December 11
FINAL POST That brought me this course of Visual culture? Very wide question in view of the number of subjects which we treated… I shall like beginning by evoking the fact that this subject allows us to clear up our fields of vision with regard to headlines of current events, general knowledge, any kind of information that we meet on the Internet, in newspapers, any kind of media which surround us that we read, that we look or that we hear. We evoked a mass of subjects, the strength of the advertising in the globalization by way of the popular culture, politics, modernity, power… For the next times of my carrier, I am almost certain that this training will allow me, besides my passage in preparatory classes, to take always more height when at the approach of a subject or of a mission which will offer themselves to me.To talk about a main subject or problematic in company can join, the angle of attack can be the same and it is especially in the way we treat such or such subject as this discipline is going to serve me. Confirm solid bases of oral presentation, build didactic plans, launch a question by a question; all these things were inculcated and strengthened to us here, during our semester in Chicago. Everyday’s like training day. I’ve got today and today only to show you who and what I’m made of. That’s my job. The shit’s chess, it aren’t checkers. Sometimes you’ve got to have a little dirt on you for anybody to trust you. You’ve got to be in it all the way or not at all. But there is a flip side to that coin. Pursue our knowledge in the advertising, the domain in which I shall like evolving, perfecting my skills in general knowledge with the aim of a big oral been imperative by the oral and especially to claim to be awarded a diploma, all this really motivated me for this course and the book which was asked to us to read put back in the game. A thing called out to me more than any other this semester, to recognize the fact that the advertising and flowed media replaced the building of communities, the myth of the cave today always is to teach us, but I have the bitter impression that the future generation are going to have to revise the founding texts to understand their environment. An example to clear up one of the items of course, symbolism and viewers make meaning: the butterfly, a common animal that could mean resurgence of a lost being or sign of him beyond for some faiths.

FINAL POST


That brought me this course of Visual culture?

Very wide question in view of the number of subjects which we treated… I shall like beginning by evoking the fact that this subject allows us to clear up our fields of vision with regard to headlines of current events, general knowledge, any kind of information that we meet on the Internet, in newspapers, any kind of media which surround us that we read, that we look or that we hear.

We evoked a mass of subjects, the strength of the advertising in the globalization by way of the popular culture, politics, modernity, power…

For the next times of my carrier, I am almost certain that this training will allow me, besides my passage in preparatory classes, to take always more height when at the approach of a subject or of a mission which will offer themselves to me.

To talk about a main subject or problematic in company can join, the angle of attack can be the same and it is especially in the way we treat such or such subject as this discipline is going to serve me. Confirm solid bases of oral presentation, build didactic plans, launch a question by a question; all these things were inculcated and strengthened to us here, during our semester in Chicago.

Everyday’s like training day. I’ve got today and today only to show you who and what I’m made of.

That’s my job. The shit’s chess, it aren’t checkers. Sometimes you’ve got to have a little dirt on you for anybody to trust you. You’ve got to be in it all the way or not at all. But there is a flip side to that coin. Pursue our knowledge in the advertising, the domain in which I shall like evolving, perfecting my skills in general knowledge with the aim of a big oral been imperative by the oral and especially to claim to be awarded a diploma, all this really motivated me for this course and the book which was asked to us to read put back in the game.

A thing called out to me more than any other this semester, to recognize the fact that the advertising and flowed media replaced the building of communities, the myth of the cave today always is to teach us, but I have the bitter impression that the future generation are going to have to revise the founding texts to understand their environment.

An example to clear up one of the items of course, symbolism and viewers make meaning: the butterfly, a common animal that could mean resurgence of a lost being or sign of him beyond for some faiths.

