As to the Kress article, for me, it’s not the matter of prioritising the medium or the message as this would indicate power relationships. It’s more the two penetrating each other.
Like Grace I am often disappointed when I see the film adaptation of the book because it does not echo my own imagining of the scenes and characters. But does that mean the visual locks me into the imagery? You can always think of it as an extension, another interpretive possibility. And how can you judge the adaptation if it is the text that is the point of departure (again, the text would be in charge of the interpretation). Interestingly enough, with our visual artefacts, the fact that people were interpreting them differently, often spotting things that the creator had not intended was generally felt as empowering, uncanny, enthralling, not as a source of disappointment. Is it because we were working in the opposite direction, with images being a starting point and words coming second. I find it quite interesting on tumblr and also youtube that you can respond using a visual. How would you give visual feedback on the artefacts displayed on our site?

I like Jeremy’s reading of Tolkien’s quote as a metaphor of the reading process but I would like to emphasise that this might refer equally to image reading and text reading and the metaphor could be equally spurred on by the image or the description of the tree as images are also ‘filled up with ages of memory, and long slow, steady thinking’. Maybe even more than text as what came first after all?

I think due to the years of text-based culture, we are somehow programmed to value the text as it is more tangible, fixed and stable – gives us a sense of comfort? I find it intriguing to read Grace’s comment that she feels more comfortable with words and she has to learn to read images. I’m similar but when you think of it: in the child development images come before words so you would consider them to be something natural. And in the humanity development, didn’t picture come before the written word? The first languages were making use of images, pictograms. Why is it then we feel uncomfortable reading them? It should feel more natural …

What do you think?

You tweeted how everyone ‘reads’ the visual artefacts differently. And there have been many and varied interpretations, some of which weren’t actually intended by the creator. When books are turned into film I can get disappointed because the character portrayals aren’t anything like I imagined them to be. I’m comfortable with words but feel I have to be taught to read an image correctly.

As for digital books, I can enjoy them and it sure makes holiday reading easier to pack but I’m a book person. I love books and always carry one with me, my favourite way of passing time when I have to wait around. I wouldn’t like to think of a world where they become obsolete.