'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there'.
This quote means that the future is going to constantly have things being done differently, in other words a song from the past can be remixed and listened to differently to give it a completely different meaning e.g. Where is my mind by Pixies which has been used in the movie Fight Club and on a Thompson holiday advert and has been put across to the audeinces very differently in the two.
'If you look to the future and keep one eye on the past you are blind in one eye. If you keep both eyes on the future and no eyes on the past you are blind in both eyes and god have mercy on you'.
This quote means that the things used today and in the future are influenced, referenced or copied from the past as we have many songs which sample existing songs and also movies which have many of their elements influenced by existing movies.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Jean-Francois Lyotard
Lyotard rejected what he called the 'Grand Narratives' or universal 'Meta Narratives'.
Principally, the grand narratives refer to the great theorie of history, science, religion and politics. For example, Lyotard rejects the ideas that everything is knowable by science or that as history moves forward in time, humanity makes progress. He would reject universal political solutions such as communism or capitalism. He also rejects the idea of absolute freedom.
Principally, the grand narratives refer to the great theorie of history, science, religion and politics. For example, Lyotard rejects the ideas that everything is knowable by science or that as history moves forward in time, humanity makes progress. He would reject universal political solutions such as communism or capitalism. He also rejects the idea of absolute freedom.
Desert Bus
In a lesson we were told to play the game 'Desert Bus' and realise the purpose of the game.
The game is basically a bus in which you a driving it and the only buttons you can press are the arrow keys for acceleration, braking, steering left and steering right, honing the horn and opening the bus door. It is supposed to simulate a real bus journey in real time in which you are driving from Tuscan to Las Vegas and the time it takes is 8 hours. On completion of the journey you recieve one point and this is because existing games today gove you a numbber of points for completing a simple task and so the game creators wanted it to give you one point to make it seen that this is all you need and that you dont need 500 or 1000 points for just doing one thing. The fact that the game is made to be played for 8 hours is because games today that people play are played for short amounts of time for a single objective and not in real time and so the creators wanted to emphasise the reality of the game for having it for this long. As it is a simulation making it in real time makes it very 'realistic' even thoght the graphics are poor and the background is the same, a desert landscape, for the whole journey.
The game is basically a bus in which you a driving it and the only buttons you can press are the arrow keys for acceleration, braking, steering left and steering right, honing the horn and opening the bus door. It is supposed to simulate a real bus journey in real time in which you are driving from Tuscan to Las Vegas and the time it takes is 8 hours. On completion of the journey you recieve one point and this is because existing games today gove you a numbber of points for completing a simple task and so the game creators wanted it to give you one point to make it seen that this is all you need and that you dont need 500 or 1000 points for just doing one thing. The fact that the game is made to be played for 8 hours is because games today that people play are played for short amounts of time for a single objective and not in real time and so the creators wanted to emphasise the reality of the game for having it for this long. As it is a simulation making it in real time makes it very 'realistic' even thoght the graphics are poor and the background is the same, a desert landscape, for the whole journey.
Dan Black
In Dan Black's 'Symphonies' there are many intertextual references.
The first of these is the opening of the video which is similar to the 'Universal' movie clip in which the world is rotating, Dan has made his own copy of this in which he has a planet rotating which looks like the moon (i think it probably is) with UN pictures covering it. This gives the video a sense of it being the opening of a movie. When the beat kicks in we then see a clip of a road which then has Dan Black's name rolling down and the songs name, this has been copied from the opening scene of Lost Highway where we see the shot moving down a road with the credits coming up above the lines in the road. There is a reference from the original TRON film in which the artist is hovering above a simulated area lit up with green lines with green arrows flyring around as if he were in some virtual gaming system, just like in the TRON movie. There is a clip taken from the movie Starman with a spaceship flyring across the screen giving the video a sci-fi type theme as these kinds of clips run thoughout the video. There is then a clip showing the artists falling down inbetween building and this has been copied from the film Sin City where we have the black and white colour theme with the Red writing which is similar to the Sin City title. Next there is a reference used from the film 'Symphonies' and so the audience can then see that this is where the influence for the song title has come from. The video then goes on to having refernces from Bond films where we see a figure of a woman and we can see the artist through her, this is used mainly in the opening of the Bond films. There is then a reference from the film Bonanza where we see the artist in what is obviously an old western style shot with the credits in the font used in western films. Elements of The film Donnie Darko have been put into the video where we see the artist through a mid shot with smoke surrounding him and a black background and this quickly changes to him having a rabbit mask on, and this, for anyone who has seen Donnie Darko, can be immediatly recognised as there is a character in the movie who wears a rabbit outfit. It then goes on to a Thunderbird type clip with the artist as a big headed puppety figure driving a toy car around which is noticably similar to Thunderbirds as well as the credits that come up similar to the Thunderbirds title to reinforce the idea. At the end of the video there is then the credits reading 'The End' in the fonts of all of the movies that Dan Black has included in his video.
