no, mom, no

hey a heyaaa hey,
here’s an audio file i put together. this is real live dialogue i recorded when i lived in a new school dorm for a couple months. this track is supposed to make the listener feel overwhelmed and alienated, but also fascinated, as i felt living with people who spoke like this. i think it’s really funny, and i plan to use more of this audio (i have hours of it) to create a sound installation somewhere. eeeennnjjjjooooyyyy.

“im the smartest person in my english class”

Psychogeographic Lady… part 2

I redid my project… This time with a tripod. (And a different lovely model.) It’s easier to focus on the image and concept without the shaky hand of a reluctant photographer. I was absent from class the day this was assigned, so I decided to interpret this project the way I wanted to, and in a way I thought I would work best. After doing the reading and considering the assignment I decided that while this would look different from what everyone else did, it makes sense and relates strongly to psychogeography. I hope you guys enjoy it.

psychogeography and the female form

“the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.”…will write more later.

Jammin

Here’s the culture jam image I created using photoshop:

http://www.universalroyalty.com/

The message is pretty straight-forward, I think.
I used the stamp tool to erase the original text. I used the eyedropper to get the right color off the girls’ eyes to draw their awful mascara tears. I used the smudge tool to perfect the tears and also raise the inner tips of their eyebrows to create what I think turned out to be pretty disturbing facial expressions.
I like how this came out. I think any successful culture jam should be at least slightly disturbing. The whole point of doing something like this is to take something you think is backwards or wrong and rearrange it to encourage people to rethink the concepts that you disagree with. I am always shocked and disgusted when I realize how huge the subculture of child pageantry is, and how serious people are about it. This is exactly why I think it’s necessary to create an image which is shocking and disgusting to use as a statement against exploitative child pageants. I at first thought about photoshopping all the young girls so they were topless and had adult breasts… But I guess I didn’t want to freak anyone out quite that much.
Culture Jamming is only effective if it reaches as wide of an audience as the content which is being “jammed” does (i.e. editing billboards). The fun thing about current technology is that there’s really no limit to how large an audience might receive something you put online. I’m thinking specifically about YouTube. Here’s something I made for fun a couple of weeks ago after hearing a terrible Miley Cyrus song that made me think of a song by a band that I like… I think stuff like this is culture jamming in a way. Maybe you’ll think it’s funny. (Probably more likely if you’ve heard the Miley Cyrus song before.)

Non-Objective Representation…

Here’s what I did in class last week, thinking about McLuhan’s theories:

Here, the opaque circles represent individuals, and the translucent glow that each one is emitting represents different forms of media which they utilize as an extension of themselves. Even though none of the circles are actually touching, their extensions are all reaching one another.

Spectacle

    To be able to understand Guy Debord’s concept of “the spectacle,” I first took some time to contemplate my own feelings on the significance of that term. To me a spectacle is something that is unable to be ignored- something that draws a massive crowd in and fully stimulates people in a way that enraptures their animalistic appreciation of sensory phenomena, but is not intellectually inspiring or invigorating. Like moths to a flame, you might say. A spectacle can produce excitement or feelings of fulfillment for a spectator, but is in reality merely numbing and hypnotic to the mind. Like Karl Marx’s famous quote about religion, an “opiate of the people.”

 

My definition of a spectacle does coincide in certain ways with Debord’s spectacle. He describes it as being all-encompassing, and deceptive: “the unitiy it imposes is merely the official language of generalized separation.” According to Debord, people are constantly, consistently, unconsciously influenced and guided by the spectacle- originality and individualism are unattainable concepts. The thing I found interesting about Debord’s theory, which seems to disprove what he’s saying in a way, is that he never claims that the spectacle is present everywhere, all the time, to every one. He repeatedly refers to Western culture (the spectacle is “heir to all the weaknesses of the project of Western philosophy.” 19) and present times (“…it is the sun that never sets on the empire of modern passivity.” 13). If the spectacle is not an entity which is primordial, and universally enlaced within the structure of reality, how could it be entirely inescapable by some? If individuals who lived in different eras or who currently live in non-Western societies are or can be immune to the spectacle, why can’t members of current Western cultures will themselves away from its influence?

 

  I don’t think I can clearly define what Debord describes as “the spectacle,” but I do think I have a good understanding of his theories. The more I think about these concepts, the more I have to say. I’m tempted to go into the fact that Debord makes an appropriate comparison between the spectacle and religion (  the spectacle is a “…material reconstruction of the religious illusion (20)… Those cloud-enshrouded entities have now been brought down to earth… a technological version of the exiling of human powers in a ‘world beyond’”), but I won’t. I will say that I absolutely agree that all opinions and actions are reflections of influences that people have absorbed throughout their lives, whether they are conscious of these influences or not. I don’t think that this idea should be particularly disturbing or discouraging. It’s very similar to coming to terms with the fact that all matter is made of the same components- atoms, molecules, protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, tiny vibrating loops of “string,” etc. To feel depressed about two peoples’ seemingly different identities being made of the same limited components is to me as petty as being frustrated that when you dig deep enough, a banana and a piano are comprised of the same stuff.

y0o0o0o0o

Hey guys! I have a blog now. I’m Samantha, I was born in New London, Connecticut on September 18, 1987. I’m interested in learning how to use all of the media tools you might find in a media toolkit. Here’s a great photo for you to gaze at….This is a painting I found in my new apartment building when I moved in last month. I had a party and someone stole it.