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''Visible Language'' is an American journal presenting visual communication research. Founded in 1967 as ''The Journal of Typographical Research'' by Merald Wrolstad, occasional ''Visible Language'' issues are co-edited with a guest editor-author.
The journal was founded with the primary tenet of the journal being that reading and writing together form a new, separate, and autonomous language system. The journal has evolved to focus on research in visual communication. The journal has covered the subject of
concrete poetry
Concrete poetry is an arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has now developed a distinct mea ...
, the
Fluxus
Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...
art movement, painted text,
textual criticism
Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may rang ...
, the abstraction of symbols, articulatory synthesis and text, and the evolution of the page from print to on-screen display. Guest editor-authors have included Colin Banks,
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...
Dick Higgins
Dick Higgins (15 March 1938 – 25 October 1998) was an American artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and a co-founder of the Fluxus international artistic movement (and community). Inspired by John Cage, Higgins was ...
,
Richard Kostelanetz
Richard Cory Kostelanetz (born May 14, 1940) is an American artist, author, and critic.
Birth and education
Kostelanetz was born to Boris Kostelanetz and Ethel Cory and is the nephew of the conductor Andre Kostelanetz. He has a B.A. (1962) fr ...
George Steiner
Francis George Steiner, Fellow of the British Academy#Fellowship, FBA (April 23, 1929 – February 3, 2020) was a Franco-American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist and educator. He wrote extensively about the relationship between ...
Rhode Island School of Design
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...
. It is currently edited by Mike Zender of the University of Cincinnati, which publishes and provides administrative offices for the journal.
References
* ''Visible Language''. Vol. 36.2, edited by Praima Chayutsahakij. 2002.