The addition of production to definitions of literacy is always a
good move
in my view, Jay. Reading is not equivalent to writing. In the case
of visual
literacy and museum art, it seems like what is being referred to is
the
reading half. At least i hope so. I managed a D+ in my one
obligatory art
producing class in college (a work later exhibited, by some really odd
error, in a show of student art which makes one wonder at the
judgments
involved on either side of the
process!). I am a hopeless plastic arts producer. But not entirely
illiterate as a reader, finder of meanings.
There is, a few blocks from you apartment, a show at the SD Museum of
Contemporary Art by Tera Donavan. I think you will find it as
fascinating as
I did. I plan to take the family during their visit. Donovan take
everyday
objects (tar paper, straws, cups, and more) and creates
installations with
thousand of only one object aggregated in the most fantastic ways. She
states her goal as wanting to explore the properties of objects
seens as
parts of very large populations rather than as individual objects. The
effects she achieves are mind boggling with the play of light and
texture
over surface sufficient to reorder our perceptions in ways we could
never
anticipate.Again, art as tertiary artifact, re-admired.
Since you have written more on time scales, I'll stay away from the
topic in
general; we have agreed too often here to warrant repitition.
But quite specifically, our work in creating the "Fifth Dimension"
was to be
able to study changes in a pre-pared system of activity over a long
time
period (from inception to death) at several scales of time. The idea
was
part of our interest in the failure of "successful" educational
innovations
to be sustained-- how did they die and why and how did their
implementers
enter in to and respond to the process. Still wrestling with
analysis-- lots
of 5thD's were born and died but others keep being born. Some are,
today,
strikingly like their originals in the 1980's, others have morphed
so that
only a few features remain. The children participants, who are almost
impossible to track over time are now adults -- i sometime encounter
one at
ucsd. The college participants are parents I sometimes hear from. All
recorded in their fieldnotes written at the time. I have some money
salted
away so that "when it dies" (or if i can manage to retire before
doing so
myself) I will have the full range of instances documented and a lot
of the
data in digital form,
so that I can look at that object from both ends of its history. A
preliminary report is in the book, *The Fifth Dimension*.
As to LCHC, that is another matter. It seems to me a certainty that
it will
die. It had a near-death experience a couple of years ago. As a way
of at
least marking its passing, a number of former and current members of
the lab
are in the process of creating a book that traces its origins and
the many
offspring it has generated. THAT collective narrative I hope to live
long
enough to see come into being.
Now if Yuan or anyone would like to see LCHC live, proposals for how
to
arrange that would of course be seriously entertained, and perhaps
maybe
even entertaining! I thought I saw a nibble at collaboration on
making XMCA
a more powerful medium the other day, but it turned out to be a
mirage. So
for now, we keep on keeping on.
mike
On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu>
wrote:
Thanks for the link, Mike. Was nice to see someone in the mass media,
affiliated with a newspaper no less, arguing for critical visual
literacy to
protect us from advertising!
Of course that is an old idea in visual education circles, and it
can build
on the widespread folk-skepticism toward advertising. Unfortunately
the more
pernicious effects in ads are probably at subtler levels than what
basic
visual literacy skills can foreground.
"The ability to find meaning in images" is the definition of visual
literacy used. That seems a little too basic. I think everyone
finds meaning
in images, with or without any literacy education. Maybe there is
an implied
emphasis on FIND, in the sense of digging below the surface/
obvious, which
would be better. But more recent ideas in the field put more
emphasis on
visual production relative to interpretation, so I'd probably go
with a
definition more like "the skills of making meaning with visual
resources,
for your own purposes", and include in that the meaning-making we
do with
others' images by way of interpretation, critique, etc.
Have you ever noticed that when anyone, docent, tourguide, or just
me,
speaks authoritatively about a painting in a museum, that many
bystanders
seem to become interested in listening? People generally seem to
believe
that art images, at least, require some professional interpretation
or
benefit from having specialist knowledge (esp. historical). People
also seem
to enjoy visual interpretation more than textual. Textual
interpretation is
seen as superfluous, even obstructing to enjoyment of the work. No
one
really reads literary criticism, or book reviews beyond the "it's
good"
part. But people are fascinated by the exegesis of visual works.
The is one
basis for the popularity of the DaVinci Code and similar popular
works.
And there is not a word about visual interpretation skills in our
standard
curricula (meaning as practiced in schools, there are some nods in
the
official standards).
JAY.
Jay Lemke
Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
Educational Studies
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
www.umich.edu/~jaylemke <http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke>
Visiting Scholar
Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
University of California -- San Diego
La Jolla, CA
USA 92093