Feminism & Australian Cinema
Historically, women weren't really allowed to be involved in filmmaking.
This changed dramatically in the 70s where filmmaking groups for women started forming. These women were interested in bringing a feminist perspective to film & stories.
However, they realised that in these women's filmmaking groups, they were 'preaching to the converted' - and that they actually had to get out there and infiltrate the industry.
Andrew Sarris' quote (shown in the lecture) claims that Australia (and other 'Antipodes') were forefront in developing and producing women filmmakers before the rest of the world - such as having women's filmmaking funds and people such as Gillian Armstrong (who directed the first female-directed feature film in 79 years)
Holy Smoke! is considered a transnational film - a fitting example of a trend in the 90s which saw films collaborated on and exported to an international audience.
"Producing is a female ghetto - it's where the most women work." Still, this is only around 30% of producers (give or take).
Women directors in Australia have dropped to 7%.
It's not a level playing field, yet women seem to outperform men when it comes to AFI awards
Feminisms
The belief that women should be treated equally to men.
Aims therefore to end sexism and give women equal chances.
An Angel At My Table has a scene of young girls looking at each other - recreating the male gaze in a way but not exploitative.
Feeling Sexy shows some of the troubles of parenthood - not as happy and exciting as portrayed in other movies.
Love Serenade - it CAN be seen as a feminist film (post modern) where feminism allows women to have hopes and dreams (including getting married & living happily ever after)
FilmTV 2 Week 7: Ethics
- Suspension of disbelief has a particular meaning when it comes to documentary - there is a relationship between documentary and audience, rooted in the 'power of the photographic indexical image' - people take the photo as 'real' even though it may be edited - in this way, they see documentaries as portraying the truth.
- The filmmaker often stands in to represent the 'mass', or 'common people' - this is seen in the long history of exposes and scandals. Michael Moore is a well known example of this.
- Ethnographic films often have the filmmaker speaking FOR a group of people - representing people who can't represent themselves. For example, in Nanook of the North, a white Western filmmaker talks to white western audiences about Inuit people. It pushes the case that the fur trade was good for the Inuit people, but it was also funded by fur trading companies, so it represents their interests in a political sense. A film can represent a group in the way a lawyer can represent a client - with a heavy hand, stridently pushing their case.
- Should the people we film be given compensation? Should they be able to 'block' certain things from appearing in the film if it portrays them in a bad light?
- Should we be able to recreate scenes? Every documentary CLAIMS that their is an external world operating without the camera - that the world would continue in the same way if the camera wasn't there. We are claiming an element of truthfulness.
Cunumulla (2000) - very controversial film, 7 year legal battle. The media furore over it displays the tension between the filmmaker's desire to 'tell the truth' and moral and ethical standpoints of the subjects involved.
Release forms are more for the protection of the filmmaker rather than the subject - therefore they can be seen as UNethical
The onus on documentary filmmaking is even greater than news reporters (bound by code of ethics that stipulates truthfulness) yet there is this expectation that it needs to be truthful.
Final Lecture – IM: “Any colour, as long as it’s black.”
Once, coming to university was all about the content. Access to materials, technology, information.
However, those things are now readily available. It's not all about the content - you can get fantastic lectures on the Internet for free.
MIT put all their course materials online, readily available to anyone. WHY?
They realise that it's about the experience - they lose nothing by putting up their curriculum, because the experience is something that can be obtained only at university.
This is obviously true. If I hadn't come to the lectures, for example, I would not have been able to create poetry from Adrian's words. This lecture is practically empty, and still someone is able to come in late and sit right in front of me and block out my view of Adrian - a tiny little figure from the point of view of one in the back row, with the rest of the Frankston Line.
Here Adrian is talking about sketches, which have a small footprint, as opposed to painting done by an artist which needs a large amount of infrastructure - painting, canvas, lighting, etc. We've made informal video - stuff with a small footprint, quickly and easily.
Sketching doesn't mean you have to devalue it as a practice. This is something I had to learn - from my first IM video to the fifth one. When I started, I submitted an unedited single shot video which basically had not much going for it. After showing it in class I started to think, comparing my work with other people, and wanting to be more entertaining and do a better job. Through this I think I made my best 'sketch' video - Not An Indoor Cat - which many people actually liked. I wanted to try harder and through this I learnt that sketches could be beautiful, too.
By teaching us to appreciate text and sketches, or thinking in action, Adrian carried out his intention of getting us to question the way we approached filmmaking, and that there was more than one way to make a 'legitimate' work.
"Theory is thinking engaging with doing." This is why he got us to read Barthes instead of just explaining it (which probably would have been a lot easier to comprehend.
Something else we covered: the idea of assembly lines, and group construction. People no longer needed to know how to make EVERY part of a construction, or a car - they could specialise in only one part.
