This page shows the notes that I have taken during my Visual Language and Culture classes, each outlining different topics that were covered.
Semiotics
Semiotics are the study of signs and symbols, and their use or interpretation. Putting it simply, semiotics are visuals, which represent something and each visual has their own designated meaning, also known as signs.
There are two theories, which describe the relationship each symbol has. The first theory was created by Ferdinand Saussure, 1857 – 1913, who was a Swiss Linguist. He explains that there are two factors that make a sign. They are – Signifier/Signified = SIGN. This means that the relationship is arbitrary. The second theory was created by Charles Sanders, 1839 – 1914, who was an American Philosopher. His theory claims that there are 3 factors, which make up a sign. Those are – The Concept/The word/The actual thing = SIGN. These may be more open for interpretation.
There are also terms, which describe the relationship between the signifier and its signified; Denotation and Connotation.
- Denotation is the literal meaning of the sign, which means the meaning is more direct and fixed.
- Connatation was developed by the community and do not represent the inherited qualities of the original thing. This means the meaning is very open for interpretation.
Along with those terms, each sign is classified into their own class based on the close relationship to their connotation or denotation. Those classes are:
- Iconic – usually has a direct reference as to what it represents. For example, you could have a road sign with an icon of a sheep. That would obviously refer directly to a presence of sheep.
- Indexical – those usually represent something that it’s relevant to but not necessarily mean what it’s showing. For example, an icon of a skull on a dangerous substance, would obviously mean death or deadly. It has a more representative role.
- Symbolic – usually something we learn about its meaning. Those also include letters of the alphabet and other signs, which we don’t know the meaning of unless we are taught it.
Those factors are really important to consider as they come in handy in design practice. They could act as a strategy for design, including layout, purpose and colour. It’s a good example of communication. Depending on what the goal of the sign is, it should be able to communicate that goal or purposely be open to suggestions and interpretations. Finally, they’re good tools for thinking and generating ideas, which you could develop further.
READING TASK! – “Reading the signs“
This article explains how photographs are semiotics of their own kind and very often their’re symbolic or iconic signs. Depending on their use, they could be used as evidence to show exactly what’s in front of the camera at the time, or they could show something, which is often interpreted differently by other people. Below, I have taken some notes with facts/opinions that I have found useful while reading the article.
- The science of signs.
- The meanings we may take could be obvious, natural or simply common sence.
- It’s a system of representation and thinking.
- Semiotics is one method of interpreting the world.
- Signs could include:
- Pictures, faces, bodies, clothes, music and even smells.
- We learn anything via repetition and recognition of shapes and sounds.
- By learning a another language, you quickly discover that names of things are not ‘natural’.
- Abstract marks and sounds – signs
- Instead of finding the meaning of the world, we give meaning.
- Communication is a social process.
- Photographs work differently tow rods,
- as a record – it has literal meaning,representative – it’s open to interpretations.
- Everything can be given a sign value.
- A sign, by definition, refers to something other than itself.
- The arbitrary or symbolic sign is one in which there is no natural connection between signifier and signified.
- Indexical signifiers are ones that are produced bu that which they signify.
- Iconic signifiers are those which resemble what they signify.
- Advertising can’t always denote a specific aspect of a product, so they use other methods to denote other aspects of that product.
- Words and images can be slippery things:
- We live in a world where we are bombarded with information, words and images – those compete for out attention.
- Luckily we are able to discriminate very quickly between different genres.
- Information is generally coded through conventions of language.
- Images can give personality to objects.
- Idea of images is that we look at them and interpret them in our own ways.
- Relationship between words and pictures is important.
- What an image means, is usually different to other people.
- Words that are attached to an image may often change the way we see a certain image.
QUOTES
“This approach proposes that we treat everything as a ‘text’ to be read.”
“Semiotics is an analytical method that opens up the process of interpreting photograph.”
