0:00:08.635,0:00:12.481
I’ve been involved in visuals all my life, [br]so have you.

0:00:12.481,0:00:14.521
But it was brought to my attention pretty early:

0:00:14.521,0:00:16.957
My father practiced as an architect.

0:00:16.957,0:00:23.197
So, quite early on, I learned the difference [br]between a segmental and a triangular pediment,

0:00:23.197,0:00:27.496
gables, a mansard roof.

0:00:27.496,0:00:34.709
When I was thirteen, an aunt of mine [br]sent me an art postcard for my birthday

0:00:34.709,0:00:40.015
and she said, "I'll send you one a month [br]if you'd like to collect them."

0:00:40.015,0:00:45.188
So, I started collecting, [br]she slowed down sending.

0:00:45.188,0:00:50.244
I started to go to art classes [br]at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin

0:00:50.244,0:00:55.972
with Dr. James Wright, the Director,[br]who is an enthusiast for artworks.

0:00:55.972,0:01:02.023
And by the time I went to college [br]I had 5,000 postcards.

0:01:02.023,0:01:05.003
Now, think about a postcard; [br]it's not like ripping things out of a book,

0:01:05.003,0:01:06.714
or slides or anything, [br]they are all the same size,

0:01:06.714,0:01:11.131
so that's a manipulation. [br]The shape, the size is made the same.

0:01:11.131,0:01:13.388
But, you can take 40 Rembrandts [br]and put them all on a table,

0:01:13.388,0:01:16.607
and you can write the dates of them all, [br]and you can see the progression

0:01:16.607,0:01:21.111
of an artist's career [br]right in front of your eyes.

0:01:21.111,0:01:25.914
The imaginative process is something [br]that happens with our eyes,

0:01:25.914,0:01:32.401
our actual eyes seeing, [br]and the eyes of our minds:

0:01:32.401,0:01:38.107
the blind Milton,[br]able to create such visual poems.

0:01:38.107,0:01:46.762
What do we really see? [br]Why do we use the word visionary?

0:01:46.762,0:01:55.060
Visionary: farsighted. Well, the issue is that [br]everything is an image.

0:01:55.060,0:01:58.258
Everything we see is an image.

0:01:58.258,0:02:05.671
We see it binocularly and with a retina, [br]it’s upside down,

0:02:05.671,0:02:10.488
connecting to our optic nerve, [br]to our brain cortex.

0:02:10.488,0:02:13.407
We see millions of things every day,

0:02:13.407,0:02:16.850
but unless we connect[br]cognition and memory,

0:02:16.850,0:02:20.032
we don’t remember what we see.

0:02:20.032,0:02:24.595
So, visual literacy, what is it?

0:02:24.595,0:02:30.159
It’s the ability to construct [br]meaning from images.

0:02:30.159,0:02:36.118
It’s not a skill; it uses skills as a toolbox.

0:02:36.118,0:02:44.417
It’s a form of critical thinking [br]that enhances your intellectual capacity.

0:02:44.417,0:02:47.325
It’s not a new concept.

0:02:47.325,0:02:53.395
In 1969, the International Visual Literacy Association [br]was established.

0:02:53.395,0:02:56.464
It has an annual conference; it has a journal.

0:02:56.464,0:03:01.799
But something happened on the way [br]from there to here.

0:03:01.799,0:03:09.341
And we kind of lost visual literacy [br]amid visual studies, and visual culture,

0:03:09.341,0:03:15.220
and visual communications, and visual graphics.

0:03:15.220,0:03:18.326
And what’s necessary now, [br]surely it seems to me,

0:03:18.326,0:03:23.037
is that we integrate, that we re-integrate [br]the capacity of our senses.

0:03:23.037,0:03:28.586
And why? Because we are now in the digital age.

0:03:28.586,0:03:33.735
I am so excited for college and university students [br]all over the world.

0:03:33.750,0:03:39.614
In December 1991, the World Wide Web went live.

0:03:39.614,0:03:42.960
That means that eighteen-year-olds [br]going to college everywhere

0:03:42.960,0:03:52.681
are digital natives and I am one [br]of the before-and-after people.

0:03:52.681,0:03:57.494
I know what it was like before [br]and I know what it is like after.

