Writing With Images
I am resurrecting some of the writings I did back in 2001–2004 on my blog Design Writings. Reviewing some of the content, I realized that some still stand up and deserve to be boosted.
From 10/22/2002
Writing with Images
Terrific hypertext index of George L. Dillon’s course at the University of Washington, Writing with Images: Towards a Semiotics of the Web. Perusing through the chapters, I found an extremely rich dissection of the semiotics and symbolism of Image and text as seen on the web. Each chapter shows tons of examples to support the thesis. Dillon takes the reader through the history of image manipulation — first with the discussion of Imagetext — words in images, then he moves to look at photo montage and some of the history of that communication form. He then moves to collage with examples by Rodchenko and others. The next section is about Viewing the viewing, where the artist/photographer is part of the image and we the viewer are viewing the scene. Next he discusses art history, net art and overall contexts for imagery. Chapter six dives into maps and diagrams as they are used to represent information and discusses at length semantic space and the Visual Thesaurus and ultimately thoughts about hypertext and its visual representation. Dillon concludes with an overview of the evolution of semiotics and how those systems change over time and with the improving technology.
This looks like a terrific class and overview of semiotics in a very applicable and relevant context. I like how he goes back to the essence of semiotics: signs, symbols, signifiers and the nature of a visual language. He moves through the different types — studying the work of Magritte and Moholy Nagy and eventually moves into forms many of us are familiar with — site maps, hypertext diagrams etc. and speaks to those as communication and imagery in and of themselves as much as what they represent.
originally posted 10/22/2002 on Design Writings (emdezine.com)
