July 2-21-08

I will be given a brief from this week’s class from my own perspective. First, we ended the readings for exam one and moved on to Baudrillard. He stresses the terms dissimulate, which means to pretend not to have what one has and simulate, to feign to have what one doesn’t have. An example of dissimulate would be a police officer who is at the scene of a bank robbery trying to negotiating with a criminal, but stating “I do not have a weapon, but the gun is sticking out of the back of his pants. This is a more detailed example, but this action implies a presence, while simulate involves an absence. For example, a teacher stating “I have one hundred thousand dollars for the next person who gets a question correct,” but clearly he doesn’t have the money in his hands. Also, Baudrillard believes there are four successive phases of images: Reflection of reality (good), masking and denaturing of reality (evil), masking the absence of reality (sorcery), and no relation to reality (simulacara).
The next theorist of the week was Zizer, who briefly talked about the way humans convert movies into everyday activities and vice versa. One of his quotes that I thought was interesting was, “America got what it fantasized about, and that was the biggest surprise.” This quote is referring to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. It means that America fantasizes or glorify over other countries depression and it was time for America to get a taste of their obsession. I don’t believe he meant it an offensive manner, but he was just stating reality.

NewYorker 2/21

Class discussion was very interesting. It's interesting how one single quote can be interpreted so many different ways, as was exhibited in class. But I really liked talking about Disney, and reality vs fantasy / what is real and what is fake. I always think of theme parks as an escape from reality, even Universal or Six Flags. Everything in that environment, in the park, is man made, and sometimes I feel as though I am walking through a fake town. Especially Main Street in Disney, where everything is perfect. Even when people are walking around in Mickey/Minnie ears, or glow in the dark/light up necklaces and beads, in the parks this is looked at as normal. One can walk around wearing almost anything, and paraphenalia, and henna tattoos or hair wraps, and no one looks at them thinking they are weird - it is accepted at the parks. Even if someone is holding onto a souvenier cup that is gigantic and decorated following some sort of theme, that is perfectly acceptable. However, once you step foot outside of the park with these things, it becomes weird and out of the ordinary - because you are not in fantasy land anymore, you are out in the real world.
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Also how we spoke about: "Disneyland tells us that technology can give us more reality than nature can (203)." The weird thing is, is that it is so true. On the safari rides you get to see everything. In Animal Kingdom, all of the animals are out for show, and you are guaranteed to see what you came for. Compare this to real nature, the stories you told about Old Faithful, plus many other examples, nature cannot be guaranteed. Even when they say there will be a meteor shower, sometimes it cannot be seen due to cloudy/foggy weather, but go to a planetarium, and see whatever you want. But I don't see anything wrong with creating nature. Why not be able to see what a safari has to offer? Why not see all the stars in the sky? This could make people compare the real and the fake, and to appreciate nature even more. To realize that nature has its own patterns, and works randomly.

Sgt. Pepper, Eco Dorfman and Mattelart

The most fascinating point I thought Eco made was when he talked about the ride at Disneyland where you take a ride down the Mississippi in the historic city of New Orleans. He goes on to explain the things you see on the ride, alligators and other wildlife, and how they're expected to be seen on the ride because that's the stereotypical Mississippi River. He describes how he purposely rode the Mississippi River ride, then rode an actual tour boat down the real Mississippi in New Orleans and how it becomes a disappointment if people don't see that wildlife. Disney offers the utopian, stereotypical reality for which we yearn.

"Disneyland tells us that technology can give us more than nature can." (203).

In a similar fashion, I think a similar mind trick is going on with the Rollins College campus. Someone told me yesterday that the City of Winter Park is putting brick roads in the entire "campus quarter" neighborhood. While Rollins has its brick roads, its cultural Mediterranean architecture and flawless landscaping, I feel that in a sense we live in a hyperreality on this campus. I would assume that most of the buildings on campus are not historical, and that the brick roads weren't here before the college was built. Thinking back, it makes more sense that when I visited Rollins for the first time and fell in love with it corresponds with people's love for Disney World. To live in a place where the temperature rarely drops below 70 and that borders a beautiful lake, Rollins fulfills my stereotypical utopia.

Dorfman and Mattelart focus more on the influence and reactions parents have at a Disney World-type function, and it seems to go right along with how my parents reacted to Rollins. So beautiful and perfect on the outside, there are no problems here! (Boy, were we wrong). Makes me wonder about the truth behind Disneyland's happy-go-lucky characters. That would make for a great E! Hollywood True Story.

ChittyChittyBangBang Eco

A point that I found very interesting in Eco's article, The City of Robots, was the idea of a 'message city', a city entirely made up of signs functioning to communicate such as Las Vegas and Disney. I have never been to Vegas or Disneyland but I have been to Disney World and understand the absolute fake that Eco speaks of. I think this is a very intriguing topic to explore because I don't think many of us realize how many "fake cities" we have here in the U.S. Now I feel silly for never equating ghost towns and and old school western cities with those ideas. I liked Eco's quote: "...and i heard one tourist ask his wife if the children were real or 'fake' (and you could sense his psychological readiness to consider them, at will, extras, dummies, or moving robots of the sort we will see in Disneyland)" 202. These cities atmospheric perspectives are overwhelming and after a while you assume everything is a part of the act. For example; the political economy of cities such as Disney is genius; they use those atmospheric techniques to their economic advantage, "where you buy obsessively, believing you are still playing" 202.

