November 26th, 2007 ethereal
From the New York Times:
Professors with tenure or who are on a tenure track are now a distinct
minority on the country’s campuses, as the ranks of part-time
instructors and professors hired on a contract have swelled, according
to federal figures analyzed by the American Association of University
Professors. … read more
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As someone who is about to graduate with her masters, hoping to teach at a university in the near future and also having worked as one of the overloaded underpaid “adjuncts” that they speak of, this is an interesting article. Sure there is concern about teacher quality with tenured professors. No one wants to attend the giant chemistry 101 lecture section with the crusty old fart who hangs on til the last retirement dollar is in his account, but at the same time, that professor could be far and few between. Teaching is hard work. I have yet to meet an educator who is in it for the money. Its an all immersing, all encompassing, exhausting job. Maybe the tenure system isn’t the best way to handle long term security, but eliminating it poses a precarious opposite, less teachers willing to commit to their craft for the long term due to decreasing security and higher workloads with less time to do they job they want to do. Where’s the balance? Not sure …
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November 25th, 2007 ethereal
an idea, a digital camera, fried potatoes and some extra time are all it takes to turn lunch into a political statement. nice example of visual metaphor …
Unrest In the Kingdom of the Fries
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November 20th, 2007 ethereal
in the future some of us may wear cloaks of light, bio suits and bioluminescent tattoos. some of us may weave in and out of mainstream life passing through
layers of culture, looking for others who feel out of place in the norm.
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November 17th, 2007 ethereal
I just re-read Stuart Hall’s introduction to “Questions of Cultural Identity” and this passage really resonated with me:
Precisely because identities are constructed within, not outside, discourse, we need to understand them as produced in specific historical and institutional sites within specific discursive formations and practices, by specific enunciative strategies. Moreover, they emerge within the play of specific modalities of power, and thus are more the product of the marking of difference and exclusion, than they are the sign of an identical, naturally-constituted unity—an ‘identity’ in its traditional meaning (that is, an all-inclusive sameness, seamless, without internal differentiation).
Above all, and directly contrary to the form in which they are constantly invoked, identities are constructed through, not outside, difference. This entails the radically disturbing recognition that it is only through the relation to the Other, the relation to what it is not, to precisely what it lacks, to what has been called its constitutive outside that the ‘positive’ meaning of any term—and thus its ‘identity’—an be constructed (Derrida, 1981; Laclau, 1990; Butler, 1993).
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The excerpt reads to me like an Escher drawing of a staircase, do the steps lead up, or down? Looking at identity can include who we are, or who we are not. The differences or exclusions provide as much, or in the case of Hall, more than the inclusions. What does this mean in terms of looking at style? How are visual notions of style within subculture selected in relationship to the formation or perception of identity? How can this apply to design and they way we select the visual components of our work?
Outside/Inside
Include/Exclude
Build/Demolish
This also calls to mind Mark Johnson’s image schema … this is getting good!
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November 9th, 2007 ethereal
Jam… Throw clothes around some more. Skip the underwear, just put your trousers on. Spend longer stuffing trash in toilet, make more of a meal of it, more dollars. After rushing out, rush back in, take the bag out again, adjust your hair and rush out.
