Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century

Facilitator: Bob Horn
Organization: Stanford University
Session #: 101
Session Title: Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century

Date: Monday, January 28, 2008
Time: 11:00am - 12:30pm
Room: Franciscan I 

Description

Bob Horn’s groundbreaking book Visual Language asserts that the tightly integrated use of words and visual elements has produced a new global language. Vocabularies from diverse fields such as diagramming, cartooning, animation, quantitative charts and graphs, and info-graphics, among many others, are converging to form a single language. Visual Language provides an initial exploration of the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of the foundational language for deep visual thinking. This unique book was the first to use visual language to analyze visual language on every page.

Bob will introduce the linguistics of visual language and discuss his current work with complex organizational issues.  Among the newest tools that help us address these public policy and organizational issues is the field of visual analytics which integrates the insights of strategic analysis with highly visual knowledge maps and comprehensive information-murals.  Bob has worked on issues such as climate change, nuclear waste disposal, energy security, and public mental health with government agencies in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. ranging from the national to county levels. His talk will conclude with a description of the new possibilities that visual language provides for global understanding.