“Sometimes, it is not the structure of the image itself that signals the genre, but the context in which it appears; the way it is ‘framed’.”
Honorable mentions:
- Marcel Duchamp (1917) – Urinal fountain.
- Roland Barthes (1915 – 1980) – French Critic and theorist, [Mythologies (1993)].
MHRA Reference – Salkeld, Richard, Reading Photographs, 1st edn, (New York: Fairchild Books, 2013_
Definitions:
Denotation – The meaning, which has the face value of what it is. IT means what it is.
Conotation – The meaning, which is interpreted by others, meaning it doesn’t have a fixed meaning.
Paradigm – The linguistic unit, which has a meaning and consists of various other linguistic forms.
Symtagm – The content which changes the meaning of something.
Ideology – It’s the coherent system of combined ideas and beliefs, which constitutes one’s goals, expectations and actions.
Images and ideology
What are images? Well, images are re-presentations of something, mainly things that you can see, and all include technology in one way or another. These include cameras, computers, pen/pencil etc. So, how does that work with ideology? The idea is quite simple. Ideology is a coherent system of ideas that constitutes one’s goals, expectations and actions. Images often contribute to changing one’s ideas by showing something obvious or something rather different. Those can be split into 2 categories:
- Denative – it’s the face value, so it’s fixed,
- Connotive – is the interpretive value, meaning it’s not fixed.
Those can be changed by a very simple anchorage, which is ideally a small piece of text beside an image, which sums the context in that specific image. This could be an example of a Paradigmatic sign, which is something that changes the meaning of the whole Symtagm (image or piece of text).
AD ANALYSIS:
PSYCHOANALYSIS & GENDER
*This topic may cause quite a lot of controversies and become a large trigger to some people, so discretion is advised.
Let’s begin with the definition of feminism. It’s a range of social movements, political movements and ideologies that shore a common goal; to define, establish and achieve the political, economic, personal and social equality of the sexes. Therefore, it is not hatred towards MEN!
PSYCHOANALYSIS – Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) is considered to be the founder of the psycho dynamic approach to psychology, which looks to unconscious dives to explain human behaviour.
He states that there are two parts of the brain, the conscious and the unconscious part. Those two parts are controlled by the Ego, Superego and the Id. These are responsible for the creation of two things – the scopophilia and the voyearism. What are they you ask? They are the feeling of pleasure (sexual) that you get by looking at naked bodies either hidden or fully exposed. It is said that everyone goes through 3 phases:
- The oral phase
- The anal phase
- The phallic phase
These phases explain that everyone at one point when they were a baby, had this feeling of sexual attraction towards one of their parents as they were not fully conscious of the fact that they were their parents. We call this the pleasure principle. Then as we grow up, the reality principle hits and then we learn that in fact those are our parents and it would simply be very wrong to feel attracted to them.
OEDIPUS COMPLEX – The Oedipus complex comes from the Greek myth about Oedipus, the King of Thebes, who accidentally murdered his father and then married his mother. This cursed his family and entire city of Thebes. This complex, in psychoanalytic theory, a desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex and a concomitant sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex; a crucial stage in the normal developmental process.
- According to psychoanalytic theory, there is a point at which we internalise social rules; we develop a super ego.
- The Oedipus narrative is one that has permeated popular culture for centuries. There is a lot of ‘desire’ in advertisement, as it’s often stimulated or sated by a product.
This links nicely to the next topic, which is The Gaze.
More commonly used in the media, movies and advertisement is the Male gaze. This is where women in the media are viewed from the eyes of a heterosexual male, and that these women are represented as passive objects of male desire. The audience is forced to watch from that perspective, regardless of their gender and sexuality. It’s the temporary loss of ego. This has been used as a technique for many years.
Even though there have been movies in which a woman is a form of power and control, there’s still a lot of controversy about the male gaze. There was a very simple test called the Bechdel test, which helps you determine which movies were not effected by the male gaze but remained neutral. The rules are simple. Movies that are tested must suit this criteria:
The movie must have at least two women in it, who are talking to each other about anything else other than men.
