Yovani Roman

Concepts aren’t fixed; we map the world through social conventions, making them fluid and, to some extent, arbitrary..

Written messages were originally communicational substitutes for spoken messages.

Society operates as an organic system.

Social education gives the signifier a shared signified through experience and collective practice.

The process does not end when an idea is written down. The way a tool presents that idea affects how it is interpreted, practiced, and understood. This raises the question of how different material forms; images, texts, knots, and visual structures; change the way knowledge is communicated.

By: Colt James

How the medium itself has restrictions while simultaneously opening up new forms of expression.

Khipus are these really sophisticated record keeping and communication objects made of knotted and colored strings used by ancient Andean civilizations, most famously the Inca Empire.

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A rare 16th-century Mesoamerican pictorial manuscript of Mixtec origin. A 16 foot long strip of deer hide coated with gesso, folded up like an accordion.

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A 1,200 page handwritten and illustrated letter created around 1615 by the indigenous Andean author Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala. It was written and addressed to King Philip III of Spain and it includes over 300 pages of full drawings, it was intended to record Andean history. and expose the severe abuse of the Spanish colonial government.

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An overview panel of the Kihpu, Codex Selden/Añute, and The Nueva Corónica.

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Concrete Poetry relates to the material world and in culture there is always the element of the real world and the abstract.

Poetry comes from the mind, intellect or the brain in itself?

Spanish Transcription (López Austin & García Quintana 2000)

“lo que ello se trata, más de aquellos que son naturales y acostumbrados a este lenguaje, de manera que seguramente se canta todo lo que él quiere, sea guerra o paz, loor suyo o contumelia de Jesucristo, sin que de los demás se pueda entender.” Esta presentación de el lenguaje como medio de transmisión religiosa concuerda con las “cultural techniques” que discutimos en esta etapa del trabajo de grupo.

Works Cited and References Sahagún, Bernardino de. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España. Transcribed and edited by Alfredo López Austin and Josefina García Quintana. 3rd ed. Mexico City: Cien de México / Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2000. Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter, Alicia Maria Houtrouw, Kevin Terraciano, Jeanette Peterson, Diana Magaloni, and Lisa Sousa, bk. 2, fol. 137v. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/2/folio/137v . Accessed 9 September 2026.

Movement, embodied knowledge in writing.

Yes, anything that the body and the mind uses to extend the knowledge. In writing important messages and laws.

A khipu could store information through cords, colors, and knots. Since using and interpreting it required specific knowledge, the tool made certain people especially important in the process of recording and communicating information.

Printing made it possible to reproduce the same information and share it with more people. The tool changed how quickly and widely knowledge could move.

Images can help organize ideas and make information easier to understand or remember. The visual form becomes part of how the lesson is taught.

The Musica painted manta carries meaning through its material and painted design. The object itself becomes part of the way the message is communicated.

The Codex Mendoza combines Indigenous visual systems with written explanations for a Spanish audience. The process changes as knowledge moves between different ways of communicating.

The reader has to follow the images and directional lines instead of normal written lines, making reading more active and engaging.

Reading becomes physical and tactile. It relies on touch and structure as well as trained interpretation rather than written words.

The images support his written argument and give the reader another way to understand the message. It adds another layer to the experience.

The placement and shape of the words guide the readers eye. It forms a picture which becomes a part of the poem in itself. It becomes part of the meaning.

it combines narrative and images to provide the reader with more than one perspective of conquest.

The image gives an immediate visual impression. The text adds onto that detail and context allowing the reader to experience both seeing along with reading.

Leonardo Lopez

They reveal meanings in their visual structures by using spatial awareness, the arrangement of the figures, the intention of which the figures face, and symbols. The visual storytelling is dynamic, as it’s ever-changing in the viewer’s eyes. One person can have a totally different takeaway and understanding of what they read in this structure of telling. Compared to what we know today with static word structures, we all walk away with practically the same ideas from what was consumed.

It changes the way we see content by actively using our eyes and brain as we scan the whole page for clues. We are constantly trying to connect the dots while reading the content. We aren’t simply consuming it as we would with words on a page, as displayed here. We are actively engaged as we decipher the content. We become a part of the content, as we aren’t simply a bystander/viewer anymore.

No. The Codex Mendoza is flexible and can be many things. While it is dynamic in nature, it can also be static and fixed, like books we know today. This is the beauty of the Codex Mendoza; it doesn’t have to be one way or one thing; it can be many things.

Yes. We have seen it without structure, with structure, with words, and now with a loose structure. The Codex Mendoza is highly flexible. It is basically up to how far your imagination can go. While this is still dynamic, it gives just enough structure to not completely lose the reader. Using simple dotted lines every so often without completely holding the hand of the reader.

Semasiographic system, otherwise known as the Codex Mendoza, simply means that the art/images are a way of communicating. A form of text. Concrete poetry is a reflection of the Codex Mendoza, as it uses visual cues, structure, spacing, etc., to communicate.

The arrangement in Codex Mendoza uses spatial awareness by placing every figure, glyph, and motif in special arrangements. They all have their specific and precise placement on the page as they play a part in the bigger picture of the Codex. With this deliberate spacing, the hidden-in-plain-sight organization of the glyphs works to show how effective these are as a tool. All that being said, both the concrete poetry and the codex work as a way for the reader to explore the content and figure it out as a puzzle of sorts. Rather than the straightforward linear/one way passage of reading left to right, top to bottom.