Iris Putnam

[irisputnam]

Rumination 14

In this week's class lectures, we looked into chapter 9 of Sturken & Cartwright and the topic of scientific looking! The first thing we looked into about the topic was one of the earliest computer renderings of dimensional human figures. These were made for technical purposes and were used to represent the cockpit of an airplane which was very interesting to see! Another topic we dove deeper into was media, art, and gender politics which was very interesting to learn about as well. This dove deeper into the medical skills and gaze involving techno, art, or craft, and mainly focuses on drawings. The next topic we discussed was actually my favorite topic we hit on that talked about more of the anatomical and surgical theaters! These theatres are where autopsies or dissections were performed by doctors for people who had a fascination with the art of the body or were just normal students trying to learn about the human body. These anatomy theatres are not still performing today, but we do have something called body museums that allows us to look into the human body still. Body museums are buildings full of art of the human body for people who want to look more into seeing human remains. After learning about this week's discussion, I have learned so much more about the different ways the human body is perceived and has been discovered over the years. Technology and the human body have never been something I have gotten into, but it was interesting to hear about. I never thought that these two topics had any similarities at all, but I found it very educational and I loved all the examples we studied and discussed in this week's lecture on scientific looking!

[irisputnam]

Rumination 13

In this week's class lecture, we focused on the topic of still life with rhetoric in chapter 8! Our main focus was on the idea of the Obama Hope poster and the remixes that came along with this art! This original photo was owned by AP when Shepard Fairey decided he wanted to take this work and remix it in his own ways! The original Obama poster said “Progress” but later the new one read “Hope.” Not only was the title altered in the beginning, but the photo of Obama himself was changed. In the real-life picture of him, he wasn’t exactly showing hope. They altered his head location and his gaze to create this image of hope that may have not been there. This photo grew very quickly and soon had over 300,000 prints by the end of 2008. As this art became more and more popular many people also decided to create their own versions of this art, some even made jokes. This image started to be used on accessories, toys, tote bags, and even in fashion along with many other things. The remixed art wasn’t always red, white, and blue or very political. There are many examples that are now seen as memes. One of my favorite remixes we talked about in class was the Obama Brains poster. The poster has turned Obama into a zombie to make a point and I found it very interesting to learn about! People have become very creative with the idea of this poster and making so many funny or even very thoughtful Obama Hope posters! I overall believe that this poster and the remix by Shepard Fairey made a huge impact back then and are still impacting topics today. Overall, I learned a lot in this week's lecture!

[irisputnam]

Rumination

For this week's assignment, the last chapter of the semester in class we spoke about The Global Flow of Visual Culture. This chapter discusses the impact of globalization on the construction of visual images. Cultural globalization is the standardization of cultural expressions found all around the world, connecting different types of people from around the world with the same media cultures. We discussed and described ways that U.S. television shows have presented American values. Many companies in America have started to use these same medias! Another topic we discussed in class was cultural imperialism! Cultural imperialism is ideology, politics, or the way of life put into other territories through the export of cultural products, television, and other mass media. The central source of entertainment in the U.S. became on the rise and increased globally in content. This global flow fosters the growth of multinational corporations and the expansion of political influence by powerful nations. Television can share the political and social ideologies of a larger one to promote certain things. One of the topics I found most interesting this week is The World Image, which was a picture that captured the whole earth in its full circular form. This became an icon of the peace movement and informed the growth of cyberculture around the world. We discussed how satellite technology transformed our ways of seeing and being in the world. All of these types of globalization were very interesting to learn about! I had never dove deep into how our cultures are more similar than we are different due to globalization!

[irisputnam]

Rumination

This week, we are going over the reading from Sturken & Cartwright's Postmodernism: Irony, Parody & Pastiche study. In our lecture, we discussed the difference between Modernity and postmodernity. Modernity involved industrialization, capitalism, urbanization, nation-state building, and a belief in progress through science. Postmodernity is global, media-saturated and hyperreal, consumerist, culturally diverse, skeptical, and uncertain about politics, science, and the truth. Another topic we focused on this week was postmodernism in Western philosophy. A late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism. This is a general suspicion of reason and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power. Postmodernism skepticism is another topic involved where we learned the skepticism of objective truth and grand narratives and that postmodernists believe in relativism and fragmentation. Next, we discussed postmodernism design and the things it rejects. Postmodernism design rejects universal truth in favor of the truths of lived experience, grand narratives by engaging in the quotation, parody, and appropriation, and universal ethics in favor of playfulness or ironic criticism, and they aim to multiply rather than bring together the viewer’s perspective on the world. Some other things that postmodernism design aims to do are focus on simulation and non-places, the irony is a mode through which we see postmodernism’s critique of modern design in full force, and pastiche, a mixing of historical styles, is a key strategy of postmodern architecture. This overall was my favorite topic to learn about this week. Postmodernism examples are Las Vegas buildings and architecture, the embedded railroad tracks on the High Line in New York City, and the chippendale building style. I leanred alot about modernity and postmodernism this week and loved all the examples we got to look into!

[irisputnam]

P2P #10

For this week's assignment, we discussed culture jamming. Culture jamming is a form of protest that individuals use by making a parody of different companies or businesses. For my example, I am using the Mcdonald's logo that would say “I'm loving it.” While people may love McDonald's people also say “I'm gaining it” when it comes to the unhealthy fast food they sell. This is a perfect example of culture jamming in a business because it shows that people may love the food, but health issues and weight gain come with that, and that's why their slogan can be altered.