This may sound very simple and rather ridiculous, however, not many movies actually pass the test. As far as I know, Alien was one of the few that have passed.
Definitions:
Denotation – The meaning, which has the face value of what it is. IT means what it is.
Conotation – The meaning, which is interpreted by others, meaning it doesn’t have a fixed meaning.
Paradigm – The linguistic unit, which has a meaning and consists of various other linguistic forms.
Symtagm – The content which changes the meaning of something.
Ideology – It’s the coherent system of combined ideas and beliefs, which constitutes one’s goals, expectations and actions.
Id- The side of our mind responsible for the instant need or desire. Something we want now!
Superego – The side of the mind that stops you from wanting those instant desires.
Ego – The more conscious part of the mind that decides which path to follow.
advertising: consumption and commodity fetishism
You may be wandering how advertising fits into Consumption and Commodity Fetishism. In modern society, consumption is very common. We, as human beings, have a natural need to full fill our own desires. This may be through eating, watching videos, or even purchasing goods. It’s like suddenly getting the urge to go buy yourself some clothing just to make you happy, but then you don’t actually wear it. That’s often called Conspicuous Consumption.
MARXISM
Very simply, Marxism is a type of economic system proposed by Karl Mar,x (5th July 1818 – 14th March 1883), in which there are no classes. The government would control all resources and means of production to, in theory, ensure equality. This is mainly linked to labour, which essentially is our capacity to change or transform the world. For Marx, the idea that this is exchanged for wages effectively alienates us from our own nature. It’s a form of spiritual loss. We gain a feeling of no connection with other people around us.
The ‘Bourgeoisie’, the ruling class, gain the most benefit out of human labour. Whereas, the ‘Proletariat’ are the ones that are effected the most. They are the working class, that makes the commodities, which satisfies the human needs and desires. They are the ones that live with a false consciousness. They believe they are striving for a better future, but are actually caught in a perpetual cycle, which links to IDEOLOGY. Advertising stimulates the desire to work harder, so that a vicious cycle results in what Marx saw as alienation.
“YOU’RE THE COG IN THE MACHINE”
Q & A
What brands do you consume?
- Adidas, Nike, Acer, Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, Ubisoft, Wild Card, Peacock, LG, Virgin Media, Primark, Nutmeg, GREGGS, McDonald’s, FirstBus, Easyjet, Ryanair, Lenovo, Argos, B&Q, Puma, Slazenger, Amazon, Ebay, Ford etc…
Why do you value those brands?
Each of those brands offers good quality products and services, which I value. They allow me to do my daily tasks and occasionally treat myself.
How is that value created?
The products and services that those brands have to offer, become trust worthy after being used for some time. As a loyal customer, I have the ability to contact the brands and ask any questions and they would resolve the query in a way that would satisfy me.
Does it translate into price…do you pay a premium?
I occasionally get offers for discounts in designated brands, which makes my next purchase cheaper or I receive some money in a form of a voucher, which I can use without having to pay my own personal money.
Do you signal something about yourself through branded goods?
I generally try to not express anything, so that people don’t get the wrong impression about me when they first meet me. I simply use brands, which I know I can rely on. It shouldn’t determine my personality.
Does the brand have personal/nostalgic meaning to you?
Not really… Majority of the brands that I use are meant to serve a purpose, which allows me to do my job on a daily basis. Only a small amount of those brands are meant for entertainment, and even that’s a rare factor for me. I do own an Xbox 306 and Xbox One, but they’re often left collecting dust.
Definitions:
ALIENATION – The feeling that you have no connection with the people around you.
FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS – A way of thinking that prevents a person from perceiving the true nature of their social or economic situation.
COMMODITY FETISHISM – The perception of the social relationship involved in production not as relationship among people, but as economic relationships among the money and commodities exchanged in market trade.
