Category Archives: Blog 04

“The whole ideal of the animated film is to suppress the categories of normal perception; indeed its logic might even be to suppress all differential categories, and annihilate the very conditions of rationality”

I think this an excellent description of what films and animations provide; an escape from reality for the length of the production. A movie/animation enables the viewer to enter an alternate reality. While experiencing this whole new world the producer created, the viewer is able to leave all their problems behind for the allotted time  and that escape can be seen as an oasis.

I believe that films “ability to suppress the categories of normal perception” is one of the many reasons the movie industry is very popular and successful. You as a viewer are seeing a different world the author/director/producer put together and that is very exciting.

However every positive aspect comes with a negative element and in this case the altered reality is fake, it can be easy to get lost in a different world, the danger is when one starts comparing their life with what was shown on screen not realizing that it was all strategically planned and put together and happily ever afters don’t always exist. When you watch a film you experience everything through rose tinted glasses. Somehow the people look happier, the streets look cleaner, and everything can appear perfect. That’s great for a film but it’s important to pull yourself back and realize that everything you saw was staged and reality is beautiful in its own imperfect way.

I really like this quote, it is concise but definitely packs a punch and each individual can interpret it in a different fashion depending on their personal experience. I think this quote represents the title of the work well. Seeing the brick… an explanation of all the components that go into producing an animated film, exposed!

Manovich, Principles of New Media Chapter one “What is New Media?” was a very interesting read and very relevant to our daily lives and this class. The one sentence that immediately stood out to me and grabbed my attention was under Principle One: Numerical Representation and the phrase is “In short, media becomes programmable.”

Media becomes programmable? This sentence really made me stop and think. I have never though of the media as programmable before but after analyzing the phrase it started to make a lot of sense and helped me see media in a different light. What is media? I asked myself. Hmmmm…. media is the news, the radio, magazines, social media, art, basically anything that serves as communication and has the power to influence. However can we program the media? Is the media programmable? Yes!

The media is very much so programmable. The mass message and common ideals had to come from somewhere. For example, the definition of beauty has changed dramatically throughout history and to this day each country has a different definition of beauty. Why? The media programs the population is reaches to think a certain way, to feel a certain way, and to do things a certain way. It’s actually quite scary how powerful media can be. It comes from different mediums but the ability to influence = power!

The concept that ability to influence signifies power can be seen through history such as Hitler’s ability to influence so many people that his cause has positive when in fact proved to be destructive. A persuasive voice can influence people either for better or worse and this proves that media is programmable and can make the public think what it wants the public to think by the messages it generates. With so much media surrounding us in our everyday lives, it is now up to us to filter out the good from the bad and to use our better judgment.