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Derek states in Graphical Structuring, “One among the many clear, cogent points offered by Johanna Drucker in “Graphesis” is…” And, I have to stop there. Reading Drucker on my own was difficult. My difficulty could be compounded by the time left in the semester; however, let me provide an example of what one must wade through:
Visual epistemology has to be conceived as procedural, generative, emergent, as a co-dependent dynamic in which subjectivity and objectivity are related. (2)
What does this really mean? With all due respect, I have to disagree that her many points are “clear and cogent.” It’s more like hieroglyphics at least to me. Ok, well, that’s getting a bit dramatical even for this Gemini. However, I asked someone in the writing lab what she thought, and she said, “Oh, I skip those types of sentences.” Hmm, responding to this offhand comment would require an entirely different post on the subject of ‘how to get through all of one’s required reading,’ so let me stick to this first dilema. Seriously, if you can help me unpack this, please, comment below.
And, let me qualify my state of confusion. I do get Derek’s (and Drucker’s) larger point that, “as readers of conventionally formatted, paper-bound texts we’re already accustomed to recognizing and apprehending meaning by way of graphical features.”
I can apprehend her aim, “to create a critical framework within which the forms that are generally used for the presentation of information can be understood and read as culturally coded expressions of knowledge with their own epistemological assumptions and historical lineage.” Drucker is arguing for a graphical criticism and an acknowledgment that graphesis is culturally and historically bound. “We see what we know to look for” and what we know is dependent upon our culture and history (4).
I can also understand her point that “visual epistemology must be synthesized at the intersection of humanistic and scientific concepts of knowledge” (5). Interdisciplinary is key to understanding and organizing knowledge about this subject.
I agree with her point that “Graphics are economical, efficient, and offer a way to grasp complex relations in an immediately legible form” (6). Often, when I can draw a picture of what I need to make sense of, things become much clearer. Hey, maybe I just need a few graphics in the text to make more sense of it all. Well, that and a bit more time. 
One Response to “Graphesis”
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About m2h blogsMarcia Hansen works by day as a marketing manager in social media. At other times you'll find her traveling about speaking, writing, and learning. And, if she's lucky, it's on her Honda Shadow 1100.
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TR
April 26th, 2005 at 8:36 am
Being someone who is dubious of human subjectivity (read Foucauldian), I might not be the best person to take a whack at the part you have excerpted, but here goes.
I think what Drucker is trying to establish is the idea that we have found a way to make the meaning of graphics seem like a self-evident representation of some larger truth. This is what she busts Tufte for. Graphs and charts, Drucker claims, are not simply representations of existing data, but function rhetorically in that they can be manipulated (in negative or non-negative ways) to acheive different effects. Thus, she claims, our way of knowing the representation must shift from a static perception of objective truth to account for the subjective intentions of the author.
This touches on one of my critiques of what she’s doing here because I’m not comfortable advocating subjectivity and theorists who claim the death of the author in conjunction with one another. I’m also not certain that her ideas, as such, are quite as groundbreaking for me as they might be for people who take for granted the objectivity of graphical representations. I guess I’ve studied way too many UFO photos.