Tuesday, January 21, 2020

GRAP 1102 // Intensive // Day 03

Rhetoric





How to use rhetoric to get what you want by Camille A. Langsten


Rhetoric is the art of seeing the available means of persuasion and is today applied to any communication.
  • Forensic (judicial) rhetoric establishes facts or judgements about the past, like a detective finding facts to describe an event.
  • Epideictic (demonstrative) rhetoric makes a proclamation about the situation.
  • Symbouleutikon (deliberative) which focuses on the future and is the rhetoric of politicians arguing about the future and the positive or negative effects that will result from change. For example, Dr. Luther King presenting an argument that "I dream of a day when children will be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character."
Good rhetoric according to Aristotle incorporates three persuasive appeals:
  • Ethos is how you convince an audience of your credibility
  • Logos is the use of logic or reason, employing analogies (this is that, or this like that), examples, citations of research and statistics. Can also be the structure and content itself. Use factual knowledge to support an argument. False information which is believed to be true can be used to manipulate, such as vaccines causing autism. (Also, not this concept of a belief returns from our discussion of culture. You can build a culture around a belief, even if it is not factual).
  • Pathos appeals to emotion. Often the most effective mode in modern media and can be irrational and unpredictable, rallying for peace or war. Beauty products might relieve insecurity or cars make us feel powerful and rely on pathos to succeed.
Understanding rhetoric provides us the tools to develop persuasive communication while allowing us to recognise and understand how rhetoric is being used on us.


What Aristotle and Joshua Bell can teach us about persuasion by Conor Neill


Example of Joshua Bell playing in a sold out theatre versus playing violin to nobody in a subway station.
  • Ethos is reputation, or what you're known for.
    • Credibility asks do you look and act professional, or, at least suitable for the role. Eg. a lawyer might be expected to wear a suit and tie, a doctor or scientist to wear a lab coat, a tradesman to have overalls and a tool belt, an artist or creative to be covered in paint or look eccentric.
    • Trustworthiness requires the listener to believe you care about them as much as yourself, that your motives are clear and understood.
    • Authority is confidence and decisiveness with a clear, strong voice.
  • Logos states the idea should make sense form the audience's point of view, different from the speaker's point of view, so should be made relevant to the audience if it will succeed. Good arguments should make logical sense to the audience.
  • Pathos is emotional connection, often created through narrative structure. The right emotional environment must be created for the audience and be ready to receive the informaiton.
In Joshua Bell's situation, ethos is reduced as the concert hall confers trust in the audience that the talent on stage should be respected whereas we don't have the same understanding of trust within a subway. A concert hall also provides the emotional space, pathos, preparing the audience to develop a connection with Joshua Bell's work, while the hustle and bustle, daily lives and transitionary space of a subway isn't conducive to emotional connection with a static musician. We might hear the music, but we're not prepared to listen to it.

Also, not similarities here between hearing and looking and listening and seeing, as discussed in relation to visual literacy.

Looking or hearing (biological) is directing one's gaze in a specific direction.

Seeing or listening (cognitive/interpretive) is perceiving with one's eyes; be or become aware of something from observation; discern or deduce after reflection. The way we see is affected by our culture and society.


Activity // Define
  • Ethos
  • Character
  • Credibility
  • Persuasion
  • Information


Visual Language: Perspectives for Both Makers and Users by Van Den Broek, Jos et al.

Van Den Broek, Jos, Willem Koetsenruijter, Jaap De Jong, and Laetitia Smit. ‘Visual Rhetoric: Images That Persuade’. In Visual Language: Perspectives for Both Makers and Users, 88–120. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, 2012.

