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"34/50" by Jeffrey Kolar

"The Ecstasy of Influence" by Jonathan Lethem

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated.."
- John Donne (?)

I feel it is necessary to re-state this quotation which begins the essay, for my own (digital) record and to the game Lethem describes as 'Give All'.

Lethem addresses our historical and cultural framework of personal creativity. In that, the contemporary construction of personal or private ownership reveals "an ongoing social negotiation, tenuously forged, endlessly revised and imperfect in its every incarnation." Through laws and regulation, copyright has successful altered intellectual property while simultaneously closing the connection between inspiration and legality. In "You can't steal a gift," Lethem evaluates how the value, or emotion attachment of some copyright property cannot be bought, sold or produced. Rather, our subjective worth we place into situations and environments "conveys an uncommodifiable surplus of inspiration." The absolute of such 'property' as All Rights Reserved or Copyright seems absurd, in that it halts the exploration of exploration itself.

In the digital age, our culture is constantly being remixed. Remix is a part of the consumer/producer model currently at play in culture. We live within a cut/copy/paste society dating back through all of history, which is itself an issue of re-appropriation. Some examples of how we view the word Copyright:

http://www.copyright.gov/
http://del.icio.us/tag/copyright
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

If these all mean or relate to the understanding of Copyright, then which is right, or which is copyright, or which is the copyright of copyright? The paradox of progression as a human race lies within issues like Copyright, which limits collective public information and creativity. All valuable 'original ideas and concepts' call upon the remediation or plagiarism of a prior historically old 'original idea and concept'. This unity we need to share in order to facilitate a healthy, strong community builds upon the model of the past. Therefore, history is constantly re-writing itself, assuming our roles (intellectually and physically) as a necessary part of history's existence.

"Don't pirate my editions; do plunder my visions. The name of the game is Give All. You, reader, are welcome to my stories. They were never mine in the first place, but I gave them to you. If you have the inclination to pick them up, take them with my blessing." - Jonathan Lethem (?)

Reaction to "Ararat" by Atom Egoyan

The film used narrative to hypermediate the audience, in that a film was shown within the film. The use of image as a narrative is shown within the perspective of Gorky's introduction into the film as an "added character". Gorky was placed into the storyline because his painting (and image) of the genocide from his perspective. The photograph and painting take on the role as a character within the narration. The codes of the photo progress into a storyline, revealing Gorky as a real person and subsequently telling the "true" story of the massacre. His presence within the Hollywood-drama film is not an attempt to use these first hand descriptions or narrations of the event but rather to exploit his position as a painter, drawing "truth" through image and code. Therefore, I feel as though the film as a whole develops around Gorky's image of the massacre as a painting. Contrast to the photo, the painting begins to speak of the genocide in ways the photograph never could, in that Gorky's emotional input as an artist elevated the image into a primary historical hierarchy. The blurring of the figures hands, the brush strokes and Gorky's intimacy with the event itself act as codes revealing the image as a narrative that cannot be told within a movie of the event or even a movie of a movie of the event.

Reation to "The Body and the Archive" by Allan Sekula

"Photography continued to serve the sciences, but in a less grandiose and exalted fashion, and consequently with more modest - and frequently more casual - truth claims, especially on the periphery of the social sciences."

In it's early use, photography served as a measure of hierarchy in terms of the social, physical, scientific, moral, natural and utilitarian. Every photographic represented a public moment of the individual, which objectified stereotypes through 'realistic' aesthetics. Thereafter, photographs were used as an archival tool of the bureaucrats through a system of True intelligence.

This concept of universality revealed that "photography promised more than a wealth of detail; it promised to reduce nature to its geometrical essence." The capacity of the Absolute photographic image revealed a universality previous media could not: written language of mathematics. Previous media was unable to replicate reality through it's physical medium, such as paint, bronze or plaster. Photography as an 'advanced' technology promised this mathematical concreteness through its process of capturing the image. Rather than human's interpretation of the physical world, a mechanical machine actualized the image. Thus, the use of social hierarchy through image was justified through these mathematical and True representations of the human body.

Thus Galton exclaimed in an essay on the "generic image" that mental images "consisted of blended images and the genera produced by his optical process." This rationalizes the human as an inadequate medium for processing and assigning social hierarchies, racial stereotypes and biological truth based solely on observational knowledge. Conversely, early photographic depiction of the physical world did, through mathematics and it's utilitarian universality. Furthermore, the photographic image as a new media "attempted to preserve the value of an older, optical model of truth in a historical context in which abstract, statistical procedures seemed to offer the high road to social truth and social control."

Reaction to "Pictures for Rent" by Abbott Miller

Miller's perception of stock photography can "offer a way of studying images as a form of currency that funds advertising." Between 1974-75 the mass media adopted photography as a control method, in that photography was recognized as an emotional and physiological function. The input of data and information within a photograph served a direct connection with the development of consumer to business relationship throughout the world. Thus, followed such corporate ideals such as branding, which looked at the consumer market as a form of a growing, marketable currency. Therefore, stock photographers were told to "shoot for 'concept' rather than 'content,' to think in terms of 'word pictures." This rise of new artistic meaning forced the photographer to produce work for an audience, market, society, boss, media, young, old, ugly, pretty, and all other stereotypes. These stereotypes were then used to control and manipulate the mass media and persuade the public into buying an image of themselves. Individuality and uniqueness were no longer valued in the realm of stock photography. Therefore, the ideology of corporations and mass media were to generalize societal structures through semiotic-rich images and resell the new 'image' of self back to the consumer. Thus creating a modern culture dependent on mass media to control and construct there visions of them'selves'.

Reaction to "Chapter of Codes, Semiotics for Beginners" by Daniel Chandler

Chandler introduces a new vocabulary of reading and understanding the workings of semiotics. Primarily, he introduces the concept of semiotic codes, which "require familiarity with appropriate sets of conventions." Through the concepts of iconography, signs are used to generalize certain visual experiences and relate them to masses of people, in hopes of a utopian understanding of the icon. Codes, on the other hand, begin to inscribe meaning from the standpoints of logic, aesthetics and social. Our sense of reality is governed by these codes, building an environment of existence through a series of learned, nurtured actualizations. Codes declare that "all perceptual systems are already languages in their own right," and that, "perception depends on coding the world into iconic signs that can re-present it within our mind." Therefore, the code becomes the medium or media in which our 'vision' of reality is perceived, using tools such as iconography as a method of retrieving data through this shield of existence.

Visually, Chandler believes that organization of perception is based upon universal principles such as proximity, similarity, good continuation, closure, smallness, surroundedness, symmetry and pragnanz. These 'laws' of visual organization pose questions of human interaction with each-other and our built environment. If humanity has shifted towards visual stimulus as the main sensory response of learning, these codes therefore "help to simplify phenomena in order to make it easier to communicate experiences." Social codes then become an organized method of interaction via the verbal, the body, the commodities, and the behavioral. I believe these social codes shape our reality, both objectively and subjectively, thus making our perception of our existence an absurdity. In that, 'our' codes must and always correspond to "knowledge of: the world (social knowledge), the medium and the genre (textural knowledge), and the relationship between the (world) and the (medium)."

Semiotics can no longer be looked at as an objectified visual experience, in that of iconography and iconology. Rather, one must recognize that our perceptual reality is "a system of signs organized according to code and subcodes which reflect certain values, attitudes, beliefs, assumptions and practices." Thus, one must not recognize this reality described as a sort of determinism, but rather a socially-induced guideline or methodology to our species as humans. Every animal will develop similar practices in order to function as a biotic organism, rather I would like to recognize our system as a complexity, influenced by our humanity or living as a whole. Our choices as individuals are guided through these dynamic codes, in constant flux and reorganization. This movement represents your subjective relationship and influence to semiotic codes. Your part of building these codes determines our existence as a species.

Reaction to "The Language of Dreams" by Miller

Miller introduces the Freudian theory of the rebus, "dreams are a form of expression employing both words and pictures." Although Freud is expressing interest within the meaning of dreams, Miller argues this holds true within modern language. There is much overlap of socialization and pre-textural information needed to give meaning to our spoken and written languages, including overlap between themselves. This is present within Chinese and Japanese language, where many words play back and forth in relation to another, both in meaning and sonically. Miller overlaps language with Freud's writings when he remarks, "Freud argued that to decipher a dream one must exchange the direct, literal meaning of its images for indirect substitutions." These needed social and independent 'substitutions' recognize the impracticality and often persisting evolution of modern linguistics. Everyday, new words are being invented and conversely, misplaced. This addition and substitution of language in itself makes it as an entity, unstable. In the least, we can recognize these miss-functions of language to our advantage, artistically, socially and politically to further evolve our understanding of human interaction and communication.

Reaction to "Constructing the Swastika" by Jennifer Hadden

Due to the swastika's irreversible connotation to the Nazi party of WWII, the swastika has proven the power of symbols as a political and social tool rather than just representational media. Since it's birth as a symbol of good luck, the swastika's later use as a medium of the "victory of the Aryan man" recognized the use of symbol as a control method. Abstractly, symbols in daily life are used to the same extent, i.e. public awareness signage. Although these symbols are used as navigational tools rather than a collective identity, which the swastika became. The Nazi party recognized that "the 19th century Europe had entered a visual age.. an age in which political symbols... proved more effective than any didactic speech." This quote gives rise to an expanding visual culture we live in, guided by images, signs and symbols, we making meaning out of these 'guidelines' and often do not question their preceding significance nor their future authority.

Reaction to "Modern Hieroglyphs" by Lupton

Lupton describes the use of Isotype symbols as a "language equipped to use design and theory as tools for unearthing new questions and constructing new answers." Designed by Otoo Neurath in the 1920's, he grandfathered symbols as language, furthermore using visual-based learning as an "international hieroglyphic of public information." Although I agree that these symbols can objectively state obvious human-oriented living, he holds too much pressure on observation as the key to knowledge and truth. In science for instance, observational knowledge deems to prove very little, and is often considered fake science. Pure observation reveals little about what is actually present, and more on the amount of light our subjective senses can perceive. This is shown in Darwin's "Origins of Species", when he arbitrarily grouped two similar biotic organisms by observational traits, then placed them into groupings which founded the basis of our natural kingdom. Later, many of his observational findings found to be false, due to the fact that he placed such heavy emphasis on this observational knowledge. Similarly, these modern hieroglyphics do something of the same, and do not project objective, international signs of use and meaning. Although Darwin and Neurath's findings and product do project a good guide to the start of an "international language", they also fail to project any truth to an objective language of the world, if that is even possible.

Reaction to "How to Reason" by Charles Sanders Pierce

Pierce's essay classifies human state of the mind as feeling, reaction and thinking. These make up a large portion of our perception of reality. Although furthermore, Pierce breaks down the signs or representation of these processes as: likenesses (icons), indications (indices) and symbols (general signs). Through these signs we mediate any input of information and knowledge (physical, mental, extra-medial) and bring meaning to our reality.

On likenesses...
Likeness enables us to relate things by means of pure imitation and representation. Allowing relativity to guide us, we build meaning for anything based on it's relationship to its past, present and future surroundings.

On indications...
This pertains most vivid to my experience of reality, in that indices develop a strong connection with physicality of a thing. I believe I drive meaning out of objects through interaction with them, later to go back on the observation of the object and develop a better understanding of "being." Through this observation, I believe "we may not know precisely what the [object] was...but it may be expected to connect itself with some other experience. " These physical interactions help control or contrive meaning of things through these experiences of indications.

On symbols...
"Every intellectual operation involves a triad of symbols." Our use of symbols, be it language, words, or sounds, will always grow. They are not bound by atoms or molecules, but rather they are euphoric by nature. They cannot be owned or operated but are always interpreted and evaluated. These dichotomies allow symbols to be dynamic in meaning and usage through mediums based upon the user's input. We control symbols and their "life span" will be forever relative to our perception of them.

Reaction to "image" by Kristine Nielsen

“The very phrase ‘word and image’ suggest that two different, perhaps incompatible things are to be shackled together.”

Nielsen makes the claim that an image alone is so difficult to grasp, that words have become a socialized additive to there existence and meaning. The way in which we view image (abstract) cannot be a medium of pure data; rather there are six categories to associate with image: graphic, optical, perceptual, mental, verbal and significant. We subjectively build context of image through these measures, allowing descriptive language to navigate these categorical spaces. Alone, the image “bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum.” Particularly, our sensatory perception stimulates information into our brain, with an output of meaning void of the physicality, or actuality of the image itself. Therefore, our body controls the image, shaping filters, which are external to actual image and subjective to the viewer.