Text and Image, a Trilogy - from Cheryl Penn

[Marie Wintzer]

Word lovers will be thrilled today (as I was), Cheryl is sending me three absolute goodies, putting on the balance text and image and how we perceive them. The first of them, "How text and image lie", was the original piece, which gave rise quite rapidly to additional thoughts and ideas, new work to complete her concept.
My first thought when I opened the first envelope was wow, if those images and text are lies, I can happily be lied to any time! I'm afraid it doesn't show on the pictures, but the tones of green and blue are fantastic, and such a happy combination with the red thread. The lady in green, who is she? Her staring eyes are chilling yet so compelling...

 

 

Of course a lot could be said about the double (triple?) meaning of Lie (not telling the truth) / Lie (horizontal position) / Lie (held within), one could dedicate a full blog to this wordplay, but what I read in this piece is the deception of our own mind through words and images. Words that are not what they seem to be, images we think have a meaning, the meaning we want them to have. The endless possibilities of words, the endless interpretations we have of them. Words lie, but only because our mind likes to be lied to? I think so more often than not. I know MY mind very often makes up its own cake with various layers of sentences, images, all tightly bound by imaginary thread. So yes, text lies, images are deceptive, and words do harm (that fantastic puzzle piece to Rob!).

 

 

The second card is a bundle of lies :-))  Text and image Lie in shades of grey too. Shades, yes. What defines the various shades of a text? Is it inherent to the text itself or is each individual performing its own grading (that can also vary in time). Does a text have a different shade depending on the image it is juxtaposed with? I think so. But here again, there are so many variables that are hard for me to pinpoint and analyze in depth (help, you word-experts out there!).

Just as I am writing this it strikes me that the word image has numerous definitions that can all be relevant in this context, and that the pairing of TEXT and IMAGE has got nothing to do with chance but has been carefully thought through. A few of them:

Image
- An optically formed duplicate, counterpart, or other representative reproduction of an object.
- One that closely or exactly resembles another; a double.
- A character projected to the public.
- A mental picture of something not real or present.
- A figure of speech, especially a metaphor or simile.
- A concrete representation [..] that is expressive or evocative of something else.

To me, an extremely interesting part of Cheryl's concept (with a fragrance reminiscent of Ether), about which a LOT more could and should be written.

 

 

The third card, Text in Knots, is from Cheryl's recent Ghostwriter series. The Ghostwriter is not exactly a ghostwriter as we know them. His true occupation is undisclosed, all we know is that he is looking for something. Is he the one who is writing the Text in Knots, or is he the one untangling them?

 

 

Text in Knots is a member of the Lying Text family. It is the most elaborate one, the one that requires the most skills and technique. An advanced and almost exclusive member of the family. More fun, certainly exhilarating, hence the most addictive and dangerous of them all.

Knot sure
Knot clear
Knot meant to
Knot kidding?
Knot what I wanted to say
Why Knot then

No wonder the Ghostwriter is having a tough time. But he knows he is after something big, and maybe we will soon know more about it (cf Bifidus' blog for a start)...

 

 

A lot more could be written about this series, as usual I feel like I have only been scratching the surface of what is a much deeper concept. We need more Text, we need more Image. I need to untangle those Knots! Cheryl, I am thrilled you sent me those two additional cards, the three of them work really well together, absolutely fab, thank you HS!

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

nightcap for me. ;-D

see y'all t'morrow.

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

yes, i understand we are in a po-pomo era.

post-9/11

i don't think anyone's given it a proper name yet.

[Marie Wintzer]

Breakfast anyone?

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

sorry, modernism was concerned with how we got here, not where we are going.

been a while since i thought about the whole pomo thing.

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

yes, absolutely angie, great point!!

language, like religion (as jesus points out), is made for man, not man for language.

not that i have anything whatever to do with religion;

except maybe possibly the religion of mr. broderick who claims that

we will create god through technology - but that is a whole nother bag of worms.

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

snooky just called me an asshole???

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

i don't think we need cheryl; it's a huge topic and well worth discussing and just generally pondering over. there's so much change in the world and we are in an age where that change is probably just going to keep turning itself over on its head at an ever increasing rapid pace. i think that is one of the major themes of postmodernism; in trying to figure out where we are as opposed to modernism which was concerned with where we are going - we're in an age where it is hard to find your bearings, because everything is moving so fast.

 

i agree with your points on nonwritten language, and i'm sure you have noticed that i've even been experimenting quite a bit with mixing my googled imagery in with the discussions. what i would really like to see is if someone could engineer a way to quickly and easily manipulate images inline with your text - like a simplistic image manipulation program - so you can grab a picture off the net, throw in the link to a comment editor like this one, and fuck with it without needing to download/re-upload each time.

 

speaking with manipulated images would be a very cool thing, IMHO.

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

and note that this was written in 2001, so it isn't even going to touch on social networking on a large scale like we have today.

i've only read about a chapter, but it was absolutely mind-blowing.

i wish they'd had an audiobook version.

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

so i hunted it down,,,

Damien Broderick: The Spike.

for those of you that like lots of words! hehe

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

i understand, DVS.

elitism is a very tempting persuader: