timturner's blog

Viz. Wins Kairos Award

timturner — Wed, 26 May 2010 18:18:52 +0000

We at Viz. were extremely gratified to learn today that we tied with the always excellent ProfHacker, the pedagogy and technology blog at the Chronicle of Higher Education, to win the Kairos 2010 John Lovas Memorial Weblog Award. It has been an exciting and productive year at Viz., and the editors are especially grateful to our wonderful team of blogger contributors for the 2009-2010 year; much of the credit for this award goes to them. Their diverse and engaging work on visual rhetoric surveyed everything from Roland Barthes's work on photography to the karotic appeals of the TV musical Glee, in ways that were both theoretically incisive but also quite useful for instructors in visual rhetoric.

This year's bloggers were, in alphabetical order (with links to their work on Viz.):

We are looking forward to another great year, to a continuous and lively discussion on the blog, and to the development of new, useful materials for teaching visual rhetoric. As always, thanks for reading.

Cheers,

The Viz. Editors, Noel Radley and Tim Turner

Steve in Action

timturner — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:15:10 +0000

High Yellow by Ellsworth Kelly, courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art

This year, the Visual Rhetoric Workgroup has collaborated with the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin on the Steve in Action project. Steve in Action is a collaboration of individuals and institutions collectively exploring the value of social tagging to improve access to cultural heritage collections and engage audiences in new ways. (For more about the Steve in Action Project, see their web site.)

Through this collaboration, the DWRL and the Blanton are conducting a study that explores how undergraduate students use software (like those provided by social media sites such as Flickr or Facebook) to tag digital images of abstract works of art. We are particularly interested in exploring what type of language undergraduate students use to respond to abstract art, and how tagging art alters students' experience and understanding of the artwork. This study will have implications for understanding social tagging as it is used in art and writing instruction. In addition, the project should serve as a way to understand the greater implications of social tagging as it investigates students' abilities to produce forms of knowledge in other areas based on skills learned in the literature, composition, or art classroom.

Although the Steve in Action team believes that its research into the value of social tagging to enhance finding will prove a significant contribution to our community’s understanding of social tagging and access to abstract art, the constraints of deploying the Steve in Action tagging tools in an artificial environment structured specifically to answer research questions have made it difficult for the Steve in Action team to develop authentic and engaging tagging activities and interfaces and thus to begin to examine another series of questions about social tagging. We are keenly interested in questions of motivation and in understanding how social tagging engages and rewards the visitor; in gauging the uses and benefits of social tagging for institutions and their visitors; and in measuring what kinds of support and resources are required by institutions hoping to institute social tagging practices.

As part of a major research university, we extend the research on tagging initiated by the Steve in Action team to look at a primary audience we serve, undergraduate students, and to learn about what language they use to describe and categorize works of art that use abstraction. We hope to use the data we collect from this research to inform museum education practices at the Blanton and to share with faculty who use this content to teach undergraduates.

Currently, the study is its first phase, which asks students to look at a collection of digital images and read contextual information about them if they choose. They then answer a series of questions about the experience. The survey collects information about how students responded to the art and asks them to describe the experience of looking at it, and also to engage in a small writing exercise by defining abstract art and retitling three of the images. You can explore the interface here.

We record the language these undergraduate subjects use to describe abstract art in order to help museum professionals and educators assess what university students find interesting, understand, or misunderstand about such art. We hope that the data we collect will provide information about how social tagging technology mediates students' experience of images and helps them translate visual meaning into verbal descriptions.

The second phase of the project will ask student to tag the digital images using the social-tagging interface designed by the Steve Project. It will likely be implemented in the fall of 2010.

CFP: Currents in Electronic Literacy: Gaming-Across-the-Curriculum: Playing as a Way of Learning

timturner — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:27:47 +0000

Currents in Electronic Literacy (ISSN 1524-6493) solicits article-length submissions related to the theme below. Submissions are due by Friday, January 15, 2010.

Spring 2010 issue: "Gaming-Across-the-Curriculum: Playing as a Way of Learning"

"Good game design," writes James Paul Gee in "Learning and Games," "has a lot to teach us about good learning, and contemporary learning theory has something to teach us about how to design even better and deeper games." The burgeoning field of pedagogical gaming has inspired emergent journals (GameStudies; Games and Culture), new institutions (e.g., the Game Studies Research Center at the IT University of Copenhagen), and interdisciplinary approaches. This issue of /Currents/ features guest editors Jan Holmevik and Cynthia Haynes of Clemson University's Gaming Across the Curriculum (GAC) program, which examines current and potential uses of gaming within the academy. The issue will incorporate games created by students and faculty, best practices of the use of computer games in teaching, articles that theorize play and pedagogy, innovative approaches to cross-disciplinary collaboration using computer games, frameworks of GAC white papers, and so forth.

