Friday 15 January 2010

ScienceOnline2010: anthropomorphizing is fun to say

(You can read more for our session Pushing it 'til it breaks: what are the limits of visual metaphors? by clicking here or on the scio10art label below, or by checking the wiki.)

Visual metaphors not only help describe difficult concepts, but they can also allow you to play with them. One of my favourite ways to do that, is by anthropomorphizing them, giving objects personality and purpose, either through their relationship to one another, or by injecting them with human qualities they don't actually possess.

Consider the following images I've made.

Darwin Took Steps

Sowing Seeds & Fossils

Science-Chess Accommodating Religion

Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle (config a: false rabbit)
Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle (config b: true trilobite)

How does each give a personality to inactive objects?

What are the spatial relationships?

Do you feel the metaphor is decisive about an issue, as in a political cartoon? Is it open ended?

What do you see? What do you imagine happens next?

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under
Creative Commons Licence.


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