Task 4 - HYPEREALITY - Las Vegas

Las Vegas is a classic example of Hyper Reality. For example you can see the eiffel tower of Paris, France, take a few steps and instantly be transported to the Sphynx of Egypt without boarding a single plane. In reality these recreated monuments would never co-exist. Vegas aspires to be a simulation of the world and offers minuture versions of monuments that someone would normally have to take many trips to see. The Venition in Las vegas is a copy of Venice with enhancements. It's Venice that's better than Venice in certain ways and is with it's clean and clear canals is a replacement of the real deal. However you may find that most of the people who have visited The Venition,  have not been to Venice and are often disappointed by what they see when they do go to the locations that they're are supposed to represent.  The hyperreal conceals the fact that the real is no longer real, by making the no-longer-real look real when one leaves the hyperreal and re-enters the “real” world. Let us not forget that Las Vegas is situated in the middle of the desert and has built it's reputation and gained it's wealth from visitors who pour their money into the state by gambling in one of their many casinos. The whole idea of Las Vegas can arguably be seen as plastic. With the flashing flights and frenzy of Vegas people get into a trance and believe that they are in fantasy land. Why be satisfied with reality, when you can experience hyperreality which is “better” than the real thing?

Another example of hyperreality. TASK 4

The hyperreality lecture/seminar has given me a whole different outlook on everything from holiday destinations to watching television, so I've decided to give another example of hyperreality.

TV EDITING.

Today's television can be seen as perfectly innocent and when we watch something that provokes us in one way or another, we automatically take what we see or hear to be the truth.

It's going back to the idea of Plot's cave. We are almost metaphorically chained to our sofas watching tv or "the shadows" and accepting it as reality when behind the scenes there are puppet masters controlling everything that we see and manipulating it in a way that provides us with the best,gripping entertainment.

Reality shows such as Big Brother are a socking example of this.
Big Brother claims to be a "What you see is what you get" show, but in a world of editing, it is now possible to condense 24 hours of footage into an hour long highlight show. However, with the pressure of telling a story in only one hour a lot of footage is filtered, leaving us with a crude caricature of real life which can easily manipulated to tell a whatever story the editors desire.

In May 2007, Danielle Lloyd threatened to sue the reality show over the way she was edited in the show. Lloyd was infamously involved in a race war alongside two other celebrities who supposedly racially harassed fellow contestant, Shilpa Shetty.
Footage shows Lloyd and co mimicking the bollywood star's accent, questioning her Indian customs and telling her to go home. What the show didn't broadcast however, was Lloyd apparently making up with Shilpa.

I accept that some of my behaviour in relation to Shilpa Shetty, which was broadcast on Celebrity Big Brother, was unkind. While I was still in the Celebrity Big brother house I apologised to Shilpa.

"However, footage which further demonstrated my good relationship with Shilpa, and the concerns I aired to Big Brother in the diary room about what was going on in the house was never screened."
Danielle Lloyd's statement to The Guardian -

Despite the statement Lloyd was still labeled as a racist in the public eye as this footage shows.



If you listen carefully at 00.36, you can hear someone calling Lloyd "the racist one"
So it's obvious that the public still think of her as a racist. Although the comments she made were textbook racism, the editing of Big Brother only exaggerated the effect and we, the viewers, accept that as reality.

Jean Baudrillard (1927 - 2007)

Plato allegory of the cave (see post below)

What we understand of the world isn't real

It's hyper real.

Marx commodity
Trying to be about the impenstipafion of the working class.

Understanding of the world isn't real. Corporate consumer images in the developed world
Images that we invest our lives in.

Commodity culture feeds us images that we believe to be true.

Santa Clause

The representation of Santa; this representation produced by mass media.
Starting in 1931, magazine ads for Coca-Cola featured St. Nick as a kind, jolly man in a red suit. Because magazines were so widely viewed, and because this image of Santa appeared for more than three decades, the image of Santa most people have today is largely based on our advertising.

Our idea of Santa clause is the one that was created by corporate culture
It is the repetition of this image that is embedded in our minds and
makes us believe that Santa Claus has always been red fat and jolly.

This folk tale illustration dates back to before Coca Cola's re branding of St Nicholous. This image of Santa appears to show him more sinister and has a striking contrast in comparison to the jolly version we know today.

The pepsi challenge

The power of a brand is shown during the pepsi challenge. Two clear, label-less bottles are shown to a random member of the public. One bottle contains Coca Cola and in another, Pepsi. After the taste test, results show that people preferred the taste of Pepsi. But had the labels been shown the winner would undoubtedly be Coca Cola



"even better than the real thing"

Structarialsm


Was about analyzing the language of structure to other things"


We live in a world of hyper reality. We invest ourselves in these signs and logos.

