut, bloodflowing, looks like they want to show that he is infected, the infection can betransmitted to the people through the cuts in the hand.’ Although HIV is notmentioned by name, it is inferred.

Of the three illustrations in this set, Figure 1 was the least problematic in termsof generating an initial surface description of the subject matter. All of theparticipants could give a reasonable surface description of the image that coincidedwith the illustrator’s intention. All could see a woman. All but three identified theboard (one said a ‘box’, one did not mention it specifically, and one said ‘I don’tknow what this is.’).

Eighteen of the twenty-three participants inferred that the woman was teaching.Eleven mentioned HIV as the theme of the woman’s activity, due to identifying theribbon on her shirt as the sign for HIV/AIDS – five mentioned reading the word‘stop’ written on the shirt. Only one participant clearly identified the objectpictured on the board as HIV: the urban female participant with the highest level offormal schooling said, ‘I think she is showing some kind of virus, maybe HIVbecause she is wearing a sign that says ‘Stop HIV’.’ Responses which suggest theparticipant was referring to HIV without openly identifying the attemptedrepresentation of the virus within the ‘teaching’ illustration were as follows:‘destroying cells in the body’ and ‘explaining about soldiers’ a metaphor usedlocally by healthcare professionals when explaining the immune system to HIV-positive patients. Alternative descriptions of the virus included ‘a flower she hasdrawn’, ‘a bird’s nest, getting old, or a heart’, and ‘looks like a tortoise’.

5. Levels of EngagementAfter absorbing the variety of the participants’ responses to each illustration in

the set (and similarly, for the other sets of illustrations not discussed in thischapter), a pattern emerges suggesting different levels or stages of engagementwith each illustration, evidencing thought processes that influenced the extent towhich participants derived meaning from what they saw.

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Figure 4

The first level of engagement with an illustration was a surface description ofthe image, the objects or shapes the viewer could identify. As an example, seeFigure 4, (another illustration that was part of the study, below): ‘This is a pictureof a man with his hand on his mouth, and his other hand is on his chest.’

The next level was an initial interpretation of the surface description, based onthe viewer’s knowledge and experience. To continue with the above example, ‘Heis coughing, it looks like his chest is sore.’ or, an alternative interpretationmentioned was ‘He is singing or praying.’

This could be followed by further levels of interpretation and inference, tocreate a narrative and/or conceptual understanding from the initial descriptions andinterpretation. For example, ‘This man is sick with flu or TB.’

Having identified these levels of engagement, it was interesting that not all theparticipants’ descriptions demonstrated each stage, with some participants skippingthe initial levels in their responses and going straight to expressing conceptualinterpretations or narratives. For example, one participant’s initial response toFigure 1 was ‘I see a woman raising awareness on HIV’, encapsulating theintended narrative although not specifically identifying the virus depiction as HIV,or mentioning the board, or the logo and words on the woman’s T-shirt.

However many more responses to the illustrations remained at the level ofinitial surface description, with little attempt to move beyond that stage to inferringthe content of a possible message.

6. Stages of Aesthetic DevelopmentThe levels of engagement observed above seem to correlate with Housen’s

Stages of Aesthetic Development, a developmental stage theory describing distinctpatterns of thinking, related to amounts of exposure to art.7 Based on extensiveempirical research with museum audiences, there are five stages during whichviewers are (1) accountive; (2) constructive; (3) classifying; (4) interpretive, and(5) re-creative. Progression through these stages must occur naturally, and is notdetermined by age but rather by broad exposure to art over time – both of which


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are necessary for development to occur. Educational interventions of various sortsalso serve an important role.8

In the context of Housen’s research, most viewers (including adults) are atStage 1 and 2, ‘beginner viewers’:9

The Stage I viewer makes random observations (‘an eye’,‘circles’, ‘red, orange, green, black’) that are concrete andobvious. This viewer also relies on personal, idiosyncraticobservations that are unlikely to be made by anyone else (‘I seetwo footprints,’ ‘a tiger’). The Stage I viewer’s style is generallycharacterized by an egocentric perspective. Judgments of imagesand objects are based on whether or not the work lives up topersonal associations and standards (‘And it is nice’).10

Although referring to aesthetics more than communication, and emerging froma context, worlds away from Pietermaritzburg and rural KwaZulu-Natal, this modeloffers a useful tool for understanding the responses of participants in this study.For example, many of the indiosyncratic interpretations obtained during theinterviews identify the participants as Stage 1 viewers.

7. ConclusionThe initial analysis of data in this study yields insights that support and

question both conventional wisdom and research-based guidelines on illustratinghealth information and other materials designed for low-literate adults. Much hasbeen learned about the research methods used, for example the number ofillustrations discussed in the interview did not allow enough time for discussion toexplore some of the responses in more depth. Many interpretations raise morequestions than they answer, and the valuable experience gained in this study willstimulate further investigations using more streamlined research instruments andprocesses.

In addition, the approaches offered by a variety of disciplines, which usecommunication and developmental theories and methods, are encouraging. Thescope for deeper understandings and engagement with the practical occupation ofillustrating seems endless.

Notes

1 V. Hoffmann, Picture Supported Communication in Africa, Margraf Verlag,Weikersheim, 2000, p. 136.2 A. Carstens, ‘Tailoring Print Materials to Match Literacy Levels: A Challenge forDocument Designers and Practitioners in Adult Literacy’. Language Matters:Studies in the Languages of Africa, Vol. 35, Issue 2, 2004, pp. 459-484.

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3 R. Linney, Pictures, People and Power: People-Centred Visual Aids forDevelopment, Macmillan, London, 1995, p. 20.4 V. Hoffmann, op. cit., p. 136.5 S. Sejake, Exploring the Appropriateness of Three Central Visual LiteracyConventions for Illiterate People in the Pietermaritzburg Area. UnpublishedThesis: Advanced University Diploma in Adult Education, University of NatalDurban, 1993. p. 26.6 Ibid., p. 25.7 K. De Santis & A. Housen, A Brief Guide to Developmental Theory and AestheticDevelopment, Visual Thinking Strategies, 2009, Retrieved 29 Apr 2009 fromhttp://www.vtshome.org/system/resources/0000/0097/BriefGuidetoDevTheory09.8 P. Yenawine, Thoughts on Visual Literacy, Visual Thinking Strategies, 2009,retrieved 2 Jun 2009 from http://www.vtshome.org/system/resources/0000/0005/Thoughts_Visual_Literacy.pdf.9 K. De Santis & A. Housen, op. cit., p. 15.10 Ibid., p.15.

Bibliography

Dondis, D., A Primer of Visual Literacy. The Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1974.

FHI, PATH., Developing Materials on HIV/AIDS/STIs for Low-Literate Audiences.Family Health International (FHI) and Program for Appropriate Technology inHealth (PATH), Washington, DC, 2002.

Fuglesang, A., Applied Communication in Developing Countries. DagHammarskjöld Foundation, Motala, 1973.

Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T., Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design.Routledge, London, 1996.

Lyster, E., Research Report on the New Readers Project. Centre for AdultEducation, University of Natal, Durban, 1995.

Messaris, P., Visual ‘Literacy’: Image, Mind, and Reality. Westview Press,Boulder, 1994.

Katherine Arbuckle is an illustrator, writer and designer of learning materials foradults with low levels of literacy, working on a print media project based at the


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Centre for Adult Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, in Pietermaritzburg,South Africa.

ABC Milwaukee: The Visual Culture Literacies ofGrowing up Urban

Laura Trafí-Prats

AbstractThis chapter explores how a group of eight and nine year-olds creates senses ofplace in spaces that they like or frequent in the city where they live, Milwaukee.This group of children attends a bilingual anti-racist, anti-bias Spanish-Englishschool situated in a multicultural working class neighbourhood called Riverwest.According to Elkins the term visual literacy is the result of considering how avisual culture curriculum can encounter a form of pedagogy that can challenge,both at the K-12 and college levels, the dominance of the textual in the teaching ofbasic conceptual skills in favour of the learning of different looking practices andconnected visual responses.1 Visual culture is nowadays an interdisciplinary fieldthat comprises more than the traditional art disciplines. This research focuses onthe province of visual culture connected to the city as a discursive space of urbanimaginaries, spatial practices and forms of visual communication that affect theformation of childhood subjectivity.

Key Words: Place-based art pedagogies, spatial Practices, urban childhoods, urbanimaginaries, visual literacy, video narratives.

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1. Conceptual FrameworkThe chapter is inspired in reconstructive studies of childhood and the argument

that forms of spatial occupation of the street, including the performance of usualitineraries and social encounters in the neighbourhood, are essential elements forthe growth of children’s social identity, and their senses of location andsociability.2 Reconstructionist studies of childhood also defend that streets areliminal places to explore the spaces of growing up, to negotiate hybrid identities, toexperiment ambivalence, and set a public identity.3 However, postindustrialmetropolis are organized through capitalist hierarchies, and cities function aslandscapes of power, where public spaces are designed for the comfort and use ofmiddle class adult professionals. Life is spatially separated between production(work) and reproduction (home). Children are either kept at home or sheltered inspecifically designed spaces-for-childhood. Consequently, their access to thepublic space is frequently dominated by adult decisions and adult schedules. At thesame time, cities are not designed thinking in children’s needs and interests, andquite often children need to cross or navigate problematic public spaces to arrive toa park, a sports courtyard or a children’s centre. Independent and local spaces are

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lost and, corporative spaces like malls and superstores have become importantentertainment centres for urban children.

Spatially, this project focuses on what De Certeau denominates individualmodes of re-appropriation of space versus state-centralized, or corporative modesof administration of space.4 Also, in highly controlled and designed spatialenvironments, children can show a specific way of living in-the-space. They stillhave the possibility to select a way of navigating it, using it, and creating their ownrhetoric of space (sense of place). De Certeau’s argument connects withWinnicott’s idea of transitional space, and his argument that ‘the child not only‘becomes’ through the influence of cultural, social and political environments butshe also brings something of herself into creative living and into the whole [of]cultural life’.5 In this project, use of video cameras and the production of narrativeimages about places constructs a rhetoric of space, which is eminently visual. Theperformance of filming a movie about a favourite place that children like andfrequent in their city helps defining the model of viewing, using and explaining thisspace to others.

Pedagogically the project connects with ideas about place-based art pedagogiesthat concentrate on local forms of knowledge, art and aesthetics rather than onmodels of globalized and standardized curriculum decided elsewhere.6 Followersof this perspective maintain that education has a social responsibility in betteringthe quality of the shared environment and to educate children with differentcultural backgrounds to creatively cope with the complexities of today’s fastchanging societies.7 In this respect, place-based art pedagogies support all kinds ofpeople’s creative, affective and aesthetic practices of place-making and spatialappropriation even when those practices challenge acquired ideas about whatcounts as art in modern and contemporary history.8 The project also connects withideas of performance art pedagogy based on ‘the transformation of theartist/teacher and spectator/student from the object to the subject of cultural history[through] … liberatory forms of action’.9 Performance art pedagogy considers thatthe primary source of pedagogy comes from students’ lives and culturalperspectives, resulting in a collaborative construction of public discourse.10

Visually the project is inspired in the concept of urban imaginaries recentlydiscussed by Andreas Huyssen. According to this author, urban imaginaries, likeDe Certeau’s idea of spatial reaproppriation, challenge unified views of space andthe city and allow the representation of the urban as a palimpsest ‘of real anddiverse experiences and memories. They comprise a great variety of spatialpractices, including architecture and planning, administration and business, labourand leisure, politics, culture, and everyday life’.11 Our project concentrates on theaspects of leisure and everyday life. An urban imaginary focuses on the way a citydweller imagines and visualizes his/her own city; in this case the dwellers are agroup of 9 year-olds. It carries aspects of age, class, racial differentiation, it is acognitive and somatic image that dwellers carry to the spaces that they use and

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inhabit. These images are as much a part of the city reality and representation asany other official or more pervasive images, because ‘they inform how we thinkabout a city, and how we perceive it informs the ways we act in it’.12

2. Visual Literacy in the Third Grade ClassBased on a model of performance art pedagogy, the project’s view on visual

literacy focused on fostering the opportunity to develop personal views and sensesof place through the use of video cameras rather than on refining techniques orvideo skills. According to Buckhingham, allowing a space for the inscription of thepersonal is important because affection and pleasure are important elements in theprocess of learning and understanding media. However, we should not confuseallowing an entrance to personal meaning with the idea that the resulting video-narratives will be a realistic reflection of the child’s self that we must onlyapproach in a celebratory way. Children’s video projects are discursive responsesto a practice emerged in a context, the classroom, and in a social group, the peers,the teacher, the researcher, and others.13 In this sense, the resulting video narrativeswere a demonstration that children, like adults, play with different identities, andthat their stories show imaginative and creative unrealistic aspects, in the sense thatthey do not directly reflect their current historical, social, domestic, scholasticlives, but aspects of play, fantasy, and wish fulfilment. As Masterman sustains, in adialogic model of pedagogy, personal responses should be used as a resource forfurther analysis and debate,14 and never as a subjective truth that the researcher orthe teacher has the power to give a voice to.15 They instead should be used to stressthat artistic production inevitably emerges and progresses in a dialog with others.16

The following list describes step-by-step the type of activities that the projectincluded with the aim of both having a hands-on approach to the understanding ofvideo-narrative, respecting the inclusion of children’s personal views, andsustaining a balanced interaction between interpretation and production, reflectionand action:

1. Artist and illustrator Jody Emery worked with the childrenhelping them to think visually of their places by learning to drawdifferent vistas that provided a personal description of the placebased on the following concepts: exterior, interior, objects,events and relations.

2. The researcher showed her own example of a short video of oneof her favourite places in Milwaukee with the aim to create asituation of transference of ideas from the static representationalconcepts explored through drawing into the representation ofthose concepts into moving images.

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3. Children wrote scripts about their own selected places using theirdrawings as a reference.

4. Researcher taught how to construct frames and visual narrativeswith Flip video cameras through a hands-on experience in theclassroom.

5. Children filmed their favourite places with the help of theirfamilies during their free time after school.

6.1. Children and researcher collaborated for the construction of thefinal video-narrative (video-editing), and the addition ofvoiceover.

6.2. As a result of the editing process some children decide to re-tapesome shots of their movies and add new ones.

7. All the class watched the videos together and discussed them.This was a situation of self-assessment that helped children tode-centre their individual points of view through learning aboutand valuing the stories of others.

The following sections analyze two of the videos that children did about theirfavourite spaces in the city. The analysis is based on the conceptual framework ofthe research and emphasizes aspects of spatial practices, place-based pedagogy,and urban imaginaries.

3. ‘Hi I’m Adrián de Jesús; I have a Favourite Place. It is called K-Mart.How about You?’A. Spatial Practices

According to Buckingham, ‘acquiring literacy makes possible a particular formof social action’.17 This seemed obvious when we received the video of Adrian andwe saw him talking and moving in an active and assertive way through the outside,front door, and infinite aisles and shelves in Big K-Mart. He acted like a TV-reporter, directly addressing the viewer in different parts of the video in whichAdrian advises about all the things that one can find in K-mart, things that seembeyond the interest of a 9-year old, like cough drops or tissue paper. This pro-active behaviour also can be seen when he leaves the place and says good-bye tothe security guard, and this one notices that the mom is filming. Acting in front ofthe camera, being supported by his mother and aunt, who helped him with thefilming, and having the opportunity to do his own project in a place that he himself

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had chosen, opened the door for an expanded expression of the self that we hadhardly seen during the ordinary learning tasks developed in the classroom.

While his circulation through K-Mart is highly mediated by the way the spaceis organized to buy and consume, Adrian invests his own stories and preferences,he does specific selections of things, and finally with the adding of voiceover hewould edit and prioritize the narration of different stories about himself.

B. Urban ImaginariesMany of the selections that Adrián shows in his video about K-Mart are

connected to spatial practices related to play and sports, both at home and in thepublic space. It also shows how practices of consumption are associated to aspectsof identity formation, and to the objects that culture makes available tocontemporary ideas of childhood and play. In a section of the video Adriánconcentrates in looking and showing video games that he can play with hisNintendo DS, and PSP, and toys connected to one cultural phenomenon that headores, wrestling. These are games that he plays at home, and he connects them toa private sphere of his life. Also associated to his domestic space and the relationwith his mother, are a group of images of garment, designs for T-shirts that he likesor types of dressing that he uses for special purposes, like basketball sneakers,which are to be worn on special occasions. Adrián also taped a large section ofimages about sports apparel. In the final edition, done in collaboration with theresearcher, he finally decided to narrow it down to baseball, his favourite sport.

During the adult-child collaborative work of doing the narration-voiceover ofhis video, Adrián shared with the researcher an immense number of stories aboutbaseball. These made me think that being in the baseball field with his team, theYankees, and practicing baseball with his dad and cousins in his backyard weremore transformational and imaginative spatial practices that going to K-Mart,which seemed a choice done more for defending a specific status within the classgroup than for himself. As Buckingham suggests it is an habitual practice ofchildren when using the media to create representations of themselves that play arole of prestige, class, knowledge-status, or gender difference in a group context, inthis case the 3rd grade classroom.18

C. PedagogyWhen Adrián and the researcher watched the first rough edition of his movie,

they realized that some of the objects that he was showing and the stories that hewas sharing needed to be better explained to the viewer. With the few words thathe said, which just repeated and pointed at the name of objects, the viewer couldnot understand why those objects were meaningful to Adrián’s experience. This isconnected to the fact that we were working with a group of children with a veryconcrete, non-abstract, and experimental way of knowing the world, with difficultyin de-centring themselves from their own points of view and seeing from the

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perspective of others. Something that they only did with the help of adults, as it istypical of their age. By looking together at the movie, and seeing that I had manyquestions about what goes going on, Adrián realized that it was important toprovide more details and more clarity to his narration, and that the final editing hadto concentrate on those objects that explained important things about himself.

In this context, a pedagogy of place emerges as an inter-social and collaborativeeffort in which the knowledge that students have (spontaneous concepts) iseventually connected with the knowledge of the disciplines and other sociallyconstructed knowledge of professional practices that the researcher (or teacher)provides.19 This happens through dialog, like the ones described above, and thework through a zone of proximal development, a cognitive virtual space in whichchildren can push further their actual technical and conceptual skills by workingtogether with an adult or a more experimented peer.20

4. ‘Hi, I’m Raul and this is my Grandma’s House. My Grandma likes Birds’A. Urban Imaginaries

Raul’s video, about his grandma’s house, is a combination of his own urbanimaginary connected to the spaces of play in the house, and the imaginary of hisgrandmother. His own urban imaginary appears when he describes the backyardwith the things in the house that are there for the enjoyment of the children, like abasketball hoop, some swings and bicycles. The grandmother’s imaginary isnarrated from Raul’s point of view, and for this reason we can say that somehowshe is part of his imaginary as well. He emphasizes what she likes, birds, plants andGod. The video shows the grandmothers chicken called Gallo, her multipleparakeets in huge cages, and herself feeding the neighbourhood birds at the verybeginning of Raul’s movie. Her religiosity is represented by the many Catholicicons and items dispersed in different rooms of the house, which Raul captureswith the camera adding the comment ‘my grandma likes God a lot’ and ‘…hereyou can see more God things’ [sic]. These two urban imaginaries also speak ofhow houses divide and distribute the worlds between adulthood and childhood byassociating specific spaces and objects to each realm of experience.21 The sound ofthe video is very revealing of this: in the spaces inhabited by children we hearnoise, movement, play, while in the spaces inhabited by adults we see a highercontrol on children’s use of the camera (more posed images appear), also the noiseand the disorganized movement disappears in favour of orderly backgroundconversations.

B. Spatial PracticesRaul’s model of filming indicates a reflective practice of the space. His

calculated camera pans and slow movement, not only show a great coordination ofeye, narration and body for his age, that many of his peers could not accomplish,but it also describes a very deep sense of place that gives the opportunity to the

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viewer to have a close view to different spaces, objects and elements in hisgrandmother’s house, and what those mean for their inhabitants. These wellorchestrated movements contrast with the chaos and noise of the rest of thechildren in the house that seem in a constant mood for play and fun, and it differsas well from the movements of the grandmother when she is doing her dailychores, like feeding the birds outside of the house. In a different level, we also cannotice a specific cultural use of the space in which we can see a model of domesticpractice in the middle of an urban environment, which is still connected to the ruraltraditions of Mexico, the place where the grandmother grew up before migrating tothe U.S. The fact of wearing a traditional poncho or sarape to preserve herselffrom the cold of Milwaukee or growing a chicken inside a city apartment are someaspects of these traditions that are visible in the film.

C. PedagogyRaul’s movie is a good example of how self-evaluation helps to build a stronger

and more cohesive video-narrative. The first time that Raul saw his first roughfootage, he realized that there were many images that could be bettered. Forinstance, he first taped the chicken in the basement, inside of a dark cage. Filmedin this space, the images only showed a dark moving mass. He decided that heneeded to take the chicken to a space with more light and re-tape it there,something he did the next time that he visited the house. In his first rough footage,he taped the backyard from a very far distance, almost from the front of the house.Because of this, the bicycles, the cars, and the basketball hoop were barely visible.While Raul was taught issues of distance and proximity in filming specific objectsduring the times that we used the cameras in class, he needed to have his first basictry in connection to his own project before he could see and realize in a moreprofound way the relevance of having a better control of the framing, the distance,or the adequate light. Media educators recognize that teaching expert concepts inan abstract way in early stages, when children start to become familiar with themedium, can end in empty verbalism. Instead they recommend to combine hands-on situations that connect with the lives and interests of the child based onlearning-by-doing with later situations of reflection and self-evaluation assisted byadults or other more expert peers in which children have an opportunity to see,assess, and reformulate their own projects.22 By repeating these situations childrenwill acquire the knowledge and the skills to perform these activities autonomously.

5. Final ThoughtsThe narratives that children write/film to create a sense of place are not truthful

reflections of their inner selves, feelings or biographies. They are instead visualdocumentations that play a social role within the interpretative community andsocial network of their peers and friends at school.

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The eight and nine year-olds who participated in this research did not show acapability to autonomously move and experiment in the public space. The spacesthat they frequent are fully affected by the preferences and habits of their families,and are connected to aspects of domesticity (houses of family members andfriends), work (the place where one member of the family works) or consumption(the superstore where they buy clothes or toys). Public places like parks, sportcourtyards, community centres or independent stores are practically absent of thechoices taken by this group of children. Some of the choices taken by children donot necessarily refer to the spaces where they spend most of the free time, or wherethey enjoy themselves most, but the spaces that they consider to bring a certainstatus within the group.

It is necessary that projects like this, which combine visual literacy, with spatialconcepts of urbanity, and critical pedagogies based on the local and on childhoodidentities can have continuity at school in order that children have consistentopportunities to refine their ideas, skills, empower themselves, and construct anetwork of relations with their social and cultural surroundings. However, thehegemony of a standardized model of curriculum and an unreflective form ofevaluation based on state-designed and controlled tests makes the continuity of thistype of projects almost impossible. Time limitations defined to meet specific goalsat specific moments of the year, and the restriction of testable or accountablelearning to subjects that prioritize traditional technologies like the textbook, andtraditional skills like reading/writing in front of visual thinking/making, are otheraspects that constrain this type of projects to the margins of exceptionality.

Notes

1 J. Elkins, Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction, Routledge, New York, 2003.2 P. Christensen & M. O’Brien (eds), Children in the City: Home, Neighborhoodand Community, RoutledgeFalmer, London, 2003.3 H. Matthews, ‘The Street as a Liminal Space: The Barbed Spaces of Childhood’,Children in the City: Home, Neighborhood and Community, P. Christensen & M.O’Brien (eds), Routledge Falmer, London, 2003, pp. 101-117.4 M. De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California,Berkeley, 1988.5 D. Winnicott, Playing and Reality, Tavistock, London, 1971, p. 102; S. Aitken,Geographies of Young People: The Morally Contested Spaces of Identity,Routledge, London, 2001, p. 113.6 M. Graham, ‘Art, Ecology and Art Education: Locating Art Education in aCritical Place-Based Pedagogy’, Studies in Art Education, Vol. 48, 2007, pp. 375-391.7 J. McFee & R. Degge, Art, Culture, and Environment: A Catalyst for Teaching,Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque, 1980.

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8 D. Blandy, ‘Memory, Loss and Neighborhood Schools’, Studies in Art Education,Vol. 49, 2008, pp. 83-86; D. Blandy & K. Congdon, ‘Community-Based Aestheticsas an Exhibition Catalyst and a Foundation for Community Involvement’, Studiesin Art Education, Vol. 29, 1998, pp. 6-14.9 C. Garoian, Performing Pedagogy: Toward an Art of Politics, State University ofNew York, Albany, 1999, p. 57.10 Ibid.11 A. Huyssen, Other Cities, Other Worlds: Urban Imaginaries in a GlobalizingAge, Duke University, Durham, 2008, p. 3.12 Ibid, p. 3.13 D. Buckingham, Media Education: Literacy, Learning and ContemporaryCulture, Polity, Malden, 2003.14 L. Masterman, Teaching about Television, Macmillan, London, 1980.15 M. Orner, ‘Interrupting the Calls for Student Voice in Liberatory Education: AFeminist Poststructuralist Perspective’, Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy, C. Luke& J. Gore (eds), New York, Routledge, 1992, pp. 74-89.16 M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, University of Texas, Austin, 1981.17 Buckingham, p. 39.18 Ibid.19 Ibid.20 L. Vygotsky, Mind and Society, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1978.21 S. Aitken, loc. cit.22 D. Buckingham, loc. cit.

Bibliography

Aitken, S.C., Geographies of Young People: The Morally Contested Spaces ofIdentity. Routledge, London, 2001.

Bakhtin, M., The Dialogic Imagination. University of Texas, Austin, 1981.

Blandy, D., ‘Memory, Loss and Neighborhood Schools’. Studies in Art Education.Vol. 49, 2008, pp. 83-86.

Blandy, D. & Congdon, K., ‘Community-Based Aesthetics as an ExhibitionCatalyst and a Foundation for Community Involvement’. Studies in Art Education.Vol. 29, 1998, pp. 6-14.

Buckingham, D., Media Education: Literacy, Learning and ContemporaryCulture. Polity, Malden, 2003.

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Christensen, P. & O’Brien M. (eds), Children in the City: Home, Neighborhoodand Community. Routledge Falmer, London, 2003.

De Certeau, M., The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California, Berkeley,1988.

Elkins, J., Visual Studies: A Sceptical Introduction. Routledge, New York, 2003.

Garoian, C., Performing Pedagogy: Toward an Art of Politics. State University ofNew York, Albany, 1999.

Graham, M., ‘Art, Ecology and Art Education: Locating Art Education in a CriticalPlace-Based Pedagogy’. Studies in Art Education. Vol. 48, 2007, pp. 375-391.

Huyssen, A., Other Cities, Other Worlds: Urban Imaginaries in a Globalising Age.Duke University, Durham, 2008.

Masterman, L., Teaching about Television. Macmillan, London, 1980.

Matthews, H., ‘The Street as a Liminal Space: The Barbed Spaces of Childhood’.Children in the City: Home, Neighborhood and Community. Routledge Falmer,London, 2003.

McFee, J. & Degge, R., Art, Culture, and Environment: A Catalyst for Teaching.Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque, 1980.

Orner, M., ‘Interrupting the Calls for Student Voice in Liberatory Education: AFeminist Poststructuralist Perspective’. Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy.Routledge, New York, 1992.

Vygotsky, L., Mind and Society. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1978.

Winnicott, D., Playing and Reality. Tavistock, London, 1971.

Laura Trafí-Prats is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she teaches art education and visual studies. Her research isinterdisciplinary and interconnects aspects of children identities, performance artpedagogy, visuality and urban conditions of life.

The Visual and Social Semiotics of Toilet Signs in Greece

Sofia Pantouvaki

AbstractThis chapter aims to explore the visual, cultural and social aspects of contemporaryGreek toilet signs. The current study provides a critical visual analysis of thecharacteristics of toilet signs from various locations throughout Greece, used toindicate men and women’s toilets. Specific images are examined to identify thestyles of the visual language used, while the co-existence of visual elements andwritten text (words) is explored in individual cases. The methodology used for thereview of the case studies includes compositional interpretation and thematicanalysis, through which an initial account of the visual quality of Greek toilet signstoday is provided. Furthermore, this chapter seeks to investigate the power ofvisual literacy in supporting and simplifying a simple everyday practice in acountry with an uncommon language, as Greece not only has a complex languagebut also a unique alphabet. When studying the visual features of toilet signs aroundcontemporary Greece, we can see that different means of visual literacy aredeveloped in different places, mainly according to the use and aestheticcharacteristics of the location of the facilities – on the Greek mainland, the islandsor the Greek capital, Athens – according to whom the signs are addressed to or -attimes- ignoring the audience the signs are received by. These local and/or globalcultural characteristics of the visual elements in question and the potentialinterpretations of their visual language are examined from the perspective of socialsemiotics, as they are directly linked to a basic human practice.

Key Words: Cultural, Greece, semiotics, social, toilet signs, visual analysis.

*****

1. IntroductionThis chapter investigates the visual, cultural and social characteristics of toilet

signs in Greece analysed by means of compositional interpretation, as well as fromthe perspective of social semiotics. A long list of contemporary toilet signs from allover Greece was used as research material in order to provide examples and toventure a series of observations. Toilet signs convey visual and textual meanings.They were chosen as a research subject because of the simplicity required for theiruse in everyone’s daily life, since they are very important signs which must addressa clear and direct visual meaning to all viewers.

One of the most important aspects regarding the use of toilet signs in Greece isthat they are usually selected by people who have little or no artistic background orany knowledge of semiotics. At the same time, the viewers, receivers of thesevisual signs, come from a very wide range of social backgrounds; therefore the


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prior knowledge of these involved is also difficult to define, with the exception ofvery specific cases, as analysed in the folowwing chapters.

2. Short Historical Reference to the Use of Toilet Signs in GreeceResearch in the archives of the Greek Institute of Public Health and the

Municipality of Athens showed historical sketches illustrating what were probablythe first public toilets, introduced in Athens in 1895 by Mayor Timoleon Philemon,shortly before the first revival of the Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. To thebest of my knowledge, after having carried out thorough research, there is no otherearlier reference to public toilets in Greece and their signs.

The most important information on the history of Greek toilet signs comes fromthe official laws regarding the construction of public buildings. These laws, theoldest of which dates back to 1934,1 give precise directions as to the number oftoilets to be constructed for each type of building, according to the number ofvisitors and the type of use. The directions also give details on the constructionrequirements for these toilets; however, it was not until 1956 that legislationincluded instructions with respect to toilet signs, i.e. ‘at the entrance of the toilets itis required to install a luminous sign distinguishing ‘Men’ and ‘Women’s’facilities’.2

The first laws (in 1934 and 1956) were addressed to the owners of factories,workshops, and commercial shops, but the new decisions/decrees adopted in 1974include a long list of types of buildings: alimentary shops, restaurants, taverns,bars, cafeterias, pastry shops, workshops producing food and beverages, barbers’and hairdressers’ shops, construction sites, entertainment venues - particularlytheatres and cinemas, sports camps, entertainment clubs, swimming clubs, spas andsummer camps, bus stations, train stations, ports, airports, hotels, motels,guesthouses, orphanages, public baths, hospitals and clinics, schools, conferencerooms, enterprises, public or private institutions, and any other place where largenumbers of people may gather, work, live or be accommodated.3 According to thelaws on sanitary prevision adopted in 1983, and valid until today, it is permitted toconstruct a minimum of only one joint toilet for men and women, for a number ofup to 40 persons in a location used by both sexes.4 More detailed instructions withregard to the types of materials and other aspects of the interior of the toilets areincluded in the most recent directions adopted in 2007;5 however, there are nofurther details on the types of toilet signs that should be used.

3. The Case Studies used in this Research PaperThis research paper is part of a major research study examining toilet signs

from all around Greece, relating and comparing them as well as comparing them totoilet signs from other European countries. The research material consists of toiletsigns I personally collected in a broad photographic archive. The archive includesphotographs of the signs, as well as photographs of the toilets which they designate

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and of the space where the toilets are located. This documentation allows for athorough study of all the aspects (aesthetic unity, use of space, etc.) which connectto the types of toilet signs selected for use in these specific cases. Based on thisextensive material, the chapter focuses on a part of it in order to concentrate ontoilet signs from specific areas of Greece and thus be able to discuss their visual,cultural and social characteristics, according to the places where these signs arelocated and the people they are addressed to.

The toilet signs examined in this chapter come from five towns or areas ofGreece, chosen from five different regions of the country. Therefore, the casestudies are toilet signs from: a) the town of Komotini; a small town of about 50.000inhabitants, situated in the region of Thrace, the north-eastern region of Greece.Komotini has a large university campus, is thus inhabited by many students, whilealso traditionally being the birthplace of the majority of Muslim Greeks; b) thetown of Kozani; a larger town of about 155.000 inhabitants, situated in the westernpart of the region of Macedonia. Kozani is a financially self-supported town withclose commercial connections to Thessaloniki; c) the town of Nafplion; a tiny townof 14.000 inhabitants situated in the region of the Peloponnese. Nafplion was thefirst capital of Greece after the national revolution against the Turks in the 19th

century and is today a very picturesque town frequented by tourists; d) the city ofAthens, the Greek capital, with approximately 3.100.000 inhabitants, a service hubbringing together all kinds of people; and e) some of the Aegean islands, i.e.Santorini, Syros and Samos, where there are few inhabitants in the winter andmany tourists during the summer.

The toilet signs studied here come from different places: the vast majority ofthem are toilet signs in cafés and bars; many are located in restaurants, others are attransport points such as airports and bus stations, as well as in locations along thenational highway between Athens and Thessaloniki, while there is also a selectionof toilet signs from theatres, museums, hotels, and university campuses. Whenexamining the social aspect of these signs, it is important to know where they areplaced and whom they are addressed to.

4. Visual Characteristics of Contemporary Greek Toilet SignsIn terms of style, contemporary Greek toilet signs can be divided into three

main categories: 1. stylised signs produced industrially, 2. industrially producedsigns with a special artistic character, and 3. manually made toilet signs, thuspersonalised in style. The first category includes all types of signs with a stronglygraphic character, presenting stylised figures of a man and a woman. These mayalso be called the ‘purely functional signs’. The second category presents thelargest variety of signs, produced in series, but still showing interesting variationson the theme of man and woman or male and female. The third category are eitherspecial, unique handmade designs, or they may be images and/or objects typicallymeant for a different purpose but used here to designate men’s or women’s toilet.


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With regard to types of content, toilet signs in Greece can be divided into thefollowing groups: 1. the ones presenting an image or a symbol, thus having apurely visual character; 2. those based on text, usually the words ‘men’ and‘women’ in Greek or in English; 3. those containing both types oflanguage/literacy, i.e. both visual elements and text; and 4. those using adesignation devoid of precise elements, but rather based on other symbolisms, i.e.the colour of the door of the toilet. The second category, based exclusively ontext/words, is special in Greece, as Greek is not widely spoken and uses a differentalphabet. Foreign visitors cannot read the Greek signs ‘Ανδρών’ or ‘Γυναικών’, unless they are taught the words. On the other hand, older Greeks might havetrouble with toilet signs written in English, as they may occur in contemporarylocations. In a few cases, the signs are even restricted to the first letter, ‘M’ or ‘W’,of the English words. Some industrially produced signs today include the words‘Men’ and ‘Women’ in both languages, thus overloading the visitor with details. Inthe research material examined, there is also one example where words become avisual pattern; in this case the words ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ are used in manydifferent languages in different graphics. In many other cases in Greece, the toiletsigns are developed into a combination of word and image, as described incategory 3 above.

The themes and subjects used to indicate toilets vary from pictures of womenand men to the corresponding images of girls and boys or female and male infants;thus, age is not as important as gender. Reference is often made to the symbolismof feminine and masculine. Such images on toilet signs may expand to any type offeminine-masculine relationship, often making gender metaphors with the use oflittle animals (bears, cats, etc.). For example, there is use of the symbolism of amasculine-style animal (i.e. gorilla or rooster) in contrast to a feminine-style one(i.e. rabbit or vixen). Other themes include objects relating to men and women,such as accessories (hats, shoes, umbrellas). Finally, other connotations include thesymbolism of sexual contact between man and woman.

From the point of view of compositional analysis, contemporary Greek toiletsigns present a very large variety of syntheses. In terms of shape, the signs areeither rectangular, in both the horizontal and the vertical direction, or square,circular, or freely formed. In terms of size and proportion, the toilet signs areusually relatively small, but there also is one very special category: that of theentire toilet door becoming a sign in itself. In these cases, the doors are painted orcovered with some surface material whose image or pattern or colour, or several ofthese, indicate the gender. Another version of this category shows a long figure ofa body stuck or painted on the toilet door, usually representing the outline or theshadow of a male or female figure. The dimension of the toilet signs also varies, as,apart from the most commonly used two-dimensional signs, there are toilet signswith a relief surface, as well as toilet signs which are fully three-dimensional likelittle sculptures. The colours used depend on the aesthetic character of the signs:

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stylised signs are usually in black and white or silver/metal material or in one boldcolour (red, orange or blue). Artistically elaborate signs have more colours,depending on the image they contain. Also, the signs may be accompanied by acolour used on the toilet door, relating the sign to the gender of whom the specificdoor is addressed to. In the latter case, warm colours (orange, red, pink) are usedfor women’s toilets while cooler colours (blue, light blue, green) are used formen’s toilets.

5. Cultural Characteristics of Contemporary Greek Toilet SignsIn most cases, the distinction of toilets refers to the idea of masculine and

feminine or masculinity and femininity. Gender is the centre of reference for toiletsigns in general.

Some of the Greek toilet signs are stylised and impersonal and simply identifythe gender. In these cases, the image itself directly indicates a man or a woman.

Other signs include cultural characteristics which create more complex signsreflecting a variety of cultural differences. For example, there are images with localGreek characteristics, such as the traditional men’s shoes used to signify men’stoilets at Theatrodromio theatre in Kozani; in that case, however, a western typehigh-heeled shoe is used for women’s toilets. In other cases, general Greekcharacteristics can be identified, such as the straw summer hats used for thefacilities of a café on the island of Santorini, a busy tourist resort using a symbolreferring to holiday in sunny Greece. In addition, traditional western characteristicscan be observed on many Greek toilet signs, such as men and women wearingWestern-style clothing, as described in the following.

It is very interesting to study the different variations of how men and womenare represented on the so-called ‘industrially produced signs of a special artisticcharacter’.6 In some cases, we only see faces or heads; in other cases, the imagesshow the chest, while in other ones we see bodies. There is a large variety ofcultural characteristics in these figures. Some of the figures are dressed in Western-style clothing, such as suits for men and dresses for women. Some of these figureshold or wear accessories to indicate their Western background, such as men’s andwomen’s old-fashioned 20th century hats or even 19th century accessories.7 Manyof these images do not reflect Greek cultural tradition at all, but they are widelyused on Greek toilet signs. Some of the male and female figures focus onexpression, where smiling and laughing faces share with us the need to go to thetoilet, while in other cases the faces are strict and serious.

These ‘compositions’ contain aesthetic signifieds and show that toilet signsbelong to a broader system, whose signs draw on different cultural codes.

6. Semiological Aspects of Contemporary Greek Toilet SignsAnalysed from a semiological perspective, toilet signs work in relation to other

signs, as well as in relation to a wider cultural environment.