0:03:57.494,0:04:01.285
I’m one of what you might call [br]the Gutenberg people.

0:04:01.285,0:04:04.048
Can you imagine what it was like, [br]you had all these illuminated manuscripts

0:04:04.048,0:04:11.161
[br]and along they came and said,[br]“Here’s a book; we got hundreds more of them!”?

0:04:11.621,0:04:16.981
It’s fascinating, in the near-Eastern world [br]you have this great invention

0:04:16.981,0:04:22.884
of cuneiform writing and it took us 2,500 years,

0:04:22.884,0:04:28.592
whether in Korea or in Germany, [br]to develop a printing type

0:04:28.592,0:04:32.109
that would change everything.

0:04:32.109,0:04:35.314
And it took us only another 500 years

0:04:35.314,0:04:39.643
to get to where we are now: the digital age.

0:04:39.643,0:04:48.774
So, what indeed was visual literacy like [br]in a pre-literate past?

0:04:48.774,0:04:55.723
We understand sign language [br]before we understand the printed word.

0:04:55.723,0:05:00.898
When you think about those cave paintings [br]in the Dordogne region of France,

0:05:00.929,0:05:04.731
what were people painting?

0:05:04.731,0:05:09.703
There are no figures in them; [br]they were looking out,

0:05:09.703,0:05:14.331
they were looking out [br]at the landscape and at the animals.

0:05:14.331,0:05:16.674
They were looking out at the world.

0:05:16.674,0:05:20.730
And when you think of those wonderful [br]stained-glass windows

0:05:20.730,0:05:26.577
that we hardly give time to now, [br]but people read one pane after the other,

0:05:26.577,0:05:28.685
the entire story.

0:05:28.685,0:05:33.739
We fast-forward to the graphic novel, [br]to cartoons.

0:05:33.739,0:05:38.483
We need integration now of text and image.

0:05:38.483,0:05:43.074
I’ve been finding our text scholars, [br]they say, “Everything’s a text.”

0:05:43.074,0:05:47.722
And I’m equally imperious because I’m saying,[br]“Everything’s an image.”

0:05:47.722,0:05:51.165
The truth is everything’s an image and it's a text.

0:05:51.165,0:05:57.998
Visual literacy is multi-modal, it’s multi-disciplinary,

0:05:57.998,0:06:02.062
it’s interdisciplinary and it’s collaborative.

0:06:02.062,0:06:04.995
It’s actually a universal language.

0:06:04.995,0:06:10.225
Now think about universal languages: [br]dance, mime – universal languages.

0:06:10.225,0:06:17.835
Visuals: universal language. [br]You don’t have to know Japanese or Gaelic or Polish.

0:06:17.835,0:06:22.821
We can understand visuals all over the world.

0:06:22.821,0:06:27.940
So if that’s the case that we can enhance [br]global understanding with visuals,

0:06:27.940,0:06:33.908
what is it we are doing to learn [br]how to really see visually?

0:06:33.908,0:06:40.404
When we were babies, we took in everything.

0:06:40.404,0:06:43.304
So much so that we actually used up brain cells.

0:06:43.304,0:06:46.802
Today we use them up for different reasons.

0:06:46.802,0:06:51.379
We learn the difference between [br]marked and unmarked space.

0:06:51.379,0:06:54.525
Can you imagine the difference [br]between one face and another?

0:06:54.525,0:06:58.005
Basically they all look the same! [br]So, how did we learn the difference?

0:06:58.005,0:07:00.934
Well, let’s try a little game.

0:07:00.934,0:07:04.583
Clifford Geertz, the great anthropologist [br]in the interpretation of cultures,

0:07:04.583,0:07:09.516
he quotes a story which is the story of the wink. [br]So let’s try it.

0:07:10.177,0:07:13.352
People at home looking in the mirror, [br]you're looking at me.

0:07:13.352,0:07:18.929
OK, what I want you to do is twitch your eye. [br]Go on, twitch.

0:07:18.929,0:07:23.179
Now, just wink.

0:07:23.179,0:07:28.292
Now, I want you to wink conspiratorially.

0:07:28.731,0:07:34.514
Try winking romantically.

0:07:34.514,0:07:38.205
A wink can have multiple meanings

0:07:38.205,0:07:42.944
and means different things in different cultures.

0:07:42.944,0:07:49.054
The thing about the visual is [br]90% of all the information

0:07:49.054,0:07:54.566
we take in from the world we take in visually.

0:07:54.566,0:08:01.236
Now, I’m not saying that that makes that 90% [br]more important than the 10% that isn’t taken in visually,

0:08:01.236,0:08:06.822
and of course those who cannot see [br]learn to enhance those powers of the other senses.

0:08:06.822,0:08:16.176
But I am noting the percentage; [br]a full 30% of the brain cortex is given over to vision.

0:08:16.176,0:08:23.599
We actually read non-text 60,000 times faster [br]than we can read text.

0:08:23.599,0:08:31.997
So what I’d like to advocate [br]is a little bit of slow-looking.

0:08:31.997,0:08:38.609
I’d like all of us to be able to look [br]so that we would really, really see,

0:08:38.609,0:08:45.590
just like we hear [br]so we could really be listening. Why?

0:08:45.590,0:08:48.312
Because we need to put some order [br]on our chaos

0:08:48.312,0:08:53.134
and we like the idea of harmony [br]among our disharmony.

0:08:53.134,0:09:03.829
Here’s a method for slow-looking; you can all use this [br]anywhere – see this thing here?

0:09:03.829,0:09:13.723
Look at it. When you’ve actually looked at it, [br]you can begin to see it.

0:09:13.723,0:09:19.868
And when you see it, [br]then you can begin to describe it.

0:09:21.392,0:09:23.571
Quite difficult.

0:09:23.571,0:09:28.719
And when you can describe it, [br]then you can begin to analyze it.

0:09:29.999,0:09:32.561
What’s it made of, for example?

0:09:32.561,0:09:37.475
And only after looking, and seeing, [br]and describing, and analyzing,

0:09:37.475,0:09:43.791
can you begin to interpret it, [br]to construct meaning from it.

0:09:45.437,0:09:49.708
So how much do we look at [br]where we don’t engage that process?

0:09:49.708,0:09:55.370
What we actually need is the alphabet [br]and the grammar of visual literacy.

0:09:55.370,0:10:01.588
I’ve worked all my life in art museums – [br]most of it anyway.

0:10:01.588,0:10:07.187
And I actually believe in the elements [br]and principles of art.

0:10:07.187,0:10:16.172
There was a time we all used to know them. [br]Here’s a little painting I painted earlier.

0:10:16.172,0:10:22.942
How is it that we know digits and we know letters, [br]but we don’t know what ways to approach that?

0:10:22.942,0:10:25.207
There was a time we would've.

0:10:25.207,0:10:28.690
We could begin to talk about [br]that in terms of its shape, [br]

0:10:28.690,0:10:33.820
and its form, and its volume,

0:10:33.820,0:10:38.570
and its line, and its composition,

0:10:38.570,0:10:45.860
its color, its rhythm, its pattern, [br]its movement, its composition,

0:10:45.860,0:10:53.720
its unity, its value, its hue, its intensity… [br]and so on.

0:10:53.720,0:11:00.890
A visually literate person can read [br]and write visual language,

0:11:00.890,0:11:06.676
can encode and decode visual language.

0:11:06.676,0:11:10.109
You know there’s lots of help available, [br]especially with the Internet.

0:11:10.109,0:11:12.180
There’s a fantastic thing on the Internet, [br]you can all look it up,

0:11:12.180,0:11:16.325
it’s called The Periodic Table [br]of Visualization Elements.

0:11:16.325,0:11:19.265
No matter what subject you’re using, [br]you can go and look at that.

0:11:19.265,0:11:22.630
It's fantastic, puts Mr. Tufte and all the people [br]

0:11:22.630,0:11:27.090
who’ve worked on visualization [br]into full focus for us.

0:11:27.090,0:11:28.709
What visual literacy does –

0:11:28.709,0:11:33.122
it helps us with classification, [br]that’s what I learned with my postcards,

0:11:33.122,0:11:38.437
the similarities and the differences [br]between things.

0:11:38.437,0:11:40.773
Stars,

0:11:40.773,0:11:43.310
cells,

0:11:43.031,0:11:46.073
flowers, trees;

0:11:46.073,0:11:49.617
When you walk out on the green [br]and all those poor trees are saying,

0:11:49.617,0:11:52.106
“They didn’t notice me!”

