Ambient Agents: Embedded Agents for Remote Control and Monitoring Using the PANGEA Platform
2. Related Work
Objective
This exercise explores how theoretical ideas can be employed to underpin design projects and design practice in general. Theory in itself has no practical application but is a useful tool for understanding.
When used within design activity it becomes part of a more strategic approach to design – what the American educator and designer Thomas Ockerse has called
‘principles in action’. This exercise builds upon the notion of visual rhetoric – in large part based on the understanding that the effective communication of an idea is closely linked to the act of persuasion.
Rhetoric traditionally encompasses a range of fi gures of speech, including irony, antithesis, metonymy, synecdoche, pun, metaphor, personifi cation and hyperbole, some of which may be utilized by the designer within visual strategies (see pages 72–73).
Gui Bonsiepe has written that ‘pure’ information exists for the designer only in abstraction. As soon as he or she begins to give it concrete shape, a process of rhetorical infi ltration begins.
Part 1: Visual Irony and Pun
You are asked to explore how using visual irony means you can take an existing sign – a logo, picture or visual device – and change its meaning. A good example of this can be seen in the détournement* of the logos and visual identities of multinational corporations for example by organizations such as Adbusters and those
‘culture jammers’ opposed to the perceived values and activities of these companies.
Choose a company, product or informational sign, then begin to explore how you are able to make something that is familiar and that, to a large extent is
Key Texts
Barthes, R. (1993) Image – Music – Text. Fontana Books.
Berger, J. (2008) Ways of Seeing.
London: Penguin Classics.
Crow, D. (2006) Left to Right: The Cultural Shift from Words to Pictures.
Worthing: AVA Publishing SA.
Crow, D. (2010)
Visible Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics, 2nd edition.
Worthing: AVA Publishing SA.
Gage, J. (2000)
Colour and Meaning: Art, Science and Symbolism.
London: Thames and Hudson.
Kress, G. R. and Van Leeuwen, T. (1996) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London and New York: Routledge.
Lupton, E., Abbott Miller, J. (1996) Design Writing Research: Writing on Graphic Design. London: Phaidon.
Poynor, R. (2003)
No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism. London:
Laurence King Publishing.
4. Theory in Practice
Title: Visual Research-An Introduction to Research Methodologies in Graphic Design 2nd Edn
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not noticed, say something different or oppositional.
This could be achieved by altering one or some of its key attributes; colour, typeface, symbol or image for example, or by changing the context or location of the sign/media. It is important that you are careful in your selection of the ‘original’ media so that it is one that an audience will be familiar with in order for them to be able to appreciate its new oppositional reading.
This process can also be explained by Semiotics (see pages 92–93) – the relationship between what is seen and the mental concept it produces – and the notion of Connotation and Denotation (see pages 46–47).
Part 2: Metaphor
You are asked to select a fi lm or novel and produce a poster that explores how its meaning(s) or narrative ideas can be represented through the use of a visual device or series of visual items. A visual metaphor
can be understood to work in a similar way to the processes at work in Part 1 of this exercise:
for it to work effectively it has to build upon the understanding an audience already possesses.
Try to select a fi lm or novel that is well known – a classic. Initially you should explore the obvious metaphors; for example Romeo and Juliet could be easily understood by the use of symbols that stand for love. You should build upon this foundation to further develop your ideas to a more sophisticated level. How can other narrative subtexts be illustrated in a metaphorical manner? What can be said visually that makes a stronger and more abstract connection with the minds of the audience and their existing knowledge of the fi lm or book? Can you update the meaning by using a contemporary metaphor or idea, for example?
* Détournement
A technique devised in the 1950s by the Situationist International and intended as an act that turned the messages and intentions of capitalism in on itself.
It is interesting to note that this process can also be seen at work in the manner in which mainstream culture, and in particular media, can take symbols of opposition or subversion and appropriate them
into commodities or make them
‘safe’ – this process was termed
‘recuperation’ by the Situationists (see page 139).
Title: Visual Research-An Introduction to Research Methodologies in Graphic Design 2nd Edn
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Title: Visual Research-An Introduction to Research Methodologies in Graphic Design 2nd Edn
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Title: Visual Research-An Introduction to Research Methodologies in Graphic Design 2nd Edn
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Title: Visual Research-An Introduction to Research Methodologies in Graphic Design 2nd Edn
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