ШФЯD ДИD IMДGЗ

Having a little fun with faux Cyrillic in the headline, from the world of stuff.

type nesting

Dubi Kaufmann created a webiste on typenesting.tumblr.com showing images of birds nesting in letters. How sweet is that!

literacy, visual

One of my guilty pleasures masked as ‘research’ is browsing google images. During recent quests I have searched for images related to terms such as ‘learning’ and  ’literacy’, which turned ou to be a  fascinating exploration of metaphors that we live and think by. Here are some illustrations that I liked:

This one perfectly sums up how I feel about the Internet, especially when I spend time in my favorite tiny village in the Austrian countryside, a place that does not even have a shop or a pub, and where the houses are dark by 10 pm, so you can see the stars in the night sky unlike near any larger city. There I feel comfortably enveloped  by the quiet of nature and at the same time connected to the world of human activity through the computer. Interestingly, the nodes in this image are forming not a network but are branching out like a tree. I could not track the original source of this image – it can be found on multiple sites.

This illustration is by Mads Berg for a Wired article by “Clive Thompson on the New Literacy”. I like the way alphabetic text is represented by scribbles, pouring out of the keyboard as a neverending scroll, opening speech bubbles, scrolling through the phone, taking shapes of flowers and leaves.

Also with this one I could not trace the source. The picture can probably be read in several ways, it is slightly mysterious to me. The little isolated boy in the foreground seems sad. Is it because the other children are having fun exploring the media world, while he is stuck with an oldfashioned desk and paper? Or is he, in his thinker’s pose just contemplating things, happily?

This image by Derek Lee  illustrates the essay “Expanding the Concept of Literacy” by Elisabeth Daley published by educause in 2003. It is a pretty illustration, showing a wide range of media from printed paper to the computer, from film scroll to audio speaker. It could be read as a constructivist view –  the media machines inside the head creating the world, as the media images are projected from the eye onto many screens. Other people, the social world is missing in this images, as in most of the ones I have picked here.

The Tree of Knowledge, of course,  is a powerful image, here appropriated for ‘learning’. (Also with this one I could not trace the source.) The little guy – is he happy and relaxed because he is (yet) oblivious of the pursuit of knowledge, or is he enjoying the fruits of his learning? Learning is represented by books only here.

In that sense I prefer this clip art image, with multimodal fruits hanging off the tree of knowledge. (Again, for both images I could not trace the original sources.)

Almost all of these images include a notion of “the world’ as a circular or encircling entity, and again five out of six, somehow, include the notion of a tree. At least in this selection, learning and literacy seem to be quite lonely activities.

hand print

A poster designed by Roland Reiner  Tiango: The recipient  completes the poster by revealing spot-varnished type with hands made dirty by handling the poster, the back of which is coated with powdered pigment revealing the message: “The future belongs to the few of us still willing to get our hands dirty.”

This should be a good motto for the New Year!

reading traces

“Writing, like human language, is engendered not only within the human community but between the human community and the animate landscape, born of the interplay and contact between the human and the more than human world. The earthly terrain in which we find ourselves, and upon which we depend from our nourishment, is shot through with suggestive scrawls and traces, from the sinuous calligraphy of rivers winding across the land, inscribing arroyos and canyons into the parched earth of the desert, to the black slash burned by lightning into the trunk of an old elm. The swooping flight of birds is a kind of cursive script written on the wind; it is this script that was studied by the ancient “augurs” who could read therein the course of the future. Leaf-miner insects make strange hieroglyphic tabloids of the leaves they consume. Wolves urinate on specific stumps and stones to mark off their territory. And today you read these printed words as tribal hunters once read the tracks of deer, moose, and bear printed in the soil of the forest floor. Archaeological evidence suggests that for more than one million years the subsistence of humankind has depended upon the acuity of such hunters, upon their ability to read the traces – a bit of scat here, broken twig there – of these animal Others. These letters I print across the page, the scratches and scrawls you now focus upon, trailing off across the white surface, are hardly different from the footprints of prey left in the snow. We read these traces with organs honed over millennia by our tribal ancestors moving instinctively from one track to the next, picking up the trail afresh whenever it leaves off, hunting the meaning, which would be the meeting with the Other.”

This is a quote from David Abram (1996) The Spell of the Sensuous. New York, Random House. To him the alphabet “is a strange and potent technology”.

inscribing meaning

The Color of Words IX

Currently I have no time for blogging nor for reading blogs, and I miss it. I googled “i miss my blog” and there are over 2.5 million entries, so I guess other people feel the same way, at least some times. So here is just a quickie posting The Color of Words by Ethiopian Artist Wosene Worke Kosrof and Samira’s Story by Fathi Hassan from Egypt taken from here: Inscribing Meaning: Writing an Graphic Systems in African Art

Wosene Worke Kosrof considers his recent works to be investigations into a new alphabet, one that employs a vocabulary of signs and symbols to link past with present, and Africa with the diaspora in which he works and lives. Drawing upon Ethiopian graphic systems, liturgical symbols and architectural forms as well as pan-African motifs, the artist produces richly colored and detailed canvases. Wosene’s fascination with words and the seductive forms of written signs are contemplated alongside other investigations of language and identity within modern histories of Africa.