The use of addition in this video is that the artist has brought together a variety of different narratives and made it into one.
The use of deletion in this video is that the narratives are only shown as the opening's of each or the endings where the rest is not shown, there is a continuous use of this throughout the video.
The use of substitution is used throughout the whole video for every clip where Dan Black has replaced the characters from each narrative with himself and all of the scenes he has replaced with his own inspiration of each scene.
The use of transposition is that the artist has brought together for example a spce theme and an old western theme and edited it to make it fit to his own advantage and made it work, nothing in the video really fits with anything in the video and so this is why what he has done has created a new meaning.
The first of these is the opening of the video which is similar to the 'Universal' movie clip in which the world is rotating, Dan has made his own copy of this in which he has a planet rotating which looks like the moon (i think it probably is) with UN pictures covering it. This gives the video a sense of it being the opening of a movie. When the beat kicks in we then see a clip of a road which then has Dan Black's name rolling down and the songs name, this has been copied from the opening scene of Lost Highway where we see the shot moving down a road with the credits coming up above the lines in the road. There is a reference from the original TRON film in which the artist is hovering above a simulated area lit up with green lines with green arrows flyring around as if he were in some virtual gaming system, just like in the TRON movie. There is a clip taken from the movie Starman with a spaceship flyring across the screen giving the video a sci-fi type theme as these kinds of clips run thoughout the video. There is then a clip showing the artists falling down inbetween building and this has been copied from the film Sin City where we have the black and white colour theme with the Red writing which is similar to the Sin City title. Next there is a reference used from the film 'Symphonies' and so the audience can then see that this is where the influence for the song title has come from. The video then goes on to having refernces from Bond films where we see a figure of a woman and we can see the artist through her, this is used mainly in the opening of the Bond films. There is then a reference from the film Bonanza where we see the artist in what is obviously an old western style shot with the credits in the font used in western films. Elements of The film Donnie Darko have been put into the video where we see the artist through a mid shot with smoke surrounding him and a black background and this quickly changes to him having a rabbit mask on, and this, for anyone who has seen Donnie Darko, can be immediatly recognised as there is a character in the movie who wears a rabbit outfit. It then goes on to a Thunderbird type clip with the artist as a big headed puppety figure driving a toy car around which is noticably similar to Thunderbirds as well as the credits that come up similar to the Thunderbirds title to reinforce the idea. At the end of the video there is then the credits reading 'The End' in the fonts of all of the movies that Dan Black has included in his video.
The use of addition in this video is that the artist has brought together a variety of different narratives and made it into one.
The use of deletion in this video is that the narratives are only shown as the opening's of each or the endings where the rest is not shown, there is a continuous use of this throughout the video.
The use of substitution is used throughout the whole video for every clip where Dan Black has replaced the characters from each narrative with himself and all of the scenes he has replaced with his own inspiration of each scene.
The use of transposition is that the artist has brought together for example a spce theme and an old western theme and edited it to make it fit to his own advantage and made it work, nothing in the video really fits with anything in the video and so this is why what he has done has created a new meaning.
