I’m taking a class called The Rhetoric of Text and Image.

Right now I pause slightly asking myself whether or not I want to even attempt to explain this project.

The first half of the semester has been spent examining various theories about new media and images in post-secondary education. We had the opportunity to question what is lost in a print-centered education system, in a world that is increasingly become nonlinear and more visual. This project is called a hypericonomy. We were asked to choose (at random) a significant childhood memory, a time in history, something from popular culture, a plate by William Blake and an “area of expertise” and create a sort of digital collage.

I chose to explore my childhood memory of visiting Fairpoint Ohio, the photographs of the Great Depression by Dorothea Lange, a scene from Garden State, and poetry as my area of expertise. I used lines from a poem I’d written as a reflection of my trip to Fairpoint Ohio, as well as the poem “Fear of Snakes” by Lorna Crozier.

All of these items were chosen at random, but then we were asked to draw coincidental links between them, based on visual similarities (like a reoccurring circle), puns, metaphors, multiple meanings for the same word. What results is an inter-connected web of images and text where meaning is created, but not through a typically logical way of thinking.

That’s the simplest way of explaining it. Each page of the project has numerous links, both in image and text, that will take you to another page. The viewer therefore becomes part of the creation of meaning, as they use their own mental schema to draw connections.

Here is my project.

(The first link is in the “o” of “word”)

Let me know what you think. Keith did help me with the fancy Flash stuff, that was new for me, but I learned a lot.