Samira’s Story

In his works Fathi Hassan often addresses the power relations between oral practices and the written word. He places particular emphasis on the plight of lost languages, such as that of ancient Nubia, through the domination of those imposed by colonial-era policies. Most of his scripts are deliberately illegible, invented forms that allude to Arabickufic calligraphy but yield little direct information. By playing graphic symbolism against literal meaning, Hassan questions the largely Western assumption that the written word provides the best access to reality.

superman’s secret

from Fighting Crime one Post at a Time

I love this image with the WordPress Logo on Superman’s chest. And here is a hello to Richard and Sheela (approaching 70!) who have recently bought a computer and logged on to the net for the first time. Welcome to the wonderful world wide web!

die uni brennt (university burning)

What started as a small student protest in one of Vienna’s Art Academy a week ago, has spread like wildfire (sic!) through Austrian unversities, with up to a thousand students squatting in lecture halls, organizing work groups and task forces, and their own learning. There was a large protest march with 10.000-40.000 (depending on the sources) people marching through the streets of Vienna last week. The hub of action is Austria’s largest lecture hall, the Audimax in the Univerits of Vienna, the very place where fourty years ago student protests and subsequent political and cultural changes originated. Now the grandchildren of the bearded 1968 generation, a generation of young people habitually accused for not being interested in politics is taking action.

Every day there is a full programme of talks, discussions, plenary sessions, music concerts and occasional flashmobs organized by the students, and after a full week it looks like they are here to stay for a while, unless the state will intervene with police force.

Not surprisingly the movement is using Web 2.0 technologies in organizing themselves and in gathering external support. They have set up wikis for the organisation, blogs, a press office. You can read their first press release in English here. Photos are posted on unibrennt pool on Flickr and there is a life stream were you can follow the daily plenary sessions. Last night there were 1700-1800 people watching online, when the people in the hall issued a call for university students in Gemany to join the movement. The faceegroup support group has accumulated over 23.000 fans, and it is all over twitter #unibrennt or #unsereuni #audimax. Comparisons with the grassroots campaign for Obama are being drawn in mainstream papers.

cryptic messages

On Transcrypt.de by Frank Baranowski you can find a description for exercises in designing mysterious fonts, derived from known latin scripts, which do not mean anything,  see Kryptic 1 and Kryptic2.

Meanwhile I read on Popular Mechanics that the poster for Lost’s final season contains hieroglyphics. Dr. James Allen, Wilbour Professor of Egyptology and Chair of Egyptology and Ancient Western Asian Studies at Brown University analyzed the symbols and had this answer: “The hieroglyphs spell out two Egyptian words, meaning ‘Who is the guide?’ or ‘Who is the leader?”

via educating alice

edupunk comic

I have introduced ComicLife to a group of primar school teachers, and it will be interesting to see what they will be coming up with in their classrooms. In the meantime I found this comic.
Edupunks, meddlers in the middle, teaching as subversive activity – where is my research leading me to next?

the opposite of play

Brian Sutton-Smith wrote “The opposite of play isn’t work. It’s depression. To play is to act out and be willful, exultant and committed as if one is assured of one’s prospects.” in The Ambiguity of Play (1997) which I read a while ago and now I found it cited in Unlearning How to Teach, Creativity or Conformity? Building Cultures of Creativity in Higher Education by Erica McWilliam. And a brief further search brought up the image above here.

what the world needs now is love

by Dionne Warwick

This is great, bringing back childhood memories:  watching records spinning on the turntable and dreaming about being a hippie when I would grow up, living in a world of love and peace . :-)

secret powers & subversive activities

Keri Smith’s blog is always an inspiring place to drop by, which got me to buy some of her books. Promoting her new “This is Not a Book” book she posted these illustrations on the penguingroup blog:

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She sums up very well what sadly, is many children’s experience. It certainly reflects to a large extent what my son had to go through. I might use this in some teacher training course!

Interestingly the Austrian Minsitry of Education has recently issued an edict demanding “holistic-creative learning culture in schools” outlining how  creativity should be a guiding principle for learning across the curriculum. This is great in principle, yes, but it beats me how educational authorities think creativity can be ordered on demand. As if a whole national school system developed over centuries, designed to stifle creativity will change with the issue of a five page statement. It will take some substantial backing in the form of funding, appropriate teacher training, dedicated and supportive groups of people in key positions, well planned long term strategies, the freedom to take risks and  lots of patience to see some real change. Otherwise it will just remain one more edict which teachers, in reality, are free to ignore.

