When I read Lia Purpura’s On Looking a year or so ago, I found three questions swilling around my head:
- What do we see?
- How do we see it?
- How does seeing it impact us?
They still tumble around my head, particularly as I watch images take precedence on the web. I find myself reading about visual strategies. I am excited by what can be done and is being done with apps like Instagram and Vine.
Why the intrigue? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I am, at heart, a curious sort. I find the rabbit hole and wonder where and how far it goes and what happens if I fall down it.
For instance, this rabbit hole:
Why does the brain respond to imagery? What does it mean to find not only the right words but also the right image? What are visual ways of telling a story and which ones are more likely to evoke the desired response?
Or this one:
What happens to words if visual media continues on its skyrocketing course? How will an inundation of images affect how people perceive the world and how they comprehend ideas? What happens to critical thinking and analysis?
Another one:
What does it mean to be a visual thinker and communicator? Where do writers fit into a visual-rich world? Do they perhaps fit in better than they think because many of them, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, “begin with a picture”?
I certainly don’t have the answers to all those questions, and some of the questions may have simultaneously good and scary answers. Does that mean I don’t seek for the answers? Not at all. It simply means I seek to understand a changing world and my place within it as a writer and artist.