Reading 3- due Sunday, Oct 2

Critical Wayfinding-
Why does Ellen Lupton refer to “visual language” as a metaphor?
What does she mean by “perception at the expense of interpretation?”

Modern Hieroglyphs-
Give 3 examples of how signs are culturally specific.
Give 3 examples of how signs create distinctions between class, race and gender.

Language of Dreams-
What is the difference between a pictograph and an ideograph?
What signs would you use to create a rebus for the word “god”? Why did you choose those particular signs?

"Explaining Magic"- Edward Tufte, due Sept 18

"To create illusions is to engage in 'disinformation design'. An inventory of conjuring methods consequently provides evidence about 'what not to do' in the proper arrangement of information- where the point is not at all to baffle the audience but rather to unveil and explain complex data clearly , accurately, mistakably."

"...in work on 'visual masking', 'the reduction of the visibility of one stimulus, called the target, by a spatiotemporally overlapping or contiguous second stimulus, called the mask.' In conjuring, The Mask makes the magic; elsewhere, The Mask makes a lie."

~ Explaining Magic, Tufte

Aside from magic tricks, briefly describe and outline another scenario which uses a target and "The Mask".