This website originally accompanied English 593, Visual Rhetoric, taught by Dr. David Blakesley at Southern Illinois University Carbondale in the Fall of 1999. The course introduced basic principles of perception and visual interpretation and the dependent processes of visual communication and rhetoric in media and film studies, cultural studies, art, literature, photography, electronic media, and the public spectacle.

This page served as the gateway for the class's exploration of visual rhetoric. It now includes links to course materials, student projects, supplementary resources, exempla, and other web-based material.

 

Here's a gif that doesn't need animating. The movement here is caused by the involuntary fibrillation of the eye . . .

 

Film, Visual Rhetoric, and Hitchcock

 
Hitchcock at 100
The New York Times' excellent special report. (May require that you sign-up for free access).
Alfred Hitchcock at the Modern Museum of Art
Like the NY Times page, everything is here.
A Hitchcock Gallery
Lots of rare photos.
The Screenplay of Psycho
Enough said . . .
Eviscerating David Cronenberg
Sample hypertext essay on film (by David Blakesley) in Enculturation.

 

Picasso's "Orator"

Convergences of the Verbal and the Visual
Dedicated to life, poetry, and the ABC's of a new art (Visual Poetry)
"Redesigning the medium through discovery"
An exploration of sense relationships within the English language
Hypernarratives, experimental work, and games . . .
A Dada site portraying artists, art, poetry, prose, and other texts by Dada artists
This site provides a brief biography of William Blake with many of his engravings to view
Hypertext
An interesting look at various adaptations of a medieval woodcut for modern purposes

 

Find the bodies and faces if you can, but be careful.

Visual Culture
Excellent online exhibits accompany live ones.
An audio-visual documentary web site committed to questioning conventional assumptions about art and culture.
An excellent collection of iconographic portraits, among much more.
The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art has contemporary paintings, photographs, and more. A great resource for viewing a wide range of traditional art forms online.
Streaming media, short films.
A tour . . .
An interesting example of web-based visual art that deals specifically with the relationship between the aesthetic and the mundane.
A Byzantine Iconography website in the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church

 

 

The peacock stares back. Notice how the eyes look outward, but also increase in frequency as we get to the dominant contrast, the "I" who is the real center of attention.

Online Courses and Multimedia Guides
The New Arts of Persuasion: Contemporary Media, Communications, and Rhetoric
A course in media, communications, and practical rhetoric taught by David L. Simpson at DePaul University
VISUAL RHETORIC: Rhetorical Figures
These pages, authored by Claire Dorrmann, contain a great deal of information regarding visual rhetoric and web design. In addition to material developed by Dormann, there are links to other rhetoric sites and a bibliography.
A Media Theorist's Academic Home Page
With links to sample courses . . .
Visual Literacy
Taught at Marist College by Anthony Pennings
A course taught at the University of Colorado--Boulder by Sandra Moriarty

Cara Finnegan's ongoing project, with an excellent bibliography and lots of links to visual studies sites

 

 

Media and Media Studies

From Cronenberg's Videodrome
The Media and Communication Studies Site
This site is useful for its background information on communication and mass communication studies as well as its myriad links.
Powers of Persuasion
Poster Art from WW II
SpaceZone
NASA Television
Visual Rhetoric
Of the corporate, internet variety.
Visual Rhetoric in the Cyber Courtroom
Sylvia Willis's article in Wired Woman
The Church of the Heavenly Wood
Devoted to Ed Wood
Burghley House Virtual Gallery
An example of an online virtual tour . . .

 

 

Scholarly Resources

 
List of links
Published by the Visual Literacy Association
Michael Hancher, University of Minnesota
An extensive bibliography on visual rhetoric, with subcategories, such as "computers & rhetoric" and "computers & metaphors
Daniel Chandler's extensive overview
An essay by Göran Sonesson
A website devoted to the new book by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin
An online glossary of theory and criticism for the visual arts
Roland Barthes, his critical theory, literary theory, and theories that merge the visual and the textual
The electronic meeting place for all facets of the book arts
Sandra Moriarty's article from The Journal of Visual Literacy, 14:2 (1994): 11-21
A good source on a guy who's very interested in the image and technology
An article by Robert Torres, Cornell University
Eva R. Brumberger defines visual rhetoric and discusses its pedagogy
An article by Patricia Sullivan, Purdue University
Edited anthology on the intersections of culture/image by Lynne Cooke and Peter Wollen

 

 

The editors of Enculturation are Byron Hawk and Dave Rieder.

Journals Devoted to Visual Rhetoric, Film, Digital Media, etc.
FEED Magazine
Classic FEED, Media and Culture, Technology, and The Loop
In[ ]Visible Culture
The purpose of In[ ]Visible Culture is to provide a forum for critical approaches to the production and analysis of cultural objects
Images: A Journal of Film and Popular Culture
Electronic Journal
Technical Communication Quarterly
A special issue on visual rhetoric
Metaphor and Symbolic Activity
A special issue on metaphor and visual rhetoric
Enculturation
Special issue on the film/image
Extended coverage of the visual arts

 

Visual Perception
The Exploratorium
The museum of science, art, and human perception
Grand Illusions
With optical illusions, scientific toys, visual effects, and even a little magic
Optical Illusions
Demonstrating the subjective nature of perception . . .
Sandlot Science.Com
An Interactive Guide to Optical Illusions

Another "client-side" animated gif . . .

 

 

Site Designed by David Blakesley
Last Updated: 20 July 2000