VLVC Visual Memoir Assignment

Visual Memoir

Assignment: Visual Memoir

After spending the first few weeks of class studying the intersections between art and language, students will apply their learning by creating a text with both visual and language components that communicates in a multi-modal fashion the artist/writer’s perception of self.

Completion of the assignment is worth 20 points. The remaining 20 points are awarded based upon:
A) Composition effectively utilizes both visual and language elements in a complimentary manner B) Composition reflects critical-thinking, originality, and professionalism 

Reflections on the creation of the Visual Memoir

I liked this assignment but I think I let it get too much a hold of me. I was bouncing thoughts about what it should be around in my head almost every hour of the day, trying to figure out how to create what I envisioned in my head. Since I explore the topic of identity with my students through the year, I have multiple visions of what a visual memoir could be. I was really torn between three ideas. 

One was this perception of myself as both teacher and wild artist ( a liberal in conservatives clothing) with a theme that also dug into my fascination with the brain and its two halves. I feel like I struggle with this sense of who I am in terms of being both authoritarian figure (teacher) and instigator (artist). I like to have rules, but I also like to challenge them (at least in my mind if no where else.)   I wanted to use encaustic to paint the side of an apple, and burn a quote into the other pristine side. Something from the olden days rules for teachers, like "A teacher will not wear bright colored clothing." 
But I couldn't seem to make the space to execute that idea. And I wasn't sure of the text integration. Well, no that's not true, I was afraid of my poor photography skills. 

Another idea I had was this reflection of what marks our days and how our lives are so very impermanent. I thought I would show this through a collection of my ephemera (I compulsively collect interesting scraps of things to look at later or use in my sketchbook.) I also thought about my crazy collection of movie ticket stubbs, but couldn't figure out how exactly I would want to show them. I've always thought about pinning them to a board like an entomologist's old fashioned bug collection, but wasn't sure if I would like that aesthetically. And then, again, would I add extra text or let the text on the stubs be the text? Too many questions...

So, I finally landed on an idea that I have been wanting to execute for a little bit and that is this slice of time that I have lived in where technology has changed so much of our daily interactions. Of my interactions. I wanted to explore how I connect with people through modern technology such as Facebook and Twitter and "old-fashioned" ways like postcards and telephone calls. I like the blended nature and I find that I myself am always bridging these two sides of myself (that theme of duality I see in myself again). I don't feel like I am finished with it, and I definitely don't think I got the text quite right. But creation can be a process. Here are a couple of more photos of the piece in progress...

VLVC wk 5 - Semiotics & Visual Culture

Lesson 5 – Semiotics & Visual Culture 

Readings: 

1) Text: Smith-Shank, Deborah. Semiotics and Visual Culture: Sights, Signs, and Significance. Reston: National Art Education Association, 2004.
Semiotics Intro, Ch 1, Ch 4 

Thoughts as I go...
Not so excited about this text, but excited about learning more about semiotics. I find semiotics fascinating.
Intro - OKay, although this text looks dry and bland, the content is quite good and interesting. At least so far. In fact, I may copy the intro to give to my teachers as a way to start the discussion about where we need to go in changing the curriculum in our schools. So interesting. 

Chapter 1 - What's Your Sign? Searching for the Semiotic Self
Identity! And these photos are creepy. But now that I have read the discourse on them they are a bit more interesting. Reminds me of the cover of my Feminist Art book that has one of Catherine Opie's photos on the cover. Totally makes me wretch, but after learning about her work I find it intriguing too. I love how this idea of context driving the meaning, and how context changing our reactions to works of art is fluid is actually coming into effect as I 'experience' this class. 

Chapter 2 - A Post-Modern Visual Culture Art Teacher: Finding Peace in My Opposing Roles
I could have written the first couple of pages of this chapter. Other than not being a first year teacher, my experiences are eerily similar. (Oh, whoops. Not supposed to read this chapter yet!)

