Keith Russell wrote:
> While a drawing is a drawing, no one bothers to question whether a
> drawing of a thing is the thing.
>
>
Neither does anybody expect a text to be the thing it describes.
My colleague Lucy Lyons uses drawing to delineate what she observes in
pathology specimens, recording her act of observation as a way to inform
pathologists about the physical nature of the specimens. Technical
imaging systems are more "true" in some ways but cannot reveal what she
does. The technical systems are also extremely subjective as they rely
on aesthetic judgements by those who create the visual "coding" used to
represent the subject matter. She contrasts her work with that of
medical illustrators who draw what is known about a medical condition,
representing generalised (institutional?) knowledge rather than
knowledge of a specific instance. Three different purposes, three
different ideologies and three different kinds of partial truth.
Very similar to the text question I would say.
Best wishes from Sheffield
Chris
*********************
Professor Chris Rust
Head of Art and Design Research Centre
Sheffield Hallam University, S11 8UZ, UK
+44 114 225 2706
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www.chrisrust.net
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