Endgame

This project really has sped by! As I upload it to StudyNet now, I'm thinking about the many ideas and thought processes I've had as a result of the lectures and content covered.
I feel this really has prepared me for my essay and certainly enticed me, perhaps, to keep a general personal blog!

P.S. Don't forget to take a look at the Bibliography and Dictionary at the top!

FINAL THOUGHT: Nicole Kidman.

Reversing into automatic death...

We covered a lot in this lecture, but I was certainly given a lot to think about. We spoke a lot about that bloke Marshall McLuhan. Ivan basically said that we'd either find his 'theories' really interesting or think they are a load of rubbish. I have to say I did agree with much of what McLuhan suggested. There were some exaggerations on his part, but on the whole I do agree.
Of the many things we spoke about, I particularly enjoyed the second half of the lecture/seminar. We discussed Hot and Cool media, and spoke about McLuhan's thoughts on where our mediums should go (i.e. Television, Film, Newspapers, etc) and then critiqued them.
I feel that while Radio used to be hot media, where you could be described as a 'spectator', not requiring much interaction, this is no longer valid. Radio in our modern culture is highly interactive, with people calling in, texting in, etc. For this reason I feel as though it should be classed as cool media.

We finished by talking about the 'Law of Media Tetrads'. Essentially, ANYTHING can be put into this 'law'.

 Fig 1.1: BMW 1 Series (Source: bmwblog.com, 2009)

THIS is a BMW 1 Series. When I'm an app developer and I make the next Angry Birds of the future, sailing around the internet aboard the HTML7, I'm going to have one of these. Maybe a more up to date version. I DIGRESS.

The BMW 1 Series is a car.

Cars:

1. Extend our legs.

2. Retrieves the notion of 'the knight' in the 'olden days', questing, being adventurous, etc.

3. Reverses into gridlock & pollution.

4. Obsolesces horses (as a method of transport).

We looked at this example in class, and then did our own. A classmate and I decided to attempt to put the Internet into one of these tetrads, however it was quite difficult. Cars are used for one purpose, to travel. However, the internet has many applications. A method of communication, ways of gathering information, ways to cause harm to others (through hacking, etc), etc. So, we chose to focus on a specific application - Internet for ways of gathering information.

1. Extends knowledge/intelligence

2. Retrieves the Godlike notion of omniscience.

3. Reverses into lack of independence, lack of self-adventure/discovery.

4. Obsolesces non-fiction books.

I liked a lot of McLuhan's ideas and I think I'll be looking more into his work over the next 3 years.
Also, Nicole Kidman.

10010101110100 01011101

It's been a busy week with other projects, but I've finally found time to be able to sit down and continue this here blog.

Since the last lecture on intertextuality, we spoke about structuralism and binary opposition.
Structuralism, essentially, shows how we make sense of the world.
I'm glad we covered this because I've always been interested in how we're all different and how we all see the world. I've always been able to have an opinion and question other peoples opinions in a discussion without getting defensive or angry, and I find it fascinating how primally angry people get to defend their opinions.

We'll always be more fascinated with what we don't know as opposed to what we do. That's why horror films where the 'monster' is hardly ever shown for the whole film is so effective. The idea, anticipation and our imagination of the 'monster' and the unknown will always be more terrifying than the monster itself. While it may sound like I'm going off on a tangent, this is what I thought of when we were discussing the anomalous zone/the zone of indeterminancy.
We then discussed the anomalous zone in more detail, and how films that 'play with' the mixture between binary oppositions (i.e. good/bad, life/death, etc) are generally more effective. Having a superhero film where the superhero may have done/may have to do something bad is much better than a superhero being 100% good.
This made me think of other ways binary opposition could be used in film for effectiveness, and the first film that sprang into my head was The Others. Now, I know there is a recurring Nicole Kidman theme here, BUT I promise I'll try not to bring her up again unless I need to.
The Others is a film where the character of Nicole Kidman lives in a big scary house with her children. The house is haunted by ghosts who make their everyday lives a misery.

Now, before I continue I'd like to apologise to anyone marking this blog who hasn't seen The Others, because I'm about to drop a bomb and post a spoiler. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't necessary to make my point!
At the end of the film, you find that actually, the mother and her children have been going through the whole film thinking they are haunted by ghosts, praying for something to be done about it, when actually they are the ones who are dead, and are haunting the people who are alive.
Rather than them being 'in the middle' of alive and dead, they are 'alive' for the entire film, and flip straight over to the other end of the spectrum in just a few seconds. But, it's more effective than someone just being shot (alive -> dead) because the idea that they are ghosts doesn't quite put them right at the end of the spectrum. Part of them is still alive.

No one can steal our dream, no one...

Intertextuality is one of my favourite topics within media. Having learnt about it before, I was excited when I found out it was today's lecture topic!

Intertextuality, as defined by Julia Kristeva, "denotes the transposition of one (or several) sign system(s) into another."
In Layman's terms, any reference to a previous piece of media, be it a quote, even perhaps an iconic camera angle (e.g. Quentin Tarantino's classic "from the boot of a car" shot that seems to make it into every one of his films), denotes intertextuality. Sometimes it's intended ((self-)conscious) and other times it isn't (unconscious).

We outlined something that I remember discussing with my friends a few months back, that, unfortunately, in our day and age, nothing will ever be original. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as directors and writers are always finding new ways to portray ideas and stories (which is the truly original part).

The lecture got me thinking about one of my favourite adverts of all time, the Chanel No 5 campaign starring Nicole Kidman, released back in 2004 and screened worldwide for about 2 years. It's one of those adverts I've never been able to forget.

The advert is directly intertextualised with the previously released Moulin Rouge in many aspects. The stories match - a superstar celebrity falls in love with an unwitting, unmaterialistic writer, being separated but never forgetting what they had. However, there are also more subtle references.

Firstly, the actual setting. While the places are completely different, the setup is the same. In Moulin Rouge, the writer lives in an apartment overlooking the Moulin Rouge. In the advert, the male has an apartment which has access to a rooftop, overlooking a celebrity venue with red carpet, where he watches over her. Following on from this, the casting of Nicole Kidman was no coincidence. The characters are similar and Baz Luhrmann made an informed decision to cast Nicole Kidman for the advert, with the intention to intertextualise this with Moulin Rouge. This is supported by the fact that in the advert, Nicole Kidman is being confronted by what would appear to be her manager; standing in the apartment door, he states 'you must be there tomorrow' in a low voice. This is similar if not identical to the scene in Moulin Rouge where Satine is being told she must attend the show tomorrow, as she wants to run away.

Furthermore, when the couple kiss there are fireworks going off in the sky, just like in Moulin Rouge but also many other films that link romance with fireworks. The fireworks are even similar in that they are silver and sparkly, like diamonds (fitting with the 'diamonds are a girls best friend' theme of Moulin Rouge and also with fame, wealth, Nicole Kidman wearing a No. 5 diamond necklace at the end of the advert)

Skip to 3:52 for Fireworks

While we're on the subject of Moulin Rouge, I couldn't help mentioning some rather obvious intertextuality in the film! While it's not actually linked to the advert, the part where the writer is singing and dancing in the rain is clearly referencing good old Gene Kelly when he put his umbrella away and sang and danced in the rain, and of course, the iconic picture of him hanging off of a lampost is included, too. The writer hangs off the model of the Eiffel Tower with his umbrella.

 Skip to 2:05

Fig 1.1: Singing in the Rain (Source: bobgarontraining.com, 2011)

 

I'd like to finish by outlining some really subtle intertextual links. At the end of the advert, Nicole Kidman looks over her left shoulder, up at the large Chanel sign, and sees the man. In Moulin Rouge, at the finale, Satine's (Nicole Kidman) lover is walking out of the theatre, and she turns and looks over her left shoulder, and begins singing to him.

Whether this was conscious or not is up for discussion, but I believe it was a conscious decision.

Good old intertextuality! Now that I've been reminded about it I don't think I'll be actually WATCHING films anymore, I'll just be looking for intertextuality!

Oddly Shaped Trees & Digital Culture

Last night, me and my flatmates decided to go against the student conventions of going out and getting slaughtered, and opted instead to have a movie night in and watch Pan's Labyrinth.
On the surface this film appears to be quite simple, portraying a little girls obsession with fairy tales becoming a reality as she discovers a new world. However, the film has deep and dark undertones which, naturally, I had to analyse and delve in to. Me and my flatmates did the standard media-student-analysis of the film and made some interesting observations.  I think I can use the aforementioned undertones to further my understanding of the 'Myth' term I learned in this weeks lecture.
The film is set in Spain in the 1940's, where fascism was an accepted value of society. This is also reflected upon constantly throughout the film, where both Ofelia and her mother are abused by a man in the army, with whom they have settled with.
The little girl, Ofelia, is told by a fawn that she is princess of the underworld, and has to complete three tasks before she is allowed to return. Her first task was to go to a dead tree in the forest, where a poisonous frog was living. She had to feed it pellets to destroy it, as it was plaguing the tree and stopping it from growing.

Fig 1.1 Ofelia and the dead tree (Source: aintitcool.com, 2005)

On the surface, this would appear to be just a regular tree. That's the denotation, that is what is literally there.

However, upon further inspection you'll notice that the tree is actually shaped like a uterus, and could even be referred to as a 'signifier of a woman' through association (semiotics!). The connotations of this tree are that the fact that it is dead and shaped like a uterus reflects the era as a whole, in that women were heavily opressed.

The myth, in my opinion, would be 1940's fascist Spain.

I've also started reading 'Digital Culture' by Charlie Gere, which discusses the rapid change that occurs all the time in our digital culture today.

'The only thing that never changes is that everything always changes.' (Charlie Gere 2008: 7)

I'm glad that I'm taking things that I learn in my lecture and subconsciously applying my knowledge to everyday situations, such as just a simple watch of a film!

Mummy, why is my door in space?

The subject of today's lecture was Semiotics, the study of meaning.

We spoke about signs and how we recognise them, and contextualised it through cats, which was definitely my favourite. I love cats.
For the purpose of showing my understanding, I'm going to use a door as my context.

The word door does not resemble a door in any way. The word door is a signifier, but is arbitrary. The mental process that then occurs is called the signified. When I see the word door I think of a vertically upright rectangle, usually made of wood but can come in many different materials, and is typically used to allow or deny entry to a place.

 

Fig 2.1: A door: Seb Emin: (Source: Adobe Photoshop CS5.1)

Figure 2.1 shows a door created by me in Adobe Photoshop. It resembles the shape, and in some cases colour, of a door. It has a doorknob. For all intents and purposes, Figure 2.1 is a door.
This makes Figure 2.1 iconic. However, it's not as simple as iconic or arbitrary, some pictures can be more iconic than others. For example:

 

Fig 2.2: A photograph of a door: (Source: simplyshutters.co.uk, 2011)

Figure 2.2 shows a photograph of a (rather posh looking) door. This is iconic, just like my doodle of a door. However, Figure 2.2 is more iconic than Figure 2.1.

 

Fig 2.3 A door in a nebula: (Source: Door: Simply Shutters 2011, Nebula: news.wisc.edu 2011, Adobe Photoshop)

Here's a door in a nebula (quite a fetching nebula, is it not?). This photograph is still iconic, however, you could argue that it is less iconic than the previous picture because, generally, doors don't manage to plummet into outer space and sit in the middle of a nebula.

We then discussed some more terms which can be found on the Dictionary page in this blog. We discussed Denotation, Connotation and Myth which I had already done a little of back at school. I think in future posts I will find adverts, film posters, etc, that interest me and analyse them. I'm confident using denotation and connotation, however, I'm still a bit confused about the myth at this stage.

Finally we discussed Paradigms (a set of signs available for use in a context) and Syntagm (actual entities within paradigms). We analysed a rather amusing advert for Amnesty International.

Another enjoyable lecture for me, and I look forward to next week!

Computer, activate Shannon & Weaver beam. Target the Cybernetics.

Today, we were given a summary of our assignment, part of which is to maintain a blog to reflect upon lectures, seminars, and further reading.

The subject of today's lecture was Cybernetics. Alan talked about the Shannon & Weaver model and then we played with blocks for half an hour. It was ace. The Shannon & Weaver model initially appeared only to be a way to describe telephone communication, but in actual fact has many, many other applications.

Over the past week in the Pixel, Image & Sound module, we have been using Adobe Illustrator to create vector images. I decided to create my own diagram of the Shannon & Weaver model, which is displayed below:

Fig 1.1: Seb Emin: The Shannon & Weaver Model: (Source: Adobe Illustrator CS5.1)

We spoke about these additional applications and used the classroom environment as an example.
In a classroom, the lecturer is the transmitter and the students are receivers. In this environment there is generally little or no noise. Literally there is no sound, as students are silent while taking notes, but also the walls are white, the chairs are neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, etc. The noise in the environment is kept to a minimum.
However, in this environment we are able to feed back to the lecturer and ask about anything we don't quite understand.
In media today, for example, in films, the feedback loop is broken. As a viewer, we are unable to stop the film and ask the director something we aren't sure of.
The Shannon & Weaver model has been described as the 'mother of all models'. (Source: Erik Hollnagel, David D. Woods 2005:11)

We then discussed Cybernetics, the science of communication between organisms/animals and machines, rather than my initial thinking of something Captain Janeway would concerned about aboard Voyager. I learned that it comes from the Greek word 'kybernetes' (the word Cybernetics, not Captain Janeway), meaning steersman.
We discussed a cycle that takes place between human and computer. The computer renders the display, the human sees and perceives. Then, the human thinks about the next course of action. Once this has been decided, the human will carry out that action in the form of a mouse move, button press, etc.
The computer will then receive the input, perform the requested task, and render it to display.
However, this is not a 'balanced' loop. Human will always be slower than the computer. The loop will always pause when the human has to make a decision.

We ended the session by talking about predictable and redundant communication and contextualised this through computer games (my fave!). When we start playing, there is a high state of entropy. The game is unpredictable and we require a high level of concentration and engagement. The 'pleasure' comes from the transition between entropy and redundancy. As our anxiety levels decrease as we establish what needs to be done, we start having fun. After a while, we become used to the game, and know exactly what we have to do. We require low engagement as the game has become predictable and redundant.

It was a really engaging session and I look forward to further lectures in this module.