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In Greek toilet signs we encounter examples of all three kinds of signs,according to Peirce’s typology:8 a) the icon,9 as in the examples of a little boy anda little girl urinating while either standing or sitting, respectively (direct descriptionof the action); b) the index;10 Rose gives a culturally specific example of Westerntradition, which also exists in Greek reality as an indexical sign: the way in which aschematic picture of a baby soother is used to denote a room with baby-changingfacilities in a public toilet; c) the symbol;11 some Greek toilet signs distinguishbetween men’s and women’s facilities by using the two gender symbols.12

As we have seen, in many cases text relates to the image. This is eithernecessary in order to define the same textual message in different languages or todefine an image whose composition is not conveying a clear indication. In thesecases, text and image are complementary, in Barthes’ sense.13 In some cases thedouble information is used in order to give alternative routes to the viewer,according to his/her ability of immediate perception: either to look quickly towardsthe image or read a well-known word.

Semiology also defines the terms of metonymic and synecdochal signs.14 In thecase of an Athenian restaurant, the old 1950’s commercial poster of a cigarette‘suitable for men’ indicates the men’s room, while the poster of the advertisementfor cigarettes ‘suitable for women’ becomes a metonymic sign indicating theladies’ room. Another example from an Athens café shows men’s and women’sshoes pointing to the gents’ and ladies’. Hence, the image of the shoe is asynecdochal sign of gender.15

Contrary to other images and compositions, toilet signs are expected to be readin the same way by all readers. Clearly, though, they are not to be interpreted in thesame way, as viewers are different individuals with different cultural backgrounds,but rather the aim is that toilet signs should transfer a direct meaning to allreaders/viewers, in order to simplify their lives. Barthes writes that ‘the denotedimage naturalises the symbolic message, it innocents the semantic artifice ofconnotation’.16 In their vast majority, Greek toilet signs are denotive, that is signsdescribing something quite specific, which can easily be decoded.

7. Social Aspects in Reading Greek Toilet SignsA general observation with respect to toilet signs in Greece is that occasionally,

shop owners – and particularly owners of cafés – enter into an originalitycompetition of sorts as regards the design of their establishments –including theirtoilet signs. In cases where many cafés are located one next to the other, either intourist resorts such as Nafplion or in university areas aiming to attract youngcustomers, great attention is paid to the aesthetic result.

Another interesting aspect is that of different types of locations using differentstyles of signs. I would like to refer to the example of academic areas, such asschool and university campuses in Greece. Among the research case studies, thereis an old state primary school in Kozani, where there is practically no sign pointing

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to the toilet; only the men’s room has a textual indication in Greek. As to theuniversities, there are: a) the Technological Educational Institution (TEI) ofAthens, a large technological university with about 25.000 students; the toilet signsat TEI are stylised and simple, and of bright blue colour, so that they can be easilydistinguished in a long corridor full of other information; b) the HarokopeionUniversity of Athens, one of the newest universities in Greece with a limitednumber of students, where the environment resembles that of a private college,clean and quiet; the toilet signs at Harokopeion are stylised, too, but their aestheticcharacteristics are more refined; c) the Athens University (Faculty of Letters) is theoldest university in Greece, now situated on a relatively new campus for the pastten years; the toilet signs on the ground floor of Athens University are non-existent; there is a general ‘WC’ sign indicating the toilet area, while the morespecific signs are sheets of white paper bearing written information pointing to thewomen’s toilets, while there is no indication at all of the men’s toilets; d) TheatreStudies department of the University of the Peloponnese is a small part of UOP inthe town of Nafplion; in this department, which is actually a fine arts department,the toilet doors have been painted by the students and hence the indication drawson a purely artistic visual effect: a fairy for the women’s toilets and a kind of trollfor the men’s. In all of the above-mentioned cases, the type of school has a bearingon the type of toilet signs used, depending on the level of interest devoted to thestyle of the spatial design which includes the toilet signs.

In many other spaces, the focus is on conveying a direct message where thetoilets are located and whom they are for. I would like to refer in particular to thetoilet signs at Greek airports. Athens Eleftherios Venizelos Airport is the newestairport in Greece, built in 2001. The toilet signs used there are strictly stylised, andgive the same information in all possible languages: a) via images, showing thefigures of a man in trousers and a woman in a short skirt, the stylised image of adisabled person on separate signs for men and women, and b) via text in bothGreek and English (‘Men – Ανδρών’ and ‘Women-Γυναικών’) as well as in Braille for the vision-impaired. They are clear examples of the social significance ofproviding correct indications. Also at Alexandroupolis and Samos airports, two ofthe smallest airports in Greece, the authorities have been careful to conveymeaning as directly as possible by means of stylised, purely functional, signs.

Similar cases are those of bus stations, such as the Athens bus station forcoaches to the Peloponnese, where the original textual toilet sign which was onlyin Greek is nowadays accompanied by a second sign, showing the images of a manand a woman, in order to make the message clear to foreign speakers.Establishments located on the National Road convey a more informal andinternational style, for example, the toilet signs at a food store chain resemble thoseat Greek airports.


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8. ConclusionToilet signs are units of meaning, understood in terms of their visual and social

features. However, they are not a matter of complex ideology or of differentperspectives of interpretation. Toilet signs contain a clear intention; a clear visualmessage is aimed at. This research into Greek toilet signs gives some examples ofthe development of the designation of toilets via different visual, cultural andsocial means. Fortunately, most of the cases analysed succeed in providing aprecise indication. This is, in my opinion, the true function of toilet signs:providing an indication capable of being easily read and understood by anyone,anywhere.

Notes

1 See the Greek Presidential Decree FEK-112/A/22-3-34, announced on 14th March1934. Available from: http://webdb.domiki.gr, [Accessed 1 June 2009] This site,including all historical records of Greek construction laws, can be accessed byGreek engineers with private login codes; I would like to thank civil engineer, FayePapayannopoulou, for her help in getting access to this information.2 See the Greek Presidential Decree FEK-123/A/17-5-56, announced on 15th May1956. Available from: http://webdb.domiki.gr.3 See the Greek Presidential Decree FEK-1266/B/3-12-74, announced by decisionΓ1/9900/74. Available from: http://webdb.domiki.gr.4 See the Greek Presidential Decree FEK-528/B/8-9-83, announced by decision8577/83. Available from: http://webdb.domiki.gr. The minimum number of toiletsincreases according to the number of visitors of each type of public place (i.e.minimum one toilet for men and one for women for 41-120 users, minimum onetoilet for men and two for women for 121-200 users, and so on). These numberschange for places with high sanitary requirements, such as alimentation shops orworkshops. Many more details, additions and/or exceptions apply to specific cases.5 See the Greek Presidential Decree FEK-1384/B/3-8-07, announced by decisionΥ1γ/ΓΠ/94643/07. Available from: http://webdb.domiki.gr. The 2007 stipulationsinclude many updates regarding the construction materials, as well as many detailswith respect to toilets for the disabled.6 As described in the beginning of sub-chapter 4.7 On the representation of body, manner and activity, see also G. Dyer, Advertisingas Communication, Methuen, London, 1982, pp. 96-104.8 See further G. Rose, Visual Methodologies, Sage Publications, London, 2001, p.78.9 Where ‘the signifier represents the signified by apparently having a likeness to it’,see Peirce in Rose, loc. cit.10 Which is based on ‘an inherent relationship between the signified and thesignifier’.

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11 A sign with ‘a conventionalised but clearly arbitrary relation between signifierand signified’.12 I would like to thank my conference colleague B. Goesl at the 3rd GlobalConference on Visual Literacies for his contribution with the example of the use ofthe chromosome symbolism XX and XY on toilet signs in Nuremberg, Germany.13 See also R. Barthes, Image – Music – Text, Fontana Press, London, 1977, pp. 37-41.14 A metonymic sign is defined as ‘something associated with something else,which then represents that something else’, while a synecdochal sign is ‘either apart of something standing in for a whole, or a whole representing a part’. Forthese definitions, see G. Rose, op. cit., p. 82.15 In this specific example, the image of the shoe is complemented by words, whilein the above-mentioned example of Theatrodromio theatre the shoes stood alone.The examples with the straw hats as signs function as synecdochal signs, too.16 R. Barthes, op. cit., p. 45.

Bibliography

Bal, M. & Bryson, N., ‘Semiotics and Art History’. Art Bulletin. Vol. 73, 1991, pp.174-208.

Barthes, R., Image – Music – Text. Fontana Press, London, 1977.

Dyer, G., Advertising as Communication. Methuen, London, 1982.

Rose, G., Visual Methodologies. Sage Publications, London, 2001.

Williamson, J., Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising.Marion Boyars, London, 1978.

Sofia Pantouvaki is a freelance scenographer and researcher. She recentlyobtained a PhD from the University of the Arts London, and teaches at theDepartment of Theatre Studies of the University of the Peloponnese in Greece.

PART VI

Seeing Across Even More Divides

How the Gossip Industry Enjoys Visual Literacy

Leila Tafreshi Motlagh

AbstractAccording to Wikipedia, there are almost 400 magazines related to gossip onnewsstands. Although People Magazine avoids being a pure gossip magazine, onecannot neglect its $1.5 billion revenue. More or less, this revenue comes fromadvertisements, scoops and the gossip about marriages, unexpected divorces, secretdates and probable pregnancies. Therefore, such an industry requires a precisesemiotic analysis of its components. Forty-nine percent of the magazine isallocated to advertisements. About one-third of the advertisements are focused ona colourful variety of junk foods. Twenty-seven pages are focused on the physicalattraction of famous people. However, their main interest is in gossip. In fact, thereis a dualism. Half of the advertisements prompt you to eat as much as you can. Therest are interested in helping you to lose weight and become attractive. Theyvisualize easily accessible love while the gossip industry gives the promise of aunique one in the forthcoming issues. To get a better understanding of the gossipindustry, it would be important to keep our distance with the popularity that maysurround the stars. For this purpose, 31 July 2006 People issue is chosen. Theresearcher believes that the gossip industry has a triangular structure. Indeed, theB2B (business to business) and the B2C (business to customer) relationship implythe triangle consists of the players, the leader and the readers who run the gossipindustry. Players are those who make a win-win profit by picture auction. So,pictures are used as raw material in this industry. Leaders are those who make abalance between supply and demand. Readers are those who are sitting, eating,drinking, talking and waiting for the next gossip. It seems that images help Peopleto enjoy $1.5 billion revenue. However, the total revenue of the magazines relatedto gossip is unknown.

Key Words: Commodification, Frankfurt School, gossip industry, semiotic, sign.

*****

1. The Frankfurt SchoolFrankfurt School refers to a school of thought that was founded in Germany

and developed in the United States in the mid twentieth-century. Its members werea group of intellectuals including Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horckhaiemer,Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm. They were from different disciplines but theirmain concern was the study of Marxism in Capitalism. Adorno and Horckhaimercoined Culture Industry to define this theory. Commodification, massification,fetishism and standardization are recognized as the main characteristics of the


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culture industry. In fact, culture industry provides standard cultural commoditiesfor mass society.

Manipulation of culture in forms of audio-visual programs, music, periodicals,sports and recreation are used as devices to deceive mass society. Culture industrysets standards for the mass production of its commodities. While consumers aresatisfied to possess this fetish, capitalism can be sure about the safe consequencesof consuming cultural commodities. Members of the Frankfurt School agreed thatenlightenment as mass deception occurs through psychological techniques.Through cheap entertainment, soft methods and repetition of certain ideas,capitalism creates passive minds that can become open to external control. In themassification process, an individual turns to the One-Dimensional Man that neverclaims his/her real happiness, freedom and inner life.

2. The Gossip Industry‘There are nearly 400 magazines related to gossip on the news stands’.1

Although People magazine avoids being pure gossips, its revenue and circulationadmits it has been one of the most successful cases. ‘As of 2006, it has acirculation of 3.75 million and revenue expected to top $1.5 billion’.2 To gain abetter understanding of the gossip industry, it would be important to keep ourdistance with the popularity that may surround the stars. For this purpose, People31 July 2006 issue was chosen. This research is intended to analyse visual signsthat govern supply and demand rules.

Figure 1. The Gossip Industry

Gossip grows from the lack of transparency, undesirable situations orpopularity. Like any other business that has its components, the gossip industry hasits own elements. As it shown in the left pie chart of Figure 2, images, pictures andvisual signs play a very important role in this business. Peripheral contexts of thegossip industry are dream factory and entertainment industry. The gossip industryhas its own bestseller topics like shocking splits, secret dates and marriages. The


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other important advantage is advertisements. Forty-nine percent of the magazine isallocated to advertisements. It would be a success, for a magazine or a periodical,to retain advertisements for one out of two pages. However, readers are notinterested in paying to read advertisements. Therefore, leaders of the gossipindustry need to increase sales in order to retain advertisements.

Figure 2. Content Analysis

As mentioned earlier, People magazine avoids being pure gossip. In thefollowing Pareto Principle, 80% of the sales come from 20% of the products.Therefore, 20% of the gossip will guarantee the magazine sale. Another importantadvantage is advertisements. Therefore, 49% of the advertisements are the directconsequence of the gossip. Including the covers, the 31 July 2006 issue of Peoplehas 106 pages. Indeed, for every single page of the content, we have one colourfuladvertisement page. Advertisements appeared in random odd and even pages. Justthree percent have black and white pages. Ninety-seven percent of the magazinehas colourful backgrounds and images. So, pictures of famous people and visualliteracy play an important role in this industry. ‘...the average time spent choosinga magazine and lifting it off the shelf is about three seconds; the covers make orbreak a magazine’.3

Stars and those who entertain other people in the media are considered theplayers. While they live before the camera in well-lit programs, they hide theirpersonal lives in the shadows. It seems that among all pictures, weddings, lovechildren, secret dates and shocking splits attract considerable attention and sell agood deal. The gossip industry detects the secret lives of the players with itsphotographers, cameramen, sources and reporters, but sometimes these devices donot work properly.

Sean Penn was a film star who had grown up in a famous familyand perhaps because of that he hated photographers. This was a


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problem, because photographers followed Madonna everywhere.When Sean and Madonna got married in 1985, the newspaperssent helicopters so they could photograph the wedding. This wastoo much for Sean; he left the party and shot at them with his gunfrom the ground.4

Popularity may vary from case to case and time to time. Therefore, the gossipindustry must bid for exclusive photos. As a result, the players make a win-winprofit in this business. Then, all those involved in the gossip industry such asplayers, publicists, journalists and newspapers, negotiate for exclusive pictureswith legendry prices. ‘People reportedly paid $4.1 million for newborn photos ofShiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, the child of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.’5

The players who work in the mass media know that the stars will fall back toordinary lives. Whenever stars enjoy popularity, they make picture auction. Theyestablish a business to business (B2B) relation with the gossip industry to cover theexpenses of their extraordinary lives.

3. Techniques of the LeadersPublishing different gossip from famous people would be helpful in keeping

customers satisfied, but famous people are not always willing to reveal theirpersonal affairs. In such cases, taking pictures of famous people in differentsituations will increase sales. Terry Barret, author of Criticizing Photographs: AnIntroduction to Understanding Images, believes that pictures are influenced by twofundamental elements – the perspectives and contexts of the photos affectinterpretations. Consequently, these items will increase certain rumours. Writingeither true or invented stories about photos keep people involved in a story. If therumours are false, that person will deny it in the coming issues. On the other hand,approved gossip will be followed by the photographers and the readers. Forinstance, the gossip industry claims that Oprah Winfrey, one of the most famoustalk show hostesses, is gay. On the top of the cover page, Oprah denies it. Shedefines her long time friendship as ‘otherworldly.’6

The quest for love leads to the mass production of love songs and love stories.Not only in audio-visual programs but also in different magazines people searchfor love stories. The result is amazing because People visualize love in every fewpages. For those who follow players in their personal lives, the gossip industryprovides them with another entertaining serial. The gossip industry visualizeshappy couples sitting, talking, walking, biking, boating, camping and showing theirlove to the observers. All of a sudden, a shocking split announces that show isover.

’Til death do us part? Not quite. Two and half years after gettinghitched on camera, Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro split... ‘If


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someone was walking by, he’d say, ‘I need a hug’, says asource... Anyone who watched the couple lovingly plan theirwedding on the 2004 MTV series ’Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen& Dave might have thought that despite one failed marriagebehind him back in 1994 and one behind her (she wed ex-NBAstar Dennis Rodman in 1998), the rocker and the Baywatch babehad a good shot at success.7

Expansion technique entices the readers to continue following the stories. Thegossip industry expands a story to attract the readers’ attention. The curiosityraised in the primary report, will force the readers to buy related stories. Now, weare going to examine the cover story. A man gave a gift to his wife. This simplesentence does not attract attention. But the gossip industry changes this dullsentence to a long attractive story. 1. This man is a husband 2. He has threechildren 3. He is a cook 4. He has married three times 5. He is the husband of asuperstar 6. He gave a dog for their first anniversary 7. The dog was blind in oneeye 8. He says that he feels like Superman.

More or less, this is the whole story. It seems that it is good enough to beplaced on the cover page. Surprisingly, it takes two thirds of the cover page. But,how can it increase sales? If you find out that his first wife and children live in theneighbourhood, the second wife got a two-year-old daughter and the third wife isfive years older than him, you will never remain indifferent to the story. Thecouple, ‘ONE OF HOLLYWOOD’S HAPPIEST COUPLES,’8 celebrates their firstanniversary in July, while this superman was bonded to another woman in May.

It is quite natural to see the rise and fall of stars in the dream factory andentertainment industry. All stars have an expiry date, however it may vary fromcase to case. In the gossip industry, expiry date means the stars do not attractattention anymore.

Most pop stars know that they don’t have a job for life. One ortwo successful records may give them enough money to have agood time for a few months. But the days of fast cars and longhot days by the swimming pool don’t last long. Most havereturned to ordinary life.9

There is a correlation between stars and events. Certain social events andpersonal affairs will increase gossip about a star. For instance, red carpetceremonies, film festivals, new records, different dates, marriages, separations,pregnancies, godchildren, love children, motherhood and fatherhood will increaserumor around the stars. But fame will eventually decrease and the stars will fallback to ordinary lives. Finally, the leaders of the gossip industry are aware thatclimax of a gossip is a sign of creating a new ideal.


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4. Psychology of the ReadersWhat kind of readers follow gossip? What do they do in their free time? What

are their main interests? How much money do they earn? What are their spendinghabits? What do they buy? How do they manage their affairs? How do they looklike? Semiotic analyses of the pictures help us to get a better understanding of thereaders in the gossip industry. Educated eyes can see the reader’s footprint indifferent pages. The most important point about consumers of gossip is that theyspend a considerable time with the mass media. Otherwise, they would never careabout gossip or unimportant occurrences of unknown people. The cover page ofPeople shows three smiling women from different entertainment industries. Sincethe readers or the addressees spend considerable time with the mass media, theycan communicate with these visual signs and they context easily.

All communication consists of a message initiated by anaddresser, whose destination is an addressee. But the process isnot as simple as that. The message requires a contact betweenaddresser and addressee, which may be oral, visual, electronic orwhatever. It must be formulated in terms of a code: speech,number, writing, sound-formation etc. And the message mustrefer to a context understood by both addresser and addressee,which enables the message to ‘make sense’10

Analysing advertisements and the content of gossip magazines indicate that thereaders do not have healthy lifestyle. The longest visual report of the magazine isabout a family gastric band surgery. Before and after surgery pictures are includedin this report. This didactic report indicates that many readers suffer fromoverweight.

Six pages of advertisements prescribe different pharmaceutical products fordepression and allergies. Psychologists believe that devastating fears and mentalillnesses happen when people remain inactive. The consumers of the gossipindustry spend considerable time with the mass media. Apparently, they have apassive lifestyle. As a result, the depression treatments and health care providerswill find their way to these magazines. So, the readers are asked to fill out thepsychological questioners to help themselves.

...you were so irritable that you shouted at people or started tofight or argument? [...] you were much more talkative and/orspoke much faster than usual? ...thoughts raced through yourhead and/or you couldn’t slow your mind down? ...you were soeasily distracted by things around you that you had troubleconcentrating or staying on track? [...] spending money got youor your family into trouble? [...] How much of a problem did any


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of these situations cause you (like being unable to work; havingfamily, money, or legal problems; and/or getting into seriousarguments or fights)?11

Different pictures of a lonely woman accompany this psychological test. Thesemiotic analyses of the mentioned pictures give a better understating of thereaders. This psychological test and the coming interview reveal a gap betweenfact and the fantasy in the gossip industry.

The design and placement of an advertisement requires needs a lot of marketresearch about probable customers and their needs. Advertisers placeadvertisements where they think their products or services will get the widestexposure. Spending advertising dollars in the media means that advertisers are sureabout the return. As a result, they are sure that they will find their customersamong the readers. Advertisements are divided into direct and indirect. Asmentioned earlier, about 49% of the pages are allocated to direct advertisements.This indicates People magazine is an appropriate medium for different targetmarkets. Therefore, classifying and analysing the visual signs give us a betterunderstanding of the readers.

Twenty-six pictures visualize colourful junk food. About 13 pages directly andten more pages indirectly prompt you to eat, cook and drink unconsciously. Thefirst consequence of unconscious eating is weight gain. Overweight bodies are insharp contrast with the advertised images of the ideals. Eighteen pictures advertisebeauty and style materials for better relationships. These items promote the readersto spend their time and money to improve their looks. Advertisers promote price-sensitive customers to spend more to feel better. About ten pages visualize meansof communication such as cars, mobiles and websites. They convey the notion ofcommunication, but with whom and for what purpose these fashionable peoplecommunicate with is often not clear. The answer is embedded in every few pages.Love is the most repeated image and message of the magazine. Thirty-four imagesvisualize easily accessible love while the gossip industry gives the promise of aunique one in the forthcoming issues. All of a sudden, shocking splits interrupt theshow, but the gossip industry never disappoints its readers.

5. ConclusionGossip grows and spreads from the lack of transparency, undesirable situations

or popularity. The researcher believes that the gossip industry is a B2B and B2Cinteraction between the players, the leaders and the readers. Players make a win-win profit through exclusive picture auctions. Stars can both gain and lose theirpopularity through the gossip industry. The leaders employ the economicprinciples of supply and demand in the design and placement of gossip elements intheir magazines. The rise of gossip is a sign of an approaching expiry date and mayalso signal the creation of a new ideal. Expiry date means that the stars do not


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attract attention, so they are not among newsmakers anymore. Readers are thosewho are sitting, eating, drinking and waiting for the next gossip. Leaders with theirtechniques, players with their photos and readers with their time and money run thegossip industry. Pictures are the raw material of the gossip industry. Images,colourful advertisements and scoops are the energizing power of the gossipindustry. It would appear that pictures and visual literacy help People magazine toenjoy $1.5 billion revenue.

Members of the Frankfurt School believed that massification andstandardization of a society could occur through cheap entertainments, softmethods and psychological techniques. Several repetitions of certain ideas makethem permanent beliefs that individuals rarely dare to challenge it. Capitalismprovides cheap cultural commodities for mass society. As a result, they can be sureabout its safe consequences. Moreover, they can take a better control over people.This turns ordinary people to one-dimensional men who rarely claim their rights asindividuals. Expiry date, in the dream factory and entertainment industry, indicatethat stars also will fall to ordinary life.

Notes

1 Wikipedia, ‘Gossip Magazine’, 2009.2 Wikipedia, ‘People (Magazine)’, 2009.3 D. Gauntlett, 2008, p. 197.4 D. Evans, 2003, p. 49.5 Wikipedia, ‘People (Magazine)’, loc. cit.6 People, 2006, p. 22.7 People, 2006, p. 64.8 Ibid., p. 73.9 D. Evans, 2003, p. 45.10 T. Hawkes, 2003, p. 65.11 People, 2006, p. 27.

Bibliography

Ahmadi, B., From Pictorial Signs to Text: Toward the Semiotics of VisualCommunication. Nashr-e-Markaz Publishing Co., Tehran, 2007.

Barret, T., Criticizing Photographs: An Introduction to Understating Image.Nashr-e-Markaz Publishing Co., Tehran, 2008.

Back, E., ‘Britney Spears Sells out Her Haby’. Internet & Technology. Posted 12Jan 2005/2005. Retrieved 4 Jan 2009 from http://elliottback.com/wp/britney-spears-sells-out-her-baby/.


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Chandler, D., Semiotics: The Basic. Routledge, London, 2002.

Clarke, D. S., Principles of Semiotic, Routledge, London, 1987.

Curran, J. and Morley, D., Media and Cultural Theory, Routledge, New York,2006.

‘Electra Shock.’ People. Vol. 66, Issue 5, 2006, p. 64.

Evans, D., Women in Business. Pearson Education, Harlow, 2003.

Foucault, M., Ceci n`est pas une pipe. trans. M. Haghighi, Nashr-e-Markaz,Tehran, 1996.

Gauntlett, D., Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction. Routledge, New York,2008.

Goldsmith, J., ‘People Who Need People: Sucking up to Celebes Builds Mag. asTW Money Machine’. Retrieved 2 Jan 2009 from http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117946434.html?categoryid=18&cs=1&s=h&p=0.

Hawkes, T., Structuralism and Semiotics. Routledge, London, 2003.

Robbins, S., Essentials of Organizational Behaviour. trans. Parsayan & A’arabi,Daftare- Pajohesh-haye Farhangi,Tehran, 2004.

Mathews, A., Being Happy. Nashre-Neyriz, Tehran, 2006.

‘Oprah Gay? She Says No Way.’ People. Vol. 66, Issue 5, 2006, p. 22.

Sojoodi, F., Structuralism, Post-Structuralism and Literary Studies. PajoheshgaheFarhang & Honar Islami, Tehran, 2001.

‘Sometimes there Is another Side to Depression’. People. Vol. 66, Issue 5, p. 27.

Sutherland, M., Advertising and the Mind of the Consumer: What Works, WhatDoesn’t and Why? Sina Ghorbanloo, Mobaleghan, Tehran, 2001.

Nozarii, H., Critical Theory of Frankfurt School in Sociology and Human Sciences.Agah Publication, Tehran, 2007.


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Wikipedia, Gossip Magazine. Retrieved 2 Jan 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_magazine.

Wikipedia, People (Magazine). Retrieved 2 Jan 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_(magazine).

Leila Tafreshi Motlagh is a faculty member of the Islamic Azad University, KarajBranch - Iran. She teaches at the English Literature Department. While interestedin the diasporas and immigration literature, currently her research and writing isdevoted to unveiling the most well kept secrets of the mass media and culturalstudies. [email protected]

Chorography: Reflections on Its Place in Visual Literacy andCreative Arts

Jill O’Sullivan

AbstractChorography, as defined by Ptolemy in 149 AD, is a form of visual literacyqualitatively describing the inherent attributes of place and region. Ptolemycategorically stated chorography could only be rendered by a skilled artist,designating chorography to be a pictorial representation rather than written text.Chorography, originating within classical cosmographical philosophies, is aqualitative graphic narrative of specific region/choros or place that is characterisedby homogenous components and regional commonalities. These may be physical,symbolic, conceptual, metaphysical or sensory. This qualitative and creativeimagery communicates and illuminates the iconic, symbolic and the metaphysicalof each era’s cultural philosophies of religion and place. In each period of history,chorography maintains its underlying premise as a qualitative and descriptivevisual language. These historical applications indicate that chorographicvisualisations of region and place informed and reflected contemporary views andneeds, embracing and elucidating concepts of religion, politics and culture ofdistinct periods of time and place. However, chorography as a visual andconceptual literacy in contemporary art praxis is virtually unacknowledged incurrent art theory. This paper determines the viability and relevance of achorographic visual literacy engagement with contemporary creative arts practiceto describe place and region. To establish this position, this discourse surveys aconcise historical review of an ongoing chorographical visual literacy thatinformed medieval mappaemundi and portolan charts, Renaissance orthographiccity views and seventeenth century Northern European vistas. Chorographicillustrations recorded explorations of new worlds from the early Modern period.The discourse also notes and discusses the influence of printmaking on thedissemination of chorographic visual scholarship from the sixteenth century. Thepaper concludes with a discussion of chorography and its place withincontemporary digital media and virtual reality, finally examining the establishmentof a chorographical lexicon informing contemporary visual praxis in traditional andnew media art.

Key Words: Chorography, graphic arts, place, Ptolemy, visual literacy.

*****

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1. IntroductionConcepts of chorography have been associated with a type of visual literacy

through imagery offering a qualitative mapping of place and region since the earlyclassical Greek period. Initial theories of chorography appear to have beendeveloped through Hellenistic and Ionian geographical and cosmographicalphilosophies before and during the sixth and fifth century BCE, and may derivefrom the Platonic model of primeval space and chôros. Chôros is realised as abounded area or conceptually bounded receptacle, descriptive of a containedregional locus of objects and activities that may be physical or intangible or both.1

Chorography, the descriptor2 of Chôros and clarified by Ptolemy, is the qualitativeand visual interpretation of the components of a specific region/choros or place:

Again, chorography deals, for the most part, with the naturerather than the size of the lands. It has regard everywhere forsecuring a likeness, but not to the same extent [as geography] fordetermining relative positions. Geography, on the other hand isconcerned with quantitative rather than qualitativematters…therefore, chorography has need of topography and noone can be a chorographer unless he is also skilled in drawing. 3

The continuing chorographical connection to these early beginnings may benoted in surviving Roman surveying texts while descriptions of Roman mural andpaintings by Pliny the elder, Livy and Cicero indicate chorographicinterpretations.4 Ptolemy also described the chorographic content of Romanscenography and narrative works in his Geographia.5

2. Chorography as Reflector of Region/Place within and of Time and CultureResearch of art praxis through historical sources indicates chorographic visions

of region and place adapt to and reflect the period’s contemporary views andrequirements. These chorographical images elucidate religion, politics and cultureof a particular period of time and place through a qualitative type of mapping. Thisoften quite subjective imagery has been integral to the visual representation oficonic, realistic, transcendental, philosophical and semiotic elements of placewithin a particular period. Each era or culture may place emphasis on one or moreof these elements of interpretation giving lesser importance to other manifestationsof a chorographic method according to its cultural philosophies of religion andplace and the intent of the conveyed information.

For instance, a metaphysical approach is realised within the medievalchorographic mappaemundi and TO maps while secular and practical chorographicinterpretations pertain to the medieval portolan charts and to the city orthographicviews of the renaissance. Medieval mappaemundi and early minimal TO maps,theoretically maps of the known world, were spiritual guides concerned with

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delineating, evangelising and regionalising the abstract reasoning of the Christiantheological concepts into graphic translations.6 Mappaemundi, in Harvey’sopinion, contained symbolic metaphors and meaning that would have been quiteclear to their readers, although now hidden to the present scholar.7 Not all of themappaemundi were solely concerned with the spiritual. The HerefordMappaemundi 1290, for instance, extended the spiritual to the secular with a listingof place names offering travellers a guide to geographic information.8

The more secular and less mystical medieval portolan or sea charts were ‘toolsof the sea trade’9 but still maintained strong chorographic intent and components.Casey and Ratti10 note the chorographic imagery describing life, animals, andfeatures of place and coastlines through detailed and often vey imaginativeconcepts of inhabitants in vignettes decorating the charts.

The chorographic vision became even more secular with the emerging ofhumanistic scholarly and artistic direction of the renaissance. Combined with theItalian rediscovery and translation of the Ptolemy Geographia,11 which apart frominfluencing the course of geographic and cartographic theories, did clearly definechorography. Combined with this discovery and the advancement of city states andrising political regions, the chorographic image was often used as a politicaldescriptor and described by Nuti as the ‘exercise of political sovereignty.’12

3. Chorography and the Graphic ArtsPtolemy’s call for an artist to depict the concept of chorography effectively

positioned the graphic arts of drawing and printmaking to be quite synonymouswith chorography’s development as a form of visual communication. For example,medieval chorographic images are often drawn representations though paintedimages became poplar at the latter part of the era. Chorographic concepts ofRenaissance cities and regional areas throughout Europe and Asia Minor werepredominantly executed through copper engravings and woodcuts, particularly inscholarly treatises and geographical texts. With the invention of the Gutenbergpress and the setting up of print workshops in major cities such as Florence, Veniceand Ulm,13 the chorographic visual language of place and region was disseminatedwidely through Europe by the end of the fifteenth century. This impetus to thespread of Renaissance knowledge and enquiry caused chorography to become apopular and important method of describing and understanding the individual andinherent features of particular place and/or region. The Civitates Obris Terrarum1572-1622, an atlas of 546 engraved city views is a striking example of thechorographic city view. In seventeenth century northern Europe, the chorographicview of place furthered its association with drawing and print media in theNetherlander drawings and prints14 and the English text and image basedchorographies.15 From the sixteenth century to the twentieth century explorers andnavigators use of chorographic modelling as illustrative descriptors for recordingthe nuances of new places is highly apparent in drawings in log books and journals.

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These chorographic drawings were taken as source material for engravings, woodcuts, etchings and lithographs in publications and journals. These interpretativeimages of new territories and strange lands are to be particularly noted in theeighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries when the fields of exploration andgeography expanded the art of illustrative chorographic descriptors of region andrelative components. However, from the eighteenth century, chorography seemedto be dismissed as an artistic language within creative arts. In this particular era,artists brought dimensional and spatial connotations to the interpretation of scenicviews to establish the landscape genre that replaced the acknowledgement of amultilayered (chorographic) view that considers and interprets the deeperconnotations of place. This dismissal of chorographic language in creative arts hascontinued to the present. Arguably, these changes would almost certainly havediminished the understanding and recognition of chorography in artistic aestheticintent by the nineteenth century, leaving a chorographic view to be consideredmore in terms of geographical descriptor for the twentieth century. Nevertheless,recognition of chorographic visual language remains present in geographicapplications and philosophies of place. These disciplines have sustained thechorographic practice as a contemporary informative visual tool describing placeand its related components and now may be seen to be re emerging in moderncreative practice.

4. Chorography in Modern InterpretationsAlthough chorography is aesthetically grounded in historical applications in

creative arts, it is almost unrecognised as a distinct visual language in currentvisual arts theory. However, chorography remains ideally suited as a logical andinterpretative model for contemporary processes describing place in creativepractice and may be noted in manifestations with recognition in diverse fields ofcreativity. Chorography, still recognised as an important interpretative descriptor inthe geographical social sciences and archaeology, is now argued for, by new mediatheorists, as a cross over model for visual interpretations of place/componentswithin digital virtual realities. Other areas in creative art practice now engaging orconsidering chorographical concepts include theatre, performance and multimediaor an integration of part or all of the above. These practices are crossing over intothe discipline of visual arts and now bringing a recognition and application ofchorographic principles to their visions.

Curry, writing from a new media perspective, indicates the modernisation andconnected roles of topography, chorography and geography and that of place mayapply to both a technological global world/village and the internet. Placingchorography in conjunction with issues of ‘contemporary conceptualisations ofspace and place’,16 Curry considers the problems to be dealt within theoreticaldiscussions on the ambiguous role of place and region within new revolutionarytechnologies. Curry states the answer to these problems ‘may indeed be associated

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with a refiguring of the relationships among place, region and space.’17

Transcribing the representation of a regional place into a form of graphicrepresentation, whether it is traditional or digital technologies, does need toconsider a ‘refiguring of relationships’ to communicate the actuality of existencewithin place in a chorographical sense. This indeed has always been the role ofchorography. Although Curry does not mention connections to Plato’s Chôros as acontainer of things or something, a similarity to the Greek concept may beperceived in his view of the world as a storage device for objects and events:

...the world itself –terrestrial—and celestial acted as one mightthink today as a kind of information storage device, one thatoperated via what amounted to a set of symbols... The world isone wherein objects and events exist in and are elements ofmultiple webs of significance. And although in Hesiod, the worlddescribed is very much one in which the written word is not partof everyday life, this appeal in the chorographic to signs andsymbols persists. 18

In Curry’s opinion, chorography is thus ‘alive and well in the twenty-firstcentury’ and continues to attempt to] find some order in the world by seeing arelationship between events and the places and times at which they haveoccurred.’19

If accepting chorography is ‘alive and well’ as is this paper’s premise, theproblem and question is how these tangible or intangible chorographic signs andsymbols, as visual discourse, are to be described, situated and explained withincontemporary imagery. This quest, with the realisation of chorography as visualand conceptual discourse, still is virtually unanswered in current literature withinthe field of contemporary visual art theory. To recognise chorography as a criticaland contemporary method of graphic enquiry and its acceptance as a codedlanguage of place, then a consideration of discourses from differing disciplines andassociated creative practices may offer direction to its re-establishment within avisual arts lexicon.

In Casey’s view, place was overcome by spatial philosophies during theeighteenth century onward. Casey argues for the re-establishment of place, andcalls for a kind of postmodern course of mapped (chorographic) re-presented place,allowing the invisible to become visible. This direction, Casey feels, should not betaken in a normal recognisable approach or in the usual ‘delimited meanings ofrepresentation pictorial, isomorphic, etc.’20 Rather, Casey claims, this re-presentedplace should be directed by ‘a representation of the earth, its re-emplacement in artwork, its relocation there…to re create a qualitative aspect of the earth.’21 Thisneed for a recreated qualitative aspect returns to the chorographic realisation ofregion/chôra/discrete units, although Casey’s postmodernist disintegration and re-

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creation of place may need to be considered to the establishment of achorographical lexicon within visual arts theory.

Directions taken from Lukermann, albeit from a geographical perspective,concisely suggest the way forward to understand location is for fresh creativeinvestigation, directed by contemporary sources, while importantly building onclassical knowledge and practice. Discussing modern approaches to understandingdenotations of geography, topography and chorography, Lukermann avers thatwhile there must be always a consideration and reference to significant antecedentsand their processes, contemporary approaches must also consider contemporarysources:

Meaning and reference must come from the contemporary sourcematerial and must be expressed in the classical process of doinggeography, chorography and topography [and claims that]… Itis in this context of change and creation that the search is madefor a more lucid, operational and specific meaning of geography,chorography and topography than we have inherited.22

Lukermann’s premise may be observed in contemporary chorographicalapplications in creative arts. For example, Pearson notes the modern role ofchorography still represents ‘the unique character of individual places, at particularscales of apprehension, it identifies and differentiates sites of significance.’23

However, Pearson states that chorography now also ‘may include all manner ofcelebratory, ludic and performative activities as well as topographical featuresmodes of contemporary devised theatre and manifestations of traditionalpractice’.24 As an example, The Long March Project25 in China may be seen tohave both contemporary and historical chorographical connotations to theinterpretation of place and history. Lu Jie and Qiu Zhui record the gathering andrestructuring of exhibited material, dialogue and performance relating to place, andmemory in the twenty sites selected on its route, stating ‘The 20 sites along theroute of the Long March are excursions in to historical, political geographic andartistic context of each place’.26

In new media and digital applications, chorography, as a digital language ofplace, is considered within digital virtual reality applications. For instance, Wilkendiscusses chorographical place within a digital virtual reality, stating ‘thatrecognising the significance and accounting for the impact of place in thediscourses on these configurations is vital’.27A line of inquiry exists here for thewider consideration of chorographical place within a conceptual virtual reality ofart practice in a digital environment.

Apart from these creative practices in varying fields of performance, graphicnovels, multimedia and digital media that are acknowledging chorography asimportant, certain contemporary works in more traditional media may well be

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described as chorographical interpretations of place and its components. Forinstance, a number of Australian works demonstrate chorographic principles andsource chorographic history and iconic symbolism through a contemporary focus.These works include Monsters of the Great South Land 2001 by John Wolseleyand Tim Johnson’s Seamless 2001, all of which may well be considered bearing astrong relationship to Plato’s chôra while expounding the visual literacy of thechorographic image. Bea Maddock’s Panorama, a visual commentary on theTasmanian coastline takes reference from early navigators’ chorographicdocumentation, and adds a chorographic dimension of post colonial criticism topast historical references.

