Sunken Monadnock is a scripted combination of three modular musical surfaces. The word “surface” is borrowed from Morton Feldman, who compared the aural surface of music to the canvases of the action painters of the American Abstract Expressionists, and contrasted it with the work’s subject, or organizational structure. Composers’ transition toward a focus on surface through indeterminate compositional techniques, according to Feldman, parallels the development of modernist abstract art. “Sunken Monadnock: Composing with Visual Metaphors” is a companion critical essay that takes the surface/subject metaphor as a starting point for analyzing Sunken Monadnock.Other visual metaphors that inspired Sunken Monadnock, and are discussed in the essay, include Shakir Hassan Al Said’s mystical semiotics, Jasper Johns’s crosshatch prints, and Wassily Kandinsky’s theory of abstraction. The circle and spiral, especially, play influential roles in Sunken Monadnock as reflected by musical applications of repetition, rotation, compression/rarefaction, and endlessness. The void in the circle’s center also comes into play. The nature of the work’s formal counterpoint requires an innovative approach to the score, which consists of five sections, each of which reflects a different approach to the aural surface (i.e., to the traversal of time). The two outer sections are traditionally scored, but the three sections in the middle—labeled “Surfaces” are played simultaneously by three subsets of the ensemble. The piece is approximately 22 minutes long.

Visual metaphors in advertising have been researched extensively because of their ability to persuade. However, few studies have investigated why they are persuasive from the perspective of the consumer. The purpose of this study was to identify why viewers are attracted to visual metaphor ads and provide a better understanding of the types of consumers who view them, revealing their subjective opinions and attitudes. Through the use of Q-method, four factors were identified: "Highbrows," who prefer metaphors that are classy and refined, "Connectors," an emotional group that focuses on interpersonal relationships and the relevance of the metaphor to the advertised product, "Executionists," who focus solely on how well the message or idea is executed by the metaphor, and "Logical Agitators," who can appreciate humorous body distortion because they function primarily cognitively. The results show that visual metaphors attract a diverse audience and that consumers of metaphors are much more complex than previous research implies. Advertisers may create more effective visual metaphors by constructing them to appeal to one of the four types.

Objective: This study aims to evaluate the application of Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self-Measure (PRISM) in educating patients regarding oral health before endoprosthesis (EP). Methods: The study consisted of two parts: (I) a cross-sectional study, where patients received a PRISM interview, oral health briefing and oral examinations (treatment need, oral focus). (II) In an observational part, patients were randomly assigned to either PRISM task (Test) or flyer-based verbal briefing (Control). Before and after the interviews, patients answered a questionnaire regarding importance of oral health for EP. Results: (I) 122 patients were included. The distance between subject (“myself”) and objects (oral health issues or EP) in the PRISM task were mainly not associated with age, gender, and oral conditions. In part (II), 80 patients (PRISM: n = 40, Control: n = 40) were included. After the interview, the values for perceived relationship between EP and teeth (p < 0.01), EP and gums (p < 0.01), and EP and dental consultations (p < 0.01) significantly increased in both groups. Both groups perceived a high benefit of the interview and felt well educated. Conclusions: PRISM has comparable positive effects like a flyer-based verbal briefing. PRISM as a novel visual tool can support the patient education regarding oral health before EP

This study examines the theme of hybridity in Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre and Jordan Peele’s film Get Out. Both the narrative text in the novel and the script with visual elements of the film use the concept of hybridity through Gothic motifs: a mad non-white woman in the attic in Jane Eyre and a psychological place in Get Out, where members of a white family hypnotise black people in order to exploit their physical capabilities. This is employed to disrupt dominant discourses of authoritative class, revealing the ways in which these discourses are constructed through the exclusion of certain identities. Bertha Mason, the Creole wife of Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre, and Chris Washington, the African American protagonist of Get Out, both embody a sense of hybridity that challenges established norms of individuality and representation. Through a comparative analysis of these characters, this essay argues that hybridity serves as a means of exposing and subverting the power structures that reinforce presiding stereotypes of othered characters. By deconstructing these sovereign discourses, hybridity creates space for alternative voices and perspectives that are often excluded from ascendant literatures. Ultimately, this essay accentuates the importance of inspecting the intersectional identities of characters in literature and film, as a means of challenging prepotent discourses and promoting social justice.