Currents encourages unconventional and emergent modes of scholarship. The editors solicit articles, games (with instructions and background), GAC curriculum designs, and other scholarly treatments of "gaming-across-the-curriculum." All submissions should adhere to MLA style guidelines for citations and documentation. Submissions should state any technical requirements or limitations. Currents reserves all copyrights to published articles and requires that all of its articles be housed on its Web server. It is the policy of Currents in Electronic Literacy that all published contributions must meet the W3C accessibility standards. While all Currents articles are accessible, readers are advised that these same articles may contain links to other Web sites that do not meet accessibility guidelines. Contact: currents@dwrl.utexas.edu or interrobang@mail.utexas.edu.

Photoshop Disasters

timturner — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:02:19 +0000

Some of you may have seen this story on the Huffington Post about an apology issued by Ralph Lauren for the peculiarly skinny model pictured here:

The image was first noted by Photoshop Disasters, one of my favorite blogs about visual culture (other than Viz., of course). The images collected there are often hilarious and sometimes unintentionally tragic (as this super skinny model indicates). The blog itself is a terrific read, and a hilarious way to pass a few spare minutes. What's great about it, however--in addition to its delightfully relentless snark--is how it invites a deeper engagement with images. In many cases, the tragedy of the poor photoshopping is obvious, in an impossibly thin waist or a terrifyingly elongated neck. In other cases, you have to look harder and closer to locate the details. One of the unintended consequences of living in the age of photoshop may be an increase in visual literacy: spotting the falsifications sometimes requires a keen eye for close-reading.

New Pedagogy Resource: Guide to Teaching Visual Rhetoric

timturner — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:45:31 +0000

A new page has been posted to the Assignments section of Viz., a Guide to Teaching Visual Rhetoric that provides a brief overview of the theory and practice of visual rhetoric and offers some ideas for incorporating instruction in visual rhetoric into composition classrooms, as well as a number of resources. The intoductory guide is designed to complement the sample assignments and theory pages. If you are interested in including visual rhetoric into your classroom but aren't sure how, we hope this page will provide you with a useful resource for getting started.

Visual Rhetoric of Crisis?

timturner — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:36:35 +0000

All good things must come to an end, and so it is with summer; and I know it's the end of summer, because people are sending me urgent messages requesting a description of the course I plan on teaching this fall. What I've come up with so far is a course on "Crisis Rhetoric". One of the primary questions the course will seek to answer is whether there is such a thing as a legitimately, discretely definable "crisis rhetoric." How does the art of persuasion change in situations of crisis, and how can the art of persuasion be used to create a sense of crisis in any given public sphere?

My interest in these questions is related to the work I'm doing for my dissertation, which draws on the work of political theorists--in particular, Giorgio Agamben--who have increasingly pointed to the significance of crisis for our understanding of the formation or disfiguration of the public sphere, of traditional concepts such as the nation-state, and on the definition and meaning of citizenship. These theorists of the "state of exception" (or "state of emergency," depending on which terminology you prefer) have provided a useful framework for understanding many of the most ferocious legal and political debates in the U.S. in the post-9/11 world, including torture, Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, and so on. In a few previous posts on viz., I have addressed these topics as they have come up in different areas of popular culture (see here, here, or here).

This brings me to the topic of this post (such as it is): is there a visual rhetoric of crisis, or a visual rhetoric of emergency? I am asking in earnest, as I gather materials for my course. What do viz. readers have to say about this subject? The question is open-ended, by design: but consider:

how are visual arguments deployed in situations of crisis?
how are visual arguments deployed to create or enhance feelings of crisis?
what visual mode is most suited to crisis?
is there a consistent, identifiable visual vocabulary of crisis?

And so on... I hope to post more thoughts on these questions as I finish thinking through the planning for my course.

10 Things I Could Improve About You

timturner — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:26:42 +0000

Just spotted at del.icio.us, one of today's most popular tagged items: 10 Ways to Look Good in Photos. I'm not sure what's more perplexing: the fact that this was published in Reader's Digest, or No. 5: "As a rule, avoid patterns." But in a world where digital photography is everywhere (even the most basic cell phones come equipped with cameras now, yes?) and when photos of yourself you didn't even know were taken can show up on Facebook in the morning, maybe it is best to be prepared. Always. My favorite is No. 9:

Study photogenic people as well as photos in which you think you looked best. Look at your best angle. You'll probably see that you were laughing or having a good time. Capturing someone when they’re relaxed or most animated usually makes for the best results.

In other words, always remember to follow that most terrible commandment: enjoy yourself! Or at least, try to look like you are.

Fast Food, Remixed

timturner — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:19:16 +0000

Image credit: From Fancy Fast Food
H/T to The Daily Dish

In an earlier blog post on viz., I sent readers to a web site exposing the vast difference between photographs used to market fast food and the reality served in restaurants. Today's entry is a bit different: it points us to a blog, Fancy Fast Food, with pictures of what happens when fast food value meals are transformed into gourmet delights (along with the recipes used to make them). Obviously, these intrepid food stylists are having some fun at the expense of fast food (one recipe recommends organic chives "for garnish, and a touch of irony"). The picture above shows a Napoleon made from a Wendy's "Baconator" value meal (including fries, drink, and ketchup).

