Images, Symbols & Words
First Graphic Marks
Blompos Cave, South Africa
100,000 years old
Engraved marks on red ochre
Paleolithic Cave Art
Lascaux
Vezere Valley, Southwestern, France
20,000 years old
Cave of the Bulls
https://vimeo.com/40849516
Chauvet
Ardeche Gorge, Southern France
35,000 years old
El Castillo Cave
Cantabria, Spain
40,000 years old
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xDcdVWnOiE
Types of Images
• Pictographs (Simplified Representatons)
- Invarients
• Universal Entoptic Forms
- Sensory Depredation Induced
• Hand Stencils
- Reaching thru the Veil
- Counting Marks (missing fingers)
• Geometric Prehistoric Signs
www.ted.com/talks
• Therianthropic Images (Figures)
Lowenmuench
Lion Man of the Hohlensein-Stadel
40,000 years old
The Sorcerer
Cave of the Trois-Freres, France
13,000 years old
Paleolithic Animism
Drawing as Ritual
Fish Creek Cove Analysis
Development of Written Language
Pictograph
- Invarients (Basic Primary Shapes)
- Affordances (Function/Context)
to
Simplified Reduction
- Abbreviation/Simplification
Affordance
– Function/Contextual Meaning
to
Rebus (Sounds)
- Pictograph Tied to a sound, rather than a subject
- Linear Syntax
to
Abstraction into Arbitrary Alphabets
- Phonetic signs
- Grammer
- Linear Syntax
Cuneiform
Pictographs to Abstracted Sign to Sound
-Babylon, 3500 BCE
- 600 to 1,000 Characters
https://smarthistory.org/writing-cuneiform/
Hieroglyphics
Logographics, Syllabic and Alphabetic Elements
- Egyptian, 3000 BCE
- 1,000 Characters
Phonecian Alphabet
Arbitrary Sound Symbols
- Lebanon, 1500 BCE
- 22 Letters
- Consonants only with Vowels implied
Greek Alphabet
Arbitrary Sound Symbols
- Greece, 800 BCE
- 24 Letters
- Added Vowels
Roman (Latin) Alphabet
Arbitrary Sound Symbols
- Rome, 800 BCE
- 26 Letters
IBM Design Language
https://www.ibm.com/design/language/
