Diabetes Mellitus (Type I vs. Type II)
Diabetes mellitus refers to a group of diseases that affect how your body uses blood sugar (glucose). Chronic diabetes conditions include type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes, once known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin. The exact cause of type 1 diabetes is unknown. Usually, the body`s own immune system, which normally fights harmful bacteria and viruses, mistakenly destroys the insulin-producing (islet, or islets of Langerhans) cells in the pancreas. Other possible causes include genetics and exposure to viruses and other environmental factors. Type 2 diabetes, on the other hand, is primarily the result of two interrelated problems: cells in muscle, fat and the liver become resistant to insulin. Because these cells don’t interact in a normal way with insulin, they don’t take in enough sugar. The pancreas is unable to produce enough insulin to manage blood sugar levels.
The successful elements of Isotype in relation to a pictographic language, were of the work of Marie Neurath and Gerd Arntz. Together they developed Otto’s movement into an expanded practice which generated a great amount of pictograms that represented everyday life, objects, nature, almost everything at the time that could be visually represented (Neurath. M, 2009). Shown without context, the pictograms worked universally within western nations that shared similar technical development, history, environment and cultural associations; as the majority of complex symbols needed some prior experience or knowledge from seeing things in the real world. […] ‘the symbols had to ‘speak’ to the Nigerians, just as they had to the Viennese; men, women, children had to look as they did there; houses could not have chimneys; but in the essential rules of transformation, nothing needed to be changed.’ (Neurath. M, 2009. p. 75)
Bruno Munari argued that symbols work like poetry when constructed linearly. That for a symbol to be understandable there needs to be an element of interpretation. A pictogram of a bicycle, for example, could have many different meanings and uses, similar to a word. […] ’use the symbols as the words are used in a poem: they will have more than one meaning, and the meanings will change accordingly to where they are put.’ (Munari. B, 1966). It seems that for a pictographic language to function in consideration of a persons or peoples interpretation, it needs to act in a similar way to text.
Chapter 2: Developing A Language and Interpreting Meaning.
Xu Bing tells the story of a day in his life with pictograms in his project, Book From the Ground Up (fig.8). He uses the pictograms similarly to how we use words, allowing for interpretation of a symbol when paired with another. Depending on the pairing and placement of the symbols the meaning changes. Xu’s work establishes a framework for how a pictographic language could be written, and includes a variety of pictographic styles: a mixture of emojis, emoticons and symbols. The pictograms come from mostly digital culture, and so for a computer literate reader, are understood. Xu’s work also followed the ideas of semiosis and how it […] ‘is not a one-way process with a fixed meaning. It is part of an active process between the sign and the reader of the sign.’ (Crow.D, 2016. p.38). If interpretation is an active part of language, how does it develop within a culture? Book From the Ground Up communicates using digital language, for a book to function universally would it need to start from scratch or piece together symbols from different cultures and societies?
fig.8 Book from the Ground: From Point-to-Point (Xu.B, 2014)
