{"id":28,"date":"2016-01-28T13:19:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-28T13:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/?p=28"},"modified":"2016-01-28T13:19:52","modified_gmt":"2016-01-28T13:19:52","slug":"visual-essay-fathom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/2016\/01\/28\/visual-essay-fathom\/","title":{"rendered":"Visual Essay: FATHOM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amanda Perry-Kessaris is Professor of Law at Kent Law School. Her current research focuses primarily on how best to approach the field of legal development – that is, the role of legal phenomena as means, ends, obstacles or irrelevances to human welfare. In particular she is exploring what happens when we think not of ‘law and development’, but of econo-socio-legal development, and the potential of graphic design as a method of communication in that process. Amanda, who is also\u00a0studying\u00a0an\u00a0MA in Graphic Media Design at the London College of Communication (LCC), writes about this topic on her\u00a0blog<\/a>. One of her most recent posts is copied below:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

My second brief as a student on the MA Graphic Media Design at LCC was to explore how ‘we formulate a critique and articulate a position through design’ using the unfamiliar form of a visual essay.<\/p>\n

We were asked to respond to one of three ‘source materials’ (articles). I chose Max Bruinsma’s contribution, entitled ‘Watching Formerly Reading’, to the ireadwhereiam<\/a> project.<\/p>\n

Our first task was to use visual tools to analyse the piece as a group. This lead us to focus on Bruinsma\u2019s insight about growing overlap and flattening of hierarchy between watching\/reading, and between oversight\/insight.
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Later I cut up the article, revealing further insights:\u00a0We read differently. We process more text. Image has become text.<\/p>\n

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This linked me back to earlier (2014) ideas I expressed in an article\u00a0on\u00a0‘The Case for a visualised economic sociology of legal development’<\/a> about the fact that we need to explore images\/objects, as well as text, if we are to understand econo-legal life.<\/div>\n
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Meanwhile I faced Jan Van Toorn<\/a>\u2019s compelling demand that design ought be content-based, open and dialogic, establishing a conversation into which the audience is empowered to insert itself. So I began a dialogue with academic colleagues, asking them to send me their non-text sources.<\/div>\n
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I experimented with them, trying visually to express \u2018reading differently\u2019 and \u2018processing text\u2019, and to practice semiotic techniques introduced in a lecture by Vanessa Price at London College of Communication.<\/div>\n
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This highlighted that crucial marker of worthwhile reading\/watching: critical engagement. I found this idea reflected in Bruinsma\u2019s final words: \u2018If you really want to fathom something, you will have to watch.\u2019\u00a0Following a brief, total loss of direction, I read<\/a> and watched<\/a> John Berger (1972\/2008) on looking (p.9) and collecting (p. 30), and realised could better \u2018fathom\u2019 images I had consciously collected. I settled on images from my research into econo-legal aspects of Cyprus as a British protectorate (1878-1914), colony (1914-1960) and contemporary postcolony, conducted at and around the Centre for Visual Research and Arts<\/a> (Nicosia).
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I experimented with \u00a0i’mgoogle.com<\/a>-inspired format (circular slideshow with sound). It was too closed to be dialogic. \u00a0A photo of Nicosia’s \u2018walk the walled city\u2019 graphic provided the centre for a solution: I set type to reflect its circular path, other images fold out from it, each layout loosely organised by topic (e.g. occupation, development) and visual content. A dialogue opened between walker\/reader and images.<\/p>\n

The folded format allowed progressive disclosure and low-level interactive dialogue. But the Paris Salon\/Warburg-style (Johnson, Undated) layouts were too closed.<\/p>\n

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\nFollowing the advice of my LCC tutor, Paul Bailey, \u00a0I closely read visual relationships, eventually fully integrating images within each layout. My visual language (layering, interlocking, echoing) hinted at possible connections and their inherent fragility, and was inspired by the commitment of the Association for Historic Dialogue and Research<\/a> (Cyprus) to \u2018dialogue and multiperspectivity\u2019 in history.<\/p>\n

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I chose heavy, tactile paper-stock and bolted binding to evoke the impermanence of apparently rigid structures\/perspectives. I aimed for Lee\u2019s (2014) calm tone using quiet palette and generous white space. The typeface (Traveling_Typewriter<\/a>, Carl Krull) echoes British Government papers.<\/p>\n

Some elements of the final output are too small\/faint, and I am in two minds about whether the images are still (differently) closed.<\/p>\n

I plan to produce visual essays in future legal research despite hurdles of copyright costs and inflexible publisher guidelines.<\/p>\n

Critical statements on all of the projects produced in response to this brief, together with comments on them, can be found on the course blog<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amanda Perry-Kessaris is Professor of Law at Kent Law School. Her current research focuses primarily on how best to approach the field of legal development … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38005,"featured_media":31,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[157920],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/37"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}