6. ConclusionThe recognition of chorography, in artistic practice, as a subjective descriptor

and language for particular manifestations and/or experience is closely aligned tothe resurrection of the importance of place within contemporary philosophicallogic. Chorography, as visual literacy, may interpret both the experience and theactuality of specific place. For example, the idea of place is recognised as the‘where’ of discrete localities, the question may also be asked what constitutes adiscrete localities/chôra. The shifting function of Foucault’s heterotopia perhapsmay only concern this research in the way chorographic documentation will recordthe event of subjective experience/function of place/component at a certain pointin time, the then and there. Casey claims artists are moving away from theexclusive practice of depicting place from a ‘removed point of view’28 to one thatengages closely and bodily with the subject. This engagement could be alsoconstrued as a subjective chorography that envisions the experience of place andallows for chorography to be recognised as the visual communicator of the ‘deeperevents and experiences’ within contemporary place.

Casey’s arguments for the viability and regeneration of the importance of placein a contemporary world do pertain and extend to establishing chorography as acontemporary descriptor and visual language for the deeper visual meanings ofrecognised and regenerated place. This chorographic visual language of placeremains very viable whether it be in established visual art practice or the extendedand new disciplines of creativity.

The historical antecedents and epistemological analysis of a chorographicalmethodology identify and separate chorography as an important entity quitedistinct from both topography and geography. This separation elucidates theactuality and visual literacy of chorography within its historical context and nowpositions it to be defined and acknowledged as a contemporary conceptual andanalytical visual interpretative language. Chorography is now clearly positioned tobe recognised to be a contemporary visual literacy that deciphers relativemetaphysical and physical relationships and realises region/place as a container of

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tangible and intangible components within the wider scope of contemporarycreative practices.

Notes

1 F. Lukermann, 1961, pp. 194-210; E. Casey, 2002, p. 74.2 Chorography as a recognised concept in Classic Greek geography theory may benoted in Strabo’s Geographia (c.7-23 AD) offering an earlier and similardescription of chorography to Ptolemy’s Geographia (c.150AD). Ptolemy’s worksclarified cosmological and geographic theories, sourcing those of Plato, Strabo andAristotle, amongst others.3 F. Lukermann, op cit., p. 194.4 J. Moffitt, 1998, p. 369.5 Ibid., p. 380.6 J. Moffitt, 1993, p. 65; A. Scafi, 1999, p. 53.7 P. Harvey, 1987, p. 493.8 D. Woodward, 1987, p. 288.9 M. Mollat du Jourdin, et al., 1984, p. 15.10 E. Casey, 2002, p. 182; A Ratti, 1988, p. 77.11 Implications of Ptolemy’s distinctions between geography and chorography werefully realised when the overwhelming authority rediscovered Geographia imposeditself on Renaissance culture. L. Nuti, 1999, p. 91.12 M. Escolar, 1997.13 D. Landau & P. Parshall, 1994, p. 35; S. Edgerton, 1974, p. 280.14 S. Alpers, 1983, p. 133.15 M. Charlesworth, 1999.16 M. Curry, 2002, p. 509.17 Ibid., p. 515.18 M. Curry, 2005, p. 682.19 Ibid., p.682.20 E. Casey, 2005, p. xv.21 Ibid. p., xv.22 F. Lukermann, op. cit., p. 195.23 M. Pearson, 2007.24 Ibid., p. 3.25 The Long March Project is an art project to bring contemporary art to the peoplein China, originally setting up sites along the route of the 1934 Red Army escaperoute or Long March led by Mao Zedong.26 L. Jie & Q. Zhuie, 2006, p. 107.27 R. Wilken, 2007.28 E. Casey, 1997, p. 440.

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Bibliography

Alpers, S., The Art of Describing. John Murray, London, 1983.

Casey, E., The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History. University of E. CaliforniaPress, London, 1997.

—, Representing Place, Landscapes and Maps. University of Minnesota Press,Minneapolis, 2002.

—, Earth Mapping. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 2005.

Charlesworth, M., ‘Mapping, the Body and Desire: Christopher Packe’sChorography of Kent’. Mappings. Cosgrove, D. (ed), Reaktion Books, London,1999.

Curry, M. ‘Discursive Displacement and the Seminal Ambiguity of Space andPlace’. The Handbook of New Media. Lievrouw, L. (ed), Sage Publications,London, 2002.

Curry, M., ‘Towards a Geography of a World without Maps’. Annals ofAssociation of American Geographers. Vol. 95, Issue 3, 2005, pp. 680-691.

Edgerton, S., ‘Florentine Interest in Ptolemaic Cartography as Background forRenaissance Painting Architecture and the Discovery of America’. The Journal ofthe Society of Architectural Historians. Vol. 33, Issue 4, 1974, pp. 275-292.

Escolar, M., ‘Exploration, Cartography and Modernisation of State Power’. RevueInternationale des Sciences Sociales. UNESCO, Paris, 1997.

Harvey, P., ‘Local and Region Cartography in Medieval Europe’. History ofCartography. Vol. 1, University of Chicago, Chicago, 1987.

Jie, L. & Zhuie, Q., ‘The Long March Project’. The 5th Asia-Pacific Triennial ofContemporary Art. Queensland Art Gallery, Sydney, 2006.

Landau, D. & Parshall, P., The Renaissance Print. Yale University Press, London,1994.

Lukermann, F., ‘The Concept of Location in Classical Geography’. Annals of theAssociation of American Geographers. Vol. 51, Issue 2, 1961, pp. 194-210.

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Moffitt, J., ‘Medieval Mappaemundi and Ptolemy’s Choroghraphia’. Gesta. Vol.32, Issue 1, 1993, pp. 59-68.

—, ‘Ptolemy’s Chorographia in the New World: Revelations from the RelacionesGeograficas de la Nueva Espana of 1579-1581’. Art History. Vol. 21, Issue 3,1998, pp. 367-392.

Mollat du Jourdin, M., de La Ronciere, M., Azard, M., Raynard-Nguyen, I. &Vannereau, M., Sea Charts of the Early Explorers: 13th to 17th Century. Thamesand Hudson, New York, 1984.

Nuti, L., ‘Mapping Places’. Mappings. Cosgrove, D. (ed), Reaktion Books,London, 1999.

Pearson, M., ‘Chorography’. Documenta Magazines Online Journal. Vol. 1-3, pp.1-3. Retrieved 29 Sep 2007 http://magazines.documenta.de/frontend/article.php?IdLanguage=1&NrArticle=1520.

Ratti, A., ‘A Lost Map of Fra Mauro Found in a Sixteenth Century Copy’. ImagoMundi. Vol. 40, 1988, pp. 77-85.

Scafi, A., ‘Eden: Cartographies of the Earthly Paradise. Mappings. Cosgrove, D.(ed), Reaktion Books, London, 1999.

Wilken, R., ‘The Haunting Affect of Place in the Discourse of the Virtual’. Ethics,Place and Environment: A Journal of Philosophy and Geography. Vol. 10, Issue 1,2007, pp. 49-63.

Woodward, D., ‘Medieval Mappaemundi’. A History of Cartography. Vol. 1,University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1987.

Jill O’Sullivan is a PhD candidate at the School of Creative Arts, James CookUniversity, Townsville, Australia. She is currently researching the visual literacyof Chorography within a visual art context. This research examines chorography’srole as a conceptual and semiotic mapping of Place and its associated componentsthrough both the historical and contemporary applications in creative arts.

PART VII

Defining, Refining and Realigning

The Interplay of Visual Literacy, New Media Technologyand Teaching Approaches

Monika Raesch

AbstractResearch reports suggest that video games are an effective way of engagingtoday’s learners. The basic premise behind the creation of the teaching materialsdiscussed in this article was to illuminate whether materials using traditionalmethods, such as cards, can still be effective learning tools. This chapter providessummaries of the usage of a board game, one card game, and an adaptation of a TVshow to determine whether it is essential for schools to include new mediatechnology into the classrooms. The results suggest that technology as such is notessential but that certain aspects of the gaming environment need to be adapted forthe learner to fully engage with the teaching materials, as aspects of visual literacyhave evolved.

Key Words: Board games, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, literacy skills, videogames, visual literacy.

*****

Visual Literacy refers to a group of vision-competencies a humanbeing can develop by seeing and at the same time having andintegrating other sensory experiences. The development of thesecompetencies is fundamental to normal human learning. Whendeveloped, they enable a visually literate person to discriminateand interpret the visible actions, objects, symbols, natural orman-made, that he encounters in his environment. Through thecreative use of these competencies, he is able to communicatewith others.1

‘He’ and ‘others’ could be replaced via the terms teacher, student and studentsin any order. Especially with the rise of technology which has resulted in the use ofsmartboards in classrooms visually literacy needs to be focused on anew todetermine how the evolving teaching methods that use various forms of technologyand rely to varying degrees on visual literacy impact the learning environment.Debes’ statement will always remain timely and as such it is an illustration of theever changing yet simultaneously remaining stable structure of the learningprocess.

With students developing visual competencies differently, such as spendingmore time with interactive media it is unclear how students comprehend visualmaterials in the classroom. Have their competencies been altered? Are they

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developing them at a different pace? With many teachers not being up-to-date or atleast not as involved in the same leisure time experiences that develop visualliteracy skills for the student body at large, the teacher needs to be aware ofwhether materials in the classroom are (still) effective. Gee summarizes that‘designers [of video games] face and largely solve an intriguing educationaldilemma, one also faced by schools and workplaces: how to get people, oftenyoung people, to learn and master something that is long and challenging and enjoyit, to boot.’2 Prensky reminds us that a previous study suggests that playing action-oriented video games can increase students’ ‘visual selective attention.’3

Additionally, he poses that such new media technology ‘is the best opportunity wehave to engage our kids in real learning.’ Van Eck points out that by mid-2000video games had finally largely overcome the stigma that they are simply ‘play’but can be used as learning tools. He poses that,

what is needed now is (1) research explaining why DGBL [digitalgame-based learning] is engaging and effective, and (2) practicalguidance for how (when, with whom, and under what conditions)games can be integrated into the learning process to maximizetheir learning potential.4

Also, what is needed is research exploring whether traditional teachingmaterials can still be effective or whether they can be adapted to engage the ‘new-media-technology-student.’ Agreeing with Van Eck, in 2003, Aguilera and Mendizalready supported the use of video games in the classroom. They summarize resultsof previous studies, which suggest that, among others video games can beinstrumental in acquiring abilities and skills like,

• Development of visual discernment and separation of visualattention

• Development of inductive logic5

Combining these observations with Hobbs’ 1997 work on literacy assummarized by Frey and Fisher illustrates the complexity and urgency of theclassroom being up-to-date in effective teaching methods to further studentlearning. Frey and Fisher state that in the age of information:

All messages are construction. Messages are representations of social reality. Individuals negotiate meaning by interacting with messages. Messages have economic, political, social, and aesthetic

purposes. Each form of communication has unique characteristics.6

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To determine whether teaching methods are effective for the current generationof students, I trialled various teaching materials over a three-year period in my A-Level media and film classes at a college in the UK. Thus, the majority of studentsin my classes were 16-18 years old and had been growing up with a variety ofinteractive media. Most educational institutions do not have finances readilyavailable to upgrade their classrooms with technological gadgets, howevereffective they can be. Therefore, this chapter discusses the use of a board game (acombination of the games Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit), of a team game (anadaptation of Family Feud) and of one card game (individual play) to teachstudents core concepts in the media and film studies fields. Can these resourcesbased on traditional materials still be effective? Has the interaction with new mediatechnology altered the literacy skills and/or approach and attention to learning inthe classroom so significantly that non-media based materials have lost theireffectiveness in engaging and teaching students?

1. The Teaching MaterialsA. Paper Edit

Following a brief introduction to editing theory via three tasks, students areasked to create a paper edit for an excerpt of the movie Speed. Students areprovided with the script excerpt and with still images of every single camera set-upthat was used during those 90 seconds in the film. These still images are printed incolour and provided as cards, similar to a card game. Students are asked to putthem in the order they think the editor put them into using the script to guide themalong.

Regardless of student background, learners engage in the task very similarly.They begin to read the script and once they have a sense of what is happening theystart to look through the cards to find the ‘starting’ images of the scene. As theylook through the cards, they realize that the lighting pattern changes, although thecharacters remain in the same environment, an elevator. Having studied theconcept of semiotics and thus having learned terms including signifier, signified,denotation and connotation, students immediately split the cards into two groups:images with ‘natural’ lighting and images with emergency lighting. At this point,the majority of the students disregard the script and attempt to assemble the entireedit by using semiotic analysis of the still images provided.

While this was not my original intent when designing the task, it demonstratesthat the students have learned the concept of semiotics and can apply it to mediathat is provided. In other words, they are using this new exercise to review andpractice previously acquired knowledge. As I have used this paper editing exercisein ten classes by now, including learners in the British and U.S. education systems,ranging in age from sixteen to twenty-two and students with different learningstyles, the approach to solving the task nonetheless remains the same. This impliesthat visual literacy is an overpowering/persuasive skill that has the ability to assist


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students, in this case by helping them to divide the cards correctly into two groups.Simultaneously the skill can hinder smooth progress, as besides the changinglighting set up several images show ambiguous props, which students are puzzledby. Yet learners rarely decide for themselves to return to reading the script todetermine what objects they might be looking at. I have to remind them that thatmight be the best option to proceed in the task. Regardless of whether studentsinteract a lot with new media technology, they take a similar approach, illustratingAguilera and Mendiz’s statements about separating visual attention and engagingin inductive logic. This suggests that while interaction with new media technologyassists in the development of these skills, they seem to also be developed in otherways as all students behave in a similar manner. Pelletier suggested in her study ofvisual literacy involving screenshot drawings with twelve and thirteen year-oldstudents that students are selective in using acquired knowledge from outside theclassroom and sharing it with other students.7 She poses that ‘[t]his at least raisessome question about schools’ ability to eradicate the dynamics and power strugglesthat characterize the production and reception of media across society.’ Shementions Vered who argues that the rules, guidelines and expectations of theeducation system can suppress personal student knowledge. Thus, while it mightbe effective to include video games and other new media technology in theclassroom, student interaction with them will nonetheless be different than if theywere at home.

An additional observation that I repeatedly made when using this learning toolis related to the attention to detail that students exhibit when studying still images.One card includes a symbol that was not intended to be on it. The computer mousesymbol is depicted on one of the cards. So far, only two students have discoveredthis black arrow/error—with class sizes ranging from ten to twenty-five, this is avery small percentage. While students almost immediately become aware ofobvious messages the still images provide, such as the changing lighting pattern,smaller messages are overlooked, illustrating that student attention and problemsolving lacks depth that would enable them to solve the task more quickly,efficiently and correctly. While the arrow would not assist them in solving theissue, it is representative of other small scaled items in the cards that would assiststudents in putting the cards in an order that tells the story in a coherent manner,using the same pace and style as the film’s opening they just watched. This taskdemonstrates that visual literacy, even though students would succeed applyingtheir knowledge, has the potential to be a wasted skill. While students areinteracting with the visual messages, as Frey and Fisher summarized, they do notdo so in the most effective manner. A reason could be that video games do notrequire attention to small details is needed. For example, in the video gameSOCOM-Navy Seals players know what color patterns and movements they have tolook for to determine whether an enemy is hiding nearby. In the paper editingexercise, in comparison, no such clearly defined focus exists, leaving students

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without specific guidance as to what to look out for. Resulting, the majority of thestudents only become aware of ‘obvious’ signs.

The teacher needs to provide more defined instructions to have studentscomplete the task as envisioned originally. Student feedback provided via studentsurveys suggests that students enjoy the task as they realize how many shots arebeing used to tell a short action scene but they would not realize themselves whyshots were put into the order the editor placed them into. This, however, was theoriginal intent of the task. Thus, providing visuals that are similar to those providedby video games and are part of a successful media product seems to awaken initialinterest and engagement in an all-inclusive manner, but the purpose and guidedinstructions are key to making such a task successful. With this result, a relatedquestion arose: whether such paper-based materials without very detailedinstructions work better if they are based on existing materials that students arefamiliar with.

B. Board GameAnother game used in my classes is entitled ‘The Player.’ It is a combination of

Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit, both games students are very familiar with. Similarto the paper edit task, students make immediate association with previouslyacquired knowledge, whether those were learned inside or outside of the educationsystem. Using popular board games as the base for this task enables students toquickly begin engaging with the task as rules are familiar and to feel confident inknowing how to play the game.

The usage of their visual literacy skills is guided by different unstated rules andguidelines. With the goal of winning the game, students only use visual literacy tounderstand symbols/signs that are in direct relation to them advancing in the game,such as the distribution symbols that determine whether players receive one or twopower points. This is very similar to the approach of a video game player, as thegoal is to fulfil a task, win the game, in other words, to accomplish a set goal. Onlyfive students thus far, out of an approximate total of 120, made a connectionbetween the title of the game and a film excerpt screened in the first few weeks ofthe course, although the title is prominently displayed in the middle of the gameboard. As it is not essential to winning the game, which is not my objective for thegame but the students’, most students ignore any unnecessary information that doesnot assist them directly in achieving their goal. Students who become aware of thegame’s title and ponder its meaning assist me in accomplishing my goal, that is,students reviewing all materials covered in class thus far. Students who becomeaware of the connection between the game and the film were all students whousually earn A grades in the UK A-Level system.

Students’ literary skills thus are used only when viewed as essential tocompleting a task successfully. Each student determines by him/herself themeaning of the word ‘successfully’, though patterns are present. It seems that high


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achieving students analyze more information than other students, not viewingadditional signs as unessential, but as a further explanation of the task overall. Thetitle of the game links other aspects of the course, thus providing these studentswith a sense of direction that the material covered over the course of the pastweeks has all been relevant and comes together in this activity, in which studentsexperience the creation of a film from beginning to end while dealing with issuesthat may arise in any movie production. These students unconsciously becomeaware of the scheme of work/syllabus the instructor created beforehand. From thestudents’ perspective the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors account for atleast part of the different approaches the students take to interacting with a task.Boggiano and Pittman summarized Deci and Lepper’s research that concluded thatif subjects are rewarded for activities they ‘inherently enjoyed’ they lost interest inthem.8 Activities either can be ends in themselves for a student if they areinherently motivated or can be ‘pursued for reward or recognition and are regardedas means to an end,’ which is also referred to as extrinsic motivation.

As previously mentioned, the majority of students engaging in the task do notreach a high level of reflection; seemingly only those who experience intrinsicmotivation via the task do. Rather, they prefer to stay inside the game and onlyfocus on the task at hand, thus limiting the depth at which they analyze, meaningtheir goal of winning the game is extrinsically motivated. This aim of winning alsocan be found in intrinsic motivation, but the task itself determines whichmotivation drives the student. In contrast to the Paper Edit task, the teacher’soriginal intent for this task has nonetheless been accomplished as the question setsthat are essential to winning the game review all the essential information. Highachieving students simply review a more information; thus the game providesoptional extension possibilities that enable all students to be engaged and to createan inclusive learning environment.

The feedback for this game, collected via questionnaires, has been entirelypositive. The questionnaire consisted of both close and open-ended questions, oneof which targeted the students’ understanding of subject content. The resultsshown in Table 1 suggest that the multi-tasking and visual literacy skills requiredto succeed in the activity also assisted in student learning and understanding.Students could tick up to three options the question provided.

Table 1: Feedback from the first group of students playing the board game.

Response Type % of Responsescheck learning 100%understanding concepts, topics 66%helped memorize information 36%realized connections between topics 33%gained understanding of exam questions 33%not at all 0%

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Students suggested that I adapt the game for various classes/topics in the open-ended questions section. Overall, regardless of motivation students engage well.They felt accomplished and better prepared for the exam, as they had becomeaware of their strengths and weaknesses, which would permit them to continuereviewing materials more focused. Exam results suggested that students performedbetter in the exam when they were enrolled in my class than in those of mycolleagues. However, no direct relation can be made between the game and theexam results based on the nature and limitations of this pilot study.

Possibly the interactivity of the game permits students to feel more engaged,similarly to new media tools, as students have a variety of signs to interpret and avariety of tasks to fulfil-such as collecting cards and asking questions-whichsomewhat mirrors the multi-tasking experience of playing with interactive media.Given the positive feedback and enthusiasm for the game the students exhibited itmight not be essential to use new media technology in the classroom; one canengage learners by copying the variety of skills and tasks the games requirestudents to fulfil so that learners feel engaged. Even extrinsically motivatedstudents engage well, possibly as the aim of winning is the same as it is with manygames they play due to intrinsic motivation. With this hypothesis, I created andtrialled another review game, which I modelled on the TV show Family Feud.

C. Family FeudIn this game, visual literacy is limited to reading brief rules displayed on the

board and a timer displayed on the smartboard that informs students how muchtime they have left to complete the task. Students are working in teams and thusindividual student performance impacts several learners. Teams have two minutesto create as many arguments as they have team members to respond to a statementprovided on the board. Each member has to present one argument following all therules explained prior to the playing of the rounds. If a team does not complete allarguments properly, the opposing team has a chance to steal points by providing asmany of their own arguments as the other team failed to complete.

Each time I have used this game in the classroom, students have takenresponsibility-in teams each student creates his/her own argument; nobody is usinganother team member. However, students help each other out and check on eachother’s work to ensure it follows all the rules. Seemingly, when learners are beingmade responsible for classmates their attitude adjusts and they aim to perform at ahigher/more complex level. While the goal remains the same-winning the game-sharing responsibility for winning or losing impacts motivation. Students ensurethey follow directions best they can and pay attention to all symbols provided.Students are not selective as they were in the two previous tasks. However, it canbe argued that this particular game provides students with fewer stimuli, thusenabling them to analyze all of them. However, students also have less time,therefore having less symbols to read is appropriate.


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Feedback for this task was provided via student response sheets, collected at theend of the class period during which the game had been played. Again, studentsfelt that they were better prepared for their exam as they knew how to structuretheir arguments and use the knowledge they had gained in class. These were myoriginal intentions with the game. Overall, the two previous materials suggestedthat students need to feel competitively engaged as well as multi-tasking to get asense of accomplishment and be engaged throughout a task.

2. ConclusionThese activities lead me to believe that in order to engage learners today,

materials have to be mirroring some of the aspects that new media productsprovide students with, such as defined time limitations, multi-tasking experiencesand clearly defined goals that enable students to enter a ‘game mode’-mind.Materials can vary on the complexity of a task as the time allocated needs tosupport the level of complexity. Budget constraints of education providers do notseem to be a hindering factor in engaging learners, as technology does not seem tobe an essential aspect in the classroom. While technology is needed to create thematerials, students do not need their individual technology in the classroom.

Thus, teaching visual literacy is only one step and most likely not the mostimportant step in a student’s learning process. Repeated practicing of the skill withclearly provided directions appears to be a key to successful learning. The teacherhas to keep in mind that the majority of students will complete the task in the waythat requires the least amount of work due to only being extrinsically motivated.Thus, the instructor has to ensure that the directions to the task, and ideally the taskitself, require in-depth use of visual literacy and other skills to keep studentsworking on a similar level. While high achieving students will always find ways toengage in a task on more levels, due to their intrinsic motivation, most studentswill only be motivated via the explicitly stated goal that the task is aimed athelping students achieve and view the task as a means to an end.

Notes

1 J. Debes, What is Visual Literacy? International Visual Literacy Association,Retrieved 20 Feb. 2009 http://www.ivla.org/org_what_vis_lit.htm.2 J. Gee, ‘What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy’,Computers in Entertainment, New York, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 2003, p. 20, Retrieved 25Mar 2009 from http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/960000/950595/p20-gee.pdf?key1=950595&key2=6373997321&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=27527468&CFTOKEN=30809284.

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3 M. Prensky, ‘Digital Game-Based Learning’, Computers in Entertainment, Vol.1, Issue 1, ACM, New York, 2003, p. 21. Retrieved 25 Mar 2009 fromhttp://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/960000/950596/p21-prensky.pdf?key1=950596&key2=3204997321&coll=GUIDE&dl=GIDE&CFID=27528213&CFTOKEN=76187288.4 R. Van Eck, ‘Digital Game-Based Learning: It’s not Just the Digital Natives Whoare Restless’, Educause Review, Retrieved 25 Mar 2009 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0620.pdf.5 M. de Aguilera & A. Méndiz, ‘Video Games and Education: Education in theFace of a Parallel School’, Computers in Entertainment, Vol. 1, Issue 1, ACM,New York, 2003, pp. 1-2. Retrieved 25 Mar 2009 from http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/960000/950583/p10-de_aguilera.pdf?key1=950583&key2=5574997321&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=27529899&CFTOKEN=22181653.6 N. Frey & D. Fisher, Teaching Visual Literacy, Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks,2008, pp. 1-2.7 C. Pelletier, ‘The Uses of Literacy in Studying Computer Games: ComparingStudents’ Oral and Visual Representations of Games’, English Teaching: Practiceand Critique, Vol. 4, Issue 1, 2005, pp. 40-59.8 A. Boggiano & T. Pittman, Achievement and Motivation: A Social DevelopmentalPerspective, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.

Bibliography

Aguilera, M. de & Méndiz, A., ‘Video Games and Education: Education in theFace of a Parallel School’. Computers in Entertainment. Vol. 1, Issue, 1, ACM,New York, 2003, pp. 1-2, Retrieved 25 Mar 2009 from http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/960000/950583/p10-de_aguilera.pdf?key1=950583&key2=5574997321&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=27529899&CFTOKEN=22181653.

Boggiano, A. & Pittman, T., Achievement and Motivation: A Social DevelopmentalPerspective. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.

Debes, J., What is Visual Literacy? International Visual Literacy Association,Retrieved 20 Feb 2009 from http://www.ivla. org/org_what_vis_lit.htm.

Frey, N. & Fidher, D., Teaching Visual Literacy. Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks,2008.


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Gee, J., ‘What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy’.Computers in Entertainment. Vol. 1. Issue 1, Retrieved 25 Mar 2009 fromhttp://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/960000/950595/p20-gee.pdf?key1=950595&key2=6373997321&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=27527468&CFTOKEN=30809284.

Pelletier, C., ‘The Uses of Literacy in Studying Computer Games: ComparingStudents’ Oral and Visual Representations of Games’. English Teaching: Practiceand Critique. Vol. 4, Issue 1, 2005, pp. 40-59.

Prensky, M., ‘Digital Game-Based Learning’. Computers in Entertainment. Vol. 1,Issue 1, Retrieved 25 Mar 2009 from http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/960000/950596/p21-prensky.pdf?key1=950596&key2=3204997321&coll=GUIDE&dl=GU IDE&CFID=27528213&CFTOKEN=76187288.

Van Eck, R., ‘Digital Game-Based learning: It’s not Just the Digital Natives whoare Restless’. Educause Review. Retrieved 25 Mar 2009 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0620.pdf.

Monika Raesch is Assistant Professor at Suffolk University, Boston.

PART VIII

Discourses, Definitions and Delights

Celluloid Obsessions: Visual Literacy in theFilms of Martin Scorsese

José Gabriel Ferreras Rodríguez

AbstractJust like a writer or a painter has a particular style, which helps define hispersonality as an artist, a filmmaker also has a style that can distinguish his movieto an extent that one can identify its author, independently from the story that isbeing told. In this sense, a movie director who is easily recognized by a simpleobservation of his visual style is Martin Scorsese. As well as one can find in hismovies such topics as redemption, paranoia or violence, also a specific audiovisualvocabulary and language can be easily spotted throughout his career: favouritecamera moves, editing trademarks, etc., obsessively repeated movie after movie. Invisual literacy, form can be compared to grammar and other elements in writtenlanguage. If in a literary analysis it is possible to consider repetitions, adjectives,syntactic parallelisms, hyperboles and so on, when it comes to cinema we canequally talk about travellings, frozen frames, backward images, fast motion, slowmotion, etc. In the present article, our aim will be to analyse some of Scorsese’srecurring techniques, trying to outline the development towards the refinement thathe seems to have embarked on since the early stages of his career.

Key Words: Film, language, Scorsese, style, visual literacy.

*****

1. IntroductionThere is a broad consensus among academics that our culture is more visual

than ever before. The access and need for images in the daily life of high school orcollege students, among others, is indisputable, although some detractors insist thatthe preponderance of images over the written word may harm society. The realityis that today, children and adults around the world, spend more time in front of thetelevision or watching movies than reading a book. However, teaching thelanguage used by these images continues to be a largely ignored issue withinacademia. Despite finding ourselves immersed in a veritable audiovisualmaelstrom, the learning of this grammar continues to stand out because of itsabsence or scarcity, undervaluing an area of knowledge, like writing, that may betaught and learned.

The term visual literacy, brought into use at the end of the 1960s, assumes thatin the same way that we learn the basic rules of grammar, spelling, etc., in order tocommunicate through writing, we must also learn the elemental rules of visualcommunication so it will not be confined to specialists in the field, just as writinginstruction is not to be confined to literary elites. The central idea of visual literacy,

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therefore, resides in somebody who learns the mechanisms of visual languagebecoming capable not only of producing visual materials but also of interpretingwhat they represent. As indicated by Messaris, if we view it optimistically, visualliteracy may contribute to the development of creativity, expanding the cognitivecapacity of individuals; but in a pessimistic sense, visual literacy would also serveas a shield against the bombardment of images that we constantly receive fromvarious sources and with different intentions.1

As ‘visual language’, Avgerinou & Ericsson present a theoretical aspect that isespecially interesting to us.2 In visual literacy, the form is compared to grammarand other elements of written language. In order for us to focus now upon what wewill examine, a filmmaker, like a writer, manages his own language. If in the caseof a writer we are talking about his use of repetition, adjectives, syntacticparallelism, comparison, hyperbole, etc. In the case of film, we refer to elementssuch as dissolves, fades, travellings, frozen images, backwards and acceleratedimages, slow motion, etc. Jean-Claude Carrière is clear in saying that ‘there is nocurrent equivalent to clear and reliable cinematographic grammar,’3 alluding to theever-changing flow that is the language of film. However, that does not prevent usfrom seeking out elements of that grammar, considering the state of today’scinematographic language, and, moreover, in helping us with a specific job.

In this chapter, therefore, our objective will be to present and analyze some ofthe figures of style or elements of language that may be found in the specific caseof a cinematographic work. And for those items we will focus upon the films ofMartin Scorsese, a director who throughout his career has developed a languageand visual vocabulary very uniquely his own (favorite camera movements,preferred editing devices, etc.), which is readily recognizable and continues toenrich one film after another. The rare academic bibliography generally dedicatedto the use of the language in films seems to us to be sufficient reason for making amodest contribution to the analysis of his films by focusing on visual literacy.

2. Scorsese and Visual LiteracyMartin Scorsese needs no introduction. Considered by many to be the best

living film director, Scorsese’s career now spans more than four decades of NorthAmerican film history (his first works date back to the 1960s). The presence of thishistory is felt in all types of activities related to the world of film, from the editingof books or participation in festivals, to the publication of articles and the activepreservation of cinematographic heritage performed through different associations,both in the United States and throughout the world.

With respect to this chapter, however, it is essential to indicate that in recentyears, Scorsese himself has been one of the main spokesmen for the importance ofvisual literacy. Through the Film Foundation that he directs, he is the main booster,for instance, of a teaching and learning initiative with images known as The Storyof Movies, a project dedicated to helping students in schools and universities to


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‘read’ the visual language of films and which the director describes as an ‘aninterdisciplinary curriculum introducing students to classic cinema and the cultural,historical, and artistic significance of film.’4

Scorsese, as he himself tells, was intensively exposed to the language of imagesfrom a very early age. In an interview conducted for Edutopia, he tells us howbooks did not abound at his parents’ home, a modest mid-20th-century Brooklynhousehold. However, television and films were his companions and his parentsoften took him to the movies.

One of the things that steered me in the direction of visualstorytelling was the fact that I come from a working-class family.My mother and father weren’t well educated. They were second-generation Italian American. There was no tradition of reading inthe house, no books. Of course I read in school.

I was a sickly child. I had very severe asthma, and I couldn’t playsports, so I was taken to the movie theatre and the church. Alongwith the films, I saw a lot of television shows. I was acquiringvisual literacy at that time, though I did not understand that itwas happening.

I loved books. But it took me years to really learn how to read abook – in other words, how to live with the book, how to read afew pages, savour it, go back to it. I was much more open towhatever visual codes were hidden in films. What I mean by thatis the storytelling of cinema through the use of the camera andthe use of light, actors, and dialogue – all the literature of thescreenplay translated through the images. 5

The focus of this study, which seems critical to us, is the manner in whichScorsese began to understand how ‘form’ often determines ‘content’ in mouldingthe meanings that were transmitted by films. Scorsese discovered that a filmdirector’s intentional decisions would refer to form, to tools used so that an imagewould remain as he wanted it to be. In addition, through each element, the directorwas making decisions that affected narration and the story’s meaning or the type ofemotions that he received as a viewer.

The stories were wonderful in the films, but it was also the wayof telling the story. As a young person, I started to wonder, whyis the way of telling the story so interesting? So what I began todo – particularly because the films were on television andsometimes shown in repertory theatres around the city – was, I


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would go and see my favourite parts again and again, and slowlybut surely I began to memorize these visually, and sometimes Iwould make up my own visual interpretations.

I kept seeing the films again and again, and as I began to know alittle more about filmmaking and what cameras did, I wasbeginning to understand that there are certain tools that you useand that those tools become part of a vocabulary. And it is just asvalid as the vocabulary that is used in literature. 6

Years later, as a film director, Scorsese continues to treat the visual aspect ofhis films with care and precision. Absorbing influences from some of the greateststylists who have emerged from film, such as Michael Powell, Alfred Hitchcock,Federico Fellini or Orson Welles, Scorsese is a filmmaker who speaks to usthrough his images as much if not more so than through the dialogue in his films.Sometimes he seems almost consumed by the need to visually express himself, andhis works bubble over with an accumulation of linguistic ideas and possibilities. Inthis chapter, we see how the director uses these tools of cinematographic languagein his own work, trying to determine the particular meaning, sense or the effect thathe seeks to evoke through their use and the manner in which they help him notonly to visually tell his story but also to emotionally affect the viewer.

3. The Scorsese LexiconNext we will isolate different expressive elements in Martin Scorsese’s films

and identify examples of the use of such elements in several of his films. Our aim,however, is not to focus on the most well-known tools in his vocabulary, such asthe fabulous tracking shots that appear in films like Goodfellas, the virtuoso use ofslow motion seen in Mean Streets, or the legendary montage of boxing combats inRaging Bull. In this job we want to focus on some very specific elements of hislanguage, perhaps more subtle or less evocative and maybe for that reason not aswidely discussed to date, such as, among others, the particular use of the subjectiveshot, the use of triple-cut montage among three brief shots or the special way ofmaking a dissolve as a figure of the montage. They are resources that have servedScorsese throughout his career, which he seems to try to perfect at every newopportunity in which he uses them, and which reappear time and again in his films,as if he were obsessed by them.

A. Subjective Shot vs. Objective ShotIn cinematographic syntax, the so-called ‘subjective camera’ or ‘subjective

point of view’ happens when the camera becomes or assumes the role of acharacter in the action. The spectator’s point of view in these cases coincidesprecisely with the character; the spectator sees what the character sees, and


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accordingly, becomes a protagonist in the sequence. Films are basically made froman objective point of view or from the mixture and alternation of the objective andsubjective point of view, or rather, by combining objectivity and subjectivity. Inthe history of film, there is only one particular case, represented by the film Ladyin the Lake from 1946, in which the whole story is presented from its protagonist’sperspective, in subjective shots, and the protagonist’s face only appearssporadically before mirrors.

We see numerous examples of subjective shots in Scorsese’s films, for instancein Kundun, his film on the 14th Dalai Lama. There’s a moment when the characteris going to be proclaimed as the new reincarnation of the Buddha of Compassionwhere the camera places us exactly in the Dalai Lama’s gaze as a boy, as he stridesalong a red carpet up to the throne.

However, Scorsese frequently likes to work with an alternative to this type ofsubjective shot, a combination of the subjective and objective shot, we could say.We are talking about the director reliance in many occasions on a subjective shotthat is transformed into an objective shot within a same take, one of the mostcharacteristic elements of our director’s visual language. This can happen either inone direction or the other: On some occasions, what seems at first glance to be asubjective shot, conveying the protagonist’s gaze, is transformed into an objectiveshot from the moment in which that character makes an appearance ‘within’ theimage, entering his own subjective point of view. On other occasions, the oppositeoccurs, which begins as an objective shot where the protagonist is included withinthe image, then transforming into a subjective shot as the protagonist leaves theshot.

We can find many examples of this visual element in practically any ofScorsese’s films, although the director himself dates it back to the era of TaxiDriver:

I started playing with that idea when I did that Mirror, Mirrorepisode of Amazing Stories. Actually I did some of that in TaxiDriver, too, where it’s Travis’ POV and he steps into it.7

A few examples could be mentioned. Like in The Age of Innocence, forexample, during a scene at a reception dinner, when the character of Ellen Olenskagets up from a sofa to approach Newland Archer on another sofa across the room.The camera tracks back as Ellen advances, then rotates to frame Newland in thesofa in front of her and then continues tracking toward him as if a subjective pointof view of her. Finally, she enters the shot again, thus reverting it to objective backagain. In a more recent work, The Departed, there’s another shot near thebeginning of the film in which we see a subjective point of view of the character ofFrank Costello as he enters a convenience store, and the point of view becomesobjective in the end when the actor also enters the frame. The inverse alternative to


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those is posed, for example, in Shine a Light, the Rolling Stones concert thatScorsese shot in New York, when the show has ended and the Stones get off thestage. Scorsese’s camera begins tracking behind Mick Jagger’s back as heapproaches the exit, but at a certain moment it passes him by and stays put in hisperspective, as if a subjective point of view of the singer.

This is a resource that we may discover upon going back in time to directorslike Federico Fellini, and in a work as seminal in history as is his 8 ½. Similar tothe Italian maestro, Scorsese seeks to complicate the traditional separation betweenobjective and subjective points of view. In a certain sense, he inseparably linksthem together, thereby dissolving the boundaries between external reality and theinternal world of his characters.

B. Triple Repetition of MontageThe art of montage is perhaps the most intrinsically cinematographic element of

language. It is really the moment in which the film acquires its definitive form and,as he always has stated publicly, it is Scorsese’s favourite phase during theproduction of a film to the point that the New York director began his careerprecisely as an editor before dedicating himself to directing.