Start to inform our reality.

RIBENA.
Doesn't taste like blackberry
But it's a simulation.

The copies of reality
Cause a real concrete change in the real world.

Hyperealism.

Plato's cave.
The above image show a group of people chained to a wall facing a blank wall. They have been chained up all their lives so the blank wall is all they know. Their necks have also been chained disabling them to turn their heads and see a glimpse of reality. Above and behind them, a fire blazez and is the only source of light in the cave.The only light shining through the cave allows shadows to be cast onto the wall. These shadows are of themselves also things moving in front of the fire. Puppet shows are performed for the prisoners by showmen. These shadows are the closest views of reality for the prisoners so accept this as life.  The truth is literally nothing but the shadows.

Plot then presents the case in which one of the prisoners is released from the chains. The prisoner then stands up and turns around seeing the puppets which were casting the shadows and the puppetteres themselves. The prisoner would be amazed at what he was seeing sure, however he may start to question what is real and what is fiction.


Plato also presents the case in which the prisoner is dragged out of the cave. Again , he is thrown into a world where there is more truth than before. He is introduced to real sunlight for the first time in his live, which has been always been in the darkeness of the cave. If this were the case, he's eyes would adjust to the intensity of the sun's rays.

With this new found truth, the prisoner would most likely feel bad for his former companions in the gave. The prisoner returns to the cave and sits amongst the prisoners.
Because the shadow puppets were all the prisoners knew, they grew familiar with the sequencing and movements of the puppets. After returning to the cave the man's eyesight has not yet adjusted to the darkness and is laughed at by his former equals. So, leaving the cave, or turning around, would be viewed as a detrimental pursuit because it dulls the eyes.

ESSAY PROPOSAL


TITLE -


In the initial Episode of a new BBC documentary entitled, ‘Secrets of the Superbrands,’ Alex Riley examines the similarity between Apple and religion. To what extent could this claim be true and what factors affect why some Apple fans become extreme followers of the technology brand?


6 main areas of the Essay

. Comparing and contrasting to what extent the claim by Alex Riley is true.

. Investigating how John Berger in his 1972 book entitled, ‘Ways of Seeing’, argues how companies similar to Apple, make us believe that is we buy the latest product on the market we will become a better version of ourself and be successful and more desirable within society, however as Berger states,“ we will be poorer by having spent our money” (Berger 1972.) In addition this essay will explore Berger’s term of ‘glamorisation’ and how this relates to Apple consumers.

. Exploring how some consumers relationship with Apple products has become obsessive. This essay will also reference Freud’s Psychoanalyst theory about object relations can be applied to how consumers relate their affections to their Apple products. Why, the result of this object relation may cause some Apple consumers to worship the company similar to a religion.

. This essay will also explore the study within the documentary that neuroscientists have undergone to prove that Apple products can ‘trigger a religious reaction.’

. Look at how the success of Apple has made them one of the most powerful and richest companies within the world and how this power can effect consumer’s beliefs.



SOURCES

Books -
Berger, J (1972) Ways of Seeing, London: Penguin Books ltd
Ollins, W (date) On Brand, where: who

Danziger, P (2006), Shopping: Why we love it and how retailers can create the ultimate customer experience, USA, Kaplan Publishing




Websites

Riley, A 2011, 'Superbrands' success fuelled by sex, religion and gossip',
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13416598
Accessed 2nd December 2011

lecture three.

Critical positions on the media and popular culture (mass media/culture)


Aims.

• Critically define popular culture.
• Contrast ideas of culture with popular culture and mass culture.
• iintroduce cultural studies and critical theory
• discuss culture as ideology.
• Interrogate the social function of popular culture.

What is culture?

• One of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.
• General process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development of a partticualr society at a particular time.
• A particular way of life. - Sense of a subculture certain ways of thinking about the world.
• A works of intellectual and especially artistic significance.

Culture can be described as a cannon of really important art works or works of literature.

Popular culture is often talked about -
4 definitions of popular culture all of which are different.
the first is the idea of pupular culture quantitatively measured - Loads of people like dr who so it counts as popular culture.
Leads to confused results - Shakespeare is well liked by many people but it would be strange to call it popular culture.
Common - popular culture is the inferior form of real culture - arts and philosophy.
Works that aspiure to be important but for reasons, fail.

