Will89’s Weblog

Images Unit – Contextual Analysis Essay

By William Poole BAIMP1 08

Word Count: 1650

 

The brief for this image project is to create five Photoshop images, representing the theme of Nature and Technology. Once completed a website gallery is needed to be created to view the five images, with contributing links to a production blog of the work and contextual analysis essay exploring the processes, research and inspiration and which critical ideas from past lectures and seminars, explain issues that rose from the project.

 

One starts off this project by exploring the meaning of technology and nature, as this affects any work one does when creating the five images and by achieving this, one will have a better overall idea and judge how the ideologies of technology and nature affect the representations of today’s society. 

  

Technology defined, by Manoogian (2004) as

 

Human innovation in action that involves the generation of knowledge and processes to develop systems that solve problems and extend human capabilities; 2. The innovation, change, or modification of the natural environment to satisfy perceived human needs and wants.

  

Nature defined, by MSN Encarta (2007) as

 

1. “Physical world: the physical world including all natural phenomena and living things”

 

2. Forces controlling physical world: the forces and processes collectively that control the phenomena of the physical world independently of human volition or intervention, sometimes personified as a woman called “Mother Nature.”

 

By looking at these definitions, one has been inspired by how the human race over the years has evolved with the generations of knowledge that has been gained to achieve high levels of enhancement, to improve the standards and qualities of life. However this is not to say that this knowledge is always used for the good. In today’s society technology has the power to change and modify the natural environment, as the technology definition suggests.

 

This is shown in the image, The Wind Is Our Technology, which conveyed that nature’s wind has been replaced by technology producing high levels of information, being transmitted through the atmosphere by the internet, radios producing FM, AM & digital signals and etcetera. Holmes (1998) suggests:

 

The rapid development of contemporary technology opens up the possibility that, in the next millennium, nature will be less and less constitutional, as it is more and more modified, in the increasingly technologically sophisticated world of the future. Nature will become not so much redundant as increasingly plastic. The technicians can get houses out of trees, also clothing out of crude oil, a turkey with more white meat by gene-splicing, and this molecule out of that molecule, even this atom out of that one, whatever x out of whatever y. Human life will depend less and less on working with natural kinds (feldspar, turkeys, cellulose, or carbon) and more and more on artifacted kinds (vinyl, transgenic turkeys, fiberglass, or Teflon).

 

Also taking into count, Claudia Vieira lecture about Mythologies, Signs and Fetishism, talking about Semiotics, Saussure’s Arbitrariness of Sign. Ferdinand de Saussure suggests:

 

The sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier with the signified (Saussure 1983, 67; Saussure 1974, 67). The relationship between the signifier and the signified is referred to as ’signification’.

A sign must have both a signifier and a signified. You cannot have a totally meaningless signifier or a completely formless signified (Saussure 1983, 101; Saussure 1974, 102-103). A sign is a recognizable combination of a signifier with a particular signified.

Relating Holmes and Ferdinand de Saussure quotes to The Wind Is Our Technology, helped me by taking parts of java scripts from programs, website address, e.g. www.google.com and the title The Wind Is Our Technology, and manipulating there 2D typographic layout by warping and changing their perspectives to emphasise the signified, natures wind. So what was once nature’s element to power sailing boats has been captured and modified, over a period of time to create natures wind into technology’s wind.

 

Looking upon this negativity of technology over ruling nature, has found a vice versa, as shown in Natures Symphony image, emphasizing that nature could make itself heard by it’s natural sounds through manuscript music. Referring back to Ferdinand de Saussure, had also helped depict a composition, by showing five standard ledger manuscript lines, with the various notes symbols conveying that nature had written. So that modern day’s technological society, is still aware of nature’s presence and keeps in mind with the issue’s that society faces today, about deforestation, which links with the image Technology At Nature’s Front Door Step.   

 

If Technology At Nature’s Front Door Step were to deal with the subject of deforestation, it needed to depict the setting of a tropical rainforest on the edge of a typical modern day city, ruled by menacing tower blocks and skyscrapers, which house corporate technology giant’s of today’s society, for example, Apple inc. and Microsoft. This inspired one to take corporate logos, e.g. Microsoft, Vodaphone, Apple inc. and Samsung, warping and skewing them in a way to look like they are part of the buildings. Also one taken the title Technology At Nature’s Front Door Step and applied the same technique of the corporate logos and represented them as signs on top of the buildings.

 

Looking further into the image, one thought back to the inspiration given by the technology definition, how the human race could modify and change nature in order to the gain advancement, which has raised current issues and political debates within society about companies expanding their enterprises, that nature suffers as a result of rainforests, threaten by deforestation, which has become a matter of concern.