The site's guidelines state that submitted photos can't be extensively retouched, so in this case all the visual magic happens in the kitchen rather than Photoshop. At first glance, the blog's effect may be ambiguous, using impressive alchemy to transform food that can often appear unappetizing into something visually pleasing. But perhaps the art here lies in the clever commentary on the concealment process: by their very disguisedness, the images call attention to what is usually hidden--in this case, 2280 calories and 123 grams of fat, not to mention the origins of some of the ingredients. When it comes to fast food, the questions prompted by these dishes--What is it? and Where did it come from?--are not necessarily ones we always want answered.

Review: Food, Inc.

timturner — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:25:02 +0000

This weekend, partly out of personal interest and partly in relation to a project I'm working on for the CWRL, I saw the new documentary Food, Inc. What follows is a brief "review" of the film (in other words, my scattered response to it) and some ideas for incorporating the film in the classroom (I assume it will be released on DVD sometime in the fall). I won't be discussing the visual rhetoric of the film in depth, but will instead focus on the film as the visual presentation of an argument about food.

*****
The opening credits of Food, Inc. present viewers with a tour of the modern American supermarket and the cornucopia of brightly colored packages filling it. The audience is later informed by voiceover narration that this supermarket contains somewhere around 47,000 products. In one of the film's more sardonic moments, we are also informed that an astonishingly high number of these products are made with elements derived from a single ingredient: corn. This arc covered by the film, from the universal supermarket to the particular kernel, establishes its intention of uncovering the origins of the American food supply. Food, Inc. tells the story of industrial agriculture for an audience that, it presumes, is largely unfamiliar with where (or what), exactly, its next meal is coming from.

The film is particularly interested in exposing and documenting the adverse effects of factory farming (in fact, as one of my fellow viewers pointed out, the film was far more interested in meat than in vegetables), and included some gruesome images of the ways chickens, pigs, and cows are raised and slaughtered in this country. (Although there are many disturbing documentary images in the film, in fairness I think it could have been a lot more graphic than it actually was.) Yet these images are somewhat rare since, as the filmmakers argue, industrial meat producers are at pains to keep the means of production hidden from consumers. At one point, the narrators even mention that there is an effort afoot to make it illegal to publish photographs or video of factory-farming operations. This claim is not documented with evidence, but the film does introduce viewers to so-called "food disparagement" laws. These laws are in place in many farm-states, and they limit what food safety advocates can and can't say about food products and producers. I suspect that many viewers will be surprised to learn about the existence of such laws, but they were made famous as the basis of the well-known lawsuit brought against Oprah Winfrey by Texas cattle ranchers.

The film points to these laws above all to demonstrate another of its major arguments: that the food industry, by means of well-organized lobbying groups, wields considerable power over food policy in the United States. One of the film's more amusing animations chronicles the revolving door between industrial agriculture and the USDA, FDA, and Dept. of Agriculture. This portion of the film also includes one of its most powerful emotional appeals, the story of a two year old who died of e. coli food poisoning and his mother's efforts to lobby Congress to enact and enforce stricter regulatory powers for the agencies tasked with keeping the food supply safe.

Food, Inc. includes a number of familiar faces, most notably Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and a co-producer of this film, and Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Pollan, cited in the credits as a "Special Contributor" to the film, adds much here. In fact, Food, Inc. essentially repackages the material of Pollan's books, presenting his arguments for an audience that hasn't, and maybe won't, read them. The structure of the film closely mirrors The Omnivore's Dilemma by presenting industrial agriculture, industrial organic, and local/sustainable organic farming in turns. At the same time, the argument of the film is less cerebral, and more immediate, than Pollan's writing. This stems in part from the fact that visual arguments may carry more weight than textual ones (since reading about acres of filth in factory farms, and seeing footage of mountains of manure, can produce markedly different physical responses in the reader/viewer), and in part from the fact that the film makes a concerted effort to move the audience with emotional appeals not present in Pollan's writing (such as the death of Kevin Kowalcyk from e. coli, or the plight of workers in a pig slaughterhouse).

