Goodbye ENG 1131

This week has been very frantic, with finals coming up, and a huge radio project that has to get done. Our project is very ambitious, even more than we thought. The mixing of sounds, talking, and music, takes time and effort, in excess of what we had expected. Overall though we are very happy with what we are putting together. We are not just putting together a piece that talks about grain of the voice, the movies we have watched in class, or the pieces we have read, but is an example of all the theory’s we have learned in class. We are forming a text, that extends to all the different parts of our culture, a text that interconnects more items, and ideas then we can possible even imagine. The main goal of our project now is to make a piece that a person needs to listen to more than once to comprehend, a piece that takes multiple times to get all the reference. Every second of our pieces is intense and multilayered creating a sound and a feel that is unique.
Since this is the final blog I think I will make some final comments on the class. When I signed up for the class during preview I had no idea what the class was about, I was just looking to round out my schedule. I had always been interested in films, and the media, and this sounded like a fun class to be a part of. I won’t lie this class was sometimes a lot of work, and almost drove me crazy a couple times. And while I doubt I will miss this class when next semester rolls around, I think that in the future I will look back on this class, and be glad that I took it. There are a lot of interesting concepts that I have taken away from the class, and if anything the class taught me how think. This was a class that I was defiantly out of my element in, a class that was based on creativity and making a personal stamen with your work. I have never thought of myself as creative or and I like being told what to do for my project, but in the end it was nice to be creative and play around with concepts. It’s been an interesting semester Kate, good luck with your new baby, and all your future classes
-Michael

Coulter's Last Blog!!!

Let me first start out with the word, "WOW." It is extremely hard to believe that this fall semester has already come to its ending point. It has gone by so fast, even faster than my first fall semester at The University of Florida last year. 

Even though it has gone by so fast, I have managed to pick up enormous amounts of knowledge and skills that will further my achievements and goals in life. The one class that has taught me all of these skills and knowledge is none other than ENG 1131. This class has had so much work entailed to it, but in the long run I know it will definitely pay off. To say the least, this class has taught me a fantastic work ethic. If this is Kates first time teaching this class, then I have no idea how she could have made it any better. I honestly cannot think of one thing that she could do to perfect her class structure. She has done a fantastic job teaching us this year and I add that this class ,even though difficult at times, was hands down my favorite class to be in for the semester and even out of my whole three (four counting summer B) semesters I have been here.

Also I have never in a class before had group members, or band members, for a whole semester. I thought that this was an awesome idea because I could always ask at least three other people about something before I had to go to the teacher about it. It also just feels good to know that you have a band behind you to help you and guide you through what I found out to be a "hard hitting" class. I enjoyed my band members very much and hope to keep in contact with them throughout the years. I'm going to miss ENG 1131!!

Coulter

Yes Men

The” Yes Men” from as Far as I Can tell are nothing but a bunch of corporate terrorist, who sole goal in life is to make hard working peoples’ lives difficult. They think by going around posing as some so called Evil Corporation they can somehow change the world. This is simply nonsense; all they are doing is making some poor middle management executive fill out more paper work then he needs to, and costing some fact checking guy at some media corporation his job. Good Job “Yes Men” all you ever accomplish is making people’s lives a little more difficult. Another thing, no one finds your jokes funny either, making oil out of people is sick, not funny. Only anarchist liberals like yourself get your jollies by presenting such ludicrous and horrible ideas. Exxon Mobile is one of the most environmentally responsible and consumer friendly corporations in the world. Every day the provided safe and effective energy that we consume, and without that energy we would be no better off then cavemen. The same goes for Dow Chemical, Dow provides products that make the way we live possible, what do we gain by making them go broke over some poor Indians that would most like just take jobs from Americans anyway. Besides Dow has no responsibility for an accident that was performed by another company, if those people are truly suffering, then the Indian government could help them, that’s what governments are for. The deception and lies that the “Yes Men” spread throughout our corporate culture is a virus on society, which does nothing but cause harm for no discernable reason. What is to be gain by spreading lies about some of America’s strongest companies? I think the “Yes Men” need to step back for a moment and realize that these corporations are run by normal hard working people and that the share holders are also normal hard working people, and that there is no such thing as an evil corporation. These corporations do more good then evil, while yes they may do some things that are underhanded or sometimes even cruel, it is for the greater good. It is for the good of the employees and for the good of the share holders, the employees and share holders that make up America. There was a phrase back in the sixty I believe and it went, what is good for General Motors is good for American, truer worlds have never been spoken. As for the picture I choose the anarchy symbol, because that’s all the “Yes Men” are, is a bunch of anarchist.

Yes Men Extra Blog

Pardon my French, but these two guys seem like assholes to me. I admit they are clever but I disagree with the blog below mine that they actually seem to accomplish things. True they brought to public attention an important catastrophe abroad caused by an American Corporation. However, I do not think they actually accomplished anything meaningful for their cause other than temporarily driving down the Dow's stock. If there was some sort of collaboration with the Bhopalis their effort might seem more sincere. Unfortunately the two men only facilitate "the other" paradigm by speaking on behalf of those affected in Bhopal without consultation. Bichlbaum and Bananno operate in the same structure of hierarchy they seemingly hope to deconstruct. Instead these two assume their place of taking on the Dow according to their own agenda while dismissing the effect they will have on the already broken spirit of these victims. Because they believe they are the "good guys" they can break the rules? I don't think so. What kind of message is that sending about ethics?  I am not defending Dow's stance (although their reasons of inaction bound by the stockholders is clearly sensible to anyone who understands capitalism) I do not think the "white lies"  of Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno should be tolerated. Where is the logic in more lies leading to the truth? I would like to know the legal repercussions of their actions. Allowing this kind of behavior in the name of social responsibility can only pave the road to Hell. 

Instead of spending their time playing games, they could be raising money and awareness through legitimate means for Bhopal.

I think it would be fun to impersonate to the point of suggesting we actually are the two men on our radio project. We could make all kinds of promises and financial commitments to the University of Florida, broadcast it to the public and then contact the men to demand they follow through. 

--Sam

Yes Men Extra Blog

I thought the method used by the Yes Men is very clever--rather than protests and rallies against  crimes committed by corporations, they actually play the parts of these corporations, saying what the corporations will not say for themselves.  It's just a great approach to the problems in our world.  The media obviously doesn't tell us very much--I'm amazed that our news broadcasters are even covering these terrorist attacks occurring in India....oh yeah, there were like three Americans there, thus making the tragedy "relevant" to us.  So it's very true that the media needs an "excuse" to talk about something, and to bring it to the attention of the public.

What the Yes Men do is a very worthwhile, inspiring cause.  Through harnessing the media, they can play with the images of corporations, and most importantly, they actually seem to accomplish things.  Most protests that occur rarely get this kind of coverage and go unnoticed, so a creative approach to the issues such as this is absolutely necessary to make a difference in our media-driven world.