  

This inspiration lead, onto creating a similar image to Technology At Nature’s Front Door Step, called, The Corporate Hunt. This image portrayed a typical iconic New York street, packed with retail corporate giants logos of today’s society, e.g. Nike, McDonalds, Apple inc., similar to Technology At Nature’s Front Door Step, conveying the sense of power on the street. With this image, surrealism was needed to separate the two images apart. This inspired to represent two familiar animals, a Tiger and a Gazelle and change their mundane environment to running through snow blizzard, street. Taking a denotational view, would immediately give the response that these two animals are in unfamiliar environment, not natural to them, however the inspiration of placing these animals in this image severs a deeper purpose. They emphasised the corporate retailers (the Tiger), hunting down customers (the Gazelle), on the streets to sale their products in order to make business, which is a norm within society today.    

 

The last image for this contextual analysis is, Mother Nature Advancing. There are two main media texts where the inspiration for Mother Nature Advancing, which is James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984) and Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek, featuring the Borg.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These two media texts looks into a fictional sci-fi future where robots are represented as having advanced too far, their prime instinct is to kill in-order to preserver and develop themselves giving a sense of Xenophobia towards technology.

  

If one were to use Xenophobia within the image on a sub-conscious level, research was needed to look at the original definitions of Xenophobia, and how it is conveyed in different ways, for instance:

 

A fear or dislike of people from other cultures and countries. The opposite of an acceptance of difference and learning from other people’s cultures, beliefs and wisdom traditions.” The Gordon Higginson Fellowship (2006)

 

‘Anon.’ (Year Unknown) “Intolerance of the unfamiliar.”

“Literally means fear of strangers. It is a form of prejudice.” Mel White (Year Unknown)

  

If one were to take the connotation approach to these three definitions of Xenophobia, thinking how this could involve the media, it could be said that a number of people who consume the media could take a dislike or have a fear of the media.

 

This meant that Mother Nature Advancing, needed to depicted nature advancing to a stage where it is dead or been assimilated / adapted into robotics. To make the viewer justify his or her reactions to this image as xenophobic.

 

 If one took the denotation view of a half female body structure covered in the bright green vegetated leaves/vines and the other half being a silver metallic robotic structure fortified with a destructive cracks and dark colures. The viewer’s response would be that the image is showing a comparison between how a female may look like with a robotic structure, but taking a connotation view of this half human, half robot, it would suggest good and evil, which is reflected in the varied colour changes and lines from the background to the mid-ground and finally to the foreground where the leaves and vines are flowing peacefully. As the eye draws itself to the middle and the changes of the bright green colours turn dark black, silver and grey as emphasizing that she (Mother Nature) is advancing and modifying her appearance to portray how technology is perceived in today’s society, justifying this sense of Xenophobia.

  

Taking into count, Claudia Vieira’s lecture on Hyperreality, Spectacle And Spacetime Kitsch, Anne Burdick (1992) suggests: 

  

‘All is surface. Historic forms are up for grabs. As the pace of our culture accelerates, surfaces are stripped away, their skins lifted, reapplied and reassigned meanings with increasing frequency. In this cultural condition, the media is both participant and product.’

  

Burdick’s quote to the could be applied image, saying that there are similarities, for instance Burdick talks about culture/society rapidly advances and as this happens, what was originally there from the start is been taken away and changed, giving new meanings. In order to represent these similarities, Mother Nature Advancing, had to convey that Mother Nature was organic to start off with, but then began to disappear as she advances and reveal this new redesigned ‘Technological Mother Nature’. 

  

Near to the end of Mother Nature Advancing completion, manage to deal with the ideology of Eschatology, which is a study of philosophy looking at how the Earth and humanity may end. Even though that Eschatology is a belief in the Christian religion, it raises key issues in today’s society about whether the human race relies upon technology too much.

 

On the 12^th of April 2000, the BBC News reported that:

 

London’s stock exchange had a taster yesterday when their systems ground to a halt for eight agonising hours. Millions of pounds of business was lost on what was the last day of the financial year. BBC News (2000)

 

 This raised a debate on BBC News Talking Point about 

 

“Do we rely too much on computers?” BBC News (2000)

Computers may have revolutionised the way we live and work, but what would happen if they all suddenly crashed? BBC News (2000)

 

Has technology become such a big part of your life, that existing without it now seems incomprehensible? Or maybe your PC has crashed one too many times and you don’t trust it as far as you would like to throw it. BBC News (2000)

  

In conclusion, reflecting on three main questions that were needed to be answered in this contextual analysis:

·      In what ways did the requirements affect your process?

