Do you see what I see?

In Unflattening, Nick Sousanis challenges theories of knowledge that place the word over the image. Sousanis aruges that claims images are not inferior to words, but rather they are equal parts of a bigger whole, the articulation of thought. They work together as part of a symbiotic relationship, in which each has equal responsibility. Sousanis believes that images are not simply illustrations that exist secondary medium to words. In his section, The fifth dimension, Sousanis also describes what he believes to be a superpower we as humans have, that is perhaps the strongest tool in our arsenal, our imagination. He claims that the image is an act of imagination and that imagination pervades our entire existence. He believes, “Imagination lets us exceed our inevitably limited point of view to find perspectives not in existence or dimensions not yet accessible.” They are just as much an integral aspect of thinking as words are.

Whereas McCloud suggests that the physical world can become conceptualized by our everyday sensory experiences. McCloud focuses on how our senses shape our reality as well as on the importance of audience involvement in a text or image.  Last class we essentially had a chicken or the egg discussion when we decided whether or not we believed language created reality or vice versa. I would be very interested to hear Sousanis opinion on this argument. However his perspective would be different then any of ours because he would consider images to be a part of language just as much as words, which is likely something none of us in class did. I would be interested to hear his argument as it relates to our imaginations, and what role imagination has in shaping/creating our reality, if any. Both Sousanis and McCloud offer us something I have only recently began to see in the literary world, comic books that serve as scholarly pieces of work. Both provide readers with a new vantage point through which we can view, analyze and rethink out ideas about words and images in a way that expands our thinking about them. Though their arguments are not the same, both focus on the human mind, and the essentially endless capabilities it has in regards to images and how the relate them to our world and our reality. For them our minds stretch far beyond what we believe them to be capable of.

I just have to start of by saying how disturbing I found the first anime clip of Hiroshima. I am not really sure what it was about it, but I found myself having a pit in my stomach. I think McCloud would argue that it is the dramatized nature of the artistry and images that gave me this feeling. I think McCloud would comment on the sensory aspects of the first clip. The exaggerated and incredibly graphic nature of the bombing evokes sensory feelings from the viewer which I believed aids it is powerfulness. Every aspect of the first Hiroshima clip is reflective of anime style, exaggerated, magnified, and over emphasized.  I believe this clips highlights what McCloud claims about sensory images shaping our physical world. I think the clip does a spectacular job of attempting to create a physical world, despite being animated, which is based around the sensory experiences of the people who were in it. It is strange that the second clip seems more elementary in regards to the quality of the animation, however it has a stronger sense of realism than the first. There is something about the simplicity of it that gives it a stark realism. I think Sousanis would appreciate both of these clips for the same reason. Even though they are very different, they are both products of our imagination, and both provide us with a perspective that we would never have been able to have without them. They are a way for us to see a perspective that is not available to most, and I think that is why they both affected me so much. I know what happened in Hiroshima and have known for a while. But the clips both worked in their own ways to draw emotions out of me that I had never felt when I was learning about it.