Visual Literacy and the Untimely Transmogrification of the Problem

It seems as though we have come to the understanding that we live in an increasingly visual world. In educational contexts, the notion that ours is an image-saturated existence has led to a focus on how to best equip learners with the skills needed to participate within this world. Visual literacy, or the question of "how people perceive objects, interpret what they see, and what they learn from them" (Elkins, 2008, p. 2), has been brought to the forefront as one strategy that works to meet the demands of our contemporary moment. This work investigates the potential problem of visual literacy, particularly in relation to art (and its) education. Drawing on the work of contemporary visual artist Chris Millar, this investigation employs a Deleuzoguattarian conceptual toolkit in order to transmogrify a current understanding of the art encounter based on a visual literacy approach. Instead, this exploration develops a philosophy of fabulation in order to think art and our encounter with it in a manner delinked from representation, ultimately asking the question What does art do?