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

Say What?

"The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is. I don't have to reflect a moment; the right name comes out instantly. I seem to know just by the shape of the creature and the way it acts what animal it is (Mark Twain, Eve's Diary)." The unconscious and arbitrary relationship between words and their meaning is purely a societal convention. As Mark Twain demonstrates it is not necessary to know the particular string of speech sounds that is the signifier to know what equally delusional utterances will be called the signified thing you see before you. Yet, if there were not some sort of established framework for a language, shared and employed by communities whom interact, it would be impossible to function. Michael provides an excellent example with the image of a stop sign, Although there is no intrinsic value to using a red octagon, we have learned to obey the symbol resulting in our safety. If drivers did not associate the geometric form with the acceptable corresponding action the result would be chaos. The stop sign is, according to Chandler's Semiotics for Beginners, symbolic. "A mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional." Chandler offers two additional categories iconic and indexical. It was our class discussion of the indexical image working symbolically in the Rodney Kind trial that inspired my image this week. A book that was gifted to me entitled, On Reading by Andre Kertesz is a collection of photographs capturing a variety of people reading printed texts. The images are meant to provoke nostalgia and question the direction of literacy into future generations (yay Ulmer!). Books are signs of intelligence and wisdom. There is a certain connotation connected to the image of someone who is reading. There is no sensible tie between the signifier (the photographs) and the signified (the engendered emotions) still the book is effective in its desired delivery. Like the Rodney King footage it is up to the viewer to interpret what is going on in the image, but at least the image is used for the artist's intent, as a spark to provoke thought. 

--Sam

Signs

This week in classes we have been going over signs and semiotics. I choose a stop sign for my picture because I feel that it represents many levels of semiotics; also I drive my car a lot, so I run into a lot of stop signs. First of all, it has a word written on it, words are signifiers. Signifiers work in tandem with the signified to create a sign. In the case of a stop sign, when we see the signifier “stop”, we are signified to cease are motion or actions. Also the color and the shape of a stop sign are symbols in themselves. This is why when in foreign country you can still tell when to stop at an intersection. This brings up the question however, why do we think stop when we see a red octagon. What does having eight sides, and having low energy light waves have anything to do with stopping? Why don’t we use a blue triangle or maybe a sign with a person with their hand sticking out? In this way a stop sign is a good example of the arbitrary nature of language. The only reason we think stop when we see a stop sign is because, that’s what society tells us to think. Also have you ever said a word over and over again, if not try it, after awhile the word starts to sound weird. I was with my friend at lunch, and for some reason I said the word “said” about 20 times in a row, and after that the word seemed really foreign, and meaningless. Anyway, the readings on semiotics made a lot more sense after reading the Barthes article. He showed semiotics in action by relating it to wrestling, something that I am familiar with. It was easier to understand the signified signifier relationship, and how symbols are everywhere, when it was presented in an example I am familiar with. On one final note, my homepage for the personal narrative is still a work in progress; my busy schedule has prevented me from getting much done. By the way does anyone know if the CIRCA labs are open on the weekends?

Michael

Busy Week!!!

Let me first start out with wow!! This week has been extremely busy for me! As some may know I am going up to Tennessee for the gator game this weekend on a road trip with my fraternity. Because of this I have been working frantically to get all of my school work done and I have been striving so hard to work around my classes so that I can enjoy this eventful experience. At this same time I would like to apologize for not having and image, song, or video clip up. I am not doing this out of pure laziness I can assure you. I do not have one of these requirements up simply because I am "anelectrate" and I do not do well with computer programs so I do not completely understand how to upload one of these requirements. Also since the second blog posting (which what this is) isn't due until Saturday, my group has not yet had a chance to come together to discuss anything at this time. On a different note, may i say that I really enjoy creating and "playing around" with the website program in lab. I find the information learned and still learning in this portion of the class material to be quite beneficial. I feel like information such as this is so critical in today's world. A world where every day life revolves around media in one way or another. Which brings me to my next point, even though I sometimes feel like writing on this blog every week can be a burden at times (mostly because I wait until the last minute to do it :)), I still feel it is an awesome tool that somehow connects me to the electracy world. I know it is a useful weekly task, and I look forward to it's furthering uses.
--Coulter

Understanding

When beginning this band project I didn't have the slightest idea to what a blog was or to what a blog was used to create. I had never used a blog nor given much thought into what it's uses entailed. However after discussing it in class and learning about it while creating this site, I have come to a better understanding as to how to use, read, and understand blogging. Not only have I reached an understanding of blogging, but I have also reached a greater understanding of the powerful "electracy." As Gregory Ulmer describes electracy he states that, "electracy is to digital media what literacy is to print." And might I say that the power of digital media is overwhelming compared to literacy's print. Just by doing a simple blog explains that better than any words can. It is unbelievable how powerful and how much more entailed the media world is compared to a boring printed world.
In this blog entry I would also like to say that without the members of my band I would be extremely lost as in how to create this blog and as to what to do with it. They had many outstanding thoughts and ideas and made it all happen right in front of my eyes. They did a wonderful job of putting this project together and also guiding me into a better understanding of how the media world works and how it is organized. My contribution to this weeks blog was coming up with different pictures and images to go up onto the heading of our blog thus displaying the energy and thoughtfulness of the members in our band.
For our image for this week we all came together and picked Radiohead's album cover Hail to the thief. As a band we decided to use this image to represent us as a one unit. I like to think as the image as representing all of our ideas as a band coming together in one overseeing outcome.
--coulter

Team Effort, Great Blog

Creating a blog seemed like a daunting task, and creating a blog that would faithfully represent a group of people as diverse as our band seemed almost impossible. The first thing that we came up with was a name for our new blog. We wanted something that both represented electricy and group collaboration. That is why Ulmer’s Army is such a good fit, Ulmer is the creator of the idea of electricy, and there is no organization more focused on the collective then an Army. I would like to think that the theme of our blog is the bringing together of many ideas to form one large super conscience of ideas that are greater than the sum of their parts. This idea is represented in the picture that we have posted this week, which is the album cover off of Hail to the Thief by Raidohead. It is an image that is full of different ideas, all coming together. Also this idea is illustrated with the collage that Ryan put together at the top of our page. It is a collection of different images, each its own idea, coming together on the blog, forming one conscience. As for the Template and layout of the blog, we went with a minimalist approach. At different points during the week the blog took on many different forms, templates, and color schemes. Throughout this process, we found that less is more. I personally think the blog has a nice modern feel, which goes well with the modern ideas that are being presented in the class. Tacky colors and graphics are so for the literate age. My part in the group was to become the expert on BlogSpot, and make sure everything would work properly. I played around on the website a lot, changing colors and template, adding and removing gadgets, and posting pictures and text. I tried to add a music gadget, but I just could not get it to work properly, it would have been cool to have music as part of the blog. In the end I would have to say the blog turned out better than I could a have ever imagined, but I could not have done it alone, so thank you Colter, Sam, and Ryan for helping make this the best blog in Eng1131.

Michael

New Link

There is now a link to "Kate's Class Homepage" at the very bottom of the page.

-Sam

Come Together

It is a strange phenomenon, as I reflect on our group effort this week, to feel as though we are using our communal capacity to create the very platform Ulmer necessitates for the effective power of electracy in pedagogy. Student- powered blogs, like Ulmer's Army, are the key vehicle for the transition into a collaborative, functional communication system in the new-age of internet and interface. As Band 5 got to know each other we were able to pull from what our peers knew and learned together much we did not know about how to establish a blog page and navigate through our new website. Suitably, we found ourselves focused on the theme of collaboration that Ulmer calls a "new skill that must be explicitly taught." As ideas began to flow we agreed on collaged images of popular icons (the header) and familiar words (the Radiohead cover) to represent our focus. My contribution to the thoughtfulness of the blog this week was posting teachings I found to be particularly insightful when read in conjunction with our images. I chose the following from Taoist sage and philosopher Chang- Tzu because it seemed to appropriately call for a balance between spontaneity, activism and progress that I believe Ulmer would support.

"(The Sage) constantly goes by the Spontaneous, and does not add anything to the process of life."

"Mysteriously, wonderfully, I bid farewell to what goes, I greet what comes; for what comes cannot be denied, and what goes cannot be detained."

"Paths are made by shoes that walk them, they are by no means the shoes themselves!"

"The bells and stones have voices but, unless they are struck, they will not sound."

*Also included as my picture for this week is Ryan in action.. working on resizing the image for the header. Hope Ulmer would be proud of this use of multi-media/ group interaction :) 

-Sam

Icon of the 21st Century

The template used on this page (at the very top) represents but a small portion of the world as we know it today. It is an infinitesimal clip of knowledge cut from the overwhelmingly large sea of information that technology has given us access to. As we find more advances in technology, our accessibility to such information increases, until the human mind can not fully process all of it. Thus, images and ideas cease to truly sink into our brain. 

The header, as well as the image we have chosen, reflects this, for no one picture appears more important than the rest. Rather, it is difficult to distinguish what is actually significant and relevant to us and what isn't. It is a collision of different ideas, different cultures, different emotions, all battling for the attention of you, the reader. 

And so we must step back and ask ourselves: what is to be remembered from all this? Is our culture capable of creating something that lasts, something that stands apart from the rest? A cultural icon as monumental as the Beatles, or a movie as memorable as, say, Gone With the Wind? Or will the icon of the 21st century not be a single, pivotal idea, but rather more of what you see above: merely a slew of images, sound bites, and words to represent the times we live in. Maybe in a world of so much information, spontaneity is the key to making an impression, to making a sharp contrast amidst the busy waves of shared ideas. Yet spontaneity does not necessarily give way to memorability, for an unexpected experience becomes expected and unsurprising once its initial moment of effect fades away.

--Ryan

Hail to the Theif

This is the picture that we have choosen for this weeks blog posting. It is the album cover off of Raidohead's album Hail to the Thief

Image test 2, uploading image off my computer onto the bolg.

Image test 1, internet image

Welcome

Hello and welcome to our blog, and since the only people that will ever read this are Kate ( our teacher), Ryan, Sam, and Coulter, this is a message to all of you. I change the color and messed around with adding apps, like the playlist, and i also wrote some stuff about the group. Feel Free to change whatever you want, in fact I encourage it.

Testing 1,2,3 Testing 1,2,3

This is a test, i have no clue what this will do, but lets find out