The strengths of Food, Inc. are related to its weaknesses. The film effectively achieves its primary aim of informing the audience about industrial food practices and promoting an agenda of reforming (or revolutionizing) food production in the United States. It seeks to move its audience by deploying a number of different appeals, including both reason (there are plenty of facts and figures) and emotion. But the latter are not, perhaps by definition and certainly by design, subtle, and the film does promote its cause by linking it to the most helpless of victims (the toddler who dies of food poisoning, the sick cattle who are dragged to slaughter on forklifts). Such imagery may be justified by the urgency and gravity the filmmakers wish to convey, but some in the audience will undoubtedly accuse of the film of what is commonly referred to as "bleeding-heart" liberalism. To this criticism might be added the fact that the film is not balanced; it does not present the viewpoints of industrial agriculture, although not, perhaps, for lack of trying. In what becomes something of a running joke, Food, Inc. repeatedly informs the audience that representatives of X company declined to be interviewed for the film. This refusal of access by the leading industrial agricultural corporations is construed by the film as a conspiracy of secrecy, and at times the corporations are presented as shadowy overlords and de facto rulers of America's farming communities and food culture.

But of course, Food, Inc. does not need to present the views of its opponents; that is not the point of polemical documentaries. What it presents instead, effectively and compellingly, is advocacy for a particular point of view about the world we live in and the food we eat.

*****
Food, Inc. and Pedagogy
Instructors working with Pollan's In Defense of Food will find Food, Inc. a useful film to show to students since it recapitulates many of the arguments found in that book, albeit in a visual form. The film also raises additional, related issues, however, that instructors may wish to pursue in class, or encourage students to pursue in their research projects. These include, among others, the regulatory powers of the FDA and USDA ("Kevin's Law"), immigration and labor in industrial agriculture, and "food disparagement" laws (including the film's claim that factory farmers want to make it illegal to publish images of their farms).

It might also be useful to use the film to raise the introductory questions of visual rhetoric. For example, instructors might devise an exercise in which students consider and debate whether the film makes a more or less effective argument than the book. Does the addition of the visual dimension, including intensified appeals to pathos by means of graphic or emotional images, change the persuasiveness of the argument? What sorts of audiences are more likely to be moved by such images, and what audiences are less likely to be moved by them?

Additionally, the film might raise general questions about the visual rhetoric of arguments about industrial agriculture. I am thinking in particular of the notion of identification as it is introduced in rhetorical pedagogy, and of this film's reliance on images of suffering of animals to move its audiences. Such images are common, for example, in arguments in favor of vegetarianism or veganism or against factory farming in general (even when a change in diet is not advocated). How effective is it to ask audiences to identify with the suffering of animals? How much do such arguments, fairly or not, rely on the so-called "pathetic fallacy"?

Similarly, another pattern of interest is the film's pastoral imagery. The use of such imagery to market and sell processed foods is explicitly noted by the filmmakers--but to what extent do the filmmakers, in turn, rely on a romanticized image of the American farm that is, or is not, attainable today? What role does the topos of the country (or of the city) play in our debates about food and culture, and how does this situate them in relation to the long history of such debates in American politics and culture more generally, from Jefferson's agrarian republic, to Thoreau's Walden, to TV's Green Acres?

White (art)House

timturner — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:07:54 +0000

Image credit: National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., via the WSJ

News that the Obamas have been updating the art displayed in the White House has prompted stories in both old and new media outlets (click through to see a list of sources). Eschewing the more traditional nineteenth-century landscape and portraiture usually typical of White House decor, the Obamas have chosen to highlight colorful, abstract, contemporary works by American artists of diverse backgrounds. (As the original WSJ article on this subject notes, the permanent White House art collection includes over 450 works but only five by African-Americans.) These works include the Ed Rushca painting "I Think I'll" from 1983 (from the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art).

The WSJ article that prompted this discussion mostly notes only the positive political overtones of these new decisions about art in the White House. The Obama's emphasis on diversity in all aspects of government (see this recent report on record diversity in the Obama administration) reflects the acumen of a politician who has consistently been attuned to the growing diversity of the electorate. More generally, the decision to fill the White House with contemporary art (in addition, no doubt, to reflecting the genuine tastes of the first family) is, to my mind, another indication of the famous Obama hipness (even his art choices are defying historical norms).

But it also strikes me that it is exactly on these grounds that the President's political opponents will criticize the choices. Indeed, a survey of some of the comments on the WSJ story actually insist that the preference for diversity is "racist." And for a President who had to fight off charges of elitism in his campaign, the choice of the more cerebral, less familiar images of post-war contemporary art may strike some critics as of a piece with his preference for arugula and dijon mustard. Finally, the indecision expressed in the Ruscha painting may strike some as less-than-presidential.

I don't think these points are especially persuasive, and I think the Obamas deserve credit for making a fairly bold (or at least out of the norm) decision. (As a fan of contemporary art, I also like the paintings they selected.) But when we stop to think that all art is political, and that even a president's mustard preferences can make headlines, I look forward to other analyses of what these choices reveal about the Obama psyche.

Further reads:
Apartment Therapy
WNYC
Time
WSJ

Once again, credit goes to John Jones for suggesting an entry on this story.

Digitial Immersion

timturner — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:19:53 +0000

Image credit: Peter Greenaway, in the NYT

Students of art, art history, and digital media environments will not want to miss this NYT review of an art installation by Peter Greenaway for the Venice Biennale. Greenaway's project centers around--recreates? or remixes?--Veronese's 1562 painting "The Wedding at Cana" (reproduced after the jump). Using a variety of new media techniques, Greenaway re-presents the image, and his interpretation of it, to his audience. The reviewer concludes with an argument about the best possibilities of new media technology to enhance perception:

To a certain extent all the digital manipulation works its own temporary miracles. Even the inane conversation begins to resemble things that might have floated through Veronese's mind as he determined his figures' attire, body language and facial expression. And instead of the usual art-history-lecture spoon-feeding of information, you have the illusion of seeing and thinking for yourself with heightened powers. The next stop should be the Louvre and the real thing.

If any of viz.'s readers are lucky enough to see it for themselves, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Hat tip to new media, and a colleague: first spotted at John Jones's Twitter feed

Image credit: Wikicommons

Digitizing Revolution

timturner — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:33:05 +0000

Image credit: mousavi1388 on Flickr

I wanted to call this post "The Revolution will be Twittered," but Andrew Sullivan (whose coverage of the Iranian protests has been ongoing) beat me to it. But we could also have gone with "The Revolution will be liveblogged, YouTubed, or Flickred." Here in the states, the development of events in Iran has been accompanied by a critique of the (at least initial) lack of coverage on cable news and the widespread reliance on new media technology to cover the events of the protests. In this case, it's hard to ignore the power/potential of these technologies in getting information out of a country that has tried to close its digital borders by shutting down Internet access and intensifying restrictions against foreign media correspondents.

Further, the Iranian regime only seemed to confirm this power when, on the day of the election itself, cellular-, texting-, and social networking-access were all shut down by the state. I've been somewhat skeptical, in the past, about the social and/or democratic potential of social networking technology, but when even the oppressor grants this premise, it becomes difficult to sustain skepticism.

For more on the possible implications of this technology for events in Iran, see this analysis by Haroon Siddique or this one by Marc Ambinder. For more images of the protests, check out tehranlive.org or in mousavi1388's photostream on Flickr.

And in light of these events it is difficult not to think of Tiananmen Square, perhaps because the twentieth anniversary of that abortive uprising just recently passed. Tiananmen has come retrospectively to be symbolized by the iconic photograph of a single individual staring down a row of oncoming tanks. It's difficult not to wonder whether those events might have unfolded differently if they had occurred in our more thoroughly digitized, socially networked age. It's also hard not to see (or at the very least fervently hope for) the truly revolutionary power of these tools for democratic reform.

In a small coincidence, June 12, the date of the elections in Iran, also happened to be the day of the official transition to digital television transmissions in the U. S. We've obviously been living in the digital era much longer than a few days, but the end of analog television (the definitive technology of the twentieth century, I guess, along with the atom bomb), marks something like a watershed moment in the history of mass media technology (and thus public culture in general). But the deluge of information pouring out of Iran almost certainly marks a digital revolution of another sort, and in many senses.

Gays in Advertising

timturner — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:04:16 +0000

Hat tip to Seth Stevenson at slate.com's "Ad Report Card" for first calling my attention to this ad; I haven't actually seen it on TV:

Stevenson wonders (with others) if the ad depicts a gay couple; Progressive says it wasn't intended to, but when people started to ask questions, Stevenson notes, they began running the ad on LOGO, the cable channel aimed at LGBTQ audiences. My thoughts after the jump.

This discussion made me think about the kinds of cues that "count" as gay in visual analysis. Here, the evidence includes what may be a rainbow on the shorter guy's t-shirt (mostly obscured by his jacket) and the gaydar bells set off for some viewers by the taller guy. (Stevenson dissects all the possible evidence).

Having taught classes on gender and sexuality in the past, it occurred to me that this ad (or other gay or ambiguously gay ads) might be an interesting way to open up classroom discussions about stereotyping on the one hand and the performative elements of gender and sexuality on the other hand. This discussion, with some finesse, could include either a discussion of portrayals of LGBTQ people in media or the ways audience response to such portrayals is conditioned by the assumptions about sexuality or gender that each viewer brings to the ad. That is, rather than just focusing on whether the ad itself is gay, the instructor might be able to turn the tables and ask how the ad itself constructs the viewer/student. For example, what is it about the taller guy that suggests homosexuality to some viewers? Eliciting student responses to this question could perhaps lead to some useful deconstruction of gender/sexuality norms. I'm not suggesting that the ad is guilty of stereotyping, or that any discussion of whether the guys are gay is stereotyping, either. I'm more interested in the ways discussion of the ad might open up a conversation about why some things count as stereotyping when others don't, or why some viewers will see "gay" when others won't. Context could also be key to this discussion; for example, does the "obvious" meaning of the ad change for a viewer who sees the ad on Logo vs. a viewer who sees the ad run during the Super Bowl? (Please forgive me for engaging in a little straight stereotyping myself.) And how are all these questions, or the responses they elicit, perceptibly or imperceptibly charged with the value judgments that attach to our notions of gender and sexuality?