The montage involves the process of selecting, ordering and splicing all shotsaccording to a previous idea and a specific rhythm. Different montage stylesdetermine the different effect that a film may succeed in producing. A montagewith rapid cuts, for example, may infuse the film with a tense, urgent effect. On theother hand, shots sustained for long periods in montage allow for a more relaxedregister to be offered of what’s occurring before the camera. Scorsese normallyenjoys the juxtaposition of contradictory elements that break the rules of continuitybetween shots and introduce a rupture that can convey a specific effect within thestory:

I just love it when two images come together, and one image cutsto another and a third or fourth image comes into your mindthat’s not actually there. That’s the power of this medium. 8

Scorsese’s sensitivity as an editor, in this sense, is still related to the efforts ofSoviet filmmakers, particularly Sergei M. Eisenstein. Pudovkin, Kulechov orEisenstein himself, were very famous for their study of montage techniques andtheir theories on the narrative, expressive and plastic possibilities of this resource.And one of the trademarks most characteristic of the montage in Scorsese’s films isa direct inheritance from Eisenstein: we are talking about what is sometimes calledrepeat cut (also known as stutter cut or even as triple take), an element essentiallyinvented by Eisenstein and which Scorsese discovered through the use of it that theFrench Nouvelle Vague did. 9


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The repeat cut is a visual emphasis tool in which a single action or gesture isshown more than once in immediate repetition, often from different angles or indifferent takes. Each image lasts only a few frames. This gives the viewer thesensation that he or she is watching the same event from different points of view,in a certain sense ‘rewinding’ the scene or extending the action in time. A famousexample of this device, singled out by Scorsese himself, occurs in Eisenstein’sBronenosets Potyomkin, during a sequence on a ship in which a sailor breaks hisdinner plate as a form of protest. What typically would have been done in one ortwo shots is performed by the Soviet filmmaker over nine different shots, with theplate breaking twice.10

In Scorsese’s films, it is something that we may find, for example, in one of hisfirst works, Mean Streets, right at the very beginning of the film, as the protagonistplayed by Harvey Keitel is about to lay down on his bed and hit the pillow with hishead. The action of is head approaching the pillow is broken down in the editinginto three different and very quick shots, that Scorsese makes coincide with theinitial chords of the musical theme Be My Baby, by the Ronettes. We can find thesame element on many other occasions. For example, in The Last Temptation ofChrist, during the crucifixion scene, as a soldier raises a hammer in the air to nailJesus to the cross, his arm’s movement is fragmented in three different shots. InThe Age of Innocence, during a scene towards the end between May and Newlandat home, May’s gesture of getting up from her sofa towards Newland is alsofragmented in three different angles. And in Gangs of New York, during the initialbattle between the gangs, the fall to the ground of the character interpreted by LiamNeeson after a fatal blow by Bill the Butcher is also fragmented in this manner.

C. Dissolves within the ShotIn order to implement the union between different images and scenes in editing,

there are different devices with various expressive values. These devices aretypically called ‘punctuation signs’ or ‘transition figures.’ The simplest is the cut,which is given when one shot is tied directly to the next. Another figure is thedissolve, which occurs when the last image of a shot gradually fades while the firstimage from the next shot begins to overlap, with both images coexistingsimultaneously for a few moments. And, finally, we have the fades, which happenwhen the image fades to total black (fade out) or when the image starts black andgradually illuminates (fade in). Also as transition figures we have the sweep(movement of the camera at full speed from one object to another) or slidetransitions (when images are displaced towards one side, upward or downward).

The dissolve is typically used to establish a relationship between twocompletely different scenes, in different places, and to suggest that a certainamount of time has passed between these two sequences. However, Scorsese hasrepeatedly used it with another aim. In roughly the last decade of his career or so,perhaps the most intriguing element of style that the filmmaker has introduced in


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his visual lexicon includes the use of the dissolve, but not for tying together twoimages in different places and times, but rather to unite two different momentsfrom a different shot, the beginning and the end, eliminating or underlining thecentral part of the shot. Scorsese began to experiment with this resource in 1993,when he made The Age of Innocence: ‘I knew going in that we were going to usemore dissolves than usual, as opposed to Goodfellas where it was mainlycutting’.11

We can cite various examples from this film in particular. One occurs at adinner scene in Paris, during the honeymoon montage of the film. There’s a highangle of the dinner table and, as the camera booms down over the food, Scorseseuses a dissolve before tilting up to frame Jonathan Pryce and Daniel Day-Lewistalking. In a case like this, the dissolve does not have the traditional sense ofexpressing the passage of time or change of place. For Scorsese, its use responds totwo main motives. On one hand, an attempt to speed up the rhythm of narration,cutting shots (normally tracking shots like that one) that otherwise would have aduration that he considers much too long in montage. And, on the other hand, it isused in this film to introduce an almost pictorial texture that to Scorsese representsthe practical equivalent of an impressionist painting, ‘sort of like a brush comingthrough and painting bits and pieces of color, swishing by’.12

Scorsese has also used this device in other situations. In Casino, for example, afilm about a very different subject apparently than The Age of Innocence, heabundantly uses dissolves. There is one moment that stands out in particular inwhich Scorsese dissolves within a close-up of Ace Rothstein. We see him taking apuff from a cigarette and the dissolve advances to the moment he blows the smokethrough his mouth almost in a Luciferian way. In Kundun there are also entiresequences based on the use of dissolve so as to better convey the experience of thecharacter’s memory of his journey. And the same thing occurs in The Aviator, forexample, during the initial scene in which the mother washes the body of the child,Howard Hughes, and the different shots are connected by dissolves, emphasizingthe dream-like functioning of the sequence as a memory from the character’schildhood. It is also a way of lending continuity to the takes, of establishing aconnection between them and giving greater fluidity to the visual narration.

4. ConclusionsAt this point of the chapter, it seems important to establish the need to be aware

of the importance of visual literacy, and our perspective here is clear: iconiclanguage must be taught and learned in the institutions where students are trained.The language of images is crucial as a tool for comprehending the very culture inwhich we are inserted. We could never understand the history of humanity withoutwriting and its impact on the manner in which we think and act (for example, thefield of law), and, in turn, we could not think of history since the 20th centurywithout considering visual language and its consequences for the change of people,


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both individually and socially. Scorsese is the first to insist upon the need to learnhow to read messages that one encounters in order to develop a critical spirit:

When I was in grade school, there was no attempt at teaching anykind of visual literacy. Today, our society and our world aresaturated with visual stimulation. The visual image has takenover, in a sense, for better or for worse. But the reality is that ifone wants to reach younger people at an earlier age to shape theirminds in a critical way, you really need to know how ideas andemotions are expressed visually. Now, that visual form can bevideo or film, but it still has the same rules, the same vocabularyand the same grammar.

We have to teach our younger people how to use this verypowerful tool. The world is now at the point where they areexposed to the visual language sooner than the verbal and I thinkthere’s a danger of visual language having more of an effect onkids than it used to. We have to try to deal with this and teachthem to interpret the power of visual language.13

For many years though, unlike the era in which Scorsese was educated, it isalready possible to perceive a growing tendency in schools to include visual mediato transmit teaching content: documentary, videos prepared especially for theclassroom, as well as films and televised content. It is now known, more than ever,that children learn more easily through images, since this is the medium withwhich they are most familiarized. Yet even though visual literacy has beenmentioned frequently in the academy, it has still not reached any consensus. Theexample that we have presented from Scorsese’s films has helped us to succinctlycreate a path for a possible syntax, although there are many other additionallanguage instruments. And the concept of visual literacy seems essential to us todue to its interdisciplinary nature, while facilitating approaches from variousdisciplines in a world that calls for solutions in the face of complexity.

Notes

1 P. Messaris, ‘Visual Aspects of Media Literacy’, Journal of Communication,Winter, 1998, pp. 70-80.2 M. Avgerinou & J. Ericsson, ‘A Review of the Concept of Visual Literacy’,British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 28, Issue 4, 1997, pp. 280-291.3 J-C. Carrière, A Linguagem Secreta do Cinema, Editora Nova Fronteira, SãoPaulo, 1995.


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4 D. Cruickshank, ‘Martin Scorsese: Teaching Visual Literacy’, Edutopia, October,2006. Retrieved 20 Mar 2009 from http://www.edutopia.org/martin-scorsese-teaching-visual-literacy. By signing up at the following website, the curriculumfrom The Story of Movies is available free of charge for professors to use in theclassroom: http://www.vpw.com/partner/movies/index.htm.5 Ibid.6 Ibid.7 P. Brunette, Martin Scorsese: Interviews, University Press of Mississippi,Jackson, 1999, p. 209.8 D. Thompson & I. Christie, Scorsese on Scorsese, Faber & Faber, London, 2003,p. 218.9 L. Keyser, Martin Scorsese, Twayne Publishers, New York, 1992.10 D. Thompson & I. Christie, Scorsese on Scorsese, Faber & Faber, London, 2003,p. 258.11 P. Brunette, Martin Scorsese: Interviews, University Press of Mississippi,Jackson, 1999, p. 207.12 Ibid., p. 206.13 D. Cruickshank, ‘Martin Scorsese: Teaching Visual Literacy’. Edutopia,October, 2006. Retrieved 20 Mar 2009 from http://www.edutopia.org/martin-scorsese-teaching-visual-literacy.

Bibliography

Avgerinou, M. & Ericsson, J., ‘A Review of the Concept of Visual Literacy’.British Journal of Educational Technology. Vol. 28, Issue 4, 1997, pp. 280-291 .

Brunette, P., Martin Scorsese: Interview. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson,1999.

Cruickshank, D., ‘Martin Scorsese: Teaching Visual Literacy’. Edutopia. October,2006. Retrieved 20 Mar 2009 from http://www.edutopia.org/martin-scorsese-teaching-visual-literacy.

Carrière, J-C., A Linguagem Secreta do Cinema. Editora Nova Fronteira, SãoPaulo, 1995.

Keyser, L., Martin Scorsese. Twayne Publishers, New York, 1992.

Messaris, P., ‘Visual Aspects of Media Literacy’. Journal of Communication.Winter, 1998.


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Thompson, D. and Christie, I., Scorsese on Scorsese. Faber & Faber, London,2003.

José Gabriel Ferreras Rodríguez is in the Department of Information andDocumentation at the University of Murcia, Spain.

The Comfort of Standing Next to Walls: Reading the Ill-Literacies in Unica Zürn’s Texts and Images

Esra Plumer

AbstractWalls are everywhere around us. In museums, in institutions, in our homes...wherever we go there are walls that provide shelter for us and the objects thatsurround us. Similarly, these walls echo the boundaries upon which our lives areestablished. Even breaking boundaries takes place within walls, that is, they aredone within certain boundaries. Pictures are put into frames, and subsequently ourthoughts are categorized in certain theories. What about the pictures that have noframes? Where are they kept, and how can we interpret these visual illiteracies thatclaim to be outside of social boundaries? The drawings of Unica Zürn have beenexcluded from the canons of the anti-conformist strategies of the Parisian avant-garde, and her work has been overlooked in art history as a supplement of her malecompanion and well-known artist, Hans Bellmer. However, Zürn’s individualproductivity exemplifies a perpetual visuality that neither is confined within theborders of a page, nor can be read in any form of boundaries. This chapter forms anew visual literacy of reading Zürn’s images and texts, highlighting the similaritiesand differences drawn between the accepted art of Art Brut to her work under theconsideration of the prerequisites of automatist techniques. Interpreting such worksunder the philosophy of the imagination and image, proposes an understanding ofthe intangible space of the mind that goes beyond the boundaries of theory andbeyond the walls of institutions. Hence, the comfort of standing next to walls needbe seen as a form of support rather than a confining space, allowing us to see theimages hanging on them, and not interpret what we see within them.

Key Words: Art Brut, automatic drawing, Ill-literacy, institutions, linearity,mental illness, psychogenic production, splitting, transliteracy, Unica Zürn.

*****

1. IntroductionWalls echo the borders upon which literacy is established. The linearity of

institutional borders is visible, sequential and thus legible. Pictures are put intoframes, visuality is contextualised and subsequently perception is categorized incertain theories of understanding. Questioning borders are thus central to thecritical understandings of literacy.

Within the walls of St. Anne’s psychiatric hospital in France, a seated womancontinues to knit the same grey sock that she has been knitting for twenty years. InThe Man of Jasmine, Unica Zürn records observing this woman unravel the greysock time and time again. The sock will never be finished.1

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Unica Zürn, German born writer/artist is a personality who found liberation inbeing confined in asylums, clinics, and hospitals and considered mental illness apath to creativity. During her artistic career she produced a series of anagrampoems, automatic drawings and several prose writings. There is a perpetuation ofillness in Zürn’s work, especially prominent in the titles of her books; such asHouse of Illnesses, The Man of Jasmine, and Dark Spring, all of which refer toperiods of observing and experiencing mental illnesses.

Zürn’s automatic drawings are often considered visually illiterate while beingsubjected to contextual and narrative literacies through autobiographical facts andhistorical analogues. This chapter will look at the contextual and narrative aspectsof reading Zürn’s images and writing in order to propose a new kind of visualliteracy of her automatic drawings. Thus, we will examine what I consider theinstitutional reading of Zürn in order to see that her images are not illiterate butrather have an inherent ill-literate quality that cannot be confined to institutionalspaces and modes of thought. The continuous line in Zürn’s drawings, likeentangled floccus, is constantly unravelled, like the grey sock, creating a space ofresistance within the walls of the institution. This mode of production exchangesthe linearity of institutional borders and embraces illness while refusing the will ofthe institution to cure it. What I refer to as ill-literate is a representation of thespace of resistance Zürn creates inside the institution.

After moving to Paris in 1953, Zürn began experimenting with automatism, anartistic strategy she picked up from her surrealist friends in order to write and drawfree of conscious thought or intention. She later picked up another habit ofexperimenting with the hallucinogenic drug mescaline from one particular friend,Henri Michaux. The crossing of the two was soon to become what is termed as her‘mental breakdown’ in 1957, after which she recorded her experiences of living therest of her life in and out of institutions. She has produced several hundreddrawings that visually transliterate the psychic states of her imagination andcreativity during her supposed illness. These automatic drawings are seen assymptoms of her illness, marking the moments of emotional and mental rupture asscripted in her books. She has produced three major semi-autobiographical novelsand a number of other minor texts in prose writing that are held as reference to herdrawings.

Zürn’s life experiences reflect greatly on the visual literacy of her works,offering a reading of them, through her life story. Thus, it could be questionedwhether the autobiographical elements that are used to provide some sort ofliteracy actually contaminate a ‘healthy’ reading of these images and texts? Whatare the implications of health and sickness in questions of literacy and ill-literacy?How do the institutions of tradition, affect the ways we look at things? And whatabout the spaces these objects are in, how much do the walls they are displayed onfactor in our understanding?

Unica Zürn’s objects of ‘self-expression’ have been related to and exhibitedamong the big names of surrealism, the art of the mentally ill and Art Brut

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categorizing her work under the pretences of each discourse. The presentation ofart is a factor of visual literacy where the institution of the museum space shapesthe work that is exhibited. The 2006-2007 exhibition at Halle Saint Pierre will beconsidered in order to observe the ways Zürn’s work is assimilated in to or stoodoutside of institutional spaces. The traditional institutions of thought alsocontribute in the process of literacy, where theories of the imagination andcreativity assimilate objects within frames of narrative literacy/cognitive clarity.David Bohm’s concept of the imagination and creativity will provide a briefexample to demonstrate the need to refine, complete, cure and narrate over thegaps and obscurities of illiteracy. Thus we must examine how certain borders, oftradition or space, affect the way we read text as well as images, beginning withZürn’s use of the artistic strategy: automatism.

2. Automatism as StrategyUnica Zürn’s images are filled with entangled lines crowded with patterns that

suggest chimerical figures and faces. The figments of Zürn’s drawings often crossborders that overflow out of the pages, into sketchbooks, making her drawings asingular continuous line. Within these images, at times, the line turns into letters,words, sentences, and then goes back into the ruckus of the surface. These imagesare products of the strategy of automatism which Zürn practiced roughly betweenthe years 1953-1970. Zürn was introduced to this artistic technique upon moving toParis, by the surrealist circle that built the term as an artistic strategy anddeveloped its practice in the early 1920s. What began in the small circle ofsurrealists as ‘pure psychic automatism’; a psychic mechanism of compulsiverepetition and the death drive, grew into the universal form of production whichsupposes the exclusion of conscious thought or intention.

Automatic production is not a modern discovery. There are references toautomatic drawing dated as early as 1879, where Francis Galton discussed ‘theautomatic construction of fantastic figures through... allowing [his] hand toscribble at its own will.’2 A different study in 1901, Theodore Flournoy recordedthe early twentieth century acclaimed psychic Hélène Smith’s automatic writingsof mythical languages, and automatic drawings of imaginary places. A bit later inthe twentieth century, the surrealists’ fascination with the pre-Freudian‘primitivism’, the Freudian unconscious and Smith, who for them was the ‘muse ofautomatic writing’, led to what the surrealist called ‘pure psychic automatism’.

When we look at these earlier examples, the end product of automatism is notheld to be as important as the process in which it has come to being. For example,when Flournoy looked at Smith’s scribbles of what she claimed to be ‘Martian’, hewas not concerned with trying to read these obviously illegible images, but wasrather concerned with the causes and levels of her experiences. Of course with thesurrealist, there was more of an aesthetic concern then that of Smith, and the ideaof illegibility came as part of the aesthetic essence of automatism.


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Returning to Zürn’s images, we find a similar sensibility where figures arediscernable, yet there are intrusions in the perception, the lines ever-changingbefore they could be read as one thing or another. Therefore, Zürn’s automaticgestures constantly transgress literacy within itself. A short anecdote in The Manof Jasmine describes two sides to the way Zürn’s images are looked at. Thepassage reads:

One day at Wittenau the head doctor had called her to a room inwhich a group of students and psychologists from other clinicswas assembled, and asked her to comment on her drawings as heshowed them to the others. The drawing Recontre avec MonsieurM (ma morte) prompted a discussion, and she was asked: ‘Whydid you cover the entire surface of the paper right to the edges?On the others you’ve left the space around the motif white.’

And she had answered: ‘Simply because I couldn’t stop workingon this drawing, or didn’t want to, for I experienced endlesspleasure while working on it. I wanted the drawing to continuebeyond the edge of the paper – on to infinity...’3

What are we to understand from this passage? Firstly, we observe the way Zürnexpresses the almost obsessive passion she has for drawing, where she wishes toremain in this act of gesture ‘on to infinity’. Secondly, we notice that the doctorshave shown an interest in the drawing for a reason, perhaps related to this‘compulsion’ to continue drawing, yet what is more interesting is that they recallthe images in her other drawings as ‘motifs’, implying a sort of repetitive design, adecorative pattern. The doctors do not pay attention to trying to understand thecontent of the drawing, but rather the underlying thought process.

Thus, we observe the initial configuration of Zürn’s work; the technique of‘automatism’ suggests the expectation of producing an illegible object asprerequisite. Before we even look at the image, we are told that it is ‘automatic’,forming the pretence of expecting an object that is a representation of the psyche.The representation of the unconscious, in this sense cannot exist in both visual andliteral forms. The visual is always illiterate, and the literal is invisible.

However, although these images appear to be speaking a sort of babble ofdream and/or imagination that are quite difficult to read, institutional exhibitionsoffer some sort of contextual relationship between the visual and literal.

3. Extension of Art Brut?In 2006, Halle Saint Pierre presented what was then the largest tribute to Unica

Zürn’s lifework. In the exhibition a total of a hundred images were displayedincluding drawings and watercolour works. Halle Saint Pierre is an institution thatis dedicated to Art Brut (also known as Outside Art) and was created in 1986 to

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bring together a collection that establishes bridges between ‘naïve art’ (oftenreferring to the art of the untrained, and at times of the art of the mentally ill) andmore learned forms of creation. Considering Zürn’s interest in and experience ofmental illness – which side of this bridge, then, did Zürn’s work hang? In a reviewof the exhibition, Zürn is presented as an ‘overlooked extension of Art Brut.’4 Withthis, we begin to question the implications the outlook of the museum has on herimages. And, suddenly, we begin to see the walls of the institution falling aroundthese drawings, enclosing them in a strange historical context.

Within the walls of institutions there are files that define what is in them, pagesthat clarify what is hidden, that act as rational drapes to dress even what is illegiblein loud crisp texts. The walls of the Halle Saint Pierre carry the tone of its Art Brutcollection: the ‘art ‘outside’ the mainstream, perceived as precipitating an‘alternative’ orthodoxy that is insistent on social isolation and autonomouscreativity, devoid of external influences.’5

Art Brut came to being as a result of French artist Jean Dubuffet’s interest in‘raw’ production by children, the primitive, and the mentally ill. He built acollection of children’s art around 1940, and assembled works by psychiatricpatients, mediums and other self-taught artists. Dubuffet was influenced by arthistorian Hans Prinzhorn, who was one of the first collectors of the art of thementally ill. Prinzhorn wrote Artistry of the Mentally Ill in 1922, summarizing hisstudies on what he observed as the different types of mental aberrations and certainconfigurations in pictures.

The source of Prinzhorn’s inspiration was Cesare Lombroso’s publicationGenius and Madness in 1864, which argued that artistic genius was a form ofhereditary insanity. The direct connection between Lombroso’s criminologicalapproach to Prinzhorn’s investigation reflects the basis of Art Brut. Thus,Dubuffet’s ‘radical outside to civilization’ is built around the eugenics of art withina solid symbolic order.6 The Entarte Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition which tookplace in 1937, instigated by the National Socialists in Germany ‘aimed to discreditthe avant-garde by drawing attention to its similarities with the art of the ‘insane’.7

Entarte Kunst is credited as the first example of curatorial practice associatingmainstream and Outsider Art. Nearly fifty years later the Halle Saint Pierre isexhibiting the same collection under a positive overtone. Yet, Zürn’s art doesn’tseem to fit in with neither the eugenics of art, ‘degeneracy’ nor the ‘rawness’ ofArt Brut.

Zürn’s inclusion in the Halle Saint Pierre exhibition space places her in thecontext of a different reading, removing her work away from its core, that is heruse of the technique of automatism as a deliberate artistic strategy and placing herin the discussion of a critical reading of the avant-garde and the art of the mentallyill as ‘degenerate’.

After the New York exhibition at the Ubu Gallery in 2005, a review claimedthat ‘her work posed a challenge for writers to sum up since it does not exist within


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the scope of fine arts as we know it, but in the realm of Art Brut’.8 Thus, we sensean illiteracy of Zürn’s work that disturbs commentators to such an extent as toexert a questionable context that is nonetheless literate. This could be seen as aproduct of wider institutional frames that force a linear narrative as to read imagesand texts as either literate or illiterate.

4. Imagination and Institutional FramesZürn’s life reads like a tragic novel while her novels read her life like a psychic

adventure into a mystical imagination. Between the availability of herautobiographical details and her products, there appears to be a space ofcommunication that forces an interwoven literacy of Zürn’s life’s work with herlife itself. Most studies on her begin with the same repeated story of a struggle withmental illness which ends in suicide. These psycho-biographical perspectives offerthe focal point of Zürn’s works to be by-products of an illness; consequently thenarrative of these perspectives tries to contaminate the ill-literate/disorder with ahealthy/order. As a result, Zürn’s automatic drawings are read in light of themanuscripts that outlined her experiences inside and outside mental institutions.These semi-fictional but mostly autobiographical texts are thought to provide anarrative explanation of, or rather; account for the drawings as psychogenic objects(objects that have a psychological origin or cause rather than a physical one).Zürn’s manuscripts concern the functionally illiterate visuality of her drawings.However, there is a gap between the representation of her experience as a mentalpatient, and the representation of her visual imagination. The only way these twoforms of representation can interact is by means of (separate) consideration, ratherthan being seen as a conjunctive reflection of one another.

Imagination, health and the expression of the self are closely tied together withcreativity and the visuality and literacy of this creativity. David Bohm, a renownedphysicist, deals with the issue of creativity in relation to imagination. In his pointof view, the imagination is a ‘power to display the activity of the mind as a wholethrough mental images.’9 Bohm’s reading of such an intangible concept asimagination appears quite rational and straightforward; a type of ‘healthy’ reading.The imagination is considered on two separate levels; the display through imagesof creative and original insight as primary imagination, and the correspondingdisplay of the more mechanical and routine aspects of thought as imaginativefancy. The reductive borders of Bohm’s theory sublimate the content ofimagination out of its context into a clear distinction between perceivingoriginal/new orders and mechanically repeating memory based/old orders.

Bohm claims that the repetition of memory based orders causes disorder. Hestates that the mind is not a mechanical thing, thus it cannot hold such a pattern,and the attempt to do so causes it to break down. Bohm defines this as a wrongorder (disorder): where every time the mind tries to focus on its contradictions, it‘jumps’ to something else.10

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Zürn’s manuscripts are mechanically obedient to her illness; while at the sametime include the original insights of her illness. She writes on memory basedaccounts of her (the protagonist’s) experiences of creating drawings that areproducts of what could be seen as imaginative insight, yet her production causesthe process of imagination and creativity to unravel as it continuously ‘jumps’ frommechanical representations of illness to creative production.

The use of her manuscripts as a psycho-biographic reference to build anarrative projects a ‘healthy’ reading of her images which contaminates theseproducts’ functionality. However, by undoing Bohm’s theory, we can considerZürn’s drawings to be products of an indefinable order whose function is to beillegible.

5. Conclusion – A New Visual LiteracyBohm claims that ‘the health of the mind requires that we be creative’,11 but

what about the creativity of the unhealthy mind? In Zürn’s account, we willobserve the way in which she dictates a certain ill-literacy (literacy in illness) as atool for creativity while producing works which display the activity of thefragmented mind through illegible images as opposed to Bohm’s notion ofimagination as a power to display the activity of the mind as a whole throughmental images.12

The false projection of a visual literacy, or rather illiteracy are carried into, andmaybe even supported by the walls in which they were produced and theinstitutions of museums in which they are displayed. There is, however, a newform of literacy outside of these institutions that Zürn creates within the institution.Beyond primary imagination, automatism unravels thought into image and writinginto drawing. By distinguishing the creative ‘subject’ from the mechanical ‘object’,we discover that Zürn’s creative characteristics rely on a literacy of illness that sheentangles and continuously unravels within her drawings. Wolfgang Knapps is saidto have described Zürn’s art as the product of a psychic state that maintained anaesthetic frame of mind.13 In Knapps’ comment, we sense a split between both her‘self’ and her works. Automatism becomes a tool for Zürn to express both anaesthetic essence and a psychic state, remaining illegible yet literate in its illnesswithin its visuality.

The Man of Jasmine is Zürn’s first published account of her ‘mentalbreakdown’. The manuscript outlines a series of events that lead to hallucinationsand delusions. The book is written in the third person ‘she’, creating a psychicconnection between the protagonist who is mentally experiencing these events andthe writer who is recording them like an external omnipotent presence. There is,however, a physical distance between the protagonist, who often desires to be lostin her hallucinations and is only found in the institution, and the writer whosegesture of writing draws away from the protagonist’s psychic state into a consciousexistence in the real world with a desire to publish her written text. Thus, Zürn’s


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manuscripts, which carry the brand of ‘self-expression’ is split in two. This splitoccurs between the ‘self’; who is the protagonist [subject] internally experiencingpsychic events, and ‘expression’; the role Zürn takes on as a writer [object],publicly pushing out these experiences away from her, and out of her ‘self’. Zürn’s‘self-expression’ then is split between an ‘insane’ personality who suffers(endures) the consequences of a mental illness, and a ‘sane’ observer of theseevents who is entertained by them.

Zürn’s manuscript, The Man of Jasmine, is thus a product that reads as a sign ofa ‘healthy’ return to function. As Jennifer Marshal points out in her essay‘Semiotics of Schizophrenia’, the manuscript demonstrates that it is ‘not therandom inscription of thought likely to be created by a person with severely,permanently, and chronically disturbed brain chemistry’.14

This is indicated by Zürn’s use of the impersonal pronoun ‘she’ to describeknown autobiographical facts. Marshal regards this as a ‘method of distancing herwriting self from her younger self,’ which is shown as a common strategy found inlife writing, ‘where the hindsight of the ‘sane’ author contradicts the subjectivity ofthe ‘insane’ literary subject’.15

The split between the ‘self’ and ‘expression’ continues in Zürn’s recognition ofherself as (or wish to be) ‘crazy’ alongside her desire to remain ‘crazy’. In TheMan of Jasmine, Zürn writes of the relation between illness and creativity: ‘Thefeeling of ‘happiness’ merely makes her stupid and unproductive. She doesn’tknow what to do with it’.16 The writer who returns to a healthy function considersthe protagonist’s fits, hallucinations and hysteria a blessing of creative imagination.These are then represented as pleasurable, unique and fantastic experiences, thusZürn the writer’s ‘...privileging of or perhaps reliance upon her illness for creativeinspiration is one of the first indicators of her inability, or rather her lack of desire,to transcend her illness’.17

Here we see the function of Zürn’s manuscript in her oeuvre. Zürn’s automaticdrawings are products of the protagonist character in her manuscripts. They narrateher ‘impressions’ of a mental illness while claiming to depict the directhallucinations and encounters of her psychic experiences. Therefore, themanuscripts cannot be a direct representation as her other products and are toodetached to be able to provide a visual literacy, rather they indicate an ill-literacyof her images. Marshal highlights Zürn’s experience in ‘illness’ which can be seenas intrinsic to the inherent ill-literacy of her images:

After years of the kind of intensive treatment Zürn would haveundergone in the various clinics she describes, the contact shewould have had with other, similar patients, and the intellectualrelationships she had developed with such famous doctors... shecould not help but be a knowledgeable and confident expert onthe aetiology of her disease.18

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This ill-literacy places Zürn’s images into an illiterate form where we areforced to look at products of a mentally ill ‘patient’ while we are unable todiagnose the illness. Thus, her images are legible only in the institution, andbecome unravelled outside of it, yet she is in between the walls, the page... sheallows us to build walls around our perception and then disappears, leaving us lostin her fantastic scapes, projecting the illness off the pages into the viewer bydrawing us into the institution and herself escaping it – it is as if we are chasing animage of illness in and out of institutions, while the representation we seek canonly be itself ‘ill’ outside of the ‘ill-literacy’ of her knowledge. Zürn places herselfwithin walls to be able to create, because without feeling the constraint of theinstitution, there is no rebellion – thus what triggers her creativity is confinement,not only within her own mind, but also within walls. Never her ‘self’ but only her‘expression’ can be confined within walls where the creativity of her ‘self’ prevailsas a cure. Thus the psychic nature of her expression is read as cultural objects ofthe institution.

It is as if Unica’s drawings can go over borders, overflow from pages becausewithin the ink of the surface, the images undo themselves similarly to the greysock, and they will never be finished.

Notes

1 U. Zürn, 1994, p. 114.2 F. Galton, ‘Psychometric Experiments’, Inquiries into the Human Faculty,London, 1907; quoted in J. Spector, 1997, p. 249.3 U. Zürn, op. cit., p. 103.4 J. Conner, ‘Preview: Unica Zürn ‘Dark Spring’ at the Drawing Centre’, Retrieved28 Mar 2009 from http://artquips.blogspot.com/2009/03/preview-unica-zurn-dark-spring-at.html5 F. Andrada, E. Martin & A. Spira (eds), 2006, p. 10.6 H. Foster, 2001, p. 22.7 F. Andrada, E. Martin & A. Spira (eds), op. cit., p. 11.8 J. Conner, op. cit.9 D. Bohm, 2004, p. 52.10 Ibid., p. 26.11 D. Bohm, op. cit., p. 29.12 Ibid., p. 52.13 J. Conner, op. cit.14 J. Marshall, 2000, pp. 27-28.15 Ibid., p. 28.16 U. Zürn, op. cit., p. 49.17 J. Marshall, op. cit., p. 29.18 Ibid., p. 29.


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Bibliography

Andrada, F., Martin, E. & Spira, A. (eds), Inner Worlds Outside. Fundación ‘laCaixa’. Irish Museum of Modern Art. Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2006.

Bohm, B., On Creativity. Routledge Classics, London, 2004.

Conner, J., ‘Preview: Unica Zürn ‘Dark Spring’ at the Drawing Centre’. Retrieved28 Mar 2009 from http://artquips.blogspot.com/2009/03/preview-unica-zurn-dark-spring-at.html

Foster, H., ‘Blinded Insights: On the Modernist Reception of the Art of theMentally Ill’. October 97. Summer 2001.

Marshall, J., ‘The Semiotics of Schizophrenia: Unica Zürn’s Artistry and Illness’.Modern Language Studies. Vol. 30, Issue 2, Autumn, 2000, pp. 27-28.

Spector, J., Surrealist Art and Writing 1919-1939: The Gold of Time. CambridgeUniversity Press, 1997.

Zürn, U., The Man of Jasmine. Atlas Press, London, 1994.

Esra Plumer is a PhD candidate at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdomwhere her main research interests are in 20th century European writing anddrawing and Surrealism. Her current research explores the use of the artisticstrategy ‘automatism’ in the works of Unica Zürn, with a particular focus onpsychoanalysis and feminist theories.

Screening Subjectivity: A Narrative Analysis of LearningVisual Literacies

Montserrat Rifà-Valls

AbstractMy aim in this chapter is to explore the relationship between learning visualliteracies and the construction of university students’ subjectivities from a narrativeperspective. To start with, I will reconstruct how university students relocatethemselves when they deconstruct contemporary representations of subjectivitythrough reading and critically interpreting different film texts they have to discuss.Mainly, I will focus on the analysis of visual modes of telling others about oursubjectivities. Therefore, I will narratively reconstruct the process of making ashort by different groups (writing the script, acting, capturing and editing) in orderto understand how the students visually represent subjectivity, as well as to knowhow this process is mediating in, or mediated by, their personal, social, cultural,and gender relations. I will present the topics they are interested in as youth people,particularly, when they decide to document their own lives or invent new lifestories using different film genres they choose. Moreover, the analysis of scenesreveals that the students usually create movies based on everyday life situationsand thrillers. They cooperate and participate with the aim of creating agency.Lastly, I will explore the role of reflexivity, intertextuality and metanarrative increating a digital media portfolio, as a new place where learning and subjectivityintersect.

Key Words: Critical poststructuralism, feminism, film theory, narrative inquiry,subjectivity, visual literacies, youth studies.

*****

1. Visual Literacy and SubjectivityMy aim in this chapter is to narrate the relationship between learning visual

literacies, and the construction of students’ subjectivities in higher education. Forthe last two years, I have been teaching audiovisual communication in a pre-service teacher education course at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Theidea of writing this chapter emerged from a previous analysis of the role of visualstorytelling in the production of digital media portfolios. In this analysis, Inarratively reconstructed my reading of a multimedia portfolio produced byEulàlia, as a student of this subject during the course 2007-2008, from myperspective as teacher and researcher. In the narrative analysis of Eulàlia’sportfolio, I focused on different modes of learning visuality, such as thereinterpretation of her visual memories of childhood; the creation of visualintertextualities between films linking past and present – she as a star in a domestic

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movie produced by her father, and she as a filmmaker/actress at the school and atthe University – and the role of multiliteracy when she mixed audiovisualdocuments, music and web with the aim of narrating her learnings.

The current chapter will reflect on subjectivities and visual literacies throughthe reconstruction of visual strategies and tactics of learning in different moviesand portfolios developed by the students during the course 2008-2009. In thischapter I adopt the following definition of visual literacy:

As the ability to decode and interpret (make meaning from)visual messages and also to be able to encode and composemeaningful visual communications. It includes the ability tovisualize internally, communicate visually, and read and interpretvisual images.1

2. Deconstructing Childhood in Films and Popular CultureI will reconstruct how university students relocate themselves when they

deconstruct contemporary representations of children’s subjectivity throughreading and critically interpreting different film texts they have to discuss.Different films were available to the students in order to plan and participate in aCine Forum. When Eulàlia took the course, I selected modern and contemporarycinema –Where is the Friend’s Home? (1987) by Kiarostami; El espíritu de lacolmena (1973) by Erice, Fanny and Alexander (1982) by Bergman were some ofthe films I suggested. One year later, I repeated the experience of analyzing BigFish (2003) by Tim Burton with all students, but I modified the selection of moviesthey had to interpret. I selected films that represent childhood in contemporarysocieties in order to deconstruct postmodern subjectivities –Persepolis (2007) bySatrapi, Little Miss Sunshine (2006) by Dayton and Faris, and Vitus (2006) byFredi Murer. The repertory included author’s cinema and commercial movies, thecontrast between East and West, documentary and fiction, and a diverse gender,social and cultural representations of children and filmmakers.

As an example of this process, the analysis of Vitus revealed how manystudents of music teacher education identify themselves with Vitus’ life and thetension between the ability to play an instrument and discipline in childhood. Thediscussion focused on the analysis of social context of children’s education and thelimits between what is normal and rare in children’s development and learning –children’s experiences, school and every day life opportunities, curiosity andtalent. In fact, watching the film they questioned themselves (Ellsworth 1997)because they were asked about the social construction of the highly gifted boy as ahero and how we can educate him (as parents, grandfathers or teachers).Interpreting films from a relational and situated subjectivity implies the analysis ofwhom education is concerned (about ourselves or others), to question: ‘theresponsibility we have as parents-educators with child-pupil and how we


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accommodate ourselves with this superior position, without recognizing thefeedback that this means to us’ (Marcos). They discussed the role of family, schooland friends in contemporary liquid societies and the new challenges/changes in theprocesses of learning our identities (Bauman 2008).

When the students interpret a film, normally they reproduce the plot and try todescribe it using emotional or personal understandings disconnected from theaudiovisual decisions. Therefore, to empower the process of learning visualliteracies, I take into account the relationship between text and image and thevisual framing of (children’s) subjectivities, as well as the sequence of scenes andthe scenarios that visually constitute the experience of being a child.

Titles and sections of the deconstructive portfolio of Adrià: Childhood in filmsalong history

A look at the past. Everybody adores the star / A vision thattries to go deeper than the one of the adorable object

They create a wonderful character, it is difficult to believethat she/he is real / They show the girl as a complex subjectwith internal conflicts, it isn’t all roses

Goodness: don’t answer back / Childhood is not asynonymous of ignorance and innocence

Religiousness / Religion is questioned Don’t lie. Applying oneself and discipline / Superimpose

personal attributes to the discipline Teaching values that are important / Grandparents are not

what they were The right behaviour...the ‘art’ of the war...sacrifice / The

girl/boy is not a model to follow, she/he is not whateverybody expects. Absurd relations boy-girl

Cult to the family / A cult to the family is so different We don’t adore children for their talent but because of their

personality. Talents are closer to reality. They all are youngtalents. The other side of the coin. A different way tounderstand childhood.

As a consequence of the process of interpreting childhood representations infilms, Adrià produced a visual portfolio through which he deconstructed modern


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and postmodern representations of hero(ines) using different movies of the thirtiesand sixties: Shirley Temple and the Spanish stars Marisol and Joselito contrastedwith the star of Little Miss Sunshine. By producing displacement and des-identification, this audiovisual portfolio creates a deconstructive narrative with amirror structure that reveals the diegesis and the narrative spaces formodern/postmodern childhood. Making visible the theatre of childhood, hehistorically deconstructs gender and cultural marks through rethinking thespectatorship process of consuming cinema and popular culture (Walkerdine 1997)and he also analyses the construction of a political gaze.

3. Multiplicity of Subjectivities, Points of View and LayersTheorizing subjectivity for this chapter implies the articulation of different

discourses for the political analysis of screening subjectivity, and exploring theintersection between visual culture studies and feminism, criticalpoststructucturalism, and neoperaism. When I wrote the abstract, I thought I couldreconceptualize the research of youth subjectivities in higher education, with theaim of understanding why the students selected the topics and dialogues thatconstitute the plots of the movies they make. As feminist and foucauldian educator,I was interested in analysing which technologies of self mediate in the process ofcreating their visual narratives, as well as in linking these technologies of self withspecific modes of visuality, in the same way that Adrià applied in hisdeconstructive portfolio. After my approach to the analysis of subjectivity from thetechnologies of self/gender and deconstructive narrative (Foucault 1988, DeLauretis 1987) I moved to theories that place subjectivities and visuality in thecontext of globalisation. Therefore, feminist visual culture studies (Jones 2003)intersect with critical poststructucturalism and deconstruction, but also intersectwith the concepts of multitude and the post-political politics (Virno 2003a and2003b). Mainly, I will focus on the analysis of visual modes of telling others aboutour subjectivities from the perspective of multiplicities:

According to Deleuze and Guattari, our interaction with theworld – and indeed the interaction of the various things in theworld with one another – is not to be understood in terms ofinternal structures, no matter what they are. Instead, being is tobe conceptualised in terms of the endless and multipleinvolvements that enwrap things in the world in an inevitable,albeit dynamic and transitory interrelationship – in the‘assemblages’ that establish ‘connections between certainmultiplicities’. This is what they mean by the repeated assertionthat our attention should be drawn to the outside or exterior. It isnot in the excavation of stable structures that things are to be


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understood, but in the immersion in the endless play on and ofsurfaces.2

In this section, I would like to reconstruct the process of making a short bydifferent groups (writing the script, acting, capturing and editing) in order tounderstand how students visually represent subjectivity, as well as to know howthis process is mediating in, or mediated by, their personal, social, cultural, andgender relations. I will present the topics they are interested in as youth people,particularly, when they decide to document their own lives or invent new lifestories using different film genres they choose, like in University disorders (2009)and The box (2009).

