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I was curious to get some feedback on an idea I want to explore in my final paper.
I’m going to continue looking at newzealand.com and semiotics. One of the papers I’m referencing talks quite a bit about how someone who is a ‘tourist’ claims to seek the authentic but the authentic is unintelligible to them because it is so far removed from their normal lives that what they really end up seeking out is an imitation. So to explain with an example, an American visiting Paris might want to see an authentic representation of Paris, but the places they go will have French people speaking English with a French accent. If it were really authentic, they would speak French which could be unintelligible to the tourist. So tourist seek out authentic experiences, but only so far as they can understand them, which may mean that they are not truly authentic.
So what I want to look at is how newzealand.com uses semiotics to create a merging of horizons. If they presented a truly authentic representation of New Zealand, it might not be successful. However by using semiotics to create a less than authentic representation they can merge horizons and appeal to people.
If anyone has feedback that would be appreciated.
This is purely from the hip, seeing where it goes kind of stuff. You have been warned.
So, I’ve been a little obsessed with the camera market lately, and although I am usually against this sort of thing, I’ve started reading/watching reviews and commentary about the recent release. A shocking amount of the rhetoric involved seems to be a bit like this:
Now, I have no desire to engage in a debate about which brand is better; what I am interested in is the line of thinking that leads to this type of debate. Put simply – there is a built-in assumption that it is important to have “the best camera,” and that this is reflective of “the best photographer.” This is partially technological determinism, and more specifically a subset that, for lack of a better term, I would call technological fetishism. I’ll focus on the former mostly, because in this case it is more appropriate to a Marxist interpretations, but will try to tease out the latter as a special case afterward.
One of the most notable features of both of these cameras is that they both his around the $3,000 point. This seems to denote a level of importance that requires discourse – if someone is to put down that much money, it should be warranted by a certain amount of value. Correlated with that price is a notion of “professional” – both are listed as professional cameras. Partly, this is an aspect of the denotation of professional – one who gets paid for something. If one gets paid for something, that offsets the expense. If the ROI crunches in the black, then the investment is justified. However, the connotation of the term “professional” is someone who is proficient at something to the extent that they deserve money. Therefor, there is a tie between money and aptitude – this shouldn’t be tremendously surprising. What is more interesting, and where technological determinism comes in, is the association that having a professional camera will make someone a professional, and therefor
will somehow increase aptitude. Add to this an aspect of scarcity (due to the speed of production) and suddenly the camera not only increases proficiency, but also makes the owners part of an exclusive group whose proficiency has been increased in this way. Now, this is not to take away from any of the features that a camera has and how those may be valuable in certain circumstances, but a large amount of the rhetoric seems to be based around generalizations that are rooted in the social-technical-economical mentality described above.
Now is when I will request that the audience dawn their foil hats. Technological fetishism (again, poorly thought out wording) would be the move from it merely being a mistaken removal of agency to something that actually manifests as a self-fulfilling prophecy. This seems easiest to detail in a creative sphere, although it could be argued in other situations as well. If we are to accept the idea that art is somehow related to emotion (I concede this in some circumstances, but do not exclude non-emotional content from art) then confidence would play a role in that form of expression. If one were to take the technologically deterministic perspective that the camera does make them a professional, then by having it they would be granted the confidence of a professional. When it comes to societal reception of their work, the audience may look at it differently knowing their ownership of professional equipment. If the artifact itself is abstracted away, then the work conceptually is improved. Now, there are numerous counter-examples to this – people who buy an expensive camera and continue to take crumby pictures (I am not too ashamed to say that I fall into this trap), but there is definitely a mental and emotional state brought on by new technology, and it can have an effect on output. What’s more, while I feel like the other theories account for aspects of this, none of them covers it holistically.
I’m still not certain that this is a distinct flavor of technological determinism or even just propaganda to sell cameras, but it seems like there is something there, albeit ill-defined at this point. As an addendum, this seems to be part of the divide on perception of the pen tool (which I will admit to over-criticizing, along with Adobe). However, I would point to the kind of mentality described above being an aspect of the divide on that tool – a $500 professional design program that many who do not have it would believe could produce a better designer. The divide on the pen tool (which comes from my observations when hiring a graphic designer) stems from the same technological determinism that states that a better camera will produce better photos. Again, what’s interesting is that the tool’s capabilities are built into a professional program, and that those capabilities are then tied to be a professional – meaning that some people may learn to use them to reach a goal, but that others may learn them to increase their professional tool-set, and then define goals off of that set. This again brushes with Marxism in that the professional needs an edge over the amateur (think proletariate and bourgeois fashion) and so Adobe continues to add more features to, extending the analogy, stay one step ahead of the Joneses.
Really rough, but if you read this and feel your time was wasted, watch this and all will be better:
Hey everyone, I will start a dropbox or google doc if people want to share semiotics sources. I am using semiotics on my final paper and I would be happy to share what I have. Just post your email if you want to join. I’ll probably start it as a dropbox unless someone has a preference.
http://cmclgrads.blogspot.com/2012/03/katherine-hayles-will-be-visiting.html
Katherine Hayles [English Professor, Duke University] will be visiting Thursday 22 March. She will be speaking at 3:30 p.m. in the IMU Dogwood Room about her forthcoming book: “The Technogenetic Spiral: Implications and Interventions.” Of interest to those curious about: digital texts, human cognitive systems, technologically engineered environments, etc…
a few of her books can be read for free @: http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.lib.indiana.edu/lib/iub/search.action?adv.x=1&f00=all&p00=reading+interaction&f01=author&p01=Hayles%2C+N.+Katherine&subject_relation=or&search=Search+ebrary
Hey all, if there are other people that are using semiotics besides me, I thought it might be worthwhile to pool our resources. We all have the same readings available from the class, but I thought maybe we could share other readings we find from non-class sources.
