Sister Wendy’s story of painting [videorecording] / written & presented by Sister Wendy Beckett ; series producer, David Willcock ; a BBC production in association with WGBH/Boston. Published: Beverly Hills, Calif. : CBS Fox Video ; [England] : BBC Video ; Beverly HIlls, Calif. : Distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, [1997]
Picasso, cubism
matisse
surrealism
kandinsky
klee
New York
Abstract Expressionism, etc
Pollack
DeKooning
Mark Rothko
Warhol
Jasper John
Frank Stella
Agnes Martin
Lucien Freud
Oleksiuk New Work ppt
Assign proto-assignment 1
send me a representational photo via email
Week 2 resources
Review: modernism
Cezanne, Picasso, cubism, dada, surrealism, Bauhaus, social realism, minimalism, abstract expressionism, pop art, Andy Warhol.
Edison's Miracle of Light
Watch Edison's Miracle of Light. Videorecording (VHS). Elevator Pictures, Inc. for the American Experience. WGBH Boston. Matthew Collins, producer/writer. John Walter, director/writer. 1995. (1 hour)
Discuss Edison's miracle of light
What is a killer app
electricity: which came first, electricity or the telegraph?
basic Edison biography, human face on history, Menlo Park
1% inspiration, 99% persperation
phonograph
ELECTRICITY VS. GAS LIGHTING
incandescent filament lamp
all experiemnts were massive failures
carbonized thread
"lightning" conception of electricity
immediate industrial application
did edison invent electricity???
DC electrical novelties
central station, Manhattan NYC
not widely popular
lightbulb hats as PR
finally idea catches on, financial security
AC vs DC
Westinghouse, Tesla
electric chair
Discuss Berger Chaps 1-2
Saussure: Semiology or Semiotics
Write on screen "I went to a book sale and all I bought was a semicolon." Discuss what makes this funny? Illustrates: Saussure's assertion that language is a system of signs in which the meaning of a term is based on its relations to othr terms in the system. i.e. we would have expected to have purchased a book, not a small piece of punctuation (hey comedy is hard)
signifier: sound object image
signified: concept generated
signs are identified in terms of oppositions, uniqueness
The notion the linguistics might be useful in studying other cultural phenomena is based on two fundamental insights:
first that social and cultural phenomena are mot simply material objects or events but objects and events with meaning, and hence signs;
second that they do not have essences but are defined by a network of relations
Barthes (Myth)
semiology can be applied to history, culture;
sees problems with normativity (mythmaking)
cultural feedback loop: this is the way mass media works: if a "meme" gets picked up and widely distributed, it becomes the norm (Lots of parallels with Cool Hunting)
Assign Project 2, Signifier / signified
Week 3 Notes
Go over Project 2 signifier / signified
all students must present their work
Week 4 Notes
Daguerre and the photo camera [videorecording] / written by Susanne Pach, Herbert W. Franke ; director, Louis Saul ; a production of Target Films, Munich, in association with Bavarian Television ... [et al.]. c1994. (15min)
The fact that this film is dated serves as a jumping off point for discussion about ... criticism . . .... (and technology of today)
Dating photography to 1850's 1860s
Contrast with painting and drawing as imagemaking tools
Update: the ubiquity of the CCD in camera cel phones; previously photography was not a mass medium
The Cinematograph Videorecording (VHS). A Louis Saul Film production in association with Bavarian Television ... et al. Written by Susanne Pach, Herbert W. Franke. Tools of the AV trade. Milestones in science and engineering. Princeton, N.J. Films for the Humanities and Sciences. 1994. (15 min)
The fact that this film is dated serves as a jumping off point for discussion about ... criticism ... (and technology of today), special effects, genre (science fiction) etc. Milies was instumental in creating a new genre, using spectacular equipment.
Berger Chaps 3 - 4
Lakoff and Johnson (Metaphor and Metanymy)
Semiology (semiotics) can have layers of meaning, impacting logic
Love is war (metaphor works by similarity); Rolls Royce = wealth (metonymy works by association)
Synechdoche, part of the whole
Aristotle
Narrative, defined
narrative or memetic theory of art: narrative is an analog or metaphor for life
media critic
mimesis - imitation
plays, poetry are imitations of life
comedy tragedy, low/hi art
spectacular equipment for drama - special effects
those who criticize violence in videogames talk about mimesis (still debating)
Week 5 Notes
Berger Book, Chapters 5 - 9
Todorov (Introduction to Poetics) (Chapter 5)
different disciplines, different readings
different kinds of media analysis
everones reading of a text is different
POV
there is no objective reality when it comes to taste
Propp (Morphology of the Folktale) (Chapter 6)
definition
morphology |môrˈfäləjē| noun ( pl. -gies)
the study of the forms of things, in particular
Biology the branch of biology that deals with the form of living organisms, and with relationships between their structures.
Linguistics the study of the forms of words.
back to language
made up of unique parts
would it be stupid if the hero dies in each chaper
31 functions
poetry, plays, television shoes, films, computer games all use narrative form; some elements are unique to the medium
genres have unique flavors that color the narrative elements
