Reading Assignment - Graphesis - Visual Forms of Knowledge Production: Qingyu Cai
The author proposes the urgency of learning graphesis, the study of the visual production of knowledge in the current social environment due to the significant increase in using graphics as representations of knowledge. However, visual presentations represent personal interpretations too. They are humanistic forms of knowledge production and critical study of visuality from a humanistic perspective. Diagrams are powerful tools to produce and encode knowledge as interpretation. By using graphics, compared with mere texts, the authors can convey the arguments more powerfully, in which knowledge and opinions are displayed more directly. Visual forms can help illustrate the language of texts, which also helps to make the arguments stronger and more elusive. Besides, except for still graphics, dynamic images have been used to illustrate the points better, more comprehensively, and vividly. For instance, documented films have been integrated into exhibitions when artists want to showcase their making and thinking processes in detailly. Video is a way to incorporate words and visual forms together, which makes an argument by telling a story. As a result, it is also essential to study the dynamic ways of visual representations in today’s world in which technology and human behaviors have changed a lot.