Situating Myself, the Readings, and Videogames

Foss

• Quote:
• “If an artifact functions to memorialize someone, for example, such an evaluation would involve discovery of whether media, colors, forms, and content actually accomplish that function” (309).
• Why/How Provocative:
• I found this particular approach to visual rhetoric far more interesting after having read Berger, and seeing the photographs of Tito on page 77. And how after rebranding himself as “socialist” the photos that were taken became “useable.” This was a clear case of how a given photograph based on its content can be used for a given effect. If for a “communist” leader a photograph is deemed “unusable,” yet once the image of the leader has changed, the value of the photographic image increases, then clearly a photograph can serve, as Foss suggests, as something that can “actually accomplish” the function of “memorializing someone.”
• Connection to educational/scholarly experience
• The combination of styles and modes involved in the medium I'm interested in provides e with several instances where I'm forced to wonder how precisely the “function” of an artifact can be gauged. Take, for example, the Legend of Zelda series. They all follow a similar narrative—a boy saves the princess and the kingdom from destruction. I choose to view the games as a series of adaptations on this source tale, yet, every game has a very distinct art direction, which engages a surprising variety of “modes” and “colors.” The tactile feedback introduced by Ocarina of Time and the Rumble Pak, the 3D effect achieved by the 3D re-release of the same game for the Nintendo 3DS, and the realistic sword strikes afforded by swinging the Wii Motion Plus remote in Skyward Sword offer an interesting combination of ways of interacting in multiple ways and multiple modes with what is essentially the same story of a boy named Link saving a kingdom called Hyrule and a girl named Zelda. The visual styles range wildly as well, from the cell-shaded style of Wind Waker to the realistic approach of Twilight Princess. So, how, then, can these games be evaluated? Given the range of styles, modes of interaction, and consoles they appear on? Some with elements of touch, motion, and tactile feedback included, and others not. Most digital forms of expression have experienced similar shifts in technology, but I wonder how best to evaluate games as artifacts given the extreme range of experiences, art directions, and hardware they can be experienced through. These are questions I hadn't considered prior to this approach.

Hill

• Quote:
• “(And would we really prefer that the advertisers use surly, tough-looking teenagers, playing violent video games and smoking cigarettes, in a more ‘honest’ attempt to stir fathers’ emotions?)” (118).
• Why/How Provocative:
• It’s hard for me not to take the bait on this one, so I don’t see myself with much of a choice—why define videogames in this way? Better yet, why does an example of children playing videogames need to be lumped in with “tough-looking,” “surly,” and “violent”? It connects to a very surface-level understanding of what games do or can do, and what they’re associated with. I’m well aware that this is a stigma that I have to fight against, but nonetheless, it’s frustrating to see that this is the counterpoint being presented to the advertisement in question of the baseball playing boys. Would it have really been so bad to show two kids playing Nintendo together in the house that was protected by the insurance policy? Would that not be at least a bit more “honest,” in the quoted fashion seen in the Hill line? I understand the logic of the ad, and why it works, but it is equally frustrating to me to see that when crafting his example of the opposite, “honest” version of this scenario it involves videogames and violence.
• Connect to educational/scholarly experience:
• Certainly my favorite part about James Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy is that he goes out of his way to use examples which might be considered by some to be counterintuitive to the points he’s making. His examples feature games like Deus Ex and Wolfenstein 3D, first person shooters which feature more than their fair share of blood, gore, and controversy. In direct response to Hill’s off-hand comment hidden in a set a parentheses, Gee takes up the mantle for violent games to be a meaningful way of learning. Patterns and ideas presented by battling enemies challenge players to use skills in unique ways, making learning and transferring skills crucial to playing games successfully. Certainly the point that games are educational can best be made by picking poster children like Valve’s Portal series which is being used in schools as I type to teach math and science, and yet, even in the “violent” games being played by “surly” or “tough-looking” teens are educational and therefore serve as a weak counterpoint to what constitutes “common cultural values.”

