Sunday, May 3, 2009

"Postmoderism"

The term postmodernism refers to a very complex ideological movement that concerns the entire cognitive field, from music to architecture, from movies to philosophy, from technology to sociology. As an academic subject or object of study its origin can be dated to the middle 1980 s, but as a historical process it is much more difficult to date. postmoderism has made movements that constituted modernism. The term has become ubiquitous in contemporary discourse and has been employed as a catchall for various aspects of society, theory, and art. Widely debated with regard to its meaning and implications, postmodernism has also been said to relate to the culture of capitalism as it has developed since the 1960s. In general, the postmodern view is cool, ironic, and accepting of the fragmentation of contemporary existence. It tends to concentrate on surfaces rather than depths, to blur the distinctions between high and low culture, and as a whole to challenge a wide variety of traditional cultural values. Postmodernism was originally a reaction to modernism. Largely influenced by the Western European "disillusionment" induced by world war 2 postmodernism tends to refer to a cultural, intellectual, or artistic state lacking a clear central hierarchy or organizing principle and embodying extreme complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, diversity, interconnectedness or interreferentiality in a way that is often indistinguishable from a pardoty of itself. It has given rise to charges of fraudulencePostmodernism was originally a reaction to modernism Largely influenced by the Western European "disillusionment" induced by world war 2, postmodernism tends to refer to a cultural, intellectual, or artistic state lacking a clear central hierarchy or organizing principle and embodying extreme complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, diversity, interconnectedness or interreferentiality in a way that is often indistinguishable from a pardoty of itself. It has given rise to charges of fraudulence.

Postmodernism literally means after the modernist movement. While modern itself refers to something "related to the present", the movement of modernism and the following reaction of postmodernism are defined by a set of perspectives. It is used in critical theory to refer to a point of departure for works of literature,drama,architure,cinema and design, as well as in marketing and business and the interpretation of hisory , law and culture in the late 20th century.

Simulacrum is a pen and paper roleplaying game. Players create imaginary characters, record various information about their history and abilities, and imagine what that character would do in a variety of situations, linked together with a plot and story, like a book or movie. The object of the game is not to win, but just to have fun -- by telling a story, exploring the mind of another person, enjoying the company of others, by taking part in the creation of another world, and by seeing your character, something you created, evolve and change over time. my example of this reminds me of when i was a little girl i usted to make believe i was in a different world with vampire that lust for your blood me and my cousin would make a cave out of the boshies that were in the back yard and we would have diffent name and abilites that would win against the vampire i was a queen that had the abilitiy to kill you within two to five feet by blowing a poision kiss i also had the ability to throw you with wind that i have created its another world you created and till this day we still think about those funny games we usted to play.

Reflexivity is an act of self-reference where examination or action 'bends back on', refers to, and affects the entity instigating the action or examination. In brief, reflexivity refers to circular relationships between cause and effect. A reflexive relationship is bidirectional; with both the cause and the effect affecting one another in a situation that renders both functions causes and effects. Reflexivity is related to the concept of feedback and positive feedback in particular.
An example is the interaction between beliefs and observations in a marketplace: if traders believe that prices will fall, they will sell - thus driving down prices, whereas if they believe prices will rise, they will buy - thereby driving prices up.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Commodity Culture And Commodity Fetishism

Commodity Culture And Commodity Fetishism


The United States is considered a commodity culture that is a culture in which commodites are central to cultureal meaning , if you dont know commodities are defined as things that are bought and sold in a social system of exchange. commodity also shows are world who we are the clothing we wear the music and cosmetics we use and the cars we drive. advetisments for example encourage consumers to think of commodities as central means throught which to convey as a stated in my last blog buy telling ese if you buy these products. many people who do these things are coke , puma and adidas brands , they use tactics such as sells a kind of pseudoinindividuality , which is defined as a feacture of the product of the culture industry, in which a false sense of you indiduality is sold simultaneously to many people. this changes are giving meaning and values its crucial to an understanding of consumer cultures.