Chapter 4 - Art Educators Road Show: How Collecting Stuff Can Enhance Art Education Practice
I keep thinking about Kathy's collection. Did someone mention this summer a project where they examined the collections of art teachers? I wonder what my cohorts in this program collect? What do I collect? Hmm... I know I'm a pack rat. I try to deny it and claim I am environmentally conscious and need to reuse stuff as any good art teacher should. I know for sure I don't venture into hoarder territory, but I do like to keep my stuffs. Problem is I have a really good memory and can't stand to re-buy something I know that I at one time possessed. Luckily, with the birth of two children I have slowly chipped away at that good memory (you give a part of your brain to your children, you know). And with the invasion of two more people and their material possessions, I can not possibly keep everything until "someday". I will have to sacrifice, I suppose. ;) 
   So, what do I collect? And how does that impact my practice as an artist educator? This is also making me think of incorporating this into my visual memoir (do you think was the intent?). I, too, collect art postcards and have, until very recently, incorporated them into my teaching. Technology has taken a little of their need away. But I liked what was said at the end of the chapter, "Not all art teachers may be interested in using "real objects" in their curricula and may not understand that these objects often hold and capture art students' interests and imagination more than two-dimensional slides or large scale reproductions." I wonder if this could be said about my postcards. I may have to re-examine thier use. 
    I collect books. Books I want to read. Art books. Interestingly covered old books for their aesthetic qualities. I'd like to collect more children's books. I collect books digitally on an Amazon wish list. 
    I collect images on Pinterest of things I find beautiful out there in the interwebs. I collect ideas in the form of pins on my pinterest boards on all sorts of topics related to art & art education. I colelct thoughts I want to come back to. I collect words that I want to inspire me or others.
   And something I find myself compulsively collecting - and have for many, many years now - are my ticket stubs from movies. I can't help but not throw them away. I have boxes full of my stubs from over the years. It is interesting to go back through them and think about which movies I saw, who I went to see them with, what theatre it was at, and how sometimes those movies influenced my thinking. Hmm, I wonder if I should use them now to create my visual memoir. I am very protective of those items, silly as that might be, seeing as how they are just scraps of ephemeral paper, meant to be thrown away. Trash to most anyone else. I will have to think about that more. 


Discussion Board Assignment:
After reading the Introduction and Chapters 1 & 4 from the Smith-Shank text, please consider the purpose of studying semiotics and visual culture:
As an individual? As an educator? As a society?
Try to find & share a single image by which to explore these varying levels of cultural connection. 

  
Why study semiotics? That is an interesting question for me because it seems I already do! Like others have already posted to the discussion board, I found this book and its articles absolutely fascinating despite its bland and overly dry academic appearance. Smith-Shank says in her introduction, "semiotics is the study of signs and symbols in culture." How can we be alive without playing a part in this exchange? We may not realize that we do indeed study the signs and symbols around us, we can not help but do so in order to interact with our environments. Unless we are the unique shut in, cut off from all outside influences, we have to be able to assimilate into the world of semiotics. Whenever I take a moment to ponder the delicious looking food just presented in a commercial, or take a peek at photos posted to a friend's facebook page, or leaf through a magazine at the dentist's office, or read a sign to find a public restroom I am interacting with the symbols and signs of our culture. Or to take it a step further, whenever I read text in my environments, I am reading symbols (further abstracted). To decipher all these symbols and signs, I am studying semiotics. So as an individual, I think the question is more, why wouldn't I want to study semiotics? Why wouldn't I want to become better at communicating? As an artist I believe one of my primary functions is to communicate with others through a visual media. I can do this more effectively if I understand how my images become signs and symbols to others and further study how they can be interpreted. 
    As an educator studying how images and symbols effect my students and their learning can be used to hone my communication with them. I can understand more ways to motivate them and effect their individual understanding. As an art educator, I think it is important to introduce to my students (who are in turn creating art & therefore artists) to the idea behind semiotics. It goes hand in hand with symbolism and how we as a culture give objects meaning. How do we give art meaning? How do we embed meaning in our works through the symbols we choose to include in our work? How can we tap into a cultural understanding and reflect back our own observations and critiques? How do we place meaning or find meaning in the images we look at in order to make sense of the world around us? How does that effect our overall well-being? It is good to be able to answer or at least ponder these questions. 
   As a society, I think it is important to think about the implications of our actions. And I would extend this to how we as a society and a culture produce images. If we see art (and as extension our artifacts of visual culture) as a record of our existence as human beings then we should be aware of how our record communicates, at least in its own time, and be able to read communications from another time (and here is where my brain starts to wander / wonder about how context effects the meaning.) We should be wary of how we as individuals in a society are effected or manipulated by our visual culture. We should also feel responsible for how we then, in turn, affect others with images. 

As for the last piece of this assignment, "find an image by which to explore these varying levels of cultural connection" - I am not sure how to do this. I sit in my room, looking for inspiration and I am bombarded by my own collections of visual culture. Too many options. And then I wonder if I am understanding what is being asked. Should I have tailored my response above to one particular item? I am struck by the themes I see in my response and others on the db. 

