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Whether through imperial propaganda

religious iconography,

consumer advertising,

or subversive graffiti,

 

societies have attempted to influence mass culture through images.

 

British Art Historian Norman Bryson writes about the two sides of a picture: its purely visual elements and its textual elements. In other words, pictures on one hand provide an immersive, pure experience, and on the other hand attempt to express specific meaning through the logical relationships they present.

Let’s look at the sprite ad more closely as an example:

The Sprite advertisement presents the experience members of our society recognize as a crispy can of Sprite – and also the blatant textual command “obey”. This example presents a very strong dichotomy between visual and textual elements. But maybe that’s the point of the ad.

By presenting an overt dichotomy, the ad creates a strategic sleight-of-hand that buries a subtler array of visual and textual codes within the frame.

For example, the refreshing and comforting cool colors, the iridescent flecks of liquid indicate soothing satisfaction. The onomatopoeic burst of color indicates energy upon cracking open a bottle.

The Sprite commercial plays on the interesting relationship between both word and image and the suspension of disbelief that occurs when a spectator focuses on either end of the visual-textual spectrum through implicit meaning.

On the other end is a subversive graffiti work:

Which focuses on textual strategy to convey a paradoxical statement. However, this is a highly medium-reflexive piece which recognizes the act of painting anything on a wall is spectacular in and of itself- the hidden visual meaning lies behind the pure text, and redefines the textual statement through self-conscious irony.

 

Hence, whether commercial or subversive, acts of persuasion begin at the margins of textual and visual communication, on the liminal ends of our cognitive capacities.

 

It’s too cold out to do much else but bury your head into your hat and hood and walk swiftly to class. But, if you’re like me, you might find yourself waiting for a bus or in the windowless rooms of the CCRB. If so, plug the headphones in and dance your way through the week.

This will be on repeat for weeks. So smooth. So original. So catchy. So much better than anything you’ve been listening to lately. Also, I have no idea who the f these dudes are, but they are doing it right.

 

numba two. Chances are everyone around you has been talking about the new D’angelo album. Confused on where to jump in? Sidestep the long process and take a look at this standout track.

 

time for a bit of a throwback. Nothing says long nights on the sidewalk waiting for a bus than this amazing beat and Snoop D O double G.

 

To add some contemporary female vocals to the mix, check out very much under-appreciated Lorine Chia and her latest work.

 

lastly, as the snow is falling and your room is finally feeling a bit warm, and your homework is finished enough to justify sleep, and your slippers feel great, let this amazing and one-of-a-kind voice take you off to sleep.

The Golden Globes and the Critics Choice awards have both gone by and now the Oscars loom ahead. To no real surprise, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film “Inherent Vice” barely received any nominations snagging just two in the Oscars: costume design and adapted screenplay.

The reason that the lack of nominations for this film, to put it simply, is because it just isn’t a clinical “Oscar” film. Meaning, that it isn’t packaged nicely for the viewer to digest easily in one viewing so that they come out of the theatre saying, “Ya, I get it.”

I can understand that casual viewers wouldn’t even think about seeing this movie, but the polarized reviews by the critics was a little disappointing. Many of them bashed the film for being too boring or having no recognizable plot. But umm…that isn’t the point of the film? Matt Zoller Sietz, a writer for the late Roger Ebert’s movie review website, got it spot on. He recognized that the point of the movie isn’t about following the plot, because honestly, that is damn near impossible. Instead, you should just let yourself be washed over by the atmospheric paranoia of 70’s California that the film immerses you in. Know that this is a movie that gets better with multiple viewings.

Also, if you are familiar with Thomas Pynchon’s work (author of Gravity’s Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49, and of course, Inherent Vice) then you will recognize that this movie is an incredibly faithful adaptation, and that the convoluted plot isn’t a sign that PTA is a bad director or writer. It’s just Pynchon man…

My best attempt to explain what I think the point of the film, is for me to point you in the direction of a song that is in it’s soundtrack. Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF6JMotbHYM

Amidst this world of hippy paranoia, the only thing that Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is sure of, is that he still loves Shasta, and he hopes that she loves him too. But this is not meant to be. Of course I may be completely wrong. To steal Seitz’s final line from his review, “What were we talking about?”

Joaquin Phoenix is also another reason this may not be getting much favour from the Oscars (he publicly said that the Oscars were bullshit, but later apologized, however, lets be honest, old people don’t forget insults, although they may forget a lot more, like what a good movie is for instance).

But the entire cast is amazing, Joaquin Phoenix is basically in every scene, then we have Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Benicio Del Toro, Reese Witherspoon, Martin Short, and a newcomer Katherine Waterston. Every single one of these actors give wonderful performances.

If it isn’t obvious by this point, I absolutely loved this film. Arguably you could say I am somewhat biased, by saying that I love Paul Thomas Anderson’s work (The Master and There Will Be Blood are both amazing), but that isn’t true because I don’t love Punch Drunk Love that much, nor Magnolia. I still think The Master is my favourite out of his filmography, followed now by Inherent Vice (or maybe tied).

So watch this trailer, and go see it if you want. Remember, don’t try really hard to follow the plot, just enjoy the moment.

Oh, did I forget to mention? The movie is absolutely hilarious.

I have always been hiding myself. It sort of comes with the territory of being gay. You hide from your family, you hide from your friends, and you hide from society. You learn to store things away because someone else’s reaction may be harsher than the consequences of bottling it up. It becomes easier to lie to yourself than to express yourself. This is part of the danger that society imposes on those that are deemed lesser. This is not an experience shared just within the Queer community and I’m sure many of us have this same experience, but I can’t comment on those perspectives, I can only comment on my own.

People always ask me when I knew I was gay. Maybe, I’m a special case, but I always knew I was gay, the only issue was coming to accept it. Again, I might be a special case with this, but I accepted it when I was in 6^th grade. That was the first time I stopped really lying to myself. Before then, I was absolutely terrified of who I was. At that time, the representation in media was either very stereotypical/negative or shielded from me because they hit on some very adult themes that I probably couldn’t handle at that point. I had nobody to look up to, nobody to show me that life in the Queer community can be happy, comforting, and safe. I did not want to accept myself, but I knew that life would be even more difficult to survive if I didn’t. I came out to myself and that was my first step to being tired of hiding.

The next step came during high school, the first time someone learned that I was gay. I wouldn’t call it my first time “coming out” because I didn’t really decide to do it. I was asked if I was gay and I didn’t want to lie to them. That’s how I operated for a long time; if someone wanted to ask me, I would answer as truthfully as possible. This was my way to stop lying, but not be open. I didn’t get a lot of questions during that period of my life, so it wasn’t very satisfactory for me. I had actively come out to a person during this time, but I was not ready to actually come out to others. I was moving forward, but very slowly.

My (hopefully) final, and most important transitional step came with college. When I went to college, I decided to be fully open with myself and others. I was completely out to all my friends on campus and I started living my life in the way that I truly wanted. In addition, I started coming out to my family. That is still an intimidating process, but I will continually work towards it. With this new transition, I can finally do some true introspection and find out who I am.

Now a lot of the people reading this are probably wondering what this has to do with art. This blog is a part of Arts at Michigan, so I should make some reference to art. I will do more than that. Unfortunately, I believe that my artistic development is stunted from my experiences. A lot of art concerns looking into oneself and I wasn’t really able to do that for most of my life. I wasn’t able to express myself like others could and I think has negatively affected me. I don’t believe my creative endeavors are as mature as my peers and I don’t know if they ever will be. At the very least, I can express myself now and that is a miracle.