Re: [xmca] Fwd: Visual literacy? Surf an art museum - Lifestyle - SignOnSanDiego.com

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Fuller references, Emily? It would be helpful.

In general, in discussing this topic, I find it helpful to keep in mind
three inter-twined conceptions of literacy in discussion of it that lead to
confusion:
1. the quality or state of being literate, esp. the ability to read and
write.  2. possession of education: to question someone's literacy.  3. a
person's knowledge of a particular subject or field: to acquire computer
literacy.

To me what is significant is the (perhaps necessary, see Larry's remarks)
conflation of being able to mediate action/interpretation through a code
like kanji and knowledge about some topic.

Forgetting this issue leads to people speaking past each other with respect
to, e.g. computer literacy.
mike


On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Duvall, Emily <emily@uidaho.edu> wrote:

> One of the more interesting experiences I have had is when I was
> preparing to teach a course on Visual/ Critical Literacy: Using Picture
> Books, Comics, Graphic Novels, Anime, and Film in the Classroom. I sat
> down with vol 1 of Bone and began to read. I ignored the pictures and
> read the text. Zipping along, I realized (a) I didn't know what was
> going on, and (b) I was bored. I went back and spent time with the
> entire text and am now thoroughly addicted. It really depends on the way
> the pictures are used... in tandem, as conjoined text; as the front
> runner (as in children's writing where the pictures are the important
> aspect a story); or an add-in (as in children's later writing when
> pictures illustrate, but don't really tell us much... they fill up time
> in a classroom... "go back and illustrate"). Some texts, like The
> Invention of Hugo Cabret, weave words and pictures and you need to read
> them both.
> I highly recommend Molly Bang's theoretical work (sorry if I am
> repeating anything already said, I'm jumping in)to really dig deeply
> into the pictures; her children's books are interesting as well. Anthony
> Browne has some pretty amazing children's books...they are edgy and
> post-modern at times.
>
> Meanwhile I have a doc student who is working on financial literacy...
> there are some fundamental elements of a literacy that ring across
> domains it seems... like discourse, eh?
> ~em
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On Behalf Of mike cole
> Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 5:05 PM
> To: Jenna McWilliams
> Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Fwd: Visual literacy? Surf an art museum - Lifestyle
> - SignOnSanDiego.com
>
> No doubt, Jenna.  And forms like Youtube allow for users to be producers
> in
> a big way. But I see no need to knock museums and
> the pleasures of "reading" paintings that have endured over a long time!
> (The cost can be pretty steep these days though).
>
> The "learning to see" theme runs through a lot of CHAT-related work, and
> seems an endless source of insights.
>
> One way I find that i can learn a lot about paintings is by doing
> jig-saw
> puzzles. Jackson Pollock seemed a total fraud to me until i had, with
> lots
> of friendly gossipy help, done a quite complex puzzle of one of his big
> canvases. Now jig-saw puzzles require their own
> form of visual literacy, but what was amazing (a Klimpt also provided a
> similar experience) was that I actually began to see nuances in the
> paintings that i had simply never seen before. And once seen, the
> ability to
> see more deeply, at least for the given painting (after all
> generalization
> of the skill is a huge undertaking!)
> it sticks with you along with the belief of the possibility that, say,
> a Russian 18th century icon may contain the potential for visual
> experiences
> that my naive eye, loving the combination of colors and shapes, could
> not
> see.
>
> I hear what you are saying that I am seeing.
> :-)
> mike
>
> PS. Have you met Etienne Pelaprat, a great grad student here at
> UCSD, formerly in cogsci but completing degree in Comm, who has moved to
> your fair city? If not, you should. He is rumored to be the sometime
> savior
> of xmca through his technical skills.
>
> On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 4:25 PM, Jenna McWilliams
> <jenmcwil@umail.iu.edu>wrote:
>
> > Mike, you write:
> > "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."
> >
> > It's fair enough to argue that reading and writing are not equivalent
> forms
> > of literacy. But in this crazy multimodal culture of ours, where
> reading and
> > writing both require adeptness with design proficiencies (remember
> that even
> > the text we read on the screen is a digital product--the 'translation'
> of
> > code into a specifically designed visual format that we can
> interpret), what
> > we call "visual literacy" is increasingly an essential component of
> BOTH
> > reading and writing. Visual literacy goes far beyond what we learned
> in art
> > class--the color wheel and all that.
> >
> > In fact, it seems a little strange to link visual literacy to
> museumgoing.
> > I bombed art class right along with the best of them, and success in
> art
> > class still wouldn't have prepared me to engage in the sorts of
> > communications platforms that have become the most significant message
> > delivery systems. Indeed, design and visual literacy (or whatever you
> want
> > to call them) skills are so embedded in communication platforms that I
> find
> > myself making design decisions without a thought (as when I
> re-formatted the
> > chunk I quoted from the previous email in this thread, because when I
> pasted
> > it in the line breaks got all funky--distracting for the reader!). I
> don't
> > know if the fact that visual literacy (or whatever you want to call
> it) is
> > embedded within reading and writing literacy practices strengthens or
> weaken
> > the case for calling it a form of literacy; I only know that it's both
> > important and different enough from reading and writing skills to
> deserve
> > its own label, if only so we know how to talk about it.
> >
> > visually,
> > jenna
> >
> >
> > ~~
> >
> > Jenna McWilliams
> > Learning Sciences Program, Indiana University
> > ~
> > http://jennamcwilliams.blogspot.com
> > http://remediatingassessment.blogspot.com
> > ~
> > jenmcwil@indiana.edu
> > jennamcjenna@gmail.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Dec 21, 2009, at 7:06 PM, mike cole wrote:
> >
> >  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> <
> http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke> <
> >>> http://www.umich.edu/%7Ejaylemke>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Visiting Scholar
> >>> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
> >>> University of California -- San Diego
> >>> La Jolla, CA
> >>> USA 92093
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >
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