Classic rhetoric according to Cicero has the speaker (rhetor) employing five devices to successfully persuade an audience:
  • Inventio – You should choose content, arguments, examples and anecdotes appropriate or your objective and your public. And be sure that what you choose matches the circumstances and the time (kairos is perfect timing).
  • Dispositio – You should be smart in how you structure the content of your speech and your arguments.
  • Elocutio – You should express the content with great feeling for style, with humor, or with unusual examples of language use, such as comparisons, repetitions and plays on words. 
  • Memoria – You should make sure you are familiar with the story by practising well – maybe with PowerPoint, Prezi or autocue – and check whether it reads well and flows smoothly.
  • Actio – Finally, you should present the text. You can increase the impact of your speech by maintaining eye contact with your audience, by effective use of your voice, being convincing and employing appropriate gestures.
While this relates to speaking, it was also considered important to employ visual language and metaphors to illustrate important points. This assists the audience to imagine and contextualise the argument making them more susceptible to persuasion:
"[...] images of things that are not actually present made so visible in thoughts, that it appears as if we can see them with our eyes and have them close by us. Anyone who empathizes will in this way also achieves the most emotionally."
A renewed interest in persuasion arose in the 1950s and 60s following World War II, with Hitler and Mussolini as subjects, in a bid to understand how they employed persuasion. This coincides with an increase in media, photography, radio and television—the rise of mass communication and mass media.

Who is the rhetor (speaker)?

In traditionally rhetoric, the rhetor was more clear—it was usually the person speaking. In visual communication the speaker is less clear. Using the example of news journalism, the speaker may range from the journalist or photographer, to the editor or photography editor, editor-in-chief, or the publisher. In advertising agencies, is the speaker the subject of a photograph, the designer, copy writer, photographer, illustrator, senior designer, creative director or the client and the values they represent?
"The relation between the viewer and the rhetor remains more abstract and impersonal than in a speech situation with a speaker who makes gestures and seeks eye contact."
Ethos, pathos and logos in images
"A speaker makes use of ethos (to increase credibility) if he refers directly or indirectly to his own qualities; pathos relates to appealing to the emotions of the public, and logos to the arguments he uses to try to persuade his audience." 
  • Ethos is "the credibility of the rhetor, the person or institution who wants to persuade the viewer of a message by means of an image" which may be employed using signs within the advertisement, such as lab coats on scientists, or using brand ambassadors to align themselves with a particular value. Sports brands use elite athletes to demonstrate the performance and value of their products, for example, or when charities use celebrities as their ambassadors. Those may also be established through more subtle design elements, such as a professional looking website as opposed to one which looks outdated or tacky.

    For example, see the Space Jam and Marvel websites below, and note the various design techniques and how they differ between the two.
 
  • Pathos is an appeal to emotions such as sympathy, happiness, anxiety or joy, and which doesn't necessarily rely on substance or factual evidence. For example, an image of a juicy looking tomato may make the mouth water but is not evidence of its taste or juiciness (and may have been falsified in production) and an image of a leader holding a small child doesn't necessarily mean they care for that child at all. And, when these attempts at appealing to our emotions are unsuccessful they are easier to identify, such as footage of PM Scott Morrison's recent handshake attempt during the recent Australian fires of 2019/2020 as opposed to Russian President Putin high-fiving the Saudi Prince at G20.




  • Logos is about establishing rational arguments. This is more easily achieved using photographic evidence and illustrations incorporating statistics which are seen to present factual information. A photo "can show that something exists (probability) and that it is attractive (desirability). Before and after photographs are a good example of this, where unflattering lighting and angles may be used to highlight the undesirable qualities of an person while flattering light and angles may be used to highlight the now desirable qualities of the same person after a particular treatment such as hair or weight. Deducing the argument and effectiveness of images is not simple as "the scope for interpretation is greater than with language, but very often text from the environment provides sufficient points of contact for an argumentative interpretation."

    For example, the illustration below is a 3D rendered design of the new restaurant Chao Chow on Gouger Street. The photographs below are photographs I have produced of the same venue. While the photographs look gorgeous, it took hours to set up the restaurant to ensure that it matched the vision of the original designs. In reality, the restaurant feels incredibly busy and cluttered when there are people sitting in the space.  And compare it to this the image below from AdelaideNow of restaurant owner in the busy space.




Kairos: the right moment relates to the way "the speaker modifies his message to suit perfectly the present circumstances and the present time" and "the sense that this ist he moment; not in a couple of months or year, but now." Especially important to photography, "kairos is selecting that one perfect photo from all the instants he has shot." This can also be referred to in photography as the decisive moment as stated by Henri Cartier-Bresson, famous French street photographer. Kairos in advertising might be able taking advantage of a particular feeling, sentiment or movement in popular culture or recent event. The idea of "reading the room" or "missing the mark" in the case of campaigns which should have been withheld. For example, after the recent volcano eruption on White Island, New Zealand where 19 people died, my Facebook feed promoted an advertisement to climb volcanoes in Vanuatu. As a country mourning the death of citizens in a volcano eruption, this is incredibly inappropriate. This reflects negatively on Flight Centre Australia and on Facebook.

