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Saturday 3 August 2013

Lecture 10: Communication theory

Semiotics;

Demonstrate how precarious communication is. The meaning isn't guaranteed in whatever you say. People don't realise and are confident in what they say without realising it can be misinterpreted.

Two Ronnies sketch: Confusion. O's? Hose? Pantyhose?


LINGUISTICS

Theories and theorists

What is Semiotics?

Ferdinand De Saussure - definied semioligy as 'the study of sign systems'
Linguists - are people concerned with language
Helps to understand visual commnication aswell.

Signifier - signified - reference

Word/image/colour/stands in place for something else - not the thing itself/the mental image or concept, what you create in your head - the actual thing itself

What do these colours signify?







Saussure also separated the process of speaking from this speaking of language itself (la Langue) - the process of communicating is a willful thing on our part. We decide what we want to say. The language itself doesn't belong to us, it precedes us. Belongs to society and the human race.

Semiotics is a form of meta-language - a language about language

  • E.G. Green and blue have their own connotations. Green - grass/nature? Blue - water/cold?
  • You add some walkers crisps next to them and the green means salt and vinegar and blue means cheese and onion. Wasn't always this way, it's almost a mental agreement.
  • Blue as a colour itself has no real connection with cheese or onion in terms of colours and the kind of flavours through prior knowledge that blue imagery creates in our minds.

Saussure tells us that meaning is established in differentiation.
Denote. Connote?

Myth

Barthes linked myths to ideology - 'Bourgeois ideology...turns culture into nature' (1974)

Myths often appear to 'go without saying' yet function hige dominant cultural values.
To Barthes they are a 'third order' of signification after denotation (first order) and connotation (second order) Myth would be (third order) no logical connection but naturalised over time through society.

FOR EXAMPLE...

Red Wine
Associated with class, intelligence. In actual fact no logical or realistic connection between red wine and intelligence. Particularly in France.




Milk
Particularly in US. Associated with strength, Freedom, liberty, like most things in the US. In actual fact bares no logical connection with freedom, liberty. 


SYNTAGM - a series or collection of signifiers within a 'text' e.g. a sentence

Syntagmic relations - how signifiers within a syntagm relate to each other.
Paradigm - signifiers that relate through function or relative meaning (e.g. boy/man male/female)

 FOR EXAMPLE

"he hit the boy" "he hit the man" by replacin the words it completely changes the meaning and perception of the sentence.

SO HOW DOES THAT WORK WITH IMAGERY

D&G
So in terms of a syntagm. Matther McConnaughey for D&G. Bottle of perfume in bottom right corner, right type. And so on. It's syntagmatic relations, the composition, the way he looks at you, in the first third of the image. The rule of thirds. 

In terms of paradigm - replacing one of the signifiers but replacing it with something in the same paradigm/collection

Replacing that signifier with a cowboy ( it's now going to become aftershave for rugged men, the perceived smell and social impact of the fragrance would totally change.



Marlboro Man
Rugged, chilling, man. Replacing the man with a woman would completely change the communication like on other cig adverts. (Check other blogposts for more information on the 'Marlboro man' - Employs one of the greatest advertising techniques)


Metaphor and Metonym - are both non-literal forms of signification, as such require a level of interpretation.

metaphor - where one signifier is replaced with another of similar character or concept

metonym - where a signifier stands in for another to which is conceptually or physicall a part of. For example referring to your car as "the wheels". Small part of the car.

The White House
Saying The White House doesn't necessarily mean the house itself, it can refer to US politics, democracy and so on.

RHETORIC
The act of effective persuasion using language. Politicans, Journalists, Advertisers, PR. So subtle, wer'e sometimes not even aware it's happening at all.

Very careful about what they photograph, how they photograph and which photographs they pick to capture the message. For example "war is bad" "madonna likes babies"

THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD
a movie about making a movie - a metamovie.


Marcel Duchamp 'Fountain'
The loo. An artwork about art, comments about art itself.
 


STRUCTURALISM
The term used for the broad application of semiotics/semiology to a range of sign systems.
Further than the application solely to linguistics.

Structuralism emphasises structures or systems of signification.

Not what it means but How it comes to mean.

Semiotic linguistic terms/structures act as analogies for other systems.

Roland Barthes - 'Image Music Text' 1977

Barthes anlyses range of visual media in terms of their signifying structures. 'The photographic message' 'The rhetoric of the image' 'The Third meaning' Essays worth reading if interested in semiotics and signifiers.

POST-STRUCTURALISM

People became skeptical of modernism, post-modernism happens. Same happened with structuralism.


Art Thoughtz - Post Structuralism






"using big words to make their work seems interesting. "If you can't make it, fake it. Use big words"


Modernism is kinda like your father growing up. You assumed everything he said was true, Too young to see reality, your hero. Establishing the world for you, differences between right from wrong etc. Post structuralism - "fuck your father, your authority". 

You be like "Maureen I'm not the father of that baby." 
Post structuralism "You are the father of that baby."

Realistic. Pessimistic and no faff.
Post structuralism is a part of post-modernism. It's about skepticism about assumed rules and assumed meaning.

What's wrong with structalism?

Structuralism reduces everything to related elements within a signifying system...

This is authoritarian in nature.

Assumes the presence of meaning ('the metaphysics of presence') logocentrism

Post structuralists aim to deconstruct assumptions and emphasise the plurality of interpretation

Differance

Jaques Derrida established this term both in development of Saussure and disagreement.

Differer - to differ and to defer

Differance is both differing and deferring simultaneously

Derrida states that meaning is not only established in difference/opposition but is also being deferred.

JD 1968 quote. "As rigorously possible we must permit to appear/disappear the trace of what excees the truth of Being. The trace of (that) which itself can never be presrnted: that is, appear and manigest itself, as such in it's phenomenon... Always difering and deferring, the trace is never as it is in the presentation itself. It erases itself in presenting itself.."

DECONSTRUCTION
Where structuralism identified/created structures of signification

Deconstruction aims to dismantle the structures - identifying gaps and instabilities/

Through deconsitruction Jacques Derrida challenged 'binary oppositions' which are deeply rooted in our culture and language.

Emphasising what is lost or cast aside.

Intertextuality

Describes how texts (according Kristeva) subject to influence but also everything that comes before and is similar to.

Intertextuality describes how texts are contructed/collages of previous texts...

Foucalt also writes about intertextuality.



Exists because it references others. 

SIMULACRA

Jean Baudrillard introduces the idea of hyperreality in representation...a copy without an original.

That we have lost the ability to recognise the difference between nature and artificiality

Apple Mac v Nike

Useful for their purposes. But also useful to say Apple Macbook, often instead of Laptop. The status and the brand themselves become more important the brand itself. People who have an iPhone very rarely refer to their phone as a phone anymore, but an 'iPhone". Yet people using a Samsung S3 for example would rarely say "Oh I'm just on my Samsung S3"

CONSIDERATIONS FOR ART & DESIGN

Considerations in analysing art and design

Considerations in creating art and design.


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