So I think I will turn to something that has been on my mind as of late - Kermit the Frog. 

Jim Henson and his creations were part of my visual culture growing up. In my mind as a child, I was able to connect to Kermit in ways that were different than the ways I could with any adult or other child. He was somewhere in-between. As I grew up and beyond those first friendships, I still was able to connect to what those characters represented. To me, the Muppets and the Sesame Street gang were able to tap into those qualities we cherish about children (and many argue the best adults still contain) such as: creativity, imagination, silliness, perseverance, the ability to dream, to have unabashed fun,  and to be adventurous and also represent some of those things we take for granted like family, friendships, and loyalty. And then there is the man behind the muppet, Jim Henson. Kermit represents a man to me that recognized some of the most important stuff in life and how to nurture that in others. He cared about more than himself and looked out for others as well as the environment we live in. He taught us to care about each other and where we live. And I could go on and on about how great he was. For someone I've never met, Jim Henson and his work shaped a big part of who I am.  And I think that is true for so many. Our visual culture shapes our identity. And that is why it is important to study semiotics and visual culture.  

VLVC wk 4 - Multimodal Composition

Week 4: Multimodal Composition

Readings: 
1) Van Leeuwen, Theo. “A Multimodal Perspective on Composition.” Framing and Perspectives in Discourse. Ed. Titus Ensink and Cristoph Sauer. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2003.

2) Romano, Tom. Chapters One/Two: “Multigenre Stirrings” and “A Place to Start.” Blending Genre, Altering Style. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 2000.

Thoughts as I go...
Holy Crap! When am I going to get time to read this?! Every time I start, I get interrupted and this is some heavy stuff to process! Yikes. But I was really looking forward to diving into Van Leeuwen and having some guidance as I read, so I will persevere! 

Whoa boy. My head is spinning. Not sure I really understand all that I read. I'm hoping having to apply it to a text will help. Now what to choose, what to choose...


Discussion Board Assignment: 

After reading Romano and van Leeuwen, please find and post an example of a multimodal text onto the Discussion Board. If possible, please try to choose a different genre/form than others have already posted. Limit your post to a single page (even if the full text is longer in nature).

Next, use van Leeuwen’s principles to deconstruct the manner in which the multimodal text has been composed. How is the designer attempting to influence readers’ reactions to the text?
The goal of this assignment is to get you thinking like a writer/designer/composer and help you “sample” a wide variety of forms and techniques you may want to employ in your own visual memoir (more information on this assignment can now be found in the corresponding folder). 

  Sorry so late everyone! I had to really mediate the two halves of my life this week, or rather, I should say three  - work, home, & school - with time for thinking/reading deeply losing out. 

The multimodal text I've decided to use is the music video "Mediate" by the Australian rock group INXS. "Mediate" is a song from their 1987 album KICK.The video comes immediately at the tail end of the hit song "Need You Tonight"segueing from one video into another. I chose this multimodal text because I wanted to pick something that also had sound, and because of the directive to try to find something different from what others chose (harder to do when you go last!) The video is an homage and inspired by Bob Dylan's famous video for Subterranean Homesick  Blues.

Here are a couple of stills form the video, please use the hyperlink above to see the video itself (or feel free to do a search on YouTube.)

  

Looking at the video using van Leeuwen's Principles of Modality definitely made me think about the visual in an entirely new way. Breaking down an image/text like this was a stretch for my brain who is much more likely to submerge itself into the experience and not analyze it. So here it goes, my deconstruction.

Intro: 

The video takes place in what looks like a construction site, or maybe quarry like space with dump trucks coming and going in the background. The figures are in the foreground, dressed like rock stars and not workers, and slightly set apart - which makes me wonder if they were on location or in front of a green screen. Each band member takes a turn flipping through cards that have words that illustrate the lyrics of the song, most of them rhyming with the word "ate." As the band member finished his turn he goes off somewhere in the middle ground so another can have his go. At the end, a lone saxophone player (Kirk Pengilly) enters from the left and plays out the song.

