word search map

Die Zeit features a curious map of Germany: it is a visualisation of the most searched for words from a list of 64 different terms according to geographical location. In Heidelberg people look for stress and sufferning while in not too distant Würzburg people look for pleasure. In Rostock in the north east, not surprisingly, people look for work, while in Freiburg in the south west people look for wisdom and peace. It seems to have been created by Sigrid Ortwein. On her website you can find an uncommon re-interpreation of the Genesis: “In the beginning there was the IMAGE and the image became the WORD and the word was with God, and the word became LETTER, and the word became Spirit, and the letters became NUMBERS and the numbers became ROWS OF NUMBERS and the rows of numbers became CODES …”

(Am Anfang war das BILD und das Bild wurde WORT und das Wort war bei Gott und das Wort wurde BUCHSTABE und das Wort wurde Geist und die Buchstaben bekamen ZIFFERN und die Ziffern wurden zu ZAHLENFOLGEN und die Zahlenfolgen wurden zu CODES …)

psychedelic flow of information

The Falling Times is a visualisation of the flow of headlines and frequent key words from news, which are translated into pictograms. Mostly quite bleak, but strangely hynotizing.

While Falling Times leaves me slightly depressed the new Orange promotional site cheers me up: it is a never-ending website one can scroll down seemingly forever. I did not have the child’s patience or curiosity to go to the very bottom of it all. But I really quite like the pop art grunge graphics, the psychedelic rainbow river.

lolcat literacy

I have been pondering about writing something about lolcats for quite a while, but lots of people have been commenting on them, so I have held back. However, I am increasingly concerned about the widespread tendency of people to understand lolcats as devoid of any education and sophisticated use of language. Some people patronizingly link lolcat-language to babyspeak. In order to draw attention to the growing discrimination against lolcats based on their perceived disability to write purrfick grammr I decided to make this small survey of lolcat literacy available to my discerning readers.

Consider this stereotypical view of lolcats, blatantly accused of causing illiteracy!

Lolcats are being accused of degrading the English language with their ignorance and apathy.

Contrary to popular belief many lolcats have a keen interest in language and learning. In fact, many lolcats claim desks and libraries to be their favourite places.

lolcat imporving her range of vocabulary

lolcat lost in reading

lolcat browsing library

lolcat grabbed by story plot

It is not just the materiality of books locats are fascinated with. Lolcats love reading books. Studies have shown that lolcats prefer reading novels of the fantasy genre over all other genres. Lolcat reading includes Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”, C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and of course, “Harry Potter” by J.K. Rowling.

The following case study shows that lotcat literacy is a situated social practice.

The average lolcat overcomes initial difficulties motivated by her desire to communicate and stay in touch.

Locats have shown a great admiration for the beauty of the English language, always trying to improve their literacy skills, expanding their range of vocabulary, and even master punctuation.

Literate lolcat improving her grammar.

Lolcat using apostrophe where it should.

Here are some samples of lolcast using big words almost correctly. This serves to show: lolcats are not cognitively challenged!

Lolcts have a also a great affinity for computers. Most of them are digitally literate, many of them keen bloggers or wikipedia editors. An empirical study of over 1500 cats has shown that 89% percent of lolcats own a computer and a high speed internet connection. (Infintecate.com 2007)

Lolcat demography

Here is a sad example of lolcat discrimination - an innocent lolcat accused of stealing the internets, while in reality many lolcats are highly trained computer specialists.

Discrimination against lolcats has been compared with sexual and racial discrimination, however leading lolcats claim that it is all about being a cat. Some people express such phobia of lolcats that they want to get rid of them alltogether. “We must rid the internet of not only LOLCATs, but of all cats.” says downwiththeinternets, (2008)

Despite all prejudices, discrimination and social disadvantages and long gruelling work hours many lolcats are successful high school and university graduates. However, until now only a few are holding respectable teaching and research positions in universities.

Lolcat studying for exam.

Lolcat writing dissertation.

Studies have shown that lolcats on average do not cheat or plagiarize more that the human population.

Lolcat scholars are known to employ creative methodologies, thinking both inside and outside the box.

Lolcats have been accused of being politically indifferent by being impossibly cuddly. But having attractive looks does not indicate low intelligence (necessarily)! Some lolcast have been forming oppositional political movements, as you can see here - a radical locat activist politizising - dismissing derogative assumptions about lolcat language and culture.

We would argue with Ethan Zuckerman that “Web 2.0 was created to allow people to share pictures of cute cats.” Zuckerman states that pictures of cute cats may be an important part of political activism as “making activism viral probably means making it funny as well as political and heart-wrenching.” (The Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism, 2008)

Locat theorizing

It is about time locats receive the respect they deserve. The MIT is one of the first universities to open their catdoors to lolcats and locats lovers. Read more about a recent lolcat panel discussion “I can haz case study?” at ROFLcon held at the MIT.