If anyone is interested let me know and I’ll set up and share a dropbox folder. Just leave your email.
Mudit asked in class yesterday if his previous work as an interaction designer would classify as art, but his current work as an interaction designer would be called craft. The distinction he made is that current Mudit knows what he’s doing, but past Mudit didn’t.
I don’t think Collingwood would agree with this assertion. Collingwood makes it pretty clear that art has something to do with expressing emotion (specifically, a particular emotion). The artist goes through a stage of “I feel…I don’t know what i feel” which I guess could be similar to past Mudit’s confusion about what he should be doing with interaction design. However, the distinction I’m making is that Collingwood’s artist then sets off to express the emotion she or he is feeling by creating something, and she or he experiences that emotion through that creation. After creation, the artist is no longer oppressed.
In past Mudit’s case, he is not setting out to express his confusion about interaction design through the creation of an IxD artifact. Users approaching his designs weren’t meant to interpret his design as “this ‘artist’ was obviously confused.” And past Mudit probably didn’t experience a relieving catharsis once finished with the design (other than a “glad I’m finally done” kind of catharsis, which I’m pretty sure is not what Collingwood was writing about).
As much as I would love to be able to call everything I’ve ever done out of ignorance “art,” I think we can just call it “life,” and be happy with that.
This is one of my favorite internet videos, probably because of the way it affected me the first time I saw it. So I’m going to try to apply Collingwood’s disentanglement of “art proper” and “craft” to this video.
1. Means and end
Maybe I don’t understand this separation as much as I should, because I would say that the means and end are distinct for this video. The actual tools / actions employed by the video creator are not a part of this video. But I think that superficial application of this distinction could be applied to almost anything, which is why I say I probably don’t understand this distinction that much.
2. Planning and executing
The result, from what I can tell, was obviously preconceived. The video creator set out to make a video that would represent the self-destructive struggles endured by those attempting to attain the beauty represented in the media.
3. The end is prior to the means in planning and the means is prior to the end in execution.
This seems pretty obvious to me. This overlaps a lot with point number 2; the planning happened by deconstructing the end goal to figure out the means (e.g. deciding to use certain visual elements to portray the struggle), and the execution happened by working through the means to the end.
4. Raw material and finished product
In this case the raw material might be all of the models used to create the animations, and the video footage of the woman’s face. They are combined in the finished product.
5. Form and matter
The form of the video is separate from the matter used to create the video.
6. Hierarchical relation
a) raw material of one craft is the finished product of another
The raw materials of this video (the models created and the video footage of the woman’s face) are the finished products of other crafts: creating models and shooting videos (?)
b) one craft supplies another with tools
Not really sure how this point applies
c) complex operation is parceled out among a number of trades
All of the “trades” were done by the same person (except for the acting done by the woman), but it was still parceled out. Video editing, model creation, animation, etc.
So, according to my understanding of Collingwood, he would call this “craft.” What is expressed in this video might come across as too obvious for Collingwood. The video creator clearly knew what he was trying to express before making this video, so there was no emotional oppression stage (but maybe that’s just me speculating).
What do you think?
Riddle me this: 2 videos, one of them definitely has greater acceptance as Art in the Art World, but I would argue one that it is the other that has a more visceral (ie emotional) impact. How would this fit, or not fit, in Collingwood’s definition of emotion in art?
sorry for the ad before, stupid Vevo
sorry for the quality / recording of video – the subject in question is the video playing in this video
Today after class Jeremy and I were having a discussion about whether or not trolling is wholly destructive, or even if so, if this destructive force is constructive in any way. I deferred to a reading of ‘raillery’ or ‘ridicule’ provided by the earl of shaftesbury: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Ashley-Cooper,_3rd_Earl_of_Shaftesbury. Here is a scholarly article on the emergence of satire in the ‘restoration’ period: http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.indiana.edu/stable/3817037?&Search=yes&searchText=restoration&searchText=raillery&searchText=satire&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Draillery%2Bin%2Brestoration%2Bsatire%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=1&ttl=198&returnArticleService=showFullText
Basically, Shaftesbury is making the point that good ridicule lies between the spectrum of the totally obvious and the totally obscurantist. I mentioned the website http://christwire.org/ as an example to be discussed as to its status along this spectrum. Perhaps this doesn’t directly deal with the issues surrounding intentionality that we have been discussing, but I think it is essential to think about with regard to the open criticism of ideas (which is the point that Shaftesbury was trying to make with respect to some ideas being totally off the chopping block due to their sensitive nature, in that when we can’t discuss some ideas in an open forum without controversy or offense, and how we might go about making convincing arguments without miring our claims in that controversy itself). more on Shaftesbury: http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.indiana.edu/stable/2871968?&Search=yes&searchText=shaftesbury&searchText=raillerylist=hidesearchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dshaftesbury%2Bon%2Braillery%26gw%3Djtx%26acc%3Don%26prq%3Don%2Braillery%26Search%3DSearch%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&prevSearch=&item=5&ttl=151&returnArticleService=showFullText
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