COMMODITY – An external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs.
FETISH – Stands in place of something else, to the point that the ‘something else’ disappears.
“The Forum” – The street or/and space through which workers go through where advertising is experienced.
MARXISM – Modernism & Postmodernism
You may wonder what MARXISM actually is, so let’s quickly describe it according to the dictionary.
MARXISM is ” the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, later developed by their followers to form the basis of communism”. https://www.google.com/search?q=define+marxism&oq=define+marxism&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2215j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
A MARXIST approach to analysing visual culture might place it in the context of dominant ideology, its dependence on alienation, it’s relation to class conflict and to the media’s role in the perpetuation of false consciousness.
However, this post mainly concentrates on Modernism and Postmodernism. Modernity, characterised by movements of population from agrarian (quickly growing) urban settlements to facilitate the escalation of industrial capitalism. In the art industry, modernity has been taken into consideration and was a revolutionary breakthrough. It was an attempt or series of attempts to make radical breaks in the past. It broke away from “burden” of creating representative/copying arts, to abstraction.
Postmodernism can be seen as a reactions against the ideas and values of modernism, as well as a description of the period that followed modernism’s dominance in cultural theory and practice in the early and middle decades of the 20th Century.
Fredric Jameson – Postmodernism
- The weakening of historicity,
- a breakdown of the distinction between “high” and “low” culture – a new “depthness”, a new form of technology.
David Harvey – The condition of post modernity (1989)
- Time – space compression – the idea that spaces feel “closer£ the world feels smaller,
- Postmodern architecture – Harvey criticises postmodern urban spatial planning – that is fails to convey authentic urban identity.
Jean Baudrillard – Simulacra and Simulation (1981)
- The representation or imitation of something that has no original,
- Replaces reality with its representation
Parody & Pastiche is the recreation of an existing object, in a different way. Sounds rather simple, right? Image a movie, such as Star Wars and then remember that horrible attempt of a parody, which is supposed to make Star Wars funny. This links to Appropriation, which is the use of pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation applied to them.
Definitions:
Simulation / Simulacra – The representation or imitation of something that has no original.
Appropriation – The use of pre-existing objects or imahes with little or no transformation applied to them.
Image representation and flow
Key words: Aura, Globalisation, Cultural Imperialism, Convergence Culture.
How were images distributed, before the web and photography?
Visual technologies are the products of particular social and historical contexts… it could be argued that photography came about in art because it filled certain emerging social concepts at the time:
Science, mechanisation, modernity (what are the characteristics of modernity…?) – When photography became a thing.
Then – The object values of a single image,
Now- The values of an image in the context of image commodification.
Walter Benjamin – The work of art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1937. He explains that photography changes the status of the ‘original’ image. The invention of photography coincided with a ‘cult of originality’. What is lost is a work of art’s AURA, it’s uniqueness and presence in time and space. Authenticity cannot be reproduced. Value then comes from being the original of many copies.
AURA: Aura is a quality integral to an artwork that cannot be communicated through mechanical reproduction techniques – such as photography.
Mechanical reproduction is essential to propaganda. Benjamin’s anxiety about Fascism. The camera is the ‘eye’ that shows you only what the beholder wants you to see. It often shows you things from a different perspective. Where the image is seen, also participates in concealing it’s meaning or changing it entirely. Now, it is not you travelling to the image, but the image comes to you.
Images are silent and still, which means that it can be easily manipulated with movement and sound. If you were to take an old painting and only zoom in on one specific detail, that changes the whole meaning of the painting. Music and the context behind the image can also change the meaning of the image, easily. Meanings change within different social and visual realms. This becomes a MONTAGE.
Value of pre-mechanical images – originality, uniqueness, ritual and cult value.
Mechanical reproductivity – The image gains values because of its reproductivity, potential distribution and its role (value) in media.
Digital images – can be edited to change it entirely, with ease and then used for profit.