And, sometimes you can get the timing right but completely botch the argument and tone, eroding credibility of the argument. For example, this iconic image was captured at the Baton Rouge Protest as a reaction to the shooting of young black man Alton Sterling. And the advertisement by Pepsi was released in response to the image shortly after, though the tone missed the marked.




Devices and schemes supporting visual argument
Schemes or regularities deriving from verbal language such as rhyme and alliteration.
  • rhyme "involves repetition of syllables at the end of words" such as "a nice rhyme works sublime".
  • alliteration is the repetition of a character or sound at the beginning of a word such as "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers".
  • contrast of form such as "it says what it does. It does what it says."
  • contrast of meaning such as "Cool stuff—hot prices".
Examples of schemes application in visual argument
  • rhyme relationship between objects in an image may reflect other objects within the image.
  • verbo-pictorial scheme where text is replaced by an image, such as round lips becoming and replacing the "o" shape within a word. Or someone holding up an "L" shape for "Loser".
  • repetitio features repeating elements within the image or text to ensure the message is remembered. There's an old rule in radio that you need to repeat the name at least three times to ensure it's remembered. In images, it might be the brand logo repeated on the product, then as a logotype in the bottom right of the image, and perhaps even in body text.
  • contrast is the juxtaposition of two elements which creates new meaning, or helps to reinforce an idea by comparison. For example, the Apple vs PC campaigns.


Tropes or irregularities are content-related irregularities to cause the reader to "stumble over text" by present a puzzle which the viewer must solve. This can help develop connection between the audience and message because they've had to engage with it to understand.
  • metaphor clarifies an object or idea as something with similar characteristics, such as "the man is a lion". Not be confused with "the man was like a lion" which is a comparison. For example, a light bulb as a new idea or an ostrich with its head in the sand as being closed minded. What if, however, it was a man with his head in the sand?
  • synecdoche incorporates pars pro toto where one of the parts stands for the whole or totum pro parte where the whole stands for constituent part. For example, the symbol of a man on the toilet stands for all men or a photograph of a mountain of shoes demonstrating all the atrocities of Auschqitz in Germany during World War II (though in this example you would also need to recognise the context of the shoes, the location, and the atrocities committed in order to understand the image).
  • comparison either combines or compares two things in order to transfer the qualities of one to another.
  • personification where animals or things are presented with the characteristics of people. This may be as subtle as an object seen to be sweating, breathing or sighing, or as complex as giving an object a face with eyes and a mouth. Some objects, such as cars, are commonly designed to incorporate a "face" to make them more appealing—two headlights as eyes and the grill as a mouth. This motorcycle, a Yamaha R6, appears as an owl or a bug.
  • hyperbole is an extreme exaggeration, sometimes as a metaphor or cliché. Cartoonists employ this technique with caricatures, elaborating on the speakers visual features or mannerisms. In films, set dressers employ clichés to quickly express the character of a person (messy teenagers room with band posters stuck to the wall). In images, this may be making one element much larger than others. The opposite of hyperbole is litotes which refers to understating a point.
  • oxymoron where two images simultaneously contradict each other but the contradictions still exist, such as a fire hydrant in the snow. Linguistic examples might be "organised chaos" or "pretty ugly".
  • pastiche incorporates a well known image, work, author, photograph, drawing, painting which has been parodied to create new meaning while referring to the old. For example, people crossing the road at the same location on Abbey Road as The Beatles.
Need a guide?


Framing means to provide with a frame, like a reference point, context or space within which to consider the text, or, to selectively crop, remove or exclude elements of the subject which are not desirable for persuasion.