December 4
Post #12 - TED Videos advertising/Visual culture seminar October 1st 2012: Swedish edition of the free daily paper Metro put in one two pages extracted from two versions of the same catalog Ikea, with in main headlines: Ikea erases the women. To the left, we could see the version of the standard catalog and to the right the same page stemming from the version of Saudi Arabia. The scene is harmless. A family gets ready in the morning in the bathroom. In the Saudi version, the woman disappeared, literally erased. The resonance chamber in the western media was phenomenal. The information was immediately taken back everywhere in Europe and in North America, leaving apparently the completely distraught Swedish managing group of the company. It was indeed taken in pliers between its efforts of adaptation to the local context and the western glance on these same efforts. On one side, Ikea indeed has to compose with certain cultural schemes to involve its presence on the Saudi market; on the other hand, the Swedish company has to remain united of the values bound to the equality between men and women which are manhandled nevertheless seriously when Ikea erases the woman of its catalog. The fact is that in Saudi Arabia the representation of the woman is subjected to a strict control. Quite as it is forbidden for a woman to go out in public without being veiled for the Muslims, or covered with a long black tunic for the non-Muslims, the media, the posters, the catalogs and the others media of information and representation have to conform to these rules in Saudi Arabia. credits: Ikea catalog, october 2012

Post #12 - TED Videos advertising/Visual culture seminar

October 1st 2012: Swedish edition of the free daily paper Metro put in one two pages extracted from two versions of the same catalog Ikea, with in main headlines: Ikea erases the women. To the left, we could see the version of the standard catalog and to the right the same page stemming from the version of Saudi Arabia.

The scene is harmless. A family gets ready in the morning in the bathroom. In the Saudi version, the woman disappeared, literally erased. The resonance chamber in the western media was phenomenal. The information was immediately taken back everywhere in Europe and in North America, leaving apparently the completely distraught Swedish managing group of the company.

It was indeed taken in pliers between its efforts of adaptation to the local context and the western glance on these same efforts. On one side, Ikea indeed has to compose with certain cultural schemes to involve its presence on the Saudi market; on the other hand, the Swedish company has to remain united of the values bound to the equality between men and women which are manhandled nevertheless seriously when Ikea erases the woman of its catalog.

The fact is that in Saudi Arabia the representation of the woman is subjected to a strict control. Quite as it is forbidden for a woman to go out in public without being veiled for the Muslims, or covered with a long black tunic for the non-Muslims, the media, the posters, the catalogs and the others media of information and representation have to conform to these rules in Saudi Arabia.

credits: Ikea catalog, october 2012

November 28
#Post 11 Instagram During the events of Thanksgiving, all the Americans put their mobile phone in contribution and quite particularly their application as Instagram. And as usual, the celebrities overrode this effect of fashion because I chose as image the festive evening in family of the singer Mariah Carey. New Fashion? Thing against the boredom or still need which the unknown enters our privacy life? We know how to only tell in front of this fashion to photograph everything. The objective of these photos is not to know in which family was the biggest turkey but indeed a current phenomenon which consists in appropriating images, to shape them as we wish it and to return them public. Thansgiving celebrations accross the country were temporarily halted on Thursday as millions of Americans took a moment before digging into the turkey to whip out their phones and snap a photo of their feast. With a quick crop and application of a filter effect, they posted the images en masse to Instagram, the burgeoning mobile phone app available. The company broke records Thursday with users posting a total of 10 million photos- a significant increase in comparison to its daily average of 5 million- culminating with a rate of 226 images per second aroung midnight. Instagram has proliferated on campuses nationwide as students begin to craft ways to use the app.

#Post 11 Instagram

During the events of Thanksgiving, all the Americans put their mobile phone in contribution and quite particularly their application as Instagram. And as usual, the celebrities overrode this effect of fashion because I chose as image the festive evening in family of the singer Mariah Carey.

New Fashion? Thing against the boredom or still need which the unknown enters our privacy life? We know how to only tell in front of this fashion to photograph everything.


The objective of these photos is not to know in which family was the biggest turkey but indeed a current phenomenon which consists in appropriating images, to shape them as we wish it and to return them public.

Thansgiving celebrations accross the country were temporarily halted on Thursday as millions of Americans took a moment before digging into the turkey to whip out their phones and snap a photo of their feast. With a quick crop and application of a filter effect, they posted the images en masse to Instagram, the burgeoning mobile phone app available.

The company broke records Thursday with users posting a total of 10 million photos- a significant increase in comparison to its daily average of 5 million- culminating with a rate of 226 images per second aroung midnight. Instagram has proliferated on campuses nationwide as students begin to craft ways to use the app.