As for our radio project, I think this provides an interesting approach for some of the things we would like to do for the radio project.  By playing the parts of the corporations, we can articulate their interests and incentives in a way much different from what they would want us to hear.  I look forward to getting more involved with this project, though it is difficult now, being so separated from my group.  I hope that with the time we are given, we will able to accomplish all the things we want to accomplish.

YES MEN___EXTRA BLOG

As our new band project creeps nearer and nearer, ideas continuously spark up and get discussed between band members. Ideas for a theme ended when we decided to create and connect our project by talking about the idea of truly being an individual and to break away from society. Even with our theme of the project figured out, there is still a lot of work to do dealing with how we are going to present and display our major theme in a radio broadcast. We already have many great ideas of how to display this information during the radio broadcast. Many of our ideas are actually similar to the ways of the "yes men." Their ways being, to create a satirical way to display information to the public that is normally overlooked. Reading about the yes men and what they have done is inspiring when it comes to doing this project. One idea that I would like to see be created is to make our website similar to theirs. Not only will we be connecting our project with readings from class, but, we will also be doing ourselves a favor by mimicking a great function and factor of the yes men's publicity and success. I believe we can use the yes men as our teacher for this specific project. The readings in course reserves were very helpful due to all of the ideas embedded in the text. I noticed a lot of things that we could create similarity to in our own project. Overall, the yes men readings and videos were a huge help in thinking up ideas of how to present our radio project. I believe that the yes men are a great point to start at and from their inspiration, see where our project takes us. Be prepared for an awesome turn-out.
-Coulter

The more I think about the radio project that we are working on, the more ideas come to mind--ideas that are so numerous that I'm not quite sure I'll have the time to actually do half of them.  Rather than tie myself down to a single, specific theme, I wanted a way to express many ideas and ways of thinking, and arrive at a conclusion based on all of these things.  And so I think the idea of exploring subculture, and the struggle to truly be an individual and to break away from society is an interesting one.  I think there are many ways to go with the project, and we will not be at a loss for ideas at any point.  

I can't deny that one of my biggest inspirations for my ideas on this project have come through the Richard Linklater movies I have been watching lately, particularly Slacker and Waking Life.  I think their play on structure is interesting, and how through the use of an eclectic number of ideas, one overall theme seems to emerge, like the many strokes of a brush creating an entire picture.  But of course, I don't want to produce a work exactly like this--we will definitely be bringing in other ideas and making this an original work.

One thing I am interested in utilizing is music, although I almost don't want to play any songs of any sort, unless this plays a direct part in this array  of voices speaking.  I would like to try to loop parts of songs to create certain moods and tensions if necessary.  But I'm not sure how easy this would be--to create a continuous flow of music.  I would have to cut and past certain parts of a song, and mend them to fit perfectly, that way there are no skips.  It's something that could happen to be very difficult, I will have to see how well it works.

So we'll definitely be putting a lot of work into this project.  I can't wait to see how it turns out, and how all of our ideas come together to create a unified work.

what do you mean radio project? I'm talkin' about website!

I know that my fellow band members have all written this weeks blog about our newest upcoming project, our radio project. However, I have been wanting to write this blog about the final product of my film memory website project. If you saw my last website displaying memory work compared to my new film memory project, you would think two totally different people did the projects. You would have never guessed that I did both. It looks as if a child made the first one because of how generic, plain and sloppy it was. This new one, as it seems to me, looks outstanding. I learned newer skills and improved my already existing skills to create a sharp-looking and more advanced website. Just looking at the homepage it is apparent that my website making skills have become more advanced. One factor that makes this website better than the one before is video clips. I added video clips of the movie I was analyzing along with a few clips of my self from high school. Although this was an easy task once it has been learned, it appears on the site to others as very advanced. At least, this is the way I feel it appears. On my first website project I did not use columns, but, for this one I did use them and it cleaned up and made my website look neat and more professional. Also, I feel like I mastered the idea of "textual voiceover." At first I did not have an idea of how to do it, but while working on the site, I discovered ways of making it work. Another factor that made my newest site better than the last is my use of photoshop. I got a lot better at using the program photoshop and was able to make my altered pictures really neat looking. Overall, This project dominates my last one. 

-Coulter  

Raido Project?

We have now begun to work on our final projects for the class. Our band has decided to do a radio project, which explores the different view people have. We will mostly be focusing in on the individual versus the media, and the individual versus society. We want the project to bring together many different elements, including sound effects, music, and distortion. Here are my ideas for how the radio program will play out. Now I don’t actually expect the project look much like the ideas I am lying down here, because we are so early on in the planning process, and this is more of just a brain storming session.
I see the program opening up with a fake advertisement, (a real one would be cool though, I could always use extra money). Then we transition into Ryan as the narrator talking about society or the struggle against society or something like that. There should be music playing in the background, during this part. After that I really don’t know what we should do to move into the part where we are coving our own topics, or even how we want to cover the topics. Do we want it to be us just talking, or do we want to present it in a covert way. Like people on the street talking, or like we are hosting a call in talk show and each of us calls in, or maybe some even more creative way. Anyway that important that we figure that out, because other than that we have a fairly good of idea of what we are doing in the project. We know we want transitions between our pieces that include, some sort of indie rock, some clips of people like Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh talking, and we want to use trippy effects on all of it. We should probably meet at some point this weekend to finalize some stuff, and write our project out line. Remember we also have to talk about our presentation, and the website we have to make. Does anyone know what we have to even do for the presentation? Like what are we supposed to talk about for that half hour. Anyway we have a lot of work to get done, and like no time to do it. So I will end with why I have a radio for my picture this week. It’s because we are doing a radio project. J
-Michael

The third meaning was the topic of discussion this week in class, but most of my time was spent working on my project, and the band presentation both of which are due Monday. My project is on the Shawshank Redemption, a movie that I have seen many times and is one of my favorites. It is a movie about a man, who loses his old life, only to form a new one where he truly found happiness. The Shawshank Redemption had many themes that related back to the text that we have read so far this year, which made it a good choice for my project. I found a lot of connections with Chorus of Stones, which is the text that we most recently finished. As for my band partners, Sam did her project on the movie Clue, which was one of my favorite games as a child. Her site plays with both elements form the game and the movie, which creates a fascinating adventure for the mind. As for Ryan he did his project on, well I am not sure exactly the movie, but the site is very interesting. He seems to be playing with the dream world versus the real world.
The other major project due Monday is our Band Presentation, which is on the “Grain of the Voice”. “Grain of the Voice” is a theoretical text by Barthes that explores what lies beneath the singing voice of an individual. The text is an expansion on the subject of the third meaning, showing how it exists outside of images. This text in particular is especially hard to understand, since it builds on the other texts that come before it. You can really break down the text into four different sections. There is the part about no longer using adjectives to describe music; there is the grain of the voice, Genosong and Phenosong, and the Lied vs Melodie. We plan on using examples of different music to explain the different elements that Barthes talks about. One of the most interesting things I took away from the piece was the idea that music was getting too commercial, and that the ever increasing move towards perfection was not necessarily a good thing. It’s the happy mistakes that make music interesting; it’s the imperfections that make a song great.
Anyway it was a busy week, but hopefully I will get everything done well, as for my picture I choose a piano, in honor of “Grain of the Voice”. While the text is on only the singing voice, you can expand it to all music.