The ad could also lead to some discussion about close reading, visual rhetoric, and "secret coding." That is, first it could be pointed out that it does take a fairly careful viewing to notice the ad's supposed "gay" aspects. But secondly, some audience members might miss the cues even on careful viewing--for example, anyone who doesn't know that the rainbow (barely visible here, after all) is sometimes used as a symbol for the LGBTQ community.

Instructors interested in this stuff may want to check out other gay ads archived at the Commercial Closet, and check out this assignment (link opens .pdf) on gender roles in advertising. After I read this, however, I immediately thought of another, classic ambiguously gay duo, the Da Da Da Volkswagen guys:

Torture and Legos

timturner — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:19:45 +0000

Image credit: legofesto via Boing Boing

John Jones sent along a link to this image, from the work of a photographer who documents events in the "war on terror" with Lego dioramas. (I have an earlier post on viz. on a somewhat similar subject, an artist who used Legos to create depictions of the Holocaust.)

I'm ultimately not quite sure what to make of the sculptures. On the one hand, the childlike qualities evoked by Lego bricks provide an unsettling contrast with the events depicted, and the potential alienation of subject from matter that consequently arises may be effective in spurring reflection on the questions raised by the use of torture. In particular, the modular nature of Lego blocks (mass produced so that any two random blocks will fit together) may be emblematic of the programmatic nature of the torture regime instituted by the U.S. Although it is tempting to write off torture as an aberration, an exceptional situation that can be explained away by reference, for example, to human evil or to the actions of only an unauthorized few, in fact, as the recently released torture memos show, torture was an organized and systemic practice. It emerged from specifically defined contexts and practices and was authorized through familiar bureaucratic channels: it was, in fact, given the stamp of legality and legitimacy by officials in the Bush administration. The components were already in place; all that was lacking was a willingness on the part of those in charge to (forgive the facility of the analogy) put the pieces in place. What is most shocking about the torture regime was not its aberrational nature but the ease with which it emerged in its context.

On the other hand, the alienating effects of the project may, for some, remain problematic, as if treating such serious subjects with such childlike objects--toys--trivializes serious and systemic human rights abuses. I have a little more on that line of argument in my earlier post.

Bibliography Updated

timturner — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:31:03 +0000

As part of our continuing effort to update and improve viz. content, the Bibliography page has now been updated. As always, readers are encouraged to contact the editors with suggestions.

Assignments Section Updated

timturner — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:58:33 +0000

Thanks to the hard work and creativity of instructors in the Computer Writing and Research Lab here at UT, we at viz. have been able to expand and update the assignments section of our site with a number of new classroom activities oriented around visual rhetoric and culture. If you are looking for new ways to include multimedia, visual, and digital environments in the classroom, or for ways to encourage students to produce multimedia projects of their own, please take a look at the new offerings. First-timers and veterans alike will find a number of great projects.

In the coming weeks, we hope to add a few more assignments to the pages, and to that end, we encourage assignment submissions by viz. readers. Have a successful assignment or classroom activity on visual rhetoric and culture that you'd like to share with the world? Please use the contact page to get in touch with our editors. Pending review, your assignment would be posted, with attribution, for other viz. readers to adopt and adapt for their own classes.

We would also be interested in hearing about successful tweaks to existing viz. assignments, many of which are designed as templates for implementation in more specific classroom contexts. For example, our friends over at www.auburnmedia.com found a way to tweak the Comparison and Rhetorical Analysis assignment by pairing it with a video about the developing world called "The Other Side of the Coin is Rusting."

Apocalypse Infographed

timturner — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:26:24 +0000

Just spotted a link to this at Andrew Sullivan's blog (h/t): check out the wonderful compilation of explanations of the current financial crisis by graphic designers at FlowingData. Image credit: cypher13 via flowingdata.com

FlowingData is a site that "explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better - mainly through data visualization. Money spent, reps at the gym, time you waste, and personal information you enter online are all forms of data. How can we understand these data flows? Data visualization lets non-experts make sense of it all." To my knowledge, the site hasn't been linked on viz. before--but I think it's something our readers would really like (but then, they probably already know about it).

Shakespeare Portrait Unveiled

timturner — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:48:06 +0000

There is a lot of noise in the press today about the unveiling of a portrait that is now believed to be of William Shakespeare (see here, here, here, here, or here). The painting is believed to be the original source for the only two surviving likenesses of Shakespeare from his era, both of which were produced in the decade after his death. This painting, inherited by the descendants of the playwright's patron, is believed to have been painted in Shakespeare's lifetime.
Image credit: AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis

There is no definitive proof to show that the painting is unquestionably of Shakespeare. The evidence includes its association with the family of Shakespeare's patron, its supposed resemblance to existing portraits, and the results of "scientific testing" and the nebulous testimony of "experts" who are quoted as being "90% certain" that this is a portrait of Shakespeare. The articles also rely heavily on the ethos of Stanley Wells, noted Shakespearean scholar and chair of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. (But as one of the commentators on the NYT blog entry notes, Wells is responsible for the inclusion of Edward III in the Oxford Shakespeare, a decision that has been met with considerable skepticism among Shakespeare scholars.)

