Tuesday 16 September 2008

concept mapping




God, there are some beautiful ways to present complex information. Check out Stephanie Posavec's Writing without Words. I don't know about you, but I find that breath-taking to look at. This work, entitled Literary Organism is a visual depiction of Jack Kerouac's On the Road. I've linked these images from the remarkable site, Visual Complexity which is crammed full of amazing examples of stories told, and data presented, in interesting ways.
What you can see, here, is a breakdown of literary elements, which have been organised as organic patterns. It is easy to see at a glance where weight and emphasis has been applied in the writing, and viewing the graphs adds another dimension to the interpretation of Kerouac's work, without re-stating the obvious. By that I mean, it's not writing about writing, or a film about film making, it's a cross-disciplinary approach which is becomes a way of seeing in itself. It's the opposite of a review, which often has the suggestion of catching a beautiful butterfly, and pinning it to a board, it's wings forced assunder for analysis - a cruel and dismantling approach which robs the thing of its beauty in order to describe that same beauty.

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