The dawning of multiliteracies communication

As individual human beings, with individual thoughts and interpretations, it is quite blatantly obvious that we all 'see' the world in a unique way. However, during this week I have came to the realisation that literacy is also the process of using signs, or 'semosis'. Greater expanding my thoughts, it came to me. If my friend were to say to me the word 'hot', instantaniously I would picture the sun, fire, the colour red or orange. Unintentionally, I am blending signs of literacy such as oral and visual, am I not? We use visual, audio, oral, spatial, gestural, tactile and written literacy to communicate meaning, but this process of blurring different modes of meaning together can be defined as Synaesthesia, (Kalantzis & Cope, 2013). People often redesign meanings by taking available resources for meaning and using them as building blocks for designing new meanings, (Phillips, 2013).

(Vsauce, 2013)
This Youtube clip shows how differently individuals can interpreate meanings through their own representation (self making meaning for ourselves) and communication (a message from one person that prompts an interpretation by another, making meanings in our interactions with others).


Personally, I believe the literacy practices I engage with regularly and use to communicate in my own unique way is through visual art. Drawing for me, not necessarily people, places or things but quite often simple patterns create a great deal of meaning. I express through my art how I feel, and usually convey strong meaning, that usually only I can pick from the works. Studying Visual art throughout high school also gave me a greater insight on the meaning behind visual arts. I incorporate a great deal of symbolism into my work, which I research and plan out before designing, scratching through countless drafts.

Here are a few of my art works:

Ukulele drawn in 2012, my visual literacy expression of how I felt during the summer holidays and after graduating.

This drawing was during my art project on 'Social criticism', I decided to focus on refugees and the need to seek asylum.

A drawing I completed for my project on 'Identity' using a great deal of symbolism to express my visual literacy.



References:

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2012). Literacies. Melbourne:
Cambridge University Press. Chapter 7: Literacies as
multimodal designs for meaning pp.173-205.

Phillips,L. (2013) Lecture notes, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia