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Just a quick little rant.
I’ve noticed some non-tech products using “High Definition” and “3D”. I believe they’re doing it because HD TV and 3D movies are trendy right now.
In Steak n’ Shake’s defense, they seem to be doing it tongue-in-cheek…and Steak ‘n Shake is awesome.
Anyway, back to work!
While paying my obligatory thirty minutes to goofing off on the Internet before hopefully beginning productive work, I came across this gem. For some reason, parts of it reminded me of Cleo. Mostly the part of the contemplation while staring into the mirror. I don’t know if this could be fuel for fruitful conversation, but I hope it at least makes someone’s day as we move into the final count down.
In my defense, I did have more to go with this originally, but then I got distracted and now I don’t remember what I had that was actually useful to put here.
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:
I just finished watching The Double Life of Veronique.
I don’t really get the movie yet. If you haven’t seen it yet, ignore this:
Synopsis: There are two Veronica’s: Polish Weronika and French Véronique. Weronika dies healthy. Véronique lives. Metamorphosis plays a part. There are some creepy people. Véronique touches a tree and her dad reacts. The end. Well, I’ll sleep on it. Anyway, I liked the movie.
For a more in depth look at the movie, look at my Cliff’s notes! If you haven’t seen the movie, this will ruin it and also not provide you with anything useful.
*Sorry for the lateness of this post – I started last Friday, and then left town (and internet access!) for the weekend and was just able to finish it now…
In my never-ending pursuit to find ways to bridge my telecomm and film knowledge into this class, I’d like to *attempt* to tackle a post that allows me to critically analyse something from the creator perspective. Hopefully, this actually serves as a useful preparation for my paper/chance to apply theories and ideas, and isn’t just simply embarrassing. 
The movie Clerks was a huge hit in the early 90s. A low budget film made in 1994 by New Jersey Native Kevin Smith, the film seemed very New Wave in that the financial and resource limitations of the project forced a great deal of authenticity. For those not familiar with the film, it is very much a “slice of life”/”day in the life” film about New Jersey young 20-somethings and best friend, Dante and Randal. While all of their friends and classmates have gone to college, gotten jobs, or been married, the two work at the RST Video and Quick Stop convenience store. This movie, and this story, very much served as representative of where Smith felt he was in his life at the time – feeling a bit aimless, wandering, and a bit left behind.
Smith filmed the movie at the convenience store where he worked, convincing his boss to allow him to shoot there over two weeks during the evening while the store was closed. This presented an obstacle that was overcome through cunning use of plot device: to avoid it obviously being night outside of the huge picture window, he worked it into the plot that someone jammed gum into the locks on the window cover, which made it impossible for him to open them when he opened the store. His response to this discovery is “Bunch of savages in this town” – a refrain that ends up being repeated throughout the story, and which strikes a rather resonant chord with the themes of disconnection and isolation that the main characters encounter in their listless existence.
This film catapulted Smith to success as a film maker. Fast forward more than ten years, and Smith was a respected screenwriter, director, and actor in his own right. He was working on a script for either The Green Lantern or The Green Hornet (sorry, I don’t remember which – but they both came out within a year from each other, so easy mistake, right?) He was feeling significantly frustrated at the pressure from working on a big-budget, commercial project rather than one of his own films. Suddenly, Smith found himself no longer that lost 20-something of his Clerks days, but rather, an inexplicably lost 30-something, unable to balance the success he had always wanted with the sense that he had somehow lost part of himself in the attainment of that success. Following the advice of family and friends, Smith left the project and turned to something more organic, something that would allow him to use his craft to once more deal with his thoughts and feelings in a productive, expressive way: he began work on Clerks II.
Many people were skeptical as to whether or not Clerks could have a successful sequel. Actor Jeff Anderson (Randal Graves) actually initially refused to reprise his role – until he saw the script. Once we understood the story, and Smith’s intention with a revival of the project, he happily joined the cast. The movie was made for a modest budget ($5M) and was a huge critical success. When it premiered at Cannes in 2006, the film received a solid, eight-minute long standing ovation. (Unfortunately, YouTube has let me down and could not provide footage from Cannes. However, there is a short featurette on the now famous “eight minute standing O” on the DVD bonus features.)
