Writing as a Visual Art

Dear Renaldo The,

My friend Damian (he even LOOKS like the kid from the Omen!) and I both love your ensemble's performances, which we try to attend whenever we can. Yesterday we got into an argument that we could not resolve. We both agreed to ask you and accept whatever answer you give us as resolution of our conflict.

Here's our question: Can writing (fiction, poetry, non-fiction, etc.) be considered one of the Visual Arts? I say it can, because it is through visual symbols that ideas are conveyed. Also, arrangement of language on the page contributes intensely to how it will be read and perceived. Damian says it can't because even a birth-blind person can develop and create language, meaning, stories, etc., entirely without visualization of language symbols. He puts writing in the Conceptual or Sound Art category. Writing this I am already tired of thinking about categories and my cousin Sheila thinks I should abandon them altogether (both in art and in human relationships!).

Thanks for you consideration,
Darla



OK..well this is a grey-zone question as their are dissenting views based on Language/concept formations in human children who have an intuitive process still not fully understood by science where they essentially delete hypothesis and categories to arrive at word meanings at the alarmingly fast rate of 9 words a day after they reach 18mos old!

It is known that we process partial geometric shapes and derive conceptual wholes from the partial information and this abstract ability is linked to language formation as we use a similar process to infer greater wholes from smaller conceptual links.

Words are a form of pure abstraction in themselves as the word "car" for example is not a car in itself but an agreed upon utterance that conjures the image and meaning. The deeper connections of human mental process that would allow us to infer meaning and attribute language to secondary
representations is indeed partly visual: for example if we see two bushes, one large and one small we could infer Mommy-bush and baby-bush from the process.

We know that music and organized sound is processed in the center area of the brain while most language is processed in the frontal cortex so there could be an argument made for language and it's baby, writing, having separate categories of neural genesis.

Some religious groups have attempted to seek out the divine "sounds" of their language as if god spoke a particular dialect and that had hidden vibrations, fortunately this type of "study" is relegated to pseudoscience where it belongs.

As a musician I have many instances where words and sounds overlap in their blend to create "meaning" or meta-comments. I would say from my own sense how language extends to visual connections and sounds similarly can be manipulated for narrative devices that "artists" (those who deal in representations) have blended processes to achieve desired effect. Recent studies utilizing MRIs show how cross-modular binding bears this out, we unlike other critters borrow and combine otherwise segregated brain areas to achieve a final resulting understanding.

I still have to guess, barring hours of research but I would venture to say that writing is a complex processing outcome using BOTH visual and pure conceptual tools that are uniquely Homo-Sapien (as we know that Neanderthals lack voice boxes sufficiently designed to speak with and did not achieve the "artistic" level of our own species) Writing is clearly connected and dependant on signs and symbols as examples of both pictures and concepts respectively. It's seems logical that writing therefore requires a complex process can't be held fully by any one category... You're both partially correct and I'll look into this more. Also read Oliver Sachs as this is his main bag


I am interested however to find out what blind people "see" as a result of narrative imagination.

-Renaldo THE