In the opening of Bioshock (2007) the haunting sound of the recorded voice of antagonist Andrew Ryan recites the philosophy that the underwater city of Rapture was based on.

He says that Rapture is a city where “…the artist need no fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small.”

The fictional city had no lawful restrictions on science, and as such its denizens made marvoulus scientific advancements such as genetic manipulation, and Rapture is designed to be a utopian society free from bruecrocity.

However the state of Rapture as perceived by the player is not a utopia, it is dilapidated and its citizens are deranged junkies addicted to the biological advances made by science.

The message of game is completely opposite to the message given by the characters inside the game. The philosophy of Rapture is one of pure capitalism, and individuality in order to transend the other societies of the world.

However the message the game sends to real-life audiences is against this libertarian viewpoint, and definitely does no advocate releasing science from any forms of restraint or regulation.

Todays Lectorial was on remixes, and I found it highly interesting and engaging. It dealt with the concept of “remixing” media, especially music and the ramifications of this in a copyright sense.

The activity where we had to try and list all the samples inside a music pieces was very interesting (not to mention challenging). As was the video that showecased an interview with a copyright laywer.

It shows how the media landscape is always rapidly changing, and how the legal framework can never quite keep up.

Todays lectorial covered institutions, which was a very interesting topic.

One activity that was particularly engaging was getting into groups and writing about different media institutions (Facebook, Google, News Corp and Local Media).

The opinion of each varied greatly, with News Corp being generally disliked, Facebook being seen as a necessary evil, Google being mostly praised but with some questioning of their ethics and Local Media being praised.

• Experience of having stories read to us as children.
• Narrative relates to everything
• What seperates us from animals.
• Story is a way structuring existance, and chosing bits.
• Narratvie is anything that is a retelling of events, casuality.

Cause and effect (cant fly from Perth to Broome without being in Perth)

3 key elements

• Character development (takes time, present audience with number of situations in which they can respond to, so that audiance can learn how the work)
• plot (skeleton of the story, usually written briefly with simple sentences)
• resoltuion (dictated by the events that take place during the plot, as well as character development and how different people reacted to plot)

“The stuff of story is alive but intangible”

everything is story _ Story is everyithing

Minutes

• Progress report on annotated bibliography

1. Sandy – a bit behind because I was sick, but will be done by tomorrows class.
2. Kristian – done
3. Ali – done

• Spitballed ideas for brief, including a mockumentory about video games as a medium, looking at GTA and how it incorportates many mediums, as well as looking at Red Dead Redemtion and L.A Noire as games reviving “dead” genres in a new medium.

Our definitions of “Medium”

• Sandy: The different formats that artists can use to convey their message.
• Kristian: A channel of common intercommunication across avenues such as print, visuals and sound
• Ali: Communication tools that can change the perspective of the masses.
• Talked about the general summary of our bibliography

We will further discuss what our artifact will be tomorrow in class with Racheal for advice.

End of meeting.

This weeks topic was collaboration, I have traditionally disliked collaborating because I have had bad experiences with group projects in the past. However I do see the potential value in collaboration when working on a media artifact.

Collaboration can be used to insert multiple ideas, as well as gather criticism and feedback internally from a source other than the eventual audiance.

In this weeks media lectorial, the topic was “audiences”. This brought up many interesting topics, such as the concept of “The Masses” and how the methods audiences receive media is changing with time.

One section which stood out for me personally was the concept of Fandoms, or groups of extreme fans of a particular media entity (for example a TV or Movie series or a particular Band).

What is interesting is that being part of a fandom can become a large part of someones identity, for example:

• Trekkies
• Whovians
• Potter Heads (this one makes me laugh everytime I hear it)
• Bronies
• etc….

These groups usually operate via online forums dedicated to their collective interest, sometimes it can be a dedicated standalone forum or it can also be a part of a larger online community (for example a Sub-Reddit, or a Tumblr, or a Facebook page). Or in many cases a plethora of forums across the internet, with standalone and setting up groups on many major social network platforms.

Being part of a fandom has traditionally been associated with negative connotations. However, attitudes towards people expressing their love of particular media has grown more positive in recent years, likely due to the rapid rise in social media.

There are also fans who dipise the assocaited fandoms, “I love xxxxx, but I cant stand xxxxx fanss” is a common phrase to hear across social media landscapes, as people grow frustrated and ostracised from Fan groups because of differing opinons on acceptable behaviour to the majority, or being well outside the age bracket that makes up most of the fandom.

Part of this weeks class using the notion of “found footage” in media, where you incorporate media materials from pre-existing source and re-purpose them for your own.

This technique was used in the short Film “Illistrated Auswitz” which we recently watched in Intro to Cinema.

The film (which can be viewed HERE) involves a survior of the infamous Nazi concentration camp recounting her experiences during the holocaust, the sound of her voice is accompanied by footage from “The Wizard of Oz”, with scenes setup to match what she is talking about, the childlike wonder of the film deeply contrasts the horrors of which she speaks and it creates a haunting and affecting film.

“Illustrated Auswitz”shows how found footage can be used to create meaningful films, that are the polar opposite in tone than the sourced materials.

In todays lectorial the importance and power of editing was discussed. The concept of editing being the process of giving meaning to things via the context of what comes before or after.

This is called the Kuleshov Effect, in which by placing two unrelated images or shots in sequence, meaning is derived by the audiance. The first example of this was shown by Lev Kuleshov (for whom the effect is named), where he showed audiances an image of a man looking at the camera followed an image of a bowl of soup. Then the same image of a man looking ahead followed instead by an image of a dead child. Then finally once again the image of the man this time followed by an image of a woman lying on a couch.

Audiences perceived different emotions from the man, even though it was identical images each time. Audiences felt that the man felt, hunger, sadness and lust all from the same image, where the only difference was what he was shown to be looking at. This shows the importance of editing, as something as simple as this can give powerful meaning to media.

Further more, the lectorer (who’s name I’ve forgotten) also different meaning can be achieved from simple sequences of photgrpaphs that can change based on the composition. The example given was to show a picture of the fictional Joffery Baratheon followed by a picture of Christopher Pyne. Immidetly the audiance reaction is that the two are being compared to each other and similarity is implied, even though if looked at from a purely litteral standpoint it is just 2 slides.

Another sequence showing the same image of Joffery, but this time followed by a different image of Christopher Pyne was not met with the same reaction, instead the implication is that Pyne is reacting to Joffery.

This is because of the placement of the people in the images, in the first sequence both Joffery and Pyne are in similar positons in the image, as well as having similar facial expressions. Whilst in the second there is contrast between Joffery looking towards the left and leaning forward to Pyne who is looking towards the right and leaning back into the screen. Once again meaning is derived from completely unrelated images of a fictional character and a politician.

This shows the power of editing in being able to add meaning and weight to media, and its upmost importance in creating narrative or a message to be conveyed.

In Tuesdays lectorial we had a number of guest speakers, including Anne Lennox, who is RMIT’s Senior Coordinator Copyright Management + Digital (University Library). She discussed the various issues relating to copyright that we as media students face.

These include rights of ownership for content you created, as well as the responsibility not to infringe on other peoples copyright.

Also explained was the more complex components of copyright law, such as creative commons, length of copyright duration (authors life +70 years) and the exceptions under Fair Dealing, which allows for critque or review. As well as satire and parody without the risk of being taken down. There are however limits.

We also talked about the ease of which online social media sites like Facebook or Pinterest can easily breach copyright law.

It is a very complex and sometimes confusing issue, and as a Media student I will take extra care to avoid getting into trouble.