pg 149
Richard Hoeck
“Instruction” 2002
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November 5th, 2007 ethereal
what if it were changeable >> flowing >> mutating >> a message that is fleeting >> legible as it transverses the body >> then gone
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November 5th, 2007 ethereal
the original vs replicate
a future scenario
the dominant hegemony :: society of total theater
things that can be duplicated are preferred over those that are singular in nature
repeatability gets the holder, the wearer, the clone, the consumer, the user one step closer to the immortal
non multiple or singular instances of most things are destroyed
the destruction of the flawed is ritualistic
purging the subtle differences from the surface of things is obsessive
OCD is celebrated, the afflicted only manage the repetitions of their gestures instead of working to eliminate them
most gestures are symetrical
most beauty is mirrored
twins are sacred
clones are common
if you raise a clone, the notion is that you can culture the self again, a do over and a chance to rectify perceived mistakes
clothing most often takes the form of second skins or full body skin suits
the fabric that clothing is made from is machined
fibers are synthetic and stitchless, smooth and flawless
the suits monitor basic body functions and communicate information to the wearer
and their personal biodatabase
on the skin suits, patterns are displayed for aesthetic variation
sensors and cells in the fabric reveal images on the surface
the choices are uploaded from a database
digital patterns are infinitely repeatable, so are ideal ornamentation for second skins
they reinforce the embedded cultural concept of the sacred multiple
without an original
wearers shop for visual designs in the virtual realm
patterns can be traded as they are worn
or in the virtual
patterns are expressions of personal identity
each day a new pattern can be selected and shown on the body
symmetry and repetition is favored
non repeating sequences are considered flawed
rejectionists
rejectionists belong to the cult of the lost object
they seek the original, the source, the beginning in a series of second order signifieds
in a world of hyperreal, this is a fruitless task
the original has historical context
individual celebration from bygone epochs is resurrected in this subculture
however, the concept of the original is contextualized by their own time
for the techno class it is an age of genetic control, machined perfection
the rejectionists are urbanites who live in the midst of city life, but hold values other than the dominant
they are not welcome
they are persecuted
they are secretive
they are into mutation
self genetic mutation with bio-chemicals and treatments produces unpredictable results
to do this is illegal and must be done underground
rejections skin suits
in addition to actual skin, they upload patterns that have disruptions in them
when two rejectionists are in proximity, a communication signal is sent
through digital signal
a pressure point on the left wrist heats up
a hand gesture then confirms the reception
and a pattern appears on the suit
information can traded
as can patterns for the suit
patterns traded by rejectionists mutate every time they are traded
they become unique when passed
they are programmed to change
to always be an original
in a hyperreal world this is impossible
and therefor, highly desirable
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November 3rd, 2007 ethereal
amazing! the ornamentation … so ridiculously excess and indulgently frivolous. love it. wonder if he used a plasma cutter?
image by David Edgar :: Wikipedia
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November 3rd, 2007 ethereal
Belgian artist Wim Delvoye has been tattooing live pigs since the 1990s. this is called into question by some animal rights activist, as it is painful. however, tattoo artists have long been practicing their art on pig skin to perfect technique and method on human skin. There is something comical, intriguing and strangely human about these pigs. With no tats, they are farm animals clustered around a feed trough. With ink, anthropomorphic viewing takes over and I hear pig conversations over beer as the rough housing pig rebels plot the demise of other barnyard beings. Or maybe I have been researching the MS-13 gang and their tattoo traditions too long today.
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November 3rd, 2007 ethereal
I was researching for my seminar paper today and came across a Virginia Tech (I think) professor’s work that seemed intriguing and relevant to our courses here at NCSU. Eva R. Brumberger seems to have a lot of writing out there discussing the application of some of the semiotic methods we have been looking at to the rhetoric of typography. She also has the following published on visual thinking:
A Pedagogical Exploration of Visual Thinking
Eva R. Brumberger Virginia Tech, Blacksburg
Scholarly conversation within the field of professional communication increasingly has focused on the practice, research, and pedagogy of visual rhetoric. Yet, visual thinking has received relatively little attention within the field. If our programs produce students who can think verbally but not visually, they risk producing writers who are visual technicians but are unable to move fluidly between and within modes of communication. This article examines the literature and pedagogical practices of visually oriented disciplines to identify strategies for helping students develop the ambidexterity of thought needed for the communication tasks of today’s workplace.
Key Words: visual rhetoric • visual literacy • visual thinking • pedagogy • problem solving
I have downloaded some of her articles on type, I am poking around the notion of whether or not a typeface can have a strong enough connotation to float across seemingly disparate cultures and carry with it similar meaning. In my case, I am looking at Blackletter and Fraktur.
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