Berger

• Quote: 
• “This photograph offers irrefutable evidence that this man, this horse and this bridle existed” (86).
• Why/How Provocative:
• Between advanced gameplay engines, 3D modeling, and the Adobe suite of wizardry, how certain can we be that a “photograph” of something is real? I found it interesting that he says a photograph is “irrefutable evidence,” which seems to suggest to me that even if these items were edited together using something like Photoshop, they all existed separately at some point. But then, can we really be 100% sure of that now? Rather than simply posing the question, here’s a shot from a game engine developed by Metal Gear Solid producer Hideo Kojima: 

•  Can you easily tell the difference between the two? Sure, once you stare really hard and close, you’ll probably notice the differences and be able to tell which one is a real photograph (the chair backs gave it away for me). Were you presented with the Fox Engine renders alone, however, would you be certain it was fake? Or would this be considered “irrefutable evidence” of a moment in a board room? What conversations might we have about this “photograph” of a place that may have never even existed? Yes, in this case, it’s modeled after a real place, but once the Fox Engine is in the wild, so to speak, the places represented will be fictional as well. Do we know these photographs are “irrefutable evidence” anymore?
• Connection to educational/scholarly experience:
• The question of what is real becomes all the more significant as software becomes available which enables users to create a certain reality. There’s already plenty enough instances of image hoaxes which center on the use of programs like Photoshop, but what happens when this goes to the next level, with photo-realistic scenes, renderings, real-world physics…what then? Can we be 100% sure of what’s real and not? This opens up very realistic and interesting possibilities to entertainment, however, what does this do to the nature of the photograph? Berger considers the photograph a quote. What does a rendering in Kojima’s Fox Engine become to the untrained eye? Is it still a quote? A “made up quote”? How might all of this factor into what we can believe when it comes to images and video we see? As someone interested in a medium which digitally represents the real world (both through computational means and physical renderings) the blurring lines between them raises interesting questions of just what we can choose to believe that we’re shown. Consider the leaps made since the 1970’s. What will physics engines and lighting effects be capable of in 40 years when the hardware and software capabilities have advanced that much further? Considering that in the case of game engines these events can unfold in real time, how much can we trust these visual experiences? Are these images-as-quotes simply air quotes at that point?

Overall Connections:

• I suppose it makes sense in a lot of ways that I see myself connecting to these things through the visual medium I find most compelling in my own research, but I found myself considering it in a lot of different ways. I was able to see clear connections between the evaluative approach discussed by Foss which wouldn't have existed without having also read Berger. Furthermore, while nobody mentions games specifically (save for Hill...), it's good to see these connections feeling natural (to me, at least) rather than forced. As such a decidedly visual medium, videogames lend themselves to many approaches, including those which relate to things ranging from photographs like Berger (any screenshot of a game accomplishes roughly the same thing), to Foss's evaluation of artifacts. I found my gripe with Hill to be an exceptionally personal one, and one which I have trouble connecting as easily to the rest, yet no problem connecting to my own research. I'm glad to have read enough in different areas to have a response to asides like Hill's through Gee's work rather than resorting to “not-uh!” or something similarly baseless. I feel like I'm off to a good start in being able to find connections between points in these readings and in my research at the same time. I knew with some prodding these things would become clear as videogames are, by definition, a visual medium, but it's nice to have these points of contact come to me more organically than forced.

A Provactive Quote About Quotation

"It is because photography has no language of its own, because it quotes rather than translates, that it is said that the camera cannot lie.  It cannot lie because it prints directly...And yet photographs can be, and are, massively used to deceive and misinform."  (Berger 96)

This quote from Another Way of Telling was intriguing to me for a multitude of reasons.  First and foremost, I believe that, fundamentally, this quote forces us to question the nature of truth overall.  If the camera does not lie, does that mean it always tells the "truth?"  Or is it just a perspective on the truth?  In that manner, is that why photographs can be used to deceive?

