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Dyslexia: A New Word Order
Dyslexia first appeared in British medical journals around quarter of a century after the introduction of mass education. Political determinism ensured that reading and writing became compulsory modes of communication. Individual creativity fell by the wayside when faced with a standardised educational system. At that stage, speculations suggested dyslexia to be a congenial brain disease that was causing a reading/writing disorder. However, the question that many have overlooked is; rather than being an innate disorder, is dyslexia discursively formed as a cultural phenomenon? More>> |
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The Peep Show; A Critical Analysis.
The award winning Channel 4 television comedy entitled ‘Peep Show’, staring David Mitchell and Robert Webb as flatmates; Dave and Jeremy. Unlike conventional television comedy, Peep Show has a narrative that is constructed by the combination of two separate monologues. The show is filmed and edited with a unique multi-perspective point of view (POV) created by placing cameras on the foreheads of the leading characters. Peep Show differs from most modern television in that it also includes the ‘inner’’ thoughts of both actors to construct another layer of meaning for the viewer More>> |
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The Flâneur; from the Arcade to the Shopping Mall.
From Modernity to Post-Modernity.
In 1938 Walter Benjamin wrote his essay on ‘The Flâneur’ as part of an analysis of Parisian poet Charles Baudelaire’s. In Baudelaire’s essay; ‘The Painter of Modern Life’, Baudelaire ‘calls forth a poetic – and a poet’s – vision of the public places and spaces of Paris’ (Tester, 1994, p. 1), consequently coining the term; ‘modernity’. Benjamin, was himself associated with of a group of left wing Marxist intellectuals; the Frankfurt School. Benjamin used Baudelaire’s poet, or the figure of the flâneur, as a metaphorical device for understanding the cultural impact that high capitalism had on Parisians during the mid nineteenth century .more>> |
From modernity to post modernity; the Flâneur to the Rascal
Benjamin used the flâneur as a metaphor for understanding the affect that high capitalism and the era of modernity had on Parisians during the nineteenth century. My essay will aim to outline the cultural similarities between Benjamin’s flâneur and the artist Dizzee Rascal. Then, by drawing upon the cultural theory of Benjamin, cross referenced with the postmodern theory of Michel Foucault and Fredric Jameson, I will trace the development from modernity and high capitalism into the contemporary era of postmodernity and global third phase capitalism. This will demonstrate my thesis that the LP Boy In Da Corner presents itself as a physiologie of our contemporary postmodern global epoch and proclaims the continuation of flâneurism. More>> |
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Photographic and Visual Culture: The Unknown Rebel
In his 1945 lecture Jean Paul Sartre stated that: ‘existence comes before essence’ (1948, p. 26). From this stance my essay will aim to answer the question; is there something essential about photography as a medium, or is it a discursive construction? I will argue that photography can be used as a medium for understanding how much free will and agency actually exists within the human subject. That there is an unquantifiable ‘x-factor’ within all of us, which discourse analysis inevitably overlooks, and consequently distinguishes in its efforts to provide a totalizing theory to culture. To achieve this, I will narrow my argument into the enquiry of Foucault’s discursive notions of power/knowledge, in particular the system of rules that govern the production of discourses, and deploy his method to Szarkowski’s notion of the ‘Vantage point’, and Jeff Widener’s iconic photograph, “The Unknown Rebel” More>> |
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Cybernetics in Digital Cinema: face- to-interface with cybernetics
In February 2008, Paramount Pictures released the digital remediation of the 1968 Marvel Sci-Fi comic strip character: “Iron Man.” Stan Lee’s story of Iron Man was developed during the Cold War era. It is story of weapon developer Tony Starks, an MIT graduate and techno scientific genius, whose story echoes many familiarities with the story of Wiener. However, I am interested in the historical development of Iron Man as an iconic Cyborg figure. In particular my essay will focus upon Paramount Picture’s recent introduction of Iron Man’s HUD (Head-up display). This HUD provides a new form of mediation in the era of digital cinema, which indicates exactly how cybernetic technologies are influencing contemporary digital cinema (Ref, Figure 1). More>> |
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