barebones communication

… a blog on communication

Barthes’ Connotation Procedures: 3. Objects. (Post 1 of 6)

As mentioned in a recent post I will elaborate on Barthes’ connotation procedures in separate posts. Here comes the first one starting with Barthes’ third procedure: objects.  There are, according to Barthes in his article, 6 areas for procedures in total.

3. Objects

Objects in themselves have connotative content. Barthes uses an example with a book case that might connote intellectualism. He states that “The interest lies in the fact that the objects are accepted inducers of associations of ideas (book-case = intellectual).. ” They can also work as symbols, he argues.

Some other examples; when you see an image of a big man in a close up, such a shot might connote power or dominance. When you have an image of a tiny woman that might connote fragility or fright. Obviously all object have second meaning connotations moving from neutral (in a neutral shot) to excessive in a more deliberately composed photograph.

Take a look at the “object” below. It is the rear of a car, but not any other car. It is the rear of a Bugatti Veyron at display in Berlin. Depending on the degree of car enthusiast you may or may not be, this picture will connote extreme wealth, extreme speed and excessive luxury to you. If you are not into cars at all, you might accept that this is indeed a stylish object of some class.

It is pretty clear from this picture (to me anyway), that images indeed contain second level contents; read connotations. This image does not only denote: rear of a car, but it strongly connote things like wealth and luxury, as well. 

For more on connotations (and denotations) you could go here.

 Bugatti in Berlin 

Copyright 2008: Knut Skjærven.  

 Library Thing. (Roland Barthes: Image, Music, Text, pages 15-31, Fontana Press 1977, UK. Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath).

Buy the English translation of Barthes’ work. Follow the link and support the site:
Image-Music-Text

March 30, 2008 Posted by knut skjærven | semiology, semiotics, toolbox | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Barthes’ Connotation Procedures in Photography.

 

One of the major thinkers on photography is Roland Barthes. He has written a number of important texts that I will refer to on the blog. Barthes worked within the semiological tradition. In his article from 1961 The Photographic Message he talks about connotation procedures.

 

It is, according to Barthes, “possible to separate out various connotation procedures”. I will use Barthes’ “headlines” from his article, but bring in my own elaboration and examples. And pictures.

Barthes works with 6  procedures in his scheme. I will treat each one separately in forthcoming posts. 

1. Trick effects 

2. Pose 

3. Objects 

4. Photogenia 

5. Aestheticism 

6. Syntax 

Stay tuned for a short separate treatment of each of Barthes’ connotation procedures. For a shortcut to some of his famous articles, please see the book referred to in Library Link below.

When I post on the individual procedures, I will link the separate posts from this introductory post. So, eventually you will be able to reach all posts from this post. Look for the links above, and you will notice that the post on 3. Objects is already there. 

Good luck with it. 

Library Thing. (Roland Barthes: Image, Music, Text, pages 15-31, Fontana Press 1977, UK. Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath)

Buy the English translation of Barthes’ work. Follow the link and support the site:
Image-Music-Text

 

 

 

March 30, 2008 Posted by knut skjærven | semiology, semiotics | , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

filosofia.fi picks up link to barebones communication


Link to the Finnish Portal “filosophia”.
The Finish portal on philosophy filosofa.fi picks up link to barebones communication. Many thanks Finland.
For more on the Finish portal, please go to here. 


March 13, 2008 Posted by knut skjærven | references | , , | No Comments

Meditations on a Mac: The Natural Attitude (1).

So, let’s look at the phenomenological method in more detail. Not to tell you what it is, but to show you what is it. At least the way I see it. 

Where does phenomenological investigation start? It starts right here. At this and any  given moment. At this and any any given time. At this and at any given place.

My present starting point is in front of my PC that, in fact, is not a PC, but a Mac. A beautifully designed iMac. Large one too.

Let me share with you of some of the things that I observe. I observe my Mac first and foremost. This precise moment I have my attention on these very words as they emerge on the screen while I  hit the letters on the keyboard. My eyes, and my head, tilt up and down as I shift attention between the screen and the keyboard. 