  • selection means portraying some elements and omitting others. When analysing a text ask "what is portrayed, why this, why not something else, and what has been excluded?"
  • salience makes what has been portrayed more noticeable, striking, and important and may include the way the camera moves or behaves, colour use, perspective selection, and other elements. Consider the way Michael Bay (over)uses circle shots to lend weight to certain moments.
  • spin (sometimes 'propaganda')is giving a twist to the perception of an object, person, or idea, to place it in a more desirable position, including "enhancing or diminishing the significance or something or someone." This is incredibly popular with politicians looking to turn a negative event into a positive event. Someone who is incredibly good at this, and typically working in public relations, may be referred to as a Spin Doctor.

Commercial Examples





(Aunty Donna, never heard of them, but apparently they're pretty funny.)


Discuss in regards to persuasive terminology

Monday, January 20, 2020

VSAR 1102 // Intensive // Day 02

From course preparation online

John Burger Ways of Seeing Episode 01 (30 minutes) and consider:
  • environment and context in which an image appears
  • personal knowledge and experience required for reading an image
  • sequencing and juxtaposition of how images influences interpretation and comprehension of images and the impact on how messages can be crafted
"We see these paintings as no one has seen them before."
"Perspective makes the eye the centre of the visible world."

Painting can only be in one place at one time—the camera provides the ability to duplicated the image to distribute anywhere within the world. They are not situated within a gallery but instead appear where we are now. Levie, 1987, says pictures "have a dual reality: they are objects themselves, and they act as surrogates for other objects."

An images uniqueness is part of the place in which it appears.

Question
Think about the way you interact with art in a gallery, within a persons house, when it is in a book, viewed on the computer.

  • How does the experience of viewing an artwork change your interpretation of it?
  • How do words change the way you experience images?
  • What about music, movement, and sequence can change interpretation?
For example, how does music affect the images within the music video We Can't Stop by Miley Cyris, with and without sound, and with an altered interpretation of sound.





"The images come to you, you don't go to them. The time of pilgrimage is over" and thus "meaning comes to you", says Berger, regarding the way media has changed.

van den Broek argues quotes Hans Aarsman from Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant "I always want to know what causes my first impression. I also want to know whether this first impression is right, whether what is suggested by a photo is not contradicted by what is actually visible in the photo. Whether it is a photo in the newspaper or in a gallery or on an advertising billboard, I always look for details. And I always have a magnifying glass close at hand. A magnifying glass really confronts you with the facts, even the rough gridlines of a newspaper hide details that could easily escape you. A magnifying glass magnifies, but in another sense it could be said to minimise. You only get to see a small part of the picture, the whole is outside your frame of vision. As a result you miss that first impression." This idea of using a magnifying glass is equivalent to what John Berger discusses in relation to zooming into an image, or doing so on the phone.

"Reproductions come to you."

"Art must be stripped of religiosity, cash value, in order to wonder about them."

Activity
"Unique thing about paintings are that they are silent and still" yet Berger is unable to demonstrate this to us because the television screen is made of scan lines, monitors are made of pixels, which are ever moving and transmutable, even the pages of a book are never still.

  • Consider how different locations may alter the way we perceive information?
  • Consider the way in which your viewing of a film is altered by context and make a list of the different experiences you might have and how it may affect your interpretation of the media:
    • in a cinema where you view the film in its entirety in a quiet room as a shared experience of the film
    • on a television, at home, at a pub, in a friends house and whether during the day, the evening, at night time, while you're doing other activities
    • on DVD or Bluray with special features, on Stan, where the credits are allowed to roll through their entirety, or on Netflix, where they encourage you to immediately skip to the next subject
    • on a train or bus in different social contexts—in Asia where solitude might be found better outside shared households, it is more common for people to view media in public
  • Consider how different experiences of a text alters its meaning, consider audiobooks versus reading from a novel, does a paper back differ from a hard cover?


Want another interpretation of artwork? Try Hannah Gadsby's Nakedy Nudes available for viewing on ABC iView.


Define
Reproduction
Mystification

Susan Sontag On Photography

Susan Sontag says "a fake painting (one whose attribution is false) falsifies the history of art. A fake photograph (one which has been retouched or tampered with, or whose caption is false) falsifies reality. The history of photography could be recapitulated as the struggle between two different imperatives: beautification, which comes from the fine arts, and truth-telling, which is measured not only by a notion of value-free truth, a legacy from the sciences, but by a moralised ideal of truth-telling, adapted from nineteenth-century literary models and from the (the) new profession of independent journalism." pg 86 On Photography

Susan Sontag discusses how the democratisation of photography has allowed us to capture more of our personal lives, while also encouraging photographic tourism, where the act of travel is synonymous with the collection of images. You no longer travel to enjoy the experience but to ensure you take the best photograph of the place to bring home. It also means that travel favours those places which can be photographed beautifully. 