October 30
#Post 7 Media in everyday life The rise of consumer society has changed homes, changed family relationships and even changed the dynamics of the private and public spheres. The consumer society discussed above brought with it a number of changes. Space for advertising is now available in the average western countries’ living room. Families gather around the television rather than talking over dinner. The public sphere continues to encroach upon – and sometimes masquerade as – the private sphere. My picture used at the top illustrates the extent to which this has occurred. In this chapter, the authors note that some media and cultural theorists have argued that “advertising replaced what had previously been the social fabric of communities, becoming, in effect, a central source of cultural values”. While Sturken and Cartwright present this view as somewhat extremist, I think it’s exactly right. That’s not to say that all demographics have undergone this change, but I believe the average western countries are far more consumer-driven than anyone realizes. We live in world of needs that are really wants. Everything is marketed to us, from cars to food to nursing homes. Millions of people have spent hundreds of dollars for the social status of owning an iPod (see the picture with the Christ), when a similar MP3 player is often half the price. The social makeup of our world is driven by advertising. Credits: crucified Ipod

#Post 7 Media in everyday life

The rise of consumer society has changed homes, changed family relationships and even changed the dynamics of the private and public spheres.

The consumer society discussed above brought with it a number of changes. Space for advertising is now available in the average western countries’ living room. Families gather around the television rather than talking over dinner. The public sphere continues to encroach upon – and sometimes masquerade as – the private sphere. My picture used at the top illustrates the extent to which this has occurred.

In this chapter, the authors note that some media and cultural theorists have argued that “advertising replaced what had previously been the social fabric of communities, becoming, in effect, a central source of cultural values”.

While Sturken and Cartwright present this view as somewhat extremist, I think it’s exactly right. That’s not to say that all demographics have undergone this change, but I believe the average western countries are far more consumer-driven than anyone realizes. We live in world of needs that are really wants. Everything is marketed to us, from cars to food to nursing homes. Millions of people have spent hundreds of dollars for the social status of owning an iPod (see the picture with the Christ), when a similar MP3 player is often half the price. The social makeup of our world is driven by advertising.

Credits: crucified Ipod

October 29
#Post 7 Consumer culture and advertising Pseudo individuality is the idea of mass marketing based on individualism. The example given is of McDonald’s, with the French ads. The mass marketing campaign says you have to be yourself, wearing as you want, with everybody you want coming to the restaurant. You are different from everyone, thereby privileging individuality even as the ad markets to the masses. This technique is quite popular today, with many ads encouraging people to “think outside the box” or “be different” and take a risk on this new product. Of course, if everyone does so, no one is different. That‘s where the “pseudo-” prefix comes in. It is obviousless with perfume because the mass marketing campaign says the perfume will smell different on everyone! Nevertheless, many ads do – and the world would be very different without them. A world without ads working for dissatisfaction would certainly not be so consumer-driven. Needs and wants would be much better delineated in the mind of the average person. There would also be a lot more space in which people could value other sorts of communication. At the same time, though, we could not live in a free market society if this were the case. A sense of dissatisfaction can be a very good, motivating thing. Without advertisers for motivation, we might not achieve as much. Frankly, the idea of a world without advertising playing on personal dissatisfaction is so far removed from reality that it is impossible for me to imagine.

#Post 7 Consumer culture and advertising

Pseudo individuality is the idea of mass marketing based on individualism. The example given is of McDonald’s, with the French ads. The mass marketing campaign says you have to be yourself, wearing as you want, with everybody you want coming to the restaurant. You are different from everyone, thereby privileging individuality even as the ad markets to the masses. This technique is quite popular today, with many ads encouraging people to “think outside the box” or “be different” and take a risk on this new product. Of course, if everyone does so, no one is different. That‘s where the “pseudo-” prefix comes in.

It is obviousless with perfume because the mass marketing campaign says the perfume will smell different on everyone!