A shift has taken place, from how individuals experience looking at images to how images circulate globally. Viewing has become a more shared experience.
GLOBALISATION – the process of businesses/organisations developing international operation or influence. – Can result in HOMOGENISATION (the collapse of difference and cultural distribution; everywhere seems the same.)
CULTURAL IMPERIALISM – can result from aspects of globalisations. How an ideology, a politics, or a way of life is exported in other territories through the export of cultural products.
IMPERIALISM “a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means”
TRANSITIONAL AND DESPORATIC CULTURE – People and culture are always moving, have always moved. National boundaries are crossed and do not physically resist media signals.
CONVERGENCE CULTURE _ theory which recognises changing relationships and experiences with new media. Henry Jenkins is accepted by media academics to be the father of the term with his book Convergence Culture: where old and new media collide
MEDIA CONVERGENCE – is the merging of mass communication outlets – print, television, radio, the Internet along with portable and interactive technologies through various digital media platforms.
The Audience becomes the user. The content becomes: low cost, user generated, multi-platform, replay/hit/like – driven, driven by content or commerce?
PARTICIPATORY CULTURE – Media convergence is prompting a shifting of roles and ‘directions’ or production.
Seeing is believing?
SCIENTIFIC SEEING, MIXED REALITIES & CGI
- Scientific seeing – It’s about the development of visual devices and technologies; the adaption ‘of scientific methods and approaches’ in forms of visual culture and communication. Through thousands of years of evolution, we trusted our eyes to show us what we needed to know about the world; how it appeared. With the advent of Modernity, this shifted. The ‘unreliability’ of the eye was revealed. New urban environment of modernity, this was a challenging environment for the unprepared body; shocks – both physical and perceptual. Science evolved investigative processes which enabled the eye to see more than it could before. Technologies can go beyond human sight. Finger prints, police records, hospital and medical research, colonialism, all used photographic means to record and control, therefore “scientific” looking became an authority. This became the Photo-reality.
- GRID = MEASUREMENT = SCIENCE = AUTHORITY, CREDIBILITY
- INTERFACE = MEASUREMENT = SCIENCE/ARMY = GOVERNMENT = AUTHORITY,CREDIBILITY
Camera as eye = long established example of part machine, part human or cyborg.
Quick summary:
- The onset of Modernity led to a questioning of the ‘validity’ of visual appearances.
- Technologies developed that could go beyond human sight, ‘the optical unconscious’.
- Scientific visual technologies brought a sense of ‘authority’, but were used to control and dominate as much as research and heal…
- Origins of VR in pre-cinematic devices, panoramas and magic lantern shows.
- The aesthetics of science can be seen in simulation, war flight games and drone VR.
- VR/AR/MR allows us to experience others modes of being.
CGI – Computer generated imagery is the application of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, films, television programs, shorts, commercials, videos and simulations.
Definitions:
- Virtual Reality (VR) – the computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person using special electronic equipment, such as a helmet with a screen inside or gloves fitted with sensors.
- Augmented Reality (AR) – a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, thus providing a composite view.
- Mixed Reality (MR) – Mixed reality is the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualisations, where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time .
- Computer Generated Graphics (CGI) – computer-generated imagery (special visual effects created using computer software).
- Uncanny Valley – used in reference to the phenomenon whereby a computer-generated figure or humanoid robot bearing a near-identical resemblance to a human being arouses a sense of unease or revulsion in the person viewing it.
- Post-truth (+Deep fake) – relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. (Deep fake is an AI-based technology used to produce or alter video content so that it presents something that didn’t, in fact, occur. The term is named for a Reddit user known as deep fakes who, in December 2017, used deep learning technology to edit the faces of celebrities onto people in pornographic video clips )
- Post-cinema – a assumptive or synoptic notion of a special sort, one that allows for internal variety while focusing attention on the cumulative impact of the newer media.