marxist uses a good theory on capitalism functions its a system of valuses that most of our societies are so familiar with athat we rearly examine its underlying assumption, thats were commodites have both are values which refers to their particular use in a paricular sociey and exchange valuse. in chish refers to an exchange. its unbelieveable on that amount of things today that arent mad in the united states i work at a retal sotre jcpennys and everything is made in china these days, reare amount of things are made in the united states so that tells me that are united states is laxy they also would rether pay china to make are products in which we are to deal with several different disease form the podructs they use such as lead posison we get this form the cups and plates the paint they use is different from ares. thats why every year children and adults dye form this because its not caught fast enough. what also tells me about the united states is the labor wokr they would rather pay 10 cents an hour than paying are employees in united states 7.25 an hour the people in china dont need that much money like we do because things are cheaper their than hear. for example a gallion of milk can run 3 to 5 dollars depending on where you go thats crazy for milk.

many advertisers use things that are in style or the major population like to sell too such as the nike ad for 2007 the women are in a gym and they are considered looking like hell. they tell women wear nike and dont look like hell as if those who dont wear nike look like hell nike is adept at selling empowerment , (here , permission to " look like hell" at the gym while they retaining codes of gaxe and apperarnce mangagement. whats funny about this advertimsnet is thye dont look like hell/ what there seling is empoverment , independence and action. these girls dont look like there in you average gym they look as if there dance like of the move step up where its street dance. they give that impression that if you where nike you could dance and look tight and fit like these girls sorry but that would never happen advetisments win buy people buying whats on the cover not the product but the person on that cover or there point they try and to convey. the world today is turning into a big commodity culture everyone buys to make them self look better than the next person life should not be what you look like or display it should be what makes you different inside from everyone else. soo dont let advertisments buy you cause thats what they are trying to do , buy what you need and what fills your self aculization maslows theory of self fullfillment dosent say buying prodcuts would make you happy its love and belonging well i guess beloinging is where you think you have to buy that to be involved if people dont except you for who you are there not you friend. be smart not dum

-heidi rodriguez

Friday, April 3, 2009

Advertising, Consumer Culture, and Desire.

Advertising, Consumer Culture, and Desire.

The world revolves around advertisment starting with television, news papers , magazines , movie thearter and also on billaboards the list goes on, everything that starts with making money want to get noticed so they can widely produce but is that what the world is turning to all baout products, fancy cars and clothing. also advetisments do a good job by lying to its consumers by telling them there products would make them look the best or make them look like the person that is displaying their product or as popular if they yous that product. Advertisments are making an abstarct world, often a fantastic one that is situated not in the present but an imagined future of what can happen if they yous their product. they also make the prodmise of a better self image , a better apperarance more prestige and fulfillment, also many advertisments have tactics they use to interpreat there message to there consumers marketers also sometime us the techniques of gurilla marketing and viral markeing by which they tap inso social networks in which consumers communicate.

consumers went out of there way to develop rise of modernity and the historical emergence of capitalism as an economic force throughout the world capialism as a system depends on the production and consuption of large amounts of goods, well beyound whats necessary. so this tells me that the world is not buying what is necessary needs their buying to fill their happiness. Thats where individual choice is sometimes propesed in the langueage of advertisment as an enormously imporatant thing crucial to a persons happiness and to the functioning of a socety in a consumers socity, the indivdual is confronted with and surrounded by a vast assortment of goods. the characristic of these good change s time goes by constatly. many things change as we know it form kids have you ever had a favorite creal growing up and later in life you think about that and go shopping and relaise its not the same box so you wounder if thats it, you then begin to tast the cereal and it dosent tast the same form advertisment changing always trying to make it better they change the consumers view on that item and they loss business with that brand.


when consumers and advertisments change they look at it as if there making a ridse in sumerism thay are but in between ther changing the wold. there is a constisting change or renewing or old products in which change in price due to the change of making it better so we pay for them thinking and not leaving the same as is. This is in which makes the world poorer and poorer. the richer get richer and poorer get poorer. that saying is very tru do to all of these different change it never effects the rich but diffently the poor. the irse of onlince commerce sine the 1990"s had dramticall reconfigured this relationship of consumerism to space. intially, unlike buying from the store you would notice its cheaper because online consumerism promised to eliminate the necessity of bearing overhead costs of a physical retail space ( a store, a mall) for the sale of goods to conumers (while at the same time adding significant amounts for shipping to Consumers.