"Through the camera people becomes customers or tourists of reality—or Realitesm as teh name of the French photo-magazine suggests, for reality is understood as plural, fascinating, and up for grabs. Bringing the exotic near, rendering the familiar and homely exotic, photographs make the entire world available as an object of appraisal."

Question
Consider how your experience of photographic images changes and shifts depending on the media through which you experience them. Limiting your focus to digital screens, consider which images are you most drawn to on Instagram, Facebook, websites, news outlets, blogs, fashion websites.

  • How does your experience of the media change?
  • What aspects of that media affect your reading of those images?
  • Do you ever engage with images in 'stillness' or 'silence'?
  • How long do you let your eyes rest or gaze at one image?
  • What role does consumption play in your experience?
  • How often do you try to "zoom" an image to be disappointed you cannot?

"A photograph changes according to the context in which it is seen: thus Smith's Minimata photographs will seem different on a contact sheet, in a gallery, in a political demonstration, in a police file, in a photographic magazine, in a general news magazine, in a book, on a living-room wall," says Sontag. "Each of these situations suggests a different use for the photographs but none can secure their meaning."

And she continues, "Wittgenstein argues for words, that the meaning is the use—so for each photograph. And it is in this way that the presence and proliferation of all photographs contributes to the erosion of the very notion of meaning, to that parceling out of truth into relative truths which is taken for granted by the modern liberal consciousness."

"... because the photograph is, always, an object in a context, this meaning in bound to drain away; that is, the context which shapes whatever immediate—in particular, political—uses the photograph may have is inevitably succeeded by contexts in which such uses are weakened."

And how can images be manipulated to question evidential value of image? From Visual Persuasion: The Role of Images in Advertising by Paul Messaris:
  • setting the scene for the subject (imitating a situation)
  • editing an image (increasing contrast, colour, tonal values)
  • selective imaging (cropping an image, excluding certain information)
  • wrongly labeling a situation (using the wrong caption or inscription)
  • manipulating an image (adding or leaving out certain elements)
Consider the use of this image of a family hiding in the water beneath a Jetty used during the recent Australian bushfires, however, it was actually from a previous fire in 2013 as highlighted on AFP Fact Check. What role does the caption and context play in misrepresenting the effects of the fire? Why is it important that we accurately report this information? What role does skepticism play in visual literacy and truth in the age of social media?



Visual Language: Perspectives for Both Makers and Users by van den Broek et al.
"Text can alter the meaning of image."

The Guardian newspaper recently published an article discussing how its editorial team would shift the way it used imagery to centre the story on the human impact of climate change rather than show only the ecological impact. This decision was made to try and centre the change on human life in order to encourage people to connect better with the material rather than to wash over it. Here are a few examples of this shift:
And this series of images from Sean Davey regarding Steve Shipton from Coolagolite, NSW who lost everything:
Three theories for how we read imagery
Gestalt theory (seeing) explains the perception of visual communication
Semiotics (understanding) explains that you understand the meaning
Rhetoric (being persuaded) explains how visual communication persuades you

Definitions
Visual literacy (reader) "the possibility of understanding and creating visual messages" or "the skill of decoding, interpreting, fabricating, questioning and evaluating texts that communicate mainly using visual means" and therefore "being able to read the intended meaning of such things as advertisements or films, the aim being to interpret and evaluate the form, structure and characteristics of the images." Myra adds the "ability to accurately interpret visual representations in both form (what is it) and meaning (what does it mean/say)."


Visual literacy (maker) "the possibility of creating images and being able to use them to communicate. The basic skills include the vocabulary needed to be able to understand images and visual symbols and to criticise them. Visual literacy can also relate to the rhetorical analysis of the way in which different media visually shape their arguments."

Gestalt Theory or 'total image' where the whole is more than the sum of the parts.