As Sam mentioned, I too have had to watch my movie a countless number of times.  And given the heavy, existential themes of Waking Life, this was not exactly healthy for my morale.  I feel like the final outcome of my website really reflects my struggle to deal with such disturbing thoughts, and how I tried to sort through it all in my head.   It was not an easy process. It took me a lot of thinking and sleepless nights watching the movie and sifting through its many ideas, trying to find an order in it all.  Yet I feel that the outcome was worth it, for it resulted in a project that I feel to be much more genuine and personal than the last.  I especially feel like the art on the website really mirrors how I felt while studying the movie, and the close-up picture I took of my face still bothers me when I look at it--I feel like it's another face looking back at me, one that is troubled and restless.

Yet I feel that this project has been very important for me--it has greatly affected the way I observe and produce any medium of art or literature.  This, as well as our study of the Third Meaning, has completely opened up my understanding of art and given a great insight into what I should be doing as a musician myself.  As I am currently forming a band here in Gainesville, I find that I am already applying many of the ideas and themes that have been discussed in class, as well as Waking Life, into the music I make.

From the moment I started my project on Waking Life, I had a vision of exactly what I wanted my website to accomplish, and overall I am very proud of how it turned out.  Everything from the aesthetic of the pages to the images that I used were exactly as I had imagined.  This is another way that this class overall has really benefited me: I feel that with this class, my ability to actually flesh out the artistic ideas that I envision has grown.  From the the picture you see at the top of this blog to the website I have created, I can say that I actually have the ability to successfully form the artistic works, and therefore also convey the messages, that I want to--something that I have always struggled with in the past.

And as for the radio project, I already have some ideas, although I feel like I have yet to be struck by an overall vision.  But I am sure that the things we will study in class will help spark such an idea.

--Ryan

Friday Night Lights

For this weeks blog I have decided to write on my web site and its progress. The picture above is the cover of the film for which I have chosen to do my film memory work on. The reasoning for this decision is because whenever I watch this film it takes me back to my high school years of playing football. All of it's hardships and tough over comings in which high school football attains. It was some of the best years of my life thus far, and every time I see this movie it gives me that feeling again. It is hard to explain exactly what that feeling is because only I can understand it. It is a feeling that is not to be able to explain. I feel like with this web site project I am having more fun creating and playing with all of the tools of the web program. I seem to be a lot more intrigued and interested in my memory work from this specific film. This project has opened my eyes in ways i never thought possible until upon doing this project. It has opened my eyes in a way in which it is impossible for myself to try and explain on paper or verbally. One thing that I am really excited about showing on my web site is little video clips all throught the linked pages. I did not do this on my last project and I am excitred to see reactions to them. I also have made this site way less generic as I had made my last project. I feel this recent project looks a million time better and a million time more interesting than my previous project. I still have a ton of work to do on it before it's deadline on monday, but, so far I am very proud of what I have accoplished.

I've decided to write my blog tonight since this weekend is going to be jam packed with other work.. seriously love the class Kate, but I will be cursing ENG1131 these next fews days as projects role together with deadlines approaching. I was glad we all got together to talk Wednesday morning. I think it gave our band the opportunity to discuss and fine tune critical theories Barthes envisions here such as the role of the adjective, pheno/geno song, and the "grain." Confidence in our understanding of the text will definitely help in assembly and presentation of our interpretation. I haven't focused much on the band project the past few days though.. sorry guys. I feel like every step forward I take in this film memory project I take a secret passage way 3 steps back!!(Im doing my webpage on CLUE)How many times did you all watch your movie? I probably have watched CLUE ten times now. It actually got to the point where people were banning it from playing in communal rooms. Watching it so many times really helped instill a sense of the filmic qualities in my creative consciousness though.My photoshoping and HTML skills have improved enough to provide some more ease in conveying an aesthetic to match my ideas which has been helpful. Still it seems that I am constantly having to re-save and upload pictures and the entire process is just monstrously time consuming. I hope you all are having more success and enjoyment. Does anyone have any ideas for a final project? I bet knowing so much about the grain of the voice will help us with all the theoretical radio stuff. Ryan had mentioned the possibility of playing the keyboard. Maybe at our band meeting Sunday we can start to talk about some ideas to explore. It seems like a very broad project

Roswell

Upon completion of viewing Roswell, It was easy to see why Kate had assigned this film. Like La Jetee, Nuit et Brouillard, and even the Shining the short documentary-esc film broaches ideas about memory, identity and even childhood. The cinematography of Roswell was unique in its amateur style. Simple animation and trick photography maintain a simplistic style well suited to the tone. There was a childish quality to the movie itself that centered on the life and journeys of a Starboy. Is this meant to be Bill? In Nuit et Brouillard we know that the director was himself a victim of the concentration camps. Does this closeness provide a deeper insight into the story? It seems in the case of Nuit et Brouillard the message is that we can never understand, even those who were there can not remember the real, the vividness, the horror of the Holocaust as it happened. In Roswell however, Bill invites the audience to join in his amusement and opens doorways to unconventional theories that may be some comfort in this universal condition of loneliness. These overwhelming emotions such as isolation are not only a planetary sentiment; even "aliens" experience them. I empathized with Starboy, the interstellar wanderer, searching the cosmos for his lonely letter-writing lady. Starboy is not the enemy; he is on our side against time. The difference between Starboy and us though is that he can escape it. Can you and I escape time? The film is nostalgic but is still mostly encouraging that, yes we can. Bill Brown makes us believe we can do whatever we want.. like make UFOs fly. So simple it is to see when your eyes want to. Perhaps it is through imagination and believing that we are able to escape the cruel experiments of time and hang onto our youth. 

