Semiotics: the study of signs

size body, visual culture

visual culture encourages body hatred, it's time to respond to that in a visual medium.

Westinghouse advertisement by Paul Rand

Composed by Danielle de la Mont

The Tell-Tale Heart (Part 2)

Victor Burgin

Victor Burgin: Fiction Film (Portfolio of 9), 1991

Paul Rand Film

Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum, August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) was a well-known American graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs. Rand was educated at the Pratt Institute (1929-1932), the Parsons School of Design (1932-1933), and the Art Students League (1933-1934). He was one of the originators of the Swiss Style of graphic design. From 1956 to 1969, and beginning again in 1974, Rand taught design at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Rand was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972. He designed many posters and corporate identities, including the logos for IBM, UPS and ABC. Rand died of cancer in 1996.

For Paul Rand's posthumous induction into The One Club's Hall of Fame for 2007, we created a short film, combining original animation with a videotaped interview of Rand himself, that encapsulated his unique and timeless contribution to the design community.

                               

                                 

Talking about postmodernism

So what do we  mean when we are actually talking about postmodernism, well im about to explain to you in many different ways and forms on this blog.
Postmodernism is defined as the ‘Cultural and intellectual phenomenon’, especially since the 1920′s when the new movements in the ‘arts’ took place, where postmodernity focuses on the social and political  outworks and innovations globally, this has happened mainly in the 1960′s mainly in the west.
So postmodernism or Pomo, literally means after the postmodernist movement  according to Wikipedia. postmodernism can be looked at through literature, art, music, films, technology and architecture.
A sociologist, Bauman in which il be looking at later claims that ‘postmodernism is simply a replacement of ‘classical’ modern capitalist society’ [Crook, Pakulski & Walters, 1992] this has led to much debate and criticism. those who reject this argues that postmodernism is a historical movement generating a new society away from modernism.

Postmodern art

Postmodern art is a term we use to explain the movement with art from modernism. It is argued that postmodern art is a huge contradiction to mordernism, the main term we use to do with postmodern art is bricolage, this is the visual arts and literature which can refer to the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things which happen to be available. Art work such as Pop Art is considered to be postmodern art with artists such as Andy Warhol, Claus Oldenburg and Roy lichenstein. The term Pop Art was created to describe paintings that celebrated consumerism.

Postmoderism

Films such as Star Wars is a postmodern set of films, firstly the films sequence is postmodern itself by starting with star wars 4, then when looking deeper within the films themselves it is suggested  that postmodernism is not stable,  that nothing is fixed and nothing has an absolute truth to it.

                                          

Postmodernism

postmodern world introduced such things as artificial intelligence and machine translation in which caused a shift of linguistic and a symbolic production as central elements on the new pre-industrial economy. Lyotard argued He wrote the Postmodern condition as a report on the influence of computer technology but had a rather limited knowledge of this subject himself.
Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward meta narratives. This incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress in the sciences: but that progress in turn presupposes it. To the obsolescence of the meta narrative apparatus of legitimation corresponds, most notably, the crisis of metaphysical philosophy and of the university institution which in the past relied on it. The narrative function is losing its functions, its great hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal. It is being dispersed in clouds of narrative language elements–narrative, but also denotative, prescriptive, descriptive, and so on [...] Where, after the meta narratives, can legitimacy reside? – Jean-Francois Lyotard  Lyotard quoted;

“

Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward meta narratives. This incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress in the sciences: but that progress in turn presupposes it. To the obsolescence of the meta narrative apparatus of legitimation corresponds, most notably, the crisis of metaphysical philosophy and of the university institution which in the past relied on it. The narrative function is losing its functions, its great hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal. It is being dispersed in clouds of narrative language elements–narrative, but also denotative, prescriptive, descriptive, and so on [...] Where, after the meta narratives, can legitimacy reside? – Jean-Francois Lyotard

Modernism

Modernism as a dictionary definition means “modern thought, character, or practice” and “sympathy with or conformity to modern ideas, practices, or standards”[1]. Post-modernism on the other hand refers to “of or relating to art, architecture, or literature that reacts against earlier modernist principles, as by reintroducing traditional or classical elements of style or by carrying modernist styles or practices to extremes”[2]. Modernism – post-modernism discussion has become one of the most controversial and important topics in social sciences and art in recent decades. In this assignment, I will try to put forward my own ideas about this discussion in the light of some important works including Marshall Berman’s “All That is Solid Melts Into Air”, Michel Foucault’s “What is Enlightenment ?”, Georg Simmel’s “Money in Modern Culture” and Jean François Lyotard’s “Defining the postmodern”.

