Speaking Signs

Text or Image? Web-publishing counts as a hope for unproblematic communication on the basis of high iconicity, transcending language and culture within the visually unified Global Village. A new knowledge design, conceived through technological concepts, revolutionizes language culture, as pattern recognition gradually replaces the linear alphabetic code. Yet non-alphabetical reading or a noticeable turn towards the iconic has a longer history than expected within the recent changes influenced by electronic media. In the form of optical guidelines, using stylized icons, this 'different reading' already became part of everyday's life. Can there also be an education through the eye? This following essay gives an account on early steps in media-literacy and knowledge-design: the Viennese Method of Visual Education by Otto Neurath (1882-1945).

Vorspann
Speaking Signs