I wouldn't exactly say that I'm skeptical of the claim that this is a portrait of Shakespeare. But I am interested in the extent to which the reception of the portrait is shaped by everyone's apparent desire for this to be a portrait of Shakespeare. In the absence of definitive proof either way, everyone seems to have decided that it's simply more exciting to assume that it is than to be circumspect about whether it could be. Further, it's interesting to consider how the particular details of this story brings to life many of the fantasies of Shakespeare biography and criticism. The longstanding desire to discover Shakespeare's "lost" works--an event that would establish the critic as a celebrity of some standing among Shakespeareans--is often imagined as peeling an old playtext off the back of an abandoned painting in a dusty antique shop. In this case, life imitates art (or fantasy).

UPDATE: Today there is a wonderful little item on the painting in the NYT, with the following question:

We somehow want the young Shakespeare to look like Joseph Fiennes, fiery and slashing. But what if he looked like Ricky Gervais? Would the plays mean less to us?

Crowd Sourcing for Context

timturner — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:11:28 +0000

First spotted at boingboing, the Lane Medical Archive at Stanford University has posted some mystery photos to Flickr hoping someone out there might be able to provide some context. Although I love the idea of harnessing the power of the Internet to enrich the context of the archive, they may not get what they were looking for: one of the first commenters reaches for snark, the official language of the web:

I may be a layman but it appears these people are examining X-Rays of a patient's abdomen. If this information was helpful I may be able to speculate further as to the color of their lab coats and the genders of the people shown.

Image credit: boingboing via Flickr via Lane Medical Archive, Stanford University (copyright holder)

Promotion: CWRL on Vimeo

timturner — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:35:25 +0000

Hardworking Assistant Directors in the CWRL have posted videos of this year's lecture and workshop series to Vimeo.com, including this presentation on using Google Maps in the classroom. You can subscribe to the "CWRL Lecture Series" channel and the "CWRL Workshops" channel to see future updates.

Using Google Maps as a Writing Tool from CWRL on Vimeo

The Magic of Photography (and Photoshop)

timturner — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:12:01 +0000

Image credit: http://www.thewvsr.com/adsvsreality.htm

A friend sent along a link to this story at urlesque.com touting a web site with side-by-side comparisons of the official photographs of fast food menu items alongside their rather depressing real-world counterparts. The Platonic Ideal has never seemed so far away.... Meet the *real* Egg McMuffin, after the jump.

Image credit: http://www.thewvsr.com/adsvsreality.htm

Looks like the real world version doesn't come with a halo.

Written on the Body

timturner — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:34:53 +0000

Image credit: FeelUnique.com via NYT

Well, after today I will absolutely stop poaching all my Viz. entries from the The New York Times, but their home page is currently trumpeting a story on "The Body as Billboard" that I imagine any reader of this blog would be interested in.

Fallen Soldiers

timturner — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:52:02 +0000

At his first televised press conference last week, President Obama received a question about a controversy that, though once debated quite energetically, had seemed for a time to recede into the background as the casualty rate for U.S. soldiers has fallen. The questioner wanted to know whether the new administration would order the Pentagon to reverse its policy of forbidding the publication of photographs showing the return of fallen soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (President Obama responded by not commenting, since the policy is currently "under review.")Image credit: thememoryhole.org, via Associated Press, NYT, 2/15/2009

The question, and the issue, were covered yesterday by The New York Times in a story and an editorial urging the President to overturn the policy. As the author of the former summarizes the issue, "Part of the debate that has developed turns on whether the return of soldiers is a private or public matter. While families have registered a range of opinions about allowing the news media at Dover, many have maintained that the return of a body is so deeply personal that they should be able to decide whether to keep it private." Above and beyond the questions raised by the difficult question of how to treat the images of what is essentially both a public and a private sacrifice (a soldier dying for his or her country is also lost to his or her family), the debate itself is simply a reminder of the power of images to move arguments.

For your Valentine Viewing Pleasure

timturner — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:09:34 +0000

(Disclaimer: there is some blood and guts in this video.)

Slate V has posted a video celebrating the collision of the lovey-dovey Valentine holiday with the seemingly incongruous tradition of releasing gory movies with Valentine's day themes. The video was inspired by the upcoming release of the remake of Friday the 13th--on, appropriately, the upcoming Friday the 13th, the day before Valentine's Day. Surely the collision of these two elements says something deep about our culture? Maybe love really *is* the devil. Or is it just that machete-wielding maniacs are as good an excuse as any to get a little close to that special someone? Surely this is a very old idea: while I was writing this I thought of the motto engraved on the Wife of Bath's amulet in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: AMOR VINCIT OMNIA [Love conquers all]: an ominous pronouncement then and now...

