Lecture 9 - Post Modernism

Post modernism isn't an age but a style. Post modernism has no real effect on the world. This is mostly for entertainment, the best way to describe post modernism is mucking around with media. However there isn't really one way to describe or define post modernism. It is one of the most complicated things to understand in media.

In this lecture i learnt quite a bit about the basics of post modernism. Post modernism can be used with any forms of media. Allot of post modernism can be a bit crude or in bad taste, for example Boro Pat. Boro Pat is a dub over of Postman Pat episodes with allot of profanity and rude humour. This is taking a nostalgic TV show and made it into an adult comedy. Like most post modernism that is in bad taste, it doesn't shock the younger generation however if this was shown to an older generation back when they were younger they would be highly offended.

Boro Pat (ADULT HUMOR!) http://meview.metro.co.uk/video.aspx?id=16533

We looked at a clip of team America in class which covered most of the stuff i mentioned above. Team America is an old style technique (retro) of filming using puppets; you can see the strings, half the time the puppets aren’t touching the floor, out of sync with actors talking and is deliberately like this to be nostalgic (a bit like thunderbirds). However the film is also deliberately "bad" as in it is in bad taste with crude humour, violence and profanity (taboo). The principles of this form of post modernism retrospective styling came from Frederick Jameson "nostalgia for the future". This is the clash of registers as you wouldn’t expect puppets which is associated more with children, to be killing, fighting, swearing etc. which is more associated with adults. The clash of registers came from Linda Hutcheon - "Double encoding" - travesty + homage.

However the effect on media such as Team America doesn't affect me or most people my age as it is generally in our culture.

Post modernism is usually just a temporarily popular thing. For example something you might see on YouTube or a song. What I mean is something that isn't really aimed to stay around but more just for the sake of doing it or for entertainment purposes, an example of this is the song by Adam Kay and Suman Biswas - The London underground; a parody song of Going Underground by The Jam. The video below is an example of this, it is a Sparta remix. This like many others you can find on YouTube was really popular around the time 300 were out (film). It's a remix of a famous quote in the film "madness, this is Sparta!" Along with this remix are hundreds of videos made by people featuring little gimmicks of edited videos of animated GIFS with the face of the main character of the film.

Sparta (300) Remix - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_ttcSaTheI

Sin City

This is an example of the playfulness represented by post modernism.

Mixing of genres can also be suggested as post modernism (mixing the old with the new). An example of this could be the film Sin City. The way i figure that is, it takes on an old style of filming approach, in black n white and the style of acting. Mixed with more modern special effects and colour appearing every now and then to make things stick out (not necessarily the colour it’s meant to be).

Che Guevara

Another example of post modernism is, back in the communist years everyone knew who Che Guevara was. Then a bit later on the younger generation would wear his face on a T-Shirt as a symbol of teenage rebellion. Nowadays Che Guevara's face on a t-shirt is fashionable with no meaning, in fact most people now wouldn't know who he was and parents wouldn't really care if his face was on their child’s shirt. 

Lecture 8 - The Emergence of the Modern World

Out of all the lectures so far I found this one the hardest. Firstly we learnt how the world was understood over the years. As in, how the world was drawn out by geologists/scientists over the millennium. This covered the various different theories and versions of how the globe was drawn out.

We also looked at how people preserved human bodies to study them. As well as display them. 

We also looked at other discoveries by Charles Darwin (Evolution) and Leonardo Da Vinci (Human body).

The point of this lecture was to look back on how people made these discoveries and it didn't take one theory to get the answer it took several, such as the world. Going back to an older lecture + blog entry I covered how the world can't be defined in one way but in several, which is the same as this, it took many theories to get an image of the globe.

Lecture 7 - Realism

In this lecture we learnt all about Realism. What this means is, how close the article (whether it’s an image, video or game etc.) is to the thing it represents.

In realism photo graphics is referred to as "photorealism" as it isn't fully realism; as it is what it represents. What I mean is that photographs are just a way to freeze time and store an experience. However it is still a form of realism as photographs can be manipulated (edited, parts of the photo repositioned, images distorted and changed).

As an example, using an image i created in Photoshop in my 4th or 5th lesson of pixel image and sound. I can show you how photographs can be manipulated. In this example i took an image of an apple and an eye:

Created by Toby James Cooper

Mario

In video games you get different stages of prospection:

- Gods Eye

- Wrap around

- Unrolling World

- Portal Navigation

The first one (gods eye) is when you see the whole world on the screen. An example of this could be space invaders or Tetris. The second one (wrap around) is where you only see part of the world but there is still more of a world out there and you see objects and can explore a bit more (like asteroids or Gameboy Pokémon). The third one (unrolling world) this is basically a side scrolling game (best example i can give is super Mario or sonic).

The first three prospective are all mainly in 2D prospective. Portal Navigation is more realistic. You can explore the map in first person point of view and you navigate as if you were a person; almost like a virtual simulation (Halo, Call of Duty etc.).

The earlier games aren’t very realistic however more modern games for example on the XBOX 360 the graphics are almost life like for example gears of war graphics are amazing and it almost feels like your interacting with a film.

Gears of War

This now brings me on to CGI in realism. CGI is used allot in films as well as games. It is a great example of realism. It isn't real like art it has been created and doesn't exist. However it looks so real that when you see special effects in films you’re watching, it can seem real. Some effects which could never happen such as Superman flying and using heat vision, that would never happen. This is sort of realism is a bit more confusing as it is trying to portray something that can't happen (Sci-Fi).

Superman flying CGI - Brandon Routh

Art/illustration (paintings, sculptures etc.) is another good example of realism and the oldest example of realism. Art again is created and does not existed, so paintings of famous people back before photography could have been manipulated.

Wax sculptures are brilliant examples for realism. Some people when shown a photo can sometimes find it hard to tell from the person it represents. 

Wax and Normal John McClain (Bruce Willis - Die Hard 4.0)

Lecture 6 - Marshall Law

I found this lecture a bit more difficult to sum up into a blog entry. Marshall McLuhan has some very interesting theories. One of his theories is "The medium is the massage". He talks about how the medium is an extension to us, for example a lamp is an extension of our eyes, as it gives us more light, to help us see. Whereas the massage is the effect or impact rather than the content, using the previous example the massage of the lamp is the effect it has on the room and the person (in this case increasing visibility). Anything can be an extension, clothes extend your skin and even your house is an extension of the body (store items, protection and heating etc.) Another theory expressed in "The medium is the massage" is that youth instinctively understand the environment in which they are brought up in which is the reason for the alienation between generations.

Another theory by McLuhan is the three ages:

• Pre-Literate / Tribal Era
• Print Age
• Electric Age (Proceeded on by the digital age)

Before books or speech people would communicate out of gesture and mumbles.

Then in 1450 Johannes Gutenberg's printing press was invented.

Now we have electronic media such as telephones television computing (since 1945).

Lecture 5 - Structuralism and Binary opposition

This lecture was a bit harder to understand than previous lectures. I started to understand the meaning to structuralism. There is no single way of understanding the world we live in, as there are so many ways and theories that help us understand it. We get our understanding of the world based on our cultural background (the way we were brought up by our parents and the things we watch on TV etc.)

People understand things by constructing the meanings from the opposites. By this I mean you can know something by knowing what it is not. For example you know what "good" is because you know what "bad" is.

Binary oppositions are opposites put into categories to help us understand the world. For example:

Good (god)       -          Evil (devil)

Happy                -          Sad

Human               -          Non-Human

Day                    -          Night

The in-between is determined by our cultural differences. By this i mean no one is completely good or evil and neither completely happy nor sad. The best way to understand this is via imagining these categories as a scale.

The Terminator (Cyborg)

In-between the categories there could be more defined categories for instance in-between day and night could be "sunset"/"sunrise". Another example could be in-between human and non-human could be "cyborg".

In a way we can relate to this as cyborg can be defined as an extension to the human body. Not necessarily a machine that looks and acts like a human like "The Terminator". By this i mean the clothes we wear are an extension to us as well as: glasses to help us see, watches help us tell the time and if you have been in an accident you might need to have a metal plate fitted or temporarily require the use of crutches. If people were completely human then they would likely be arrested for being indecent. 

The point I'm making with the cyborg example is that; the best way to understand structuralism when it comes to binary oppositions is to use the categories as a scale and use the middle of the scale to get a better understanding of things.

Lecture 4 - Intertextuality

In the lecture about intertextuality we learnt about how people link media with other media and how some producers/creators make references or copied designs. What I mean by this is a comedy cartoon like Family Guy make references to other media, for example from the film planet of the apes (the first one) you see the statue of liberty blown up and a guy start saying "you blew it up, damn you all to hell!" and in Family Guy Peter Griffin took the foot from the statue of liberty and Adam West quotes the exact same line when he sees this.

"Planet of the Apes (1968)        Adam West sees the statue of liberty's foot that Peter got for Quagmire and says Charleton Heston's big line from the end of the movie" - http://www.planet-familyguy.com/pfg/episodes/84/ITakeTheeQuagmire/

The reference made above is an example of Self-conscious intertextuality. This means the creator designed or made a reference on purpose so that the person interacting with the media may link up the references sort of like a gag. 

Another example of self-conscious intertextuality is Marvel comics copying a villain from DC comics. DC Comics: Deathstroke (Slade Wilson). Marvel Comics: Deadpool (Wade Wilson). DC comics came up with the super-villian first but was original called "The Terminator" (before The Terminator film by James Cameron) then as the James Cameron film was such a success they changed the name to "Deathstroke". After the name was changed Marvel comics released a new super-villian very similar (in name, alias, appearance + attributes) the only difference is the Marvel comics version they made their character more comical whereas the DC version is much more serious. These are both rival comics using self-conscious intertextuality they both have more or less the same super-villian which makes them both better known in both comics for being almost exactly the same.

Deadpool - Marvel Comics              

                                Deathstroke - DC Comics                              

                                                                                                        
The other version of intertextuality is unconscious. This is more or less the same principle, two different pieces of media which is very similar but the creator didn't plan on the similarity. For instance if someone sees a rock and thinks of the moon.