In the corner of my eye I note other objects placed on my desk. Without really looking I sense the two small loudspeakers that are connected to the Mac. They are black and bear the logo Altec Lansing. In need to look at them to see this.  I know that they are connected to the sub woofer that is placed under table. I can touch is with my feet. But I don’t touch it.

I sense more objects. A stack of books pile up to the left of the screen. A black fixed phone at the same side. At the right hand side I sense the external hard drives, and I recall that one of them is connected directly to back side the Mac, the other two are connected to the to USB hub that I acquired not so long ago. I have got 1,5 TB there in addition to the 320 MB that comes with the Mac. I need a lot a capacity for picture backups. So that’s the reason.

I am impressed by the new Mac feature, Time Machine, that comes with OS Leopard, the version latest Mac operating system. In fact I have seen nothing like it.

Even more objects are spread all around me. The desk, the chair, the lamp. More books and an empty cup of coffee. Even more object as a turn my head.

My eyes still have their attention at the screen and the keyboard as I move my head slightly up and down to see the keys and to control the spelling as the words become visible on the screen. A couple of places words are underlined with a red colour to suggest that I have misspelled. I have to delete and write it all over to make the underlining disappear. I let the word “colour” stay with the red mark underneath since that is how I spell it. The European way. If I had written “color” it would go away. The American style.

The keyboard, by the way,  is connected to the back of the big screen in one of the USB ports that are there for the same reason. There are three of them. I know that without having to look and to count. Now and again I hit the “save and continue editing” marker to make sure that what I write is saved. I write directly in WordPress. WordPress is the name of the blog universe that I use. And I am happy with it. Most of the time.

I also sense the large window behind the machine, and the evening light that still shines through it. I don’t have to light my desk lamp yet, but in half an hour I probably will.

Following Sokolowski’s terminology in “Introduction to Phenomenology”, what I attend to at any given moment in time is the profile of the objects in front of me. Each individual profile is a concretization of an aspect of the object of interest. If I asked someone else to take the seat where I am sitting right now, they will get access to the same aspect of the Mac, but not the same profile of it. The profiles are individual. Aspects are not.

In addition to profiles and aspects the Mac has sides: a front side and a back side are the two most obvious.

Let me tell you a little more about the Mac. The screen is rather big. The keyboard however is much smaller than those I am used to from my former PC universe. It is white and silver and on each side there are cables connecting different devises. On the right hand side is the USB connection that connects the keyboard to the computer. On the left hand side is an USB connection that I use for my film scanner. I know all this since it was I, who plugged in the connections. Or should I say that I assume that I know this, and thereby also assuming that no one in my family have changed the connections mentioned.  

I save again, get up from the chair and leave the Mac for a moment to get a cup of coffee and the book by Sokolowski, which I know is places on a glass table in the living room. I know that since I just left it there. Now I get up.   

A few moment later I am back. I did not pick up the book, but only took a glance at it. I made a cup of coffee that I bring back with me.  Back in position to view the same aspect of the Mac, but with a new profile. It is bit more dim now, because the daylight fades rapidly. I am in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Mac tells me that the time is 18.24 and I recall the date is March 11, 2008. Still wintertime here and low light at this hour of the day. It strikes me that maybe I should attend to some other task, since this blogpost now is underway, and I always find it easier to continue a blogpost than starting one from scratch. Particularly a long one like this.

These things go through my mind. I know this world of everyday activity. I live in it most of the time. Maybe I know it too well since I spend a lot of time in this position in front of the Mac. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week. Should I say year after year? Almost every day, when I come home from “my real work” that is behind another machine in another room in another building in another street in another part of the town. Apart from the fact that back hurts a bit from sitting down too much,  there are no big surprises here. No big deal really. 

Maybe I should to some physical exercise in stead of this stale desk work? No, I’ll leave that to another day.

I save again and get up turning the lamp light on as I leave for the second time now. I have another zip of coffee before I get up from my chair. 

Back again after a couple of minutes.

One of my specialties is wandering around. Do better thinking that way. That’s my theory, anyway. I could hit “publish” now, and say that was it. Another blogpost to the barebones project, but I will not do that. First of all I need to read thought what have I just written. Sometimes I do the reading and correction after I have posted, but in general that is not a good idéa. To many mistakes for other people to see. Not that I mind mistakes, but misunderstandings are likely to occur as well. And that is worse. Mostly, however, I post drafts, but try to limit the catastrophies. 