Nevertheless, many ads do – and the world would be very different without them. A world without ads working for dissatisfaction would certainly not be so consumer-driven. Needs and wants would be much better delineated in the mind of the average person. There would also be a lot more space in which people could value other sorts of communication. At the same time, though, we could not live in a free market society if this were the case. A sense of dissatisfaction can be a very good, motivating thing. Without advertisers for motivation, we might not achieve as much. Frankly, the idea of a world without advertising playing on personal dissatisfaction is so far removed from reality that it is impossible for me to imagine.

October 22
Don’t give up the fight!

Don’t give up the fight!

October 17
Chapter 5: Visual Technologies, Image Reproduction and the Copy   In this chapter it is said that in the course of the centuries and especially since the man has the will to immortalize the movement and the space which surrounds him, thanks to numerous techniques as the photography, the cinema, the painting as its will to congeal things increases, its urge for political power and for domination increase. It’s like that for the dictatorships of the 20th century, the personality cult optimized by the repetition and the bludgeoning of similar images, familiar of the same person. According to Walter Benjamin, we lost the notion of authenticity and unique with the increase of the copies of images, movies… The reproduction of elements deprives us our perception of the value of things. He also testifies of a transfer of perception with regard to the works of art which do not base themselves any more on rites but on political themes. The art in the service of the politics thanks to the repetition and the reproduction of the image.   Without forgetting also the increase of the publications on images, movies, paintings which still increase the multiplicity of judgments concerning the art. pictures credits: zazzle.com/Obama/cultofpersonnality

Chapter 5: Visual Technologies, Image Reproduction and the Copy

 

In this chapter it is said that in the course of the centuries and especially since the man has the will to immortalize the movement and the space which surrounds him, thanks to numerous techniques as the photography, the cinema, the painting as its will to congeal things increases, its urge for political power and for domination increase. It’s like that for the dictatorships of the 20th century, the personality cult optimized by the repetition and the bludgeoning of similar images, familiar of the same person. According to Walter Benjamin, we lost the notion of authenticity and unique with the increase of the copies of images, movies… The reproduction of elements deprives us our perception of the value of things. He also testifies of a transfer of perception with regard to the works of art which do not base themselves any more on rites but on political themes. The art in the service of the politics thanks to the repetition and the reproduction of the image.

 

Without forgetting also the increase of the publications on images, movies, paintings which still increase the multiplicity of judgments concerning the art.


pictures credits: zazzle.com/Obama/cultofpersonnality

October 9
Realism and Perspective On the right, God is represented as an old barbed man wrapped in an ample red coat which he shares with cherubs. His left hand is rolled up around a feminine face, probably Eve, who is not created yet and, in a representational way, waits in the Paradise to receive a ground shape. God’s right hand tightens to give the spark of life, the end of its own index planned towards that of Adams. The latter, by the measure of its left hand and the set its body, strikes a pose rather comparable to that of God. This relative symmetry reminds that the Man is created just like God! After this scenic explanation, we can argue that the printer realized a colossal work for the European dept culture and background. This perspective became almost mystic and reuses on numerous occasions. The realism of the work towards the sacred text and the perspective given to the work show of the importance of the putting in the abyss of the facts, movements, persons in a work, however it is.

Realism and Perspective

On the right, God is represented as an old barbed man wrapped in an ample red coat which he shares with cherubs. His left hand is rolled up around a feminine face, probably Eve, who is not created yet and, in a representational way, waits in the Paradise to receive a ground shape. God’s right hand tightens to give the spark of life, the end of its own index planned towards that of Adams.

The latter, by the measure of its left hand and the set its body, strikes a pose rather comparable to that of God. This relative symmetry reminds that the Man is created just like God!

After this scenic explanation, we can argue that the printer realized a colossal work for the European dept culture and background. This perspective became almost mystic and reuses on numerous occasions. The realism of the work towards the sacred text and the perspective given to the work show of the importance of the putting in the abyss of the facts, movements, persons in a work, however it is.


October 2

Modernity, spectatorship, power and knowledge

As it relates to the power of the perceived gaze, people play the role of their gender. Therefore, a man or a woman could look upon a human figure not out of sexual pleasure but identity pleasure. A man looking at Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise could be looking at him in pleasure over the fact he is fitting the gender role of the man that Brad Pitt exemplifies. This point is closely related to the modern era, because it is a construct of Foucault’s point that people are self regulated. They are regulated not just as law abiding citizens but also in their gender.

