LANGUAGE DEMOTION

Language is our default cultural communication method. We have commented in the past, for example here and here, about our over reliance on words and the confused logic that springs from these words.

Arnheim, in Visual Thinking on page 136, writes, “Many words fail to fulfill their function well because languages are not created rationally but grow informally and produce accidental, arbitrary, adulterated shapes.”

Language is the result of informal, organic growth. So we essentially use words as the building blocks for our culture, and it turns out that the genetic composition of these blocks is not exactly pure. While that really comes as no surprise, take a moment to consider the dichotomy between a) the relativity of the evolution of words and b) the near universality that we give to words.

And, yes. If you have surmised that one of the missions of Transparent Drawing is to demote the literary while simultaneously promoting the visual, you are right. Or how about the goal of parity between the two?

Write a sentence. Draw a picture. Words are ambiguous. Images are ambiguous. Semantics has taught us that words are not the thing. Pictures are not analogues of the thing. Words and images require interpretation, as they both operate as imprecise approximations to the thing for which they stand. So far, so good.