We can also identify with the transcendence of an aerial perspective enabled by flight.
We can see what the trapped automatons cannot. Peering into this world as if from above, we see figures wandering inside this maze, robotically moving forward unable to notice the other walkers or to even know that their path is in fact a maze of dead ends. These captions descend slowly from the upper-right corner to the lower left in the airy white space between the two elements of the illustration (spread on pages 26–27) depicting the figure of a man, seen from behind, soaring upward with winged sandals, lifting off from an orb whose surface consists entirely of a steep walled maze. Nick Sousanis, Unflattening (2015, 37) (images courtesy of Harvard University Press) The text in the caption boxes presents the authorial voice, a calm, elegant narration inviting the reader to It is a philosophical meditation on thinking itself, on realism, abstraction and the imaginary, rendered through illustrations that play with motifs drawn from science, mathematics, map-making, philosophy, Greek mythology, and literature. Unflattening asks how humans construct knowledge: How do fixed viewpoints limit us, flattening experience and perception? How do multiple vantage points open up new possibilities for imagination and insight? Constructed as an experiment in visual thinking, Unflattening uses graphic art to argue for greater appreciation of images – over words and text alone – in our understanding of what counts as knowledge. Unflattening is constructed as an experience. Allow your senses to project your body into the illusion of three-dimensional space conjured by the drawings. Then look at the caption as if it were not letters but a form. Hear a caption as you read it, also noticing the silences in the pauses marked by the spaces on the page. Feel how your eyes want to wander across the page, and then feel the alternative visual paths also present. Change your focus to zoom into detail, and then pan outward again. Let your eyes pause, taking in the whole page at once.
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