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Sequence of Analysis
Feedback is appreciated.
by James, Emily, and CJ (with inspiration from Ben)
So I often find I have many notes in the margins of our readings commenting on some statement or claim the author has made that I don’t agree with. But I do not get so bothered by them most of the time to feel the need to vent about them. For some reason I do feel that need with this piece (very possibly influenced by the knowledge that I have’t been on here for a while and need to post something). Sadly though I know I am not critiquing this piece in any sort of one vein, which would be good practice for class, but I just didn’t have quite that much time on my hands.
My first note (and realistically it is likely only this late because I was feeling over whelmed while reading before this) is on page 9, toward the end of the continuing paragraph from the previous page, when Davis notes as if its a second thought, something note very important at all, “right down to the very shape and bearing of the body itself.” Well of course. The way someone carries them self can nearly completely refute the feeling their clothes would give me, no matter what setting we/ I/ they are in. If I see a man in an expensive suit standing on a side walk corner, waiting for traffic to let him walk, standing aloof from the crowd around him, looking at his blackberry or snidely looking down at some begger down the block I will think a million degreee different from if I see the same man on that same corner in that same suit bending down and happily playing with/ petting some dog among the crowd while he engagingly talks to its owner. Bearing and manner speak volumes about people; as much or more than their clothes do.
The next note I have on the reading to complain about is probably very personally driven. On page 12, about in the middle of the first actual paragraph, Davis notes again as some sort of after thought (in parenthesis no less!) “some of whom truly are artisits,” refering to the people who design the fashions being discussed. Of course some of them are real artisits, really it should be said all of them are real artisits! There is no clothes designer one could sit by and watch them puzzle out some new idea or way to cut something, some new pattern to use in a novel way, that you could say is not an artist. How could you sit by someone who is sketching out idea after idea after idea (so very like any one of us) and say it is not their artistic process?
The next note is a very small one, but one that again was perhaps a particular sting because I felt it more personally; on page 15, again about half way into the first actual paragraph, Davis says that “our intuition says no,” referring to the tiny differences possible in clothing that can make it difference enough to be a fashion or not. Of course a tiny difference in a garment can make all the difference. Take a knee length skirt vs. a mini-skirt. Merely a difference in hem length, they can even be made of exactly the same fabric, same number of pleats, same colors, even standing right next to each other, even match them with the same shirt! And you will get a radically different feeling about them. The mini-skirt is flirting and suggestive, the knee length skirt is conservative and possibly strict feeling.
Maybe all these previous notes really woke me up, or just got me going, because on the last real page(s), 16nd 17 I have three complaints. I will do my best to wrap them up quickly though.
The first one is actual in the notes of pages 16 and 17, it was a complaint until I read the note on page 17 and now it has tuned into perhaps a smaller complaints about misunderstanding/ Davis being unclear. In the note on page 16 Davis notes that there was not fashion in civilizations of old, such as Egypt and China. This is either a gross point of not having done the homework/ research, for China had VERY stringent fashion rules, or else it is unclear to me how “fashion” is being used, for in the note on page 17 Davis calls a possible example of first fashion “an institutionalized fashion cycle.” So would the fashion rules of ancient China be merely an institution, or would it not have been as it is now, a communication method they would have used to note (if nothing else) how much they cared to pay attention to the fashion rules of court or the market place?
The second note on these last pages is on 17, bottom of the end of the paragraph from page 16, where Davis notes that we all “[share] a strong collective component.” The point in this paragraph seemed to be that people growing up in the same situations would end up being very similar as people. I have huge arguments with this idea. From my own life I have a perfect example: my cousin and I had nearly exactly mirroring situations in life, with very strong mothers, seemingly very loving fathers when we were young, then abrupt and violent divorces between our parents. I came out very much of the mind “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, Paul my cousin is the greatest victim of the world, it’s always out to get him. We often can’t stand each other because of this huge difference in our reactions to the same situation. So I find Davis’ point here very aggitating.
Finally, my last note on this reading in on page 17, toward the middle-end of the only complete paragraph on this page, when Davis is talking about how the designers of fashion do what they do to give us the populace a way of expressing our selves, how fashion sprouts from their minds as only their attempt to help us truly reflect and express how we really feel inside. What nonsense! Sure, I suppose some fashion may come from this vein, like the militant shoulder pad example used earlier in this piece, but I am not wearing my jeans with the holes in the knees because I feel the need to rebel against the sterility of new jeans, or that I wish to convey that I’m a rough and tumble sort and I wear my jeans out, I just think they get softer with all that wear, more comfortable, and I just think they look fun, with all the texture and roughness.
Expressively the addresser is constructed as begging, strong yet submissive, desirous, desperate.
Conatively the addressee is constructed as stubborn, unforgiving, an object of desire.
Phatically the relationship between the addresser and addressee is constructed as dysfunctional, rocky, loving, romantic.