Frames from the movie produced by a group of students: The box(below)

Despite the movies centred on narrating relations and scenarios of students’ lifeinside/outside the university campus could generate a monotone and homogeneousdiscourse, the students have disrupted the plots and gaze by creating thrillers –somebody dies or disappears – or stories of their everyday life that focus on publicand personal microrelations – with teachers, friends and lovers. Multiplicity isvisible, for example, in University disorders (2009), a collaborative andmetanarrative movie produced by students about the conflicts that emerge in astudents’ group that has to create a movie for this subject. In another film, The Box(2009), they experimented with a urban aesthetics and incorporate visualreflexivity in the story that narrates the interstitial spaces and intersubjectiverelations in youth culture. In her portfolio, Alba included a movie that has a firstpart that is an autobiographical account – she narrates her previous learning –, anda second part, that is a dialogical experiment. In order to reflect on the process ofbecoming aware of the audiovisual learnings in her group, she interviewed theactresses-producers-editors of the short movie Canon (2009).


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Questions for the interviews in the porfolio of Alba: Canon. Theportfolio

What did you think when they said that you will make a movie? Whatsurprised you during the movie production?

What do you have learnt? And... your assessment is?

After filming their colleagues using the aesthetics of framing that she had learntfrom youth films and culture, Alba edited a kind of making off by adding music asa low soundtrack that emphasizes the idea of remembering the movie productionand the action. The interviews tell the spectator that they had wrote a detailedscript but they didn’t know how to finish the story, and that provoked a unexpectedresult; they reflect about misunderstanding others, the repetition of scenes, and thedifferent previous knowledges and audiovisual competences they had; how actingand filming interacted–the effects of screaming, laughing, running, moving thecamera; the digital effects they found (night shot mode that generates a mysterious


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atmosphere); the process of editing as a cooperative activity; and, finally, theyshare their attitudes, learnings and reflections.

4. Learning Visual ReflexivityDuring the process of making movies they cooperated and participated with the

aim of constructing a visual discourse, but they also contributed to the productionof agencies. In addition, I will explore the role of reflexivity, intertextuality andmetanarrative in creating a digital media portfolio not only the collective movies,as a new place where learning and subjectivity intersect. The portfolio of Guillemis an example of incorporating and integrating knowledges and competences hehad learnt during the process of producing the collective movie. In his portfolio,Guillem produced a new film text that visually recreated a landscape for hislearnings that included the places he discovered, visited and crossed, and theconcepts, practices and people he met during the trip.

Map of the audiovisual portfolio of Guillem:The movie is about the story of a trip. A trip to a place named

learning. Learning is divided in four different regions: production of amovie; critics; Cine Forum; and vision of childhood. During the itinerary,we cross the four different towns and in each of one, the travelleracquires knowledges and reflections as a consequence of meetings withexperts or experiences with others.

In conclusion, dealing with literacy narrative in teacher education can promotean epistemological development; empowering critical and multiculturalunderstandings of literacy; and helping students to make connections betweenpersonal narratives and those of others, as well as personal connections to theory;and the recognition of the partiality of their perspectives (Clark and Medina quotedby Coulter et al. 2007). In addition, the narratives helped ‘to disrupt pre-service


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teachers’ stereotyped conceptions of others and to interrupt the dominant,generalized discourse on minority students with particular stories’.3 As Metros hasalso noted:

Visual communication and aesthetics in the digital era swaypolitical opinion, document life experiences, capture and relayevents instantaneously and globally, expose and substantiatenewsworthy incidents, and suspend disbelief in everything fromgame-playing to virtual reality-based training simulations.4

Notes

1 A. Bamford, quoted by S. Metros, ‘The Educator’s Role in Preparing VisuallyLiterate Learners’, Theory into Practice, Vol. 47, 2008, p. 103.2 N. Mansfield, Subjectivity: Theories of the Self from Freud to Haraway, NewYork University Press, New York, 2000, p. 140.3 C. Clark & C. Medina, quoted by C. Coulter, M. Charles & L. Poynor,‘Storytelling as Pedagogy: An Unexpected Outcome of Narrative Inquiry’,Curriculum Inquiry, Vol. 37, Issue 2, 2007, pp. 105-106.4 S. Metros, ‘The Educator’s Role in Preparing Visually Literate Learners’, Theoryinto Practice, Vol. 47, 2008, p. 106.

Bibliography

Bauman, Z., The Art of Life. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2008.

Coulter, C., Charles, M. & Poynor, L., ‘Storytelling as Pedagogy: An UnexpectedOutcome of Narrative Inquiry’. Curriculum Inquiry. Vol. 37, Issue 2, 2007, pp.103-122.

De Lauretis, T., Technologies of Gender: Essays in Theory, Film and Fiction.Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1987.

Ellsworth, E., Teaching Positions: Difference, Pedagogy and the Power ofAddress. Teachers College Press, New York, 1997.

Foucault, M., ‘Technologies of the Self’. Technologies of the Self. University ofMassachussetts, Amherst, 1988.

Jones, A., The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. Routledge, London, 2003.


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Mansfield, N., Subjectivity: Theories of the Self from Freud to Haraway. NewYork University Press, New York, 2000.

Metros, S., ‘The Educator’s Role in Preparing Visually Literate Learners’. Theoryinto Practice. Vol. 47, 2008, pp. 102-109.

Virno, P., Virtuosismo y Revolución. Traficantes de sueños, Madrid, 2003.

Walkerdine, V., Daddy’s Girls: Young Girls and Popular Culture. HarvardUniversity Press, Cambridge, 1997.

Montserrat Rifà-Valls is assistant professor at the Universitat Autònoma deBarcelona. She is currently teaching visual culture and education in primary andearly childhood pre-service teacher education courses. She is developing herresearch while she experiments with visual narratives and methodologies, with theaim of analysing the construction of subjectivities and difference, both in theschools and in higher education.

PART IX

Icons, Inquiry and Intersections

A Plain Language Guide to Multimodal Literacy

Rick Instrell

AbstractThe founding text on multimodal literacy is the New London Group’s 1996 paperA Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. This argued that topromote multimodal literacy requires the development of an educationallyaccessible metalanguage – in other words, a plain language for talking aboutmeaning-making in all kinds of texts. In Scotland, there are a number ofdevelopments related to multimodal literacy and interdisciplinary curricula. Thischapter seeks to establish a set of principles to guide these developments andenable teachers from different disciplines to speak to each other using a simplecommon language. First, it views literacy education as a multimodal rhetoricalstudy. Secondly, following Michael Halliday, it sees literacy education as a studyof the three functions of communication: ideational, interpersonal and textual.Thirdly, this involves both practice and critique using a range of multimodal ratherthan purely monomodal communications. Fourthly, this involves two kinds ofcritical literacy, textual and contextual. Finally, it argues that literacy educationmust use a dialogic pedagogy that projects students and teachers into enthusiasticcooperative enquiry.

Key Words: Critical literacy, curriculum, Curriculum for Excellence, literacy,media education, media studies, multimodality, post-modern curriculum, rhetoric.

*****

1. Towards an Interdisciplinary CurriculumIn 1979, a group of Scottish teachers in Edinburgh came together in order to

stimulate the production of more progressive interdisciplinary courses for highschool pupils. In 1983, this group coalesced into the Association for MediaEducation in Scotland (AMES) and since then its members have been involved inthe construction of most nationally certificated media courses. Despite this, mediaeducation has never received strong support from central curriculum bodies andremains marginal in Scottish education. As each centrally generated curriculumdevelopment has come and gone, AMES has argued its case strongly – with mixedresults. These arguments, of course, did not just concern media education but thewider curriculum.

Looking back to 1979, it is clear that what media educationists were arguing forwas a post-modern curriculum as outlined by William Doll.1 Doll playfullydescribes such a curriculum as being characterised by 4Rs: richness, recursion,relations and rigour.2 Richness implies curricular depth with multiple possibilitiesbeyond the simple transmission of information. Recursion implies an open,


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transformative looping back to review what one has already done and seeing itanew. This is obviously similar to Jerome Bruner’s notion of the spiralcurriculum.3 Relations refer to the multiple links within learners, between learnersand between the classroom and the outside world. Rigour refers not to the static‘rigor mortis’ of the traditional disciplines but to a vibrant curriculum which allowspupils to critically review the central assumptions of a discipline.

A simple visual model (figure 1 below) can be used to conceptualise suchinitiatives. We can think of the curriculum in terms of two independent axes: oneaxis moves from fragmentation to integration; the other moves from centralisedcontrol to teacher/pupil freedom. The curriculum potential space can therefore bedivided into four quadrants labelled 1 to 4.

In quadrant 1, we have a traditional subject discipline such as Mathematicswhich is often delivered as a discrete subject with little teacher/pupil freedom. Inquadrant 3 we might find a subject such as Drama which has creative freedom butoften presents itself as existing only on the script and stage and ignores film andtelevision drama. In quadrant 2, we might have an interdisciplinary subject such asMedia Studies, which mixes disciplines such as semiotics, political economy,cultural studies with the craft of media production but whose assessment limitsteacher/pupil autonomy. In quadrant 4, we would have a postmodern curriculumspace in which teachers and pupils have freedom for open-ended explorationwithin interdisciplinary contexts. Note that advocates of post-modern curriculumare not arguing for the replacement of the 3Rs curriculum by a 4Rs curriculum.The argument is that we need a 3Rs plus 4Rs curriculum. The best teachers havealways combined both approaches and it is clear that examples of such workingexist in many Scottish primary schools. However the problem of moving to a post-modern curriculum is particularly acute in Scottish high schools where extreme

Control

Fragmentation Integration

Traditionalsubject-based

curriculum(3Rs)

Post-moderncurriculum (4Rs)

Freedom

3 4

1 2

Figure 1: Curriculum potential space

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separation of subject departments, inflexible timetabling and teachers’ lack ofconfidence hinder progress to interdisciplinary curricula.

2. Multimodal LiteracyThe founding article on multimodal literacy is the New London Group’s A

Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures.4 This international groupof language, literacy and education academics argues that to promote multimodalliteracy requires the development of an educationally accessible metalanguage – inother words, a language for talking about meaning-making in all kinds of texts.

The New London group asserts that this metalanguage must satisfy some‘taxing criteria’. It must:

support ‘a sophisticated critical analysis of language and othersemiotic systems’

‘not make unrealistic demands on teacher and learnerknowledge’

not ‘conjure up teachers’ accumulated and often justifiedantipathies towards formalism’

‘motivate teachers to work on and work with the metalanguage’ be flexible and open-ended – a toolkit for working on meaning-

making activities rather than a formalism to be applied to them,and which allows teachers and learners to make their own tools.

3. Scottish ContextThe Curriculum for Excellence (CfE)5 is the current Scottish curriculum

development programme for 3-18 year olds. It has created sets of outcomes foreach curriculum area. These are intended to enable both vertical progression from3-18 as well as horizontal integration between curriculum areas. The latter shouldallow teachers from different disciplines to work together in cross-curricularprogrammes which break down subject boundaries. It is clear that what isenvisaged is a curriculum which combines the 3Rs and 4Rs approach. The CfEoutcomes for English and Literacy have been welcomed by media educationists asthey state that the curriculum must be future-proofed and that pupils must developboth multimodal and critical literacies.

At the same time, there is currently a review of the Scottish QualificationAuthority’s Higher English examination (this is the main language and literaturequalification for high school students). This will take account of the CfE’sconception of literacy as well as recent thinking on multimodality. Theimplications for the teaching of English are profound. It is clear that we cannotsimply regard multimodality as yet another ‘bolt-on’ to an already crowdedlanguage and literacy curriculum. What is required is a complete rethink of


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fundamental principles which guide the construction, delivery and assessment ofthe teaching of communications.

Meanwhile, the designers of the original Media Studies courses are concernedthat the subject as defined by examination arrangements appears to be preserved inamber. These examinations were designed under influence of the academic MediaStudies orthodoxy of the 1970s/1980s and now seem to over-emphasise the criticalapproach to media representations. What is missing is a critical appreciation of theart and craft of media production which is of course a precursor to any mediaproduction by pupils themselves. The insights gained from the social semiotics ofGunther Kress,6 Theo van Leeuwen7 and David Machin8 seem particularlypertinent to all these concerns.

What I will do now is to suggest a set of common principles which could beused to reconstruct curricula and foster interdisciplinary working.

4. RhetoricFirstly, I suggest that we could benefit from the revival and revitalization of the

centuries-old Scottish tradition of teaching rhetoric. Rhetoric is often defined as‘the art of persuasion’. But I would prefer to define rhetoric in a more generalistway to also include texts which inform, entertain, delight and provoke. Forexample, the 18th century Scottish rhetorician George Campbell said that thepurpose of rhetoric is ‘to enlighten the understanding, to please the imagination, tomove the passions, or to influence the will’.9

A rhetorical study of texts (literary as well as media) should lead to theinvestigation of the rhetorical templates employed to encode and decode meaning.One type of template, rhetorical structures, includes aspects such as design,narrative, genre and discourse – these are forms that guide the selection, portrayaland organization of content. A second type involves rhetorical devices whichenhance communication – for example, figures of speech in language as well astheir visual, audio and multimodal analogues.

For example, in the analysis and production of print advertising one could studyrhetorical structures devices such as design,10 problem-solution, and reading paths(e.g. left-right, top-down, diagonal). Rhetorical devices considered could includefigures of speech, direct/indirect look of persons in ads, resonances (betweenimages, between images and words, between the images/words and the reader’sintertextual knowledge) and puzzles.

The rhetorical approach considers how these templates are internalised byaudiences and applied in their interactions with texts. Pupils arrive in school with aready-made set of competences and templates gained from their informalinteraction with a range of media. A key aim of formal education should be toexpand the range of competences and templates available for both reading andcomposing texts.

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5. MultimodalitySomething old: rhetoric; something new: multimodality. But is multimodality

new? Herman Stöckl describes multimodality as ‘the late discovery of theobvious’11 and argues that purely linguistic texts have always been the exception.Art, music, drama, dance and opera are ancient multimodal forms which have beensupplemented by more recent print, moving image and multimediacommunications. And as one works with the multimodal conception of texts itbecomes clear that what academia is discovering is what artists and graphicdesigners have known all along …

What exactly is meant by a mode? A mode may be defined as a set ofcommunication resources. A minimal list (in no particular order) might include:body language, audio, language, 2D layout, image, 3D space, typography/lettering,interaction, colour, sensations (e.g. touch and smell), movement.

Modes can be divided into submodes, for example: body language: expression,posture, gesture; audio: speech, music, sound; language: written, spoken; image:still, moving.

All texts are multimodal. For example, a novel uses language, typography,layout and images. A computer game may use all the modes listed above.

Each mode has a set of variables. Changing variables changes meaning. To takeone example, important variables in typography are font, size, weight, slope, case,orientation and regularity. Combining typography multimodally with other modessuch as language, colour and layout obviously affects the message conveyed.

Some modes cannot be expressed in particular media. For example, a comicstrip cannot use modes such as audio, 3D space and movement. In such cases,modal substitution is used. In a comic strip, audio is expressed using speechbubbles and made-up words (e.g. KAPOW!). 3D space is rendered in 2D spaceusing perspective-drawing techniques; motion may be expressed using graphicelements such as speed lines.

The key task here is of course to develop a metalanguage that allows us toexplore how multimodal elements combine to produce coherent meaning andeffect. To do this I suggest that we combine the old and the new: we mustinvestigate how modal elements are combined in rhetorical templates to produceboth coherent and enhanced communication.

6. Critical LiteracyAs well as developing skills in reading and composing multimodal texts, we

need to teach pupils how to evaluate their own and others’ texts. So one aspect ofcritical literacy is primarily textual; for example, evaluating how effectively formand content cohere to achieve a text’s meaning and purpose.

But critical literacy is also contextual; for example, thinking about the source ofthe text, its purposes, and its attempt to influence the individual, specific groups orsociety in general. A key method is to identify which discourses are present and


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which are absent in texts. A discourse is a particular way of representing people,places and events. For example, in representations of climate change there are anumber of competing discourses which guide the selection and portrayal of theissue: the alarmist, the action and sceptical discourses.

Critical literacy skills are thus central to the promotion of active citizenship,enabling pupils to both comprehend and hopefully participate in the key debates.

7. Five Principles for Literacy CurriculaThe foregoing seems to me to suggest five fundamental principles for a 21st

century literacy curriculum. Firstly, it is a multimodal rhetorical study whichexplores how texts employ rhetorical strategies to combine multimodal elementsinto coherent and enhanced communications. Secondly, it is a study of the threefunctions of communication: ideational (communicating information and ideas);interpersonal (engaging the audience), textual (textual coherence).12 Thirdly, itinvolves both practice and critique using a range of multimodal rather than purelymonomodal communications. Fourthly, it involves two kinds of critical literacy:textual: critique of the effectiveness of the communication in terms of content,form and audience engagement; contextual: considering the text in terms of itsinstitutional, cultural, individual and social contexts. Finally its pedagogy shouldinvolve structured dialogue with students, avoiding the teacher-talk andintimidating jargon which induces one word answers or silence, and posingrelevant thought-provoking questions which project students and teachers intoenthusiastic cooperative enquiry.13

Notes

1 W. Doll, 1993, pp. 174-183.2 Doll’s 4Rs is a play on the 3Rs (reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic) whichconnote the traditional functional curriculum favoured by ‘back to basics’advocates.3 J. Bruner, 1960, pp. 11-16.4 New London Group, 1996.5 See Learning and Teaching Scotland, http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/understandingthecurriculum/whatiscurriculumforexcellence/.6 G. Kress & T. van Leeuwen, 1996.7 T. van Leeuwen, 2005.8 D. Machin, 2007.9 Quoted in E. Cornett & R. Connors, 1999, p. 2.10 Of particular interest to teachers is R. Williams’ CRAP formula for effectivelayout (contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity). See R. Williams, 2008.11 H. Stöckl, 2004, p. 9.12 M. Halliday & C. Matthiessen, 2004, pp. 29-31.

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13 I. Shor, 1992, pp. 85-111.

Bibliography

Bruner, J., The Process of Education. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA,1960.

Cornett, E. & Connors, R., Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. 4th ed,Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999.

Doll, W., A Post-Modern Perspective on Curriculum. Teachers College Press, NewYork, 1993.

Halliday, M. & Matthiessen, C., An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 3rd ed,Arnold, London, 2004.

Kress G., & van Leeuwen, T., Reading Images: the Grammar of Visual Design.Routledge, London, 1996.

Learning and Teaching Scotland, ‘What is Curriculum for Excellence?’. Retrieved10 Aug 2009 from http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/understandingthecurriculum/whatiscurriculumforexcellence.

Machin, D., Introduction to Multimodal Analysis. Hodder Arnold, London, 2007.

New London Group, ‘A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures’.1996, Retrieved 9 Aug 2009 from http://www.static.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/.

Shor, I., Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change. Universityof Chicago Press, Chicago, 1992.

Stöckl, H., ‘In Between Modes: Language and Image in Printed Media’.Perspectives on Multimodality, John Benjamin, Amsterdam, 2004.

van Leeuwen, T., Introducing Social Semiotics. Routledge, London, 2005.

Rick Instrell is a mathematics, computing and media studies teacher. He is also aneducational consultant and provides continuing professional development forteachers.

Visualising Inquiry

Tracey Bowen & Penny Kinnear

AbstractThis chapter is a work in progress. It began as an experimental collaboration thathas now evolved in tandem with a mapping of our process. We began writing inwords and moved back and forth with mapping through gesture, our shared inquiryabout image/text relationships. The text that comprises this chapter is only part ofan equation that includes oral dialogue, aural reception, kinaesthetic gesturing, andembodied mark making. The resulting symbols and words have emerged as ashared semiosis available because of the interaction that occurred when we, twoacademics, experimented with our emerging pedagogical strategies as both theprocess of and product of our inquiry.

Key Words: Drawing, gesture, languaging, mapping, research, scopic regime,shared symbol systems.

*****

1. ContextWriting in the western alphabetic sense, is a way of pattern making using words

that represent multiple aspects of living and being. These patterns or sequenceshelp us to make sense of our negotiations with each other and enable us tocommunicate how we think about the world. Writing is a deliberate act ofpatterning our negotiations and visualising aural language through words. Drawingis a way of creating patterns that express our negotiations through the relationshipsof marks and gestures. Drawing is also a deliberate act of communicating how wethink about the world. Drawing is a way of mapping experience and askingquestions by experimenting with the relationships between marks. Inquiry is theprocess of asking and investigating the questions we have about the world. Inquiryinvites writing, drawing and mapping to interact.

2. The Question in FocusWhat happens when two academics experiment with their pedagogical

strategies on their own sense of inquiry? The integration of multi modalities acrossthe curriculum has been a growing practice for the last 10 or so years. VisualLiteracy has been a focus for many educators and researchers in relation to readingtext/image relationships and composing multimodally. Two years ago we (Bowen& Kinnear) introduced Kress & Van Leeuwen’s research on visual literacy into acritical writing course housed within a multidiscipline institute.1 Since that time wehave required students across many of our courses in professional writing and incommunication, culture and information technology studies to examine the ways in

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which they read images in relation to text and to process and present their researchfindings, traditionally composed as text, in new ways through image/textconstructions. This has involved successes and challenges as we, and the studentswork to understand our evolving relationships to imagery, image making andmeaning making in a digital culture. These experiences in the classroom haveprompted us to experiment with our own sense of inquiry in order to work outsome of the questions we still had about text/image or image/textcouplings/constructions. The experiment is also a collaboration between awriter/academic who has primarily used text (Kinnear) to complete and expressthought and an artist turned academic (Bowen) who has used mark making as aform of expression – drawing as data analysis. Our questions regarding text/imagerelationship-making within the research process has prompted us to articulate ourprocess of collaboration and map out our own experiences of examining pedagogyin light of our evolving visual literacy. We needed to begin a process of visuallymapping our reading, sources, practice, and ideas.

The collaboration has evolved out of and is reflective of, our collaboration oncurriculum readings; we consult regularly. We are from two very differentdisciplines and spheres of experience collaborating across those boundaries. Ourquestions have been addressed in text e.g. new literacies, multilieracies, andmultimodal literacies,2 but we are trying to enact, DO the questions as a researchproject. One question since we say, others say, skills are transferable acrossliteracies, what are the skills we mean? How do we name (and describe without anexclusive reliance on explanatory text) the process of creating text/imagerelationships? How do we use visual symbols without illustrating text and why is itso important to make this distinction between illustration and collaboration, to beconscious of, and analyse the process? Is it just to try for a more democraticrelationship between visual and text, since text has been privileged for the pastcentury? Are we trying to create different/additional affordances for meaningmaking?

As we began to share text-based reflections as a source for drawings/mappingsof thought processes we began to question the role of illustration as process and/orproduct. In design disciplines, illustration is a way of thinking and of presentingthe results of thinking/problem solving, usually with a specific goal that considersform, function and audience. Designers typically look at the process in order todecide what product to make but have been doing it with a specific purposeguiding their thinking as well as reliance on a shared symbol system so it’s more amatter of manipulating an extant symbol system to represent concepts for a specificaudience. It both constructs and makes use of the dominant scopic regime.3

Rhetorical principles of composition are analogous in their thinking/problemsolving with the goal of composing for specific audiences, but have traditionallyleft the appearance of the text to a printer (e.e. cummings was an exception).


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Often illustration is considered an aid to something else – a way of readingactions, directions, a form of directive toward particular meanings – in this sense, ithas been looked at literally, more as product. Research has explored how the use ofillustration can aid learners in understanding complex processes early in theirthinking process, but always looking at illustration, drawing, and image as anadjunct to the text.4 This is how we have been taught to read images outside of fineart. Visual artists, however, more consciously use expression and interpretation astheir purpose, using a different set of criteria than illustration – they use theformalist language of composition grounded in formal aesthetics. However, thesymbolic marks used for both may be very close in appearance but not necessarilyin meaning. Our problem, one of our problems, is finding the ground where thetwo (expression, formal language of composition and textual composition) meet.Tracey is fighting against illustrating and working toward using drawing as a wayof explaining. Penny is trying to stop languaging exclusively what she sees andinterprets in the visual. This is our challenge when addressing our larger questions– how to move beyond illustrating and languaging as related but separate processesand products. What will we learn when this happens and is it possible to teach theprocess to students – and, if it is, for what purpose?

3. Drawing as the Embodied Act of ExplainingAs an artist, I, Tracey, see writing as a way of creating a visual artefact that

reflects the aural patterns of speech – including the Vygotskian concept of innerspeech. I choose to use aurality to explain my understanding instead of oralexpression because I see writing’s partner as aural reception – sound – in this caseoral speech is likened to a sound mark. I see drawing as a physical, kinaesthetic actthat extends from body movements and eye movements tracking the visualmanifestations of deliberate marks. Drawing is about gestural movements of thebody. As a researcher, I want to involve a multisensory approach to investigationwhich involves interaction between visual, aural, kinaesthetic and haptic ways ofreading, analysing and re-producing data to be used to make sense of myexperiences in the world. The haptic reading in this case involves the touch spacewhere the gestural movements occur. As an educator, I want to facilitate thisholistic approach to inquiry for my students. While many researchers fromlinguistics to composition studies, to qualitative inquiry studies have discussed theneed for multiliteracies, teaching and doing are more easily theorized than done.Moreover, it seems, sidetracked by the technology of the process. As an artist, Ihave represented my experiences and ideas about the world through a combinationof skill, investigation, experimentation and intuition. The questions of thisparticular investigation of Visualising Inquiry posed a different challenge. Howcan I draw the process without illustrating our discussions or literally describingPenny’s notes? How will my drawings be read as more than a series of marks andillustrations? How can I draw without trying to make art? How do my experiences

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and questions relate to what I ask students to do when using images in their writtenworks?

Fleckenstein has provided an interesting account of how we use visualfragments to make sense out of the chaos that comes from looking at the world.She maintains that

… any image is the result of a highly active process oforganizing the chaos of stimuli into a recognizable or nameableform whether that stimulus is present or absent.5

As both an artist and researcher, I see the role of interaction between the stimulior fragments as crucial to those fragments developing as a whole in such a way thatthe isolated fragment under examination becomes something other than a staticpiece of information. The fragments are transformed through this active process ofrelationship – making it so that they become data to be analysed in relation to thewhole.6 The process is an embodied way of seeing and reading beyond seeing. Therelationships that emerge from the continuous chaos enable openings for multiplereadings. However, Fleckenstein also contends that these readings are informed bycultural codes and scopic regimes that govern what we choose to see and what wechoose not to see. In the case of our research question, these codes inform how weread image as illustrating text or make language visual in terms of non-alphabeticsymbol systems. Codes (sometimes disguised as discipline-based discourses) canalso suppress alternate ways in which we choose to read image-text relationships orhow we choose to subvert non-text forms of conducting and communicatingscholarly research.

I return to my quandary about trying not to illustrate texts, but rather to usingdrawing as both the process and product of inquiry co-dependent with otherlanguage/symbol systems – to explore and explain through drawing not illustratewhat I have thought about (through inner speech) in language. What does thisprocess look like in practice? How are these codes and norms Fleckensteindescribes affecting the decisions I make of what to select when I am the producerand when reading the relationships between information fragments as data? Howcan I teach this process to others when part of the dynamic may be systematic inrelation to Fleckenstein’s suggestions, but as someone who works with gesturesand marks expressively, part of the dynamic is intuitive based on affect, discoveryor even accident? Is intuition credible in an academic context? These questionshave prompted me to look at drawing as not just visual, but multi-sensory. It is adynamic endeavour that fluctuates between mind and body; thought and activity;the known and the unknown; marking and mapping and writing. It is a way to lookat what else is there, in and of the world.


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4. Languaging as ExplainingI, Penny, fully subscribe to Vygotsky’s conceptualisation of thought as a

dynamic set of relationships and images in the mind that takes form in language. Inthis case, language is a culturally created and sanctioned practice and set ofsymbols. I have always relied on words to make sense of the ‘kaleidoscopic flux’,7

or as Fleckenstein describes the chaos of stimuli that continuously bombard mysenses. In my speech, I have also relied heavily on gesture – partly a habit born ofworking with language learners and living in a language I had to learn as an adult,and partly from early theatrical training. However, I had never explored therelationship of my gesture and my languaging until I began exploring therelationship of visual literacy and reading and writing.

When I re-wrote the syllabus for the Research and Writing course, Iunconsciously represented/presented the course and research as actions (and whatTracey responded to) – jotting, doodling, recording – a dynamic phenomenon. Iattempted to express in words alone the dynamism and the dynamic transformativequality of research as separate from the accumulation of information that most ofthe students associated with research.

Drawing has often been understood as the visualising of ideas in terms ofrepresentational people, places and things or as an expression of an idea, arelational object between thinking and seeing. Drawing products have also beenconsidered ‘the before’ for an idea that would eventually become something else.In this role, drawing acts as the intermediary between thought and language, insomewhat the same way Vygotsky’s concept of inner speech is the intermediarybetween thought and word. However, through this particular inquiry, we arelooking at new relationships that are not defined solely or primarily in terms ofrepresentation between text and visual/drawing.

In relation to this idea, gesture and drawing as a continuation or, perhaps, acompletion of the gesture that changed my understanding. I watched studentscompleting a task in class (coding their research journals a la Glesne8) and noticedthe gestures they used as they went through their notebooks and then the symbolsthey used – underlining, asterisks, arrows, stars, circles, and sometimes words orfragments of words/phrases. These were continuations, extensions and sometimescompletions of the thoughts/gestures as they worked out (languaged) theirunderstanding to themselves and later to peers. These underwent a furthertransformation when Tracey challenged me to map (not draw) my reflections/observations and not to language them.

With language, the symbol system we use has a systematic, recognized, sharedorganization and accepted patterns of usage. The marks Tracey and I used wereidiosyncratic to our individual and paired explorings – not a universalisingsemiotic system. Together, as I began to recognize patterns that Tracey used andshe recognized interpretations and patterns I used, we began to establish a sharedset of meanings for our symbols. Analogous with private speech, the marks are

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connected with the visual literacy, the scopic regime of the users but notnecessarily recognizable or shared with the society at large. Perhaps, this oneaspect separates the drawing we engaged in from the semiotic systems that Kressand others have identified. They serve very different functions in research andinquiry. The symbols were recognized as a shared system of representation becauseof our interaction, dialogue and re-action. Semiotics teaches us how to use symbolsas products in a regularized fashion. Our use of symbols and marks is not aboutuniversal symbols that are recycled across widely understood contexts.

5. Explaining as ChangeabilityIn his essay, The Age of the World Picture, Heidegger maintains that research

is a form of ‘projected plan’ that is grounded in the ‘rigor of procedure’.9 Theprocedure represents and must afford the ‘changeableness in whatever itencounters.’ Furthermore, this changeableness is clarified by explanation.Heidegger says that ‘Explanation is always twofold. It accounts for an unknown bymeans of a known… Explanation takes place in investigation’.10 It is the activity ofexplanation that evolves from explorations providing a way to move beyonddrawing as representational illustration. Explaining to make sense of the world,explaining to see ‘the changeable in the changing’ rather than describing what isalready known and perceived.11 Explaining and exploring imply movement interms of ever-changing opportunities for new relationships to occur rather thandrawing as static illustration informed by the cultural codes described byFleckenstein’s definition of scopic regime. Explaining is part of, and drives theongoing activity of research – of projecting plans and procedures and looking atrelationships in the moment – at the cusp of when they might change, in order tomake sense of the world. However, explaining happens within a context, a contextthat is subject to changeability.

Alan Gross suggests that when text/image relationships are meant to servetheory [they] exhibit a different pattern: they exclude any detail that turns thereader too far toward the world we perceive and too far away from itsexplanation’.12 I, Tracey, am using this particular understanding of image/textrelationship to examine the drawing/mapping procedure for explaining the processof making sense of the world through inquiry. Representational details that areused to illustrate and describe may move the reader toward only the known, towarda world already confirmed and thereby holding the potential to remain static,unchanging and fixed. This becomes particularly troublesome in light of seeingwithin a scopic regime of culturally coded and defined meanings. If the image/textrelationship on the other hand becomes too abstract, chaotic fragments that floatabout without a contextualising frame, then the reader is at a loss to use thesefragments – symbols and marks, to explain the world. However, in this case, a newframework of shared symbol systems (i.e., lines, curves, arrows, boxes, ellipsesetc.) may be developed and enacted as a procedure for reading the marks and


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gestures as mappings in context. The symbols depict movements and relationshipsthat help explain the theory in action. Theories explain the processes of ournegotiations with the world not the products.13 Written within the mappings ofthese processes we see the gaps in explanation and the ‘intellectual leaps’ inunderstanding theory.14

In relation to pattern recognition, the mapped image, the drawing as explaining,must ‘divest’ itself of the properties (details) that facilitate subjectiverepresentation in the way of object identification.15 This need to divestrepresentational details that facilitate pattern recognition of identifiable objectscomplements Fleckenstein’s contentions that shared symbol systems are governedby cultural codes that affect and may skew the ways in which we make meaningwhile reading the text/image relationships, what we consider and what we do not.However, drawing and mapping as explaining our explorations may referencerepresentations (image or word) of the lived world if we are to explain those livedexperiences within particular contexts.

6. Does this Just Work for ‘Visual’ Learners?Drawing can be viewed as a translation of thought, in that ‘we’re always

applying a reality onto what we are dealing with’. Mullican further suggests that ‘ifyou want something to happen, you draw a picture of it and, lo and behold, it willhappen.’ The inquiry we are developing here is more than a further study ofGardner’s multiple intelligences, a somewhat reductive categorizing of learningmodes. So when Penny’s student asks ‘Does this just work for students who arevisual learners?’ we have to consider how cultural, educational and social ways oflearning to read have prevented us from understanding the embodiment of ourquest to explain the world.

This inquiry, which made me, Penny, conscious of the link of gesture anddrawing/marks has challenged me to recognize and incorporate this markingprocess as part of both my pedagogy and as an object of my teaching. This is noteasy for me or the students. Just as I have attempted to complicate studentconceptualisation of writing as both process and product of inquiry, I have begunto incorporate the same conceptualisation of drawing into my teaching. In theCritical Reading and Listening course that I was teaching before we officiallybegan our inquiry, a student came to me seeking approval to use a drawing as partof the presentation of the group’s analytical framework. The quick sketch hademerged as an explanatory gesture/figure in the process of constructing ananalytical framework the group had to share with the rest of the class. The studentdid not understand his drawing as a valid communicative mode in an academiccontext. The privileging of text over drawing in school has cut students off fromrecognizing and using this meditational means.16

Part of the resistance, both mine and my students’, comes from assumptionsabout being able to draw as a prerequisite to these meaning-making activities. Just

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as Tracey needed to re-conceptualise her responses to my text and ‘stop trying tomake art’, I and my students must do the same. We are not making art; we areusing marks and the physical movements of our exploratory and explanatorygestures to mediate the expressions of our thoughts.

As a teacher, this inquiry prompted me to observe my own practice of ‘talkingwith my hands’ and the way in which I use blackboards in the classroom (and tounderstand at least part of my resistance to PowerPoint). The way I walk around aclassroom, gesture, and move those gestures to the blackboard had been intuitiveand unexamined. Now, in putting together my lecture notes, I consciouslyincorporate my idiosyncratic marks to understand the flow of concepts andinformation I want to achieve. I plan to use drawing as an explanatory tool whenpresenting certain concepts to students, even to the point of working out possibledrawings before a lecture. I have also begun to use drawing and mapping activitiesas reflective and analytical process assignments in my courses. Although studentswere initially suspicious of these mapping and drawing activities, most found thatthe activities allowed them to ‘detangle my thoughts’, gain new perspectives, seehow concepts and ideas relate, or find the holes in their thinking.17 I work from theassumption that this explicit attention to drawing provides students with additionalaffordances for understanding concepts and the relationships in complexinteractions, but I realize that for many students this is difficult to performprecisely because of the cultural, educational and social ways of learning to readand write they have experienced.

Further research - context, representation and the relationship between the twoare key when considering how we might move from gestural marks and symbols tothe realm of photographic representation and the contexts in which students useimage to explain their world(s). I use world as plural here since we now mustconsider physical and virtual worlds.

Notes

1 G. Kress & T. Van Leeuwen, Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design,2nd ed., Routledge, London, 2006.2 There has been a great deal of research on multimodalities and multi literaciesthat has informed our work over the past two years. The most familiar informersare C. Cazden, B. Cope, N. Fairclough & J. Gee, 1996. ‘A Pedagogy ofMultiliteracies: Designing Social Futures’, Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 66,Issue 1, 1966.; C. Selfe (ed), Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers,Hampton Press, Inc. Cresskill, New Jersey, 2007; B. Cope & M. Kalantzis,‘Multiliteracies: The Beginning of an Idea’, Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning andthe Design of Social Futures, B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (eds), Routledge, London,2000, p. 37.; M. Cooper, ‘Bringing Forth Worlds’, Computers and Composition,Vol. 22, Issue 1, 2005.


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3 Fleckenstein says that cultural codes and norms inform what we choose to seeand what we do not see because we are not supposed to. She classifies this way ofseeing as a shared system, a scopic regime. K. Fleckenstein, ‘Testifying: Seeingand Saying in World Making’, Ways of Seeing, Ways of Speaking: TheInteregation of Rhetoric and Vision in Construction of the Real, K. Fleckenstein, S.Hum & L. Calendrillo (eds), Parlor Press, Indiana, 2007, p. 5.4 R. Carney & J. Levin, ‘Pictorial Illustrations Still Improve Students’ Learningfrom Text’, Educational Psychology Review, Vol. 14, Issue 1, 2002, pp. 5-26; R.Mayer, ‘Multimedia Learning: Are We Asking the Right Questions?’, EducationalPsychologist, Vol. 32, Issue 1, 1997, pp. 1-19; A. Paivio, Mental Representations:A Dual-Coding Approach, Oxford University Press, New York, 1986.5 K. Fleckenstein, Ways of Seeing, Ways of Speaking: The Interegation of Rhetoricand Vision in Construction of the Real, K. Fleckenstein, S. Hum & L. Calendrillo(eds), Parlor Press, Indiana, 2007, p. 16.6 T. Bowen, Drawing within the Chiasm (on review for Tracey: ContemporaryDrawing Research, University of Loughborough), 2009.7 G. Kelly, A Theory of Personality: The Psychology of Personal Constructs, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1963.8 C. Glesne, Becoming Qualitative Researchers: An Introduction, 3rd ed, Allyn &Bacon, Pearson, 2006.9 M. Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, Harper& Row Publishers, New York, 1977, p. 120.10 Ibid., p. 121.11 Ibid., p. 121.12 A. Gross, ‘Darwin’s Diagram: Scientific Visions and Scientific Visuals’, Waysof Seeing, Ways of Speaking: The Interegation of Rhetoric and Vision inConstruction of the Real, K. Fleckenstein, S. Hum & L. Calendrillo (eds), ParlorPress, Indiana, 2007, p. 63.13 Ibid., p. 65. Gross presents a cogent discussion about Darwin’s diagram ofDivergence & evolution as process not product.14 Ibid., p. 6515 Ibid., p. 66. In the context of analysing Darwin’s theoretical diagrams, Grossproposes that ‘it is precisely this divestment that permits the diagram to mediatebetween the world and its explanation’.16 D. George, ‘From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching ofWriting’, College Composition and Communication, Vol. 54, Issue 1, 2002, pp. 11-39.17 A selection of comments from student reflections after an initial mappingactivity in the Research and Writing course.