I need to tail the post now. Some kind of conclusion. This is, then, the first meditation on a Mac. I started where every first meditation must always start. From a present position in what phenomenologists calls the natural attitude.

There started Hussels and Heidegger. There started Sokolowski and Riceour. There started I. And that is where you will start, as well. The natural attitude is the frame of mind in which all of us live most of our lives. It is the first beginning of any phenomenological investigation. Or meditation. Even on a Mac.

What’s in it for communication?

What’s in this for communication? The natural attitude has no specific relevance for communication, but please read this right. No specific relevance means that is has every relevance. The natural attitude constitutes the situations in which every piece of  living communication takes place. It is the very platform, and the very framework of communication. Any communication.

You will have a better understanding of what is meant by this when you read the next meditations on my Mac, so please stay tuned. Coming up soon.

Cheers.

March 12, 2008 Posted by knut skjærven | phenomenology | , , , , | No Comments

a mode of familiarity (pitstop)

Working Class Hero. 

Shot at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark 2008. Exhibition by Candice Breitz. 

“This means that what affects us from the current passively pregiven background is not a completely empty something, some datum or other (we have no really exact word for it) as yet entirely without sense, a datum absolutely unfamiliar to us. On the contrary, unfamiliarity is at the same time always a mode of familiarity.”

Edmund Husserl: Experience and Judgment,  revised and edited by Ludwig Landgrebe, translated by James S. Churchill and Karl Ameriks, Routledge & Kegan Paul,London, UK 1973, page 37.

Library Thing.  

More on pitstops.

 Photograph shot by the blog author.

March 10, 2008 Posted by knut skjærven | phenomenology | , , , | No Comments

Are these the bare bones? (notebook)

 Bare bones of an ostrich

Are these the bare bones? 

Yes, they certainly are. These are the bare bones of an ostrich. The struthio camelus is the largest living bird in the world. Originates in Africa. But it can’t fly, can it? It runs fast, though.

An “ostrich” is also the label of a person who refuses to face reality and accept facts. And a way to get your head chopped off if you are not careful as a photographer.

But is it even a photograph of the barebones bare bones? Well, we’ll see about that :-)  In a while. Right now I am in the process of preparing a couple of posts on what I have, so far, labeled the notebook on phenomenology. You will be amazed how useful phenomenology is for understanding communication. And using it.

And here are some tasks for you to engage in - while you wait. Please elaborate on

a) parts and wholes in the picture

b) identity in manifolds

c) presence and absence 

And by the way, what are the connotations of this picture (semiology)? And how would you mentally close it (gestalt closure)? So all at once we speak of semiology, gestalt psychology and phenomenogy within the same universe. As a combined instrument of understanding communication. And for doing it.

Unless you want to bury your head in the sand that is :-) (The context begged for this one, sorry).

Good luck with it.

I’ll be back :-)

 Ostrich shot by the blog author.

March 10, 2008 Posted by knut skjærven | barebones notebook | , , , | No Comments

this feeling of gratitude (pitstop)

The Pace 

“Yet this feeling of gratitude does not fully characterize our true situation. Quite often we  feel overcome by a profound weariness, as if the rythm of life which technology has produced does violence to us. This is because technological progress is achieved to the detriment of other essential values. We are not satisfied with hurrying. We often find ourselves using the phrase “scientific barbarism” when we want to point to one of the characteristic traits of our time, and we speak with regret of the slow pace and the luxury of the good old days. We feel revolt rumbling in us; we would like to recapture our rights over time, rights of which contemporary life seems to have deprived us”.

Eugène Minkowski: Lived Time. Phenomenological and Psychopathological Studies, translated with an introduction by Nancy Metzel, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, USA, 1970, page 3.  

Library Thing. 

More on pitstops.

 Picture by blog author. 

March 9, 2008 Posted by knut skjærven | pitstop | , , , , | No Comments

Screenshot: Blog Statistics February 2008 TOP 20

I am a couple of days late this time. Sorry about that, but here it is; the barebones blog statistics for February 2008.
 