I do not believe I could ever truly answer these questions completely or with any certainty.  However, this quote did remind me of a statement a teacher I had once made that has had a lasting impact on me.  Although I was only in 5th grade, I forever remember Mr. Mugulda's words of wisdom, "Numbers never lie, but liars figure."  Throughout my educational career, and in my own personal readings and analysis, I have always kept this nugget at the forefront of my mind.  When interpreting numbers, two schools of thought usually prevail in my estimation:  1) the belief that all numbers are objective and carry heavy argumentative weight or 2)  we make narratives out of numbers and it is the narratives that are more important than the numbers.  I realize this is a rather crude summary, but it should do to illustrate my point.  I've always taken Mr. Mugulda's statement as splitting the difference.  Hence, numbers are objective, yet they can be manipulated in ways to present a narrative.

This concept would appear to apply directly to photography.  The camera quotes, and the quotes are a direct representation of reality.  However, since a photograph only represents one particular instance of reality (an instance that can be chosen among many or possibly staged),  it inherently would seem to carry a certain perspective of reality along with it.  Berger seems to really drive this point home when he states, "The camera does not lie even when it is used to quote a lie.  And so, this makes the lie appear more truthful...Yet the quotation, placed like a fact in an explicit or implicit argument, can misinform" (97).

How has everyone else interpreted this dilemma of the camera quoting from reality yet pictures being able to lie and mislead?  Do we agree with Berger's analysis? 

Walk On By...

(When I look at this image, I hear this song: J Dilla - Walkinonit, maybe you should listen to it too)

When I was a kid, I really wanted to be a photojournalist (well, first I wanted to a paleontologist, but after that phase passed). I love most photographic art, and although I'm always blown away by Ansel Adams' landscapes, or Mary Ellen Mark's portraits, the feeling I get when I look at those types of photos doesn't compare to the feeling I get when I look at photos that aren't posed and/or manipulated. I love the idea of the photographer seeing something that they find so important that they have to share it with someone. I also love how pictures like this freeze time, and transport the viewer back to whenever it was taken. As you could probably guess from the photo, and my introduction, the tradition that this photo draws from is the tradition of documentary photography, and photojournalism.


At first I wasn't sure what image I wanted to submit for this. I knew that I wanted to submit something in the vein of documentary photography, or photojournalism, but I didn't know what. I spend a lot of time on The Big Picture Blog, and browsing photo archives, and when I went to The Newseum in DC, I spent an hour poring over the Pulitzer Prize-winning photos. I even have a folder full of photos that I've collected that I think are amazing, but there just wasn't one that was calling out to me. Then, as I was wasting time last week, avoiding my XML-coding assignment, I happened across this image and knew that it was the one for this blog.

At first glance, there's not much to the photo. It's just a couple walking down the street, holding hands, listening to some music, and then there's some people in the background. But then, as you scan the background, you see this guy, who's sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette, and he is absolutely disgusted. As you look past that guy (that asshole, as I like to call him), you see that everyone else is just doing their own thing; here's a mother (or maybe babysitter/sister), and a child playing in the park, a guy going home after doing some shopping, another couple chatting, and there's another guy in the back right who's also looking at the couple, but he doesn't seem to be affected either way. Then you go back to that asshole, just glaring at this couple. Then you go back to the couple in the foreground, and you notice their faces: the guy is strolling on, looking ahead, not happy, but not sad; and the girl is moving forward, but she's looking down, and she appears to be kind of sad. There's just so much going on in such a simple photo.

Another thing I like about this photo, is that, although there are still some people who feel the same way that this guy feels about interracial couples, they are a minority. But this photo can also be compared to the feelings that some people have towards gay people. I'm sure there's a photo somewhere on the internet that is the same, except there are two men, or two women holding hands.

