viz.

Image Credit: The Museum of Fat Love

H/T: Layne Craig

Amidst massive media coverage of the “obesity epidemic,” visual arguments have emerged online that challenge the terms of the current debate.  One example is the website, The Museum of Fat Love, which presents a collection of photographs of smiling couples.  Similarly, Newsweek ran a series of photographs on their website titled“Happy, Heavy and Healthy” in which readers submitted pictures of themselves performing athletic feats.  Both websites called for volunteers to submit evidence that individuals classified as overweight or obese can live healthy, happy lives.  The use of visuals in both instances is striking—both websites are predicated on the understanding that overweight individuals have been misunderstood (perhaps even vilified) in the course of public debates on obesity and public health.

Red Teardrop, via Anota bien.

My class, Rhetoric of Tragedy, is based on the idea that the events we normally label “tragic” are always points of contestation. The right way to remember, what we should do to ensure that it never happens again, who to blame—all of these are controversial questions that provide an opportunity to study how we argue. But it can be hard to talk about these conversations in class, especially when you are looking at visual rhetoric. How do we address these contemporary events without making the classroom an upsetting place?

Flyer by BagNewsNotes

We wanted to share news about an international webinar hosted by BagNewsNotes forthcoming Sunday March 20th at 12 noon CST.  You can register ahead of time for this important online discussion of images from the Egyptian revolution.  For more about BagNewNotes, read our first viz. post from the spring semester.  See also our previous discussion about how the New York Times represented the early days of the protests in Egypt.

Lefteris Pitarakis Via New York Times

Since protests began one week ago across Egypt, the media has published many photographs of iconoclasm against images of President Mubarak, or images depicting the scale of the protests in Cairo.  I'd like to raise the question of how representative images from this week are using one-point and two-point perspective, and how that perspective informs our sense of the unfolding events.

Image Credit: Lady Gaga at the VMAs, Designer Franc Fernandez

I realize that I may be a bit behind the times to be addressing (ha!) Lady Gaga's fashion stunt of last fall, but meat's been on my mind this week as I'm about to embark on 30 days of eating vegetarian - largely as a result of the text we're teaching in our introductory rhetoric classes here at UT: Colin Beavan's No Impact Man. But that's another story.  Gaga's appearance at the Mtv Video Music Awards sparked controversy that dissipated rather quickly, and though this may have been due to the singer's own inability to adequately (or logically) explain the reasons behind her wardrobe choice, the images left behind offer a really interesting opportunity for varying and disparate interpretations.  

Image Via BagNewsNotes  

We on the viz. team are researchers & instructors at the University of Texas, interested in all things visual.  With the return to blogging for the spring semester, we'd like to begin by introducing BagNewsNotes, a site doing vital work to deconstruct the visuality of contemporary political news. 

Image Credit: Adriana Cervantes, created as final presentation for my RHE 306 class

Particularly in technology-based classrooms like we have here in the DWRL, instructors are always looking for new ways to teach students non-traditional forms of writing. A few weeks back, Ashley wrote a viz. post about the on-line animation program, Xtranormal, whose motto is “if you can type, you can make movies.”  Her post inspired/challenged me to give it a try with my students. It's extremely user-friendly, and we were able to create animations in a single class period. Users enter text, and the program animates the dialogue for them. Above and after the jump are examples of my students' work, and I'll talk more about pedagogical value of the program.

Image credit: The OPCC via YouTube

H/T to Rachel for suggesting the topic sending me the clip

Although Halloween is behind us, and we've packed up the glam make-up and eaten all the goodies, I'd like to call your attention to an interesting use of bunny suits I recently came across.  Or, perhaps "interesting" isn't quite the right word... inappropriate, insincere, ineffectual... these seem more apt.  While this ridiculous domestic violence PSA has already been addressed by Irin Carmon over on Jezebel, I think there are some more fundamental issues we can tackle from a rhetorical standpoint.  Ultimately, the commercial leaves me with questions about when humor actually hits the mark and when it just goes horribly wrong.

Web Infographic from Colour Lovers by way of Cool Infographics 

Screenshot from Youtube Screenshot from barbie.com

QR code (links to Viz) created through Kaywa's free QR code generator

Check out the latest from viz. in our Fall 2010 digest on the DWRL website.  There's a lot going on!  Please let us know what you are thinking by comments on the blog, or by sending feedback through the "Contact us" link.  Also, we invite you to follow us on Twitter @vizblog.

Image Credit: Jon Montmayor photo of "Rejected Brother" by Tildon Humphrey

H/T to Jessica

Partly in the spirit of the upcoming holiday, and partly as a thematic continuation of recent viz. posts, I'd like to introduce you to an Austin-based artist whose work repurposes and reinvigorates "natural history."  Tildon Humphrey's creations look right back at us and ask us to re-think what we see.