·      What other images by other creators did you use in your research and inspiration?

·      What critical ides from the lecture and seminars helped you to understand the issues that arose?

Images Brief (2008)

 

Thinking back to the requirements of creating a five images that represented ‘Nature and Technology’ theme, which started the project by setting out what the definitions of Nature and Technology were had to major contributing factor to this image project as the definitions were a foundation, on which the five images were built upon. This gave the opportunity of having a clear frame of mind to sketch down suitable ideas that revolved around the given theme.

 

By looking at various media texts and being more aware of the surrounding in today’s society and culture, reflects how the world does and will need to rely upon technology to keep societies way of life continuing. Gave the inspiration need to construct the images and relate to critical ideas from lectures received of the past month that helped issues become apparent in this project, for example Holmes (1998) take on how:

The rapid development of contemporary technology opens up the possibility that, in the next millennium, nature will be less and less constitutional

 

And examples like the London Stock Exchange, in 2000 could happen again within the future. This is why the representations and ideologies of the five images, that I have created by the inspirations that I have gathered, inspired me to focus on delivering a message, ‘does society avoid or, does not want to deal with the issues of being afraid of technology, to a point where society can not retrace it steps back to nature to help correct mistakes that have been made’?

  

This could suggest that society keeps advancing to enhance life in order to persevere it but allows nature to work along with the growth of technology. So if ever a time in the future where society could find it self on the brink of ciaos, which the study of Eschatology talks about. Nature would be still there to help correct mistakes and save the human race.

  

Contextual Analysis Essay Bibliography

Textual:

Anon. Year Unknown. Title Unknown. (Edition Unknown). Place of Publication Unknown: Publisher Unknown. Available from: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/publications/riscomm/riscomm_appe.shtml [Accessed 5 ^h November 2008]

BBC News., 2000. Do we rely too much on computers?. (Edition Unknown) Place of Publication: BBC. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/703939.stm [Accessed 6^th November 2008]

Bournemouth University., 2008. Images Brief. Bournemouth University: Media School. Available as a download pdf doc from: https://mybu.bournemouth.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl%3Fcourse_id%3D_20305_1 [Accessed 6^th October 2008]

Higginson, G. 2006. Title Unknown. (Edition Unknown) Place of Publication Unknown: Indigo-Hippo
Design & Artwork by Santoshan. Available from: www.gordonhigginsonfellowship.com/glossary/glossaryvwxyz.htm [Accessed 5^th November 2008]

Holmes Rolston III ‘Technology Versus Nature: What is Natural?’, Ends and Means, Journal of The University of Aberdeen, Vol 2, No.2, Spring 1998: lines 149-153.

Manoogian, P., 2004, Technology Education – Grade 8- Glossary of Selected Terms, (Edition Unknown). Place of Publication Unknown: Publisher Unknown. Available from: http://home.comcast.net/~pm1963/grade8/vocab.htm [Accessed 29^th October 2008]

MSN Encarta, 2007. Title Unknown. Place of Publication Unknown: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Available from: http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861632535 [Accessed 29^th October 2008] 

Saussure, Ferdinand de ([1916] 1974): Course in General Linguistics (trans. Wade Baskin). London: Fontana/Collins
Saussure, Ferdinand de ([1916] 1983): Course in General Linguistics (trans. Roy Harris). London: Duckworth

White, M. Year Unknown. Year Unknown. Title Unknown. (Edition Unknown). USA, Metropolitan Community Churches: Publisher Unknown. Available from: http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/speak/pages/printpages/pglossary.htm [Accessed 5^th November 2008]

  

Pictures:

Photographer Surname Unknown, Initials Unknown., Year of Publication Unknown. Jean-Luc Picard as Locutus after Borg assimilation [photograph]. Place Of Publication Unknown: Wikipedia. Available from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a1/Picard_as_Locutus.jpg [Accessed 5^th November 2008]

Photographer Surname Unknown, Initials Unknown., Year of Publication Unknown. The Terminator [image]. Place Of Publication Unknown: Publisher Unknown. Available from: http://www.bp2.blogger.com/…/ _XcA9dPdTzY/s400/t1.jpg [Accessed 5^th November 2008]

 

 

At long last it has got to that time of the month where the hand in date for the Images Project is due for Wednesday 19th November, and as I said in my last post I would post up the finished images, so here they are. 

Please leave any comments and feedback about these images as I would like to know your opinions about them. 

Cheers 

Image 1: The Wind Is Our Technology

 

 

Image 2: Natures Symphony

 

 

Image 3: Technology At Natures Front Door Step

 

 

Image 4: The Corporate Hunt

 

 

Image 5: Mother Nature Advancing