Kress argues that image, theoretically anyway, is less constrained than language because there is a finite supply of words but infinite possibilities for image. This may explain why surreal and post-modern art has flourished while there are only a handful of examples of people who have had success with surreal language (although some, like James Joyce with his Ulysses, were contemporaries of the surreal artists…)
As this audio clip demonstrates, however, words might be finite but there are an infinite number of ways to put them together.
[PS Artistic statements in the form of silent audio players and images straying outside the post boundaries, or disappearing completely, are entirely intentional...]
hi Candace, the Jackson Pollock painting you used as an illustration is entitled ‘Convergence.’ which he painted in 1952 – nice link to my post on convergence. Art is certainly a way of making our transparent activity (such as internet interactions) visible or even audible.
Thanks for the info! I was annoyed that the page I found it on didn’t have the name or date, but then it seemed contrary to the point to go and find it : )
I think you’re addressing something that is core to Modality:
Kress Tells us:
“What is crucial is that if there is no word, then the possibility of representation and communication is ruled out. Only that which is worded can enter into communication; or else, that which is to be represented gets squeezed into the ill-fitting semantic shape of the existing word”
If we look at ancient cave paintings we can a remarkable sophistication and sensitivity of drawing style including perspective! SO where does this leave us?
Wittgenstein tells us:
“Language disguises the thought; so that from the external form of the clothes one cannot infer the form of the thought they clothe, because the external form of the clothes is constructed with quite another object than to let the form of the body be recognized”
and
“A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably”
Is the key to Modality semiotics : http://edc13.education.ed.ac.uk/phild/2013/01/31/semiotics-within-critical-thinking/
Words being a poor mediator of meaning beyond the explicit. Subjectivity (being beyond the explicit) being perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires – beyond the explicit? What signs and signifiers are at work when we deal with a notion? The notion being translated by words (sometimes/often poorly), better to translate notion with visual semiotics? Words being empty entities… before we fill them, often with random ‘stuff’
Who would have guessed that someone with a background in design and someone with a background in literature would think differently on this subject?? : ) My issues with Kress in particular, I think, are these:
1) images also have (as I think you intimate) their own semiotics (that some graphite on a piece of paper represents something, or that some paint splashed an a canvas invokes feeling or meaning); maybe these can be less culturally specific than language, for example, but they still impose restrictions on the communicator and are thus subject to the same ‘squeezing’ into ill-fitting ‘clothes’, if made by a different tailor…
2) certainly while the medium may be the message, we still want to fit the message (the ‘thought’ or the ‘meaning’) to some sort of medium; it seems rather short-sighted to abandon words for every type of communication (and of course Kress doesn’t intend to, as he’s written an article about it).
3) accepting the argument that image is a better mode with which to communicate some thoughts or meanings, however, this is another literacy that most people will have to develop; while I can’t imagine having this conversation with anything but words, I wouldn’t categorically say that it couldn’t be done…but communication via image would need to be ingrained in people’s ways of communicating from birth–ingrained in the culture. And of course the danger of this being done consciously in hopes of freeing us from the tyranny of words would be in a semantics of image that would become identical to language…
I am struggling with the one or the other option. And I do not think Kress is soliciting that either.
Kress uses the example of the web to illustrate the different entry points and how it is up to the user to make meaning from the information. He talks about agency, the role of the individual to assess which mode is most appropriate for the particular audience each time.
For me, an image is open to interpretations, and it is also cultural specific. There are some universality in some images but it’s meaning is specific to the creator, the society and also to the viewer. So I do not think the option of using the image as the primary mode is going to mean it is easier for the ‘readers’, although maybe more intriguing!
I have worked with a boy who suffered from dysgraphia and I can see how difficult it was for him to access materials with text as primary mode. I have managed to teach him to read over time, but he will never be as proficient as those in his age group. The technique I adopted was understanding the alphabets as picture-sound. So I think perhaps there is something there about the notion of the text as image?
I agree that whichever mode is being used or promoted, be it multimodality or otherwise there will be a need in education to teach about interpretation. So relating this to ‘transliteracy’, I believe it will not come naturally to everyone either.
(I hope I am making sense here)