Reading:
Spanish writer Jorge Luis Borges shows in his text Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940) how the truth and our perceptions are manipulated to become more material under the pressure of the society. The author is mixing elements of reality and fiction which gives the text an original dimension; it makes us think about what is real and what isn’t. The story shows us the notion of manipulation that occurs and how people are ‘happily’ leaving in material world. Overall it’s about what makes the truth the truth.
Lecture:
We discussed the use of Wikipedia and its reliability because everyone and anyone can add what they want and edit the articles post on Wikipedia.
I used to use Wikipedia as a source for my assignments but since I know that the article can sometimes be edited and changed I don’t use it the same way, I still go on Wikipedia but it won’t be my only source I will have to go and check on other more reliable sites.
Tutorial task:
-There was a time when "Art" was made by artists who were skilled professionals. Now that anyone with a computer can create things digitally (music, images, videos, etc), what does that mean for "art"?
Definition of Art:
The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colours, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
Like everything Art evolve and we have to evolve with it. I don’t think that everyone and anyone could pretend to be an artist because it needs more than a program to make Art. Now there are many kinds of Art, what I mean is that you will recognise a good art form from a bad one; it has a notion of aestheticism.
If the aesthetic is not present in the work then it is not Art, so you can use as many programs as you want you wont ‘become’ an artist so I think that with computers arts evolve but the essence of Art is still there.
-Is a photoshopped image "authentic"?
Definition of Authentic:
Not false or copied; genuine; real.
By now knowing the definition, we can say that a photoshopped image isn’t an authentic image. Photoshop is a program that modifies the image, so by customising it, it removes the authenticity of the photo/image.
-Do digital "things" have an "aura" (in Benjamin's terms)?
Aura is explained in analogy with the experience of nature superseded in the experience of mechanically reproduced images/things, for which, however perfect they are as images/things, are missing the point of presence—the presence of the object—that gives it its aura. So taking Benjamin’s terms, digitals things don’t have an aura because they are missing the natural presence.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Week 4: Old communication Technologies.
Readings:
Walter Benjamin, the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction:
Benjamin was attempting to put his finger on the liberating aspect of mass media like posters, magazines with photography, radio and cinema.
History of communication:
Tribal practices
-developments in manual and facial expression Art and religion assist the group in changing conditions
-the tribe created costumes, paintings, dances, stories and songs that represented deeper, mythological meanings
The ancient text and the transmission of knowledge:
first texts were copied, shared and copied again, this is how knowledge was transmited in ancient time, then the print appeared and then the telegraph and the telephone, phonograph, the radio, the cinema, the television and the video.
Semiotic:
Elements of a semiotic approach:
Semantics: the relationship of signs to what they stand for
Syntactics (or syntax): the formal or structural relations between signs
Pragmatics: the relation of signs to interpreters
The 20th century saw a massive increase in communication technologies
Communication studies:
1920: The mass media is a vehicle through which selected content could shape opinion and belief, change habits of life, actively mould behaviour and impose political systems.
1930: statistical method: small but random samples could predict social effects
1940: exposure to propaganda communicated through the mass media had only minimal effects on citizens.
1950: connections to psychology
1960: Marshall McLuhan: technologies are extension of human body. The medium in which the communication occurs is the message.
1970: mixed effects: perceptions of problem were shaped by the media and the way they portray them.
1980: how mass media operates to empty the deliberative domain by the ‘manufacture of consent’
1990: cybernetic influences
Culture studies:
1930: Walter Benjamin: reproductions in film or photography have a liberating potential because of the destruction of the traditional value of the cultural heritage while reproducting the listener in his own situation.
1940: real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies.
1950: the society of the spectacle
1960: Habermas: that the public sphere was the domain of social life in which 'public opinion'
forms.
1970: Louis Althusser: the media produce and reproduce the”imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence”
1980: Baudrillard: the real was a representation more human than human
1990: Fraser: Subaltern counterpublics
Lecture:
In this week lecture we discussed the evolution of communication technologies. We talked about previous way of communication used by humans and the steps by which communication became more efficient in today’s world.
We also talked about Walter Benjamin and his thoughts; we had an overview of his life and his work on communication technologies. The subject of semiotic was also raised in the lecture and Stephen explained its meaning and gave us some examples.
This lecture gave us the opportunity to see where communication technologies were coming from and that ancient communications are still to consider in modern time as we still use some of them.
Walter Benjamin, the Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction:
Benjamin was attempting to put his finger on the liberating aspect of mass media like posters, magazines with photography, radio and cinema.
History of communication:
Tribal practices
-developments in manual and facial expression Art and religion assist the group in changing conditions
-the tribe created costumes, paintings, dances, stories and songs that represented deeper, mythological meanings
The ancient text and the transmission of knowledge:
first texts were copied, shared and copied again, this is how knowledge was transmited in ancient time, then the print appeared and then the telegraph and the telephone, phonograph, the radio, the cinema, the television and the video.
Semiotic:
Elements of a semiotic approach:
Semantics: the relationship of signs to what they stand for
Syntactics (or syntax): the formal or structural relations between signs
Pragmatics: the relation of signs to interpreters
The 20th century saw a massive increase in communication technologies
Communication studies:
1920: The mass media is a vehicle through which selected content could shape opinion and belief, change habits of life, actively mould behaviour and impose political systems.