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Bibliography

Bowen, T., Drawing within the Chiasm. On review, 2009.

Carney, R. & Levin, J., ‘Pictorial Illustrations Still Improve Students’ Learningfrom Text’. Educational Psychology Review. Vol. 14, Issue 1, March 2002, pp. 5-26.

Cazden, C. et al., ‘A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures’.Harvard Educational Review. Vol. 66, Issue 1, Spring 1996, pp. 60-92.

Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M., ‘Multiliteracies: The Beginning of an Idea.Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures, Routledge,London, 2000.

Cooper, M., ‘Bringing Forth Worlds’. Computers and Composition. Vol. 22, Issue1, 2005.

Fleckenstein, K., ‘Testifying: Seeing and Saying in World Making’. Ways ofSeeing, Ways of Speaking: The Integration of Rhetoric and Vision in Constructionof the Real. K. Fleckenstein, S. Hum & Calendrillo, L. (eds), Parlor Press, Indiana,2007.

George, D., ‘From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching ofWriting’. College Composition and Communication. Vol. 54, Issue 1, September2002, pp. 11-39.

Glesne, C., Becoming Qualitative Researchers: An Introduction. 3rd ed, Pearson,Allyn & Bacon, 2006.

Gross, A., ‘Darwin’s Diagram: Scientific Visions and Scientific Visuals’. Ways ofSeeing, Ways of Speaking: The Integration of Rhetoric and Vision in Constructionof the Real. K. Fleckenstein, S. Hum & Calendrillo, L. (eds), Parlor Press, Indiana,2007.

Heidegger, M., The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Harper &Row Publishers, New York, 1977.

Kelly, G., A Theory of Personality: The Psychology of Personal Constructs. W. W.Norton & Company, New York, 1963.


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Kress, G. & Van Leeuwen, T., Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design.2nd edn, Routledge, London, 2006.

Mayer, R., ‘Multimedia Learning: Are We Asking the Right Questions?’Educational Psychologist. Vol. 32, Issue 1, 1997, pp. 1-19.

Paivio, A., Mental Representations: A Dual-Coding Approach. Oxford UniversityPress, New York, 1986.

Selfe, C. (ed), Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers. Hampton Press,Inc., Cresskill, New Jersey, 2007.

Vygotsky, L., Thought and Language. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1986.

Wysocki, A. et al., Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expandingthe Teaching of Composition. Utah State University Press, Logan, Utah, 2004.

Tracey Bowen is a lecturer and Internship Coordinator in the Communications,Culture and Information Technology program at the University of Toronto atMississauga. She is also a visual artist.

Penny Kinnear is Assistant Professor in the Professional Writing andCommunications program at the University of Toronto at Mississauga.

PART X

Choosing and Chasing a New View

Gender and Critical Visual Literacy: Media Monitoring Projectsand the Case of Turkey

Emek Çaylı Rahte

AbstractFeminist criticism is able to foster a greater understanding of sexist anddiscriminating discourse and images of the media. The normalization, naturalizingand reframing effects of ideology within media texts have been subject tonumerous academic studies. These studies also provide recognition of how womenare victimized and exploited in the context of visual images and reveal theideological meanings of visual communication generally. As an importantcomponent of media literacy, visual literacy requires a close reading of mediatexts, recognition of the relation between image-making and gender. Mediaactivists have a crucial role to provide an understanding of visual literacy.Generally, image interpretation and critical analysis of women images in the mediais one of the major goals of ‘media watch groups’. This study focuses on women’smedia activism groups and compares the two activist groups, MEDIZ in Turkeyand Media Watch in USA. In this way the efforts for visual literacy skills related tothe gender issues in Turkey will be evaluated.

Key Words: Critical visual literacy, feminist media studies, gender, medialiteracy, media activism, media monitoring.

*****

1. Visual Culture, Gender and Critical Visual LiteracyJohn Berger writes in his book Ways of Seeing,

Men act, women appear. Men look at women. Women watchthemselves being looked at. The surveyor of woman in herself ismale: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an objectof vision: a sight.1

Early exploration of the gendered nature of looking relations is credited to LauraMulvey.2 Referring to Mulvey feminist film theorists, drawing on psychoanalysis,argue that mainstream cinema promotes an inevitably voyeuristic male gaze andreproduces fetishistic stereotypes of women.3 For Mulvey, mainstream cinemaappeals to the scopophillic4 instinct, which means that, the film is structured to amasculinised gaze. The principle players in the form of cameraman, the audience,and the hero are assumed to be male and principal object in the form of the film’sco-star/love interest is assumed to be female. Mulvey’s and other theorists’ viewsare challenged by most of the subsequent scholarship within and beyond

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psychoanalysis. These scholarly variations have often sought to problematise thatMulvey’s early works tend to homogenize the act of gazing and visual pleasure.How women audiences find pleasure in female/male characters, perhaps evendesire those characters should be considered also. More contemporary scholarshiptakes into account the counter-narratives produced by women filmmakers, authors,creative artists5 Female spectatorship has also been taken into account by laterdiscussions, referring to women’s pleasure from looking at or/and watchingwomen or/men.

No doubt, the visual culture cannot be interpreted or criticized completelybetween the lines of sovereignty of seeing or hegemonic world of gazing. It shouldbe linked to new visual subjectivities, new forms of visual productions and varioustypes of reading the visual texts. According to Nicholas Mirzoeff 6 visual cultureshould be looked with ‘multiple viewpoints’ which is the transient, transnational,transgendered way of seeing that visual culture seeks to define, describe anddeconstruct with a transverse look or glance. Apart from the focus on the centralityof vision and visual word in producing meanings, establishing and maintainingaesthetic values, gender stereotypes and power relations within culture, field ofvision should be opened up as an arena in which cultural meanings get constituted,it should also anchor to entire range of analyses and interpretations of the audio,the spatial and psychic dynamics of spectatorship. In what conditions looking andreturning the gaze becomes an act of political resistance, how someone activelyinteracts with the images from all arenas to remake the world in the shape her/hisfantasies and desires, what are the codes of patriarchal and heterosexistnarrativisation and their deconstruction, are the certain points which a criticalvisual culture covers.7

In critical cultural studies, visual imagery is situated in terms of an ongoingcontest of representations between opposing social forces. Visual images andmedia texts are often polymorphous and contain different meanings, so variousaudiences process and interpret them within different positions, differentunderstandings.8 Thus Douglas Kellner’s9 multiperspectivist approach to criticalmedia literacy contains a perspective of reading images critically. Critical visualliteracy should contextualise images and media spectacle within the politicaleconomy of their production and engage with the politics of representation.Reading the images critically involves cultivating visual literacy that enables oneto situate images in social and political contexts and grasp their range of meaningsand effects, and to criticize images that promote blame-worthy phenomena such assexism, racism, or homophobia. A critical hermeneutic of the polysemic nature ofvisual imagery reads the politics of visual representation from a variety ofperspectives that articulates ambiguities and contradictions in the politics of visualrepresentation, or valorises competing images that either promote or contestdomination and subordination. Using the term ‘multiple literacies’ Kellner pointsout different kinds of literacies to access, interpret, criticize, and participate in the

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emergent new forms of culture and society.10 Finally a visually literate person canbe defined as someone who is able to grasp the full cultural and political meaningof visual images, perceive the clashes between and among classes, races andgender in visual communication.11 Feminist insights, methodologies andpedagogies have a crucial role to realize what Kellner and the related discussionsabove point out.

Gender as a social, psychological and discursive construction is one of themajor components of the ideological discourse in media. As usually echoed by thefeminist approaches, women are underrepresented or misrepresented in the media.By showing women in stereotypical roles such as mother, wife and housewife, orin prototypical images drawn between dichotomies such as beautiful-ugly,virtuous-immoral etc., good (mother) – bad (hysterical careerist), media instigatesan inequality between man and woman. Women are generally represented assexual objects/victims/mothers within the traditional patriarchal values. Genderedbiases include not only women in a less advantaged position but also gays,lesbians, drags and transsexuals.

The demand for women-only spaces within media such as women’sprogrammes and women’s pages or campaign for women’s interest is one of thestrategies that are used against the traditional representation of women in media.12

By means of media production, two ways are followed: Creating an alternative,gender sensitive media, opponent of the mainstream media; appealing to feministinterventions in the mainstream media. Because of the hierarchical organization ofmedia industry, it is very well known that communicators’ decisions are shaped byorganizational factors such as policy, organizational structure, work routines,market’s demands and power relations. As a result, production in mainstreammedia make the communicator cooperate with colleagues, take the specific needs,routines and traditions of organizations into account. Thus the individuals becomelimited by social, economic and legal embedding in the media.13 Women workingin the media industries experience such limitations and difficulties more densely.Even it is necessary to encourage more women to work in the media sector, morewomen media professionals do not mean less gender biased contents directly. Atthat point, the project of feminist alternative media and the women’s mediaactivism becomes very important.

2. Media Activism and Media Monitoring Projects‘Women’s media activism, which has been integrally linked to feminist

movements, may be defined as any organized effort on women’s part to makechanges in established media enterprises or to create new media structures with thegoal of expanding women’s voice in society and enabling their socialadvancement’.14 In addition to demand an increasing number of women as mediaprofessionals, changes in the media content and media agenda which is maleprivilege, women’s establishment of their own media enterprises such as broadcast


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production companies, news agencies, film companies, book publishing firms,media activism has been carried out through media monitoring projects andadvocacy models.

Media monitoring projects have been carried out in more than 20 nations. Theconcept of gender media monitoring and advocacy goes back to 1980s whenorganizations like Media Watch in Canada and Women’s Media Watch in Jamaicadecided there was a need for a constant watch on the media’s portrayal of womenand also a channel through which people in the community could voice their viewsabout media content and policy.15 The media watch groups help consumers tocomment effectively on media content. They intervene with the industry andregulatory bodies; pressure them to meet their obligations under existing guidelinesand regulations on gender portrayal. Challenging sexism and violence in the media,monitoring projects usually go hand in hand with the research and educationprograms. Education programs help to develop a critical awareness about howmedia operates and increase the number of media literate audience. Researchescontain media content analysis; audience reception analysis and results are used tolobby the media industry. Examining the print and broadcast media regularly,media monitoring in different nations provides information about the generalsituation of women, gender specific matters and discrimination problems indifferent nations and regions. The main aim of media watch or media monitoring isto measure and record the sexist and discriminating content of media, and tocriticize and react against them. That has become a very important tool for feministmovements to make their opposition more effective. The involvement of severalwomen and media associations supplied an interaction and dialogue betweengender specialists and media professionals.

The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) is an example of an extensiveorganization for media monitoring with 76 participating countries and it isconducted every five years since 1995. The main motive is a one-day study of therepresentation and portrayal of women in the media worldwide. It was firstconceived at the international conference ‘Women Empowering Communication’held in Bangkok in 1994, organized by WACC (Worlds Association for ChristianCommunication), in association with the International Women’s Tribune Centre,New York and Isis-Manila. Then one year later, in 1995 Beijing Platform ForAction, NGOs and professional media associations were urged to encourage theestablishment of media watch groups.16 In the first monitoring activity in January1995, women from 71 countries studied their news media for one day. More than15.000 stories were analysed. Qualitative analyses in the 2000 global mediamonitoring project showed a striking absence of female voices in the news itemsand it also reveals a tendency to ignore women or ‘speak about’, rather than ‘speakto’ or ‘through women’.17 All these analyses and reports, apart from warning to themedia industry and being a pressure force, provide a very rich data for feministmedia studies, or media scholarship generally.

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Since the works of GMMP showed that media monitoring is useful in variousareas such as media literacy, media industry and media scholarship, nationalprojects for media monitoring started to increase. The different nations putted theirmonitoring projects into action in different dates. Canada, UA and Jamaica are thepioneer countries.18 In Canada, the National Watch on Images of Women in theMedia (MediaWatch) Inc became an autonomous organization in 1983, originatingas a sub-committee of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. InUSA the Media Watch began in 1984. It distributes educational videos, medialiteracy information and newsletters to help create more informed consumers of themass media. Women’s Media Watch, Jamaica (WMW) was founded in 1987 as anon-government, non-partisan, voluntary organization, to increase the public’sawareness of the causes of sexual violence against women and girls, of violence ingeneral, and to draw links between violence in media images and sexual violence.

In Turkey media watch actions can be accepted to start after GMMP 1995. In2000 ‘Iris Women Watch Initiative Group’ started the first national media watchproject. But the regular, comprehensive and established media watch project isMEDİZ -Women’s Media Watch Group which is started in 2006 with support of 23women’s organizations and turned into an extensive platform of women fromdifferent professions, political engagements, groups and interests.

3. Analysing Media Watch-USA and MEDİZ-Turkey MEDIZ is similar to Media Watch USA in many points: their activities, using

of the Internet effectively and relationship between other activist groups andwomen’s organizations. They’re both pioneers in their own categories. Analysingthem comparatively gives an idea about how media monitoring projects serve tomedia literacy and how they would be useful to create a counter-hegemonic media.

A. Media WatchBeing established in 1984, Media Watch USA is, together with Canada (1983)

and Jamaica (1987), the pioneer of the national media watch actions. Launched byan activist Ann Simonton, it has more than 3000 subscribers. Media Watch grouphas engaged various campaigns and become successful by moulding public opinionto struggle with racism, sexism and violence in the media. At the beginning, theyused to send postcard alerts and newsletters to members. The Internet facilitieshave boosted the speed and efficiency of their campaigns. They are in relationshipwith other women’s groups and their activities are in a large sale.

When their web site19 is examined in detail, their activities can be classifiedunder come categories:

Creating their own media. They distribute educational videos,media literacy information and newsletters, make radiointerviews and broadcast them online. Under the section of


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‘multimedia’, they also broadcast documents, educationalaudiotapes, interviews and performances by other activists thatthey’re in relation with.

Giving news about events, boycotts and demonstrations ofgender and media related subjects, also arranging campaigns andcalling for action: For ex: they call people to protest againstbiased news of Fox News channel.

Giving lectures especially at schools and notifying about theseactivities. For ex: Lecture on ‘Sex, Power and Media’ by AnnSimonton in March 5th, 2008 at Cabrillo Community College,CA

Selling educational books, DVDs and videos. Publishing speeches and articles on the archives section of their

web site. Giving useful and related links under various categories: News

links, foreign press links, media, democracy and literacy,feminist media, feminist sites, activism, children and teens.

Demonstrating ‘inspirational’ and ‘odious images’ in theirgallery page. Spoof ads and protest images, offensiveadvertisements and images mostly from fashion magazines.

B. MEDİZ As a newer action than Media Watch USA, MEDİZ-Women’s Media Watch

Group Turkey, which began in 2006 is coordinated by Filmmor Women’sCooperative. With the participation of various women’s organizations, they gotbigger and became a well-known media activism group. They use internet for morespecific aims when compared with MEDIA Watch USA. They use their forummore actively than their websites20. Various women’s groups, individual members,media professionals and academics very actively use the discussion list. Theiractivities can be examined in two groups: Website and Forum.

In their web site generally, they give place to their campaigns, their statements,samples of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ news and useful and related links:

Their campaigns: The most important and sounding campaign ofMEDİZ is ‘End to Sexism in Media’ during 2008. They havemade a wide-range campaign, which includes a media watchingactivity, an international conference, and publication of a book.Media watching activity is realised by a comprehensive researchcalled ‘Research on the Forms of Representation of Women inMedia’. The findings of the research are published as a booknamed End to Sexism in Media and discussed in a conferenceorganized by them in a university in Istanbul.

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Their statements: ‘The Ultimate Point Where ‘SocialResponsibility’ has Reached!’ Under this statement MEDİZ criticizes the social responsibility project of an advertisingagency because of its exploiting women body, by designing apornographic web site to warn about global warming.

In another statement, they protest against a newspaper because of an article bya writer that uses an abusive language against feminists. It is a protest letteraddressing all media members. MEDİZ suggests that media institutions and those working in the field should treat the violation of women’s rights as a social issueand engage in responsible reporting in order to prevent such violations.

‘Good’ and ‘Bed’ News: In the sections of ‘what we get rid offin the media’ and ‘what we want to see in the media’ they giveplace to news samples from various newspapers which aregender sensitive or sexist and discriminating.

Useful and Related Links : They give links to newspaper readerrepresentatives and contact information of media organizations,journalist associations. They publish ethical principles and rulesof the press. And they also give a special place to sample newsarticles from feminist media as an ideal example for makinggender sensitive news.

The discussion list of MEDİZ has 224 members. Approximately 8 messages a day are sent to the list. Most of them are about the gender-biased news of the press.They sometimes discuss the news contents and make decisions to react in variousways, such as sending reaction letters, warnings, writing press releases etc. The listis also used for communication between women’s groups, which are the membersof the list. They announce the actions of activist groups and call for action.

In the interview with the coordinators of MEDİZ, they told that media-monitoring project is a component of their attempts to strengthen their own mediaand to transform the actually existing mainstream media. They say that they haveconnections with many women media professionals. These media professionalsprefer to work in contact with MEDİZ since this empowers them against male dominated nature of the media sector.

5. ConclusionThe everyday life practices are shaped all together by images, sounds,

discursive formations, texts and finally within media culture. Critical medialiteracy refers to an oppositional position (using an alternative framework ofreference, struggle in discourse) of reading the media messages. This position alsoprovides a counter hegemonic stand against gender-biased production of meanings.


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As the examples illustrate, media monitoring projects not only watch andanalyse sexist, discriminating media contents, they also react against the mediaprofessionals or institutions that reproduce the patriarchal, racist and distorteddiscourse in the mainstream media. By distributing educational videos, arrangingconferences, giving lectures and publishing books, they contribute to achieve amedia literate society.

Media Watch Canada as one of the pioneers of the media monitoring projects inthe world and MEDİZ Turkey as the first organized and extensive media watch action in Turkey, both strive against the inaccuracies in the mainstream media andtake action for media literacy.

Notes

1 J. Berger, Ways of Seeing, British Broadcasting Corporation, London, 1972, p.47.2 L. Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Screen Editorial: The SexualSubject, 1975, pp. 22-34.3 M. Humm, Feminism and Film, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1997, pp.13-15.4 In his ‘Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality’, Freud uses this term for theactivity of looking at another as an erotic object. It literally means ‘love oflooking’. This term is alo used by Lacanian psyhoanalysis.5 C. Byerly & K. Ross, Women and Media: A Critical Introduction, Blackwell,Oxford, 2006, pp. 20 & 21.6 N. Mirzoeff, The Visual Culture Reader, Routledge, London, 2002, p. 18.7 I. Rogoff, ‘Studying Visual Culture’, The Visual Culture Reader, N. Mirzoeff(ed), Routledge, London, 2002, pp. 25 & 26.8 S. Hall, ‘Encoding/Decoding’, Culture, Media, Language, S. Hall et al. (eds),Hutchinson, London, 1980, pp. 128-138.9 D. Kellner, Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics betweenModern and Postmodern, Routledge, London, 1995.10 D. Kellner, ‘Critical Perspectives on Visual Imagery in Media andCyberculture’, Retrieved April 20, 2009 from http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/ed270/VISUALLITcritical.htm, 2002.11 A. Wolfe & C. McNally, ‘Gender and Visual Literacy: Toward aMultidisciplinary Perspective’, Gender and Academe: Feminist Pedagogy andPolitics, S. Deats & L. Lenker (eds), Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 1994,pp. 19-33.12 R. Gil, Gender and the Media, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2007.13 L. Van Zoonen, Feminist Media Studies, Sage, London, 1994.14 C. Byerly & K. Ross, op. cit., p. 101.15 M. Gallagher, ‘Feminist Media Perspectives’, A Companion to Media Studies,

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A. Valdivia (ed), Blackwell, London, 2006, pp. 19-40.16 Global Media Monitoring Project, 2005. http://www.whomakesthenews.org.17 M. Gallager, op. cit., p. 22.18 The MediaCritic Network ‘Everything is Possible’ was started in Gothenburg,Sweden in 1992.19 http://mediawatch.com.20 http://www.mediz.org.

Bibliography

Aslan, T., ‘Görsel Olanı Okumak: Eleştirel Görsel Okur-Yazarlık’. İletişim Araştırmaları. Vol. 1, 2003, pp. 39-65.

Berger, J., Ways of Seeing. British Broadcasting Corporation, London, 1972.

Binark, M. & Bek, M., Eleştirel Medya Okuryazarlığı. Kalkedon, İstanbul, 2007.

Byerly, C. & Ross, K., Women and Media: A Critical Introduction. Blackwell,Oxford, 2006.

Deats, S. & Lenker, L., Gender and Academe: Feminist Pedagogy and Politics.Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 1994.

Gallagher, M., ‘Feminist Media Perspectives’. A Companion to Media Studies.Blackwell, London, 2006, pp. 19-40.

—, Gender Setting: New Agendas for Media Monitoring and Advocacy. ZedBooks, London, 2001.

Gil, R., Gender and the Media. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2007.

Humm, M., Feminism and Film. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1997.

Kellner, D., Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics betweenModern and Postmodern. Routledge, 1995.

Kim, G., ‘Critical Media Literacy as The Potential of Democratic MediaActivism’, Retrieved 20 Apr 2009 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p112087, 2007.


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Koch, G., ‘Female Sensuality, Past Joys and Future Hopes’. Jump Cut. Vol. 30,1985, pp. 67-70.

Mirzoeff, N., The Visual Culture Reader. Routledge, 2002.

Mitchell, J., ‘Showing Seeing: A Critique of Visual Culture’. The Visual CultureReader. Routledge, 2002.

Rogoff, I., ‘Studying Visual Culture’. The Visual Culture Reader. Routledge, 2002.

Rosenbaum, J., ‘How Media Literacy is Redefined: A Review’. Retrieved 15 Apr2009 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p112087, 2003.

Van Zoonen, L., Feminist Media Studies. Sage, London, 1994.

Wolfe, A. & McNally, C., ‘Gender and Visual Literacy: Toward aMultidisciplinary Perspective’. Gender and Academe: Feminist Pedagogy andPolitics. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 1994.

Emek Çaylı Rahte is a lecturer in Faculty of Communication at HacettepeUniversity. She is interested in cultural sociology, gender studies, cultural studiesof everyday life, ethnography of communication etc.

PART XI

Places of Being and Seeing

Moral Education and Visual Literacy

Yael Krimerman-Naveh

AbstractThis chapter will stress the contribution of visual literacy to moral education. Ishall argue that at least one important aim of moral education should be to developchildren’s sensitivity to the various forms that human suffering can take. I shallalso suggest how to employ different facets of visual literacy in the promotion ofthat end. First, I shall explain the link between perception of human suffering andmoral reasoning. In the second section, I shall expand upon the perception ofhuman suffering. I will also emphasize its visual basis and some of its limits. In thelast section, I shall briefly sketch out the educational framework which can helpchildren develop the ability to see, and therefore be sensitive to, the suffering ofothers; and in particular, when that suffering is shaped by cultural institutions orexpressed through cultural artefacts different from their own.

Key Words: Culture, human suffering, moral education, visual perception.

*****

1. Perception of Human Suffering and Moral ReasoningThe following example reveals the importance of the perception of human

suffering to moral reasoning: John is upset because he has not seen his father for along time. I know John, and I also know that his father is missing. John is sittingnext to me. He is holding a picture of his father. I see that he is suffering. I also seewhat he is suffering from. Although in this instance, I see all these things at once,that will not necessarily be true every time. I might see a suffering boy, but fail tosee that it is John. I might also fail to see what he is suffering from. Then again, Imight see John, without noticing that he is suffering. If I fail to see that John issuffering, I will not know that he needs my help. If I fail to see what he is sufferingfrom, I will not know how to help him.

Moral education aims to help children acquire the knowledge and skills theyneed, in order to engage in moral reasoning.1 However, what has not featuredprominently in the dominant theories of moral education is the thesis that at leastan important aim of moral education should be to develop children’s sensitivity tothe various forms that human suffering can take.2

In accordance with philosophers, as for example: J.J. Rousseau, BernardWilliams and Peter Singer, I think that human suffering has moral implications.3

However, I also think that their views are problematic, because they are blind totwo important aspects of the phenomenon of human suffering: first of all, theymisconstrue the nature of its perception, and secondly, they ignore its culturaldimensions.


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Perception of human suffering is directly linked to moral reasoning in at leastthree ways: First, the perception of human suffering makes me aware of my beingin a moral situation. We accept that being indifferent to human suffering is morallywrong, because the suffering of others puts me under the moral duty to aid them.However, in order to be aware of being under that moral duty, I need to see that aperson is suffering. Second, in order to help the suffering person I must alsoperceive the causes of his or her suffering. Third, the ability to foresee humansuffering is based on our perceptions of human suffering and of its causes. When Isee that john is suffering, and also see what made him suffer this time, I can predictthat under similar circumstances in the future he will suffer again. From a moralpoint of view, we should refrain from purposely causing other people to suffer.Thus, the ability to foresee human suffering is necessary for a moral attitude.

2. Perception of Human Suffering, its Visual Basis and some of its LimitsSuffering is an experience that is common to all humans. This experience is

closely connected to pain. Human beings suffer from both psychological andphysical pain.4,5 Human suffering can have physical, psychological and socialcauses.

Normally, this experience is manifested both in the human face and in humanbehaviour. Thus, we can see that a person is suffering through his bodilybehaviour. To see that a person is suffering, is to notice something about what thatperson is experiencing. Seeing that John is suffering, as opposed to seeing Johnwithout seeing him suffering, is to see John differently.

Sometimes, while perceiving the presence of another person, human beings failto see that the person is suffering, what he or she is suffering from, or what it wasthat made that person suffer. If human suffering can be perceived through bodilybehaviour, why do we so often fail to notice either that another person is sufferingor what he or she is suffering from?

Sometimes the suffering of others is manifested so clearly that it is impossibleto see the person and not to see that he is suffering. When a baby is in pain, youcannot miss the bodily manifestations of his suffering while perceiving the baby’spresence since in these occasions the baby cries loudly, and while crying thebaby’s face and body have a completely distorted look. While toddlers expresstheir feelings in facial expressions, in the movements of their body, and in the toneof their voice; grown up men and women tend to use cultural artefacts likelanguage, metaphors, proverbs, and visual symbols for this purpose.

There are occasions in which the bodily and facial manifestation of theexperience of suffering is not so clear, so we might fail to notice that the person issuffering. Such failure can occur simply because we are insufficiently attentive.For example: I was in a hurry when I saw John, and I failed to see that he wassuffering. I noticed his presence, but I did not observe him carefully. If I wouldhave paid more attention when I looked at him, I might have noticed his painful


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look, his poor posture, or the lack of vitality in his walk, all of which would haveled me to perceive that he was suffering.

In other instances we fail to see that a person is suffering because themanifestations of his suffering are not so clear at first sight, as for example: when aperson is suffering from traumatic memories. Only in rare occasions do humansreveal that they are suffering from traumatic memories. This kind of humansuffering is more likely to be manifested in a person’s decisions and actions; in hisor her avoidance of that which might stimulate the recall of a painful memory, suchas for example, not visiting the place where the traumatic event happened. If he isan artist, his traumatic memories can also be manifested or expressed in his work.In such instances, unless we are familiar with the individual’s life story, it isdifficult to acknowledge that the action is a manifestation of suffering.

Sometimes although we perceive that a person is suffering, we are not surewhat that person is suffering from because bodily manifestations of humansuffering are sometimes ambiguous. For example, whereas tears are usually linkedto bodily pain, they can also be a reaction to fear or offence. Thus, seeing the tearsof another person, and perceiving what he or she is suffering from, are not thesame. In such instances the larger context through which a person manifests his orher suffering could reveal to me what that person is suffering from. That personmight be frightened because he or she is lost; he or she might be in pain caused bya physical injury or be suffering from humiliation due to some offensive wordssaid even in jest by a friend.

Sometimes although we perceive what the person is suffering from, we fail toperceive the cause for that suffering. When a person is suffering from pain causedby a kidney stone, I might fail to perceive the cause of that suffering because I lackmedical knowledge. When a person is suffering from guilt or remorse, others willfind it difficult to perceive the cause of that suffering as they do not directlyperceive the thoughts and memories that are the cause of it. Nevertheless, the causeof the suffering may be revealed by the person’s behaviour or when engaging himor her in dialogue.6

Sometimes we can see clearly the cause of the suffering of another person, aswhen we see the person limping or the insulting graffiti on the wall. However,there are other occasions in which I fail to recognize the humiliating meaning ofthe writing on the wall. Usually, that is true when I am unfamiliar with the culturalcontext in which it has a derogative meaning.

The ability to perceive human suffering is not peculiar to the members of aparticular culture, but is shared by all humanity. However, this ability developsthrough the process of familiarization with a specific cultural heritage and inparticular its acceptable norms of behaviour. Familiarity with a culture entailsbecoming familiar with its collective memory, its shared history, its language andits traditional artistic modes of expression, such as prose, poetry, sculpture and soon.7


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Cultures provide their members with artefacts through which they can performsymbolic actions and use symbolic expressions. But, symbolic actions andexpressions can also be used by the members of a culture and its social institutionsto make others suffer. Both can hurt humans being pride when used to insult them.Members of a particular culture can also use the symbolic ways of behaviour itprovides to them to express their suffering; for example, by wearing black.

When encountering people from different cultures, their ability to perceivehuman suffering and its causes, and their ability to foresee the suffering of others,are challenged. When human suffering is expressed through cultural artefacts,those unfamiliar with those artefacts can fail to recognize that what they actuallyseeing is a manifestation of human suffering. When human suffering is shaped bycultural norms, history and/or institutions, those unfamiliar with that specificcultural heritage can fail to recognise the cause for another person’s suffering.While it is easy to foresee that, whatever their cultural heritage, a physical injurywill cause pain; it is difficult to foresee whether a normative act with symbolicmeaning in one culture might cause persons who are not part of that culture tosuffer.

Viewing the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding, we learn that in some Greek –American communities the custom of spitting is not dishonourable.8 On thecontrary, we see that the loving family members and friends spit on the bridegroomand bride as they enter the wedding ceremony. However, in other cultural contexts,spitting on a person is an offensive behaviour.

Through education, human beings learn to refine their expressions and theylearn to understand the refined expressions of those who share their culturalheritage. Growing up in a specific cultural context we learn what literalexpressions, and behaviours, are considered offensive in that culture.

3. Moral Education and the Contribution of Visual Literacy to theCultivation of Children’s Sensitivity to the Various Forms that HumanSuffering can Take

Perception of human suffering and its causes is crucial for both moral reasoningand behaviour. This is the reason why I think that moral education should make aspecial effort to help children to refine their perceptual abilities with regards tohuman suffering. Especially in a multicultural society, one of the central aims ofmoral education should be to provide children with the tools, knowledge andtraining that can help them to see the different cultural manifestations of humansuffering and its causes.

Moral education can use a range of tools to develop children’s sensitivity to thevarious forms that human suffering can take. Education can teach us to be moreattentive to a person’s facial expressions, as well as to the large social and culturalcontexts in which they function. Films, paintings, photographs, sculptures andliterature can be used by teachers for that aim. Education can open children’s eyes


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to cultural artefacts’ special role in the expression of suffering and the way inwhich they shape that experience. Children’s sensitivity to the different forms ofhuman suffering can be empowered through the expansion of their culturalhorizons. Education can introduce the pupils to key symbols and to the centralinstitutions that shape the lives of members of different cultures in their society.Furthermore, a close examination of a variety of specific cases in whichindividuals suffer, will cultivate the ability to perceive suffering and its causes. Inturn, this ability will sharpen the pupils’ ability to foresee the suffering of others.This is why I think that as an integral part of their education young people shouldbe exposed to the literature, drama and cinema of other cultures than their own.Specifically, they should be exposed to those works of art that reveal the sources ofhuman suffering and their cultural manifestations. Discussing these can help pupilsand students to see and understand different expressions of suffering and its causes.

I believe that as a consequence of being exposed to this kind of education, thechildren will be more sensitive to the cultural limits of their own perception ofhuman suffering. In addition, I believe that examination of the diverse aspects ofhuman suffering will encourage children to think about the ways in which they canhelp those who are suffering.

Notes

1 I use the term moral education to refer to a special aspect of the educationalprocess. I do not refer with this term to a special education, different and distinctfrom other kind of education that is the formal one. In my view, moral education isinterwoven in educational action in many different ways. Moral education shouldcultivate knowledge and skills that do not spontaneously develop in children andthat are necessary both, to moral reasoning and to moral behaviour. Obviously, thedevelopment of any kind of knowledge or skill can be the legitimate aim ofeducation only if education has the necessary and legitimate tools to cope with thataim.2 The views expressed by Durkheim, Kohlberg, Wilson, Dewey as well as theadvocators of the view of ‘Value Clarification’, were the central views that shapedcritical discussion about moral education in the last century. The views of theabove thinkers influenced both educational pedagogy and curriculum construction.All these different views of moral education share three basic assumptions. First,that moral education is both possible and desirable. Second, that the cultivation ofchildren’s sensitivity to human suffering is not one of the aims of moral education.Third, that the practice of moral education is not necessarily challenged by thecultural heterogeneity of the society in which it takes place.3 J.J. Rousseau claimed that in the state of nature, morality was based oncompassion. He argued that in the state of nature, the savage man, has natural pity.In his view, pity will deter the savage man from acting in a way that will cause


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others to suffer. B. Williams claimed that part of what is common to all humans istheir vulnerability to suffer. In his view, their common humanity, including theirvulnerability to suffer amongst other things, is what bases their equal moral status.Peter Singer claimed that the capacity for suffering is what determines the moralstatus of a creature. In his view morality requires that we take into considerationthe suffering of beings, and the principle of equality requires that the suffering ofdifferent beings be counted equally with the like suffering. In his view, moralityrequires us to respect this shared interest equally and not to give priority to thesuffering of one group of creatures over that of others. See: J.J. Rousseau,Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994, pp.39-50; B. Williams, ‘The Idea of Equality’, Problems of the Self, CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, 1973, pp. 230-250; P. Singer, ‘All Animals areEqual’, Animal Rights and Human Obligations, Prentice Hall, Anglewood Cliffs,NJ, 1989, pp. 78-79.4 Avishai Margalit, distinguishes between the two kinds of pain that a person couldsuffer from: physical pain and psychological pain. See: A. Margalit, The DecentSociety, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1996.5 Ibid., pp. 84-88.6 It is interesting to note that it does not work the other way round: we cannot seethe cause of his suffering, without seeing that he is suffering.7 Susan Sontag discusses various artistic works that deal with human suffering.See: S. Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, Penguin Books, London, 2004.8 Dir. J. Zwick & written by: N. Vardalos, 2002.

Bibliography

Margalit, A., The Decent Society. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1996.

Rousseau, J.J., Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. Oxford University Press,Oxford, 1994.

Singer, P., ‘All Animals are Equal’. Animal Rights and Human Obligations.TPrentice Hall, Anglewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989.

Sontag, S., Regarding the Pain of Others. Penguin Books, London, 2004.

Williams B., ‘The Idea of Equality’. Problems of the Self. Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, 1973.

Wittgenstein. L., Philosophical Investigations. 3rd ed., Macmillan, New York,1973.


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Yael Krimerman-Naveh is a doctoral candidate in the philosophy department atBen-Gurion University. Her thesis is devoted to analyzing the problem of moraleducation in multicultural societies.

Comics in Education: Advocating Visual Literacy, ReinforcingIntercultural Discourse

Evangelia Moula

AbstractIn accordance with the multiple literacies theory, the use of multimodal textsimposes a broadening in the range of applied pedagogics. In this chapter, thepotential of the use of comic books in the classroom is examined and a specificexample around the axis of the Olympic Games is given. Olympics contribute tothe formation of the cultural myth1 of Greek Antiquity. A useful semiotictechnique to explore the cultural myths is to compare and juxtapose different textshandling the same or a similar subject, within the same or within different genres.2

Olympics illustrated by comics-creators coming from three different cultures,French (Goscinny), American (Disney) and Greek (Apostolides), set theprerequisite frame for a prolific intercultural dialogue. The suggested projectserves the triple objective of

familiarization with the ancient Greek culture and understandingof its ideological exploitation,

comprehension of the mechanisms of the language of comics andthe way they construct meaning

detection of the different ideological messages and stereotypesthat have different cultural origins, but are articulated in acommon language (comics) and reside in different conceptionsof a common subject.

Key Words: Ancient Greece, comics, critical pedagogy, identities, multiliteracies,Olympics, stereotypes.

*****

1. Ancient Greece and Her Literary TransubstantiationsAncient Greece has always constituted the central pivot of the discourse about

nation and also of the construction of Greek national identity since the foundationof Modern Greek State. The acquaintance with the ancient Greek culture isconsidered to be an unalienable condition of an average, minimal acculturation.Thus, ancient Greece is uninterruptedly present in Greek education through thestudy of ancient Greek language, literature and history, but is also running throughor circulating in underground or latent ways in the artistic, the literary or the poeticproduction of modern Greeks.3 Consequently, ancient Greece, sometimesallusively, and some other times unambiguously, haunts the children’s book aswell. In the transcriptions, adaptations or transubstantiations of the material from

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antiquity into new stories, several current ideologies are situated and subtlysubmitted.

The Olympic Games have inspired a great deal of stories for children amongwhich we also find comics. Their goals are mainly informative, familiarizing withthe history of our ancestors, but they also promote the Olympic spirit, the values ofpeace and justice, or even the moto of keeping mind and body in shape etc.4 So,antiquity is diffused in a variety of texts, among which we can also find comics.

2. Comics in Education – Multiliteracy - InterdisciplinarityThe multilateral and unprecedented transformation that takes place in every

field of social and cultural life poses tremendous challenges to education. Meaningis made in ways that are increasingly multimodal, while popular culture and theflood of media images it has generated occupy a whole new universe of nonverbalforms of communication. At the age of the ‘pictorial turn’,5 we cannot afford toignore the comics. Nor can we afford to privilege the traditional approach tolearning over the visual, particularly when it is the visual that may make learningmore accessible.

A big quantity of studies concerning the use of comics in education hasappeared ever since the 40ies. It took decades, till 1992 when the comic book ofArt Spiegelman Maus dealing with the Holocaust won the Pulitzer Prize,6 for thesituation to change. Serious researchers believe that by incorporating comics incurriculums, the gap between real life and school could be bridged.

Moreover, reading comics reinforces a critical stance towards the new Mediaand encourages students to become consumers with sharp critical thinking and todevelop the ability to judge the content, the quality or reliability of the messagesoffered by the media. At the same time, critical pedagogy is concerned about theways in which education can make students sensitive to the politics of race,ethnicity, gender, sexuality and class representations, and other cultural differencesin order to promote critical thinking and enhance democratization.

The superstructure of our concept is that the way we see things is influenced bywhat we know or believe7 and the way we make things meaningful is according toour decoding mode. As Hall suggested, there are three hypothetical interpretativecodes or positions for the reader of a text.8 The dominant (or ‘hegemonic’) reading,the negotiated and the oppositional (‘counter-hegemonic’) reading.

So, by applying the project, we can trace our students’ interpretation codes andwe can intervene dynamically, so as to broaden their conceptual horizons or evenhelp them reconsider their beliefs9 transforming the dominant reading into anegotiated or even an oppositional one.

If students manage to read comics not like tv-victims but like book-eaters,10

through a well-organized and structured teaching, their critical thought can beempowered, their reflexivity can be cultivated; they can become sensitive towards

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social matters. At the same time, through this process comics are reevaluated aspedagogical instruments and not simply as means of entertainment.

