it's aLIVE!

Well, the time has actually arrived. It is the end of the semester, the culmination of all we've learned. Cheers to everyone because I'm sure your MEmorials are great.

Here is the final link to mine.

Can't wait for pizza night, and to see y'all one more time before Christmas break begins tomorrow. (I think I'm actually getting slightly teary-eyed)

déjà vu anyone?

I was excited to begin this weeks reading for several reasons:

1. I was back to Reading Images, a book I have thoroughly enjoyed (it matches seamlessly with my field of study)
2. The topic was discussing 3D imagery, specifically sculpture and video (moving pictures) which is rather appropriate to my MEmorial.
3. It was the end of the book, and I always feel some weird satisfaction whenever I finish a book (I could be finishing a children's picture book and I'd still have the same feeling)

Upon reaching the midpoint of chapter 8, however, I became slightly bitter at not coming to any new realization. I wanted the sky to open up and produce rays of pure genius for my MEmorial. The entire chapter was dedicated to review. The few new points, which were really just adaptations, were items we had discussed in class. Early on in the semester Jan asked if what we were learning about still images could be applied to moving pictures, and we all agreed and discussed how to adapt the rules of modality, given and new, etc.

The most interesting point became in chapter 9 (which I'm not sure I really consider a new chapter, more of a conclusion) when K&VL discuss regrets they wish they had pursued further.

"We have become increasingly aware of this [that the work has just begun] and have tried to write out grammar not as one which describes fixed 'rules' and a stable 'system', nor as one which seeks to capture the detail of everything people can and do do in visual communication, but as a flexible set of resources that people use in ever new and ever different acts of visual sign-making."

This was an appropriate decision on their part to make this text an overview, or guidebook, to people to adapt to their specific needs. I know I have learned much and look and evaluate images and my design work differently. Had they dug much deeper into the specifics, I think readers would have become bogged down in the nitty gritty and not grasped the basic concepts. Heavens, there are enough basic concepts to grasp as there is, lets not confuse students by adding more noise to the spectrum. This was a successful book in my opinion. Were they to bring out another book that specifically discussed new points about sculpture in gross detail, I would be appreciative, but until that point I am going to run with what I am given.

My MEmorial will be an in the round installation sculpture on the grounds of the American Legion in Anderson, SC. After the vandalism of the dough-boy statue, I have decided to erect a new statue, a digital one that cannot be torn down. My plan is as follows:

• Behind the current remains of the dough-boy statue I am going to place a large granite stone with a rounded top, similar to that of a tombstone.
• On the stone I am going to project digital images of children who are standing, and their feet will be missing, to be lined up to the remaining feet of the former monument.
• Because the majority of my audience is going to view this from their car as they drive by, I am going to hijack the radio frequencies when cars drive down the highway in front of the property. The song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" will be heard being sung by children.
• The monument will only be seen at night to give an eerie feeling to the area, as if it is haunted by the fallen soldiers.
  

I had hoped to have the images taken for my web presence before class this week, and I was planning on driving there today, but the rain has made that impossible. Because of that I cannot start my website, so I'm going to describe it...and you'll just have to use your imagination. I am going to design a flash website that begins by having the background of the site appear as a watercolor. Then the statue (or lack there of) will appear from the bottom. Afterward the stone will grow up behind it, it will change color to mimic night, and the images will begin to flash onto the stone.

After considering making a Photoshop mock up, I felt that the rendition would look cheap and unbelievable. If I were to make a real proposal to erect this statue, as an artist I would draw up the plans myself. I want this to be believable and as though I were really planning to follow this through, so I am going to attempt to watercolor my proposal. My flash skills are a little rusty, so we'll see what happens (gulp).

agree with disagreement

This week campus has had an interesting visitor. Brother Micah has made his return to Clemson to preach at students about how they are all going to Hell. I have not personally met him (or seen him, but he is on y'all's side of campus, so maybe you have witnessed him) but from what my student's have been telling me, he just stands outside yelling at people.

This is not his first trip to Tigertown. He was here last year with the same convictions, but this time is making me a little more angry than his former appearance. What good does he hope to accomplish? I'm assuming his hopes are that all us wicked sinner students will suddenly see some light, repent of our sins and bow at his feet asking him to lead us to Jesus. But unfortunately, his tactics are doing nothing more than reinforcing nonreligious peoples preconceived notions and is placing him on a long list of televangelists with bad hair that get nowhere in the hearts of nonchristians.

And then it hit me. Our discussion last week of our MEmorials filled me with ideas, but all the choices we had discussed would lead to a similar outcome as Brother Micah. If I send out postcards to each person that visits an anti-southern site or video, that's going to do nothing except annoy those that get the postcard or e-mail and reinforce that person's dislike of all things related to the south. As I continued to mull over possibilities throughout the week, I decided to take a very Church-y approach to my topic (which seems to fit well with my chosen MEmorial because of how influential the Church has been to its history). I have sat through many sermons discussing the plank in one's eye parable. Attaching that to my MEmorial, I should try to fix the South before I can hope to change the attitudes of those outside this area starting with placing my MEmorial in Anderson (which is where I have spent much of my life). I want to create an electronic memorial on the former site of the American Legion statue that was stolen a couple of years ago. I want to create a holographic symbol that projects from the feet of the missing statue discussing the manners and traditions that make up southern hospitality and culture.

I'm not sure exactly how I want to do this, but that's where I'm headed...to Anderson...to battle the rednecks head on with education. It's gonna be like dumping salt on a slug :)

meet maggie: mood maker

Have we seen a softer side of Ulmer? Up until this point the discussion has been fairly impersonal and very much based on research. In chapter 6 however, Ulmer lets his hair down and I think I like it. His showing a tinge of vulnerability reminds me he truly is human and not some computer-like philosopher spitting out quotes and facts.

Which came first: my feeling (even if I could not name it) or the theory? The dilemma is structured like the fetish: intellectually I know that nothing I do will improve the world. Emotionally I believe that my actions make a difference for the better ("I know, but still...)...Can I do this? Can I inhabit the theory of narrative as if it were the narrative itself? More than the narrative, as if knowing the theory put the narrative directly into experience? I know that the fairy tale and the wish it expresses are the safe house of the Utopian impulse. What may we learn about consulting from narrative? (p 164)

This is something I really struggle with and is much of the reason I chose not to tackle an abject topic for my MEmorial. When I experience a punctus, I am very unable to keep myself unbiased. As much as I like to claim that I am unemotional, who am I kidding? I get all worked up when it comes to a soap-box topic of mine. It is my task as a egent to remain unbiased, but I don't know that I would be able to stand back an thrust out an "abject hypothesis concerning the politics of the homo sacer" (p 157). Alas, I am an emotional being. I do, however, think I could take the approach of discovering mood (p 154). Mood implies emotion, something I really understand and relate to.

If our class were an Egency, could we elect positions? Like in an advertising firm there are titles like Creative Director, Designer, Productions Specialists, Marketing Guru, CEO, etc. Could the same thing be done for an Egency? Can I elect myself the mood-maker? That would be a fitting position for me, to map the emotional train that is a disaster. Being visual by nature, I like the idea of using a MEmorial "to map and participate in mood construction, tracing the series of pain." As a team of egents, our class could each take a direction to pull a complete disaster profile together, allowing our many personal and academic strengths to fully flesh out an amazing MEmorial.

what i learned from television

I have admitted before that I have really struggled trying to understand some of the chapters in Ulmer's book. Call me unintelligent or feel free to appoint me a better smarter-sounding label that still means that I am rather obtuse....can I at least get a A for effort?

Anyway, Chapter 5 in particular was very difficult. Usually I highlight points that I understand or may find useful when writing my blog. Chapter 5 has no highlighting from page 120 until you reach 134. All the pages are gray in my mind. I can't remember a single thing that I understood or could piece together as a single corresponding thought. I'm sure the chapter makes sense, but I never could get the pieces of this reading puzzle to fit.

As much as I would like to write that I found some profound gem on page 134, I really am just digging myself into a hole. This video is a clip from Big Bang Theory that discusses mimesis. I got the biggest kick out of actually discovering a new word that I learned off television. That was my profound discovery. Out of the twenty or so-odd pages in chapter 5, that's what I got out of it...a lesson on Nebraska football and kite fighting. All this being stated, I am really looking forward to class this week in hopes that we will be discussing some of this information to I can try and make some form of basic sense. I hope your blogs on chapter 5 are thorough, because they are going to have to be my teacher.

apple butter

Here is my final video project. I hope it makes you hungry :)

camera!

Hey Y'all. At the end of class last time I was talking about the camera I bought, and so I'm posting a link to show which one I choose. I wasn't really sure what I wanted, just something good for the money. The guy I spoke with at the store was very complementary of this JVC model. I was originally looking at buying a Sony, but after the guy told me I was going to have to buy a special SD card for the camera just to use it, I was pretty sold on the JVC...especially after I found out the SD card was going to cost me something ridiculous like $60.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9185865&type=product&id=1218049843479

Here are the reasons why I like this camera:

1. Huge internal hard drive: no need for an SD card, but there is a slot in the top of the camera to add an additional card for extra memory. And that means nooooo discs or tapes!
   
2. Easy to use features.
3. Small and Compact.
4. Pretty good sound quality.

I hope this is helpful...I had told several of you that I paid about $300 for the camera, but I bought an extra card with it. The real price is $270.

beauty is only pixels deep

The creation of cyberspace has accomplished some amazing feats. Outside of the fact that now you can access any information you want whenever you want, there are also some downsides to this new "space" as well. Just this last week an uproar rippled through several internet circles concerning Ralph Lauren's new advertising campaign showing off over Photoshopped models. And as sad as this poor girl looks (and since that report another image has surfaced from Ralph Lauren with an equally disturbing figure) many women still idolize these non-existent people. Also take a look at online avatars. Women characters are usually always tall, thin, busty, and can kick some major ass in nothing more than a loin cloth.

Page 99 discusses the "blurring associated with cyberspace." It's very striking (almost punctus you could say) reading the quote stating that Mariah Carey's image was having more fun than she was. What is it about the internet and this new cyberspace that has amplified a woman's need to be perfect? I wonder much of this on the dawn of Maria Shriver's Women's Conference report published recently summarizing that women today are far more unhappy in life than they ever were before. Fortunately Dove is fighting back in an almost MEmorial type of way by creating a campaign to combat with an eye for an eye exposing the fashion/beauty industry for the fraud that it is. Enjoy, and remember this the next time you think a lady looks pretty on the screen.

ireport

ha! take that radio...

Have fun in class this week, and feel free to let me know what I'm missing! (I'm at a dinner tonight, or I'd be there)

change up!

While I was taking some sick time off this week (because everybody plans to be sick and all), I was thinking through how I was going to put together my video project. It occured to me suddenly that if I was true to my word to work on where the project took me, I think it's time for me to change the topic of my Electronic Monument.

I always wanted to do something I know a lot about and have a lot of appreciation for, and I think my images summed it up well. I am officially changing my monument to be about small town America, rural culture, specifically southern culture.

Any comments? suggestions? Anyone own a copy of Cold Sassy Tree?

face made for radio

This is much harder than it looks...and after it is all said and done, I really hate delivery trucks.

Ulmer: Uno

" You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both." - Matthew 6:24

While finishing up my reading on Monday, I was very struck by a line on page 8:

"The digital ear is beginning in the same way as the era of print, with a religious war in which the status of icons is a central issue."

Lets take a few minutes to run down the early history of print.

• Gutenberg invented movable type to allow the first mass print production. (laying down the foundation for what I am currently earning my masters)
• First book to be printed: the Bible
• Protestant Reformation: made possible by mass producing the 95 theses-which was a confrontation against the Catholic Church and their use of icons within the cathedrals (I am watering this down to a minimum, I know, but bare with me)

This is very well documented. Everyone studies this in world history class in middle school. But what is the religious war now? I continued reading hoping some great gem would bloom from the pages, but I was sorely disappointed. So I took the next logical step and googled religious wars. According to the UN, there are currently 56 religious conflicts, but not a single one of the descriptions mentioned a holy war about images.

Maybe this sentence jumped out to me because I was recently studying this very issue, but what is America's new god? I believe it's ultimately money, because it's not the God of our country's forefathers, and it's certainly not the same God that was the center of the Protestant Reformation. When a building falls, not only is it a blow to the ego of the country, but it also is a large loss of capital. Would a god-like obsession of materialism actually make it onto the UN's list of holy wars?

revised photography

As of last class, I have taken more photography (or to be slightly more accurate, I have gotten more film developed), and after the dust settled, below are the final photos I choose for my project/paper.

Photografia!

Let's do this

I guess I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and describe an image according to the new chapters. Kudos to whoever started this trend, because it really is helpful.

I am not using a newly shot picture (not because I don't have any, but rather because I'd like to discuss the new images in class or in another post). So for now, y'all will have to live with something out of my library.
Also, on top of last week being the seemingly longest week of my graduate career, I managed to never get my blog posted. So instead of lately posting a blog that none of you will read, I'll just start off with a quick recap of last weeks chapters before delving into the new material.

chapter 4:

• This image would be considered an offer because the main represented participant is not looking at the viewer, making the image seem very impersonal.
• It is shot in a medium range distance to allow some of the background information to be included without a central perspective.
  
• The vanishing point is at an oblique angle causing the viewer to feel as though, "what you see here is not part of our world, it is their world, something we are not involved with" (p 136)
• This image is shot at a higher angle implying that the viewer has a sense of power.
• It is amazing how K&vL get so many of the elements right in this image. The higher angle implies a sense that the viewer has power over the detached and vulnerable participant. I feel that this is shot at a meduim distance, which implies that this image is a 'social' image. I don't know that I completely agree with that statement. Nothing about this image says social. The participant is nude, face down in the bathtub. This is obviously a personal moment, never intended to be the next social gathering. I don't know, maybe I just misunderstand this theory but I don't feel this image would have been as successful from a farther distance giving a 'stranger' association.

chapter 5:
Modality Strikes Again!

1. Color Saturation: This image has a rather low modality due to the small amount of color (although much of the image is blue, the other half of the image is still overly black)
2. Color Differentiation: Still has a low modality rating because there is a low diversity of color
3. Color Modulation: I'm not sure where the image would fall in this category. It's really blue? So, would that make it a medium modality?
4. Contextualization: The steam in the bathroom caused the lens to fog up in turn making the background start to disappear. Adding the fact that the background (and much of the foreground) is a white bathtub, this causes the image to have a lower modality.
5. Representation: There is a higher modality in this category because you can still tell that there is a figure in the foreground.
6. Depth: Again due to the lens fog, there is little modality because there is an absence of depth.
7. Illumination: I'm assuming that the lightest images get the highest modality, so this image gets a high modality mark because so much of the image is lit.
8. Brightness: There is a high variety of tones in the mid-tone and shadows of the image, but the highlight areas lack a sense of absolute detail, causing the modality to fall.

• After considering all the standards for modality, I believe this image would qualify as a lower modality image. I know that doesn't instantly categorize this as a bad picture, but somehow I still feel as though it is less of an image after all the criteria are considered.

Now, on to the new stuff!

chapter 6
Salient: the most eye-catching element (p 176)

• In my image, this would be the figure in the bottom center of the frame.

"Composition...relates the representational and interactive meanings of the image to each other through three interrelated systems": information value, salience, framing (p 177)

• There is little in this image to give information value, simply a shower curtain and the lines of the tub. Although there is little to look at, the strong lines create a sense of framing by directing the viewer's gaze through the picture starting at the salient, guiding the eye up and left to the curtain, the curvilinear lines direct the gaze downward to the line across the bottom half of the bathtub which then meets the hand to start the gaze cycle again.

I want to take a few minutes to discuss how different social groups approach design and page layout according to new and given. On page 183, Kress and van Leeuwen discuss how page layouts differ between different social groups. Below I have broken down two magazine spreads from publications with extremely different audiences and social groups. The first comes from a Spanish publication called Trash discussing art made from, you guessed it, trash. The second image is a special publication from Time magazine on the life of Ted Kennedy. Trash's audience is younger, and stylish or trendy. Time's audience is political (in the very traditional sense) and it's readers are usually more established conservative people. So let's look at the highlighted sections and the differences between the two.

#1 New: the right element in a polarized composition; also the new information being presented.

• I'm going to start with the bottom example first. Look at how simple and conservative this layout is. The new is plainly stated as text on the right hand side of the page. The headline "Ted" is the new information along with the body copy accompanying it.
• Image number 1, however, has an image as it's new component, but I feel it also has an ideal element as well with the top image.

#3 (sorry this is out of order, but I diagrammed the images first and afterward decided I needed to discuss new and given at the same time, so hang in there, I'll make sense of everything in the end) Given: the left element in a polarized composition; also the understood information.

• As similar to #1, the elements are reversed between the two examples: Trash has text as it's given whereas Time has an image of Ted's face as the given.

#2 Connection/Disconnection: the degree to which and element is visually joined to another element.

• The second spread is a good example of connection. The new and given elements are visually joined by having no white space between them as well as the image (not that you can tell because of my color coding, but trust me on this one) is monochromatic tying it to the black page on the right.
• The first image is a little confusing to me, but the vectors are really apparent. On this image, marked by the yellow elements, are a series of vector lines that divide the article into many different sections. These visual physical vectors make me believe this is a connection (going by the definition listed on page 210), but really they seem to create more of a disconnection by knifing up the page into many distinct sections combined with the vectors ending in arrows that lead the viewer off the page or onto the former/next one. Any comments?

Whew! This officially should win the award for world's longest post. I'm actually really excited about class tomorrow (seeing as I'm posting this late Wednesday night) and all the photography y'all have been taking. I gotta admit, I'm a little intimidated by all your photo skills...

reading images in chapter 2 and 3

The "Venus of Willendorf" pictured here at the right is one of the oldest examples of human form in art history. She is very mysterious because no one really knows what her purpose was. Was she the depiction of ideal beauty? Was she for fertility? Was she a god? Art historians have theorized for years, but there is truly no way of knowing. One thing is for sure, however, she is very organic. Every part of her is round. Even her face has been generalized down to a series of organic circles.

At some point the tables turned from very organic form to very linear forms. I think a good example of this is to look at the Cubist work of Picasso and Braque. They broke down forms into geometric planes. According to art historians Cubists were trying to show a form from multiple view points, but after reading this week's text, what was really being said? As Kress and van Leeuwen state, in contemporary western culture, "squares and rectangles are the elements of the mechanical, technological order, of the world of human construction." (p. 54) In the Cubist's work many times people become made of planes, rectangles, and sharp mechanical shapes as in the image at the left Braque's "Man with a Guitar". Using visual cues from the images, can we infer a sense of people becoming machines entering into the subconscious? Nothing about this image looks remotely organic or human. You have to pry away the layers to piece the human elements together.

It seems only natural to take visual representation to the next level by boiling people and images down to a series of vectors and basic shapes. It is the ultimate dehumanizing jump. Diagram people like a sentence. But even boiling humanity down to geometry, it gets confusing. Nature cannot easily be put into such man-made order as a box. Look at the example of trying to diagram El Lissitzky's Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge on page 60,

The triangle in El Lissitzky's Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge literally wedges itself into the white circle. This opens up a perhaps large, but by no means infinite, range of possible readings: the triangle can be said to 'pierce' or 'infiltrate' or 'destabilize' the circle.

If an image of a triangle and a circle cannot be easily diagrammed, then can we really expect to be able to categorize people? They are infinitely more complex than a painting.

Preface and Intro

This has to be one of the first textbooks I have found interesting, and if the book continues to live up to the potential started in the preface and introduction, then this is the start to a great relationship.

I feel like this text is finally putting all the thoughts I have been mulling over for the past couple years into reality. Gone are the days of propriety and here to stay are the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality. I am scared that our society is quickly moving toward something like the movie Idiocracy. Ulmer explains it best when he is discussing our assignment for the semester, and states that we will be, "leaning how to write in a society of the spectacle, in which the image and word have become inseparable." (xxxiii) As little as I feel I truly understand exactly what we are to accomplish this semester, I feel that any research or thought provoking idea must be presented in a new, fresh and exciting way to reach an audience (outside the academic world anyway, because much of the academic world still is stuck in propriety). Writing a convincing paper is not enough. The general population is not going to read it. For an idea to make any kind of a splash within this digital world, it has to be visually enticing and have something that draws the user to interact with your idea. If it's static, then the user quickly becomes bored and leaves to find something that can capture its attention.

Ulmer's idea of the EmerAgency is very interesting to me. As "an internet consultancy" (xxi) it is based solely on second hand information (the testimony, also known as our societies gift to literature) and am I correct in understanding it almost stands back to watch the world implode? I'm slightly confused, but I feel that it's job is just to try and make sense of humanity's digital accident waiting to happen.

hello world

hi!