SAUL BASS (1920-1996) was not only one of the great graphic designers of the mid-20th century but the undisputed master of film title design thanks to his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger and Martin Scorsese.

Biography
1920 Saul Bass is born in the Bronx district of New York
1936 Wins a scholarship to study at the Art Students' League in Manhattan
1938 Employed as an assistant in the art department of the New York office of Warner Bros
1944 Joins the Blaine Thompson Company, an advertising agency, and enrolls at Brooklyn College, where he is taught by the émigré Hungarian designer and design theorist Gyorgy Kepes
1946 Moves to Los Angeles to work as an art director at the advertising agency, Buchanan and Company
1952 Opens his own studio, named Saul Bass & Associates in 1955
1954 Designs his first title sequence for Otto Preminger’s Carmen Jones
1955 Creates titles for Robert Aldrich’s The Big Knife and Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch. The animated sequence he devises for Preminger’s The Man with a Golden Arm causes a sensation
1956 Elaine Makatura joins the studio as an assistant
1957 Devises titles for Michael Anderson’s Around The World in 80 Days and Preminger’s Bonjour Tristesse
1958 Forges a new collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock by designing the titles for Vertigo. Works with the architects Buff, Straub & Hensman on the design of his home, Case Study House #20 in Altadena
1959 Creates the title sequences for Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder
1960 First title commission for Stanley Kubrick, Spartacus, and the last for Hitchcock, Psycho
1962 Devises titles for Edward Dmytryk’s Walk on the Wild Side and directs his first short film, Apples and Oranges. Marries Elaine Makatura
1963 Stanley Kramer commissions Bass to create titles for It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
1966 Directs the racing sequences and devises the titles for John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix
1968 Wins an Oscar for the short film Why Man Creates and develops a corporate identity programme for the Bell System telephone company. Creates an installation for the Milan Triennale, which is cancelled after a student occupation
1973 Designs the corporate identity of United Airlines
1974 Directs his first feature film Phase IV
1980 Designs the poster for Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and devises the corporate identity of the Minolta camera company
1984 Creates a poster for the Los Angeles Olympic Games
1987 James L. Brooks persuades Bass to return to title design by creating the opening sequence of Broadcast News
1990 Begins a long collaboration with Martin Scorsese by creating the titles for GoodFellas
1991 Devises the titles for Scorsese’s Cape Fear and a poster for the 63rd Academy Awards. Bass designs the Academy Awards poster for the next five years.
1993 Creates the title sequence for Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence and a poster for Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List
1995 Designs titles for Scorsese’s Casino
1996 Saul Bass dies in Los Angeles of non-Hodgkins lymphoma

                                   

The Lorica Segmentata of the Centurial Standard bearer as signified by the bearskin drape

S E M I O B A M A

NoBody

semiotics

What do we need to know to make use of semiotics?

First, know what is a sign and its kinds. A sign is anything that makes meaning. Anything? Sure, if you see/hear something and understand that, it is a sign. They are the mediators to the world. According to Saussure, the signs have two aspects: signifier and signified. The first one is the material that has a meaning and the second one is the meaning. For example, the open sign is the signifier, while the signified is that you can go in.

The three kinds are:

• Icons – a clear representation of the object itself, keeping its characteristics. There’s no distinction between the icon and the real object. Examples are: photos, drawings, imitations, onomatopoeias and others.

• Index – They indicate something. The index connected with its meaning (not arbitrary) but unlike the icon, it’s not the object itself. As examples, we can say that smoke indicates fire, smiles indicate happiness, fresh coffee smell in the morning indicates that someone preparing breakfast. Even medical symptoms and measuring instruments are indexes, because they indicate something.

• Symbols – They have no resemblance to the real object, it’s  a result of a convention. A symbol can only make meaning if the person already knows that, so, this is a matter of culture and previous knowledge. We all know that a dove represents peace, but there’s no connection between the animal and peace, it’s just a convention. Letters and words are examples of symbols. The graph sign (words) has no direct link to the thing itself, but for each culture, they make meaning. For us, the mourning is represented by the color black, but this color changes for different countries and cultures.

Let’s analyze a common object, some cell phone “icons”:

Here we can see some real icons (representation of the object itself) like the calendar, the camera and the clock. Also, some indexes (signs that have a connection with the object, but it’s not its real representation) like the stocks, You Tube or mail. If they were real icons, there should be a photo of astock exchange, a thumbnail of a You Tube video and an electronic mail image. Finally, we see also asymbol, for Flash. There’s no visual connection from the Flash “icon” to the real meaning.

There’s no specific indication of what is that, but we know, because there’s a previous knowledge that Flash is an application for animations (ok, this image – flash – is not real, but useful for educational purposes). The designers who projected this screen were aware of the signs and its meanings, as we all shall be when designing anything. It is important because it’s the base for communication, which is the final purpose.

Semiotics in advertising

Thinking about these three kinds of signs, what do you think is the most used in advertising? Symbols.The symbol is the last step of comprehension, which brings on subjective ideas and concepts.Of course, the signs in general belong to these three categories, but each one has its predominance, so we are ignoring the less predominant kinds.

Emerging signifier

The lock has clearly moved from a metaphor to a symbol in and of itself.

Sing a Song

        

Sing a Song

 2006/05/06

Sing

Recently we went to a community sing in our home town. It was a first for both us. Neither of us can sing, but that was beside the point or points, for there were many. Our first purpose was to experience singing for the fun of it, as beginners testing the waters. The second was to engage in some group culture-making, our preferred avocations being heavy on the solitary side. And the third purpose was to immerse ourselves, however briefly, in an art form that has long been relinquished to the experts, to polished amateurs and professional singers alike. It was a take-back-singing kind of night, even if neither of us could hold a tune.

The feminism and visual culture reader

Feminism is one of the most important perspectives from which visual culture has been theorized and historicized over the past thirty years. The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader brings together a wide array of writings addressing art, film, architecture, popular culture, new media, and other visual fields from a feminist perspective, combining classic texts by leading feminist thinkers with polemical new pieces. Challenging the notion of feminism as a unified discourse, the reader explores how issues of race, class, nationality, and sexuality enter into debates about feminism in the field of the visual and includes work by feminist critics, artists, and activists. The reader ncludes six previously unpublished texts written specifically for this volume.

Amelia Jones' introduction to the reader races historical and theoretical developments in feminism and visual culture. Articles are grouped into thematic sections, addressing Representation; Difference; Disciplines/Strategies; Mass Culture/Media Interventions; Body; and Technology. Each section opens with an introduction by the editor.

The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader provides a framework within which to understand the shifts in feminist thinking in visual studies as well as an overview of major feminist theories of the visual.