3. Ideological Re-Readings of the Comic-BooksThe comics examined represent two different ways of seeing Greek culture.

One from within and the other form without, exactly as being described byHerzfeld.11 The former tries to balance Greek and Hellenic identity in a decentmanner. The latter reflects the crystallized stereotyped ideas about the Greeks, in afolkloric or arbitrary way, producing humor or even becoming the negative of theAmerican ideal type. We could claim, that we deal with -emic and -etic12

approaches of Greek culture. The Greek comic book is culturally specific; theFrench tends to be culturally neutral based on deeply rooted stereotypes acceptedworld-wide, though the American describes Greeks in terms meaningful to theinverted disneic sense of the Others.

In semiotic terms, we could use the word icon for the Greek comic book,meaning that the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified andthe word symbol for the two others, suggesting that the signifier does not resemblethe signified but is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional. To be morespecific, the two foreign comics make use of the technique of bricolage13, if thiscan be seen as creating improvised structures by appropriating pre-existingmaterials and operating through several key transformations: addition, deletion,substitution and transposition.14

3.1 Case StudyIn Tinella Kallinike, the raw material from the ancient Greek repertory is used

as a pre-text, literally and figuratively, creating gradually a narrative tissue whenunfolding, it transfers the reader from the space of the narration to the realm of thecivilization and the historical present of the story. This way the comic booksuggests a rationalized and critical reading of the mythical or historical elements,trying to counterbalance the superiority tenet of Greekness, regarded as thecommon core of humanity with the reflection and the critique over the negative ordisagreeable sides of it.

In Tinella, we deal with a kaleidoscopic view of the ancient world. Thethorough and detailed representation of the historical frame, the fidelity ofOlympia’s description, the sound and accurate information, combined with anaesthetically fine illustration approach make the comic book not only anentertaining pastime, but also a kind of an encyclopedic dictionary of the ancientGreek world. Greeks are depicted as being honest, humble, unostentatious,respectful, gentle, lovers of justice, of peace and emulation, though the blemishesof the race are being personalized and attributed to single solitary cases that do notallow generalization. They are mostly depicted in a humorous way, thoughsometimes they imply an indirect reproach.

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At the same time, there is a subtle critique on several aspects of ancient Greekreality, like the exclusion of grown up women from the Olympics, or theunnecessary rituals, such as the banning of hats during the Games. The shrewcommercial spirit of the Greeks causes skepticism.

In Disney’s versions, the complex ‘antiquity adventure’ consists of anuncontested case of ideological handling of the past. In other words, Disney dealswith the past in order to talk about the present and, to be more specific, to glorifythe ideal of the capitalistic America. This way, Disney’s comics become aninvincible weapon that imposes and even justifies the American culturalimperialism. The Others, in this case the Greeks, are being conceived through thedeforming glass of partiality, under the influence of Orientalism,15 according towhich all cultural differences are considered to be defects compared with the idealof the modern western civilization and the capitalistic ethos16 and they areattributed to the natural biological hierarchy. In these stories, we can detect themost rudimental element of the petite bourgeois mythology, its inability toconceive the Other imaginatively.17

A common starting point of adventure stories is a journey on a time machine.18

The advanced technological civilization of the culturally superior West, allow theDucks to take day trips in time and return happily into the safety of the protectedworld of their ‘magic Kingdom’.19

The anachronisms distort and project the past onto the present, under theseemingly innocent pretext of producing laughter. The Olympic spirit is beingforged and surrenders without resistance to commercialization and absolutedegrading of ancient principles. Greeks’ outer appearance and attitudes connote20

the stereotype of the semi-primitive indigenous folks in a grotesque21 andunhistorical manner.

Their general image is anything but flattering.22 Ignorant, unintelligent,superstitious, distrustful towards innovations, though naive, childish, vainglorious,effusive, competitive, inclined to self-indulgent life and welfare, have nothing todo with their moderate ancestors who followed the tenet, sane mind in a sane body.

Women in Disney’s world are caricatures as well. The blond Barbie typewoman who rewards the successful athlete by kissing him the wicked but cowardfemale type, who manipulates men, not having the courage to face them (thegoddess Hera), the intriguing housewives who try to provoke their men’s interestby using their sexuality, like Lyssistrati once had done. Their only virtues,patience, obedience to the powerful male and coquetry, identify them with thecontemporary female stereotype of the advertising and beauty competitions’culture.

In Asterix, the stereotypical depiction of the Greeks composes an emblematicand diachronic digest of the Greek civilization,23 a kind of collective commonsense that is multileveled and many-sided. So, we can find channels ofcommunication with the Greek culture, through which we are given information

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about the history, geography or everyday life of the ancient Greeks, but we canalso find anachronisms and parodies sometimes provoking laughter, some othertimes reflection.24

The Gaelic identity is being shaped by juxtaposing the Gauls with the exoticothers they visit during their fictional adventures. Therefore, the Greeks as well,obeying to the schematized structure of the stories and the purpose of humor,immerge through a bundle of prepossesing stereotypes. Their sharp-cutappearance, their behavior, their habits, their cultural particularities all reflects thelong-lived stereotypes or even the contemporary Greeks’ reputation. Their nose hasa prominent Greek stylish shape, they wear palliums, chlamides with decorativemeanders and headbands and they carry amphorae. They are hospitable andmerrymakers, they dance syrtaki until the morning, they belong to big traditionalfamilies like clans, hinting at the almost nation-specific institution of nepotism, andthey are shrewd and apt traders.

Greece is not only the cradle of civilization but also a touristic destination. So,the jury of the Games worries about income decrease and they are willing tosacrifice their integrity in order to guarantee certain and constant income.

Greek monuments that constitute the most representative part of Greeks’ worldfamous cultural heritage and make Greece recognizable are shown in Asterix withrespect and accuracy.25

Women are present only during nightlife, perpetuating thus the sexiststereotype of women as objects of men’s satisfaction, but being more or less trueaccording to the ancient ethos that restricted women into their homes. At the sametime an early feminist demonstrates against the prohibition of women from theOlympics. Even more anachronisms sprinkle from all over the text, shedding lighton different aspects of modern Greece and encouraging a critical view on it(souvlaki, souvenirs, doping etc).

4. Exercises Based on the Theory of MultiliteraciesOur approach is adjusted to the four phases based on the theory of

Multiliteracies26 and is implemented as follows:

A. Situated PracticeThe students will talk about the Olympics. They will collect and compare

material from several sources (newspapers, magazines, books, the internet). Then,they will be asked to read the comics. To help students understand the preferredreadings, but also be in position to question them, partly or radically, we shouldpose some preliminary questions, referring to the suggested texts:

What kind of reality claims are being made by each text? What kind of values do the choices of each particular text

connote?

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How far do you believe that each text reflects or departs fromdominant cultural values?

As a result, the students will start to realize the different functions of antiquityin these texts.

B. Overt InstructionObserving the texts, the students will get familiar with the basics of the comics’

language.27 They will learn to recognize the elements, the effects, the conventionsof the genre,28 the role of the viewpoint and the way meaning is produced ingeneral.

C. Critical FramingThey will be asked to describe and then judge the way specific topics are

handled or broached in the three comic books such as national stereotypes, genderstereotypes, moral values, superstitions, habits, etc. Afterwards they will compareand comment on them.

D. Transformed PracticeThey will transfer the knowledge discovered into their contemporary

surroundings and cultural context trying to find parallels or differences and toconclude with, they can reflect over the whole project and realize the fact of socialinterchange and historical process, more specifically, during the phases of Overtinstruction and Critical framing.

In order to serve the goal of the familiarization with the ancient Greek cultureand the understanding of its ideological exploitation, we ask our students to writedown all the historical or mythological information found in the comic books andthen compare it with each other as far information accuracy, breadth and diversityis concerned. They can compare the descriptions and pictures of Olympia, itstemples and statues (the statue of Zeus in Olympia, or the details of the pedimentof his temple); they can check the historical information about the foundation ofthe Olympics, the presentation of the athletic contest and of other rituals as givenin Tinella. In this stage, they can use ancient sources as well (Pausanias, Eliaka, Α, 5 – 8/ Diodorus, Historical Library 5, 64 - 66)/ Diodorus the Sicilian, bible 3, 74/4, 18/ Plutarchus, Theseus, 16 – 19) or other informational books.

In order to serve the goal of the comic-language comprehension and the way itconstructs meaning so that the students can achieve a minimum visual literacy, weintroduce them to the basic comics’ terminology and its functions supportingtheory with examples from the texts. So, we help them observe the rich narrativecomposition in Tinella and Asterix. The dense and detailed illustration helps tosharpen the reader’s perceptive. We can also isolate certain parts and follow themthroughout the narration (for example the story of Musculus and his brush). We

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can talk about the camera’s point of view and explain the provoked differences inperception. The bird’s eye view or the opposite, panoramic plans, distant or closeshots are responsible for different kinds of feelings or impressions. The fonts (forexample in Asterix Greeks’ talk resembles papyrus writing), the colors (forexample in Tinella the special color used causes a three dimensional effect and thebroad chromatic range realistically imitates the changing light of different parts ina day, both influence the way we read the text. The visualized sounds (slam,splats), the continuous or interrupted frames used for the balloons, the relationbetween words and pictures etc, are topics that can also be discussed in theclassroom. The time and space conventions should be also commented upon. Forexample, time in Disney and Asterix moves in a linear way though in Tinella in acrooked line, going back and forth. This time alteration between analepses andprolepses29 is attributed through the amalgamation, and picture overlapping.Concessive action is shown through the technique of picture cutting up.

In order to detect the latent ideological messages and stereotypes that becomenaturalized and imperceptible, students are asked to: a) write down thecharacteristics of the Greeks as they appear in the comics, b) compare them, c)come up with conclusions, taking into account the different cultural origin of thecomic books’ creators and the different goals they serve.

For instance, the connaturality of the ancient Greeks and the way they welcomethe unknown visitors along with the stereotype of the primitive inhabitants of someexotic islands, like the Polynesians, is representative of the way Disney usesantiquity. Students can also make remarks on the ancient Greek symposiums thatrefer directly to the Modern Greek bouzouki entertainment and the famous localhero, Zorba the Greek. Another interesting point is the look and the behavior of theathletes when they parade or they compete. Students can contrast images from theancient Greek angiography with the ones in the comics.

They can also:

Locate other stereotypical attitudes and anachronisms, andcomment on the way they influence the reception of the story.For example, we ask them to gather all female representations inDisney. Then, they are asked to study several sources –primaryor secondary- and present the real status of the women in ancientGreece (Athens- Sparta).30

At the last phase (Transformed Practice), students are asked to transfer theknowledge discovered into their contemporary surroundings and cultural context.

They are asked to transpose the heroes into a different space-time frame. This way we achieve critical detachment from factsand specific historic references, and their impartial

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reexamination. At the same time many different voices meet andcross- fertilize each other indicating the relativity characterizingthe concept of truth and its dependence on one’s point of view.

They are asked to put themselves in the ‘flesh’ of a hero anddescribe his/her feelings and reactions.

They are asked to discuss with the characters or interview them.

The multiplicity and diversity of beliefs and standards, which immerge throughthe different interpretations given, composes the background of each other’s betterunderstanding and of a prolific intercultural discourse.

5. ConclusionsHaving worked on all the above levels it is by the end of the project clear, that

the same theme or genre is not necessarily indicative of the comic books potential.The etiquette of easy reading that downgrades comics can be done away with.Comics prove themselves a lot more than light paraliterature and they challenge usto make their best use and exploit their multilayeredness in the classroom.

Moreover, by addressing the project to multicultural students, we have thechance to explore not only the self- stereotypes, which means Greek students’ self-awareness, but also the hetero-stereotypes, other students’ understanding of theGreeks and so engage ourselves in an interesting intercultural dialogue.

Each of the comics examined here leads to a different reading of the concept ofthe Olympic spirit, of Greekness and of gender identities, recontextualizing thethemes in different narrative frames. The cultural myths produced contribute todifferent ways of understanding and organizing reality and they mostly serve theideological function of ‘turning the cultural into natural’ as John Fiske says.31 Theideology and the messages implied in the comic books depend on the status and thegoals that each text serves in its cultural present.

Notes

1 Myths are arbitrary beliefs that have nothing to do with what they refer to, butonly with the use of culture. See: T. O’ Sullivan, et al., 1994, p. 287.2 J. Fiske, 1987, unit 7.3 The most characteristic cases of the use of the Greek past in the poetry of theNobel- awarded Seferis and Elytis are discussed in A. Leontis, 1995.4 T. Tsilimeni, 2004.5 W. Mitchell, 1994, p. 13.6 J. Sturm, 2002, pp. B14-15.7 J. Berger, 1972, pp. 8-10.8 S. Hall, 1980, pp. 136-138.9 V. Apostolidou, 1999.

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10 The terms are used by P. Martinidis, 1990, p. 175.11 M. Herzfeld, 1998, pp. 121 & 130-131.12 K. Pike, 1967.13 C. Lévi-Strauss, 1974, p. 21.14 W. Noth, 1990, p. 341.15 E. Said, 1993.16 P. Murphy, 1995, p. 127.17 R. Barthes, 1979, p. 81.18 A. Dorfman & A. Mattelart, 1979, p. 183.19 We can find this motif in the adventure: The Golden Circles. The OlympicGames. See also A. Dorfman & A. Mattelart, op. cit., p. 183.20 R. Barthes, 1977, p. 15-31.21 Grotesque is equated to disharmony a mixture of heterogeneous elements, amerging of disparities. P. Thomson, 1984, pp. 34-35.22 Moula, 2006.23 For a more detailed depiction of Greeks in Asterix see: M. Missiou, 2009.24 A similar approach can be found in: M. Missiou & A. Tzannetopoulou, 2005.25 R. van Royen & S. van Vegt, 2004.26 C. Cazden, et al., 1996.27 M. Saraceni, 2003.28 Within semiotic genres can be seen as sign systems or codes – conventionalizedbut dynamic structures. Each example of a genre uses conventions which link it toother members of that genre.29 G. Genette, 1972, pp. 122-144.30 G. Arrigoni (ed), 2007; E. Cantarella, 1998.31 J. Fiske, loc. cit.

Bibliography

Apostolidou, V., ‘Literature and Ideology’. Literature and Education. Typothito,Athens, 1999, pp. 335-347.

Arrigoni, G., Women in Ancient Greece. University Studio Press, Thessaloniki,2007.

Barthes, B., Mythologies. Rappa, Athens, 1979.

—, Image-Music-Text. Fontana, London, 1977.

Berger, J., Ways of Seeing. Penguin Books, London, 1972.

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Cantarella, E., The Women of Ancient Greece. Papadimas, Athens, 1998.

Cazden, C., et al., ‘A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures’.Harvard Educational Review. Vol. 66, Issue 1, Spring 1996, pp. 60-92.

Dorfman, A. & Mattelart, A., How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology inthe Disney Comic. Ypsilon, Athens, 1979.

Fiske, J., Television Culture. Routledge, London, 1987.

Genette, G., Figures III. Editions de Seuil, Paris, 1972.

Hall, S., ‘Encoding/Decoding’. Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers inCultural Studies. Hutchinson, London, 1980.

Herzfeld, M., Anthropology through the Looking Glass. Alexandria, Athens, 1998.

Leontis, A., Topographies of Hellenism: Mapping the Homeland. Scripta, Athens,1995.

Lévi-Strauss, C., The Savage Mind. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1974.

Martinidis, P., Comics: Art and Illustration Techniques. ASE, Athens, 1990.

Missiou, M., Rene Goscinny: The Reception of His Work in Greece and ItsIntegration in Greek Education. Thesis (not published), University of Aegean,Rhodes, 2009.

Missiou, M. & Tzannetopoulou, A., ‘Fiction and Comics: The IconologicalAnalysis as a Way to Know the Other at an Intercultural School’. Proceedings:School in the Informational and Multicultural Society. Pedagogical Organization ofGreece, 21-23 Oct 2005.

Mitchell, M. Picture Theory. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994.

Moula, E., ‘Ancient Greece as selfness in Greek children’s literature and asotherness in Disney’s comic- books’. Syngrisi, vol. 17, 2006.

Murphy, P., ‘The Whole Wide World was Scrubbed Clean’. From Μouse to Μermaid, Τhe Politics of Film, Gender and Culture. Indiana University Press,Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1995.

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Noth, W., Handbook of Semiotics. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1990.

O’ Sullivan, T., Hartley, J., Saunders, D., Montgomery, M. & Fiske, J., KeyConcepts in Communication and Cultural Studies. Routledge, London, 1994.

Pike, K., Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of Structure of HumanBehavior. 2nd ed, The Hague, Mouton, 1967.

Said, E., Culture and Imperialism. Knopf, New York, 1993.

Saraceni, M., The Language of Comics. Routledge, New York, 2003.

Sturm, S., ‘Comics in the Classroom’. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Vol. 5,April 2002, pp. B14-15.

Thomson, P., The Grotesque. Hermes, Athens, 1984.

Tsilimeni, T., ‘When Diachrony Becomes Up to Date: Olympics in ContemporaryIllustrated Children’s Books’. Diadromes. Vol. 14, Summer 2004.

van Royen, R. & van Vegt, S., Asterix and Athens. Mamouth Comics, Athens,2004.

Evangelia Moula is a Greek philologist, executive in secondary education withmasters and PhD in children’s literature and pedagogics. Her study explores thepotential of the use of comics in education within the frame of the MultiliteraciesTheory.

PART XII

Reading Frames and Fractures

Visual Literacy in Film: Teaching First-Year UndergraduatesHow to Read Film using In-Class and Web-Based Materials

G.S. Larke-Walsh

AbstractThis chapter provides an overview of a recent learning enhancement projectconducted at the University of North Texas. Project time and funds were used tocreate an interactive film analysis tool for blackboard. The following discussionwill explain the context for the project, as well as the objectives and the design ofthe interactive tool. The tool is designed to help students understand the process ofvisual analysis in film studies. It is just one example of supplemental materialscreated to help make a large lecture class more engaging, but also to raise the levelof student performance.

Key Words: Blackboard, film studies, interactive learning, visual analysis, writtenassignments.

*****

1. ContextThe University of North Texas offers a degree major in Radio, TV and Film.

Within their course of study, students get opportunities to practice film, TV andradio production, write screenplays, treatments and project proposals. They alsotake classes on the industry and classes on the history and criticism of film andrelated media. The degree is extremely popular and so the department has installedthree pre-major courses to act as gateways to the main degree. Students must passall of these classes in order to be accepted into the major program. Therefore, it isimportant to maintain the quality and rigor of the pre-major courses in order toensure that prospective students are being tested appropriately. One of the ways toensure consistent quality is to have the pre-major courses taught by full-timefaculty. I have been teaching one of the pre-major courses for the past three years.I have 144 students each semester in a bi-weekly lecture/screening format. Iusually have one teaching assistant to help with administration, queries andgrading. The course is designed to introduce students to the basic concepts ofvisual analysis, history and rudimentary theory. Grades are achieved through 3multiple choice exams and one written assignment. Students must achieve an endgrade of 70% or above to pass the class. In general, the class average hoversaround 76-78%. The exams are structured carefully to include questions that testhigher-level learning as well as basic awareness of terminology and application.However, multiple-choice exams do not help instructors to assess a student’scapacity to demonstrate their understanding of visual analysis in practice; thewritten assignment is designed to achieve such an assessment. In a large lecture

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class it is difficult to address each student’s learning style, or successfully predicthow successfully students have understood the assignment until the papers aregraded. While the class is designed as a ‘gateway’ to control student numbers inthe major, it is important that students get a fair opportunity to prove themselves.An ability to produce written work that can competently address all aspects ofvisual media is a skill that is central for success in this degree. With this in mind,my pre-major course is a crucial moment for the students to prove their potential.1

2. What is Visual Analysis?Learning to understand the terminology and processes of visual analysis is one

of the opening discussions in an introductory film studies class. As WarrenBuckland notes; ‘the starting point for studying a film is to analyze the way it hasbeen constructed. This involves looking at the various technical, stylistic andnarrative options available to a filmmaker and the choices that he or she makes inputting together a film or sequence of film’.2 This skill teaches students to becomeactive viewers and to make connections between what they see, how it has beenconstructed and what this construction suggests about the film’s meaning[s]. Sucha skill is a crucial first step in film analysis. As well as teaching film aesthetics,introductory classes must also tackle the difficulties some students have withdistancing themselves from the simple enjoyment of film entertainment. It can behelpful to remind students that they are all already cinema-literate they just need tolearn a coherent vocabulary for explaining what they see. Scholars agree that ‘ourability to respond with some analytical awareness [to film] adds to ourenjoyment’.3 It is ‘an opportunity to clarify and develop what one sees and thinksabout [a] film’.4 Corrigan’s book is a guide on ‘how to question movie images’through developing a vocabulary in order to describe what you see and think; thisis ‘not only good for classroom discussion but also allows a good writer to makefiner, more accurate discriminations and evaluations and to situate a film within thelarger tradition of film history and analysis’.5

An introductory class has to be a fine balance between encouraging studentsto learn terminology and leaving room for them to develop their own informedvoice. They need to acknowledge the formal aesthetics of film construction; to askthemselves about what they see and how a film creates meaning. They also need tobe aware that meaning is not a concrete form; it is something that they have aninfluence in creating. Visual literacy is not something that can be confined to asingular uninfluenced practice. As Dale Jacobs notes, ‘we read the world before weread the image and our reading of images is done within the context of ourcontinual reading of the world. [Literacy] must be seen as one of the primary waysthat we exist in and make sense of the world’.6 As such, students have to learn howto describe the formal elements of a film and then contextualize those elementswithin a broader discussion of the film’s themes and meanings. They can achieve

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this best if they recognize their own understanding of the film and their position [asviewer] in the wider world.

Our set text for the class at the moment is Pramaggiore and Wallis’ Film: ACritical Introduction. It was chosen because it explains the basic tools of visualanalysis, but it also states its intention to encourage readers to ‘develop the skillsnecessary to build sound written interpretations’.7 One of the book’s main aims isto ‘help readers identify the main elements of film art and recognize the way thoseelements work together to produce meaning’.8 Chapters are split into topics thatfocus on elements such as narrative form, mise en scène, cinematography, editingand sound. The book also discusses genre, stardom, authorship, social context,ideology and various industrial factors that influence film. As such, it is a goodoverview of both the formal aesthetics and some of the cultural discourses thatinfluence film.

It is hoped that this introductory course operates as a solid framework fromwhich the students can develop their critical skills.

3. The Written AssignmentThe written assignment is designed to test a student’s ability to explain visual

detail, but also to present a coherent argument about the themes that visual detailsuggests, or develops. It is important that the instructions are clear but care is takento leave the results open-ended so that students have room to develop their owninterpretations. In a large lecture class, the slippage between too much freedom andtoo much prescriptive detail in the assignment framework is a difficult balance.

The students have five scenes from five different films from which to choose.They are all English language films, four are American and one is British.9 Thesequence from which the interactive tool has been designed is described below:

Film: Rebel Without a Cause, DVD

Sequence: Chapter 18 & 19 - From when Jim enters the loungewith a bottle of milk through the argument to when the parentsstand at the door after Jim has fled.

Suggested Themes: Confinement, controlled anger, familyconflict.

The purpose of the assignment is to assess a student’s writing ability, but it isalso designed to assess a student’s ability to structure a coherent argument, theircomprehension of the terminology associated with visual analysis and their abilityto relate the visuals to the themes of a film. Some themes are suggested in the


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assignment description to help them, but it is encouraged for them to expand onthose within the essay.

A. Grading RubricStudents are assessed under four categories; visual detail, association to themes;

style and structure. Visual and thematic content counts for 60% of the grade, styleand structure are the other 40%. The intention is to encourage students to create anessay that not only shows an understanding of the visual detail, but also presents acoherent argument that connects those visual details to the film’s main themes.Grades for the essay tend to match the class average of approximately 76-78%. Agrade of 70-79% is given to those essays that show an acceptable understanding ofvisual detail and themes with a coherent structure and coherent grammar. Ingeneral, students tend to fall into two main categories; those that gain 80% orabove and those that achieve less than 75%. In other words, either studentsunderstand the assignment providing essays with above average detail writing andstructure, or they do not understand and provide essays that are difficult to give apassing grade.

4. Cause for ConcernOur introductory course receives 144 essays to read and grade each semester.

Errors in content and structure are inevitable however there are too many instanceswhere the student simply does not seem to understand the concept of visualanalysis. A common error is to create meaning without detailing its connection tovisual detail. Many students use events as their source evidence rather than formalaesthetics. For instance, they may refer repeatedly to the dialogue in the RebelWithout a Cause sequence as evidence of family conflict while ignoring mise enscène, editing and music. The following example of student writing is anothercommon occurrence. The film moment is from the early part of the chosensequence; Jim (James Dean) enters the family lounge and a point of view mediumshot focuses on his father asleep in a chair. The student fails to describe the visualsbut instead inserts their own interpretation of unseen events:

When Jim enters the room he sees his dad asleep on the couchindicating that he had been up all night waiting for Jim.However, the mother is not seen but it is assumed she is upstairswaiting. This points out the fact that maybe the father is moreworried than the mother about Jim’s safety.10

This is a problem because while active participation in the construction ofmeaning is part of the experience of watching film, the student is unaware that theyhave created their own meaning within the scene without any visual evidence toback it up. The student is describing possible reasons behind events that are not

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shown, or suggested. They are creating meaning through a personal worldview thatwants to have sympathy for the father. The student inserts a storyline to justifytheir argument that although the father sleeps he is in fact attentive to Jim’s plight.This may be an understandable emotional response, but it does not align with whatwe actually see on screen.

The next example is much stronger. Having already successfully argued Jim’sassociation with red, a student goes on to describe how this separates Jim from hisfather:

Jim’s father is observed in a point-of-view shot sitting asleep inhis chair, nearly disappearing amid the beige setting. A parallel iscreated when Jim lies down on the couch and nearly disappearsthis time in red. The two shots reveal just how completelyopposite Jim and his father are at this moment.11

This example not only explains the visuals, but also creates meaning fromthem. The student is interpreting the visuals within the context of one of the film’sbroader themes; the conflicted relationship between father and son. The studentdescribes the visuals and how colour is used as a parallel to connect the twocharacters while also highlighting their emotional disconnection.

The intention of the visual analysis interaction is to show students who writelike example #1 how to approach the scene with the detail and argument shown inexample #2.

5. Objectives of the Interactive ToolThe interactive tool provides students access to the full clip, with an associated

written context. It then breaks down the clip into 6 stills and 2 very short cameramovements. Each example is presented as a set of questions for consideration.Each example asks questions about the formal aesthetics and the themes. Theapproach is varied each time to try and avoid a sense of simple repetition. At theend of each example a sample paragraph appears that shows students how theiranswers can create a written portion of their essay.

The intention is to encourage students to see a connection between theaesthetics and the themes. It should also show them how a scene develops in termsof repetition and variation. Sample paragraphs are provided to show how acoherent argument is constructed from both visual evidence and recognition ofthemes and scene development. The tool should also encourage students to watchthe scene repeatedly, thus encouraging a greater depth in their own observations.

It is hoped that such a tool may help in promoting visual analysis as arewarding endeavour and not just an exercise that contributes to their course grade!


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6. Blackboard: Interactive ToolThe design of the tool is meant to focus as much as possible on the visuals and

allow for students to see the connection between the construction of the sequenceand the construction of their own written argument.

The interactive tool is designed to create an environment where the student canparticipate in the partial construction of a visual analysis essay. The followingexcerpts are taken from the written instructions sent to the on-line softwareproduction team.

A. Objectives:This interaction is designed to help you understand the basics of close textual

analysis and is influenced by the format of the required written assignment for thiscourse. The interaction will show you a short sequence and various stills fromwithin it and ask you to identify some of the formal properties and theircontribution to the overall thematic meaning[s]. The interaction is meant as a guideto understanding the processes involved in visual analysis; it is not a completeanswer. Please remember that visual analysis is NOT about isolating one correctmeaning, it is about investigating various possibilities through identifying formalproperties. Your completed written assignment should reflect the discursive natureof visual analysis. This interaction is designed to increase your confidence in usingthe appropriate terminology and recognizing themes.

B. Summary of the ClipRebel without A Cause, is a story about a teenager, Jim (James Dean). Having

just moved to a new town, Jim has difficulties fitting in and making new friends.He also experiences difficulties at home. Jim feels that his parents do notunderstand him. He thinks his mother is too dominant and his father is too weak.

The sequence we shall focus on appears in the middle of the film. It can beidentified as a ‘turning point’ in the narrative. Jim arrives home late at night afterparticipating in a car race that has resulted in the death of another young man. Hisparents confront him and Jim attempts to explain his feelings. He appeals to hisfather to ‘stand up for him’; in other words to defend his actions and thereforeshow an understanding. Conflict and frustration increase to the point where Jimattacks his father and then runs out into the night. The sequence is crucial inconveying the intensity of Jim’s emotions, but also his feelings of frustration andconfinement in his life. The sequence also conveys the various power relations inthe family and the emotional distance between Jim and his parents.

Still #3 (DVD time 1:00:12): Jim’s parents begin to see and fear theconsequences of Jim’s actions in the night’s events. The still shows the parents atthe floor of the stairs looking down on Jim who is seated on the bottom steps withhis back to the camera. The banister rail covers Jim’s head and points towards his

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father. The mother’s torso is partially hidden by the banisters as she stands betweenthe father and Jim. Character placement is triangular.

Students are instructed to move the mouse pointer across the still and considerthe following questions.

[Connected to mother]: The composition has shifted. The mothernow takes the central position and Jim is at the lowest point, butwho does the camera align itself with?

[Connected to father]: The father is now connected visually toJim by two aspects of the mise en scene. Can you tell what theyare?

[Connected to the light on the upper banisters]: The contrastbetween artificial and natural light remains distinct. How doesthis affect Jim’s position in the frame?

Now answer these thematic questions.

The banisters, the lighting, the composition all suggest Jim as[Drop Down List 1]: Angry; Dominant; Cool; Frightened;Isolated [Correct]

The Red Picture Frame and the banister rail suggest what [Dropdown list 2]: Jim’s isolation; Jim’s anger; Father’s emotionalconnection with son [Correct]; Mother’s emotional connectionwith son

The overall composition in the context of the sequence gives thevisual impression of what? [Drop down list 3]: Parental concern;Hospital Visit; Schoolroom punishment; Silent Confrontation;Courtroom Questioning [Correct].

When the questions are complete the following sentence appears.

This moment [still] shows Jim’s isolation. The camera angle andpoint of view encourages audiences to sympathize with him. Heis trapped by the bars of the stairs and in the cold moonlight. Hisparents stand over him like interrogators. The setting andcomposition suggest him as a prisoner in a courtroom. Thismoment [still] further emphasizes a critical aspect of the family


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conflict which is the parents’ inability to understand Jim’s pointof view.

7. ConclusionsAny learning experience is enhanced by actively participation. In class

discussion is important, but in large lecture classes only the more confident willspeak out and it is often difficult to encourage students to ask questions or revealtheir concerns. This on-line visual analysis interactive tool is not meant to replaceclass time, but it does present an opportunity for students to practice theterminology they are learning in a constructive way. It also focuses on thedevelopment of written skills which is a common need for students.

This tool has yet to be tested in class. It has taken the production team longerthan expected to create it and so the intention is to introduce it to students in Fall2009. Students will then be asked to tell me of their experiences. If it works well,the tool will be expanded to include different clips, so that students will have somevariety. It is hoped that the tool, alongside the usual in-class discussion of clips willhelp clarify the process of attaching visual detail to interpretations of meaning.This in turn will encourage better written assignments and should help preparestudents for the more rigorous upper level classes.

As each tool is developed, adding or editing text such as higher level questions,or more open-ended questions will be easy to do. This is the very first stage of thisproject. It will continue to be developed and with the student’s help it shouldbecome a valuable tool for encouraging more active learning in and around theclassroom.

Notes1 My class is the only pre-major class that requires an essay. The industry studiesclass has no written component and the pre-major production class focuses onscreenwriting; an essential but different skill to that which is assessed in mycourse.2 W. Buckland, 1998, pp. 1-2.3 T. Corrigan, 2010, p. 3.4 Ibid., p. 3.5 Ibid., p. 38.6 D. Jacobs, 2004, p. 158.7 M. Pramagiorre & T. Wallis, 2008, p. 4.8 Ibid.9 Choices include the opening sequence from Raging Bull (1980, dir. M. Scorsese),the ending of The Color Purple (1985, dir. S. Spielberg), A transition scene in

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Citizen Kane (1941, dir. O. Welles) and a musical transition in Billy Elliot (2000,dir. S. Daldry).10 Example Essay submitted in Maymester, 2009.11 Example Essay submitted in Maymester, 2009.

Bibliography

Buckland, W., Teach Yourself Film Studies. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1998.

Corrigan, T., A Short Guide to Writing About Film. 7th ed, Longman Pearson, NewYork, 2010.

Jacobs, D., ‘Where can I Get a Camera? Documentary Film, Visual Literacy andthe Teaching of Writing’. Visual Media and the Humanities. McBride, K. (ed),University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2004.

Pramagiorre, M. & Wallis, T., Film: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed, Pearson,Boston, 2008.

G.S. Larke-Walsh, PhD., is a professor of film studies at the University of Texas,USA.

Reading between the Lines: Visual Literacy and Film

Faye Ran

AbstractVery often, we look at films without being entirely aware of what we are seeing orhearing. The very information a factual film conveys may be so interesting, thestory a fictional film narrates so gripping, and the rush of images on screen sorapid, that we miss as much as see. The content of a film and our reaction to it notonly emerges from the subject matter or the story, i.e., the internal content, but alsofrom the manner and elemental architecture in which filmmakers build andmanipulate their images, or as Marshall McLuhan likes to point out, the message ofthe medium. The selection of images and the order in which they are presented, thecontrol over space, light and sound, the tempo, accent and rhythm in which visualimages and sounds are organized also convey meaning and provide delight. Space,light, pace, sound, tempo, movement and accent do more than simply carry a story;they can shape it, modify its content, and determine its meaning. Films offer ideasand sensory stimuli at the same time. Therefore for anyone desiring to read a film,he or she must learn to read between the lines, (using film’s basic elements); alongthe lines (by understanding narrative and genre); and across the lines (by engagingin critical and ideological analyses).

Key Words: Composition, critical analysis, film, literacy, literature, multimodalliteracy, visual literacy.

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What is film? It is merely a thin flexible transparent ribbon or band of plasticmaterial, generally cellulose acetate that provides a base for the emulsion, a layerof light sensitive silver halide suspended in gelatin. Recorded on the roll of film area series of still photographs or frames. The transformation of these static imagesinto apparently moving ones depends on simple mechanical and optical principles -film being moved through a projector at 24 frames per second. Each frame passesin front of the aperture where light is projected and stops for a fraction of a secondwhile a shutter opens; then the shutter closes to provide an interval of darknessduring which the next frame can be brought into position According to thepersistence of vision principle, the eye retains the static image during the darknessso that one image, in effect, is dissolved into the next in order to provide either acontinuous view of a static object or more important, an illusion of continuousmovement.

Yet very often we look at film without being entirely aware of what we areseeing or hearing. The very information a factual film conveys may be sointeresting, the story a fictional film narrates so gripping, and the rush of images on

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screen so rapid, that we miss as much as see. The content of a film and our reactionto it not only emerges from the subject matter or the story, i.e., the internal content,but also from the manner and elemental architecture in which filmmakers build andmanipulate their images, or as Marshall McLuhan likes to point out, the message ofthe medium. The selection of images and the order in which they are presented, thecontrol over space, light and sound, the tempo, accent and rhythm in which visualimages and sounds are organized also convey meaning and provide delight. Space,light, pace, sound, tempo, movement and accent do more than simply carry a story;they can shape it, modify its content, determine its meaning. Films offer ideas andsensory stimuli at the same time. Therefore for anyone desiring to read a film, heor she must learn to read between the lines, (using film’s basic elements); along thelines (by understanding narrative and genre); and across the lines (by engaging incritical and ideological analyses).

In this chapter, I will focus on the basic ways of reading the visual elementsand messages of the film medium in addition to its embedded stories and thematiccontent, but before doing so, it would be helpful to establish exactly what is meantby literacy and reading. Growing up, we all assumed that to be literate meant to beable to read and write in the language of our culture. The United NationsEducational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) drafted the followingdefinition: ‘Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create,communicate, compute and use printed and written materials associated withvarying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning to enable an individualto achieve his or her goals, to develop his or her knowledge and potential, and toparticipate fully in the wider society.’1

What then is Visual Literacy? The International Visual Literacy Associationaffirms it to be that which John Debes (who coined the term in 1969) defined as agroup of vision-competencies which, when developed, enable a person ‘todiscriminate and interpret the visible actions, objects, symbols, natural or man-made, that he encounters in his environment.’2 Visual Literacy is the ability to readand engage with visual rhetoric – that is, the ability to decode, interpret, create,question, challenge and evaluate ideas communicated via visual images which mayor may not be accompanied by words. Visually literate people can read theintended meaning in a visual text such as a film shot, interpret the purpose andintended meaning, and evaluate the form, structure and features of the text. Theycan also use images in a creative and deliberate way to express meaning.

So now, are we now ready to discuss visual literacy and film? Not yet. Like theterm ‘visual literacy’, ‘media literacy’ is an expanded conceptualization of literacy.Media Literacy is based on the idea that media are constructions and that seeing isnot believing. Why? Because all media are carefully assembled, edited, selectedand designed constructions presenting a mediated world picture, and thereforeaudiences must negotiate their own respective understandings. Audiences are notpassive recipients of media messages, but individuals who can and so filter media

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content and messages through a complex nexus of their own nature and needs,influenced by geography, ethnicity, class status, gender, education level, andexisting beliefs and value systems. For example, different ethnic groups exposed tothe same media content may select, reject, recall and comprehend quite differentelements and components of the same content. Furthermore, media have agendas -commercial, economic, political, and socio-cultural among others. Any realunderstanding of media content cannot be divorced from the economic context andfinancial imperative that drives the media industry and its products, so it isappropriate to ask, as does Herbert Lasswell’s in his famous statement oncommunications: ‘Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) WhatEffect.’ The content of a film/video/TV show and our reaction to it emerges notonly from the visual and subject matter or the story, but also from the manner inwhich film/video makers select, manipulate, and present their images.

In fact, the multi-faceted nature of contemporary literacy has led literacyscholars to introduce the concept of multi-modal literacy or literacies - the manydifferent practices of literacy that take place in different contexts, among themvisual and media literacy, critical literacy, multimedia literacy, computer literacy,information literacy, Arts literacy, and ecological literacy – a list by no meansexhaustive. The multi-perspectival approach means that film in addition its visualrhetoric and film-specific attributes must also be read from various critical,philosophical and ideological perspectives. For film viewers engaging in criticalliteracy intertexuality is essential. By intertexuality we mean the idea that how onereads a text is shaped by the multiplicity of one’s experiences, readings andcircumstances, both past and present.

Readings could include any and all of the following: 1) A Dominant Reading:This refers to the way in which the vast majority of readers are likely to read a textand construct the same meaning of it. A slight variation on this dominant reading isthe preferred or assumed meaning which refers to the meaning that the authorintended his or her readers to derive; 2) An Alternative Reading: This refers todifferent nuanced readings of a text that may differ from the dominant/majorityreading, but would nevertheless not be so markedly different; these readings couldstill be supported and agreed upon by a large number of readers; 3) A ResistantReading: This would be a reading ‘against the grain’ or a minority reading not inaccord with the majority of readers or the intentions of the writer. Many feministreadings of traditional texts, for example, could fit into this category.3 When itcomes to film, proponents of visual and media literacy usually begin withdominant readings of the simple formal elements of film such as light, space,movement, time and sound, then move to narrative construction, from realistic toexperimental narratives and understanding of genres or genre-hybrids, to the moremultimodal readings of contexts, world views, agendas, and ideologies.

