Youtube video mash-up: Society of the Spectacle

My Absolute Least Favorite Meme…

The concept of “Buffet” originated during mid 17th in France, as a solution for house wives/ladies to serve big groups of people at unexpected hours.  Thanks to the new concept, the ladies no longer needed to call in extra serving staff, and long hours of food preparation process was replaced by the a few minutes of reheating the leftover food. This particular concept saved both time and money, as the meme was very beneficial, it was a winner in the mimetic competition.
Somewhere along the way, people’s perception of it has changed. Maybe the meme has fused with other memes, and evolved from a way of surviving chaotic moments to a major business strategy. Nowadays, it is mostly being referred as “All You Can Eat”.

This meme has spread itself internationally from its origin. Every culture has its own version and reference of “all you can eat. A traditional buffet in Sweden is called “Smörgåsbord”, which means “a table of sandwiches”, but those buffets are now far away from the origin of the name. The Chinese phrase for it can literally be translated into “eat until you pop”, I mean, why and why…

The benefits?

Susan Blackmore mentions of the memetic competition, and why certain meme survive while others don’t.

Memes can succeed in many ways, Some make their living by being true, good, useful, or beautiful. They persuade us to take them on by providing us with some tangible benefit… (section 4)

“All you can eat” benefits the owner for charging a certain amount of money that appeal to the customers, and in return, serving the minimum quality of food for that money. As for the customers, they benefit from the thought of variety of ready made dishes when hunger strikes. While being inside, people’s eyes open up, and suddenly there are many more cravings that “no one realized until seeing and smelling it”. At some point, the varieties of dishes makes people greedy, and stop thinking what, and how much we put on our plates.

To wrap it up, I would like to show a few interesting comics from www.cartoonstock.com:

Culture Jamming…

What is culture jamming? Here are a few examples of such acts:

As illustrated, the purpose of Culture Jamming is to highlight mainstream media in a critical way, and to break up our usual ways of receiving information. However, it mentioned in class that certain major advertisement campaigns have now started to take advantage of culture jamming, by incorporate the same concept as a theme into their own ads.

Any action, tool, concept, or idea that stimulates people to think in alternative ways will catch attention, as our brains seem to be constantly searching for the new and the unusual stimuli. Both Culture Jamming and the concept of imitating culture jam reflect the twists and turns of media. They remind us to be alert when processing information, and not only to bluntly receive or accept.

What is next? Perhaps to just continue with the work done so far. People need to be told and reminded again and again to not forget. Weather it is Culture Jamming, or any other theories and concepts that will induce people to question and be critical, they are welcomed.

Stop Motion Project

http://thenewcampus.org/index.php?option=com_hwdvideoshare&task=viewvideo&Itemid=251&video_id=63

Response: Red pill or Blue pill

Our self consciousness, or the way we think of ourselves is something that we learn and get use to. When media exists constantly all around us, our perception of life and way of living is certainly influenced, if not dominated by it.

Think of it this way, how many times do we think of time during a day? We are often in rush of getting to/from various locations, and if we happen to fall behind on our schedule, we can simply make a call or type a text message to say “sorry, I will be late”. Such a behavior for example, caused by our current perception of time is something we learned to get use to. If the possibility of real time communication does not exist, as in a time before telephones or telegraphs, we would probably be more time sensitive as the possibility of changing plans is not always as available.  I agree that technology and media has made life easier and more convenient, however, at the same time, it has also significantly altered our relationship with time, or the environment we live in.

We can see examples in The Matrix and Plato’s book VII. Neo goes trhough a transformation progress where he for the first time learns about the real world existing outside the Matrix. He realizes that his previous understanding of life, and perception of reality, is only valid within that particular environment. as soon as he exit that space, he needs new perspectives on things around him. In the same way, Plato writes about the one human beings that was set free from the cave, and how he had to re-estalish his concepts of himself and way of living after being exposed to a different environment.

Now, to scale it down to our daily life, I think it is very important to change environments from time to time, and to meet new people whenever possible, becuase that would help us to gain new perspectives on life, and also to see ourselves outside our usual mindset.

Reading Response: Mcluhan

I have a hard time comprehending Mcluhan’s concept of Medium = Message/Content. I do understand his example of print using written language as a message, where the written language itself is a technology/medium. But the idea that railways and airplanes are different media expressing the same message is confusing me. I can’t see the connection between media and contents Mcluhan talks about.
But there is one quote I definitely agree with. Mcluhan explains:

“when we want to get our bearings in our own culture, and have need to stand aside from the bias and pressure exerted by any technical form of human expression, we have only to visit a society where that particular form has not been felt, or a historical period in which it was unknown.”

The way I understand it is that in the current state of our society, we learn to recognize and understand ourselves, or the environment we live in through different technologies/media. They have been accompanying us long enough to blend in as parts of us. Thus, it would be impossible to see oneself, the culture we exist within, or technology in general from a different point of view.

First Photoshop Assignment: Suprematism

A non objective representation of media phenomenon