contextual & theoretical studies
jeudi 31 mars 2011
Main texts for the essay (4)
Debord, G. (1967) Society of the Spectacle. Paris : Editions Buchet-Chastel
- how the society is surrounded by spectacles.
- how the society is surrounded by spectacles.
Debord, G. (1988) Comments on the Society of the Spectacle. Paris : Editions Gérard Lébovici
- comments on the Society of the Spectacle by the author himself. He analyses and comments the evolution of his idea, its truth and its meaning nowadays.
- comments on the Society of the Spectacle by the author himself. He analyses and comments the evolution of his idea, its truth and its meaning nowadays.
Garoian, C. R. and Gaudelius, Y. M. (2008) Spectacle Pedagogy. Albany : State University of New York Press
- analyses of people's reactions to the spectacles in the society.
- analyses of people's reactions to the spectacles in the society.
Bignell, J. (1997) Media Semiotics. Manchester : Manchester University Press
- ways spectacles are mediated.
- ways spectacles are mediated.
Jamieson, H. (2007) Visual Communication : More than Meets the Eye. Bristol : Intellect Books
- the omnipresence of visual spectacles in our environments.
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- the omnipresence of visual spectacles in our environments.
Constructing The Other (7)
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‘PLAYBOY’
‘ENTERTAINMENT FOR MEN’
‘THE PROVOCATIVE ART OF BODY PAINTING’
MARCH 1968
‘PLAYBOY’ is an American men’s magazine famous for its sexy women’s pictures on the front cover. This edition of March 1968 resumes perfectly the magazine’s principle: a naked woman seductively stares at the reader, inviting him to literally play with her (in this example, the game is explicit). Her hairdressing is fashionable to the time; her provocative glance is highlighted by wide-opened and made-up eyes. Smiling, she is biting a brush showing an unfinished painting game on her back skin. Her gestures and attitude is purely provocative, therefore attractive.
Each single elements of this front cover are linked together: the title ‘ENTERTAINMENT FOR MEN’ perfectly matches with the visual, the headline ‘THE PROVOCATIVE ART OF BODY PAINTING’ describes it and bring the topic of this Playboy’s edition.
Playboy’s magazines are definitely read by men. Everything presented on this one proves it, especially to put a naked woman to make the readership reading. It is interesting to compare the 1968 edition and the 2007 edition, that is to say almost 40 years after : a naked woman too, having the same position and the seductive attitude. So men are still exactly attracted by the same things, as 40 years before and will certainly be the same during more than 40 years after now.
mardi 29 mars 2011
Social Space (5)
Critical Reading about Mary Morris Accomodation
I do not know a lot about social spaces in Leeds, so I will analyse a place I do know well : the international accommodation called Mary Morris, situated in Headingley. The place is built to house more than 200 international students, offering quality places for very affordable prices due to its non-profit status. The location is of interest to every student at Leeds Met, the neighbourhood pleasant and the living conditions quite comfortable. The idea of offering flats to share with people from hundreds of different cultures, having more or less the same age and being in the same situation of discovering a new country together is a brilliant one. With competitive prices, a building, which has been recently renovated and is by and large appreciated by students, makes the residence a very good place to live.
The unexpected problem is that the accommodation will close in a few years, due to money problems. In fact, the accommodation is now only almost half-full and struggles to find new tenants.
Several obvious explanations can be found for this. Firstly, the organisation does not advertise itself enough. Leeds is a city full of students, and consequently full of student accommodation. Finding a place to stay is easy so people do not search further. The other major reason which might explain it, and even more so in the future, is the price of tuition fees. If England becomes one of the most expensive places in which study, the number of international students will seriously decrease. Moreover, international students from outside Europe have sometimes to pay three times more than British students, which makes the situation even more difficult. The lack of students in the halls of residence will make it too empty to ‘survive’; the only solution will be to close.
As seen in Lefebvre’s trial, the representation of this Space was well-organised and appropriate to the needs of its users. The location, the buildings and the planning of the interior are very practical, suitable for student and community life. Its representational space, from the original concept of welcoming international students and the ideal of making these cultures live together is an inspirational idea. The practice used to work very well, but in the current recession, compounded by the lack of advertising, both of which are financial issues, have led to the downfall of this project.
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lundi 21 mars 2011
Sustainability (6)
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Based on : Erin Balser, Capital Accumulation, Sustainability and Hamilton, Ontario : How Technology and Capitalism can Misappropriate the Idea of Sustainability.
Known as « one response to the environmental crisis » (p.1), the term ‘sustainability’ is also defined as “inter- and intra- generational equity in the social, environmental, economic, moral and political spheres of society.”(p.1) Sustainability is an idea to describe the fact that we have to live in a way which provides our own needs but which can also provide the needs of future generations. The original concept aims to convey the idea that we have to organize this and to work on it together, in groups, but the statement shows that it has nowadays “largely fallen to the individual” (p.1).
Capitalism is the idea of producing goods in order to get money: not only an amount of money sufficient to pay back the costs of production, but big enough to add a surplus value and bring profit. Its main characteristic is that “capitalism is constantly expanding”, always “looking for new things to commodify.” (p.1) Erin Balser assumes that “Capitalism is not a simplistic linear system which subsumes singular items” (p.1) but it takes everything to commodify from the world around and consequently has a big impact on it. Capitalism is a “diverse web that is continuously expanding and trapping things.”(p.1) Its system does not work as a simple and logical development: it grows and evolves by crisis.
“In ‘Empire’, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri declare that ‘crisis indicate[s] a passage, which is the turning point in every systematic cycle of accumulation, from a first phase of material expansion (investment in production) to a second phase of financial expansion (including speculation)’ (238)” (p.1). The authors distinguish the ‘realization’ part and the ‘capitalization’ one. A good current example could be the Fairtrade market. Producing products in a ‘fair’ way is not a new concept: it has existed for ages in certain parts of the market. But when the second phase of capitalism’s crisis came, people decided to capitalize on it. Consumers were ready to spend more for fair causes, so Fairtrade products became a consumption tendency. This really happened in several stages because buying Fairtrade is a new idea for an old process of production, highlighted by current consumption.
To answer the sustainability question, Bio-Diesel is an example of an offered solution. Producing fuel by using vegetable and animal fat shows the possibility of providing today’s consumers’ needs in a clean way. The problem with Bio-Diesel is the actual cleanness of its process : deterioration of the social environment for the inhabitants of the Bio-Diesel’s production area, and its lack of use among consumers due to its expense. The two groups of people affected by these factors represent the poor communities, who are being further disadvantaged by those who capitalize on this ‘clean’ product.
Sustainability seems to have been created by capitalists, who saw in this concept a new thing to commodify. From their viewpoint, sustainability is perfectly compatible with capitalism because it represents a generator of profit. It is not the case anymore if we enlarge the concept to include social issues which seem to be the opposite to and incompatible with capitalism.
Semiotic analysis (3)
The Sun front cover was published on 4 May 1982, as a reaction to the Argentinean cruiser, “General Belgrano”, destructed by a British submarine during the Falklands war. This publication had notorious effects, due to the audacity of its headlines : the main word, in huge eye-catching letters is « GOTCHA ». The expression denotes a familiar repartee used to express the British status as victors. Its mocking connotation contrasts with the seriousness of the situation. 323 Argentinean soldiers died when the boat sunk in this period of the war, and The Sun used a gaming expression to mean: they deserved it.
Pictures on the front page show the two sunk and crippled Argentinean boats; as photographs they seem neutral. But the captions prove the subjective approach of the newspaper : «An Argie petrol boat like this one was sunk by missiles from Royal Navy helicopters after first opening fire on our lads (an emotive word expressing affection, comradeship or familiarity). » and « The Argie cruiser General Belgrano… put out of action by Tigerfish torpedoes from our super nuclear sub Conqueror ». The front cover is full of linguistic codes, aiming to clearly proclaim British patriotism victorious over the Argentinean Forces. The use of « Argie » as « Argentinean » adopts a well-known way of referring to the enemy in time of war : choosing a mocking abbreviation « to reinforce a patriotic feeling of national superiority » (Leggett, 2005, l. 18).
The first sentence is a good example of the British ideology about this situation and of the cultural prejudices they had towards the Argentinean people : “The NAVY had the Argies on their knees last night after a devastating double punch.” It ideally explains their perfect victorious face to the Argie enemy, the end of a brave battle by a well-done final shot.
Every element is obviously included to make the reader feel proud of what happened, proud to be the victor and British. This newspaper, one of the most famous in the country, was one of the most widely read British newspapers. The use of “our lads”, “our super nuclear sub Conqueror”, “Gotcha”, all these terms refer to the whole one nation united behind one big cause. The popular readership shares the pride; they are members of the winning team.
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Popular music (2)
Theodor W. Adorno
Studies in Philosophy and Social Science (1941)
In Studies in Philosophy and Social Science (1941) Theodor W. Adorno analyses popular music and its impact on our society. He speaks out against this kind of music, claiming it does not bring anything new to the listeners and, even worse, has a bad impact on them. He uses specific examples for his argument, focusing very precisely on musical history, knowledge and details. For him, nothing compares to classical music. Contrary to this, popular music promotes standardization: it always uses the same principles. Creativity disappears, people remain in a mass culture where music is “pre-given, pre-accepted, pre-digested” (page 73).
According to the author, listeners of popular music cannot be different from each other. They think they are independent by choosing their own music but this music comes from the same source, the same basis. They are getting used to this standard and are not able to perceive the subtlety of complicated music anymore. They want an escape from their daily life by listening to music, but the music they listen to is based on the same cultural standards as their everyday life.
For Adorno, people want to obey, and they express this need by accepting popular music and finding an interest in it. Music has lost its autonomy, is not anymore a specific language which can be appreciated as such; it only belongs to a mass popular culture.
According to Adorno, productors of popular music are using different ways to make people appreciate it. The songs, melodies and other technical aspects of a music are diffused and repeated to the listeners, forcing them to finally like it and to consider it as the standard taste: “the plugging is the inevitable complement of standardization.” (part II, paragraph 1). Glamour is also an essential tool to attract the listeners. But glamour’s criteria are always the same, so people still appreciate similar kinds of music.
Popular music uses different human abilities to become accepted : habituation (when the listeners like something because they have heard it a lot) and recognition (because of their frequent exposure to a particular kind of music) and because these songs share the same values (the listeners can identify and appreciate these similarities).
Comments on the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyBq21FtL1s
Written by Kristian Lundin, Savan Kotecha, Julian Bunetta and RedOne in 2010, this song is sung by Alexandra Burkle who won X-Factor in 2008.
In my opinion, this music video completely epitomizes Adorno’s sentiments concerning popular music. This song consists partly of a global dancehall style mixed with some reggae, lyrics talking about girls and boys. I consider this music video to be a perfect example of what popular music is. Musically, we can easily recognize in this song the popular style made by musical instruments, rhythms and the melody itself. We listeners have the feeling of having heard something similar before; this is precisely why we quite like it. The power of repetition familiarises us with the style and make us easier to convince. The refrain’s melody remains attractive exactly because it belongs to a global style : popular music. People recognize it.
Visually, the music video uses a number of popular codes : glamour, vitality, dance, sensuality, almost-nude bodies, sparkles and make up. Everything is there to make the mass audience appreciate it, and it works perfectly.
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