Description

Book Synopsis
A kaleidoscopic journey tracing the methods and means of visual communication from the cave paintings of the earliest humans to the photograph' of a black hole in deep space. Since the beginning of our time as humans, we have never stopped making images and inventing channels for visual communication. From the cave dweller creating paintings on a wall at the dawn of civilized time to Instagram influencers today, technology may keep changing, but our need to reach one another, to move one another, to persuade, inform and entertain, has never been so vital. Hello Human traverses the entire landscape of our diverse, expansive and yet familiar means of visual communication. From the use of the human hand as a symbol, the power and use of gestures and the genesis of the printed book, to the movement between dimensions of reality and the digital realm, pixilation, optics and the understanding of light, Horsham takes his readers on a journey full of unexpected twists and turns, layi

Table of Contents
Introduction

Part One: Gesture
A big hand for gesture
This is a big subject!
Where technology and gesture meet
Letters as symbols of power
Ink, pen and parchment
Lime x geometry = the rose window
Geometry and beauty
Workmanship, risk and character
Character-building activities
Playing with the page
Metal machines and movement
Shorthand for emotion
Gesture, the hand and contemporary communication
Thumbs up: a gesture for now

Part Two: Mechanisation, Machines and Messages
Scribal, tribal, Bible
Libraries gave us power
Towards the modern, via the old
Back to lime, back to lithography
The shape of water
Words and images, continued
News and technology
Terminology and technology: a deeper dive
The mechanized mastery of light (and chemicals)
Harvesting the crop
Colour and tech
Size matters
Propaganda

Part Three: The Third and Fourth Dimensions
Towards the representation of the real
How to make things look real
Optics and the processes of reproduction
Orthographics, modernity and representation
From reality to abstraction
Saul and Elaine Bass and modern movement
The other kind of modern movement
We need to talk about Charles (-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris)
Reorienting the purpose of visual communication
The contemporary reliance on the surreal
Technology in the service of the surreal
Artwork, not works of art
More 3-D than 3-D
Time-based media
Mastery of the pixel

Part Four: The Digital World
Amazing tales of information storage and retrieval
Secret channels that everyone knows
Break the Internet®
I am an individual; we are a community
Finding and making the tools for individual expression
Meme, me me, MAGA, gaga
Education, education, education

Part Five: Nothing is Real
Nothing is real – or is it?
Feelings, nothing more than feelings
Living with Brautigan’s prediction
Keeping it real
Quality
Epilogue
Notes

Hello Human

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    Order before 4pm tomorrow for delivery by Sat 20 Jun 2026.

    A Hardback by Michael Horsham

    2 in stock

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      Publisher: Thames & Hudson Ltd
      Publication Date: 15/09/2022
      ISBN13: 9780500023884, 978-0500023884
      ISBN10: 0500023883

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      A kaleidoscopic journey tracing the methods and means of visual communication from the cave paintings of the earliest humans to the photograph' of a black hole in deep space. Since the beginning of our time as humans, we have never stopped making images and inventing channels for visual communication. From the cave dweller creating paintings on a wall at the dawn of civilized time to Instagram influencers today, technology may keep changing, but our need to reach one another, to move one another, to persuade, inform and entertain, has never been so vital. Hello Human traverses the entire landscape of our diverse, expansive and yet familiar means of visual communication. From the use of the human hand as a symbol, the power and use of gestures and the genesis of the printed book, to the movement between dimensions of reality and the digital realm, pixilation, optics and the understanding of light, Horsham takes his readers on a journey full of unexpected twists and turns, layi

      Table of Contents
      Introduction

      Part One: Gesture
      A big hand for gesture
      This is a big subject!
      Where technology and gesture meet
      Letters as symbols of power
      Ink, pen and parchment
      Lime x geometry = the rose window
      Geometry and beauty
      Workmanship, risk and character
      Character-building activities
      Playing with the page
      Metal machines and movement
      Shorthand for emotion
      Gesture, the hand and contemporary communication
      Thumbs up: a gesture for now

      Part Two: Mechanisation, Machines and Messages
      Scribal, tribal, Bible
      Libraries gave us power
      Towards the modern, via the old
      Back to lime, back to lithography
      The shape of water
      Words and images, continued
      News and technology
      Terminology and technology: a deeper dive
      The mechanized mastery of light (and chemicals)
      Harvesting the crop
      Colour and tech
      Size matters
      Propaganda

      Part Three: The Third and Fourth Dimensions
      Towards the representation of the real
      How to make things look real
      Optics and the processes of reproduction
      Orthographics, modernity and representation
      From reality to abstraction
      Saul and Elaine Bass and modern movement
      The other kind of modern movement
      We need to talk about Charles (-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris)
      Reorienting the purpose of visual communication
      The contemporary reliance on the surreal
      Technology in the service of the surreal
      Artwork, not works of art
      More 3-D than 3-D
      Time-based media
      Mastery of the pixel

      Part Four: The Digital World
      Amazing tales of information storage and retrieval
      Secret channels that everyone knows
      Break the Internet®
      I am an individual; we are a community
      Finding and making the tools for individual expression
      Meme, me me, MAGA, gaga
      Education, education, education

      Part Five: Nothing is Real
      Nothing is real – or is it?
      Feelings, nothing more than feelings
      Living with Brautigan’s prediction
      Keeping it real
      Quality
      Epilogue
      Notes

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