From the hand to the product: the utensil in handicraft production. A hypertext visual essay experiment

Abstract

AbstractIn the pages that follow two experimental attempts are described: on one side, an attempt construct a meta- text interact with a photographic text on the tools of craftsmen (Secondulfo 2013), conceived as a visual essay, that is say one entirely developed through images, in this case photos; on the other, an attempt explore the expressive and cognitive potentialities afforded by an electronic - telematic support like the magazine you are reading, through the insertion of hypertext links for the purpose of specifying, going more deeply into and intensifying the message entrusted the text.In the essay that follows an endeavour is made explain, with the aid of images, the logic that governed the visual essay experiment, that is say both the grammar that informed the choice and the sequence of the images, and the grammar that guided the construction of the single images, trying show how the aesthetical stylistic traits were governed for the purpose of composing a sociological reasoning entrusted precisely only the images themselves.In this connection it may be useful read a brief explanation of the criteria that informed the construction of the links.1. Visual techniques, investigation and sociological reasoningFor several years in sociology too the use of imagery techniques for analysis of reality has been accepted, and in recent years this line of investigation has been consolidated under the name of Visual Sociology (Cipolla, Faccioli 1993; Faccioli, Losacco 2003, Harper 2012). After some pioneer uses of video techniques (Cipriani 1985, Agamennone 2005), for a long time the sociological use of photos and videos was relegated a play role, one of support and illustration of scientific reasoning that however could only totally entrust itself the written word, unlike the work of the anthropologists, who immediately began use visual technical fix the other realities that they studied (drawing, films, photos, recordings). Anthropology and ethnography, driven perhaps by the difference in the reality studied and by the awareness that any verbal description would not have been able reproduce the richness and diversity of the society and the groups studied, make visual instrumentation an essential part of their toolbox, often blending it with the concept of culture and material culture, in the reproduction of tools and their use. And it is from anthropology that these techniques cross over, not without difficulty, into sociology. Although by now the old distrust has gone, it is still difficult, for much of sociology, accept the argumentative content and scientific capacity for observation of these techniques of investigation, also because of the poor technical competence of some generations of sociologists, whose background is in philosophical or political studies, and who are accustomed transferring concepts and arguments entirely with the word, being suspicious of areas of symbolic mediation distant from the rational message inherent in the alphabet and in the ordered sequence of words (McLuhan 1963). They are incapable of seeing visual techniques outside the game intents with which they are used, in general, in society, and therefore mistrustful and constitutionally unable to take them seriously. Yet, as we have amply demonstrated (Secondulfo 2011), there are aspects of society that it is impossible study without resorting photos, films, drawings, etc.But the logic of images is not only applied the empirical part of the investigation; it is also possible apply it the discursive development of results, that is say the scientific essay that collects them and divulges them. An evolution of the idea of photo story is already attested inside the techniques of visual sociology. Just as it is possible develop a narration linked an event or phenomenon that one intends introduce and analyze, so too it should be possible develop an iconographic narration that works out the logical-inductive reasoning usually entrusted the written word of the scientific essay. …