You may remember the statistics for January 2008. If not, here it comes again.

Same trends as for January. The post on denotation and connotation (semiology) has taken a huge leap upwards, and is now hit almost twice as much as second in line. This post is extremely short, and even if there are plenty of posts tagged denotation and/or connotation this one is the better post by far.
 
Almost all the posts on gestalt factors hit well, but semiology and phenomenology are slowly sneaking in on the top 20 list. They have not reached high numbers yet since they are all posted more recently. The tendency is good, though.
 
The posts in the top are all relatively short posts. All of them operational, and pretty easy understood and used. All of them have illustrations. 
 
Remarkable, and a bit depressing actually, are that the posts on marketing and consumer behavior do not hit very well. The reason for this could be that the blog so far has not gone in any depth around advertising as a special field of communication, but that will come and things might change. Advertising has, so far, been treated quite generically. I am talking about the posts that are referring to and tagged Steuart Henderson Britt. Here is the latest. They are a gold mine of information for communicators, imho. 
 
Anyway, thanks for this information :-) 
 
Blog Statistics February 2008 TOP 20. 

March 6, 2008 Posted by knut skjærven | miscellaneous | , , , | No Comments

Introduction to Phenomenology


This is it.
Robert Sokolowski’s recent (2000) book on phenomenology “Introduction to Phenomenology” is what I have been looking for for many, many years. I picked it up by browsing the shelves at Bergen University in Bergen, Norway two days ago.
Why? Because it treats phenomenology as a doing, living philosophy, which is just what it is, and also the way phenomenology will be engaged on this blog. And in the barebones communication project. You will find indications of this understanding of phenomenology by reading some of the already submitted pitstop posts. For instance this quote from Stephan Strasser.
If you, by now, have taken an interest in phenomenology as a prerequisite to communication, just go pick up the book. It is important for its content, but even more for its attitude. It contradicts the notion that phenomenology first and foremost is of historical interest. Something that once was. Old men with strange names and long white beards. 
Phenomenology is not that at all. Phenomenology is a present, living philosophy, and Sokolowski tells that story well.
No, I am not on any kind of commission. I’ll even spare you for the obligate picture :-) That is how refreshing this book is.
When you have finished with Sokolowski’s eminent little introduction you can always turn to Edmund Husserl’s originals. He left some 40.000 plus research pages. They were all smuggled out of Germany in the late thirties. Originals are at the Husserl Archives at Leuven in Belgium. Quite a thriller that one. Bringing his papers out of Germany.
Or you could take a shortcut by Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Hans-Georg Gadamer or Paul Ricoeur. Or Jean-Paul Sartre for that matter. Or any other major figure who link into Husserl’s extensive work. All important elaborators on Husserl’s thought among many others. They even managed to add some to the movement.
By the way the combo Sokolowski and Strasser seems a particularly good starting point for your phenomenological endeavor :-) They both practice phenomenology.
Go to amazon to get the book. Or anywhere else you can find it.
Thanks. So far.

March 5, 2008 Posted by knut skjærven | phenomenology | , , , , , | No Comments

out of the bits and pieces (pitstop)

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Sokolowski Illustration)

Robert Sokolowski:

“Modes of presentation and representation proliferate and fascinating issues arise: How is an email message different from a telephone call and a letter? Who is addressing us when we read a Web page? How are speakers, listeners, and conversation modified by the way we communicate now?

One of the dangers we face is that with the technological expansion of images and words, everything seems to fall aport into mere appearances. We might formulate this problem in terms of the three themes of parts and wholes, identity in manifold, and presence and absence: it seems that we now are flooded by fragments without any wholes, by manifolds bereft of identities, and by multiple absences without any enduring real presence. We have bricolage and nothing else, and we think we can even invent ourselves at random by assembling convenient and pleasing but transient identities out of the bits and pieces we find around us. We pick up fragments to shore against our ruin”.

Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, Cambridge University Press, USA, 2006. Pages 3 and 4. 

Library Thing. 

More on pitstops. 

Picture by blog author.   

March 5, 2008 Posted by knut skjærven | phenomenology, pitstop | , , , , | No Comments

« Previous Entries