Go Gators

This week in class we spent most of the time discussing choirs of stones, while outside of class my band has been working on our presentation. Also on Friday we discussed the movie Roswell. Roswell can be best described as interesting, due to the way that most of the film is in time laps. The film makes use of many different filming techniques, all used to convey a sense of a surreal lonely reality. I also feel that Roswell is a good example of a film with a third meaning. There is something beyond just the images on the screen. As for exactly what the third meaning is, I have a bit of an idea. I know it has something to do with the feeling that an image gives you, but you don’t exactly know where the feeling is coming from. Hopefully I will have a better idea of the third meaning after the band presentation on Monday. As for closing thoughts on Roswell, it is a film that brings a lot of different elements together, in a way that convey a meaning that is greater then the some of its individual elements.
Now I will switch topics from discussing a complex movie, to discussing a complex book, Choirs of Stones. After reading the book and discussing it for two days in class, I have these final thoughts on it. As far as I can tell, Choirs of Stones is an indictment on Masculinity. The lesson of the book is that masculinity makes men do evil things. Her criticism of masculinity though, should not be taken as an attack on men however. Choirs of Stones is essentially saying that men aren’t evil, but the ideals that society places on them are. Also no discussion of choirs of stones is complete without a discussion on childhood. The theme that childhood, trauma effects adults to a great degree runs throughout the book. In fact I would go as far as to say that, Choirs of Stones, tries to draw the conclusion, that most of the world’s problems are caused because people have really bad childhoods.
I will wrap up this week’s blog with a couple thoughts on the band presentation; we will be doing very soon. If you want a more detailed description of my thoughts please read my blog post from last week. I still don’t really get the connection between geno-song and grain, except for the fact that neither of them seems to be something that is obvious in the singing voice.
As for my picture, I chose a stone, because it reminds me of Choirs of Stones. It also reminds me of Roswell. You know the whole desert theme.
On a side note, make sure you go vote on Tuesday. Unless you know nothing of the issues, in which case don’t vote for a candidate arbitrarily.

Roswell

This week, we as a class were assigned to watch and take notes on an independent film talking about the UFO crash that took place in Roswell, New Mexico in the year 1947. This film was unlike any other film I have seen thus far in life. It was done with an over voice who spoke the entire film. The over voice, or narrator of the film, was also the producer and director. He was also the main "character" in the film, as there were never really any other people in it. His style of film was very interesting and was produced in an "adolescent way." This meaning that he would speak in a way that a child would speak or in a way a child could understand. He used many film techniques to give his statements a more drastic effect. These techniques such as the fish eye lens. The way this looks to the viewers, in a way, makes them feel that they are looking out of a window of a space ship. It gives them more of a scense of realism. The way the narrator's voice sounded is another factor that makes this film. His voice is annoying (to me), yet it still captures my attention in a way that I couldn't not pay attention to what he was saying. I believe that this is the same for many people that have seen this film. The picture I have chosen for this week is a picture of an "ailen" who was supposely found in the Roswell crash. I find the picture to be interesting because I feel that it looks extremely real, especially for its time period when our technology wasn't up-to-date enough to pull off a scheme like this. I love to talk about Roswell material and hope to continue this on monday.
-Coulter

Grain of the Voice

Ok guys here is what I got out of the chapter after I have read it for the third time, please tell me what you think of my ideas, and tell me what you got out of it as well. I know that together we can get the meaning of this chapter.
The first part of the chapter Barthes is talking about how adjectives describe music poorly, and that using adjectives is the easy way out. Barthes talks about how music is an access to Jouissance. Jouissance as far as I can tell is like bliss or joy. So what Barthes is trying to say is that adjectives are poor at describing what music is good at accessing Jouissance. Furthermore Barthes says that we should not try to better describe the adjectives, or better create adjectives to describe music, “ It is not by struggling against the adjective, Diverting the adjective you find on the tip of the tongue towards some substantive or periphrasis”.
That’s part one, in part two Barthes goes on to say how we should look at music. The first thing he throws out there is something called the GRAIN. Right now I am thinking that the grain is the individual voice inside all of us. The grain is the unique way that we all would express ourselves through singing. The Grain is how the individual shows up through the song. Anyway besides the grain Barthes talks about the Pheno and geno songs. Now the Pheno song is what we think of when we thing of music. Barthes says that it is everything which it is customary to talk about. On the other hand we have the Geno song which is the volume of the singing and speaking voice. How the words are said, where the melody really works at the language. The key distinction I saw was that Pheno song has to do with communication, where as Geno song does not. I think that Geno song and grain go hand in hand, but I am not sure of their connection right now. Excipt that both of them get at the part of the song that makes you feel good.
Barthes goes on to give example of Geno song and Pheno Song, what I took away from the examples was, that first of all a person how is a critically acclaimed singer has a strong Pheno song. A person who is a technical singer, or fits into their genre really well could be considered Phenotipic singer. The other singer who Barthes describes as Genotypic, seem to have focused on the letters while he was singing. Through the way that Panzera was singing his vowels, Barthes could here a voice inside his voice. So the Geno song is the voice inside the voice. The message that the song has that is not communicated.

Wraping up the chapeter Barthes talks about how the masses are changing music. The masses prefer phenotypic music, that is easy explainable. And how mass recordings are leading all music to level out at perfection which is a bad thing, because there is a loss of individuality.

Michael

Grain of the Voice

Ok guys here is what I got out of the chapter after I have read it for the third time, please tell me what you think of my ideas, and tell me what you got out of it as well. I know that together we can get the meaning of this chapter.
The first part of the chapter Barthes is talking about how adjectives describe music poorly, and that using adjectives is the easy way out. Barthes talks about how music is an access to Jouissance. Jouissance as far as I can tell is like bliss or joy. So what Barthes is trying to say is that adjectives are poor at describing what music is good at accessing Jouissance. Furthermore Barthes says that we should not try to better describe the adjectives, or better create adjectives to describe music, “ It is not by struggling against the adjective, Diverting the adjective you find on the tip of the tongue towards some substantive or periphrasis”.
That’s part one, in part two Barthes goes on to say how we should look at music. The first thing he throws out there is something called the GRAIN. Right now I am thinking that the grain is the individual voice inside all of us. The grain is the unique way that we all would express ourselves through singing. The Grain is how the individual shows up through the song. Anyway besides the grain Barthes talks about the Pheno and geno songs. Now the Pheno song is what we think of when we thing of music. Barthes says that it is everything which it is customary to talk about. On the other hand we have the Geno song which is the volume of the singing and speaking voice. How the words are said, where the melody really works at the language. The key distinction I saw was that Pheno song has to do with communication, where as Geno song does not. I think that Geno song and grain go hand in hand, but I am not sure of their connection right now. Excipt that both of them get at the part of the song that makes you feel good.
Barthes goes on to give example of Geno song and Pheno Song, what I took away from the examples was, that first of all a person how is a critically acclaimed singer has a strong Pheno song. A person who is a technical singer, or fits into their genre really well could be considered Phenotipic singer. The other singer who Barthes describes as Genotypic, seem to have focused on the letters while he was singing. Through the way that Panzera was singing his vowels, Barthes could here a voice inside his voice. So the Geno song is the voice inside the voice. The message that the song has that is not communicated.

Wraping up the chapeter Barthes talks about how the masses are changing music. The masses prefer phenotypic music, that is easy explainable. And how mass recordings are leading all music to level out at perfection which is a bad thing, because there is a loss of individuality.

