Ahh the final reading of the semester!

Dust… Jussi Parka seems to think that there is something poetic about dust. That it is the stuff of ancient times, of fairy tales, of dusty old books and is temporary, easily wiped away without a second thought. When I read through this essay about the ‘multiplicity of dust’ I couldn’t help but reflect it back to my own current study situation. Dust is made up of so many things, minute tiny collections of dirt, hair, particles all coming together to form a substance that is insignificant. This semester has been confusing. It was my first taste of university and I had all these parts combing together that made up my course. I also feel like study should be taken in a ‘dusty’ approach. One needs to research and take in and consume all different and a wide variety of examples and information, learn and learn from as much as we can and from as many different avenues as we can. It’s not enough to take it from one source. It takes a combination of elements in order to fully create something…and that relates to Project 4, we have taken so many elements in order to explain and discuss one topic. Our project could be described as, perhaps, ‘dusty’…

Machines are becoming too intuitive/intelligent.

Everyone is connected. We can all be reached at any time with very little effort. We can choose the level of contact we want to make based on how personal/ intimate we want the communication to be. We could snapchat, text, call, face-time. Everyone is glued to a screen. Is it a phone, ipod, tablet, laptop or computer? These machines are checked every five minutes, to make sure that even though we may be alone, no one has thought of us, is trying to contact us, has already contacted us. We are locked in to these machines. They have become another limb: a part of us. They are the groundings of our social lives and determine if we fit on the spectrum of normal. We all revel in it. We know where everyone is at all times and can can create and master these machines to fit the needs of our lives. These machines know what we want and give it to us quickly and effectively. Are we intelligent? Are we riding the wave of the machine? Who is making these machines? The ‘newest’ update that has society running with their wallets open; who makes this change? What kind of power do they hold?

The Last Tutorial!

On our final tutorial on this Monday morning we regrouped for one last time before our submission of our group project next week. Each group presented to the class where they were up to, what they had come up with and an outline as to what they were moving on towards. The class has used a variety of mediums to create this project. Most have chosen a website or blog format in order to, like us, effectively combine multiple media artefacts to describe their chosen topic. It’s exciting to see all the different ideas and it definitely highlights the array of talent we have amongst us. Our group set some more goals coming into this 12^th week. We hope to completely finish our project by the end of this week so we can submit it well and truly before the date and rid ourselves from the horrible last-minute panic. I’m already starting to reflect and ponder on this semester… but I will save that chinwag for my final post! Hoorah!

Is it a Remix?

This lectorial focused on the rise of the remix and the mash up. It even contended that everything is a remix. 

Eduardo Navas in ‘Regressive and reflexive mashups in sampling culture’ explored the mash up as combining two alerting existing music to create new content. Naval also defined remixes “as a global activity consisting of the creative and efficient exchange of information made possible by digital technologies.”

However the remix does not contain itself to only the music industry. Movies are continually adapting, transforming and appropriating existing films, books, tv shows, actual events and games. Most box office hits rely heavily on existing material. Of the highest grossing films from the last ten years, 74/100 were sequels or remixes of earlier films or adaptations of comic books, video games, books and so on. As Kirby Ferguson notes in his video Everything is a Remix Part 2, “transforming the old into the new is hollywood’s greatest talent.”

I’ll finish up with two of my favourite remix’s:

“Is it a Banger“-Remixed into a song from a Tv Show Parks and Recreation and used a few lines one of the characters said.

“Seinfeld by Kinky Karma” -My friend is a DJ and he remixed the theme song of Seinfeld into a pumping tune.

 

In today’s tutorial, we didn’t have the guidance of Robbie as he was absent however our group still met on the Monday morning to come together and see where we all were. Russell had on the weekend scoped out a Dr Who convention in which he interviewed and filmed individuals in Cosplay. We looked over some of his footage which was brilliant and perfect for our overall exploration of Audience. Georgia too had created a montage of wed clippings demonstrating the consumer based world that is cyberspace and the presence of so many platforms that allow the audience to become actively involved. We have decided to delve deeper into Cosplay in terms of Dr Who as it has a massive fan base and heaps of material that we will be able to tap into and access better than our original idea of exploring Animae/ Manga. This progression of ideas and where we are going with your project has gone really well and is evolving into something that in the beginning we didn’t picture.

Institutions: a term from sociology, concern with organising structures of society, social cultural political and economic relations, principles and values and rules that underly these.

Brian used Marriage as an example of a social institution.

But why is marriage an institution?

-expectations

-values

-monogamy

-rituals

-legal framework

-widely accepted

all of these aspects come together and class marriage as an institution.

In order to fully understand, and clarify it in my own head. Brain suggested ‘The Wire”: in which demonstrates individuals struggling against the institutions they find themselves in. Each season of The Wire introduces a different institution in the city of Baltimore and its relationship to law enforcement. In chronological order they are: the illegal drug trade, the seaport system, the city government and bureaucracy, the school system, and the print news media. Here is an interview with Barack Obama and the creator of ‘The Wire’, David Simon.

Another brainstorming session in todays tutorial. It really propelled our group forward in our plans for Project 4. We set up a tumblr page that we can all access and made sure everyone in our group was on track and on track. We hope to succinctly put together all we have found in relation to audience and fan fiction together on this blog making use of videos we have found, text we thought was interesting and clips we have created ourselves. Overtime we get together and show each other what we have done/ created/ found: it inspires us to keep going.

So far this has been a really great group project and I have thoroughly enjoyed working with my group. I feel like we work well.

Audience

This lectorial fitted perfectly into my Media studies schedule. Not only is my Project Brief 4 topic Audience, but our focus is on Fandom which was conveniently discussed. I particularly liked the way Fandom lovers were described as

“…Obsessive, freakish, hysterical, infantile and regressive social subjects; is playing such attention to detail on text that are seen as not worthy…”

It is this notion that texts that are studied so intensely and obsessively and are loved by so many should be of a ‘high culture,’ but because they are seen as trivial, irrational and of a ‘low culture’, this fandom is deemed odd.

However, the scrutiny and examination of a text by, say, Virginia Woolf, is deemed acceptable because it is associated as being a part of a ‘high culture’ but the obsession caused by the latest T.V series Game of Thrones is seen as ‘ridiculous’ and almost childish and deemed a part of ‘low culture.’

Another thing that grabbed my attention in this lectorial was the way today’s technological audience is referred to as:

‘People formerly known as the audience’ – the public made realer, less fictional, an active audience, user involvement

And another thing…

taste: taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Everyone can’t help but tell about their own personal taste, its human nature. It is this taste that gives people an identity; it builds and contributes to a high and low culture.

Project Brief 4 Discussion

In this tutorial we all got into our groups and discussed where we were all at in terms of our annotated bibliography and research. Russell and I came together and made sure we were both on track in our research into Audience.

Russell’s research was focused on Cosplay, anime and manga which are all unique aspects of audience that I never considered. His research linked into my own consideration of Fandom. Georgia looked into a term called ‘fan-pandering’ which refers to fans generating enough discussion about a particular text that they influence the writers of the specific text, thus contributing to how the text plays out. Although we all took different approaches in terms of Audience, it all links together within the idea of fandom.

Initially we thought of creating a sort documentary on Cosplay and the avenue that Russell researched, however through our brainstorming of roles and ideas we realised it will be really hard to divide it equally and bring a documentary together. We then decided that a blog style informative page would be a better option for us in order to collaborate effectively. It will be a multimedia combination that will allow us all to expand on our areas whilst also linking together to produce a linear piece of work.