Visual Confections: Juxtapositions from
The Ocean of the Streams of Story

A confection is an assembly of many visual events, selected (at the red dots, for example) from various Streams of Story, then brought together and juxtaposed on the still flat land of paper.

What is a visual confection?

• A confection combines images to express ideas in a second language

• A confection illustrates an argument, present and enforce visual comparisons, combines the real and the imagined, and tell us yet another story.

• Confection-makers cut paste, construct and manage miniature theatres of information- a cognitive art that serves to illustrate a point, explain a task, show how something works, list possibilities, or tells a story.

• Confections combine assorted images of real objects into concocted universes, showing all at once what never has been together.

• Unlike maps or photographs, confections are not direct representations of pre-existing scenes, nor are they the result of placing data into conventional formats such as charts, tables, or maps.

Examples of confections and what they achieve:

• The Rosa urisina sive sol title page illustration is a verbal medley. Illustrator Scheiner's confectionary images portray a confectionary title.

• The Viewing sunspots illustration in Rosa urisina sive serves as a visual list. Scheiner illustrates seven techniques for viewing sunspots in one page.

• This 17th century studyguide for law students was designed to recall information using allegory, bizarre associations, and punning. These "mnemonic-emblematic reductions" compress masses of detailed material into eleborate confections.

• The Ulitmate Weed rather than being an inventory or parts list, the confection can portrays verbs as well as nouns. This illustration describes the weed and its lively interplay with the surroundings.

• Babar's Dream illustrates an imagined universe in an archtypal battle between good and evil.

• The Leviathan title page is a confection that can only sketch out complex text, although the images may contribute fresh insights, and make visible what is textually invisible, obscure or beyond words.

• In the "Medici Princess" box, artist Joseph Cornell narrates a story. He juxtaposes found objects in a grid of compartments assembling once seperate materials to create magical and cryptic architectures, three dimensional collages.

• The Constructor, a self portrait by Lissitzky combines eye, hand and tool which express a multiplicity of links and metaphors.

• The cover of Graphic Design USA 12 is an example of the point that not all confections are good ones. This design is a photomontage made up of human parts and was not well thought out.

• "Why is the Potomas River so Dangerous" is a confectionery diagram that is remarkably informative.

• Big Tex, a cartoon by Chris Ware, is an example of a confectionery that I found. Here Ware narrates a story of a character's lifetime in a very rich and creative way.

• In this museum guide by Tufte information becomes the interface. This flat interface surfaces 45 options at once.

• Compartments (as in Ultimate Weed)

• Imagined Scenes (as in Babar's Dream)

• Both (Rosa ursina sunspots)

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