As the modern era constructs the ideology of power, Derrida and Foucault’s theories become central discussions. The modern era constructs this notion of power by defining where humankind and nature separate and are binary opposites through culture’s need to overpower nature through technology, science and rationalism. The modern era further constructs a notion of power by using The Gaze, the idea that people are always being watched, to control people’s behaviors and creating a self-regulated society both in law abiding roles and gender roles.

I thought of this song, not for its texts, but for its video clip which shows to accelerate the evolution of the human race, the nothingness in the excess. The gaze carried by the artist is without ambiguity: the man became a being self-sufficient to himself. The image of an obese person at the end of clip is striking of cynicism but shows us the fragility of the species. It is there that the question of the security of our way of life, our world comes into play.

September 25
Encoding, decoding, appropriation, misappropriation According to a conception inspired by the Dadaists, the misappropriation - Which is at first a quotation - consists at the same time in making visible the memorized image, and in turning it against itself. By their subversive aim, the hijacked images recover from a persuasive rhetoric. An analogy of shape, this time between that of the logo of Mac Donald and that of the cardiac signal who allows to associate the cause ( the food) and the effect ( the disease); we fast understood that ” food what offers Macdonald pulls severe cardiac problems “. However this causality and the textual paraphrase which expresses it are not enough to explain the principle of opposition which the misappropriation. This one shows itself rather in the plan of the “thymie”, because the promise of happiness made by the logo metamorphoses into signal of misfortune. The image of communication is dependent on rhetoric and as such, she can only look for already borrowed forms; she has to satisfy a system of characteristic expectation of the reception. We take back «what has already worked» Misappropriations of image were made at first by the Dadaists, at the beginning of twenty Century; these artists protested against ” the universal nonsense ” by texts of mockery, sticking and photos-assemblies; they are at the origin of the surrealist movement which the first one used the term of misappropriation when Marcel Duchamp, to criticize the official art drew mustaches to the Mona Lisa. It seems that the practice of the misappropriation in its historic forms, bases on the argumentative use of the figure of the oxymoron. This figure of sense that Reboul (1984) considers in literature as fundamentally poetic relaying also in the images on work of the shape like significant visuals. It associates incompatible terms and can, according to this author, carry a philosophic, ironic or funny message. Used in the historic practices of the misappropriation in visual communication, it also carries a political message and illustrates in an exemplary way the persuasive eloquence of the images.

Encoding, decoding, appropriation, misappropriation

According to a conception inspired by the Dadaists, the misappropriation - Which is at first a quotation - consists at the same time in making visible the memorized image, and in turning it against itself. By their subversive aim, the hijacked images recover from a persuasive rhetoric.

An analogy of shape, this time between that of the logo of Mac Donald and that of the cardiac signal who allows to associate the cause ( the food) and the effect ( the disease); we fast understood that ” food what offers Macdonald pulls severe cardiac problems “. However this causality and the textual paraphrase which expresses it are not enough to explain the principle of opposition which the misappropriation. This one shows itself rather in the plan of the “thymie”, because the promise of happiness made by the logo metamorphoses into signal of misfortune.

The image of communication is dependent on rhetoric and as such, she can only look for already borrowed forms; she has to satisfy a system of characteristic expectation of the reception. We take back «what has already worked»

Misappropriations of image were made at first by the Dadaists, at the beginning of twenty Century; these artists protested against ” the universal nonsense ” by texts of mockery, sticking and photos-assemblies; they are at the origin of the surrealist movement which the first one used the term of misappropriation when Marcel Duchamp, to criticize the official art drew mustaches to the Mona Lisa.

It seems that the practice of the misappropriation in its historic forms, bases on the argumentative use of the figure of the oxymoron. This figure of sense that Reboul (1984) considers in literature as fundamentally poetic relaying also in the images on work of the shape like significant visuals. It associates incompatible terms and can, according to this author, carry a philosophic, ironic or funny message. Used in the historic practices of the misappropriation in visual communication, it also carries a political message and illustrates in an exemplary way the persuasive eloquence of the images.