[irisputnam]

Rumination 10

This week in class we talked about the topics of green, pink, and rainbow washing. As well as talking about the topic of media. The first topic I wanted to discuss was green, pink, and rainbow washing. We did our P2P activity on these topics and how certain companies and things in our world use these types of washings. I enjoyed this discussion because I learned about washings I had never heard of before and I got to see what popular companies do to have these labels. In my understanding rainbow-washing is when companies release products and advertisements in media promoting pride and the LGBTQ+ community when they genuinely don’t support what they are promoting to the world. Next, pink-washing is when a company makes merchandise and advertisements supporting the cause of breast cancer, but they do not donate the money that they raise to the actual cause. Then, green-washing is when companies promote they are supporting and saving our planet and using less plastic or “better” plastic, but do not take the actions needed to help the cause in any way. I enjoyed doing this week's P2P because I learned about popular companies that use greenwashing within their brand. My topic was Coca-Cola and I was very uneducated on the amount of plastic they use in their bottles and the little amount of change they have done to help our planet with pollution. Towards the end of this week’s discussions, we discussed the topic of media and where it comes from. I learned that media means medium and this refers to technology we use in our lives such as an iPhone. I learned that media has a huge effect on our life without us fully realizing it in our everyday lives. Media is used in everything we have learned about over this week and is in more things than we realize.

[irisputnam]

P2P #9

For this week's P2P assignment, I decided to write about the topic of green-washing within the Coca-Cola company. Coca-Cola has always been a big topic in green-washing because they are known as the world's number one polluter of plastic over the past two years. After much hate came to the company over their plastic bottles, they decided they still weren't going to plan to abandon them because they were popular with customers. However now, they have committed to getting every bottle back by 2030 so none solutes our earth or oceans. After some time, 100% recycled plastic bottles are now available!

What kinds of images and language do they use, and what is the intended effect?

In the image I used, Coca-Cola has now changed its bottles to say “100% recycled bottle.” This is used to show people that purchase Coke that the product they are using won't be harmful to our planet. They are also using this to reach customers that want to protect our oceans and earth.

What do you know about whether the organization that created this media content supports the cause they say they do (you may need to do a quick bit of research here)?

Coca-Cola is trying to make a change to support our earth and planning to get back all the plastic from the past in the next 10 years. Although, in the beginning when the attention came to them about how harmful plastic bottles are, they did nothing to change it. I think it has been brought to the company's attention how it has caused damage to our planet.

Given what you know, do you think this is an example of green/pink/rainbow washing? Why?

This is an example of greenwashing in the beginning because they did the opposite of what the world wanted them to do when it came to cutting out plastic bottles. Coca-Cola has improved with this issue, but in the beginning, this was a perfect example of greenwashing.

How might this ad be effective (either as green/pink/rainbow washing or just informationally) in your opinion?

This ad can be effective when it comes to greenwashing and understanding what companies are included in this topic. I wasn't very informed about what greenwashing was, but this was very helpful in educating me more about it and how plastic effects the world we live in.

[irisputnam]

Rumination: Visual Technologies

In this week's topic, we went over the reading from Sturken and Cartwright discussing visual technologies! One thing that stood out to me this week was when we discussed visual technologies and how they can change the world. Technology can change the meanings of things that can be seen or how someone may perceive something. In the reading this week, we looked at the example of how police officers use body cams in action and how this is a form of visual technology. This idea of having a body cam on police created a whole new view of what police deal with and how they treat certain situations. This created trust with the police as well as anger with the bad situations. With this body cam invention as an example of visual technology, people are now able to see things from a different view. This is just one example of visual technology that shows seeing things from a different point of view. Another common example of a technology that impacted the world is social media. Social media gives us all a different view of the places, people, and things in our world. It has transformed in many ways. Many forms of social media have been invented such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Tiktok, etc. When social media was created people were able to see the world through a whole new lens. Social media has changed the world and the people in it because it created ways for people to communicate with other people anywhere in the world. We are all now able to see things people post to their followers and we have so much ability to explore other people's lives and interests. Overall, visual technologies have changed so many things in our world. These technologies have grown so much and will continue to change for the rest of our lives!

[irisputnam]

For this P2P assignment over naturalistic enthymeme, I chose to manually include something that caught the audiences attention! In my picture, I chose to light a candle with a lighter to create a visual argument for the people viewing. This gets the viewers to "fill in the blank" as to why the candle is lit or how it may have happened. There are a few questions that could be asked from the picture!

Who lit this candle?

Why was it placed in that certain spot?

Why was the candle lit?

Why was the lighter left beside it?

With the questions above, the viewers can think of many different answers. The viewer could say that I just lit the candle to make the room smell better. The viewer could also say that they are trying to cover up a bad smell. The viewer could even think that someone is going to burn the apartment down. There are so many ways to look at a photo and come up with the situations behind them! There can be so many different meanings and scenarios from even just one thing in a photo! This is how I proved the process of visual argument.

#NaturalisticEnthymeme

[irisputnam]

For my meme this week I made one that was connected to the topic of Museum Critiques! This was over the topic of Banksy’s art and it shredding after the auction! I used this meme picture to explain the feelings and reactions people had towards this event happening. Many people wanted this art for a lot of money and after the auction had ended for the art piece, everyone was in shock as it was shredded to pieces. Once everyone found out that its value went up to almost 25 million dollars everyone was blown away because this artist planned the shredding for a purpose and knew it would add value to his work. No one would have thought this would be meaningful to his work, but it made it even more popular and wanted! That is why I chose this for my meme because I feel like the reactions in the photo fit this event very well.