In my mind, this image raises a lot of questions, like:

• Who are the people in the foreground? 
• What is their story?
• Is the girl looking down because she's sad, or for some other reason?
• Is the man in the background really an asshole? Or does he just have bad indigestion, or something?
• Where are they?
• When is this?
• What 8track are they listening to? 
• Is the man just annoyed by the tape, and not the couple?

The more I look, the more questions I come up with. 

Who doesn't like a good meme? - Joe Cirio

After flipping through some of the images that others have posted, I couldn't help but notice the absence of a good internet meme; so, I thought I’d take this post to draw out some of the conventions of the genre--of course, there are many, many sub-genres within the internet meme genre, but that’s probably for another day.  

Internet memes are great examples of visual texts that academics and students alike will scoff at--some of the humor, images, and topics are probably considered low-brow by most audiences. For the most part, internet memes speak to contemporary social and cultural issues of the day--and when I say day, I mean literally today.  The distribution of memes through social networks allow for memes to be both created and distributed within the same moments.  Further, because memes have become so pervasive in our culture, the content frames arguments that influence or shape how viewers may experience the world. 

This meme I stumbled upon in stumbleupon.com--a site that allows users to surf the web based on the interests of that user.  The image that this meme depicts is from my alma mater: Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. The statue is of our mascot, the Golden Bear, in the center of campus.  The meme itself is significant to me and others from KU because of the cultural assumptions that someone from KU has about our place in the world: we are not a large, Divison I school; we are not a research school; we are a small, liberal arts, rural university--we only had one main road that split north/south side of campus, and there was only one way to cross it.  The distribution of internet memes allowed for this image to circulate on the global internet community through stumbleupon.com, but also is a way to share an aspect of Kutztown culture with the world--taking a picture in the arms of the bear.  Here’s an image of me with the same bear in the summer of 2008 (before my freshman year)

Just like everyone from Penn State has to take a picture with the Nittany Lion, Kutztown people have to take a picture in the arms of the bear (in any variation).  This meme is more significant, then, to Kutztown alum because most of us have done the same act; thus, we feel as though we have participated in this cultural act that has seen global attention (even if that attention was for just 15 minutes). 

In terms of shaping how I, personally, see the world--I never noticed that the statue could work in the interpretation that the producer of the image displays the statue.  To me, the statue has always just looked like a bear growling on it’s legs with it’s arms out, but the way this meme works (coupled with the words) offers a new perspective in how to view the statue itself.  But it’s also worth noting that this image reminds me of others such as the following:

I guess what I’m trying to do is trace how this image has been significant to me personally--through my own participation of the Kutztown culture of images in the arms of the bear, but also other memes or images that this image draws upon such as Darth Vadar.  I could definitely flesh more of these ideas, but this is a good snapshot of what I was generally thinking. 

Some of the questions I have:

Has anyone else seen this image?

How do others, who haven’t gone to Kutztown and are not familiar with the culture, view this image? 

Are there other micro cultures that may view this image with similar significance?

How do the words enhance the image’s meaning?

If the text was in a different font, how would the image function differently? Would it be still considered in the internet meme genre? (I didn’t discuss this earlier due to length, but it’s an interesting one to consider)

Connected Provocations

Please share a: Three-part post from all the readings thus far:    1.most provocative quote: 2 why/how provocative; 3.connection to any educational or scholarly experience and explanation. Where you see connections between your quotes and others, please note those.

Capitalism is a Pyramid Scheme

"Capitalism is a Pyramid Scheme" was produced by the Crimethinc Ex-Workers' Collective, who describe themselves as a "decentralized anarchist collective composed of many cells which act independently in pursuit of a freer and more joyous world." I've never really ascribed to the philosophy that Crimethinc espouses, but have always found their materials rhetorically fascinating. While there is some explanatory prose in the top left corner, the intricately designed and organized image(s) carry the text's intended message.