- Theoretical Photo realism – Photo realism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium.
- Digital Grotesque – the first human-scale immersive space entirely constructed out of 3D printed sandstone. A complex geometry consisting of millions of individual facets is printed at a resolution of a fraction of a millimetre to dimensions of a 3.2-meter high enclosed space.
- Cross Reality (XR) – a form of “mixed reality environment that comes from the fusion (union) of … ubiquitous sensor/actuator networks and shared online virtual worlds….” It encompasses a wide spectrum of hardware and software, including sensory interfaces, applications, and infrastructures, that enable content creation for virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), augmented reality (AR), cinematic reality (CR). With these tools, users generate new forms of reality by bringing digital objects into the physical world and bringing physical world objects into the digital world.
As part of this lesson, I have looked into examples of VR, AR and MR that I have either found or once used. Let’s begin with the basic example, VR. I don’t have any personal images for this but I did find games that I would love to experience in VR. Those are Beat Saber and Elder Scrolls. They require you to use your entire body, essentially placing you in that virtual world creating a whole new experience for the player.
The next thing I looked at was AR. It’s slightly different from AR as it places that virtual world, in the real world. Good examples of those are Pokemon Go, Jurassic World Live and Invizimals. Pokemon Go is a free mobile game, in which you travel around in the real world, catching virtual pokemon, very similarly to Jurassic World Live. Where as Invizimals was a game in which you needed a special card in order to play. The game was available of PSP, which I still believe was ahead of it’s time, and in this game, you battled and caught small creatures. The battles involved moving your console, speaking or even blowing into the microphone to control the attack your creature makes. It was a really fun game, until you got stuck on a level and lost all of your invizimals, not being able to progress further. That was the first AR experience.
The final example I looked at was something that really caught my attention. This is something relatively new and therefore something I have never, and probably never will, experience. I am looking at HoloLens 2, developed by Microsoft. It’s a form of amazingly advanced technology that allows combines VR and AR together, allowing you to edit things and move things that are virtual, in a real world, by simply using your hands, voice and eyes. It’s best explained in the video below.
Ethnicity, Orientalism and the ‘other’
Key words: The other, alterity, orientalism, ethnicity, stereotype, imaginative geography
The other and the Constitutive other – There terms identify the other human being in terms of differences from the Self, as being a cumulative, constituting factor in the self-image of a person; as acknowledgement of being real; hence, the Other is a dissimilar to and the opposite of the Self, of Us, and of the Same.
Foucault: About the production of knowledge of the Other who is not the Self, the philosopher Foucault said that Othering is the creations and maintenance of imagery “knowledge of the other”.
Alterity: is a philosophical and anthropological term meaning “otherness”, that is, the “other of two”.
The Age of Imperialism 1760-1914 – European industrializing nations, colonized, influences and annexed other parts of the world e.g. “Scramble of Africa” 1881-1914.
Ethnicity: An Ethnic group of ethnicities is a category of people who identify with each other, usually based on presumed common genealogy or ancestry or in similarities.
Race and Racism- Modern scholarship regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherit physical or biological meaning. The racialist perspective of 19th century Europe was invented with the Othering of non-white peoples. This was supported with the fabrications of scientific racism, such as pseudo-science of phrenology.
Racial markers in Art – Skin colour began to be a racial marker, exaggerated facial features/ Samuel Jennings, Painting of the duchess of Portsmouth.
Archetype – the original patterns or model from which copes are made: a prototype, an assumed ideal pattern.
Stereotype – a preconceived and oversimplified idea of the characteristics which typify a person, situation, etc: an attitude based on such preconception.
Blackface – was a performance tradition in the American theatre 1830-1930. It quickly became popular elsewhere, particularly so in Britain where the tradition lasted longer than in the U.S.
- The Black and White Minstrel show.
“The Fact of Blackness” – Frantz Fanon, 1652. A historical critique on the complex ways in which identity, particularly Blackness, is constructed and produced.