Semiotics discusses images in terms of signs and sign systems such as letters, characters of a script, traffic signs, morse code, gestures, objects and symbols. Distinguishes between indexical signs, icons, and symbols. The process of how meaning is reconstructed and understood.

Iconic signs (semiotics) demonstrate relationship of similarity or bear a visual resemblance to the object in which they refer (eg. photograph, drawing of object).
Indexical signs (semiotics) share no visual resemblance to the thing in which they refer (eg. letters, characters, gestures and speech).
Symbols (semiotics) rely on a conventional agreement (eg. the written word 'cat').

Modern rhetoric regards persuasiveness of images and means of communication. How have various techniques regarding the media, imagery, text and arrangement been used to persuade the viewer of a particular perspective or argument to guide interpretation, ideas or behaviours.

Looking (biological) is directing one's gaze in a specific direction.

Seeing (cognitive/interpretive) is perceiving with one's eyes; be or become aware of something from observation; discern or deduce after reflection. The way we see is affected by our culture and society.

Point of View may refer to the physical position from which the creator, artist or viewer perceives the subject (birds-eye view from above, from eye-level, worms-eye view from below) or the way the creator expresses their interpretation of the subject based on their cultural experience. This may also incorporate ideas regarding perspective, whether it operates from a fixed-point, three points, isometric, linear or otherwise.

Vantage Point is used in "linear perspective" as a stationary point from which a viewer is related the subject / object and is the reference point from which the image is created. Perspective is "correct" when viewed only from this angle. For example, the distorted skull in 'The Ambassadors' 1533 by Hans Holbein the Younger.

Sequencing is the order in which images and text are presented and can be used to influence interpretation. For example, images by photographer Gilless Peress in Derry, Northern Island on Bloody Sunday whose contact sheets were used to provide evidence that the first civilian killed was unarmed.

Environment in which the images or media are consumed, which may have an effect on the reading, interpretation and comprehension of the text.

Media has a number of definitions and may refer to method through which images and messages are transmitted, such as radio, television, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet, that reach or influence people widely. 'The Media' may refer to a body such as a news agency or firm which broadly distributes information.

Juxtaposition when two or more things are placed or seen together with contrasting effect. By juxtaposing images, text, drawings and other visual elements, we can create new meaning.

Lecture
How we see
Return to looking at the poster for Captain Marvel and think about how our eyes might jump around the image to understand the form and construct meaning.


Culture is "not so much a set of things... as a process, a set of practices. Primarily, culture is concerned with the production and exchange of meanings — the 'giving and taking of meaning' — between members of a society or group'. 'To say that two people belong to the same culture is to say that they interpret the world in roughly the same ways and can express themselves...in ways [that] will be understood by each other.' 'Thus, culture depends on its participants interpreting meaningfully what is happening around them, and 'making sense' of the world, in broadly similar ways." Stuart Hall, 2013.

Visual culture 'is concerned with the visual events in which information, meaning, or pleasure is sought by the consumer (interaction between people and na object) in an interface (surface through which information is received) with visual technology. by visual technology, I mean any form of apparatus designed either to be looked at or to enhance natural vision (clarify information, bring things closer, slow things down), from oil painting, to television, to the internet'. Nicholas Mirzoeff, 1999. We are receiving someone else's point of view and so there can never be neutrality in a picture (Myra Theissen).

Representation and language

Representation 'connects meaning and language to culture' and is 'the production of meaning through language.' Stuart Hall, 2013. 'means using language to say something meaningful about or to the world meaningfully to other people. We do this through the use of our visual and verbal languages like gestures signs and images that stand in place, represent or re-present the thing we're trying to communicate.'

1. Reflective approach where meaning lies with the object, person, idea, event but makes it impossible to discuss drawing on abstract principles like beauty.
2. Intention approach where meaning lies with the speaker and is imposed on objects, persons, ideas, events but there's no way to guarantee the receiver of the message will understand the intended method.
3. Constructivist approach where meaning is constructed by social groups through interaction with each other and with social environments (containing objects, people, ideas, events) and that it is through symbolic practice which generates meaning. Meaning resides in shared language and culture.

To represent is to describe (verbally) or depict (visually).

A representation is a sign that symbolises, stands in for, or acts as a substitute/surrogate for things (objects, places, people) or concepts (abstract ideas, feelings).