Crimethinc's image is an updated version of a "Pyramid of Capitalisim" that first appeared in a 1911 issue of Industrial Worker, publication of the Industrial Workers of the World labor union:

Inspired by this image, Crimethinc is drawing upon the tradition of 20th century labor movements that adhered to Marxist and/or Anarchist philosophies. While the 1911 pyramid focuses mainly on economic relationships of power, 2011's pyramid vilifies several power dynamics and practices of exploitation, such as factory farming, the criminal justice system, sweatshop labor, and systematic poverty. The list goes on and on as you look at each "cell" of the pyramid, but I don't think a full explication is appropriate for the SRR.

I think what fascinates me most about "Capitalism is a Pyramid Scheme" is the sheer volume of images that are working together to create this "Military-Industrial-Infotainment-Telesector" complex/structure. Considering each and every cultural practice or institution that is admonished in the Pyramid, it is very similar to Occupy Wall Street's first "Officially Released" statement, which to my mind, incorporated every leftist radical thought into a manifesto of sorts (FYI, Crimethinc is not officially related to the Occupy movement, but they do share some philosophical common ground).

Given that there is so much going on in this image, most of my questions are broad, but feel free to ask bring up specifics:

1) Who are the vandals on the 4th tier of the pyrmaid? Are they reckless criminals? Are they "revolutionaries?"

2) What sort of response is Crimethinc trying to spark in the viewer? Without an explicit prescription of action, how are we supposed to interpret and respond to the image?

3) As already noted, the Pyramid tries to illustrate as much oppression as it can in a single image, drawing on a number of different power relationships. What effect does this inclusivity have on the image's overall message?

The Laminin Protein

This image is a textbook illustration of a protein called "laminin." I first encountered not in my biology class but in visiting a friend's church, the perhaps unfortunately named "Sulphur Creek Bible Church." What were these people doing talking about laminin proteins? Well, perhaps you noticed, as they do, that it is "shaped like a cross." And if you are a true believer, perhaps you also see it is an illustration of the New Testament verse: "For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth , visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Well, perhaps you may not see it that way - but some very religious and very influential people do and this image has been used to make that exact argument - that we can deduce, from the shape of a protein molecule, the truth of the claims made in the Bible.

An example:


If you start at 2:30 and watch the remaining five minutes, you can see how he uses this image to argue that the visual appearance of the laminin protein illustrates the truth of the New Testament.

The image itself, the argument it is being used to make, the people who are making these arguments, and the authority they derive from them are all very interesting. As an example of visual rhetoric it strikes me as especially interesting because this claim is made specifically because of the way something appears to the eye. As an example of religious rhetoric, it's interesting because it is an example of religious people co-opting scientific styles of argumentation in order to advance religious claims. As a science, it's interesting, because by itself the image seems to just be an illustration of some molecules and how they interact.

It's also interesting because you don't actually have to know how a molecule works in order to understand the argument the image is being used to make (and perhaps if you do know how a molecule works, you won't buy it). In the video I linked to above, the preacher asserts that it is, in fact, his ignorance that makes him so convinced, because God is "simple" and everyone can see it, plain as day. While many scientists would probably be appalled, I think this image illustrates several of the things we have discussed in class, in a way specifically connected to visual rhetoric.

We might be reminded, for instance, of popular perceptions of science and visuals not as representations but static snapshots of what "just is," or the facts laid bare. I also wonder about what this says about the unique ways images can be used to make arguments. What kind of arguments can we make with images that we cannot make with words alone? Additionally, how can placing an image within an argumentative context direct viewers to interpret in one way rather than another? And in regards to this specific argument, what can the use of this image reveal about how people negotiate the dichotomy of "science versus religion?" It seems to me that much of this guy's argument relies upon laying out the dichotomy and then "reuniting" the two warring categories. As a more general argumentative technique, how do we see that being used in public discourse?

I could go on and on about this stuff - it's really fascinating to me. I just wanted to share this image because it speaks directly to my interests and, I think, to the goals of this course.