Eye-Cons explore illusion, tricks and poetry

Illusion was the theme of the thirteenth International Scottish Word and Image Group (SWIG) Conference, hosted by the Department of English, in May.

Included in the conference - Eye-Cons: Illusions in Word and Image - were presentations on "literal pictures," the films of Orson Welles and the introduction of colour to film-making.

An exhibition exploring the use of poetry to inspire interior design accompanied the conference which brought together academics from a wide range of disciplines including history, geography, philosophy, computing, psychology, English and art.

"The idea of illusion is pretty close to the heart of what drives word and image studies," explained conference organiser and lecturer in English Dr Christopher Murray.

"This field is really all about that mysterious, rather magical moment in which words and images meet. Words are images, just as images provoke us to describe and understand them using language. It's a kind of parlour trick whereby one thing seems to be another."

One of the highlights of this year's conference was a public lecture by Professor Nick Wade, professor of visual psychology at the University.

Professor Wade explored literal pictures and portraits and looked at the ways in which words and images can be combined. Using visual games he looks at the relationships between the shapes of objects and the words that describe them and blends portraits of people with words they have written.

"The title of the lecture waEye Contricks, which is, of course, itself a play on words, although the tricks are usually played by the brain rather than the eye," he said.

Also included in this year's conference was a talk by English lecturer Brian Hoyle on legendary film-maker Orson Welles. Mr Hoyle looked at the idea of filmmaker as magician and illusionist.

Film also provided the focus for a talk by Matthew Jarron, curator of the University's archives, records management and museum services. Mr Jarron explored the development of colour cinematography.