Even in film production, there is now a 'factory' type operation of filmmakers.
People don't tend to change in traditional media. It's conservative, involved with concepts of risk management and expense, and what's traditional and comfortable - Adrian argues that one of the biggest changes for television was the death of the Sunday night movie on each channel.
Value these days (in car production) lies in selling the experience, on ideas, on knowing HOW.
Learning all the shortcuts in Final Cut Pro (for example) is learning WHAT, not learning HOW.
It's more important to know about the capabilities of software, and what you should be able to do using programs, because you can then learn WHAT you need to do if you know HOW you can do it.
When HTML first came out, Adrian felt that he knew everything there was to know about it (for about three weeks), as there was only a small vocabulary. This was until he saw the first webpage with a 'form' on it, where people could respond and write back, and the world changed for him. From that point forward, with rapid changes, he could no longer know everything. However, what he did know was how to find this information, and that is what was most important.
So, what does all this mean for us (as potential/future media producers)?
Why come to uni (and this class) if we can get all the information just from the internet?
The answer? The experience of Adrian as a filter, the feedback given, and (I'd say) the expectation to create work, the deadlines, the pressure, the structure.
Videos shouldn't need to take all your attention, and if they do, you should be rewarded for this. Realistically, the computer is a multi-windowed environment, and you may only be expecting small videos which you can stop and start and engage with easily.
Editing Lecture: Notes
The edit: the finished product:
made in pre-production (sound pre-production, storyboards, how you dealt with coverage)
documented in shoot by continuity and log sheets
and only finished in post production.
One may not attack their editing methodically enough:
it can get chaotic, confusing, unless you are really well organised
Even in a 5 minute film, most of us cannot retain all the shots in our heads
One of the benefits from digitizing off the tapes is that you are forced to watch every shot all over again.
Filing hierarchy
Finder
Server
Scratch Disk
Folder
Text Files
DVD work
Music
FCP project
Saving project
Memory stick
Auto save vault
HOW TO DO THIS
Create a new folder on your desktop
Call it the name of your film
Put this in the Film-TV1 folder (or it will get trashed)
Fire up final cut
close the last project used (in the tabs) or you could be saving all your work into someone else's project
Every time you open up final cut you must go SHIFT Q
(so all your video and audio filed go to the same place)
CONTROL Q
Choose DV PAL Animorphic 48 k
The FCP handbook (on the Film Tv blog) shows you in 4 simple steps how you have to start/save your project
Make sure you back up all the digitized footage and the final cut project
On your own computer, the autosave is set to a certain folder. If the server/computer crashes and you haven't been saving, it will have autosaved onto the local computer.
PROJECT
set up the tabs in your project
SEQUENCE
make a seperate sequence for each scene
File -> New -> Bin (like a folder) ->
(apple B)
scene 1
scene 2
music
(Apple N) for new sequence
scene 1
scene 2
Bins, folders:
logging bins for each scene,
folder for sequences (date modified)
folder for music
log THEN capture
timecode is KING
reels,
put your 'in' and 'out' inside the 'start' and 'stop'
'start' (on camera).....then 'in'.....................................then 'out'....then 'stop' (on camera)
You cannot capture the first 5 or 6 seconds of a tape (which is why we have colour bars)
Cut in seperate scenes so you can really analyse how that scene is working
The thumbnail is dictated by the inpoint of the clip
Double click on the shot and open it up in the viewer
Play out the shot.
You can keep hitting i and this will just move the inpoint along
L to fast forward
Hit O for out point
Apple F10 will drop it in and leave playhead at the outpoint of the next shot
Just do rough cuts, leave it
editing scenes seperately gives you the opportunity to be lateral or creative
keyboard shortcuts are incredibly useful, the beauty of reading them means that certain things are really important (and maybe you should think about using them).
‘At the bleeding edge’: IM Lecture 10
I'm not going to write bad poetry today, even though it's fragmented lines are probably the best way to get my thoughts out.
Adrian is currently talking about his future trip to Montreal, and showing us his 5 minute presentation he is about to do while at the conference over there (and 'preoccupied' with). This is quite interesting, as is the concept that OUR understanding of korsakow is as sophisticated as 75% of his audience.
He is racing through his ideas and it is obvious he is excited about his concept of 'ledits' and the influence he can have on the Korsakow supporters, etc. It's nice to see someone have such enthusiasm. I only hope that when I am older, I am this passionate about my work.
Korsakow films can't interact with each other, in the way that pingbacks can on blogs.
In a book, the end is defined really obviously, "a direct consequence of the physicality of my media". It can't not have a beginning, a middle and an end. Even if there are flashbacks and time shifts in the book, there is always going to be a last page. There is always going to be a final shot of a film.