3rd definiton - Work deliberatly setting out to win favour with the people -Anything that aims to be popularist. Work that seems to be not understandbale is somehow high cultured yet work that is understood seems to be inferior.

MONK BY THE SEA.
supposed to make you reflect on the power of nature all those grand things make you question the insignificance of human life.

Sea and sky in watercolour - High culture.
Doenst seem to make peopel ask anything.

Inferior or residual culture
Popular press vs quality press.
Popular cinema vs art cinema
popular entertainment vs art culture.

The latter speaks to the elitists
the former speaks to the masses.

Jeremy deller and alan kane 2005
basically went round teh country looking for authentic examples of real genuine creativity. Eggs with humorous faces painted on them. Photographs of gurning competitions.

The interesting thing about the exhibition is when you walk around, the first thing you do is laugh and then you question why you are laughing.

You are laughing because of the poor attempts by the working class of making something arty. We begun to judge and start to think we can do better. we are coded into thinking what looks good and what doesn't.
to judge by our ashtetics codes is flawed.

What happens when a popular culture is made by the poeple?
What happens when that culture enetrs the spears of high culture?
Graffiti - expression of hard life in the bronx in the 70's.
What happens when that is translated into galleries - is that selling out.
Banksys wall bought and becomes a work of art.

not only diff lelevs to pop culture but the dynamics between what you would call culture or popular culture is very complex

pripor to modernity - Broadly speaking society had a common culture. which on top of the shared commomn culture there was a tiny stareter of ellit.
the first time this changes is with industrialsation and urbanization.
The first time people are condensed together but also physically separated
the working cclass is condensed in factories but sepereated by the bosses.

Physical distinction between the rich and the poor.
This separation starts to create a culture seperation so what the working class begins to do is create their own culture.
they still need things to do etc.
They create their own cultural activities such as going to pubs and getting drunk
own forms of music and lit. Late 19th cent the emergance of a working class culture
that is very seperate to the higher class culture.

Matthre arnold.
culture and anarchy
firs tbooks written about culutre as a disipline itself.
He tried to define what culture was. Arnoldism.

The first thing is define what culture is to him.
"The best that has been thought and said in the world..."Study of perfection

deceased spirit of our times the opp to culutre which is anarchy
emerging working class culture which seeks to have its own voice heard
the culture of the raw and uncultivated masses.

Once hidden and now coming up to march where they like.
Definite class division.
these theories emegere where the

taste makers defend upper class culture as better than lower class culture.
this pattern can still be seen today.Attack and patronise the working class culture.

This continues with someone called F.R Leavis.A cult figure.

This leavism is simular to Arnoldism (an extension)
people talk about popular culture in this way.

throughout the 20th century what we've seen is a dumbing down of culture.
he said culture was perfect. We could just get on with it uncontested.
20th cneture culture decline. Culture has always been in minority keeping.

Defend culutre against this dumbing down.
"The minority.."
For him this is bad because it means culture is coming down.

Marxism
And design activism

Politicisation on visual culture and media.

Ideology how it makes us feel and think.

What can designers do to change the situation were in.

Mirxist quote.
Often misinturpirated.
No point in just thinking without combining it with action.

Marxism is:
A political manifesto 1848
Still hasn't been achieved.

Philosophical method.

Lead to the rise of soviet union.


What is capitalism?

The stage of history in which we live in (west)

Soothe where control means of production ability to make money is held by Andre indviauls
Therefore individuals make loads of money.

Logic of a Market.
Everything is bought and sold.
People are almost commodotys in the same way shoes are.
Interactions involve around the logic of the Market.

System in which makes us because it's Market logic only the best succeed. Makes us compete.

School.. Compete classmates
Work - compete peers
Knife your fellow man.

Primitive communism.
As seen in cooperative tribal societies. everything is shared.

Society will get so far apart from each other.
People will start to gang together and overthrow ruling class..
Take over the state..
Run it for the history of people
Sharing the wealth.

Marx said the government will eventually fade away.

Society can be broken down into two distinctive.

Base - any given moment society will gave certain tools available to it. Forces of production.
In that base there is Relation of production.

Everything is a result of the forces of pricyiom.

Law politics art design education.
Traces back to issues of class gender politics racial political.
Everything bares that stamp.

Capitalism produces laws culture politics education
Which reflects capitalismt attitude.


education - schools.
The base are ones of bosses and workers and way the relation is the boss yells the workers what to do.

Marxist reading on education.



Marxist on religion.
The ultimate trap for the worker.
Mental control.. - if you suffer and you are poor at least you by a moral code and you will be rewarded in heaven.

Ideology.