Guardian (2008) Internet celebs gather to swap memes

Wired (2008) ROFLCon: It’s Not Easy Being Memes

Lolcat Bibliography

Agger, Michael (May 21, 2007) Cat Power www.slate.com/

Chiu Kevin (April 25 2008) Really Short Summary: LOLCATS Panel: I CAN HAZ CASE STUDY? ROFLCon

Dash Anil (April 23, 2007) Cats can has Grammar www.dashes.com/

Dash Anil (April 30, 2007) Cats, Comics, and Closure www.dashes.com/

ELFN 2007 (April 24th, 2007) LOLspeak as a Second Language (LKSL-101) in Five Easy Steps

Green Joshua (2007) Oh Hai! Cats, the internet, and tactical communities #19 receiver magazine www.receiver.vodafone.com/

Herwig, Jana (April 27 2008) Niedlichkeit als kulturelles Bindeglied (Online wie Offline) http://digiom.wordpress.com/

Higgins Chris (April 19, 2007) Image Macros: I’m in Your X, Y’ing Your Z www.mentalfloss.com/

Icanhascheesebuger.com

icanhascheezburger.com/some-links/

Jardin, Xeni (May 10, 2007) Pedantic overanalysis of LOLcats not pedantic enough, says blowhard www.boingboing.net

Linguistic Mystic ( May 29 2007) im in ur programmz, codin in ur dialect: LOLCode and Feline Dialectology linguisticmystic.com

Linguistic Mystic (Feb 7 2007) im in mai blog, postin’ bout cats: The Cuteness of Grammatical errors linguisticmystic.com

Lischka Konrad (2008) Kindliches Kätzchen-Englisch überrollt Netzforen Spiegel online spiegel.de

Lolcat wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcat

Lolspeak Wiki SpeakLOLspeak

Merchant Guy (May 28 2007) Lolcats myvedana.blogspot.com

McRaney David (May 8 2007) A Special In-Depth Analysis by - L337 Katz0rz

Newitz Annalee (Jan 22 2008) Evolution Explains Why Lolcats Control Your Mind http://io9.com/

Robin (April 18th, 2007) I Can Has Talking Animals? www.radioopensource.org

Thomas Angela (July 23, 200) Lolcats Literacies: oh hai… pass me teh towel? http://angelaathomas.com/

Zuckerman Ethan (March 8 2008) The Cute Cat Theory Talk at ETech www.ethanzuckerman.com/

Related:

LOLTrek Start Trek meets lolspeak

HOBOTOPIA Hand drawn comic strip about stray lolcats, based on lolcat meme

finnish

The only photo I managed to take when I was in Finland recently, at the airport on the run just before leaving. What a language!

animated poetry

Intersting 1-minute typo animation with a poem by Tom Waits:

This blackboard animation is fun:

granted!

Abby and Erin, by crimfants

Yesterday I found out that I have received the research grant by the FWF, the main body for research funding in Austria, for a project about media literacy in primary schools, which I developed last year. This means my research work will be funded for at least three more years!

sparkling science

My bid for a research project about „Sparkling Science: Computer games, media education and learning through inquiry” (Computerspiele, Medienbildung und forschendes Lernen funded by Austrian Ministry of Science) has gone through the first round of reviews (all very positive) and I have been invited to submit the full proposal. Just handed it it. Phew.

Create your own custom glitter graphic!

all you need is

I did not get to go to the cinema often in my childhood, but one lasting impression was the animated movie Yellow Submarine (1968), an all time favourite. The Beatles, on their psychedelic journey to save Pepperland from the Blue Meanies beat Alice in Wonderland any time.

A Yellow Submarine Box Set with Beatles Action Figures is available here.

breaking the magic circle

I have been getting more and more absorbed with Flickr. For the next few days I will be at a digital games seminar called Breaking the Magic Circle in Tampere, Finland and I will give a presentation about my research with Flickr called “Playing with Flickr”. This is, by the way also the title a larger research project, which might turn into my PhD. In any case my prof is very happy with the proposal I wrote up. While I am researching as ‘participant observer’ I am also a fan of Flickr - here is my hommage to Flickr and its ’squared circle’ group - an arrangement of images tagged with ‘magic circle’.

clean image

“We Are All American” by Iranian artist Farhad Moshiri. Check out also his ‘Barbie in a Burkha’ and more in this report about a current exhibition in Dubai here: Spiegel Online

Reading words and images

Image: Roman Duszek © 2003

Gunther Kress’ work has been important for my own thinking and understanding of the relationship between word and image. I could not resist nicking this image from Knowledgerepresentation where you can find two of his lectures and a paper on Reading Images: Multimodality, Representation and New Media

Some favourite readings:

Kress, Gunther, Van Leeuwen, Theo (1996): Reading Images. The Grammar of Visual Design. London, New York: Routledge.
Kress, Gunther (1997): Before Writing. Rethinking the Paths to Literacy. London/New York.
Kress, G.R. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2002). Multimodal Discourse: the modes and media of contemporary communication. London: Edward Arnold
Kress, Gunther (2003): Literacy in the New Media Age. London: RoutledgeFalmer