many products meaning change overtime too along with price such as coca- cola back in the 1890's it was used for headaches and exhaustion today children and adults drink it as if is was water the sugar contents and acids inside coca-cola make the body blod out this creates many health problems along with weight problems majority of united states is over weight due to them not knowing what there eating ro drinking there was an old saying whatyou put in your mouth is what you are. when you put tones of sugar you body will be large and it will be hard for you to do things you used to do. this can also create heart and high chlorestrail problems. so when watching an advertisment for something think about how long you want to live it helps for things that arnt good for you.


- hedy rodriguez

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Realism and perspective pgs 141-173

Realism and Perspective

realism is an improtant aspect of our sense of ethics as citizens in a world in which images proliferate as forms of communication and expression. when you look at art you and me as humans beings now whats real and whats not, but what we dont know is in abstract images and art movements have in many cases incorporated some elements of realism(emphasixing the materiality of point)for example while explicity rejecting other elements stroungly associted with realism perspective for example decribge them as trickery or illusionism so realism and abstract is not clear yet to know whats real at first when we view.

A example of realism in visual arts field is that the realist image depicts something as it would be seen by your eye. we always didnt look at art like a painting or scuptor. art never had a meaning before it was dont for example early christian art was used as away of communication or expression as time goes bye many poeple start to look at christan art as a manuscript as a function of expression of religious meanings. in many country art starting to become real like realism in 200 bce china chii dynasty was beared with his army each solider made of clay, and very different each solider different there was 7,500 soliders life size they were beared with him as a sign of protection to their emporer. art torned from something little or no meaning to something many different cultures use differently.

visual codes and historical meaning

As time goes by visual codes and historical maning change and we tend to look at images from the past differently. a viewer may make assumptions about the date of an images based not only on its content bu also on its style, medium and formal qualities. many things were used then that are used today that tells us how old a piece of art or photo real age is for example a photograph of julia margaret cameron, phmana portrailt of alice liddell,1872 inside this photo its tone is a sofe brown not used today in photos also now as sophia toning a process using a chemical secreated from cuttlefish, this made the print more resisiant to the process of decompostion over time, this toning would last longer than the black and white look. this type of chemical make the photo look atleast 50 years old maybe older, so when we look at a photo we can really tell whats real and how old somthing is by looking at it.

Pre Raphaelites and the neoclassiccities revided and reproduced an earlier set of approaches to the representation of human form, and in so doing drew on older forms and meaning to make new meaning in there comtemperary text. the term realism refers to a set of conventions or a style of art or representation that is understood at a given historical moment to accurately represent nature or the real or to convey or interpret accurate or unversal meanings about people, objects and events in the world. the goal to realist are is to represent what is seen infron of you for you to reproduce that. but in realism there is no universal standard and ideas about what constitues realism can also vary dramatically.

The perpective of the body and space in between shows how intestinly challenging it is for geometric perpective this is the length and space between eyes and hands have they have to be on point so for an artist to do this it can be very tricky to reproduce that realism they way that it is show that is why realism can be seen in so many different ways. also another thing you need to keep into consideration is when you are trying to put of whats in front of you like reproducing realism as you glance to turn you will notice inside your art you caught what your eye glances at you its very important to have nothing around while trying to produce the realism of something that way your eyes and brain only concetrartes on that pieace not several other things around. so do you think reproducing realism is trick or do you find puting it on paper easy? try and see what happen when you have things around you notice you work look deap inside it and notice shapes and colors of thing around you will contrast in your art.


