McCloud and Sousanis

In Scott McCloud's comic essay "The Vocabulary of Comics," McCloud argues that all of the things that we experience in our lives can be separated into two realms of perception: the realm of the senses and the realm of the concept. In the realm of the senses, we take in the times around us with our senses, having a very basic understanding of the physical objects that surround us but nothing more. In the realm of the concept, we begin to associate physical things with abstractions and ideas, understanding that our identity is not merely the physical things that we identify with, it is a concept that we process in our minds. McCloud claims that we begin with concepts and slowly begin to manifest ideas, like the concept of identity and self, with the physical objects around us that we identify with. The objects around us can become extensions of ourselves, as we begin to associate them with ideas. We assign meaning to the objects that we encounter through our senses, and gradually they become an extension of ourselves and a part of the realm of concepts.

McCloud makes the argument that through the use of comics, an art varies their style in order to capture this idea of the realm of the concept versus the realm of the senses. In choosing to use a more realistic style, the artist embodies the concept of the senses, portraying the ideals of the physical world. In contrast, when an artist uses a more cartoon style that is less rooted in realism, they are aiming to portray the world within, the world more associated with the realm of the concept. Although very different in mediums from traditional comic strips, could the same be said for the style of animated cartoons? Although most animated cartoons abide by the conventions of the genre and tend to stick to a more abstract style, often acting as a caricature rather than a reflection of real life, can the same be said of cartoons that choose to adopt a more realistic style? Or would these cartoons fall into a different category because they are design to look more realistic and less like abstractions? Even though it is still an animated cartoon, how does the artist's choice to design the characters to look more like the physical things in our realm of senses affect the typical conventions of the cartoon genre?

In Nick Sousanis's "Unflattening," Sousanis argues that in order to empathize with others and to identify with those around us, we must use of imaginations. He also claims that distances between ourselves and other individuals is necessary for empathy to occur. In the gaps between ourselves and others, and in the gaps in our perceptions of the things around us, our imagination works to fill in these gaps, shaping the way that we look at the world around us. We are constantly engaged in filling in the blank spaces of our perception with imagination, as this act of separation and thinking begins to shape our worldview. This action is how we begin to formulate and understand concepts in the world around us, helping to shape new ideas and filling our world with meaning. According to Sousanis's theory of imagination, this becomes a crucial aspect to understanding how various people can perceive the world around them so differently, and how our environments and the physical objects in our world can help us to create new ideas.