Which leads to Keri Smiths second drawing in her post on “how I discovered my secret powers: Plot to infiltrate the system.” I think hers is a very good plan – I could do with some more superpowers though :-)

This reminds me of  Teaching as a Subversive Activity by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner, first published in 1971. While the book sometimes is polemical and sketchy and has to be understood within the context of its time,  it is still an interesting and thought provoking read. It was also published in German, but is now out of print.

typographic world map

typographic world map wallpaper and many other free downloads  from .www.vladstudio.com

If its on the interweb it must be true

Museumsquartier by loungerie on Flickr

On July 7 20o9 the “Internet Research Group” from the University of Vienna presented YouTube Cinema with a programme called “Fake!” at the Museumsquartier in Vienna. Everybody had ten minutes to show and talk about  some favourites. It was a fun evening with some lively discussions. Here is our playlist:
YouTube Kino: Fake!

the red book

Here the New York TImes have a fascinating report about Carl Jung’s private notebook with personal reflections as well as drawings, which has been kept from the public until now.  He worked on the Red Book for a period of 16 years, and ever since his death it has been locked away. Now, for the first time it is going to be published.

<click to enlarge>

Carl Jung said the Red Book stemmed from his “confrontation with the unconscious,” during which visions came in an “incessant stream.”
…
“I should advise you to put it all down as beautifully as you can — in some beautifully bound book,” Jung instructed. “It will seem as if you were making the visions banal — but then you need to do that — then you are freed from the power of them. . . . Then when these things are in some precious book you can go to the book & turn over the pages & for you it will be your church — your cathedral — the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal. If anyone tells you that it is morbid or neurotic and you listen to them — then you will lose your soul — for in that book is your soul.”

Wow, this is intriguing. I might have mentioned before, that many years ago I researched the visonary writings of Jakob Boehme, a German mystic, who had visions, and who is thought of as the first German philosopher, e.g. by Hegel. > On my Christmas Wish List!

via Austin Kleon

metaphors

by Christoph Nieman on christophniemann.com

structural violence

How do you visualize a concept, which implies a complex theoretical discourse and is also embodied in our experience, something such as structural violence?

Sometimes an image search will bring up a series of useful visualisations. Sometimes it is hard to find something that works, so you have to think laterally and  that search may bring up new ideas of how to think about a phenomenon.

Here is what I have come up with for structual violence related to an educational context:

I am not sure yet, if this is what I really meant to say, but it is what I found to be expressive and telling so far. For some reason the images all include writing. Now I wonder, is this a concidence? Or does it say something about how language and literacy is used in power relationsships? Note to self: Read Bourdieu’s Language and Symbolic Power and Foucault’s Diszipline and Punish.

academic writing

Graph by Dingo from graphjam.com

My son is in the process of applying for universities, the whole family involved in the game. I am happy that he sucessfully completed school, and that he is clever and mature for an eighteen year old.  But I cannot help worrying about his first steps into this strange world of academia. This pie chart from graphjam.com makes me laugh, as there is some truth in it. It could be turned into a tool for teaching students how to write essays:

You cannot brag if you don’t know something about your subject, which you can show off, so do it. Ass Kissing means that you have to know the important players in the field, who said relevant things. You should acknowledge, what you have learned from them. You don’t have to be sycophantic, though. Sometimes clever Name Dropping is enough, to show that you know what you are doing, and that should be included in the chart. And well, the slice of Relevant Content could be bigger.

Of course there is also the other side, the bitter truth about the essays you get from students. No comment on this chart, it speaks for itself:

Graph by: cheez_masta via Graph Jam Builder

To round it all off here is a Calvin & Hobbs cartoon:

plinthians

R1204717 by Where The Art Is

Last but not least I kept coming past the fourth plinth at Trafalgar square and watched a few people presenting themselves to a cheering audience. I had expected more cynical reactions. People seemed to really love and enjoy it all, although the stuff I saw that afternoon was not especially great. I could not help thinking, how small and mundane real people look on the plinth, unlike the majestic Lord Nelson on his tall column, when a guy turned around to me. “I luuve watching life just going by. I’ve been up there, and me mate ‘ere too. We are Plinthians!” he said proudly. Meanwhile, around the corner, at the National Portrait Gallery you can watch a live stream, which provides a different perspective and arguably a better view, than standing on the ground. So instantly the performance, the actual experience  is turned into a mediated ‘portrait’. As to be expected there are thousands of photos uploaded to Flickr documenting the ongoing show. I cannot think of an art project which enables more participation than this, including the Plinthians, the photographers, even the hecklers.

heaven and earth

by The Kozy Shack

by dou_ble_you

by jamespayne333

Another exibition I saw earlier summer in London, which left a lasting impression: “Heaven & Earth” by Richard Long at the Tate Britain. I did not bring a camera so here are images found on FLickr . I particularly liked some of the massive installations and large wall painings like this “Mud Wall”.  I felt they had to be experienced by walking around the exhibition space, rather that standing or sitting, as usual. This gave me a better understanding also of his other work about walking landscapes, embodied expierences of land, earth and sky. There are hundreds of photos – more of Richard Long’s work on Flickr.