The Breakout of the Visual

The Breakout of the Visual

The readings in this section of Module 4 interested me.  I’ve always been interested in photos, the process of taking and printing them, and sharing and creating something new with them.  I used to enjoy scrapbooking, I ran a video and photography club years ago with Grade 7 students, I got into digital photography several years ago and am sorry to say that I didn’t keep up very well with that hobby.  I still hope to get back into it some day!

It is fascinating to see how text without images differs from today’s www world which consists of almost no text and all images.  I often think about this when I read picture books to my daughter.  How in the world will she transition to books without pictures?  I know that her imagination and creativity will develop quickly which is what will create images for her but I must admit, I sometimes encourage her to choose books without so much text so that I don’t need to read long books at bedtime!

Bolter described the evolution of the relationship between text and images.  Traditionally, he said, “…images were contained by the verbal text…Word and image tended to occupy separate visual as well as technological spaces” (2001).  Today, however, “…a Webpage can supplement or bypass prose altogether” (2001).  It is difficult to imagine anyone creating a website in today’s world without the help of a graphic designer or at the very least a few royalty free images pulled off the internet.  This change is not only evident online but also in newspapers, magazines, and advertising.  “Words no longer seem to carry conviction without the reappearance as a picture of the imagery that was latent in them” (2001).  Do these images provide proof and validity to the reader?  Do they suggest that the writer has actual experience and knowledge about the topics being discussed?  Kress takes on a more positive attitude toward this when he stated, “…new digital media remediate the book, the newspaper, and the magazine by offering a space in which images can break free of the constraint of words and tell their own stories” (2005).

While Bolter seems to suggest an instability and a loss of power for words, Kress seems to view it more as a relationship where one supports the other or where the images are not necessarily taking anything away from the words.  “Tools are needed that will allow us to describe what is going on, and theories are needed that can integrate such descriptions into explanatory frameworks” (2005).  He goes on to say that, “Speech and writing tell the world; depictions shows the world” (2005).  I can’t help but agree.  I don’t think that providing images to support writing is harmful unless it is taking the place of the written language altogether.  For people like me who are more visual learners, it can help immensely to have a graph or other helpful pictorial to go along with information.  “These technologies- Those of representation, the modes and those of dissemination, the media- are always both independent and interdependent with each other” (2005).

Later, Kress discusses webpages and how it is up to the “readers” to be critical and come up with their own knowledge from what they view.  I say “readers” because it was also discussed whether that term is appropriate or whether we are simply just visitors to a webpage.  Kress pointed out that on a webpage, there are different entry points.  You don’t simply read across the page, word for word, chapter by chapter in any orderly fashion.  There is often no right or wrong way to navigate a website.  Hypermedia/Electronic text is not static.  Your eyes and the screen could be moving simultaneously.  You could be opening new tabs and trying to connect words with pictures and video.

I must admit that I felt quite lost early in reading Hayle’s article.  I don’t have any programming or coding background and a lot of the examples she was describing were quite confusing and difficult for me to imagine using.  Again, I think that I need to physical have a hands-on experience with these sorts of programs/activities/websites in order to be able to imagine their capabilities.  What I did take away from her article, however, is that all of these machines existing today “challenge conventional assumptions” (2005).  Reading is no longer picking up a paper book and reading left to right, page by page, chapter by chapter, front to back.  We need to change our thinking about what reading, language, and words can be.   “…[N]atural and machine language mingle in the production of electronic literature.  While the use passes words, the machine reads code” (2005).  Hayles is saying that words and code are essentially the same thing to a reader and a machine.  It is a form of communication.  She goes on to say that the screen should be constructed “as a world the user is invited to enter” (2005).  In my opinion this is similar to the work that now goes in to designing a book cover or the front page of a newspaper/magazine or creating a movie trailer.  The point is to invite the user (reader, etc.) in and draw in their interest to want more.   Perhaps we are just going in circles, going back to the original point.  Perhaps everything does not change, it just takes on a new shape or form?

With that in mind, when Kress said, “Hypermedia can be regarded as a kind of picture writing, which refashions the qualities of both traditional picture writing and phonetic writing” (2005), I started thinking about hieroglyphics and how that fascinating language is really a combination of visual and narrative text.  Again, maybe the old is really becoming the new again. I think I may now have a possible topic for my final multimedia project…

References

Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print.         Routledge.

Kress, G . (2005). Gains and Losses: New forms of texts, knowledge and learning.        Computers and Composition. 22(1), 5-22.  Retrieved from https://ac-els-cdn-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/S8755461504000660/1-s2.0-S8755461504000660-main.pdf?_tid=45611da7-380f-4a1f-a15f-ab93182fb22e&acdnat=1532029119_e2e54b8e18ceb6a6e374d459aae1505d

Hayles, N.K. (2005). Deeper into the Machine: The Future of Electronic Literature. Culture Machine. 5 (2003).  Retrieved from http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/viewArticle/245/241