The visual complex : mapping some interdisciplinary dimensions of visual literacy

Martin Jay, in his 1988 essay "Scoptic Regimes of Modernity," argued that the modern era was "dominated by the sense of sight in a way that set it apart from its premodern predecessors and possibly its postmodern successor." Certainly the scale and penetration of visual practices and their consumption, expanded in the modern era. Authors and researchers such as Barbara Stafford, argued that we have entered a new cultural era where visual technologies, as much as the technology of visualization itself, have reached deep into our everyday lives, as they have into the sciences, architecture and engineering, the media, the arts and entertainment industries, the professions in general, and most of the social spaces we inhabit