'Were there not some cultural consensus about the meaning of signs and symbols [that make up language] among members of a linguistic community communication would not be possible.' Davis, 2012.

Signs

Iconic signs (semiotics) demonstrate relationship of similarity or bear a visual resemblance to the object in which they refer (eg. photograph, drawing of object).
Indexical signs (semiotics) share no visual resemblance to the thing in which they refer (eg. letters, characters, gestures and speech).
Symbols (semiotics) rely on a conventional agreement (eg. the written word 'cat'). 

Sunday, January 19, 2020

VSAR 1102 // Intensive // Day 01


Visual Argument in Design Culture
A form of rhetoric: a process that seeks to persuade its readers and users of particular ways of acting, thinking and feeling, and as such constitutes a form of argumentation.

"As long as we think we have our say, we’ll accept the common sense view.”

All design propose an underlying argument. Design is argument.
How is design used to establish relationships of power.

Introduction // Icebreaker
What cultural groups do you associate with? How do your clothes reflect this?

Look at the clothes you are wearing today. Think long and hard about what they might say about you. Why did you choose to wear these clothes? Why did you decide to purchase these clothes? What sub culture do they say you might be a part of?

Logos, music (what music), bands, sports, video games, motorcycles, film (what film?)
What brands do you feel aligned with?
How do the television programs you reinforce your character?

It’s a miracle that we can understand each other as well as we do. We construct meaning to get by but communication can break down when not a part of a particular culture and can lead to misunderstandings.



Beliefs
Acceptance (without proof) of something believed.

Values
Accepted standard for morality. (What’s good and bad?) 

Norms
Conventions (laws or rules) which affected living, order and acceptable practice.
Normal and expected behaviour.

Listen to Stories

Listening to more stories helps you to understand other perspectives.






What is Culture?
Matthew Arnold says 'the best that has been thought or said in the world' but this tends to focus on 'high culture'. Or, Raymond Williams three principles:
1. The process of a society's intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development (eg. great philosophers, poets, artists).
2. Particular way of life of a people, period or group (eg. development of literacy, the type of sports played, the celebration of festivals).
3. The works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity (eg. poetry, novels, ballet, opera, fine art.)

Culture is 'often described in terms of people, events, practices and artefacts and, more often than not, it is 'the best' of these things that are considered to be worth preserving.' But, who gets to decide?

Mass Culture
Cultural texts produced and consumed in large quantities and, according to some critics, intellectually undemanding and creatively limited. Popular culture often takes an aspect of low-culture, then commoditises this, mass produces it then sells it back to us. We purchase it and engage and reinforce the message. This occurs in cycles.

"The signs and rituals of popular culture start in subcultures and become popularised by the mainstream. However, popular culture is generally perceived to be a cynical process for engaging the masses in a cycle of consumerist desire."

Mass consumerism could be purchased en masse. “Bottom up” practice (low-culture) versus “Top down” (high-culture).

The cultural patterns that are broadly in line with a society’s cultural ideals and values.

Fashion allows us to differentiate ourselves from others and communicate things about ourselves and others. We create meaning with our consumption. “As long as we think we have our say, we’ll accept the common sense view.” A negotiation through media outlet. If we’re forced into it, we’ll push back.

Item is not necessarily imbued meaning at its point of creation but when we finally consume that item.

Increasing influence with internet and online shopping and with fast fashion. Encouraging to buy and dispose.

Subculture and counter culture
Minority group existing within dominant culture and resists or responds to a social position where an undesirable condition exists for a certain group. Dress and ritual and redefining certain signs and taking it out of context to create new meaning.

Sub Culture any minority group with a shared set of beliefs, values or lifestyle that resists the dominant culture. May reflect youth, ethnic, religious, sexual groups and more. Less visible intellectual basis than counter-culture.

Counter-Culture is an identity which directly challenges the norm, particularly politically motivated.

Extinction Rebellion disrupting “normal” day to day working life to draw attention to issues relating to environmental concerns.

