On the works of Donna Leishman

When I first viewed Donna Leishman's interactive graphic Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw I was immediately disoriented. My confusion was likely Leishman's intent based on what I read of the project's description. Leishman's interactive graphic was based on the historical account of Christian Shaw, a little girl in 1695 who was suppossedly possessed by a demon in the small town of Paisley, England. Altough contemporary historians cite credible evidence that Chritsian's "possession" was likely a clever ploy for attention it was convincing enough to have seven members of her community tried and executed as witches.

At first I didn't believe Leishman's work counted as a online text because on my first few 'exlporations' of the piece I found very little text within the interactive graphic. After several more experiments with the interactive elements of Shaw's work I discovered a journal within the piece written by one of the story's key characters. As I played more and more with Leishman's project I began to understand not so much the story itself but the methodology behind the project. Because I was unfamiliar with the Christian Shaw story Leishman's project it forced me to research and read more about it. When I revisited the interactive graphic after conducting my research of the story I better understood the visual presentation.

What struck me as ironic about having to research the story is that I needed have it presented to me in a textual medium in order to understand a visual interpretation. Although it is said that picture can represent a thousand words it is words that give us context. This interactive graphic lead me to think of text as a grounding point for interpretting complex visual images. To me every movie, animated film, or even wordless comic panels all begin with textual framework that is built upon. That is what I believed made the compelling images and scenes of current films like The Lord of the Rings series becuase the computer animators were using a textual source to formulate the images in their minds' eye. Therefore I don't believe the written word will ever go away in spite of the latest evolutions in visual technology.

Text enables humans to construct complex visual images into a comprehensive product therefore a visual medium without a strong textual base is lacking no matter how elaborate the details. This is what I believe Leishman's work revealed to me because the strength of the images invoked a curiousity that lead me back to the story's origins, a textual medium.