Message Board Topic: Silent Films vs. "Speakies"

Prior to the addition to matched soundtracks and dialogue with imagery, films had much in common with photography and other forms of permanent, stationary art.

Think about how sound and dialogue affects the experience of a movie. How is a silent film or photograph more open to interpretation? How does it engage the viewer in a more mentally or metaphorically, as opposed to more literally?

How are the silent films more closely related to photographs? How are they different from “speakies?”

Message Board Topic: Visual Communication

Your artwork is intended to be seen. That is the purpose of art – to visually communicate with a viewer. The collective of viewers whom see your work is known as the audience. When designing your work, especially in visual communication, it is crucial to keep your audience in mind. Target audiences are key to the success of a work.

This is why the most popular television shows are usually shown between 7:00pm and 11:00pm, at a time when most people are at home and available to watch television. Advertisements for acne medication and sneakers are more likely to be found in Seventeen magazine than U.S. News & World Report magazine. Toys are more likely to be advertised on children's television shows than on other types of television shows.

Google search an advertisement. Analyze two things: 1) audience and 2) message. Explain in your own words who the audience is and why? Then explain what the message is and why?

Finally describe if your feel this ad is affective, and why?

Message Board Topic: Memes

Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, coined the term “meme” in reference to a “cultural gene.” Modeling culture after biological evolution, Dawkins proposes that ideas are like “living things.” Ideas infect people like viruses, and just like viruses that are stronger at defeating white blood cells and are able to spread among people, those ideas that are strongest survive.

Dawkins proposes these viral-ideas are memes, which include catch-phrases, melodies, fashion ideas, fads, and other cultural phenomenon. Internet memes are those ideas which spread quickly through cyberspace and infects popular culture: examples include LolCats, Rickrolling, Chocolate Rain, Potter Puppets etc.

Other memes exist as images. Think of images that have meme-like qualities. Then describe why you think these images are so memetic – have such infectious power.

Message Board Topic: Futurist/Vorticist Writing

Tarr, by Wyndham Lewis, is the typical example used of Futurist/Vorticist writing. Here is an excerpt from Tarr:

...Anastasya's laughter had upset and ended everything in his ''imaginary life.'' He told himself now that he 'hated' her.==''Ich hasse dich! Ich hasse dich!==he hissed to himself, enjoying the wind of the 'hasse' in his moustaches.==But (there was no doubt about it) the laugh had crushed him.==Ridiculous and hateful had been his goal. But now that he had succeeded, he thought, chiefly in the latter affair, he was overwhelmed. His vanity was wounded terribly. In 'laughing' at him she had puffed out and transformed in an extraordinary way, also his infatuation=

The entire book can be found online here: http://books.google.com/books?id=hj2sAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=tarr+Wyndham+Lewis&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false. Look over the test and notice the stark differences between the way Tarr was written compared to literature we are used to or more comfortable reading. Remember, this was written for English-speaking audiences, even if it does not look as though it was.

Create two sentences concerning your project but in this Futurist/Vorticist style.