Define and think about the following terms
– culture, subculture, counterculture
– society
– design
– consumption

–authenticity
–desire

Examples
Starbury and Nike
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffarnold/2019/02/21/nike-cast-into-spotlight-after-duke-freshman-williamson-blows-out-shoe-sustains-injury/#468fa26b3d79
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/06/700911596/episode-785-the-starbury

Frida Las Vegas and popular culture
https://www.fridalasvegas.com
celebration of popular culture
inspired by drag and contemporary fashion
Australian approach to popular culture
Art deco, Andy Warhol, Howard Arkley, neon passion, fashion illustration


Sharpies / Sharps

Amly and the Sniffers
BUT what about commodification? GucciGig is a great example.
Don' forget their Spotify playlist.

Bin Chicken
The Bin Chicken – abc.net.au/news/2018-09-07/ibis-bin-chicken-rise-totem-for-modern-australia/10209332

Also, Balls held by Drag Queens in NYC.
Gay people marginalised, beaten and abused. Ostracised from work. Houses were formed where older queens would take in and care for those youth who were run out of home. Paris is Burning shows underground balls and now people like RuPaul have brought Drag Race into the mainstream helping to make it visible and acceptable.

Sayings such as “shady” and “yas queen”.

Hip-hop
DJs and MCs, breakdancing and graffiti writing.
Block parties used two turn tables to extend the break beats for dancing and rhyming.
Responding to dominant group (and have a party).
Hip-Hop Evolution TV show.

Buying ideology of Kanye West and brands.

Designers are ‘cultural intermediaries’.

Cultural Transmission
Language affect thought and action

Sejong the Great known in South Korea for creating and propagating the Korean alphabet Hangul in 1400s to provide literacy for all people, treated people fairly and part of this was to shift focus from “one” to “many” creating a community-focussed way of discussing ideas. This creates a base line for communication and shared understanding.

Book ‘The Story of Your Life’ by Ted Chiang which is now the film The Arrival.

Questions
Tattoos
How can tattoos delineate the belonging to a particular culture or sub-culture or even counter-culture?
Consider: Sailors, bikers, group celebration, marking a milestone, decorative, tribal, cultural, historical, war time (Jewish prisoner tattoos).

Bands
The Beatles were the first super band.
How were they popularised?
What systems provided the ability for them to become so popular?
Are the systems for popularity the same today?
What is a super star and how has this idea shifted?
List what media is available today to help popularise groups that didn’t exist when The Beatles were around?
Is it easier, or more difficult, to achieve the same status today?

Fashion
What is designer clothing versus regular clothing?
How do we ascribe value to designer clothing?
Why is it do expensive?
How does this change our perception of it?
What culture is famous for subverting the idea of fashion and popular mainstream clothing and ho did they alter clothing to make a statement?
Can fashion still be rebellious today?
How does fashion reinforce a societal belief?

Pop Culture
Comes from “mass” and “fan” communities.
Pop culture “works as a dialogue rather than being entirely imposed from above by the producers of meaning, who are simply quick to pick up on trends and feed them bacon new forms to a captivated audience.”
Read aloud — “… the signs and rituals popular culture start in subcultures and become popularised by the mainstream. However, popular culture is generally perceived to be a cynical process for engaging the masses in a cycle of consumerist desire.”

“Popular culture is lived as well as preserved, and is composed not simply of the artefacts of everyday life, but of practices and rituals such as interaction and play. These things tend not to end up in museums but without understanding how they were used their value and meaning might be consigned to history.”
Photographic documentation – https://www.moranprizes.com.au/gallery/photographic

Frida Las Vegas and turning popular culture into subversive fashion and art
Bin Chicken / FUIC / 
https://www.fridalasvegas.com

Authenticity. Nike decision to support Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest. They decided to continue supporting him as a sponsor:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jiawertz/2018/09/30/taking-risks-can-benefit-your-brand-nikes-kaepernick-campaign-is-a-perfect-example/#1c88219045aa

Freestyle campaign: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i-4rn5xCnU

“Society became driven less by a need to produce things for itself, and more by a desire to consume the products of a few large manufacturers…led to a perceived devaluation in the quality and artistic merit of those artefacts and a lack of authenticity.

——

Images / Ideas

Kill Your Self

Eat Sleep Rave Repeat
https://youtu.be/wBoRkg5-Ieg?t=84

Keep Calm and Carry On

Sapir-Whorf — language affecting how you understanding things. Use example of The Story of Your Life which became Arrival film.