-hedy rodriguez

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The Gaze And The Others

The Gaza and the others


many advertisment use art inside their advertisments, also many of there arts are from the colonial era. Advertisments use naked women or half dressed women to sell their products such as the guess advertisment which was publised in the 1990's. This advertisment is for guess jeans and they use women who are revealed as workers in asia working in the rice paddies fields. these women are not even wearing jeans they are wearing bathing suits suits with high stokings and boots. guess jeans use these women to show that sexy women wear them but in the advertisment thier not. advertisments have been trying to give exotic experiences to their viewers that you can be whats in there advertisment. when you can not every indiviual is different.

many advertisments make there audience gaza at its viewers this makes us as vieawers direct it straight to us. An example of this is an advertisment by keri lotion the remake of ingres la grande odalisque 2006. this advertisment is a copy byjean auguste dominique, ingres la grand odalisque 1814. inside the oringinal photo is was a photo of napolean bonapartas sister the queen of naples. this photo was represented in every french salon after its completion. this painting gained a critical reception after its completion.this painting gained a critical reception , because the queen lost her empire before the painting was finished and had a forgo ownershipof the work. this photo became very poplular because it complete many sexuak pleasures so, ingres new version of the art is used to comple sexual pleasure showing women today that they can be sexy and smoth if they use this lotion they can be the girl on display. keri lotion brings forth the mens attention too because all the men in the world would want there girlfriends or wife to be that smothe and slim. not all but majoritywhat women dont know about the adveritments are that the producers of these products want to draw you attention so they bring out that image to get your attention so you as a viwer would buy their products. in the oringinal photo published in 1814 so the way the actual women should look in real life not the one displayed in 2006.

over the many years many women got upset at the fact that women needed to be naked to get in the photos. so a group of female artist activist decided to make fun of man they put the naked womens body displayed from keri lotion with the face of a gorilla writing in bug letters do women have to be naked to get into the met. meseum? stating the less than 3% of the artist in the modern art sections are women, but 83% of the nudes are female. these women reahced out and made there point out across the world why are the all of them naked it makes no sensen were artist obsessed with the nudeness of a womens body around that time.

gender and gaze has also been a crucial concept of gaze. in the hisory of art the fact that paintings were for the most part geared towards male vieawers. griselda pollock has noted in her work on modernity and the spaces of femininity, had as much to do iwth the commerce of art as it did with the social roles and sexual sterotypeof men and women. inside many painting and adverisment the gaza of looking at self along with looking directly at viewers are mulveys theory, the camera or painter is used as a tool of voyurism and sadism, disempowering those before it look. male gaza is never seen so many thorist are starting to examine the male gaza.

Friday, March 6, 2009

modernity

modernity



modernity is a term that schlors use to refer to the hisorical, cultural ,political, and economical conditions related to the enlightenment (An eighteenth- century philosophical movement) the rise of industrial society and scientific rationalism and the idea of controlling nature through technology,science and rationalism. modernization was part of instituting a capitalist economy and a liberal democacy in the united states , for the soviet union modernization in the form of industrialization and technolological advancementwas tied to a communist echos of eqaul benefit and living conditions for all citizens.

modern means many different meaning in culture and in years we use the term modern in an everyday sense to mean present or recent times or to refer to contemporary views and fashions. when it comes to art and culture germain scholar jurgen habermas explains that the concept of the modern jas been used over and overagain by societies since along time ago as late as the fifth century. modernity reached its highest during the nineteenth century and early tweentieth century with the increasing movement of poplulation from rural areas into cities.

also,many of the experiences of modernity increased urbanization, industrialism,along with technological change was linked tremendously to industrial capitalism that was supported by the ideological faith in the changes as being integral to the progress it has made. many cities are rated as different types of modern as for example new york ,chicago and paris are considered quintessentially modern, defined by architecture that capiture the echos of modernity by the usings of high tech materials such as metal and glass.



