viz.

 "Revolutionary" By Wadsworth Jarrell Via Howard University

What does 1960s black nationalist art say to us today?  TVLand's recent documentary on the Chicago-based Afri-COBRA movement suggests a few major takeaways.  One is that images created for a community--by a community--inspire revolution. But I'd like to draw out a second theme voiced by former Afri-COBRA members who argue in a variety of ways that change starts with mind, and not the body.

Toomer's Corner-41 by tuxthepenguin84

H/T Greg Rives

When I heard about the Alabama fan who dumped massive amounts of herbicide on oak trees at Auburn University, I was struck with the thought of this being a very unusual iconoclasm.  Iconoclasm means the breaking of an image, and historically it referred to the breaking of a religious image.  Now, the term is used more generally to refer to an attack on any sort of icon.  The attack on the Toomey's Corner oaks, however, is a strange iconoclasm in a few ways.  One is that the trees, although they most likely will die, will take several years to do so.  The image will fall apart dreadfully, little by little, over time, as the roots absorb the herbicide.  The other strange aspect is that the trees are biologically alive, parts of the 'natural' environment of the campus, unlike a statue or some other university totem.  This takes the vandalism to a new level.

Don't miss the premiere tonight of When I Rise from Independent Lens (PBS).  The documentary narrates the experiences of Barbara Smith Conrad, African-American opera singer and alumna of UT-Austin.  Produced by the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the movie documents the bigotry and discrimination Conrad faced while a music student at the University of Texas in the 1950s.  The film is featured Feb. 8 (tonight) at 9 p.m., Feb. 10 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 13 at 3 p.m. CST. For UT's coverage of the story, read here, "The Story of a Voice."

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 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. 

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.

"Hey Cafe Magazine St. Uptown NOLA Jan. 2010" by Infrogmation

Via Flickr

This weekend, I visited a friend in New Orleans.  On Sunday, we sat in plastic chairs outside a coffee shop along Magazine Street, with my friend sipping a Diet Dr. Pepper (her addiction) and me indulging a tall glass of latte (my addiction). Let's not mention the almond-butter infused croissant.  As my host surveyed the Times Picayune, I took in the people passing and the variety of businesses and signs.  George Harrison "My Sweet Lord" was echoing from a restaurant across the way, and the morning air was mildly warm and a little smelly. We chatted with some NOLA locals sitting at the table nearby:  a mother and toddler, who was dressed adorably in an orange jack-o-lantern hoodie.  We talked about the Saints game (the toddler could cheer "Who Dat") and about Halloween festivities the coming evening.  When the toddler threw down the plastic lid from his chocolate milk, his mother coached him to one of the over-flowing trash cans on the sidewalk. 

The latest Currents CFP says that "Currents invites—along with traditional academic submissions—audio essays, podcasts, oral histories, interviews, and other audio recorded genres, as well as webpages, videos, animations, slide presentations, etc.,that address sound-related issues." What does it mean to have a piece that theoretically and practically advances ideas about sound, retaining a focus on the auditory sense, while incorporating video or imagery? Some pieces to inspire you follow after the break. The deadline for the CFP is January 10, 2011.

Image Credit: Jason Dockter 'Going Multi-Modal'

Click play, and you're smack in the middle of composing, as Jason Dockter, PhD student at Utah State University, creates a digital ethnography of skateboarding sub-culture. His website Going Multi-Modal documents, as Dockter writes, "the process that I went through creating multimodal composition similar to what I might ask students in my first-year composition course to create in a future semester." You can watch the digital iMovie take shape from the beginning, through several...different...stages of production, and through to the end. (The example piece is embedded after the break.)

Image Credit: Noel Radley, "Butterfly Flash Movie"

H / T to Scott Nelson

I wrote yesterday about the DWRL Flash workshop, which was great!  I wanted to post my results for your enjoyment.