Information Value: 

The placement of the text varies only slightly through the progression of the video. It happens all on cue cards held by various band members at waist height, who come and go on screen. The song / text begins with the lead singer on the left hand side holding the cards at waist height. The song has also alternately been called "Meditate" and since the content of the words being shown is basically some thoughts to ponder, I wonder if the text is neither at the top nor at the bottom to demonstrate it's value as neither high, nor low - just some thoughts to meditate upon. The majority of the time the cards are held by someone positioned on the left side of the screen and the person that has already flipped cards, moves to the back. The first person, Michael Hutchence, moves to the right side of the screen.  Taking this in the context of the 'given' and the 'new', the text and thoughts on the cards is the given and the progression of the figure to the right as the progression and evolution of those thoughts to something new. Generally speaking, too, the figures move into the past (into the background) but also up higher on the screen giving more importance to the new thoughts that should come from having meditated on the meaning of the lyrics. One last thought about where the cards end up. After being said / read, the figure will fling the card so that it slips through the air (up mostly) and then lands on the ground (down). Could this not just be the obvious effect of gravity but also have added meaning? The flight through the air being these thoughts as ideal, but lofty and they are required to gain some grounding, landing then on the ground to rest and gain roots (which is distractingly very muddy.) Are they to evolve from the Ideal to the Real? INXS was known, like U2, for being socially conscious and activist minded. Was this their subconscious message?

Salience:

The cards with text have a high degree of contrast (crisp black text on a smooth white background) themselves, but also contrast against the heavily textured and colored back ground of figures and environment. The words are also originally situated on the left, giving them more weight (more importance?) as well as being pushed to the foreground.

Framing: 

The words are framed by the boundaries of the card they are written on, so separated from the environment, but I believe connected by the unity built into the sameness of the font and card. The disconnectedness of individual cards for individual words / thoughts builds more space into thinking of each of these items as its own special issue, but through their unity connects them as a train of thought worthy of consideration.

After the words have had a chance to settle from their flight, the figure that had been holding them is situated in the background and at the end is seen walking away, no longer a single person, but part of the group that is headed in the same direction. All through out the video, trucks have come and gone from this background, hauling dirt/rock/debris what-have-you. The transition from present to past to future invites the viewer to continue to think about the cause(s) presented by the group. 

Whew! This was a difficult assignment. Nick you weren't kidding when you said this was deep. I felt like I kept peeling back layers of an onion that kept adding layers and layers of meaning to something that before was just a nice piece of activist musical rhetoric. I could really use an infographic that lays all this out for me again. I'm so visual that I feel like I need to see this so I can fully comprehend it. I'm still not sure I am grasping it so that I could use it without taking my notes or the text with me as I look. Did anyone else feel this way? My Brain needs a massage - is this what firing new synapses feels like? I look forward to getting more comfortable with these principles and their use. 

  I forgot to add that I think the designer is trying to get us, the viewers, to think about these issues and then get to work by going out into the world to make change. 

Hope I covered everything now!

Responses from classmates - 

 (Amy Ruopp) - I love that you used this!  I actually fooled around with garage band to create a voice over for which I was going to use with my visual memoir while I created a smart build illustrating the progression of its development....  (if I have time maybe Ill go back and do that after all... Layers of an onion :)

You did well to deconstruct something so complex. Although it is not three dimensional literally, I feel like it is, maybe because of the added element of literal movement. Well done!

VLVC wk 3 - Multimodal Texts

Week 3: Multimodal Texts

Readings:
1) McMillen, Stuart. “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” 2009. <http://all-that-is-interesting.com>.
2) Text - Selznick, Brian. The Invention of Hugo Cabret. New York: Scholastic, 2007.

Thoughts as I go...
1) This short little comic musing has resonated with me and quite honestly frightened me a little bit because I had never thought about our current culture in this way. This way being that we are distracting ourselves with our social  networking, gadgets, television and the like. I think it resonated with me through a sense of guilt I have about my participation in all these things. I love them, but also see them as taking away from other things I value such as being outdoors (although, arguably, I don't love the outdoor areas where I live - I'm more of a woodsy type gal and there aren't many at my immediate disposal.)  However, I also appreciate these media types as being a creative vehicle and able of being used constructively.

2) Loved this book as I opened it, and I love the idea of integrating the different media (drawings, film, historical and social references). However, as I got further into the book I got a little bored with the story. I imagine it is a lot like how I feel about the movie "The Labyrinth" - it was amazingly cool and fantastical as a kid, but doesn't hold the same magic when you see it for the first time as an adult. Since this is a kid's book, I am not the target audience and therefore more critical. 
Also, I wonder what the difference would be if I was reading this as an e-book. The gutters in the illustrations were super distracting (& detracting) for me. If digital, would they merge the pages or would you see one half at a time? 
Overall, I would say a decent children's book, but I see the potential for so much more.

