Week Three #ededc

(Howard Hodgkin)

“A picture held us captive”
(Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1889 – 1951)

Week three, a MOOC, modality and transliteracy. Three epic encounters! The first of my posts in week three takes the opportunity to juxtapose Kess with Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein has engaged my thinking for a number of years. In my opinion Kress echos (and possibly learns from) Wittgenstein. Kress tells us “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”. In that remark Kress directly echos Wittgenstein’s understanding of language as a limiting entity “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”. The comparison I have just made informs modality and transliteracy by acknowledging the limited capacity of words with relation to subjectivity.

Hodgkin breaks the limitation of the frame by painting over the frame, and in some cases beyond the frame. Is there a relation here to modality and transliteracy? I would suggest that Hodgkin, by reversing the metaphor of the frame, opens a door to subjectivity, imagination, notion and creativity – those that precede language (the word).

The leads me to the first #edcmooc. In a previous post I refere to the MOOC as a spectacle of education. Education beyond the frame? Opening a door to subjectivity, imagination, notion and creativity – those that precede language (the word).

Education as a spectacle? An entity to view! What then determines the notion academia? Image and design to facilitate critical thinking – Critical Design (as Hodgkin?).