Superheroes and Children’s Culture

Abstract

The last two decades have seen an increasing media convergence and the promotion and distribution of popular narratives through cross-media texts. The superhero genre forms an important part of children’s media environments and contemporary children’s culture, in particular for boys. Children are not merely consumers of media texts, they are also actively engaged in a range of activities - fantasies, make-believe play, drawing, writing and other forms of meaning-making – reflecting, expanding and commenting on these media texts. Children as storytellers, players and artists draw upon familiar elements from superhero narratives, to create their own meanings. Children’s ability to move across media platforms and across modes of meaning-making with particular ease, may explain the phenomenal success of cross-media narratives such as superhero stories. The paper provides an overview into different areas of children’s participation in the superhero narratives within and without the context of formal educational settings and provides a longitudinal case study of one boy’s engagement with superheroes in his play and meaning-making activities. The paper calls for a re-evaluation of children’s media culture and cultural practices, including educational practices around superheroes.

Sigrid Jones. Dissertation submitted in part fulfillment of the requirements of the MA Media, Culture and Communication Degree of the Institute of Education, University of London. Winter 2006

Illustration by Lukas: Spiderman and Superboy save a Captured Girl

Superheroes and Children’s Culture

I am very pleased to say that my dissertation ‘Superheroes and Children’s Culture’ has been recognised by United Kongdom Literacy Association as an “outstanding piece of work” and the UKLA therefore decided to give the 2008 UKLA Student Research Award (Postgraduate) to me, which will be presented at the UKLA International conference dinner on Saturday July 12th in Liverpool. My husband Steve got very excited about this, and I had to remind him that this was not quite the Oscars, but nevertheless I would like to thank him for his encouragement, and David Buckingham, my supervisor for his support, and Guy Merchant and everybody else from the UKLA for awarding this price to my work, and most of all my son Lukas, for providing much of the inspiration and the fantastic data for this paper!

I made a tag cloud about the dissertation last year with the help of TagCrowd, which looks like this. Interesting, how the largest tags signifying the most frequent keyword in the paper correspond with the title of the paper.

Jazz Funeral

new orleans 030, by stevejones108

“where the people are dying to come in”

Steve is in New Orleans right now, and he has joined Flickr!

Visual Thesaurus

Visuwords is an online graphical dictionary and thesaurus providing definitions and producing diagrams by linking words to other words or concepts. These are some screenshots, you have to go to the site to explore the interactive features.

Valentine

Valentine Pic, by nicoatridge

 

miss flite’s birds

This is my hommage to Miss Flite in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House and the BBC production which I saw last year. These are the names Miss Flite gave her birds to be released on the Day of Judgement!

stay!

STAY!!, by dr.quitti

Verweile doch refers to a quote by Goethe taken from “Faust”

Werd’ ich zum Augenblicke sagen:
Verweile doch! du bist so schön!
- which makes part of Faust’s wager with the devil.

If I should bid the moment stay, or try
To hold its fleeting beauty, …

Translation taken from this article: Passion and art: the story behind Faust in the Guardian, which also explains why Goethe cannot really be translated into English, as evident from this translation -  it cannot evoke the literal immediacy of Verweile doch! Du bist so schön! which would mean: Stay! You are so beautiful!  but using a poetic expression, not used in contemporary German. Here it makes a neon invitation to linger in front of the “Deutsches Theater in Berlin”. I don’t know, is this supposed to be art or advertising? Does it matter?

feeling good

Great music video of Nina Simone’s “Feeling good” by Tamara Conolly using just type and typographic elements in black and white.

Paul Rand

Exposition Paul Rand à Chaumont, byBureau L’Imprimante

Everything is design. Everything.
Paul Rand

A Flickr Group of Fans of designer Paul Rand is here:
PAUL RAND modern graphic design fan club

An animated hommage to Paul Rands work can be found here Paul Rand Tribute video.

All via grain edit with plenty more 1950-1970 illustrations, graphic design, typography, childrens books, album covers, you name it.

Hommage to Robert Indiana

Robert Indiana - NY, ursprünglich hochgeladen von Graham Hutchinson

 

love in lisbon by marcia devesa

 

robert indiana - love, red outside, blue inside, in Chatsworth by niinka

 

LOVE, in Madrid by mitue

 

The Opposite of Love, in Philadelphia Munguent

 

There is a current exhibition about Robert Indiana at the Museum in Wiesbaden, Germany. However, I love to see how people interact with art and go to Flickr: So many of my favourite things. Best word. Sixties pop art. Street Sculptures. Gardens. Over 1600 images tagged Robert Indiana.

Come rain, come snow, summer and winter, in the day and in the night, in the country and in the city, all over the world - LOVE prevails! :-)