0:11:52.106,0:11:55.772
Every one different: photographs.

0:11:55.772,0:12:01.761
All the ways throughout curriculum [br]that we engage the visual.

0:12:01.761,0:12:11.098
Two towers and a plane…[br]the power of visual images.

0:12:11.098,0:12:15.274
Did you feel your response [br]as I evoked that image?

0:12:15.274,0:12:21.448
Visual images have the power [br]to bring our senses together simultaneously

0:12:21.448,0:12:27.361
and to impact viscerally our emotions.

0:12:27.361,0:12:32.253
There’s a book called Crashing Through.

0:12:32.253,0:12:34.489
It’s an incredible story.

0:12:34.489,0:12:38.053
It’s about a man called Mike May.

0:12:38.053,0:12:43.194
He had sight until he was three. [br]He lost it.

0:12:43.194,0:12:48.638
But it was in a chemical explosion, [br]so, when he was forty-three,

0:12:48.638,0:12:54.160
through stem cell technology, [br]his sight was recovered.

0:12:54.160,0:12:56.799
Can you possibly imagine

0:12:56.799,0:13:01.421
what it would be like to find that sight again

0:13:01.421,0:13:04.558
and to begin to negotiate the world?

0:13:04.558,0:13:10.667
Close your eyes: go on, close your eyes.

0:13:10.667,0:13:14.943
What color is my tie? [br]How would you describe me?

0:13:14.943,0:13:19.144
What number is on the side of the, [br]I hope, the racing car?

0:13:19.144,0:13:21.370
I hope you noticed.

0:13:21.370,0:13:26.940
What was on the top of the shelves, [br]on the cases?

0:13:26.940,0:13:33.815
Open your eyes. OPEN your eyes!

0:13:33.815,0:13:42.723
The visual is learned before the verbal.[br]We then start to learn digits and letters.

0:13:42.723,0:13:46.485
Why is it that we study and are tested [br]for textual literacy

0:13:46.485,0:13:51.169
and for computer literacy, [br]but not for visual literacy?

0:13:51.169,0:13:54.348
We need to train our visual capacity.

0:13:54.348,0:14:00.982
We need to train our ability [br]to construct meaning from images.

0:14:00.982,0:14:08.264
What we actually need is leadership [br]that recognizes that visual literacy

0:14:08.264,0:14:11.181
is needed in the curriculum, [br]across the curriculum.

0:14:11.181,0:14:13.736
We need a visual literacy curriculum.

0:14:13.736,0:14:17.773
And I don’t mean what generally happens [br]in art education,

0:14:17.773,0:14:20.110
I mean across the whole curriculum.

0:14:20.110,0:14:27.310
How did it happen that we didn’t train everybody [br]to be visually literate?

0:14:28.988,0:14:37.126
I’d like us to be able to use our greatest gifts [br]as fully as possible.

0:14:37.126,0:14:45.187
I’d like us to recognize that 90% of what [br]we take in in the world, we take in visually.

0:14:45.187,0:14:51.903
I’d like us to really think about [br]how extraordinary it is to be in the digital age.

0:14:51.903,0:14:54.413
How exciting!

0:14:54.413,0:14:58.143
Hundreds of years pass [br]and then suddenly something happens

0:14:58.143,0:15:03.293
that really has changed everything.

0:15:03.857,0:15:08.172
If we have something that is capable of [br]enhancing our communication

0:15:08.172,0:15:12.807
across the entire world, [br]something truly universal,

0:15:12.807,0:15:18.175
if we have something [br]that can truly promote communication,

0:15:18.175,0:15:26.939
if we have something in visuals [br]that can quite simply change your life,

0:15:26.939,0:15:33.329
it can change the way that you live, [br]as we walk out of our house,

0:15:33.329,0:15:39.506
as we walk out into the world [br]and start to look, and see,

0:15:39.833,0:15:45.814
and describe, and analyze, and interpret.

0:15:45.814,0:15:50.886
My simple case: visual literacy, we need it.

0:15:50.916,0:15:53.769
Enjoy your life. Thank you.

0:15:53.769,0:15:55.676
(Applause)