Nick Sousanis Unflattening

Nick Sousanis’s Unflattening is a graphic art piece that seeks to redefine humanity’s point of view through presenting visual references that change the readers perspective by the use of allusions, motifs and metaphors. The different excerpts from the piece produce complex ideas and find interesting ways to articulate them to the audience in an amusing and enjoyable way. It is almost ironic in how amusing it is to read because of the comic book style the author uses to translate his message. The illustration itself is incredible how the artist brings about so much detail in the work while also staying true to the “flatness” factor. Nothing is the image has dimension which is also a metaphor for the idea which is the challenging of perspectives. The text then brings about ideas in which the audience can formulate meaning based on the images shown and their own ideas. The first two excerpts of Unflattening remind me of the life every person lives and perspective they gain through their own specific “elaborate sequence of discrete steps” or experience. Every single person has an environment they grew up in which molds their personality, morals, intellect and understanding of the world around them. In the image, the audience can see an assembly line in which the human figures are being created by the machines around them.
The box is expanded in which we see the human forms in a school like setting retrieving information being fed to them. This all translates to the certain perspective we all gain based on the different factors in which we live that affect it including environment, knowledge learned and experience. The way the author translates these ideas into a factory setting with machines, technology and no interaction between beings translates into the loss of seeking different perspectives and understanding from one