Michael

like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone

I am an avid Dylan listener and believer in the power of his delivery and the transformative nature heard in every music generation to follow him. The extent of his influence is seen into even today's most acclaimed artist. That is why the image and discussion of Bob Dylan broached by Ryan this week really led me to think about ownership and the originality of ideas. I have always praised, as did a generation at his emergence, the willfulness of a man to ignore the norm and embrace folk ideas and non-traditional ideologies. The quote Ryan talks about in his blog reminds me that Dylan too was just a product of societal convention and a sponge absorbing his collective experience discharged through his own productions. However one can be aware of this without loosing motivation to create. Living amongst discontent with the government, the fear of the other, and the need for change saturated Dylan's consciousness beyond his control. His admittance of this reminds me of a passage in Barthes on page 142 "The responsibility for a narrative is never assumed by a person but by a mediator, shaman or relator whose "performance" - the mastery of narrative code - may possibly be admired but never his "genius." I think Dylan was willing to denounce being the origin to remain an anchor instead. Even though he can not take responsibility that all his ideas were purely his own it did not stop him from releasing and promoting those ideas. It did not snuff the desire for experience and the ability of the individual to acquire knowledge and liberate them self. "You don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows" a line from Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' inspires me to experience in light of experts and mediators because there is still something of my own to feel and that I can add to this snowballing collective state of being.

-Sam

Movie Effects

This week in class we talked about and went over the effects the camera angle and other aspects of film have on the way the viewer interprets it. We watched video clips from the shinning along with other classic films to show these effects and connect them with our readings on what their purpose entails. For instance in the shinning most scenes have a red or yellowish tint to it to show a sense of ominous. It is almost like there is a lens on the camera to faintly display these colors. Even though it is faint, it is still very noticeable when you know it is there. It is possible that you may have to watch it once more after discovering the tints, but once you notice them, it begins to stick out in every scene. Also, in the very beginning scene of the shinning, the camera's view is up high in the sky following a car going up into the mountains displaying an effect known as deep space. This is also what my image that I have chosen is a picture of and representing. The camera is actually in a helicopter to get this particular angle and view. It shows beyond the concentrated image giving a sense of deep space, hence the name. You can actually see the shadow of the helicopter, in which the camera is present shooting the shot, in part of one of the scenes. This was not meant to be a part of the film but accidentally happened. This is called an editing error. Lighting was another part of our focus in this weeks class. We watched a classic film, which it's tittle has slipped my mind, that was in black and white and the scene we watched was supposed to be in the outside night. There was a triangle lighting set up along with an additional light on top of the actors to represent the moon shinning on top of them. I love the way films are interpreted and use these effects that I would have never know if I hadn't taken this class. It is definitely an interesting subject.
--Coulter

Samples, Sources, Influences

This week in class, band 3 led the way in discussing the essay "The Death of the Author" by Roland Barthes. Here, Barthes makes a strong point in saying that a work of art or literature is not an original, independent thought, but rather a culmination of ideas, cultures, and experiences that influence the person creating the work, whom Barthes calls the "scriptor."   This reminds me of a quote from Bob Dylan although I can not remember the exact words he used, in which Dylan explained that rock and roll is about stealing others' ideas--it's not a matter of how original you are, it's just a matter of how good you are at stealing these ideas.  Although this statement seems very blunt and harsh, there is a lot of truth to it.  As a musician who is active in songwriting and composing, I can relate to it strongly.  No matter how original I may feel the music I make is, it will always be a result of the influences that I take in.  There is no way I can break free from or deny this.

One of the most literal examples of this idea, that a work created by a scriptor is drawn from several sources rather than the individual, can be seen in the process of sampling music.  While some may shake their heads at sampling, saying that there is no originality in such a method, this technique can provide for a very interesting form of artistic expression. Through sampling, one can take an idea and twist it around to make a completely different statement.  It is a process of literally cutting out a piece of art and putting it in a completely different context, as most other artists, writers, etc. do in a more abstract way.

One of the best examples of sampling can be seen in the Australian electronic group the Avalanches.  On their debut album, entitled Since I Left You, the Avalanches take approximately 3500 samples and fit them into eighteen songs.  The result of such excessive sampling is fascinating, as you hear everything from old Motown records to movie soundtracks to old television and radio show sound bites mixed together, creating a unified, yet eclectic sound.  By listening to this album, one can see the creativity, as well as the careful, time-consuming effort, that went into creating this work, even if a majority of the actual music on the album was made by someone else.

So as Bob Dylan said after being accused of plagiarism, any work we do is influenced by something that has already been done by someone else before, whether we are aware of it or not.  It's only a matter of what we do with these influences.  There is a large difference between the Monkees trying to be the Beatles, and the Olivia Tremor Control, a 90s "indie rock" band from Athens, GA, taking the template formed by the Beatles and bringing modern, external influences to it.  

And with that, here is the video to "Frontier Psychiatrist," the single made by the Avalanches.

--Ryan

Movies and Authors

A major part of this week was spent going over the way a scene is built to convey a certain message. As I was going over the different things that help make up a scene I thought about how little I consciously think of these things as I am watching a movie. I can’t remember a time when I have been watching a movie and gone,"I like the use of deep space in this shot." I know those things subconsciously effect me though. Like the use of red and yellow in the Shinning, I when I first watched the movie I did not notice it, but when we mentioned it in class, and thought about it, I realized that red and yellow were used a lot. This week I watched a movie called “Funny Games”, which is a suspense movie, but also plays with the idea of film and plot a lot. For example the lead character makes direct addresses to the camera, and there are mentions throughout the movie about plot elements. The real point I am trying to make though is that, as I was watching the movie, I had the ideas that we learned in class running thought my head. In this way I started noticing things I had never noticed before in movies, or at least consciously. Editing is the thing that I notice most now. Like when I see a shot reverse shot, I think of how the characters said there lines at different times and the shot was edited together. I also started to notice a couple of cheat cuts.

In addition to the readings on the different film techniques, I had a Barthes reading. This one was on the death of the author. This short but very dense chapter was, I feel the most difficult so far. Band 3 did a very good job in explaining it though. What Barthes is trying to say is that, the author is not the source of his work. A text is made from different thoughts and ideas that come from the collective of society. That is to say that the authors work is not an original thought, because the author has been influenced by the ideas of society as a whole. It goes back to the whole idea of text, being a bunch of threads that form the idea. Basically when we read a text, we are reading the signs in the text, and everyone takes something different away. Of course the irony in all of this is that we are getting these ideas form a book, with an author, and we are trying to figure out what he is trying to say. Completely the opposite of what we are being taught in the book. Anyway I want to thank band 3 did a great job, explaining such a complex subject. My band has started to get some ideas for our project together. I am starting to get what Barthes is saying in our section, but there is still a long way to go.