Monday, 23 January 2012
Creativity
Creativity is 'A process needed for problem solving...not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common ability possessed by most people'. (Jones 1993)
On the one hand I agree that creativity is a process needed for problem solving as when creating my magazine product last year I was given different processes to follow which enabled me to create the different parts of my magazine. These processes included research and planning where I would look up different magazines and get ideas of what to do, learn conventions of how I would lay out each part of the magazine, making the magazine itself from the things i had learned and my own ideas, evaluating the magazine by explaining what I had done and how. Each process would be followed and i would then make my product using what i had learned from them. It was through learning each process in which i was able to then make my product as well as i did because without them i would not have any idea of where to start or how the magazine would look proffesional.
By doing each process I can see why creativity would be seen as a way of solving a problems because i was just following steps in order to finish my product, however on the other hand, it was in completing these tasks in which i was using my own designs and being creative to make it my own and different from others. At first i would be looking at existing magazines to get ideas of how to lay it out but i would not copy it them. I adapted my own colour scheme together to make it look good as well as the positioning of some elements e.g. the Masthead's first letter being larger than the others, and also the picture of the microphone coming down the contents page's right side which thinking about now was me bing creative and not following a process as it was my own idea. Even though i wouldn't have been able to create my product as well as i did without following the processes, I believe that creativity is also partly a special gift, but one in which we all have ourselves which allows us to come up with our own ideas and create what we see as our own because we all followed the same processes and still came up with very different products.
On the one hand I agree that creativity is a process needed for problem solving as when creating my magazine product last year I was given different processes to follow which enabled me to create the different parts of my magazine. These processes included research and planning where I would look up different magazines and get ideas of what to do, learn conventions of how I would lay out each part of the magazine, making the magazine itself from the things i had learned and my own ideas, evaluating the magazine by explaining what I had done and how. Each process would be followed and i would then make my product using what i had learned from them. It was through learning each process in which i was able to then make my product as well as i did because without them i would not have any idea of where to start or how the magazine would look proffesional.
By doing each process I can see why creativity would be seen as a way of solving a problems because i was just following steps in order to finish my product, however on the other hand, it was in completing these tasks in which i was using my own designs and being creative to make it my own and different from others. At first i would be looking at existing magazines to get ideas of how to lay it out but i would not copy it them. I adapted my own colour scheme together to make it look good as well as the positioning of some elements e.g. the Masthead's first letter being larger than the others, and also the picture of the microphone coming down the contents page's right side which thinking about now was me bing creative and not following a process as it was my own idea. Even though i wouldn't have been able to create my product as well as i did without following the processes, I believe that creativity is also partly a special gift, but one in which we all have ourselves which allows us to come up with our own ideas and create what we see as our own because we all followed the same processes and still came up with very different products.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Where Is My Mind?
The song 'Where Is My Mind' is by the American alternative rock band Pixies. It is used in the end sequence of the movie 'Fight Club' and also in a Thompson holiday advert where it is used completely differently in the two. Initially it was written about experiences by the bands frontman, Black Francis, which included a scuba diving experience with fish. It then goes on to be used in the movie Fight Club, where its action like music is put together with the ending of the movie where we see buildings being blown up and falling down which allows the music to fit in well with this as it is an action scene of destruction.
It is then used in the Thompson holiday advert where it has been used as just a piano which gives it a more warm feeling. It is put with the visuals of people having fun on their holiday which is being advertised and so having the music in this way fits well with the visuals, then there is the narrative that is used over the music which is a little boy speaking of how you can enjoy yourself on a holiday but it is said in a poetry kind of way which reinforces the warm feeling of the music the voice is put over. This being compared with the use of the song in Fight Club has let me see it in a completely different way and shows that little changes to the song can give out different meanings of what was originally intended to be recieved by the audience and can be used for different things e.g. Movie and then Advert.
It is then used in the Thompson holiday advert where it has been used as just a piano which gives it a more warm feeling. It is put with the visuals of people having fun on their holiday which is being advertised and so having the music in this way fits well with the visuals, then there is the narrative that is used over the music which is a little boy speaking of how you can enjoy yourself on a holiday but it is said in a poetry kind of way which reinforces the warm feeling of the music the voice is put over. This being compared with the use of the song in Fight Club has let me see it in a completely different way and shows that little changes to the song can give out different meanings of what was originally intended to be recieved by the audience and can be used for different things e.g. Movie and then Advert.
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