Pre-Class Blog 10/1

The introduction part of the Keyworks text was what initially caught my eye while I was reading for the class discussion on Baudrillard and Zizek.  There was a heavy discussion of how postmodern culture is organized around simulation, that of images and models which are supposed to connect back to reality or attempt to replicate it.

For me, this correlates back to the conversations that we've had in class about reality and simulation. How film, being the example of media that I want to use for this posting, changes the lenses in which we see something. Therefore, only allowing us to experience what the cameraman chooses to capture. This leading to the thought that no film, however realistic it may seem, can fully capture reality. But not because it is a film, rather, reality is the problem as it's elusive and cannot be captured nor held. Yet, postmodern society is fascinated and maybe even addicted to this idea of chasing and capturing reality.

Another connection I have with the course texts to my own media consumption is how there's a new trend on Instagram to post raw, unedited, and almost un-aesthetic images as it seems more "real" or more closely related to the account user's "reality." This humors me, not because I dislike this trend, but because we now can edit photos so that they look "natural" or raw.

This search for reality through media is fascinating but doesn't seem to prove a clear end or at least in the gaze of my current understanding of media and theory's relation. Yet, our personal realities are reflected within and affected by the media we consume and create so it is worth exploring. Wrestling with this tension warrants a greater understanding of life itself.

Renee Post-class blog 9/26

There are many correlations between Habermas and Lyotard's words on post-modernism that align with things that can be seen in contemporary culture. For example, Habermas says that we are in this "cult of the new" (99). Due to the way commercialism, capitalism, and consumerism is moving, it seems as if we are headed in a trajectory of creating and buying the fastest, best, most improved, newest, etc. It does not appear as if we will be moving out of this cycle (if we can call it that) and obsession with "the new" anytime soon. Due to extremely high and increasing production rates, we are constantly moving farther and farther away from the idea of the referent or the original as well.

Lyotard speaks on realism and the ideas of representing reality as well. He states that "realistic representations can no longer evoke reality except as nostalgia or mockery" (40). Although I find this statement to be somewhat of a sad one, I find it to be true. In our current culture, especially within the art world,  it seems that many large exhibitions will display artworks by the well-named artists of the past (Van gogh, Matisse, da Vinci, etc.) in a sort of honoring and nostalgic manner. Even many of the big movies being produced are remakes of classical cinema works. Even in our current political climate, with the popularized "Make America Great Again" slogan, there is a large degree and presence of nostalgia and looking on this past notion of the United States of America as some memorialized ideal that we should attain to go back to and use as a setting example.

I would however, argue that an example of representing reality that doesn't fit under this umbrella of nostalgia or mockery would be in art exhibitions and other content that has aimed to resituate and re-present images and historical notions. For example, the Dangerous Women exhibit at the Cornell Fine Arts museum last year worked to take classical works of art with women in them and place them in a more positive context in which they were honored and admired for strength rather than idealized and sexualized. To me, this is an attempt to revisit history that does not hold a tone of nostalgia or mockery, but rather strives to be more inclusive and thoughtful.


On my honor, I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work. -Renee Sang

Lyotard- Post Blog

Today in class I felt like it was the first time that I finally understood what Dr. Cummings was talking about. With most of the readings I was having trouble trying to understand the theorist’s “theory talk”, but I think Habermas and Lyotard wrote in a way that I could understand. I really appreciated Dr. Cummings letting me work out my thoughts in my head in class. Even though I felt like I sounded stupid, I still felt comfortable in dissecting the work of the theorist. I think by Dr. Cummings getting me out of my comfort zone I was able to really digest and process the pieces at hand. Hopefully my classmates didn’t mind me struggling (haha). 

With looking at Lyotard’s work in class today the one thing that I took away from Lyotard’s argument was that the postmodern society does not have one narrative, but many. The concept of “The Canon” helped me understand Lyotard’s concept even further. In class we discussed how “The Canon” is defined to be the suggested body of work that we look back to for reference, otherwise known as the “classics”. For example, if I was going to school during the 60s or 70s I would be reading classic literature from predominantly White males. Now, in the 21^stcentury we still look at the classics, but we have other artists, writers, and theorist from different backgrounds and disciplines that we learn from. 

With learning this concept it kind of makes me think about why different generations think in different ways. For example, since I am a millennial, I am exposed to so many different types of media that cover a whole range of cultures. Therefore, I am able to think in a broader lens then some other generations. Since Lyotard states that we now live in multiple narratives, I am unsure if  he think this is a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand we can say it as a good thing to be exposed to different types of arts from different people and their backgrounds, but on the other hand we are kind of drifting away from the “classics” and loosing the roots in the culture. I would think Lyotard thinks this diversity is a good thing, but I am not entirely sure. 

Pre-class 9/26 blog Renee Sang Lyotard

Theorist Jean-François Lyotard states in Answering the Question What is Postmodernism? that "Modernity, in whatever age it appears, cannot exist without a shattering belief and without discovery of the 'lack of reality' of reality, together with the invention of other realities" (p. 43).

This quote was a particularly interesting and in some ways enlightening to the postmodern discussion we have focused on over the last few weeks. I think Lyotard is stating matter-of-factly that modernity exists and comes to life in an era when there is a shift in human thought. Particularly, this human thought is changing in relation to views on reality and what is real.

I think he is also stating that modernity comes to light when something changes that shakes the world view and way in which humans perceive and understand the world is completely challenged. A simple change in though can lead to larger changes in structure, politics, culture, value, tradition, etc. in a ripple effect. Humans are constantly finding ways to make sense of the world they live in. A shattering or shift in this process or a crack in the foundation of one of these methods has the potential to largely question their grasp on reality. These can often be followed by radical movements or attitudes toward the world.