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Uppsatsens syfte är att analysera hur djävulsgestalten används som visuell metafor för depression i den animerade kortfilmen How Have You Been? (2020) skapad av Polly Nor och Adam Baker. Detta med målet att skapa bredare förståelse för hur visuella metaforer kan användas inom visuell kommunikation för att gestalta känslor. Studien utförs med hjälp av en semiotisk analys samt metaforanalys med teoretisk utgångspunkt i semiotik och metaforteori. Uppsatsen resulterade i kunskap kring hur den visuella metaforen förstärks genom personifiering av depression samt en stark relation mellan protagonist o antagonist. Även förvandling av djävulsgestalten har stor betydelse för hur den visuella metaforen tolkas. Ytterligare framkom det att filmskaparna använder symboler samt ickeverbal kommunikation för att förstärka den visuella metaforen. / The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how the devil figure is used as a visual metaphor for depression in the animated short film How Have You Been? (2020) made by Polly Nor and Adam Baker. This with the goal to create a wider understanding about how visual metaphor can be used in the field of visual communication to portray emotions. The study is carried out with the help of a semiotic analysis as well as a metaphor analysis with a theoretical basis in semiotics and metaphor theory. The thesis resulted in knowledge about how the visual metaphor is enhanced through the personification of depression and a strong relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist. The transformation of the devil figure is also of great importance for how the visual metaphor is interpreted. Furthermore, it became clear that the filmmakers use symbols and non-verbal communication to enhance the visual metaphor.

The Internet offers new ways of imaging and 'imagining' national belonging and cultural identities in contemporary Chinese societies such as Singapore. The Chinese society is also a key representative in Tu Wei-Ming's first symbolic universe - including China, Hong Kong and Taiwan - under a 'Cultural China' (Tu 1994). Various cultural discourses indicate that this nation-state is capable of managing culture to maintain national competitiveness within global capitalism (Wee 2000, Chua 1995). This 'local national cultural ism' is significantly manifested in Chinese media and entertainment websites from Singapore. Within the Asia Pacific region, the notion of an emerging 'pan-Chinese' cultural identity for commercial exchange and interaction with regional and global markers has been an appealing economic construct (Nyiri 1999). In Singapore the Chinese media and entertainment websites employ design strategies to attract foreign investors and cater for local 'heartlanders' with success. The Singapore media sire is carefully scrutinized, presented and aligned with its economic policies and agendas in presenting the country as a young and vibrant society. Although media and entertainment form a key aspect of popular culture in contemporary Singapore, the visual communication and content of the websites also provide an 'institutional memory' and design strategies which emphasize the distinctiveness of cultural identity. This is research interrogates the perception of 'Chinese' identity by Singaporean youth in a pilot study which analyses user responses to a prototype for interface design in web-based communication. In addition, a comparative analysis of three design components - colour, icon/symbol and visual metaphor ??? is examined with reference to the social construction of local, 'glocal' and cultural meanings in the media and entertainment websites-from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. The research concurs with current literature that cultural identity is mediated by design and communicative strategies to resonate with the target audience. Although the design strategies for representing a 'pan -Chinese' identity have yet to be explored, 'Cultural China' plays a major role in regional/global economic development.

Opgaven tager udgangspunkt i en undersøgelse af, hvordan illustrator Svein Nyhus i billedbogen Mammas Hår, skrevet af Gro Dahle i 2007, benytter sig af visuelle metaforer til at kommunikere bogens depressionstema til børn. Formålet er at finde ud af, på hvilken måde visuelle metaforer kan bruges som kommunikationsværktøj af visuelle kommunikatører generelt. Som baggrund for undersøgelsen ligger teori omkring visuel retorik, metaforer, samt udviklingspsykologi og kognition. Ud fra denne teoretiske baggrund er opstillet en tese om brugen af metafor i kommunikationen af komplekse emner. Gennem såvel en indholdsanalyse som en semiotisk analyse af illustrationerne i Mammas Hår, samt en efterfølgende sammenligning af analyseresultaterne med tesen, fremgår det, at visuelle metaforer både kan fungere enkeltvis og interagere indbyrdes, og at visuel metafor både kan bruges til at introducere nye, ukendte emner, samt til at fremhæve visse aspekter af et emne. Endeligt lægges der op til en diskussion omkring den visuelle kommunikatørs ansvar samt om forholdet mellem teori og praksis. / This essay is based on an investigation of illustrator Svein Nyhus’ use of visual metaphors in the children’s picture book Mammas Hår, written by Gro Dahle in 2007, in communicating the theme of depression to children. The purpose is to find out in which ways visual metaphor can be used as a communication tool for visual communicators in general. The essay starts with an introduction to visual rhetoric, metaphor as well as developmental and cognition theories. From this theoretical basis, a thesis on the use of metaphor in the communication of complex concepts is presented. Through a content analysis and a semiotic analysis of the illustrations in Mammas Hår, and a subsequent comparison of the analysis results with the thesis, it is found that visual metaphor can work both individually as well as through reciprocal interaction, and that visual metaphor can be used both to introduce new, unknown concepts as well as to highlight certain aspects of a concept. Finally, a discussion about the responsibility of the visual communicator and the relationship between theory and practice is introduced.