English 680V: Visual Rhetoric in a Technological Age (Purdue)

In response to the anxiety I think we've all been feeling which was articulated perfectly by Mark inhis post on "Real" Issues, I have a story to share.

When putting together my syllabus for this semester, I intentionally left the third major project open so that I could create a more organic assignment in response to what happened in the class up until that moment. For this set of students, I found that they're sense of themselves as political agents (almost half of my class considers themselves politically actiive) was undermined by thier sense of themselves as students and the roles they play. So for the third project, I decided to ask them to think critically about their simultaneous roles as students and citizens. The result, after conferencing and class discussion, we that they were to enter public discourse.

Here's an announcement of interest. Maybe we can spend some time in class discussing and blogging in response . . .

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An open invitation to participate in the online “Ekphrasis” exhibit:

Purdue University Galleries invites you to visit a special “blog-style” exhibition page, featuring selected works from the current exhibition, “Ekphrasis: Writing on the Collection.” The webpage can be found at:

http://www2.itap.purdue.edu/galleries/ekphrasis/

In Photoshop for Democracy, Jenkins emphasizes that new software has enabled amateur users to create professional results from the safety of their very own homes. We can, of course, substitute "iMovie" for "Photoshop" throughout this chapter.
What a rhetorician might notice is that with the poached screen caps and scenes (and in fanfics, poached plots and characters), "invention" becomes less about the act of creation and seems more and more like "arrangement"--to make an argument for Harry/Snape or Kirk/Spock, fans borrow already present media, already present stories and backstories (and dialogue, scenery, music, etc), and rearrange them to make their arguments. Additionally, these new arguments are already troped: There are only so many ways to write a Harry/Snape fic or to present a Kirk/Spock vid. These seem to be acting like Aristotle's topoi; fans are aware of a range of possible options, and they recombine them in new ways.

After reading posts by Lars, Morgan and others, I am thinking about a definition of visual rhetoric as one being mindful of the limitations that apply to any visual/rhetorical knowledge making process. In Chapter 6 of Convergence Culture, Jenkins discusses the individual as being unable to count on the presentation or accessibility of any absolute truth (217). But I think the mindfulness of these limitations add a dimension to the definition of visual that is worth considering.

[This post draws from Amy's post entitled “And now, to reenact tragedy”]

This discussion has gotten me thinking about the stipulations of visual rhetoric in terms of knowledge production. How much do we/should we rely upon our eyes seeing the actual event of [fill in the blank] to feel like we know something about it? Why is it rarely enough to hear about it or read about it? Why are the eyes the medium that guarantees immediacy, or somehow realer knowledge?

So we were reading a book in my Caribbean Lit class about anthropoligists doing field work and how impossible it is to transcribe the conversations and storytelling into a coherent, logical narrative. It got me thinking about how the "book" is not the best model by which to understand how visual rhetoric will work in a technological age (aren't all ages technological?)

So here's some characteristics of oral traditions that I thought were relevant to our developing modes of communication:

During the next sixty pages of Lanham’s text, I was thinking about the ways that the term visual as it applies to any kind of rhetoric might have changed throughout rhetoric’s history. In classical Greece, the canon of delivery presupposed a range of gestures, facial and body expressions, tonal shifts, and physical movement. Arguably, the delivery of the words would seem only part of the presentation; the presentation itself would seem to be more of a highlight.

Watch this video, put the cheesy synth pop out of your head and consider it, not as a cute gimmic, but as a prophesy of the future and past of our educational techniques.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBvaHZIrt0o

It reminds me of old PBS programing I watched as a child, the sort of thing where we'd go behind the scenes of a factory and they'd show us how cheese was made or how books were published. I loved those shows. Indeed, I think they may have had a great influence on the curiousity I enjoy today.

Visio-textual collaboration (can you tell I've been reading Foucault?) is a useful synthesis of media that not only enriches the meaning of both but also encourages new ways of reading.  As John Muckelbauer suggests  in "On Reading Differently: Through Foucault's Resistance," approaching Foucault's theories from a productive rather than reproductive critical position enables new, more expansive readings, which in turn generates new perspectives and ideas.  While Muckelbauer doesn't refer to visual texts in his article, I think that his idea of "productive reading" can be useful for visual rhetoric.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkzr0naZnZ0

Honda commercial. They used all and only the parts of a car. No computer manipulation. It's brilliant.

It also creates a sense of precision and engineering competence that is sorely lacking in the automotive industry's public image. I think this was a coup for the ad department.