viz.

Those of you interested in the rhetoric of science should enjoy The Micropolitan Museum of Microscopic Art Forms, which is supported by the fantastically-named Institute for the Promotion of the Less than One Millimeter. The site boasts some beautiful imagery which, along with the accompanying text, should be able to spark some fantastic discussions about the relationship of visuals and scientific knowledge.

Some feminists are all atwitter about Italian Vogue's questionable new "photostory," decrying it as a glorification of sexual violence in theatres of war. (And yes, the spread is pretty heinous on many levels.) But I'd like to submit that the American flags splattered all over these debauched, disturbing scenes function as a none-too-subtle criticism of our government's actions. What do you think?

I just came across this nifty new feature from blogspot called "Blogger Play." Its designers describe Blogger Play as "a real-time slideshow of photos Blogger users have recently uploaded to their blogs. It's a great snapshot of what people are thinking and posting about, right now!"

While it may not actually be as exciting as their exclamation point suggests, it's still pretty mesmerizing. Most of the photos are pretty mundane, lots of them are weird, and of course there are tons and tons of baby pictures.

UT’s First-Year Forum text for 2007–2008 will be Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway. Yesterday I sat in on a seminar hosted by the DRW where Domino Perez discussed some of the background and context of the issues that the book engages.

One theme of the discussion was the influence of film on the Urrea’s prose, as well as how images of Latinos can both support and trouble Urrea’s arguments. In the wake of that discussion, I thought I would post links to some Latin-American and Border Studies visual resources for use by DRW instructors and anyone else who is teaching a class that deals with these fields.

Can you guess why these two are so happy?

Is it because

A. Online recipes are the best recipes?

B. The white powder in that bowl isn’t flour?

C. They have a standby electrical generator, so while everyone else in their neighborhood is cold and powerless, they can still surf the web and set their lights to supernova?

Slate has posted a slide-show essay by Mia Fineman on the work of photographer Ryan McGinley. [This link may not be suitable for work.] Fineman makes the argument that McGinley’s work has been coopted by advertisers because he “has essentially created a successful lifestyle brand—a stylish fantasy of youth, beauty, and hedonistic fun” which they find appealing. The photos and analysis could be the start of a fruitful discussion of commercialism and art.

Dartmouth has a very interesting website I just discovered that documents the manipulation of photos with examples spanning photography's history. The site is well worth checking out. Many of the examples provided touch on sensitive issues, making them potentially rich for an in-class discussion of what's at stake (rhetorically, politically, journalistically, historically) when photos are manipulated by photographers, news editors or political leaders.

By John Jones

The arguments found in images are related to textual arguments in that each is presented through the selection and arrangement of disparate elements for some purpose. Though those purposes can range from persuasion to aesthetic pleasure, the fact that they are purposive places them in the realm of rhetoric.

Though photographs and realistic painting are arguments by this definition—they are composed, in that the image’s angle is chosen by the painter or cropped by the photographer and the composition and elements present in each are determined by their authors—this argumentative purpose is more apparent in other media, like collage, or double-exposure photographs, for these methods emphasize their own composed structure through the arrangement of the disparate or fantastical elements that they consist of.

Another category of visual argument is that of the "visual confection." In Visual Explanations (1997) Edward Tufte argues that the confection is different from the examples listed above—photos, collage, etc.—in that confections are fantastical visual structures designed to illustrate written arguments. In this description, diagrams, flowcharts, and iconic images that are created to specifically support written arguments can be called visual confections. One example of a confection is the title page from Thomas Hobbes‘ Leviathan. Tufte argues that this image, which is arranged to illustrate the argument of the book, fits the category because it is explicitly connected to the author’s textual arguments.