Film is an exciting visually complex medium with its own peculiarcharacteristics, potentialities and limitations. It is an art of patterned light and space


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like the visual arts - painting, drawing, sculpture and architecture. However, exceptfor kinetic painting and sculpture, it stands alone in its incorporation of movementits consequent immersion in time. Film is more manipulative of the viewer. It candetermine the scope of vision, the direction of the viewer’s glance, the order inwhich parts will be seen and the duration of the viewing. Film creates a strictlymeasured, immutable mold of experience. Dance and drama offer the audience aparticular sequence of events, but they do not control the viewer’s visual field.Similarly, when viewing a stage drama or comedy, an individual selects where heor she will allocate attention, concentrating on a part or the whole. But a filmedHamlet, Macbeth, or Richard the Third is different than a staged version of thesame play. The film versions of these plays draw spectators into their respectivespaces, placing spectators exactly across from what the respective filmmakerintends their viewers to see.

Film offers ideas and sensory stimuli at one and the same time. Light, andcolor, impressions of plane, volume, mass, density and texture, movement andstasis, sound and silence and even different kinds of space, all appearsimultaneously creating a symphonic like complexity. Space, light, pace, sound,,tempo, accent and rhythm do more than simply carry a story, they can shape it,modify its content, and determine its meaning. Light and space can be thought ofas an alphabet through which the filmmaker can express his ideas, i.e. the letters,the raw material through which he or she renders an articulate image, molding light(tones) and colors (hues, saturations and brightness), objects and figures, theirshapes, sizes, proportions, positions, and directions into expressive structures,translating what we call ‘form’ into meaning.

Space and light lack the specific denotations of words, since they are moreconnotative, more generalized, while tempo accent and rhythm all involverelationships in time. Time for the filmmaker is not simply the interval in which aparticular action takes place, but a malleable element to be shaped into patterns andpresented as immediate and shortened or extended, lengthened, or accelerated,paralleled, reversed or projected into the future. In film, patterns of time conditionour responses, sometimes lulling our eyes in slow and ponderous cadences,sometimes assaulting then with metrics so brisk and crackling they are scarcelybearable, as in Hitchcock’s famous shower scene in Psycho, 1960. The selection ofimages and the order in which they are presented, the control over space, light andsound, the tempo, accent and rhythm on which visual images and sounds areorganized also convey meaning and provoke emotional responses. All theseelements have the value of suggesting certain aspects of the medium, but noneobviously defines it.

Film is like literature in that specific fragments of information are apprehendedin a given sequential order; film is also like literature in that it operates in time andspace, instantaneously transporting the spectator from one point to another, butliterature is confined to a one-dimensional linear schema in which objects, action,

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ideas, reactions can only be presented by listing details separately. Film does it as aseries of gestalts. Ingmar Bergman, one of the great cinematic auteurs felt that filmhad nothing in common with literature but was more akin to music; others, likeSergei Eisenstein based much of his film theory on painting and architecturalbalance, as in Ivan the Terrible Parts 1 and 2 (1944-5); D.W. Griffith imitated thecompositions of the old masters, 19th Century academic painters and illustrationsof Sunday school texts, as in his film, Intolerance (1916); and Maya Deren, inMeshes of the Afternoon (1943) constructed her works as choreography for thecamera.

For all its resemblance to the various media, the art of film and video is notsimply a conglomerate of the others. The space of film is not the space of painting,sculpture, architecture or the stage; its movement differs from the movement ofdance and drama; and filmic sound remains quite different from that of drama andmusic. It is parallel to music is in the use of time only. Above all, film is themedium of expression in which light, space, time, motion and sound areinseparably bound together, shading and modifying each other. It is this veryintegration that makes film a unique medium. It is also important to note that filmis not merely the representation of physical reality. The dimensions of art are notthe dimensions of the real world, but are created by cinematic artists. How filmicspace, time, light and sound are invented, and how they are articulated would fillnumerous volumes, but let us look begin to look at some of these basic aestheticelements to see how one can begin to read a film, describe a film and/or teach afilm.

The Articulation of Space: There are two kinds of space in film: 1) ContentSpace: that is implied space of the setting and the things within it, which thefilmmaker may reveal to his audience all at once, explore in continuous movementor describe in separate views; and 2) Framed Space: that is the space of therectangle or frame that appears on the screen. This is called filmic space and iscreated by the filmmaker who, as he/she causes people and things to move ormoves his/her camera, modifies the angle of vision, the relative proximity, theshape of objects and the relationship of one object to another, composing the visualraw material into patterns comparable to those in painting and still photography.As the film proceeds in its movement through time, the configurations in the spaceof the setting and the integral forms of people and things as we know them to bemay in fact become less significant than the configurations created by thefilmmaker within the frame.

Let us imagine a patch of light is thrown on a screen or wall from a lamp in adarkened room. It is a neutral space in which anything or nothing might happen. Afigure walking in, intruding into this unmodulated space shatters the enigma byproviding a scale for determining the measurements of the space. Still,uncertainties exist - the figure may be in the same plane as that of the rectangle ormay be standing in front of it or behind it. The bright area around the figure


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remains amorphous and suggests a space beyond the plane where light falls.Indeed, this bright space framed by the surrounding darkness may be a wall withspecific limitations or it may be sky which is limitless. If the figure is placed higheron the screen and a horizontal line is established behind it, if contours of walls andfloor lines appear, the 2-dimensional plane will then appear hollowed out and thevoid will become three-dimensional. The relative size and distance of objects willbecome evident and the space articulate. But this space will no longer be the spaceof a rectangle projected on a screen; it will now be the space of the image picturedin the rectangle, a space that establishes a system of measurement and an internalconsistency of its own. Whether the image on the screen is in fact 400 ft tall or4inches tall, whether it’s placed above its original position on the rectangle orbelow it, it will still appear to be as tall as a human being and the space around thefigure becomes comprehensible. Although it approximates the space of humanexperience, it is of course, a space created by the filmmaker/artist. The enigma hasbeen shattered and a new paradox revealed - the image of a man on a screen, nomatter what its size, will still appear to the viewer to be the size of an actual manand the space surrounding the image will maintain the same relationship whetherwe look up or down at the figure or from the side. We should add however, thateven if the image maintains an internal and quasi objective consistency, and thehuman eye and mind exercises its capacity to accommodate the size of the image,the angle of vision is not without significance, as we know when we run for seatsin the theatre to find the distance and angle most comfortable for us.

Just as all the dimensions of film - color, light, movement sound, play their partin compelling our attention and rousing our emotions, so too does in almostsubliminal ways, our position in space. Seen from afar, a TV set becomes an objectwhich we examine with detachment, seen close-up, it exerts a greater influence andsense of intimacy. Our eyes, in fact, seem to adjust most readily when the scale ofobjects in the picture approximates the scale we know from ordinary visualexperience. The rectangular image cannot duplicate the normal field of vision ofcourse because it is rectangular, while the optical field of vision is more or lesscircular, so that even the extension into wide screen and the embracing wings ofCinerama offer a decidedly meager field by comparison to the environment we cansee because it doesn’t encompass our peripheral vision. Comedian Steven Wrighttells a wonderful joke about being a peripheral visionary, saying he can see into thefuture but only way off to the sides. But film can, if we assume the proper distance,approximate what can be described as an area of focus, filling our visual field tominimize distracting elements around the edges. When we view the screen fromsuch a point, the spatial order of the film seems most convincing. We can identifywith a familiar scale and the image will gain in clarity and the capacity to involveus. Space becomes more fully articulate, expressing itself by virtue of the thingswithin it, communicating dimensions, shapes, positions, directions, densities,textures, qualities we can measure and, as it were, touch with our eyes, qualities

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which assure us of the existence of the space, and by extension ourselves. If,however, the affirmation of spatial existence constituted the total content of spatialarticulation, filmic space, that is, the space the filmmaker delineates would be oflittle importance to the study of film - we could just take it for granted as thevehicle for some kind of action. No filmic space has the same range of expressivepotentiality as space in the other plastic arts and may articulate not only itself, butalso an individual’s attitudes towards the world or towards the material with whichhe/she is working, revealing the manner in which he/she structures ideas andemotions, injecting reason or dramatic intensity into the filmic event conveyingwhat we will call expressive content. Spatial articulation can project as its contentsomething more than identification, affirmations, description and decoration ofspace. It can express emotional overtones of varying degrees of intensity andcomplexity, reason and order, disorder and chaos.

The intuitive nature and the effective power of responses to spatial relations issuggested in Edward Hall’s books, The Silent Language and The HiddenDimension where the father of proxemics discusses space and investigates thereactions of people from various social backgrounds and ethnic origins to therelative proximity of others. Spatial relationships do carry content or emotion butbecause the expressive potentialities of space have not been systematized,filmmakers, in effect create their own spatial language as they goes along, andtherefore ‘author’ their own space and place. The spatial factors most obviouslysusceptible to expressive manipulation include: 1) Format; 2) Angle of Vision; 3)Proximity; 4) Proportion and 5) Composition.

Format: Although a film’s format usually provides a neutral field in which theaction can take place, it can also play a more active role in a spatial drama. We’reaccustomed to seeing painting, graphics and photos as rectangles and more oftenthan not as rectangles horizontally disposed. We accept the horizontal format soeasily that deviations from it gain in expressive force and tension. In film, thehorizontal rectangle whether of conventional proportions or in wide screen or inCinerama, usually provides a unifying constant within which and against whichspatial interplays may occur. However, the filmmaker do not have to accept therectangular format of the standard proportion; filmmakers can control or reshape aspatial field using masks or mattes which block transmission pf light to the filmexcept in desired areas. With a mask, a filmmaker can translate the format intowhatever shape he/she desires from the cartoon classic keyhole to a circle, cross,diamond, star, heart or free form. The very use of an unfamiliar form createsdramatic emphasis, a sort of visual italics. This is not used that much nowadays butmay readily be seen in the works of D.W Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation andIntolerance. Sergei Eisenstein in Potemkin, 1926, does this as we look throughopen doors, ship’s hatches, columns, arches, and windows. Patches of light andshadow can serve as framing devices to provide much needed variety within thehorizontal frame. Similarly, Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon is especially


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rich in interior format. Deren uses regular and circular windows areas of shadow,openings in a stairwell, broken and unbroken mirrors to modify basic rectangularspace, clarify transitions from reality to dream and enhance the sensual quality ofspace. Most contemporary filmmakers however avoid these cut outs like theplague; they also avoid drastic changes in format because a change in formatinterrupts spatial continuity and the sudden change from horizontal to verticalcreates a visual shock that wrenches the spectator from his involvement with thefilm as a whole and reawakens his consciousness to the inherent unreality andabstraction of the medium. Instead, filmmakers seek more subtle means ofachieving the same effects.

Angle of Vision: We know as a fact that rooms are rectangular or square, thatsteps meet walls at right angles, that people walk erect and that their proportions tothe spaces they occupy vary only so much. In viewing people from whatever anglewe see them, we tend to think of them as whole; they are people whether we lookat them from below or from above—but, if because of an extreme angle of vision,they do not conform to our idea of how people should look, we may not identifythem. In The Gold Diggers, 1933, a Mervyn Le Roy directed musical featuringBusby Berkeley dance sequence; the dancing women were shot from above. Theylook like flowers opening and closing their petals; the dancers become beautifulgeometric figures that open and close, expand and contract. The dramatic potentialof an extraordinary angle of vision is familiar to every filmgoer who has seen theshot of the little guy looking up from below at a bully or a demagogue or seen ashot of a visionary hero who by virtue of the angle ceases to be an ordinary manand becomes a giant or preternatural being. Personality and increasing power canbe revealed through varied angles of vision with accompanying changes in scale.Raise the Red Lantern, 1991, directed by Zhang Yimou, is about a Chinese manand his four concubines, the last of which tells us her story. While the man is amain character, we are never shown his face or figure full on; the lives of thewomen in constricted courtyard where they live and the continuous use of red, thecolour of passion and tempest, in décor and atmosphere are what the film isessentially about.

Proximity: As we have said, the relative distance of an object in the picturespace helps to establish and qualify the space. Similarly, it determines ourcomprehension of it. Proximity particularizes; distance removes; proximityinvolves; distance conceals; proximity reveals; distance relaxes; proximityintensifies. Filmmakers inevitably make use of a variety of distances oftendescribed in terms of the contents of the frame rather than the actual distance inlinear measure, since a change in the focal length of the lens may have the sameeffect as a change in the distance of the camera to the subject. The multiple typesof shots available to filmmakers include an ECU- an extreme close up, such as avery close shot of an eye, or finger; a Close Up (CU), full shot of a head; anMedium Close Up (MCU) which would includes head and shoulders of figure; a

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Medium Shot - figure from head to waist or knees; a Full Shot (Wide Angle orsometimes called an Establishing Shot) - a complete shot of a full figure or objects,but also a shot that includes the complete setting for the action; a Long or DistanceShot, one which embraces a large area with important elements visible in somedetail; and an Extreme Long Shot, for example, a huge area in which detailsbecome relatively obscure - for example, an aerial view of a football stadium.

In Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, 1979, one sees anincredible use of proximities to embody and illustrate content. Martin Sheen goesinto the North Vietnam wilderness to kill US officer Marlon Brandon who hasbecome the godlike leader of a renegade band of natives. On his journey up riverhe experiences the panoramic surreal sights and sounds of war and lunatic fringesand when he finds Brando, the camera moves in to a super close up of the sweatingpores on his very round, bald head. Vittorio Storarro, Coppola’s cinematographerwon the academy award for the breathtaking images (Storarro also won academyawards for his visual work on Reds, about the Russian Revolution, and the LastEmperor, about the last Emperor of China.) The distance shot as effective as ameans of terminating action and suggesting a resolution for that drama, so much sothat it’s become a cliché, riding off into to sunset; a camera shot pulling back,further and further leaving the family or couple to themselves; to people kissingand the camera pulling back and away to reveal a beautiful new day, etc. Or onecan end on an extreme close up, a very private moment freeze frame such as twopeople sitting looking directly and vacantly into the camera, graduating intonothingness, as in Mike Nichol’s The Graduate, 1967, with Dustin Hoffman.

Proportion: Proportion too is an expressive variable of primary importance.Comparative size is one of the most obvious and familiar ways in which distance,space and depth are communicated. Eisenstein expertly manipulates these elementsin Ivan the Terrible. Ivan is modified in size and contour as the film progresses notonly by the way in which Eisenstein selects camera angles but also by the way inwhich Ivan is pictured at a stilted angle in platform shoes; his face is narrowed andhis shoulders sharp. Eisenstein transforms Ivan from a confident, energetic andyouthful prince into an ascetic, monkish and clearly tormented emperor. Most ofthe figures in the film are dressed in heavy robes hanging in Roman like folds. Thefigures are hulking monuments removed them from reality, existing only in a darkand operatic, phantasmagorical world. The architectural settings in the film alsoenhance the grand proportions of the figures. Eisenstein uses sets in which wallsare low and doors designed to be low as well so that characters are forced to stoopas they go through them. In a scene where Ivan gives instruction to his emissary toEngland, his enormous shadow hovers over the screen, dwarfing others, therebyadding to the verbal exchange some of the emotional subtext of his thoughts andsecret political intentions.

Composition: A viewer’s response to a visual image is inevitably conditionedby an overall pattern of forms and focus. This is especially true in film since


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patterns are likely to change so rapidly that secondary details may escape ourvision before we have had time to absorb them. In fact, when a filmmaker wantsthe audience to focus on a particular aspect of the total image, he or she is likely tohold it on the screen or move in for closer examination. Among the infinitepossibilities for compositional arrangements in pictorial space, one general type ofvariation is especially important because it does involve the overall form. This iscalled ‘the relative degree of closure.’ Closure involves the arrangement andplacement of forms that permit the audience to see them as a complete and self-contained pattern within the picture frame, usually a pattern that is simple in itsstructural framework and reminiscent of regular geometric shapes of one kind oranother. It is a pattern in which compositional thrusts and tensions seem to moveinward in an implosive rather than explosive manner.

Its opposite is called ‘Open Composition,’ an arrangement of forms whichappear free and organic in character, explosive rather than implosive, suggestive ofincompleteness and ongoing movement. In considering these structural types, it isimportant to recognize that they refer to patterns, not to the spaces represented orphotographed and the objects within them. A view of a landscape almost invariablyimplies infinite extension in any direction, but the arrangement of forms in lightand shadow may present a closed pattern. A close-up of a hand presents only afragment of the total human being and assumes the rest of the body, but it mayappear in either closed or open form. The closed form is constrictive, while form isfree; the closed form suggests rational calculation, while the open form suggestsspontaneity and immediacy. Closed forms appear taut and formal; open formsloose and informal. Obviously, when we characterize patterns in this way we areconcerned only with appearances and subjective responses. An open compositionmay derive from rational articulation, a closed form from spontaneous recognition.Bergman, for example, does so in his film, Scenes from a Marriage, 1973, whenhis lovers quarrel or when interior tension mounts in any individual. We see thecharacters through the vertical pattern of a bed frame or some other enclosing andconstricting structure; conversely, in more idyllic moments, the figures move inunfettered freedom and seemingly unstructured space.

There are many exemplars one can draw on in pursuing cinematic literacy. Butof all of the available ones, Dziga Vertov’s, prescient primer and sui generis ManWith a Movie Camera, (1929) is the best and most stunning index and exemplar ofthe new and enormous range of cinematic techniques which were to becomeavailable to filmmakers, from double exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freezeframes, jump cuts, split screens, reverse zooms, blurred or soft focus, to swishpans, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, backwards footage, and animation. Just asa child learns to read with early picture books, with adequate visual vocabulary,and analytic skills, one can begin to read more complex cinematic works, withgreater understanding, insight and appreciation.

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Notes

1 UNESCO, 2004, p. 13, citing an international expert meeting in June 2003 atUNESCO.2 International Visual Literacy Association, Retrieved 28 July 2009 fromhttp://www.ivla.org/org_what_vis_lit.htm.3 Wikipedia, Retrieved 25 July 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_literacy.

Bibliography

International Visual Literacy Association, ‘What is Visual Literacy?’ Retrieved 28July 2009 from http://www.ivla.org/org_what_vis_lit.htm.

UNESCO, ‘The Plurality of Literacy and Its Implications for Policies andPrograms: Position Paper’. UNESCO, Paris, 2004. Retrieved 23 July 2009 fromhttp://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001362/136246e.pdf.

Wikipedia, ‘Critical Literacy’. Retrieved 25 July 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_literacy.

Faye Ran is a Professor of Literature, Media and Cultural Studies in New YorkCity.

Screen Literacy: Its Social, Cultural and Educational

Implications and Applications

Jane Mills

AbstractEach year the New South Wales Department of Education (NSW DET) delivers anumber of screen literacy programs for students from low socio-economic andnon-English speaking backgrounds. The programs deliver professionaldevelopment and literacy learning in the form of critical analytical and productionskills (i.e. ‘reading’ and ‘writing’ the screen) with the specific aim of impactingpositively upon low levels of engagement in the learning and teaching process, andof enhancing literacy skills. The programs are always successful; often wellbeyond the educators’ expectations and aspirations. Why, then, there has been noattempt to introduce screen literacy permanently into the curriculum? It is arguedthat such projects are regarded simply as ‘a form of temporary social service foryoung people who are disadvantaged or ‘excluded’.1 Deeper investigation reveals awidespread reluctance to value visual literacy in general and screen literacy inparticular in formal education. Located in an inability to accept the role visualliteracy plays in a generally misunderstood concept of cultural literacy, this isreinforced by a failure to acknowledge the value of informal learning that takesplace outside the classroom. This chapter explores the social, cultural andeducational resistances to screen literacy learning as a means of enhancing studentengagement in order to impact positively upon their literacy skills among studentsfrom low socio-economic and culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds. Itexplores the interstices between traditional and new literacies, old and new media,and theory and praxis in a ‘culturescape’ where young people require culturalliteracy if they are to participate in their community which is simultaneously localand global.

Key Words: Dichotomy, multiliteracies, participatory culture, screen literacy,word/image.

*****

1. IntroductionFor the past nine years I have devised, developed and delivered screen literacy

programs for teachers and their students in Priority Schools within the NSW DET.2

These projects focused on cinema, television and computer literacies as differentbut related modes of visual culture.3 These are screen spaces where old literaciesmeet new literacies, where old media meets new media, where screen culture meetsother visual cultures, and where theory commingles with praxis.

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I shall briefly outline the parameters of these screen literacy projects beforeexploring some of the impediments to delivering screen literacy learning.

The schools, in the main, were Priority Schools, i.e. schools with students fromlow-socio-economic backgrounds with below average retention rates. Someschools had a large cohort of immigrant and refugee students. And some were in aprimary-to high school feeder relationship. The students ranged from K-10. Eachproject had a slightly different focus: some students were selected because they hadlearning or behavioural problems; some because they were from culturally andlinguistically diverse backgrounds and English was their second (third of fourth)language; others because they were at, or potentially at ‘risk’ of dropping out; yetothers because we chose deliver the programs to years 6 and 7 students in theprimary to high school feeder relationship.

Literacy is officially defined by the NSW DET as reading, writing, speaking,viewing, listening and basic numeracy. While this appears to place visual literacyon a par with other literacies, and to indicate a multiliteracies approach, the mainconcern of the majority of teachers, most of whom taught English language andliterature, was reading and writing. The main, or most obvious, literacy skillsinvolved in teaching and learning the moving image - viewing, listening - wasinvariably a low priority.

The aim was to deliver screen literacy in order to break the circle in which lowlevels of engagement meant low literacy levels and low literacy levels meant lowor non-engagement. Objectives: the programs were judged successful if, inaddition to improved engagement levels, they delivered the literacy outcomes ofthe curriculum as well as the other educational outcomes, i.e. the programs had tobe tailored to fit the syllabus.

The programs were usually spread over the year with professional trainingtaking place in term one, classroom teaching of critical analytical skills in termtwo, production skills from the concept stage through production to the production(filming) stage in term three, and the post-production and exhibition stages in thefourth term. The teaching programs would always start some form of school-home-community meeting or event and end with the ‘world premiere’ screenings at acinema or other venue in the community. At these screenings a red carpet wasmore than de rigueur; it was a sine qua non.

The initial pedagogical framework was derived from the 1999 British FilmInstitute (BFI) Report, Making Movies Matter.4 This advocates syllabuscomplementarity involving textual analytical competency (i.e. ‘reading’ the screen)and, just as one does not teach students to read without teaching them how to write,it involved production competency (i.e. ‘writing’ the screen) as the twinapproaches to delivering critical screen literacy. Building upon this approach, wetreated screen literacy as one aspect of a multiliteracies approach to deliveringliteracy learning.

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This proved an effective place to start but as David Buckingham states:‘defining media literacy in terms of ‘critical’ literacy offers visual literacy as aninherently educational process and fails to acknowledge the often contradictoryways in which pedagogies and literacies are intertwined’.5 A problem for anyteacher in this field is not there are no pedagogies but that there is a plethora.There are pedagogies for media education, visual literacy, screen literacy, forintermediality, and for multiliteracies. There are pedagogic models based ondevelopmental and behaviourist theories, theories of multiple intelligences, andmodels of conceptual and social learning. Moreover, there are approaches tolearning and visual literacy based on a dialectical relationship between languagestudy and language use. I formed my own approach in dialogue with most of these.

I also adopted the pedagogic principles of applying scholarly rigour to theteaching and learning of popular screen culture, of ensuring that the whole schoolcommunity would be actively involved and engaged in the programs, and ofemploying an approach that either constructed or consolidated strong home-community-school relationships.6 My thinking was further informed by the NewLondon Group’s concept of multiliteracies,7 and by Kress and Van Leeuwin’sconcept of ‘multimodality’ which acknowledges the boundary crossings betweenimages, words, and the many other diverse media and modes of communication.8

Henry Jenkins’ notions of ‘convergence’ and ‘participatory culture’ were alsoimportant as we pursued the links between old and new literacies and medias, andprovided a framework to encourage school, home and community relationships toflourish

To cut a long story short, the projects proved successful: screen literacyteaching and learning impacted positively upon student levels of engagement andenhanced their literacy skills. It worked especially well among students whoseinitial literacy levels were particularly low.

One area in which these projects failed, however, was in getting the funding forscholarly research and rigorous long-term evaluation of the project. Without thisanalysis and research data, these ‘action research’ programs were all, or mostly,action and little or no research. It is thus not possible to offer any ‘real’ or ‘hard’quantitative or qualitative evidence for what was clearly working in front of ourvery eyes.

Our ‘eyes’, you’ll note, were important but not important enough. To argue forthe implementation of screen literacy approach to literacy in the school syllabus,we needed not just the visual evidence (of which there was plenty) but the writtenevidence. We aren’t alone for, as Buckingham notes of media education in general:

Much of this work remains to be documented and evaluated.Perhaps understandably most published accounts arecharacterised by self-justification rather than critical rigour. Forpolicy-makers, such work often seems to be valued more for

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what appears to be happening than what is actually beingachieved. [T]here are serious questions about the educationalcriteria that should be used to evaluate such work.9

Questions that needed – and still need – to be asked and responses requiringdocumentation and evaluation include:

What is the significance of describing screen knowledge asa’literacy’?

In using a visual literacy to deliver ‘traditional literacy’, were weimplicitly prioritising and counterposing one sort of literacyagainst another?

Were we challenging the continuing dominance of print cultureor were we reinforcing it?

Were we perpetuating, rather than ending, the antagonismbetween so-called ‘old’ or traditional literacies and new or multi-literacies?

How do the literacies and pedagogies interconnect? Where does this fit into a broader concept of ‘cultural literacy’? What was preventing our successful literacy programs from

being incorporated into the curriculum?

This last question relates to the role of the image and popular culture in formallearning and school culture. This led me to think about the impediments to visualliteracy learning.

Preliminary research supports Selwood’s argument that screen literacy projectsare often dismissed as ‘a form of temporary social service for young people whoare disadvantaged or ‘excluded’.10 In addition I experienced an underlyingwidespread reluctance to value visual culture in the form of popular screen culture.While the visual clearly plays a dominant role in our culture – and reading andwriting, after all, involves the visual – the problem, I believe, lies with the image ina concept of literacy grounded in a word/image binary. This, I argue, is located inan inability to accept the role that the image and visual literacy plays in a generallymisunderstood concept of cultural literacy. This, in turn, is reinforced by a failureon the part of both teachers and parents and carers to acknowledge the value ofknowledge and practical skills acquired informally in the home and communityenvironments outside the formal environment of the classroom.11

These issues bubbled up at a recent visual arts educators’ conference where Iwas asked to give the keynote lecture on ‘Visual Literacy and the Documentary’.Now, very few school students choose to study or make a documentary: drama isby far their preferred film form. Not always so their teachers, who often opt for thedocumentary form. Until I dissuade them, that is. My main reason being that

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because few students actually see documentaries outside the classroom, they don’toffer the opportunity for knowledge acquired informally in the home andcommunity environment to be welcomed into the classroom. Why would studentsbe interested to make the sort of film they know little about?

The documentary is notoriously difficult to define. I often start a class byasking students to write down the first three words that it evokes. Despite recentdocumentaries depicting forlorn polar bears on the brink of extinction orsupersized filmmakers vomiting up their burgers, ‘worthy’ is usually the leastdisparaging, with ‘education’, ‘information’ and ‘reality’ getting honourablementions. Some teachers, however, are honest and, like their students, admit to‘dull’, ‘boring’ and ‘a switch off’. (My favourite definition is from a year 9student: ‘A documentary is a film that tells you not to do drugs or fuck yourboyfriend.’)

This supports film theorist Bill Nichols’s description of the documentary as partof the discourse of sobriety.12 This, surely, is why many teachers ‘approve’ of thedocumentary: if it is sober it must be good for their students. Unlike a Hollywoodfeature film, it tends to be a non-controversial teaching tool. And here is a cluewhy the documentary tends to get a higher classroom credit rating than the filmsthat most young people actually watch: the documentary is commonly thought tobe about word and telling, while drama is thought to be about image and showing.

I do not dispute that images dominate modernist and postmodernist culture. Butin the mind/body split prevalent in our culture, words are thought to affect theintellect while images affect action. Words are sober – unlike images which are, orcan be, exciting, giddy, emotional and physically affective. Underlying thisconnotation of unruliness is the widespread view that the image is inferior to theword. This locks into a perception connecting the image to popular culture which isoften perceived to be easier than the word, and thus all that pre-literate studentscan understand. In a strange turn-around, this becomes the reason for someteachers not to choose the documentary form – because it’s not seen to be part ofthe discourse of pleasure. It’s too wordy, in other words.

2. Visual LiteracyVisual literacy is also difficult to define. A common definition, however, is one

that separates vision from sound: ‘the ability to interpret, negotiate, and makemeaning from information presented in the form of an image.’13 This separatesvisuality from the sonic and the image from the word that is strange to someonefrom the Film Studies discipline. For, as Kress and van Leeuwin point out, imagesand words do not exist in binary opposition to one another; there should be noopposition between visual literacy and linguistic literacy.14

But this is a field full of intersecting literacy and pedagogic discourses in whichthe visual is often pitted against the written and spoken word in binary opposition.At one level, this dichotomy is alien to Film Studies – all films, even silent movies,

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involve the visual and the aural, the image and the word, whether spoken orwritten.15 In fact, film academics have long emphasised the visual, the mise-en-scène, at the expense of the sound scape. At the same time, however, Film Studiesin schools is dominated by a content analysis approach that treats the movingimage as a literary text to be ‘read’.

The image/word dichotomy exists in the popular understanding of what itmeans to be literate. It is the binarism of the visual versus the linguistic of whichKress and van Leeuwin warn. This is underpinned by a widespreadconceptualisation of modernism in which vision is widely denigrated while theword is idealised. As already stated, the dominance of the image in most culturestoday cannot be denied but, as cultural philosopher Martin Jay argues, modernismvalues the rational more than the instinct, the intellect not the appetite, the word notthe eye.16

The common belief that the visual occupies a lower level of knowledge than theword, specifically the written word, bleeds into another dichotomy in whichpopular culture is opposed to high culture. It is this, in part, that makes it verydifficult to use popular cinema and television in the classroom to enhance students’literacy skills. This dichotomy is supported by nations in which, historically andpolitically, the visual takes its place alongside oral culture as a signifier ofunderdevelopment, thus privileging reading and writing. Nor can we ignore thatthe visual is strongly associated to theories about the early stage of childhooddevelopment. As Brian Goldfarb argues, Piaget openly draws upon the stereotypeof the colonial ‘other’ as a mentally underdeveloped primitive to support his claimsabout the development of the western child.17

In screen culture, this coalesces in the role cinema has played as a pedagogicaltool in postcolonial and under-developed countries. The same practices of Westernsocial science that produced these developmental models employed visualpedagogical methods and techniques to frame and control the cultures they studied.Johannes Fabian makes the pertinent point in relation to the teaching of refugee,immigrant and colonially displaced students: ‘developmental models that served tolegitimate Western authority situate literate cultures historically after, andhierarchically above, co-existent oral and visual cultures.’18

3. Impediments to Screen Literacy LearningThinking about the dichotomies between the image and the word prompted me

to identify some of the impediments to visual culture and popular moving imageculture as a means of delivering literacy learning. It also suggested a way forward– beyond what felt like an intellectual impasse in which impermeable bordersappeared to be constructed around pedagogies and literacies perceived to promoteperpetual opposition between image and word.

Recent discussions with colleagues in the Teacher Education academicdiscipline, literacy educators and school teachers have enabled me to construct this

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preliminary list of barriers and resistances to teaching screen literacy in theclassroom:

a lack of a pedagogical model for teaching screen literacy in theclassroom;

despite recent accommodations (iPods are allowed in some inclassrooms), a cultural resistance to digital screen culturepersists in school, home and community;

despite the inclusion of ‘viewing’ and ‘listening’ in the NSWDET’s definition of literacy, there is an emphasis andprioritisation of reading and writing in the conceptualisation andteaching of literacy within the syllabus;

a continued ‘old technologies’ versus new technologies’approach persists within an ‘old versus new literacies’ paradigm;

a resistance to inviting or accepting informally acquiredknowledge and skill in schools;

the general understanding of what is meant by ‘cultural literacy’is fuzzy and seldom explored or discussed;

a widespread suspicion of the democratising potential of digitalsocial media which embraces the visual;

commonly referred to as the ‘digital divide’, there is a lack ofaccess to digital screen technologies among children from lowsocio-economic backgrounds;

widespread stereotypical belief in intelligence as supposedlyrelated to an ability to read and write while people from non-dominant culture are assumed to be good only at producingimages, movement and the visual arts;

inadequate teacher training in visual and screen literacy at bothundergraduate and professional training levels for teachers in alllearning areas;

widespread technophobia among many teachers which can beaided an abetted by inadequate technological support.

These are listed in no prioritised order and carry little explanation preciselybecause they need to be researched in greater depth and the cross-flows of ideasneed to be mapped. They certainly need more thought and they definitely needscholarly research to be applied.

4. ConclusionFurther issues emerge from challenging the binarisms between image and word.

Dichotomies endorse and perpetuate rigid, fixed and impermeable borders between

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categories that are socially constructed. They ignore or simplify complexity anddeny convergences. Rigid borders also deny the tensions and frictions withoutwhich hybridisation and creativity is impossible.

By focusing upon the image in the so-called ‘new literacies’, have we isolatedvisual literacy to its detriment? Do we pay insufficient attention to the connectionsbetween word and image? The moving image, like literature, has never been a‘pure’ art form; it has never been all showing and no telling. Equally, the visual isfundamental to literary texts: we read words, we see images.

We need to constantly remind ourselves that the aural is intrinsic to visual textsand the visual is intrinsic to aural texts. We need to look more closely at thecontradictions of teaching screen literacy because it may implicitly challenge:

the continuing dominance of print culture within education whilealso reinforcing it;

the notion of ‘traditional’ literacy, while also perpetuating it; the textual emphasis of much literature teaching… and of much

media education… while also re-emphasising it.

Old literacies are often encompassed by a concept of cultural literacy in whichthe visual is ignored or denigrated. So-called ‘new’ literacies often fail to see theold literacy foundations of new technologies.

As Greg Noble suggests, we must refuse to counterpose new, or multiliteracies,to old or traditional literacy.19 We need to conduct more debate and inquiry intoways in which the old and new literacies together might contribute to furtherresearch and academic inquiry into ways in which the constructed boundariesbetween the two might be demolished or are stymied. We need to explore thevalidity of many of the cultural borders that we have constructed between culture,literacy and education, old and new literacies,20 and between reading and writingskills.21

What I have in mind is an approach that offers a framework allowing us to tracethe flows of images, sounds, literacies, pedagogies and languages through porouscultural borders. I suggest that we need to start by addressing the primacy of theword that underpins so much literacy teaching and learning and by rejecting the‘reading’ and ‘writing’ metaphor.

We need to think in terms of consumption and production that combine tocreate both our students and their teachers as prosumers. The notion ofprosumption can help us explore the two-way flows between culture, literacy andpedagogy. It could lead to new ways for our students to learn how to consolidatetheir informally acquired skills in image-based culture in the classroom, and takethis learning back into the community. Here they can participate as global citizensin society which is simultaneously localised and globalised by their multiliteracyskills.

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Notes

1 S. Selwood, ‘Cultural Policy and Young People’s Participation in the VisualArts’, Journal of Art and Design Education, Vol. 16, Issue 3, 1997, pp. 333-334.2 Priority Schools are those with a majority of pupils from low socio-economicbackgrounds. See J. Mills, Consultant for the DVD & CD Rom, Cineliteracy:More Than Making Movies, NSW DET, 2007; see also J. Mills, ‘The Tools to Re-Imagine My World: Cineliteracy for High School and Primary School Teachers’,Metro, Vol. 138, 2003.3 To these, the fourth screen of the mobile phone should now be added.4 Film Education Working Group, Making Movies Matter, BFI, London, 1999.5 D. Buckingham, Media Education, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2003.6 These are the three basic pedagogic approaches of the Priority Schools Unit of theNSW DET.7 B. Cope & M. Kalantzis (eds), Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Designof Social Futures, Routledge, London & New York, 2000.8 G. Kress & T. Van Leeuwin, Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media ofContemporary Communication, Arnold, London, 2001.9 D. Buckingham, Media Education: Literacy, Learning, and ContemporaryCulture, 2006, Polity Press, London, p. 199.10 S. Selwood, op. cit., pp. 333-340.11 J. Gee, Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of Traditional Schooling,Routledge, New York, 2004.12 B. Nichols, Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary, IndianaUniversity Press, Bloomington, 1991.13 The term was created by J. Debes in 1969.14 G. Kress & T. Van Leeuwin, Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design,Routledge, London, 2006.15 M. Chion, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, Columbia University Press, NewYork, 1994.16 M. Jay, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century FrenchThought, University of California Press, Los Angeles, CA, 1994.17 B. Goldfarb, Visual Pedagogy: Media Cultures in and Beyond the Classroom,Duke University Press, Durham & London, 2002, p. 171.18 J. Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object, ColumbiaUniversity Press, New York, 1983.19 In conversation with the author, September 2007.20 J. McDougall, ‘Engaging the Visual Generation: Some Queensland TeachersCome to Terms with Changing Literacies’, Screen Education, Vol. 46, 2007, pp.130-137; L. Labbo, ‘Literacy Pedagogy and Computer Technologies: TowardSolving the Puzzle of Current and Future Classroom Practices’, Australian Journalof Language and Literacy, Vol. 29, Issue 3, 2006, p. 199.

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Bibliography

Chion, M., Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. Columbia University Press, New York,1994.

Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (eds), Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Designof Social Futures. Routledge, London, 2000.

Fabian, J., Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. ColumbiaUniversity Press, New York, 1983.

Film Education Working Group, Making Movies Matter. BFI, London, 1999.

Goldfarb, B., Visual Pedagogy: Media Cultures in and Beyond the Classroom .Duke University Press, London, 2002.

Jay, M., Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century FrenchThought. University of California Press, Los Angeles, CA, 1994.

Kress, G. & Van Leeuwin, T., Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media ofContemporary Communication. Arnold, London, 2001.

Labbo, L., ‘Literacy Pedagogy and Computer Technologies: Toward Solving thePuzzle of Current and Future Classroom Practices’. Australian Journal ofLanguage and Literacy. Vol. 29, Issue 3, 2006.

Luke, A., ‘Literacy Education for a New Ethics of Global Community’. LanguageArts. US NCTE, 2003.

McDougall, J., ‘Engaging the Visual Generation: Some Queensland TeachersCome to Terms with Changing Literacies’. Screen Education. Vol. 46, 2007.

Mills, J., ‘The Tools to Re-Imagine My World: Cineliteracy for High School andPrimary School Teachers’. Metro. Vol. 138, 2003.

Nichols, B., Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. IndianaUniversity Press, Bloomington, 1991.

Selwood, S., ‘Cultural Policy and Young People’s Participation in the Visual Arts’.Journal of Art and Design Education. Vol. 16, Issue 3, 1997.

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Jane Mills is Associate Professor in Communication (Research and Teaching) atCharles Sturt University and honorary Senior Research Associate at the AustralianFilm, Television & Radio School. Her most recent book is Loving and HatingHollywood: Reframing Global and Local Cinemas (Allen & Unwin, 2009).

The Paratextual and Precursory Voices of Twilight

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