many modern ideals of the early twentieth century that master nature are made of iron,steel,glass and machine-like stuctures. one example that i think is amazing that was never built only a painting of it that you can see is made by vladimir tatlins monument to the third imternational, the modeling of this sculptor is amazing its 1,312 feet high the stucture itself consisted of a metal spirals frame at an angel thats amazings the shape of the sculptor is a cone and cube type figure. Tatlin the artist of this sculptor wanted to create the technologies the soviet unoin wanted to create in there time of transitions from scultors to arttist to poets,novels and film the world an street of many cities where becoming the age of life , with everything changing and the streets becoming busyier than ever this changed life for many individuals the new era opened up jobs the thousands of worker giving them a chance to make something of themselfs along with making money along with a career to follow around that.



spectatorship



The term spectatorship (indivdual who looks) and the spectatorship ( the practices of looking)

have added meaning that deprive specifically from film theory. not only do the spectator gaze that is contributed theough relationship between the subjects.the concept of gaze and spectatorship remain importantconrnerstones of visual studies because they prove a set of terms and methods to which is considered a aspect of looking or the viewer allowing us to consider in depth. The terms and mehtods are 1) the roles of the unconscious and desire in viewing practices. 2)the role of looking in the formation of the human subject as such. 3) the ways the looking is always a relational activity and not simply a mental activity engaged in by someone who forms internal mental representations that stand for passive image object"out there"

Disurse and power in modernity

In modernity, the gaze is constitued through a relationship of subjects defined within and through the discourse of institutions. the modern state and political systems that are dependent on bureaucracise and social instituions to function are important aspect of modernity. facaults concept of discourse is helpful to understanding how power systems work to define how things are under stood and spoken about. one of focaults topics of study for discourse was the concept of madness and the modern instuyionalzation of the idea of insanity.focalts has study many unhealthy things that human beings show that changed the world into its modern state.


-Hedy Rodriguez

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Idelological subjects pgs 69 to 89

Reading images as idelogical subjects,





Taste can often be seen as ideology, socieites functions by looking at idelology as its natural system of their values an beliefs of that picture or image, when viewing are own ideologys its hard when looking at others it comes to us as common sense.

ideology is seen today in karl marxs theory, his theory states "that ananlyzes both the role of economics in the porgress of history and the ways that capitalism works in terms of class realtions" in other words for us to understand marxs term- the dominant social classes that own or control the newspaper,television, film and communication industries are able to control the content generated by these media forms. There are two significant alterantions to marxist theory 1 st was louis althusser statement of what it is - ideology represents the imaginary relationship of indivduals to their real conditions of existence.



In are world without ideology we would have no means of thinking about or expericencing that thing we call reality. ideoloty is necessary for our means or reality to understnd what around us. ideology speaks to us as readers and brings us to authors so we can understand the subjects that addressed to us. Its very important for us as human beings to think of the term ideology as plural . An italian marxist, Antonio gramsci, introduced the concept of hegemony in place of the concept of domination in order to help us to think about this kind of resistance.



The term hegemony emphasizes that power is not wielded by one class over another rather, power is negotiated among all classes of people. hegemonyis the push a pull method that push and pulls its way through all levels of society, not one single class "has" hegemony, rather, hegemony is a state or conditions of a culture arrived at through negotiations over meaning, laws and social relationships.



All images are encoded with meaning that is decoding by viewers. There are three methods of encoding and decoding .



#1 dominant - hegemonic reading

#2 negatiated reading

#3 oppostional reading



negotiation invokes the process of trade. today we think of it as a kind of bargaining over meaning that takes place among viewer, image and context. we use the term negotiation in a metaphorical sense to say that we often" haggle" with the dominant meaning of an image when we interpret it.

All of these different modes of engagment that i have listed are with popular culture introduced by stuart hall ( Dominant-hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional.)




many images and pictures reapresent many meaning of our culture today for example on page 88 the advertisment ( juicy couture) uses idelolgy to draw out attention to the ways ideology draws us into consumption. the fact of this message in the advertisment shows us how juicy you can really be with the large consumption of alchol and diamonds and being famous, this message and images shows the world how different are age is from the ages of barthes. starting from are age era to the 1990's viewers who make meaning does not only through describing an experience with the image but also through reordering, redisplaying, and reusing images in new and differently meaningful ways in the reordering of everyday life.