VisualLiteracyMichèle

= Visual Literacy is ... =



OR it could be...



OR also ﻿

Or it could even be...
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What do you think visual literacy, or literate visualcy, could be?
= Definition: = ﻿ 

Visual literacy has been variously described in James Elkins' //Visual Literacy,// a collection of essays by a variety of researchers//.// In his introduction, art historian Elkins describes visual literacy (or visual studies as some of the contributors call it) today as perhaps less diverse than he would like it to be. He sees the field as frequently mired in Western art history and a critique of society, including the discipline of aesthetics. Painting, sculpture, architecture, drawing and graphic design represent some of the more traditional media which would be the texts of visual literacy.

By contrast, he would like to see a curriculum at the university undergrad level which includes visual texts being used exclusively, in effect a completely visual curriculum. Further, he urges us to consider including a much broader range of imagery in our definition, including imagery from the sciences & medicine, such as MRI scans. Finally, he argues for a global perspective and for the discussion of imagery from non-Western cultures (Elkins, 2008).

The rest of the book is a collection of essays ranging from art historical to a report of a clinical medical experiment, all touching upon Elkins' concerns in some way, while further refining our view of the breadth of the field of visual studies. This includes the idea that competency in 'reading' visual images is an active process. It involves critical analysis of the visual texts which are its subjects. There is a dialogue between systems of meaning and the value judgments made about the reason for and the worth of the meanings found. 'Readers' need to understand how the text is constructed in order to communicate. This is not limited to shape, line, form and so forth. Visual literacy may address the ways codes of communication are used and the way readers work through these to find meaning in the texts, and this meaning must have a purpose and a context. The reader of visual texts brings his own social and cultural ideas to a visual text. He is, in effect, reading a culture(s), not just a given visual text.

In addition, visual literacy includes understanding the act of communication as well as its techniques. There are examples here of this occurring in a medical clinic, a courtroom, and a classroom setting.

Visual literacy isn't a lonely pursuit; it's part of a set of social acts. In order to find meaning in a visual text, we 'negotiate' with it and address it on many different levels. In so doing, we learn how the negotiation is also formed. This may occur to the point where the way of finding meaning is ultimately as fascinating as the meaning derived.

Our brains actively intervene in the act of seeing, moderating the information we receive. We do not passively receive an imprint of what is in our field of vision. Our response to the world depends on how we wish to see the world and on what we see there.

Finding meaning in visual texts also involves social and ethical processes. In this way, universities & schools can offer ways for students to seek meaning in these texts across disciplines. By looking at how visual texts are produced and consumed, we can learn how modern society works.

Visual literacy is important for the student, but also for the educator who helps students see the importance of the meaning-making in which the student is involved. There are a multiplicity of ways to become visually literate, rather than a single correct way to create visual texts or to interpret them.

In one chapter, the imagery produced by patients is shown to have the potential to completely alter the nature of clinical medical practice. Having patients create their own images while under a doctor's care for a serious illness offers them an active relationship with medical imagery and likewise more control over and engagement with their care.

Imagery can also be deliberately misused, as in the chapter which discusses recent court cases in the US. Here images taken from television and film, as well as diagrams, were knowingly used to misrepresent the facts of the respective cases and to sway the juries.

Finally, there is much concern over the state of universities (& schools) in today's economic climate. How much can the institution(s) change and adopt new methods that may call into question departments and courses under the status quo? To what degree does globalized commerce determine the purpose of visual literacy in our schools and our universities? Ideally, students, educators and educational institutions who use and produce meaning in visual texts can achieve social gains on a global scale. What higher goal can educators have?

Associations:

In order to stimulate students' direct responses to imagery, give each student a reproduction of an abstract painting or sculpture, a pot sherd, a computer-generated scan or a Photoshopped collage of indeterminate imagery. Avoid any notations of an artist's name, date or medium. Students individually brainstorm associations with the image in terms of colours, shapes, textures, mood, subject/topic/place/character, a culture, a time period. They can make notes or a mind map on a handout. Students do a Think-Pair-Share about what they "found" in their piece. They repeat by sharing with another pair of students. This can be followed up by a writing exercise such as an in-character narrative or memoir that relates to their findings and the visual text.

Visuals all over the library:

We resolved this year to reduce the textual "noise" in our library and to add a hint of consistency to the format of our expectations and our collection. I created a whole series of signage to orient kids to the space. Concrete & colourful images are now prominently displayed throughout the room to keep kids on track about such things as avoiding food as well as locating Shakespeare or geography texts. None of these signs contains any words. Could this be a first pass at Elkins' purely visual curriculum?

"Showing Seeing":

This activity is adapted from Elkins' own description. Students are to demonstrate the visual process in a concrete way, for example as anthropologists/archaeologists who are researching the objects they find. Students receive an object, for example an IPod, cell, motherboard or fast food container. They must then examine it carefully & describe it to the class (or a partner, to start) as if it were an artefact from a different culture and time period (eg an IPod, but the researchers are from 500 years in future). The students' visual skills are stretched as they explain, step-by-step, what they are observing as they investigate the object minutely. They are also making meaning of their observations as they draw conclusions about the purpose and culture of their visual text.

Resources:
Elkins, J. (Ed.) (2008) //Visual Literacy.// New York: Routledge.

This is the text I read for this Module & that I have referred to in the Definition section above.

Elkins, J. (2003) //Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction.// New York: Routledge.

Since __Visual Literacy__ proceeds from a conference and is a collection of essays written by a host of contributors, I'm anxious to read Elkins' earlier volume where he himself expands on what he merely outlines in the introduction to //Visual Literacy.// Specifically he gives an overview of the field and the major theorists, while also identifying major current gaps. These include a paucity of references to scientific images and non-Western imagery. There is also a fascinating chapter on "Ten ways to make visual studies more difficult". The book is aimed at post-secondary educators, so is not for the faint of heart.

Buzan, T. (2005) //The Ultimate Book of Mind Maps.// Toronto: Harper Collins.

While mind maps are not a new concept, they seem a propos to the topic of visual literacy. They are a useful interdisciplinary approach I use myself and have used with students. With colour, directionality, imagery & text, anyone can use mind maps to problem-solve, plan, make notes, revise, memorize, or review any topic. By accessing what Barbara Stafford refers to as our autonomic brain's imagery, the data will be more easily internalized and understood by the brain (Elkins, 2008).

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This is the link to the portal page for the International Visual Literacy Association. While there is more on this site, the portal page contains links to a wide variety of resources ranging from neurological research projects to image banks, curricula for visual literacy at a number of universities to the city of Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program. There is something for the researcher, the educator as well as for our students here.

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This is the link to a blog by the //Journal of Visual Culture//. There are numerous posts with awesome connections to this Wiki's topic.