Deborah Roberts / Kerry James Marshall
Orientalism and imaginative geography – Imperial control, territorial and cultural, is justified through discourses about the imperialists’ understanding of different spaces.
Discourse – spoken and written communications in a particular field, e.g. “medical discourse”. In Sociology it is any practice by which individuals imbue reality with meaning.
“Orientalism” – Edward Said. It’s the way of seeing that images, emphasises, exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab culture and society as exotic, primitive and inferior, to that of Europe and the USA. Imagined geographies refers to the perception of a space created through certain imagery, texts and/or discourses.
One of the key genres of Orientalism was the harem painting. Male artists had no access to women’s apartments so relied on hearsay and imagination to depict opulent interiors and beautiful women, many of whom were Western in appearance. The genre allowed artists to depict erotic nudes and highly sexual narratives outside of a mythological context; their exotic location distanced the Western viewer sufficiently to make them morally permissible.
Cultural Identity and Diaspora, 1996 – Stuart Hall
Rebellious Silence, 1993 – Shirin Neshat
Moroccan-British photographer – Hassan Hajjaj
The Networked Self
- Reflexive self
- Network society
- Network self
- Affect
- The grab
- Gestural image
Information Society – po-mo, post-industrial. The usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration of information is a significant economic, political and cultural activity. DRIVERS: Information and communication technologies. IMPACT: Changes all aspects of social organisation, including education, economy, health, government and warfare and levels of democracy. ACCESS: Computer users or “digital citizens” – those who use the internet regularly and effectively.
Manuel Castells – The network society. The rise of the network society, 1996. Networks from the main architecture of society. A decentralised system of nodes. Dynamic, innovative, flexible. Networks aren’t new. But their current form is directly related to the information age.
“It’s about social networks which process and manage information and are using micro-electronic based technologies”.
Anthony Giddens – The reflective self. Modernity and self-identity, 1991. “the self becomes a reflective project” This is not optional. The self ‘has to be reflexively made’. Self-identity is not a given. We don’t passively inherit who we are. It’s a continuity.
Zizi P – The internet: A private Sphere. Social media: A critical introduction, 2017. The internet renders public space but is not a public sphere. It can – Pluralise but not democratise (opens pathways to connection it connects fascists tool) Amplify but does not equalise (does not extinguish problems. Make hate speech more visible). Identity, Community and Culture on Social Network Sites, 2010. All media are Social. But what kind of sociality do “social media” promote? Reflexive self – tendency to change according to situation is amplified by/through these media. Social media amplifies “affect”.
How social media shapes out identity – By Nausicaa Renner, 2019.
“Affect” (in philosophy) – Deleuze & Gauttari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, 1980. The intensity with which we experience an emotion. Affect/Emotion/Cognition – happen simultaneously. The level of intensity creates a different outcome.
The Grab – On social media platforms, users tend to consume image, sound, and text differently than they do when viewing print, or television.
The Selfie – as facebook and Instagram gathered popularity worldwide, they provided broader platforms for the distribution of selfies. They became a ubiquitous means of personifying and sharing visually. In 2013, the selfie became Oxford Dictionary word of the year. – Narcissism and pleasure?
The Gestural image – 1975, Laura Mulvey, Male Gaze: Consume as a male voyeur. By taking an image of yourself, by yourself, you are in control of what the viewer sees. By holding the camera you are in control, you are the agent.
Viewers, Audiences, Institutions
- Habitus
- Field
- Cultural Capital
- Distinction
- Taste
- The Culture Industry
“Taste” is not “natural”. It’s a product of power relations and is arbitrary and maintained.
Cultural Capital – The cultural assets of a person; education, intellect, style of speech, style of dress…material and symbolic goods.
- Economic capital – the money you can use, trade.
- Social capital – the connections you can use, trade.
