The Lazarus Project pp. 201-292
Gunter Kress’ “Literacy & Multimodality”
Due: IN CLASS Wednesday, February 4th
Synesthetes are individuals in whom one sense triggers another. Their senses are connected, so as well as seeing a painting such as “Composition VIII, 1923″ by the Russian painter [Wassily Kandinsky], the work also triggers sounds. [. . . .]
When more than 200 people were shown 100 images and asked to choose the animations that best suited the music they consistently selected the images from the synesthetes.
“It’s almost as if everybody can appreciate these synesthetic images even if they don’t have synesthesia,” [Dr. Jamie Ward] added.
Reaney, Patricia. “Paintings Can Be Heard As Well As Seen, Study Shows.” Reuters news article, 4 Sept. 2006.
For this exploration, you are to take the argument you have constructed about The Lazarus Project and render it multimodally. (I leave it to you to determine what modes will be most effective in communicating your argument to an audience.) You may include as much of the supporting or explanatory material relevant to that argument as you wish, but your argument should include at least 2 different modes.
Then, semiotically analyze (1 page, single-spaced, as usual) your own multimodal composition using Kress’ article as your source for interpretive criteria and vocabulary. You may find that your analysis suggests areas in your argument that need revision. Likewise, composing your argument multimodally may suggest important moments or features for analysis. Use this reflexivity to improve your composition and deepen your insight into it.
Either bring your multimodal argument and analysis to class, or you may e-mail them to me, if your argument is in an e-mailable or linkable form.
UPDATE: For those of you who might not have been in class, or who might be a tad confused by this Exploration, here’s a bit more explanation. First, you need to come up with an arguable claim (i.e., a thesis statement) about Lazarus. That means you need to come up with an idea that you could, potentially, argue in a longer paper on Lazarus.
Next, you’ll need to figure out some way to translate that claim into a multimodal form. When you wrote the claim, you almost certainly used one mode: print text. We’re used to doing that as English majors. This exploration requires you to think about how to transform that prose into a more multimodal form. There are a whole lot of modes out there, so you have lots and lots of options here.
Finally, you’ll need to analyze your new multimodal composition. What does that mean? Your analysis is your place to explain and think through what your intentions with the multimodal part are/were. What did you do? Why? What works? Why? What doesn’t? Why? Why did you make the choices you did in constructing the multimodal part? How do the various modes communicate with or against each other? Kress gives us vocabulary and ideas we might find useful in answering these questions and thinking through the multimodal part as a multimodal composition.
I referred to the analysis as a “semiotic” analysis because, as Kress explains, semiotics is the study of the structure of sign or symbol systems. So, what signs and/or symbols did you use in your composition? How do those elements of your multimodal composition work? How do they relate to each other? How do they add up to express your arguable claim about Lazarus? When you’re answering these questions, you’re performing a semiotic analysis.