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Modernism/Postmodernism

   Week 5 Readings: Modernism/PostmodernismIn this week's readings from Lukacs, Williams and Jameson we have some representative analyses of modernism and postmodernism from the Marxist tradition. Marxism has complex relationships to modernism and postmodernism. It is both a product of the epoch of modernity and a systematic critique of some of the most fundamental features of modernity, such as capitalism and individualism. It has influenced postmodern critique, but many Marxists criticize postmodern theories for being nihilistic or self-defeating because they offer no clear basis for distinguishing between possible values or paths of action.Here I will offer a brief review of the terms to keep in mind as you read the texts. But if you would like to do more background reading, probably the two most widely known texts are Jean-Francois Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition, and Fredric Jameson's Postmodernism: Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Excerpts from these texts and other useful texts are collected in an anthology, From Modernism to Postmodernism, edited by Lawrence Cahoone. My own understanding of the conjuncture of the material relations of production and the ideological paradigm of global capitalism in the 1990's is especially indebted to David Harvey's The Condition of Postmodernity (see esp. Ch. 2-3) and Mas'ud Zavarzadeh's essay "Post-ality: The (Dis)simulations of Cyber-capitalism" in Postality: Marxism and Postmodernism. An insightful account of the shift from modernism to postmodernism in the academy, especially as it relates to English studies and Composition studies, can be found in Lester Faigley's Fragments of Rationality. ModernityThe social and economic conditions of modernity began to emerge as early as the sixteenth century, with the expansion of international trade, the urbanization of the peasant populations of Europe, and a steady rise in literacy. These social and economic conditions were reflected, and to some extent enabled, by superstructural phenomena such as the Protestant Reformation, with its emphasis upon individualism, literacy and the patriarchal nuclear family, and the Enlightenment, with its emphasis upon rationality, faith in human progress, the development of the scientific method, etc. The period of modernity was characterized by a high degree of centralization of control of production, increasingly large scale capitalization of industry, and a high degree of routinization and standardization of products and processes. Modernity reaches one of its high points of development in the industrial practices of "Taylorism" (follow this link for a Wall Street Journal backgrounder on Taylorism archived on the Cool Fire Technology site) in which the worker's actions are segmented and standardized, effectively making each worker interchangeable, and "Fordism" (follow this link for Ruppert's account of Fordism by Mark Ruppert of Syracuse University) which adds to Taylorism a systematic attempt to control the workers' off-the-job life as well--hence Ford's planned communities, housing, control of media, adult education, etc. The Enlightenment ideals of rationality and scientific progress are similarly reflected in the late 19th century-early 20th century "eugenics" movement, which sought to "perfect" the human race through a selective breeding scheme based on Darwin's theory of evolution. The modernist faith in scientific progress was profoundly shaken when it became clear that these ideas could lead to such horrible consequences as the holocaust.PostmodernityPostmodernity is characterized by a perceived general breakdown of the conditions of production of modernity as capitalism enters a new phase. For some futurists and other social observers the production of information now seems more important than more traditionally "material" products. Yet, while heavy industry seems to be disappearing in the "first world," it really has been shifted to sites in the "two-thirds world"; mostly to Asian and South American sites. The era of postmodernity is sometimes dated from 1945. This date would include as part of the shift from modernity to postmodernity the wave of anti-colonial struggles in Africa and Asia after World War II; colonialism was a key feature of modernity. This date also marks an ideological watershed; it is harder than ever to defend the assumptions of modernity and modernism after the holocaust, which depended upon modern technologies and "perverted" (or perhaps more orthodox than is generally acknowledged) versions of modernist assumptions about the "perfectability" of the human race. An alternative date for the transition would be the early 1970's, when the Arab oil embargo shook the western industrial machine to its foundations. The oil embargo, which in some ways can be related to the anti-colonial struggles in the 1950's and 60's, provoked a crisis in global capitalism from which rank and file workers in the developed industrial countries have never recovered, though the effects have been somewhat masked by shifts in labor patterns toward two-income households and an increase in child (teenage) labor.ModernismModernism is an intellectual and artistic movement that developed in conjunction with, and eventually in opposition to, fully developed modernity. Modernist artists and intellectuals were disgusted with the banality and "dehumanized" quality of life in industrial capitalism. They responded to this degradation of the quality of life by retreating into a nostalgia for pre-capitalist organic social order (F. R. Leavis, T. S. Eliot), by embracing fascist leaders and ideologies (Ezra Pound's support of Mussolini, Gertrude Stein's support of Marshal Petain, etc.) by seeking refuge in radical and sometimes anti-social individualism (Hemingway, J. D. Salinger, etc.) or agrarian populism (Faulkner, John Crowe Ransom and the agrarian "fugitives," of the 1930's, etc.). High modernist art often features fragmentation and disruption at the level of form (e.g. James Joyce), though it generally attempts to recuperate a sense of order and faith in universal values at the level of content or overall effect. In this way the modernists attempted to "shore up" (invoking Eliot's phrase from "The Waste Land") the grand narratives, the "absolute" truths and values, of the western tradition. 

PostmodernismWhereas the high modernists experimented with abstract representation and formal fragmentation as a way of resisting the degradation of social life in industrial capitalism, postmodernists have embraced this condition, ostensibly rejecting the grand narratives and values for parodies of the classics and exalting popular or "low" culture at the expense of traditional high culture. Postmodern art, then, is characterized by highly self-conscious uses of strategies like parody and pastiche to undermine a sense of order, timeless values, universal truths, and grand narratives. In doing so it emphasizes surfaces at the expense of substance and depth...insisting that "appearance" or "representation" are, effectively, all there is to what the modernists would have called "reality," and that there are in fact many plural "realities" rather than a universal one. For a more detailed introduction to this concept, follow this link to a lecture on postmodernism by Mary Klages, of the University of Colorado