I almost forgot to talk about the picture for this week; it’s the poster for the movie I was talking about, when I was talking about film. I choose a picture from the shinning last week, so I wanted something different for this week. Also as I had said before I had watched this film and noticed elements that I had rarely consciously observed.
Michael

The shining

 This past week we had the grand opportunity (for those of us who have not seen it) to watch the horror film, "The Shining." I, myself, had not seen this film before the mandatory screening for this class. With this said I was very impressed with how well this film was directed and edited for its time in movie history. For being a film that was made all the way back in 1980, the editing and graphics were quite amazing and fulfilling. For instance, when "Jack" goes to room 237 and sees a young attractive women naked in the bath tub who gets up, walks over to Jack, and starts kissing him, she then suddenly turns into an old ugly corpse. The graphics of this women as a corpse is very realistic for this time period of movie making. Also, I would like to agree with Ryan when he writes about how big of a role music plays and how powerful the art of music is in films. In "The Shining" the music is mostly always playing in an ominous tone shooting chills throughout your entire body. The music can turn a scene or an image in the film that isn't neccissarily scary into a seat gripping experience. Also, the camera angle can make or break a scene, so to speak. An example of this is when "Danny" is ridding his tricycle through the hotel, the music is very ominous at this point while the camera angle is right behind Danny giving a sense of reality. The angle of the camera makes you feel like you are right behind danny following him not knowing what he is going to encounter but feeling its going to be bad because of the ominous music tone. The picture I chose was an image at the very end of the movie which shows "Jack" in a crowd of people from the hotel many years before. The reason I have this image up is because I was unsure of its significance. Was Jack a ghost all along, did he turn into one who will haunt the hotel from now on, I don't know. This is a subject that I would like to discuss in class.

-  Coulter

This week we started a new section, since are website project is now over. We are now going over film, and the different elements of film. I watched The Shinning, which is a film that exhibits many elements that I learned about in the reading that I was assigned this week, which was mise-en-scene. The Shinning is a horror film that is not just torture porn, it use editing, and subtle film tricks to build the suspense. Take for example the opening scene, which uses ominous music, with a mixture of ultra deep space, deep space, and close space to create a sense of foreboding and loneliness. The Shinning also uses a yellow or red filter throughout most of the film in order to create a more ominous feel.
Mise-en-scene breaks films down into five separate sections; Décor, lighting, space, costume, and acting. Each one of these sections help the film express the message it wants to get across more effectively. Like let’s say a movie wants to be set in the 1920’s, then it could uses costumes that make the actors look like they are form the 1920’s. Or let’s say a movie wants to make a scene seem more ominous or spook. Then the director can use low lighting to create shadow across the actor’s faces, to make them seem more sinister. The five sections that Mise-en-scene discusses can be seen in most movies that you watch.
For this week’s image I choose a picture of Jack in the maze, near the end of the Shinning. I Choose this picture because if feel it is a good example of low lighting, which is one of the things that Mise-en-scene discusses. I also feel that this picture is a good example of typage. I think Jack Nicolson is one of the only actors that could pull off this scene. Jack Nicolson is known for looking crazy in movies, and he really looks crazy in this scene. Overall this week we went over different elements in movies, and I watched the Shinning. I am excited about learning more about film as the week’s progress, and the new project I was assigned sounds exciting, it’s just a shame that I will have to delete my website.

Michael

Laugh

Watching the movie The Shining showed me the power music and image manipulation can have on our reception of a certain image or subject.  Throughout the movie, we are treated with several images that are not inherently frightening, yet somehow they give us an uneasy, chilling feeling.  Whether it is the creeping piano accompanied with strings playing as Wendy and Danny walk through the maze, or the camera angle placed directly behind Danny on his tricycle, causing you to fear and anticipate what will be around each corner he turns, every element of the movie is perfectly designed to create a tense feeling.

This idea of how music and image manipulation can change a subject's meaning so drastically reminds me of a song by Danish electronic group Lazyboy called "Underwear Goes Inside Your Pants."  What fascinates me about this song is that it takes a standup act performed by comedian Greg Giraldo, and sets a completely different tone around it, turning it into a disturbing social statement.  While people may laugh at these words in the environment of, say, a comedy club, the dark strings arrangements, as well as the heavy beat and plodding bass line, used in the song give it a somewhat darker, less comic quality.  The content of Giraldo's act then turns from a series of irreverent yet harmless jokes to a presentation of many of the problems and evils that exist in the world.  Thus, while the humor still may be present in the words heard in the song, they seem to demand a graver approach.

The use of images in the video is also very effective.  From the clips of homeless people singing the words of the chorus, to the several words and images that cross the screen, the video serves to directly add to the words of the narration, adding a more serious tone to the song, while somehow also bringing out the comic elements to it.  This brings about another notable factor of the video: the choice of images.  These images seem to clash between serious, grim clips of the real world, and oddly "humorous" pictures and cartoons.  This causes that same confusion that the song seems to create--while the the narration is taken from a standup comedian's act, the song itself is dark and disturbing.

Like The Shining, I feel this song by Lazyboy also reflects the kind of mood music and images can set on a subject, and what kind of a difference they can dictate on said subject.  Through the manipulations of sounds and images, one can make a child on a tricycle appear frightening, and the humor of a comedian sound disturbing.

You can watch the video to Lazyboy's song here.

--Ryan

Night and Fog

I left Rolf's hall on Friday with a weird and disgusting feeling to my stomach. This is so because of the viewing of the horrifying French-made screening, "Night and Fog." This movie was a documentary styled film that showed a clips during and after the dreadful Holocaust. The sights in the film were ghastly and disturbing. I have seen or visually experienced anything this graphic dealing with the Holocaust. I believe that the film was very well directed and got a strong point across of how wrong this experience was for the people who had to endure this journey. One of the best features of this short film was the narrative voice who led us as viewers on a very disturbing yet educational journey to and after the many concentration camps built to hold the Jews. The deep male voice spoke his words with a great sense of depression and loss. His voice alone, without video footage, could have told how horrifying this tragic event was. Another main Factor in this film was the soundtrack playing in the background. All of the music made every scene more and more depressing as the movie progressed. Music to me in all films and movies is what makes a scene, a lot of great movies would not be as good if the right selection of music was absent. The music in films is what really "hits home" and touches one's heart. Also, this film showed both colored and black-and-white footage. All of the footage done to show the camps after the Holocaust was done in color and the footage done during was in all black-and-white. My belief as to why the movie was done this way is to create an even more state of depression while watching the scenes of during the Holocaust. The color shot were to show the peacefulness of the camps when there was no violence.
-Coulter

Yet Another Thrilling Debate.

Upon watching the vice-presidential debates, I would say I was left with the same apathetic feeling the presidential debates gave me.  However, there was somewhat more of an entertainment factor in this one.  Some unpredictability, if you will.  Will the candidates answer the question they're given?  Will Palin continue to turn to the topic of the energy crisis?  How many times will she use the term "hockey mom?"  And who is this Biden character? I barely even hear about him. So to fit the ridiculous nature of the debate, I figured I would have some fun with it. Using a transcript of the entire debate, I found how many times we heard our candidates use their favorite key terms throughout the event.

-"change"--44 times

-"energy"--39 times

-"maverick"--15 times

-"American people"--14 times

-"Alaska"--13 times

-"corruption on Wall Street"--4 times

-"middle class"--13 times

-"track record"--6 times

-"hockey mom"--only once, surprisingly

-"Joe six pack"--once...but amazing nonetheless

With terms like this either candidate did little to carry on the points of an actual debate.  They instead both insisted on using the usual campaign strategies, such as these repeated phrases and negative attacks to the other party, in order to simplify complex situations and to attract more voters to their side.  Not that this isn't part of why we hold debates in the first place, but Biden and Palin seemed to forget about the actual debate part of this...debate.  Especially in the several instances in which they would just talk about whatever they felt like discussing, or as Palin surprisingly declared with a bewilderingly confident look on her face, "I may not answer the questions you or the moderator may want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people."  You know something? Maybe we shouldn't hold debates anymore.  I think our candidates would much rather have a two hour long marathon of campaign commercials.  And with that I will end on a quote, the first statement of the debate spoken by Palin: 

"Ya know, I think a good barometer here, as we try to figure out has this been a good time or a bad time in America's economy, is go to a kid's soccer game on Saturday, and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, 'How are ya feelin' about the economy?'"

God Bless America

--Ryan

More on Night and Fog

I'm glad you wrote about Night and Fog Ryan. I feel the same way you do about it... I'm sure most of the class does. As we all scatter to finish our web-pages and manage to fit some blogging in, we take for granted that this is the biggest problem(hopefully) we will face this weekend. As a generation we are so famously "desensitized" to violence from the cartoons we watched growing up to the news footage of global terror. Night and Fog was something stronger though. It was difficult to view and the urge to look away put knots in my stomach as my eyes remained fixed on the most horrific of sights. This was not Hollywood, it is something entirely different, authentic and piercing. What gave me the deepest feeling of disturbance was surprisingly not the bulldozer plowing corpses into a mass grave, or the idea that the hospital was a biological test facility condemning patients to death.. it was the warehouse full of hair. This may seem dull compared to emaciated bodies hung from barbed wire, but I can not shake the feeling of nausea even as I write this to imagine just how many people it would take to produce that much hair! I think about my own head and the rest of our class. There are a decent amount of girls with long hair. Yet even if each of our heads was shaved I doubt it would take more than one book bag to contain it all. The camera had to pan and zoom out to even display the mountains of lost locks. I think this film really connected to Barthes and Kuhn when considering the images from a historical/cultural perspective. We evaluate the holocaust from certain established denotations. Like Ryan said "Hitler was Bad" "The Holocaust was a tragedy." There is something about the raw images that accelerate the (connotation) punctum and make you feel something you can not describe every single time.

-Sam

Of Night and Fog

After watching Night and Fog yesterday, I left the class, along with my other classmates, in a very solemn mood.  Upon leaving the building, there was a noticeable silence, and Sam broke the silence with a remark: "Now let's all go home and write something insignificant in our blogs."  I felt these words to have a lot of truth in them.  After seeing the film, I feel that I couldn't say anything to do justice to all the people that died, and that anything that I have to say just is not all that important. What could I possibly say that could describe such an event? "Hitler was bad."  "The Holocaust was a tragedy."  "Many people died."  All of these statements just don't come close to describing the horrors of what happened, and they just seem too simple, no matter how you word them.  And I think in that sense, this is what the film Night and Fog captures so perfectly.  

As we see from the grass and peaceful life that is now growing over Auschwitz, the event of the Holocaust will never be fully remembered, we will always see it as an event that has passed.  It is a distant memory to us now, one that feels so large in proportion that we can not fully grasp it or explain it.  I think the actual footage of the event that was shown in the film really revealed to me how terrible it actually was, and why it is so difficult for us to explain or even remember.  I have read Anne Frank's diary, and the book Night by Elie Wiesel, yet personally I felt disconnected to what I was reading about, no matter how hard I tried to grasp it.  Yet with film technology, we are allowed a window into the actual event, to see what actually happened there. To me, this is certainly a film not easily forgotten.

The picture I chose this week is a picture of a candle that was on a website on the Holocaust.  Below the picture was a quote by Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: "The Holocaust stands as the eternal symbol of what happens when we forget."

--Ryan

Websites, done at last. Well almost

For this blog I felt it appropriate to talk about the websites we have all been working on. Friday afternoon I had a chance to look at my band members websites. While I know everyone is still working on their websites, I won’t have much time this weekend to look at them so, I thought better early then never. I will start with the first website I went to which was Sam’s website. I loved the image Sam has on her homepage. The image has black and white background, with her in color, hitchhiking down the road. When I see the image it makes me think about how big the world is, and how far I still have to go down the road of life. Also the rollover image that she has is very cool, it fits well with the Kuhn quote she has below it. On a more technical note, all the links seemed to work, and all the pictures loaded. Page 4 only had a quote on it, but I think that’s just because she has not had time to work on the page. The next page I went to was Coulters, which was still heavily under construction. The links on the homepage did work, but there were no links to any other pages so I could not check out the rest of the website. The images on the homepage did not load however, the most likely cause of this, would be that Coulter did not put the images into the ftp folder. Overall however I did like the look of the homepage, and I am curious to see what his memories of Hurricane Andrew actually are. I will most likely come back to Coulters page, once it’s more complete. Finally I went to Ryan’s page, which also had a very cool image on it. My band is gifted with very talented digital artists, maybe a little of that will rub off on me at some point. Technically speaking most of the website works fine, all the links work, and all the pictures loaded up. The left2 page had nothing load up on it when I went to the site, but I figure he just has not had time to upload it yet. It’s a bit hard to read what is written on the create page, due to the background, but it’s not impossible, and the background on that page is really cool. I also like the arrows that you click on to get to the rest of the page. Overall all the websites are looking good, I just wish I could have waited longer to go visit them, but this is the only free time I will have. As for the image I choose this week it’s a picture of a website, in honor of all our websites.

Michael

Political Views?

After watching the presidential debate on Friday night, I feel that I did not learn anything necessarily new about either candidate.  I did not learn anything special about the stance of any politician on any issue.  I don't even feel that either politician had a clear upper-hand over the other, although Obama's relatively level-headed style of speech delivery sometimes seemed a step ahead of McCain's occasional blatant appeals to American sentiments (the story of dead veteran's mother giving him a wristband to wear in honor of her son, for instance).  But watching the debate reaffirmed one thing for me: that the American campaign process is a crazy one.

It appears that on just about every issue, the argument between the two candidates would not boil down to the specifics of what needs to be done or an actual solid plan.  Instead, both politicians would immediately resort to taking the other side's stance and twisting it out of proportion so that it ends up meaning something completely different and less sensible, thus making it much easier to attack.  In order to counter this technique, either politician would then rely on taking previous statements that were used against them and then attempting to rephrase them.  This would often lead to a long ramble of circular logic that when spoken out in plain words clearly contradicts itself.

And so the debate did not seem to give any better understanding, at least to me personally, of where our politicians stand or what they believe in, for it is very predictable where each one is always going to stand.  Either candidate is clearly a carbon copy Democrat and Republican, although McCain likes to be called "the maverick."  And so rather than clearing up my understanding of stances on various policies, the presidential debate of 2008 only proved to me how much the American campaign style of negative campaigning, twisting facts, and blowing miniscule statements out of proportion, can completely convolute a politicians message and how people view it.

