Semiotics

The lecture this week on idea of Semiotics confused me slightly. However, when looking back at my notes I think I understand more than I thought. The fact that all babies can understand facial features and many of their toys include faces e.g. dolls, is really intriguing. Even a basic drawing, including two eyes and a line for a mouth, we all still recongnise as a face. I find it quite strange how our minds interpret things in this way. This helped me understand why Semiotics is the study of meaning and that all humans are natural Semiatitions.

In our seminar we looked deaper into reading the sign. We looked at such words as denotation, connatation and myth. I believe that denotation is what is actually there/what the sign is, connotation is what it suggests/how it is photographed and myth is an explanation of how it relates to the world/what it implies. I'm sure as the weeks go on this will all make a lot more sense to me, once I have applied it in the correct way.

This week John asked us all to look at the buildings and the structures around us. He also showed us a video of a BBC Imagine programme about Thomas Heatherwick. It was really interesting and really relavent to the project we are doing at the moment. It also reminded me of when I watched the one about Anish Kapoor a while ago, which I found really inspirational. I remember seeing some of his pieces at Frieze last year and admiring Cloud Gate, the shiny giant bean sculpture in Chicago. I'd love to go and visit that. The other sculpure is another by Anish Kapoor that I saw in the Tate earlier this year.

Realism and Noise

After looking back at last weeks lecture I began to think more deeply about what realism means to me. The word has so many meanings and explanations that I found it quite confusing to start off with. I believe realism is an interpretation of what we see and something that mimics reality. Although, realism is usually based on a photograph rather than the images we actually see. I hadn't thought about this in this way before, but it really does make a lot of sense. Our perception of the world is usually seen through photographs instead of really seeing it. On facebook, for example, I do just assume everyones photos are real.

Further on in the lecture, I remember Ivan talking about 'Uncanny Valley' and it made me think about this random guy who came into the SFX studio earlier that day. He was wearing a human-like plastic mask that looked really realistic but not quite, so it disturbed everyone. It was really creepy and very strange. I don't like things like that.

In the seminar we discusted the Process Model of Communication. I found this really interesting as I had not thought about things in this way before. The idea that all communication starts off with a transmitter that passes on information to a reciever, depending on certain variables such as speaking the same language and sharing the same channel. This all takes part in the notion that every environment has the potential for noise and that there is always a noise:signal ratio. The signal your trying to communicate is always dependant on the noise surrounding it. This then made me think about Art Galleries and how all the exhibites are always presented in plain white surroundings, so to not create any unwanted noise which could distract away from the exhibits. Following that I thought about the Frieze Fair I had missed this weekend in London. I wish I had gone because I really enjoyed it last year. However, a few of my friend's photos she took I thought were quite disturbing. The one of the stuffed dog was horrible :(

Both the lecture and seminar this week really made me see things from a different angle which I enjoyed.