Referentially, the song leaves out some aspects of the relationship between the addresser and addressee to assist the receiver in an identification with the position of the addresser (phenomenological semiotics?), but also gives enough information to help us understand the phatics of the relationship between the addresser and addressee.
Metalingually this song doesn’t explicitly state any facts of the relationship or situation of the addresser and addressee to leave the song up to interpretation of the listener.
Ne Me Quitte Pas is formally a song. It’s words vary in meaning and connotation verse to verse, but not so that the story of the addresser and addressee loses cohesion. The chorus remains the same to emphasize the begging of the addresser for the addressee not to leave.
I have no idea if any of this is right, but I thought I would give it all a try.
My selected interaction follows:
Still working on refining my argument–here’s the mind barf:
My Claims:
- This interaction is successful at being entertaining/stimulating to the intended audience
- The designers were able to understand the lifeworlds of the fans/audience and hold true to the ‘rules’ of the world of the series
- The dialogue spoken in the actor’s voices (Bruce Campbell, Ted Raimi), the humorous interaction of the player abusing the sidekick, and the fact that the game holds true to the mise-en-scene of the film series all together holistically create a pre-ontological experience for the player that allows them to act and do things with the controls ready-at-hand, which therefore allows them to become fully engaged in this particular game world.
Argument?: One of the more prominent interactions designed into the video game “Evil Dead: Regeneration” where the player, who assumes the lead role of Ash (Bruce Campbell) from the Evil Dead series, is encouraged and able to “use and abuse” his companion sidekick Sam, is an interaction designed for the life-worlds of a specific audience, and through a phenomenological understanding of their audience’s life worlds, and through an understanding of the intersubjectivity for what is funny and entertaining to this specific audience, the designers were able to successfully create a fun and enjoyable experience for fans of the series and players of the game.
Ok, thanks for replies,
-Joe
I guess I found myself, after our last class, imagining about the allegory that was presented to us by Jeff (the story about the sun being the truth and the actors cascading their shadows, and then the people only seeing the shadows). I guess designers would be both the actor and the ‘viewer’ in the story. We are able to switch between the roles, and see how the ‘shadows’ we cast in design are interpreted by users or observers. I think that having an understanding of phenomenology and lifeworlds can help us as designers to better understand how people interpret what we design, and help us to cast shadows that reflect an interpretation of truth into the lifeworld of someone else. This then makes me wonder, how important is truth really? At least in reference to this allegory, I’d say not always so much.
The whole thing just seems like another ‘language game’ to me.
-Joe
“Activity theory cautions us that any tool has the potential to transform the activity in which it is used and, reciprocally, that tools have the potential to be transformed as they are used.” pg. 13
This made me start thinking in circles about how the context of something is constantly changing. It makes it very difficult to ever truly understand a situation on top of the different lifeworld problem within design of never being able to understand something the exact same way as someone else understands it. If the context is always changing, then it’s impossible to design for a context. There is always more to learn and more to understand. No wonder design is so difficult and the strategy of working with the ultimate particular was developed. At least at that level there is a smaller net of things to understand because the focus is narrow.
Then there’s the thought here of user interpretation. If the context of design understanding is always changing based on an ever changing context, interpretation of the both the user and the designer is influenced by context, context is influenced by interpretation, and the addition of a new design causes new interpretations and new context… no wonder design = HARD; design = WICKED.
So the designer in me had a little design-gasm when I found this awesome thing. What I wouldn’t give for this to be real so I could critique its functionality! I thought about trying to critique its aesthetics, but then I feel like I would implying a great deal, making large assumptions as to how it really would work. And really those assumptions would only be giuded slightly by what it looks like so much as me designing how I think it should work. While I find that very appealing, this isn’t really the class for it.
So I just post it as something really cool.
When I was reading for today, I started to wonder, “Is understanding really that important if I find a meaning that isn’t grounded in the artist’s or designer’s intentions?” I like the idea of interpretation based on life-worlds, but the concept of understanding bothers me. If I find meaning in a painting that is personally relevant to me, what does it matter if I took the artist’s intentions into account. Sure I’m not exploring the history of the painting and, therefore, I can’t necessarily infer what the artist meant, but what if I’m not interested in what the artist meant. In some cases I can see where this is helpful, such as art history, or learning from a designer’s solution to a design problem, but that’s not always important.
Also what happens when the meaning of something changes over time based on context? Like in the fashion article, it talked about how the meaning of blue jeans have evolved over time. If I don’t know the entire history of blue jeans, does that mean that I don’t understand that blue jeans are to be interpreted as casual wear in this day in age? If I don’t know that the first person to make blue jeans intended them for rugged-wear, does that mean I am not expressing myself when I wear a pair because I ultimately don’t know what that pair of jeans means?
I also considered writing a post about traveling in a time machine and how understanding anything would be difficult because my life-world would be drastically different than the life-world of a person living in that time. Including that traveling in shorter periods of time would be easier to understand because the context is closer to the context in which my life-world developed. <– But I didn’t for times sake and there’s the gist anyway 
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