Discussion Board Assignment:
Discuss your response to Hugo Cabret. Consider any (but not necessarily all) of the following questions (or other ponderings of your choice!):
- What, in general, was your response as a reader to the way visual and verbal media were used in the book? Were the dual modes of expression complimentary, conflicting, or both?

- Discuss a specific portion of the book where you noticed interesting visual/verbal interplay. - What, thematically, does Selznick seem to be suggesting about multimodal texts in society? - How does Hugo Cabret compare to other multimodal texts you've read or created?

Here is my post to our class discussion board: 
  I was very excited that this book was one of our "texts" for this class. It has been on my juvenile reading list, but due to the size and my busy life, I had shied away from it. I started reading it with my son - who is four, so maybe a little young - who is very into art and drawing so I thought might like looking at the pictures as we read. We had also just finished reading The Wizard of Oz that had a few pictures in the novel and he loved that. I digress a little, but my point is that I had more interest in this novel than my son (not just for class.) I was enthralled by the pictures, they reminded me of Chris van Allsburg (a favorite children's book author / illustrator) as well as a short story I had written in high school about a murder mystery in a giant clock.  However, what disappointed me was the lack of depth to the mystery. Maybe it was the way I broke up the reading (getting interrupted and going back to it after starting our class) but for the size of the book I guess I expected more story to the story. 

Nick also asked about comparing it to other multimodal books we have 'read'. I immediately thought of a series of books I have loved very a very long time, The Griffin & Sabine trilogy (and subsequent sequel trilogy). It is a story told in the letters between two people. It is actually a combination love story and mystery. I guess I was hoping for a little more mystery to Hugo Cabret in the vein of this story. If you have never seen these books, they are very cool in that you get to read the book through seeing the letters that have been sent between the two. It starts with postcards (the front on one page, and the back on the other side as if it is embedded in the page) and moves on to letters that are 3-dimensional and to be read, must first be removed from the envelope on the page. I highly recommend it.

Responses from class: 

(Alison Bennett) -  I love the idea of a book being interactive with the reader like The Griffin & Sabine trilogy you mentioned above.  Perhaps if huge involved some hidden flaps with answers within the imagery instead of solely within the text it would have enhanced the mystery portion of the story. 

(Nicole Clemens) - I had to keep reminding myself to give the book a pass on the story a bit because it was intended for a much younger audience.  However, it drove me insane the number of sheer coincidences I was expected to just accept as not only possible, but probable.  Okay, I can buy he managed to get the huge automaton back home without being stopped.  And I'll buy that he took over his uncle's job for months without anyone knowing.  But those plus, for example, Etienne at the film museum and his professor happens to be the expert on Georges Mieles AND not only is Isabelle wearing the key, but Hugo recognizes it only at the last possible second and manages to get it off her neck in that time without anyone noticing AND Hugo's dad happened to work for Georges Mieles who happened to own a toy shop which happened to be in the station Hugo lived in after he happened to become his uncle's apprentice after his parents happened to die in a crash, and, and, and...

It was too much for me.  By the end, when these coincidences were coming hot and heavy, it was all I could do not to roll my eyes at parts. 

But, I like to think I'm a little smarter and a closer, more critical reader than much of the target audience of this books. 

I also think that you're right in that a multimodal text like this could have lent itself to a very cool way to unfurl the mystery of Hugo and the automaton and such without spelling it out quite so clearly.  Perhaps that was a missed opportunity.  In my head, it could have manifested itself through a close-up of the automaton's part with the key shape missing and later a similarly styled close-up of the key itself around Isabelle's neck.  It would have invited the reader into the story into a whole new way and made the images work as the story in a way beyond their current uses.

-> (Katelan Mayabb) - I hate to just repeat everyone else, but I was definitely left feeling disappointed and confused, wanting something more. When I first finished the book, I wasn't entirely sure what that something more was, but after seeing some of your all's suggestions about making the book more interactive, I have to completely agree with that as well. How fun would it have been if Hugo Cabret was a big, unfolding maze book?? I understand that since it is geared towards a younger audience, having cards/parts/pieces etc. that come out of the book wouldn't be practical because they would all be lost on day one, but the pages unfolding wouldn't be a problem... at least maybe not until a young reader is trying to fold them all back up to get the book to close.

(Myself) -   Also, did anyone find the gutter of the book detracted from the images? I wonder what it would have looked like if I had read it on an e-book?

-> (Amy Ruopp) - YES!  I did. A sort of hieroglyphic border might have been really cool, although I admit distracting for some...