Gunther Kress

In my presentation I will explore different facets of the opposition of 'abstract' and 'concrete' in representation, focusing on the linguistic modes of speech and writing on the one hand, and the mode of the visual / image on the other. My purpose is to show the differences in 'affordance' between modes - how one can 'be abstract' in different modes, and what this means representationally; and to show the social uses and functions (and maybe determinations) of abstraction and concreteness in specific social and cultural environments. In the process I want to challenge the security of the notions of abstract and concrete in any case.

Gunther Kress is professor of Education/English at the Institute of Education, University of London. He has a specific interest in the interrelations in contemporary texts of different modes of communication - writing, image, speech, music - and their effects on forms of learning and knowing. He is interested in the changes - and their effects and consequences - brought by the shift in the major media of communication from the page to the screen. Some of his recent publications are: Reading Images: the grammar of graphic design; Before Writing: rethinking the paths to literacy; (both published by Routledge); Multimodal teaching and learning: the rhetorics of the Science Classroom (Continuum); Multimodal Discourse: the modes and media of contemporary communication (Edward Arnold); and Literacy in the New Media Age (Routledge).