Visual and Digital Poetry, Week 2
What is the meaning of meaning? We can view meaning at two levels. First, it is a cognitive process whereby we make sense of the stream of information that assails us in each moment. At a higher level, deep meaning is what we seek in life and looks for answers to such spiritual questions such as 'Why are we here?' - Mariana Soffer, Meaning Theories
VISUAL POETRY - WEEK TWO
We can define visual poetry as poetry meant to be seen. Combining painting and poetry, it is neither a compromise nor an evasion but a synthesis of the principles underlying each medium. In its own way it is one of the most radical inventions (or reinventions) of our time. Michel Foucault describes the revolutionary import of visual poetry as follows:
Thus the visual poem claims to abolish playfully the oldest opposition of our alphabetic civilization: showing and naming: representing and telling; reproducing and articulating; imitating and signifying; looking and reading.
Like Surrealism, visual poetry aims at a sort of “supreme point” where these antinomies cease to exist. It aims to abolish the dual perspective introduced by the written word. Not only is each letter a unit in a verbal chain; it belongs to a visual chain as well. As the reader deciphers the linguistic message, he retraces the visual message line by line. Thus the work exists simultaneously as poem and picture.
-Willard Bohn, The Aesthetics of Visual Poetry
MODELS OF THE MIND
Tools/Language/Mind Explorations
What are some relationships between tools, language and our minds?
What are some current models of mind? Do tools & how do tools affect meaning?
Tools of Mind, from The Shallows by Nicolas Carr, pgs 44-47
Fundamental functions of the brain/mind
Imagine -- Intuit -- Think -- Reason -- Feel -- Emote -- Perceive -- Sense -- Compare -- Layer -- Associate -- Repeat -- Erase -- Name -- Sequence -- Mimic -- Make Metaphor -- Make Symbol -- Tell -- Explain -- Make Story -- Count -- Compute -- Recognize Patterns -- Make Image
Mind-Body Theories
| 1 | Plato | 500 B.C. | Oral to written paradigm switch |
| 2 | Descartes | 1650 A.D. | Mind – body separation, Rationalism Science/enlightenment values |
| 3 | Blake | 1800 A.D. | Neo-Platonist/rejection of Enlightenment values |
| 4 | Freud | 1930s A.D. | Psychology Is a science/embraces rationalism |
| 5 | Jung | 1960s A.D. | Psychology is rooted in symbol/mind/ processing of image |
| 6 | Behaviorism | 1960s A.D. | Behavior is a science. |
| 7 | Computational | 1970s+A.D. | The brain is a computer. Written to digital paradigm switch |
Brain Function Mosaic
Jung's Model
Blake's Model
Jennifer
Brain Storage Space
Caltech and UCLA scientists use pictures of celebrities to study how the brain processes what the eyes see. In 2005 they found an individual nerve cell that fired only when subjects were show pictures of Jennifer Aniston. Another neuron responded only to pictures of Halle Berry—even when she was masked as Catwoman. Follow-up studies suggest that relatively few neurons are involved in representing any given person, place, or concept, making the brain staggeringly efficient at storing information. -Nat Geo