Seeking viz. Contributors

timturner — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:05:45 +0000

Are you a regular reader of viz. who would like to contribute your own content to the site? Vis. is currently seeking contributor/bloggers with an interest in visual rhetoric and culture, pedagogy, information and/or graphic design, the visual arts, or other subjects relevant to viz.

If you are interested in contributing blog entries or other content, including articles on theory, reviews, or assignments, please check out our contact page to get in touch with our editors.

The New whitehouse.gov

timturner — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:22:42 +0000

By now this is slightly old news, but in keeping with the previous post on Presidential photography, and because I thought it merited a mention here, I hope everyone has had a chance to check out the newly redesigned whitehouse.gov website:

Since President Obama's campaign had a reputation for design and branding savvy (much discussed on viz.), it's worth noting that the new website is similarly stylish and sleek: not surprising for a man hailed by some as the first "Digital President." Notably, the site retains layout and design elements similar to barackobama.com. Although so far there is no "Contribute Now" button, there is a form at the top of the home page where you can sign up for email updates. The main banner includes rotating photographs and "news" updates. There is also a new feature for the White House web site: a blog. In addition to all this, there is a fairly extensive "Agenda" page, much of the content of which seems to come straight from the "Issues" page of the campaign website.

All of this is in keeping with the usual hybrid function of the White House website to serve as campaign tool (never to early to start thinking about 2012), information portal, and cog in the message machine. But this design in particular seems to aim at a couple of President Obama's stated ambitions: to get people more involved in government and to open the workings of the executive branch to more transparency. It's interesting to think about how (and whether) this redesigned website helps achieve these aims. If I were teaching in rhetoric this semester, I would certainly consider designing an assignment around these questions.

Satire?

timturner — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:07:56 +0000

The recent New Yorker cover depicting Barack and Michelle Obama in radical drag, as it were, hasn't been discussed here on viz. It deserves a mention, since the nature and definition of satire has been discussed on the site before.

In my opinion, it fails utterly as satire. First of all, anytime anything requires extensive explanation AS SATIRE, it probably isn't the most adept or polished attempt. This week's New York Times "Week in Review" piece, written by Lee Siegel, agrees. In it, Siegel concludes that "By presenting a mad or contemptible partisan sentiment as a mainstream one, by accurately reproducing it and by neglecting to position the target of a slur — the Obamas — in relation to the producers of the slur, The New Yorker seems to have unwittingly reiterated the misconception it meant to lampoon."

I agree, and not because I think the Obamas are off-limits as targets for satire, or that they themselves think they are off-limits (a conclusion I've heard on cable news from some on the "lunatic fringe" Siegel mentions). To me, the so-called satire of the piece fails because, rather than seeming to satirize the intellectual laziness, the total divorce from reality, required to hold the views depicted here, it seems to satirize the Obamas themselves for producing those views, instead of those who maintain and perpetuate them. The message is confused, the execution, confusing. Grade: F.

Framing and defaming

timturner — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:48:50 +0000

Last night while watching Barack Obama give his speech after the Pennsylvania primary, I got all excited about posting something on viz. for general amusement. But then when I read some other blogs, I realized I was not the only person to see what I saw. I forgot that in this Golden Age of the Internets, Original Ideas do not stay that way for long. But behold, anyway:Notice the three dudes in Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirts right behind the Senator. Supposedly the campaigns choose the people in those seats pretty carefully; one has to wonder, if in fact that's true, what was going through the head of the person who made this decision. Not that there's anything wrong with Abercrombie (well, Jezebel says it's "the epitome of everything about the America that is not 'ready' for" a President Obama), but still, it seems like a weird choice, no?

Worst Ad Ever?

timturner — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:30:54 +0000

By reproducing it, I'm probably playing right into the hands of the creator of this image, but, I thought it deserved to be commented on here:

The copy reads, "Terrorism-related deaths since 2001: 11,337 • Tobacco-related deaths since 2001: 30,000,000."

First spotted at Andrew Sullivan, but it's also up at Wonkette and Gawker, where one commenter wrote, "Ugh. That's offensive enough to almost make me want to take up smoking."

It's tied to an organization called "Action on Smoking and Health," which has posted a page about the ad on their web site (and has invited the public to respond). While the page states that the ad campaign has only been circulated in draft, it also notes that "The controversy is not so much over the numbers, but rather over whether the analogy is a fair and meaningful one, and whether it is appropriate to compare deaths caused by terrorists (either on 9/11 or more generally) with deaths caused by smoking."

Indeed. What say you, .viz?

It's probably also worth noting (as others have, and as ASH acknolwedges) that the concept is not original: