Sal Hamid

Sal's Response to excerpt from "Mythologies" by Roland Barthes

This reading was a little confusing at first, but after I reread it a couple of times it made more sense. When Barthes was talking about "tree as expressed by Minou Drouet", that got me to thinking of the Mythology of a Christmas Tree. To someone who is unfamiliar with Western Euorpean and American cultures or Christianity, a Christmas Tree would not have the same mythology as it does to one who is familiar with those cultures. When the author said "Mythical speech is made of a material which has already been worked on so as to make it suitable for communication", it made a lot of sense. If somebody talks about Cupid's Arrow on Valentines day, that "Mythical Speech" is made of material that has been worked on for millenia.
I was also a little confused by "Myth as a semiological system" at first, but from my understanding, it deals with the signifier, and the signified.
The signifier is an object, an image, etc and the signified is the meaning that is given to it.
The third part of the semiological system from my understanding is called "the sign" which is just the relationship between the signifier and the signified.
The fourth part seems to be "motivation" which is usually in the form of an analogy from my understanding.
I didn't not understand everything I read, but hopefully the class discussion Tuesday afternoon can shed some light on the reading.

f r o m Mythologies by Roland Barthes,translated by Annette Lavers, Hill and Wang, New York, 1984
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~marton/myth.html

Posted by FMA Web at 10:38 PM 1 comments

Collaborative Remixability

The new age of cultural and technological convergence is a major topic covered in Lev Manovich's "Remixing and Remixability" article. His metaphor of a train shuttling information back and forth between stations (sender and receiver) to describe the old vs. new system of communication rings very true to me. As the lines between the various modes of distribution blur, communication and access to entertainment speed up rapidly. It also seems harder to justify what is work, and what is entertainment. Advertising firms often hire 'cultural consultants' whose job it is to know everything that is popular in various social scenes and demographics. They basically watch TV, surf the net, and read constantly to know what is trendy in the world. Marketing and promotion is set on finding the best way to please the consumer, and as Web 2.0 develops and quickens the spread of information, more people feed into the frenzy.
I remember hearing about companies buying advertising space on billboards within the world of Second Life to promote their products, or renting office space for board members to gather and have virtual conferences. Google has also created a beta version of software enabling multiple people, in different locations, to make alterations to virtual documents in real time. This is a prime exampe of 'collaborative remixability'. Individuals can sit at their computer in different parts of the world and work on a team project. This may be a useful tool in a business setting, but the same principles apply to the volumes of information being created by individuals who blog and post material on-line.
Lev Manovich discusses authenticity, and whether 'remixability' will take away the cultural significance of certain works. This a real problem that we face today. A university in New England was sued for photoshopping an African-American student into a sea of white faces at a football game to increase the diversity in their school's brochure. He did not in fact attend the game and felt that his rights were abused when they placed him in a location that he never visited for the sake of advertising. This example may not deal with art and creative works that must be maintained for posterity, but it does wrestle with the idea that manipulation can deceive. However, I believe that 'collaborative remixability' will usher in more creative thinking and motivate people who would not normally be moved to create, to utilize a different part of their brain and contribute more to society. It will also bring less legitamacy to certain works because they can fall into negative brackets (i.e. A filmmaker might have videos on YouTube, but is someone who posts content on YouTube a filmmaker?).

~Alex Favin

FMA Web Art & Design

Description
This class explores current developments in designing and implementing projects for the web. The student will work to cultivate an individual process that involves critical reflection, developing a personal voice and facility in using the networked digital tools, concepts and systems of contemporary media culture. How are interactive processes, networked producers and audiences, and the tools of Web 2.0 affecting the way media is produced, received and valued? How are digital and telecommunications media reshaping our concept and experience of space, our relationship to others?

Readings and Blogs
Two students each week will be responsible for blogging a response to the reading on FMA Web Art & Design. If it is your week to blog, you are expected to prepare a thoughtful, thorough response to the readings and post it on the blog Monday night by midnight. Your blog response should strive to connect to the esthetic, critical, and/or cultural issues being discussed in class. In addition, your blog response should make all appropriate connections, including connecting the reading to artworks/websites viewed in class, theories or technical issues that are being introduced, etc. You can upload images and links to the blog, being careful to respect copyright issues and to credit your sources.

→All other students in the class will then be expected to comment on the posted blog response each week.