rhetoriC: writing, reading and ProduCing the visuaLWhile this research is presented in a print text, arts research- practitioners might
well choose to create an exhibition in which they use rhetorical strategies to illuminate
the act of ‘writing’ on land. Through sign, symbol and physical form they could
change, tame, leave, comment on the landscape, symbolizing through form, sound
and movement, what halloran and Clark write in alphabetical text. such research,
communicated through the visual and alphabetical articulate powerfully the rhetorical
effect of placement, and artists who use that knowledge to effect, such as anthony
gormley in his 2007 installation in london and its hayward gallery, are performing
rhetorical acts through their art (Kidron 2007).
There are many such examples that demonstrate the application of rhetoric
to a variety of art productions in order to examine how they communicate, what
they communicate, and in some cases, why. at its simplest, rhetoricians assume
that every element of a visual, musical or dance is purposefully chosen to effect a
response in a viewer. Cara Finnegan exemplifies this sorting out of ‘three moments
in the life of an image for which a critic must account: production, reproduction
and circulation’ (Finnegan 2004: 199). she performs a rhetorical analysis of the
influence of the picture magazine LOOK on public opinion by unpacking images
in its 1937 publication that were chosen purposefully from a free ‘bank’ of photos
contributed to by various photographers of the time. Finnegan compares the use
of the photos by LOOK with the use of the same pictures by other publications in
the late 1930s, providing evidence of two competing arguments that emerge from
different editors’ arrangements; shaping particular cultural attitudes towards race,
class and children. she is, of course, performing rhetoric as she produces it. That is,
while the act of examining the history of a production may be termed ‘art history’
an artist may find such a rhetorical approach to photography a fitting subject for
a collage that juxtaposes original with historical images. For example, a dancer or
musical composer might examine her own interpretation in light of the influences
others see in the performance, placing each reception in context and then in dialogue
with her own reading. This form of scholarship would open to the artist further paths
for self- production and to other artists, knowledge about art practice. The form this
scholarship would take should be a combination of words, image, sound and video
(movement) in order to acknowledge the rhetorical power of each area’s grammar
and vocabulary (i.e. brush stroke or line; movement or gesture; tempo or arpeggio).
Right now a computer might be the most easily available form for this scholarship,
though a performance that is narrated, discussed or involves audience reaction, also
stands as scholarship in the arts.
perhaps the key to the idea of the ‘rhetorical’ as applied to art is that it is a public
communication with an audience, one about which the artist/performer wants to
effect. That might indeed limit the use of rhetoric as a means of producing art research
to those who choose to speak to, and study, dialogues that art production and viewing
enacts. however, just as art practitioners make use of materials as they become available,
rhetorical theorists working with visuals have begun to change their own productions.
Researchers examining digital and multimodal rhetorics have been producing print
that may be in the form of a comic book (mcCloud 1994), and research about web
sites, digital art, and other visual productions are appearing on the web and beginning
to look more like the art they examine.