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Bibliography by Jayne Goldsmith

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 1 month ago

Annotated Bibliography Assignment

 

By Jayne Goldsmith, Borges: An Exploration in Modeling Team

 

1. Baudrillard, Jean. “The Precession of Simulacra,” from Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1995.

 

 

Simulacrum is the representation of something, but there is more to it than that. Simulation is not false. There is a difference between pretending to be or do something and simulating it.

            An example of this is when a person is sick. If a person simulates an illness, which means producing the symptoms of the illness, it is not merely pretending. An illness is characterized by its symptoms, so if a person is able to simulate them is the illness real?

            Disneyland is the epitome of simulated worlds. Apparently, however it is not really a false representation of reality because even the real isn’t real anymore. Los Angeles, for example, is a city “without dimension.” Being from Los Angeles, I can kind of see where Baudrillard is coming from. I thought the example that people in Los Angeles never walk, yet they jog was pretty funny. It is true that people don’t seem to be capable of actually walking anywhere as a form of transportation, but it is kind of simulated in the form of jogging.

            In a sense, everything in the world is no longer real because everything has already happened. All things that happen, for example demonstrations are just simulations of ones that have happened before. At this point, there is just an indefinite number of simulations constantly occurring, even if people think they are “real.”

 

 

 


2. Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” from Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Schocken Books. 196

 

 

 

Technically, there has always been possibility and opportunity for a piece of art to be reproduced because it could be imitated. With the creation of mechanical reproduction, everything changed. Two of the earliest methods of reproduction were founding and stamping, which were created by the Greeks. Then there was the woodcut and lithography, but it was the invention of photography that truly revolutionized reproduction.

            Not only did photography change the way people see art, it changed the meaning of what art is. Art is seen as having cult and/or exhibition value. Art was first made for ritual purposes, be it for magic or religion. Cult value puts more of an emphasis on the history and meaning of the piece of art, whereas the exhibition value emphasizes viewing of the art by an audience and its aesthetic value. When photography first came into existence, there was a dispute as to whether or not it was an art form. The authenticity of a piece of art changes its significance greatly. With photography, however, there are negatives used to create a photograph, so there isn’t necessarily one authentic photo of an image.

            Photography not only changed art because it was a new art form, but it allowed for the reproduction of old art forms. Paintings that could once only be seen from one location, could be viewed from anywhere in the world due to photographic reproduction of images. Also, places that could only be seen when visited, could be viewed in pictures,

            Another revolutionary art medium is film. It allowed for visual and eventually audio reproduction. A point that Benjamin made was that art has an aura that cannot be captured in reproductions. All film is a reproduction and therefore has no aura. Actors in film, for example, do not have the aura of stage actors. Film actors do scenes separately and even sometimes out of order. They only act for a camera, so they have no audience to connect with. Also, the editing of a film allows for an actor’s scene to be edited from many different views, with a focus on different things. The aura is gone and the audience is seeing what the whole production team wants them to see, not just the actor.

            The arts of film and photography and the reproduction of art have changed the concept of art in its entirety.

 

 


 

3. Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books. 1972

 

 

            John Berger explains that what we see is real and words can only be representations of what we see. Images became especially significant with the realization of the importance of history because they capture a time more directly than words can.

All images are reproductions of what we see, whether it is in the form of art, such as an oil painting or a photograph, or in a publicity image. Photographs are a very real representation of a moment in time, but they are still from an individual’s perspective. A photograph can be taken of an event or object from an infinite number of perspectives, so any given photograph is representative of the subject in the photo, but also of the perspective of the photographer.

Photos changed the meaning of an image because it allowed for the reproduction of images. Prior to that, there were only paintings and only the original could be seen. A good example of how photos changed the meaning of an image is the viewing of an image on a television screen. When a person sees an image on their television, they not only see that image, but they see all of the images surrounding their television. This gives different meaning to different people looking at the same image on a television. Images can be very powerful and these are all different examples of ways of seeing.

 

 

 

 


4. Matheson, Carl. “The Simpsons, Hyper-Irony, and the Meaning of Life,” from Simpsons and Philosophy: the D’oh! of Homer. Chicago: Open Court Publishing. 2001.

 

 

            The comedies of today are different from those in the past in that much of the comedy is in reference to pop culture, specifically through the use of quotationalism and hyper irony.  Carl Matheson looks into this kind of comedy, specifically from The Simpsons.                 

Quotationalism began with sketch comedies, which would poke fun at well-known people and events. By using references to pop culture, the comedy is funny, not only because it is poking fun at someone, but because recognizing the allusion excites the audience.

            This is a big part of hyper irony. Some of the comedy in the show is subtle. From the perspective of an unaware watcher, the Simpsons may seem like a pointless show for idiots about a trashy family. However, the people that like the show like it for the fact that there are so many allusions that go undetected. People that get the jokes feel even more connected to the show, like part of an elite club that understands the comedy.

 


5. Novak, Marcos. “Liquid Architectures in Cyberspace,” from Cyberspace: First Steps. Boston: MIT Press. 1991.

 

 

Cyberspace is a user-driven system in which people can create their own universe. It is a new technology that addresses the very old fascination with magic. Cyberspace works like magic, almost making magic real in a sense. Liquid architecture in cyberspace refers to the ability for things to change very easily. Cyberspace is like poetry in that they both use devices to create a meaning—in poetry there are tools such as inflection, and onomatopoeia. In cyberspace, the smallest variations in something create a new meaning.

The hypermedia navigator is the device that allows a person to navigate through cyberspace. Cyberspace synthesis is the creation of visualizations made by minimal codes and cyberspace rendition is a separate process in which the quality of the image is created. Cyberspace is a world that has been invented; it is not real. A body of data has a perceived structure, and based on what it is the same body of data can be perceived in different ways and create a different appearance.

Being that cyberspace is not an actual part of the physical world, there are far less restrictions on the possibilities. Two objects can take up the same space at the same time. Architecture was once one of the most lasting arts, while music was only in existence as it played. Today, with digital technology, music can be recorded and can exist forever. As for architecture, it does not necessarily last as long. Buildings get torn down to make way for more modernization. Liquid architecture in terms of cyberspace is always changing but simultaneously lasting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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