1930: statistical method: small but random samples could predict social effects
1940: exposure to propaganda communicated through the mass media had only minimal effects on citizens.
1950: connections to psychology
1960: Marshall McLuhan: technologies are extension of human body. The medium in which the communication occurs is the message.
1970: mixed effects: perceptions of problem were shaped by the media and the way they portray them.
1980: how mass media operates to empty the deliberative domain by the ‘manufacture of consent’
1990: cybernetic influences
Culture studies:
1930: Walter Benjamin: reproductions in film or photography have a liberating potential because of the destruction of the traditional value of the cultural heritage while reproducting the listener in his own situation.
1940: real life is becoming indistinguishable from the movies.
1950: the society of the spectacle
1960: Habermas: that the public sphere was the domain of social life in which 'public opinion'
forms.
1970: Louis Althusser: the media produce and reproduce the”imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence”
1980: Baudrillard: the real was a representation more human than human
1990: Fraser: Subaltern counterpublics
Lecture:
In this week lecture we discussed the evolution of communication technologies. We talked about previous way of communication used by humans and the steps by which communication became more efficient in today’s world.
We also talked about Walter Benjamin and his thoughts; we had an overview of his life and his work on communication technologies. The subject of semiotic was also raised in the lecture and Stephen explained its meaning and gave us some examples.
This lecture gave us the opportunity to see where communication technologies were coming from and that ancient communications are still to consider in modern time as we still use some of them.
Week 3: Alphaville and New Wave Cinema
Readings:
The Fench New Wave was the introduction of a new form of film proclaming the rejection of a traditional french commercial cinema.
A group of conventions were consistently used in the French New Wave films like, for example: Jump cuts, shooting on location, natural lighting, improvised dialogue and plotting, direct sound recording and long take.
The French New Wave seemed to have an interest in deconstructing (gangster, romance, musical) while ultimately ending up in tragedy-land.
Many of the film from the New French Wave became popular and critically acclaimed worldwide.
The five filmmakers who came from the Cahiers du cinema (Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rivette and Rohmer) were prolific: in the years between 1959 and 1966, the peak of the New Wave, they made 32 films.
The three initial films of the new wave:
Truffaut: The 400 Blows: semi-autobiographical film: unsentimental but poetic story of a teenage delinquent who runs away from home and finds life on the streets a rough challenge.
Godard: Breathless: Godard has been the most influential and remembered director of the new wave.Many of his films still hold up today.
Apparition of the dziga vertov group the films then started to become increasingly inaccessible most of them remained unfinished or were refused showings
Godard - simultaneously exasperating and brilliant, self-important and important.
Resnais: Hiroshima, Mon Amour: the most inventive of all early New Wave works in terms of structure. What was different with Resnais was his use of a strong screenplay using less improvisation and working closely with a separate writer.
Lecture:
Alphaville
Tutorial:
at the begining of the tutorial we spent time talking about what hapened during the lecture and what we thought about the movie A lphaville. Alphaville is a pretty strong movie about the use of mind control with the intentions of creating a utopian society.After that we improved our blog by adding some more options; like for example we added a contact list. So at first we had to go around the room to get to know one another and get their adresses but at the end it has been decided that it would be easier to create a page on the discussion board to get blog’s addresses. It’s giving us the opprotunity to check what other people are doing and where they are standing compare to me. During the class we had time to customise a litlle more our blog so I spent the rest of the class time doing some work on my blog trying to make it more interesting and easy to read and use.
The Fench New Wave was the introduction of a new form of film proclaming the rejection of a traditional french commercial cinema.
A group of conventions were consistently used in the French New Wave films like, for example: Jump cuts, shooting on location, natural lighting, improvised dialogue and plotting, direct sound recording and long take.
The French New Wave seemed to have an interest in deconstructing (gangster, romance, musical) while ultimately ending up in tragedy-land.
Many of the film from the New French Wave became popular and critically acclaimed worldwide.
The five filmmakers who came from the Cahiers du cinema (Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rivette and Rohmer) were prolific: in the years between 1959 and 1966, the peak of the New Wave, they made 32 films.
The three initial films of the new wave:
Truffaut: The 400 Blows: semi-autobiographical film: unsentimental but poetic story of a teenage delinquent who runs away from home and finds life on the streets a rough challenge.
Godard: Breathless: Godard has been the most influential and remembered director of the new wave.Many of his films still hold up today.
Apparition of the dziga vertov group the films then started to become increasingly inaccessible most of them remained unfinished or were refused showings
Godard - simultaneously exasperating and brilliant, self-important and important.
Resnais: Hiroshima, Mon Amour: the most inventive of all early New Wave works in terms of structure. What was different with Resnais was his use of a strong screenplay using less improvisation and working closely with a separate writer.
Lecture:
Alphaville
Tutorial:
at the begining of the tutorial we spent time talking about what hapened during the lecture and what we thought about the movie A lphaville. Alphaville is a pretty strong movie about the use of mind control with the intentions of creating a utopian society.After that we improved our blog by adding some more options; like for example we added a contact list. So at first we had to go around the room to get to know one another and get their adresses but at the end it has been decided that it would be easier to create a page on the discussion board to get blog’s addresses. It’s giving us the opprotunity to check what other people are doing and where they are standing compare to me. During the class we had time to customise a litlle more our blog so I spent the rest of the class time doing some work on my blog trying to make it more interesting and easy to read and use.
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