- Cultural capital – the culture you can use, trade. This functions as a social relation within a system of exchange.
Habitus – embodied and ingrained habits, skills and dispositions. The way we think and behave socially, how we perceive and act. Usually shared by people with similar background.
Acquired through imitation (mimesis)
Field – The setting in which agents and their social positions are located. The position of each agent (individual with agency) in the fields is a result of:
- Interaction between the specific rules of the field
- The agent’s habitus
- The agent’s capital (social, economic, and cultural)
Fields interact with each other and are hierarchical.
PIERRE BOURDIEU – Primarily concerned with the dynamics of power in society, especially the ways it is transferred, and social order is maintained.
The rebel sell – Counter-cultural movements have failed to affect any progressive political or economic consequences; thus counter-culture is not a threat to “the system”.
The culture industry – popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardised cultural goods. There are used to manipulate mass society into passivity. Consumption renders people docile and content, regardless of economic circumstances.
Still I rise
On the 5th December, we went to the Arnolfini to explore the ‘Still I Rise’ exhibition, which concentrated on resistant movements and 20 forms of living. Majority of the art works were expressing the daily problems that women face on a daily basis, also linking back to the historical context. This easily links to the feminism movement, which is fixed, and very strict, on empowering women to stand their ground and fight for equal rights as men. There were also a few examples which explored the context of sexuality and the equality related to that. However, I haven’t seen any artworks which concentrate on the racial history, especially about women. I believe that the exhibition mainly focused on gender and sexuality and chose not to, or simply forgot about the fact that race was also responsible for preventing women from having equal rights.
However, there is one exhibition that has caught my attention the most was the photography by Judy Chicago, who is an American feminist artist. She was born on the 20th July, 1939. She has created a series of photographs called the “Atmospheres” in 1968. By using smoke, it provided her a form of freedom from the formal structure of art, while the colour was used to feminise and soften the environment.
The first image she has taken is called the “Immolation” and it was taken in the California Desert. It represents a naked woman sat on a desert, surrounded by something similar to smoke bombs. Those are formed into a circle that surround her, almost like a ritual or summoning. The smoke is a bright shade of orange and really stands out against the dull background of the dry desert. The word Immolation was explored by Judy into a lot of detail. It’s meaning is to set fire to someone, either free willingly or by force. This links to how during the 1970’s, a lot of monks in Vietnam had set themselves on fire to protest against the war and its expansion into Cambodia. Obviously, by looking further into history and relating it to feminism, Judy has also highlighted that in the past, women were immolated by force mainly as a form of punishment or sacrifice. Especially, if it was believed that the woman was a witch. In India, women, specifically widows, were forced into flames of a funeral fire during the practices of ‘Sati’. Judy was obviously very interested in the topic and said that “one could say up to that point women’s art and women’s history had been immolated”. This means she believes that women were not given the right or the fame that they deserved, especially in comparison to men.
What I found in her work is that the smoke, which Judy uses in her photographs, change colour depending on the scenery. If she’s located in a more natural environment, then it is more likely to be orange. But, in an image of a bridge, she uses very dark, grey smoke. This may reflect how she feels about the environment that she’s in, expressing that natural is more beautiful and the destruction there is simply horrifying. Yet something that was man-made, is something that was already destructive. It’s also stated that the dark grey smoke leaves behind a trail of grey paint on the nearby buildings, which helps empower Judy’s message even more. Her messages, simply leave behind a mark. I really like her work, it’s interesting and really gets you thinking.
Essay Prep
Once we have looked through the various topic and studies them, we were asked to pick a topic that we would be interested in writing our essay about. I was very interested in the Uncanny Valley, as I found it to be an amusing phenomenon. We have been asked to produce a PowerPoint presentation that will help us write up our essay.
I have also included the notes that were attached to the individual slides.
Final Essay
Below, you will find a copy of my final essay. It is a downloadable PDF.
Weronika Koscien Graphic Design Year 2 