--Ryan

Meaning

With our personal narrative project nearing, I have been giving much thought as to what clever scheme I could come up with to dominate this piece of work. Not fully understanding the memory work project assigned I have not reached a path of greater clarity on it due to the Annette Kuhn piece "Family Secrets." In this piece of work Kuhn tells us of how a simple photograph can expand and go beyond meaning. Going beyond meaning is basically saying that no words can explain what you are feeling or self-experiencing whenever you are looking and studying this photograph. Text cannot tell what this personal enigma is expressing. The photograph moves you in a way that cannot be explained. The picture posted above is a picture of one of my good friends who has passed away this past year. The way that this picture is edited and displayed goes beyond meaning for me. The way it is presented moves me in ways that cannot be explained. There are so many emotions and hidden meanings behind this photograph that I simply could not put into words. Kuhn's story has helped me better understand and connect what I have always felt when looking at this photograph. It is unbelievable how a simple story explaining ways of life can help clear things up just be reading through it. This photograph also brings me back to past history of my friend. It brings me back to certain conversations we have had hanging out and while playing high school football together. Mostly when I look at this picture I think back to High school football and playing with this outstanding young man. It reminds me of even the smallest moments combined with the great moments in one big emotional swirl. Now, thanks to Kuhn's story I can appreciate the meaning of this hard-to-grasp aspect of life.
-Coulter

Window

This week in class, we read the works of Annette Kuhn, who writes about the intricacies of photography, and how a seemingly simple photo can reflect a much broader meaning, providing a small window into the "personal, political, economic, dramatic, everyday, and historic" (pg. 9) atmosphere of the picture's time.  I felt that the picture (seen above), which I made for my website's homepage, provides such a window.  Even though it may not be an actual photograph of myself, it is a picture I had manipulated in a way so that it can carry the messages I wanted to make, while perhaps bringing up subconscious thoughts that I may not know exist in a "return of the repressed," as we talked about in class.

I wanted this picture to reflect the world as I see it: fast-paced, eclectic, and changing at a speed that is oftentimes faster than we can keep up with.  A capitalist society in which so much energy is spent on competing for others' attention and money that it all blends together, becoming a swarm of images, words, and sounds that our minds can't seem to be able to absorb.  And this escalates more and more as it becomes more difficult to make an impression on society.

Yet while this picture makes a broad statement about the way I feel about the society I live in, it also tells something about myself.  As someone who has a passion for music and the arts, I feel it represents my personal struggle to keep the things I love in my life while somehow focusing on and keeping up with the "practical" world.  To find a way that I can live a comfortable, successful life in this fast-paced world while having time for the things that I enjoy.

Yet this is only a surface examination, for the actual pictures I manipulated here may say much more about me that I myself do not even have an insight to.  I had randomly chosen most of them without thinking, yet they must have jumped out at me and called me to attention for some reason.  I find this to be a fascinating part of Kuhn's work: that a simple picture can portray so many more things than what we actually see.

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together..

"A copy of an original that does not exist." The moment I heard this I got that "third meaning" feeling. What an erie and delightful approach to photography. Simulacrum is a new concept to me but since it has "pierced" my thoughts I seem to be infinitely intrigued by the possibilities. Instead of the therapeutic deliverance Kuhn gets from analyzing a photograph, I believe the return of the repressed would find a more effective outlet in shooting photographs. The subconscious is actively engaged in the composition and detail of the present instead of trying to sift the reality from the past. Since the present is an important feature in memory work it seems to be the ideal mind frame to operate in. All of our memories and experience are then included (as we can not take back what has made us who we are in this moment) as well as actively engaged as a contribution to the image we will eventually decide to capture, decide we want to remember. This so seemingly personal action is then broadcasted in print as a flag that bares your name , waiting to be blown by the criticism and compassion of society. "A radial system has to be constructed around the photograph," says (John) Berger, "so that it may be seen in terms which are simultaneously personal, political, economic, dramatic, everyday and historic (p.9)." This passage in particular is hopeful to me that we do not loose all that is our own because of the personal/ collective dichotomy. Even though the photograph will be consumed into the network of shared memory, Berger suggest that it all radiates from the photograph which seems to be in an instant completely my own. It is my original before the copy is made by me pressing down on the button that will capture another thought to provoke us all.

Memory Work

This week I really began to work on my Memory Work project. The assigned reading this week of family Secret, gave me a better idea of what to do for the project, but I am still not 100% sure of what to do for the project, but I am forming ideas in my mind. In a family secret Kuhn takes a family photo and makes connections with her past. To Kuhn a photo is a network of connections, which a person can use in order to find out things about one’s family. Over the last couple of days I have been trying to think of pictures that I could use for the project. I have a limited selection to pick from, due to the fact that most of the pictures of my family are back in Jacksonville, and I do not have a way to get back to Jacksonville. Anyway I am almost finished with my homepage, I finally got the color scheme the way I like it, and got all the links to work. I might want to add some stuff later on, but for now I need to focus more on the other parts of my project. The picture that I put up for this week is the one I worked on in Photoshop, in the lab we did on Monday. It’s a collection of different things that I think represent me fairly well. While I won’t go into detail about everything on there, I will save that for the write up at the end of my project. The images I selected all represent a different part of my life, and when they are put together I fell they make a semi accurate picture of who I am. My goal for this weekend is to read family Secrets a couple more times, and select pictures that I want to use in my project, and hopefully by Monday night, I will have most of the work done.

Banana

To most people who look at the image to the left, this is a picture of a banana. It holds no significance, and it contains no greater meaning. It is an icon that resembles a piece of fruit. Simple. Yet as we learned from the study of semiotics, a sign can hold several different meanings, depending on who the sign's beholder is.  This picture of a banana is no exception, for when viewed by others, this image can signify something much more than just a fruit. It is a powerful cultural icon, a painting by American pop artist Andy Warhol that was used for the self-titled album by the 60s art-rock band the Velvet Underground. It calls to mind the works of a highly countercultural and controversial group of musicians that went against the conventional understanding of art and music at the time.

This icon shows how differently a sign can be interpreted amongst people, even those who live within the same community.  While Americans may all live in the same country with its own, distinct culture, each American is immersed within his or her own subculture. A large portion of Americans do not even know who the Velvet Underground is. To these people, the name Velvet Underground itself may also sound very strange and foreign as well.

This brings up another point learned from semiotics: when we begin to associate a linguistic signifier with a signified concept, we stop thinking about the arbitrariness of the actually word we are using. In the mind of a Velvet Underground fan, the arbitrariness of the band's name does not matter as much, for name can be linked to many things: the music the band produced, the band's artistic image, the album cover you see above, etc. And so the listener stops thinking about the "Velvet Underground" for what its name may imply, but rather the musical and artistic work that it is linked to it.

--Ryan