This quote was a sort of point for me to latch onto and help me better classify and understanding modernity. I can agree with Lyotard on this statement and better visualize it and connect it historical occurrences in my mind (e.g. The Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, Digital Age, etc.). I think these attempts to evolve and become the most current, upstanding, and 'real' are ideas that classify the term modernity. Understanding reality and trying to become the best/most real version of culture is a limitless objective. However, as a society and civilization we can not help but do it, and when we realize one attempt fails and has its flaws, we move to another. This may take the form of a gradually occurring shift towards a 'perfect' or idealized goal or come in the form of a drastic turn away from an idea and exploring or re-xploring another alley.


On my honor, I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work.
Renee Sang

Renee Sang 9/18 (film night) Post Class

This week we were able to attend the Global Peace Film festival's opening film, The ReMix: Hip Hop X Fashion directed by Lisa Cortés and Farah Z. Khalid. As a regular participant of the film festival and a planner of it the previous year, I can say that this film was unique and special from all others that I have seen. It not only introduced viewers to the Hip Hop industry and its strong ties to the fashion industry, but revealed the hidden individuals behind the movement and behind a culture that had also largely been appropriated. I learned a lot from the documentary on a topic that I had relatively only a surface-level understanding of. As someone who is very interested in fashion, but not necessarily Hip Hop music, I was still able to feel highly connected to the film and engaged in the new insights that it was presenting.

The film also heavily reminded me of a PBS Indie Lens film we had seen as part of my CMC Media, Peace, and Justice course titled Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World. Similar to Cortés and Khalid's film, the film served to re-present an appropriated history, in this case, of populated music movements (Rock and Roll, Blues, pop, etc.) and show their connections and ties to Native American culture. Both films used effective storytelling techniques by pulling in major names in music and fashion and tying them back to smaller cultural traditions and movements that they originated from. It is films like these that illuminate and give credit to those behind-the-scenes that I have always found powerful and gives me hope for the future of the media industry. In a society where much of the media projected to us is meant to advertise a product or earn a capital, I find it refreshing when filmmakers instead use the medium to give a voice to hidden individuals and shift our perspectives completely on a subject. Part of the reason why I have enjoyed my CMC courses so much in my time at Rollins is due to their constant ability to inspire me with media and show me the ways in which it can be utilized to promote positive messages. I am thankful to this documentary and many others for forever shaping my view on not only the subject, but on the rest of the world as well!



On my honor I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work. -Renee Sang

Post Class Blog

The material for today’s class was challenging for me. As we discussed in class, it was the author’s style of writing that hindered me from fully understanding the topic. Even though the writing style of Venturi was hard for me to understand, our fruitful class discussion helped me appreciate the topics at hand. What stood out to me in our conversation today was when we talked about the architecture of the city of Celebration,  and how it emulates the concept of urbane urbanism. With being a Florida native, I have never really paid close attention to the architecture of the town until today. As we learned today, urbane urbanism is when something looks like it was made a long time ago but wasn’t. With learning about the history of Celebration and thinking about its architecture, it was crazy to finally put a definition of the architecture that was built in that city. When I first moved to Florida, I always thought that the town of celebration was very “old-timey” and emulated a time that was far older than the present. With learning about the concept of urbane urbanism and learning about the Disney influence within the town, I can start drawing parallels between the literature and the real world.

Also, the concept of tmesis hit me hard during our class discussion. While discussing Disharmonious Harmony, I was trying to fill in the blanks to make sense of the building itself and its purpose. For example, the image of the bank building made me think about so many different questions concerning the population of the workers and what was the buildings architectural purpose. For me, this concept of Disharmonious Harmony was kind of hard because of my wandering thoughts and my questioning towards the architecture. With applying the idea of tmesis,  I caught myself trying to fill in the blanks in almost every structure we saw in class today. Today’s lesson honestly helped me think critically about architecture and look at structures in a different light. I am thankful for my classmate Renne because she was able to help us understand some architecture structures due to her art history background. Her explanation of the structures was beneficial for my learning process.

9/12 Post Class Blog

I have always been fascinated by the inverse of things, by opposites, and the ying and yangs of life. The discussions we had in class on Thursday, September the 12th really connected this fascination in a new way for me, applying it to language which is the very breath of my studies. We discussed de Saussure's theories of how language is interdependent to the simultaneous presence of others” and that the segments of language get their significance from their non-coincidences to the rest. When something stands out or catches attention, it’s because it is out of the norm. I think in patterns and I believe most humans do, there’s a natural desire to have things maintained and orderly in our understanding. I find it interesting that language, the very thing most of us use to make order and sense of our environments, is founded upon the very necessity to stand out or be a non-coincidence to break said “patterns.” I liked how we took this thought further in our class discussion and brought up the very nature of a definition, that we define things by what they are not. The comparison and contrasting of things in proximity are what give it their significance, and are what ultimately developed the signified utterances or words we use to identify signifiers in our everyday language practices. 

Applying this to my world, I see a lot of polarization in our country today, politically yes but it doesn’t end there. I wonder if instead of drawing harsh black and white lines and borders in our understandings of things we view as “completely opposing” to our held beliefs if we would see that they are just different, not opposite. How I apply this to my world is by understanding that different doesn’t mean the opposite. Just because a religion isn’t the same as another doesn’t mean there are opposite religions, they are simply different, which isn’t wrong it’s actually what makes each signify-able. I see this as linguistic understanding ultimately bringing forth more peaceful conversations surrounding controversial topics. 

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