A lot of Clerks fans either didn’t like the sequel, or dismissed seeing it altogether, disbelieving that it could live up to the original. However, as a huge Kevin Smith fan (Jersey represent!) I followed his blog and related news, and knew what was going on with the production of this movie. Perhaps it was this knowledge of the authenticity of how and why this film was made, and that organic feeling that connected this film to its predecessor, but I thought the second movie was fantastic – in fact, in many ways I actually like it better than the original. Based on numerous conversations that I’ve had about this film, I’ve come to the conclusion that my knowledge of the creator perspective has for years colored my notions on this film, and is what has allowed me to enjoy this particular artifact to the extent that I do; an appreciation for the aritifact because of an understanding of the creator.
Since I couldn’t provide you all with the clip from Cannes that I would have liked to, I’ll leave you with my favorite clip from the film. As a fan (but realist) of both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, this scene completely made my day when I saw this in theatres:
I was stumbling around on Twitter this morning and saw this video:
The video is a psychedelic mash up of a ton of UI elements we have known for decades. Though 6 minutes long, I was entranced by how the video was made, and how the UI elements played a role in the music video’s storyline. I saw the video as a criticism on how current UI elements and technologies control our lives. Though this article goes through the idea that the video is a “a menagerie of classic interface elements headed for the deadpool”. What do you guys think? Either way, pretty neat video.
So I’ve been thinking about making this post the past couple of weeks. I mostly curious what everyone’s thoughts are on the topic.
What I’ve been thinking about is that as a culture we seem to love technology. When we look at movies though, we often portray technology as good only to a certain point, then it becomes not good (I don’t want to say evil). If you look at movies like Terminator, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or The Matrix you can see this trend of how technology is portrayed. It is this great and useful thing until we push it too far, then it becomes an adversary.
In thinking of the Terminator movies in particular I see this trend. I have two critiques of the movie and I’m not sure which might be more accurate.
1 critique is that if technology becomes too advance it could usurp the human’s place as the top lifeform, and become an adversary. So the implication is that we should be wary of technology. It is good as long as it serves us, mindlessly. Should it become intelligent though, that might not be a good thing.
2. The other critique that I would levy says that maybe this movie is a critique against humans. We like the technology when it is a mindless servant. Once it becomes more “human-like” though and develops intelligence equal or surpassing ours that we have an adversary that we will either destroy or will destroy us.
So I’m curious as to what other people make of these movies in way of a critique and what that says about our culture. Do we fear a rival for the spot of being the most intelligent being on the planet? Do we secretly fear technology? Is attempting to create another form of intelligence a bad thing?
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This video and song is very interesting to me. I’d like to see what people think about it.
Take note of the things that shock you or stand out to you and post it here!
I’m going to try to hit two points and do it in a short fashion, since I do tend to prattle on.
1) This is the first part of the movie Primer. As far as I can tell it is available in its entirety on YouTube. It introduces an aspect of science fiction that is absent from most contemporary SciFi – the combination of hard science in the context of social issues.
2) I also want to point to the dialogue at approximately 6:19 – the story about the US wasting billions of dollars to create a zero-g pen, and Russia solving the same problem with a pencil. I would argue that is a strong argument for defamiliarization as it pertains to design: the ties of what a pen means in business, science, and society in general and how rooted that these biases are that they can cause the cost of billions of dollars.
Also, the movie presents it as “a story,” so it may not be true. I would say the premise still holds, however.
I just read the first chapter from Murch, “Don’t Worry, It’s Only a Movie”. I disagreed with his assertion that cuts in a film work because they’re similar to how we dream. Dreams are fueled by emotion and memories associated with those emotions. I don’t think of dream as having cuts, but rather a continuous oddity that only makes sense after the fact. Dreams are almost a rationalization of the emotions…the dreams are constructed so that the flow emotions and feelings make sense. In dreams, emotion creates imagery whereas in film, imagery creates emotion. I believe a BBC documentary about dreams led me to believe all that…but you should probably just believe me so I can look smart.
On the other hand, if our dreams really do include cuts, couldn’t that be because we have learned the language of films as we’ve grown up with them and incorporated the cuts into our dreams? Yes.
Anyway, I was glad to see that he switched to saccadic movement because that’s what I was thinking about as I read the dream stuff (I hope I’m not coming off as being smug here…but I have work published related to saccadic eye movement…soooooo yeah…). A few weeks ago, I saw another BBC special about saccadic movement on Bruce Hood’s blog. It might make the phenomenon more clear if you’re unfamiliar:
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