This article reminds me of Habermas's ideas in his article, Modernity - An Incomplete Project. "That is to say, the term 'modern' appeared and reappeared exactly during those periods in Europe when the consciousness of a new epoch formed itself through a renewed relationship to the ancients - whenever, moreover, antiquity was considered a model to be recovered through some kind of imitation" 98. Architecture, art, art styles, and even the term 'modern' itself and what it represents has been reinvented time and time again throughout history. As a culture we constantly imitate the past, what we have seen, and what we know. These robot cities let technology take the place of realism, allow us to leave our humanity behind and enter a fantasy land. "The pleasure of imitation, as the ancients knew, is one of the most innate in the human spirit; but here we not only enjoy a perfect imitation, we also enjoy the conviction that imitation has reached its apex and afterwards reality will always be inferior to it" 204. I think these robot cities are also an 'incomplete project'.

Cuckoo 2/19

What is reality and how can it be defined?

Class on Tuesday really got me thinking about reality and what is real and what is not? I started to think back to a class I had first semester freshman year. One of the things that we discussed was the idea of reality and the real. We watched the Truman Show and read the Allegory of the Cave. All of these are examples of people who have been placed into a false reality; well from our perspective on what is reality. So, what is real and what is not? How can we define reality when everyone has different viewpoints on reality? I think that it is up to each person to decide what is real according to his or her life.

In both previous examples the people believed that their way of life was reality, but to an outsiders perspective they were living with a false perception of reality. If trying to categorize what type of reality these are you could see them in two ways. One argument could be that this is a reflection of reality because it is really happening. But if you were to view the situations from an outside perspective in the belief that you are living in the real you might argue that they are living in a reality that is a mask and denature or reality. It masks reality because society is placing these people into a false world. Especially in the Truman Show, he has been placed there to live in this perfect pristine society for the enjoyment of others. We all know that reality is not perfect. When trying to decide what is real and what is not all depends on the viewer’s perception of what is real.

Through out the semester it seems as if everything is based on the viewer’s perception. Going back to the idea of an open text, when we read something it doesn’t necessarily matter what the writer/artist intended it is what we got out of the text. It is all based on our perception of life and reality and how it has had an affect on us personally.

Going back to reading through my thoughts about these concept in my previous class I start thinking more about reality and what is it. I describe both situations as people being chained down to seeing reality as false, but what if we are chained down as well and our views are considered false if others were to look at how we are living.

Ever since I have come to school I have met people who group up completely different than I did. There are some people who seem to have been sheltered and don’t know what life is really like, they may be seen as having a false sense of reality. This concept could easily be questioned in our own society. We have all come from different areas and have different viewpoints on what is real. So when others look at our lives the may believe that we do not understand what is real.

All of this just furthers the idea on how we view what is real and what is not depending on what we believe. There is not one clear definition of what is real in life and what is not.

I feel like I have just rambled from one point to another and I am sorry for the confusion, yet I continue to come back to the same conclusion. I am sure that I could continue to bring up different aspects of life that could be viewed differently, but I am going to stop so my head doesn’t explode with thinking about what is real and what is not. I just continue to question and wonder how my perception of the real differs from the person next to me. Is my perspective of what is real false in the eyes of someone else? What is real?

kMO Eco

I never considered the fact that a city could be an imatation of another city. The more surpising concept was Eco's idea that a "fabricated city" functions in order to communicate whereas a "real city" comminicates to function. The concept of artificial architecture is so simple yet Eco does a great job of representing the complexity. I have been to Las Vegas and Disney many times and like most other people, i subdued to the "fake" world and didnt even realize it.

"The consumer finds himself participating in the fantasy because of his authenticity as a consumer." To be able to change into the role of the character you are looking at is fantastic. These levels of illusion are difficult to understand in realistic terms.

july-->Umberto Eco

Disneyland is a warm, entertaining place for the young and older but its notion of reality is to deceive individual’s perception of reality. Disneyland takes historical events and creates them into their own place where people are getting a taste of all worlds. For example Polynesian restaurant will have an authentic menu, Tahitian waitress in costume and rock walls with cascades. This effect will lead subjects to believe they are in Polynesia. These fake ideas of reality produces a pleasure of insurance from Disneyland vistors. This pleasure is known as jouissance which means a pleasure derived from text. There isn’t an inside text taken place during these interactions, but the ideas of being comfortable provides an existing pleasure. Barthes ad Roland stated, “The pleasure of the text is that moment when my body pursues its own ideas I do” (pg 11). Tourist and vacationers know that Disneyland is made through technology and creation of previous ideas, but they can’t distinguish between realism at the present time of undergoing Disneyland’s process of falsification.
Another important comparison to previous readings is by Walter Benjamin. He explains how present architecture comes from the past architectural sites like the Great Pyramid of Giza. These “doubles” are known as technical reproduction and process reproduction. Technical reproduction puts the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach from the original self. An example would be the animals that are designed in detail to represent “real” life animals that would normally be kept in a zoo.
Disneyland is not studied amongst these ideas or ideologies because it is a warm and fun place for amusement and entertainment. Children are brought to Disneyland for that same reason. So when they become adults they want their children to experience the same feelings and emotions.