However, in Korsakow, and in the internet, there doesn't have to be an 'end'.
In traditionally storytelling structure, it is important that some things HAPPEN. For example, Jesus dying and getting nailed to the cross.
This doesn't have to happen in Korsakow. There is no way to know how much longer the film will go, or how long it will take to understand it.
That's why audiences have to be 'seduced' by the thumbnails, by the video, so they carry on.
"SNU's are like lonely men in a bar. They're alright by themselves, but they're really looking to connect with and attach on to something."
churning out the lecture – week 9
Just a note - I'm not trying to mock Adrian or anything. I've just realised that how he talks makes sense to me as poetry, and this is a combination of my thoughts and his.
His face, placed, in different spaces, places,
editing causing the effect, the notion of the whole
is different now. an apple in half
is half an apple,
but my walking in half,
myself in half,
my essence in half is one and the same.
you can take it as some sort of weird miracle,
how can what is halved still remain whole?
yet sound editing,
video editing is all about halves
making them whole
t r a n s p o s i n g
to hypertext
the fundamental aspect being the link.
it's a different notion
a whole different notion
a whole different whole
a different
physical
object
different shots
different series
different images
not just a pristine pure notion
i cannot cut a person in half - the person would be now dead!
this is an experience you cannot have with people
even songs
remix this
different
page six follows seven
why was six sad?
a different concept of wholeness.
emergent structures are the patterns that emerge through use
BOTTOM UP NOT TOP DOWN
they cannot be prescripted, they cannot be prescribed,
anarchy? rebellion? questioning the government?
consequences of your actions
coming from you
emanating from you
but you cannot control it
it is more than you
it is more than you can contain
the busiest point in the library is the front door,
but how can one control where the traffic will flow?
wholes, holes
half a painting is not half a painting
half a book is not half a book
half a shot is...half a shot
always incomplete yet always still a whole.
always incomplete yet always still a whole.
always incomplete yet always still a whole.
how can something be finished if it is always incomplete?
how can i discover
how can i invent
how can i create
what is a whole
if it is made up of holes?
an edit is a link and a link is an edit
say what you mean! , well, i mean what i say.
those two are different. opposite? conflicting?
synonyms.
working with hypertext
is making a movie
so green, this green screen
with container spaces
links in, links out on this node
links in, links out on that node
a snu? a SNU?
a sun? where the planets revolve around,
orbit around
connecting everything
linking everything
a whole
the galaxy, the universe it never ends.
like hypertext
THE WORLD'S REVENGE ON TELEVISION
a talking head for twenty seconds
infinitely divisible
infinite options
here, here, here, here,
h e r e . . . .. .
in this twenty seconds, thirty seconds,
twenty, thirty points of connection!
stop playing the game,
the game of traditional editing
predicting, laughing,
'oh, this was always meant to come next!'
a cut, something else must happen.
the only possibility of it happening
that is it
that is it
that is...what?
NO. in this media, there is ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES,
anything could happen next,
a diamond!
(i can't draw a diamond.)
a field of possibilities
a sparkling gem transposed from years of pressure and dirt and grime from
old
dirty
coal.
exactly the same logic as an edit, post-cinematic environment
if you can do one, you can do the other!
i try to tell you. i try to think.
hypertext is sort of
is sort of
word processing, plus! - something else.
"you teach it like the internet is a new thing.
get over it."
but i can't.
i remember black and white television,
the first television in our house
when newspapers were black and white,
and tv was black and white.
to first print an essay on a laser printer,
not noisy and slow
but something exciting and real.
there's something exciting about word processing
not a typewriter
using whiteout to correct
and writing it out first
and then type type type
and type type type
and type type t--correct mistakes
but oh! on word processors - you can change the font!
you can change the colour!
you can alphabetise!
footnotes! endnotes!
"why have you done this in red?"
expression!
outlines
indents
page layouts
the excitement goes on and my heart begins to race
automatic numbering
it's a revolution!
but this,
is only one half of the equation
only one half of a whole
destined for the word of the physical
to facilitate the process of getting words onto a paper.
why does alphabetisation matter?
paper
paper
physical
premise
paper
pages, pages, the language of the page
then hypertext, a change, so simple yet profound
a change of rules!
brultlebrudem
find! look for, search
the computer as a medium of publication
can vary the font size
can change the font
can go in and in and manipulate and change it all
SSSSH. BE NAIVE.
I come from a universe where the size of the page is the size of the page.
Word count? WHAT - no, 4 pages.
4 web pages? But how long do they need to be?
As long as necessary.
But that's not a good answer....!
You are from the world of order, and links.
This was broken.
On the third day,
everyone assumed it would be chaos
panic
unintelligible
mess.
Rubbish.
We rose again,
as pattern making creatures
making sense
do we need rules
of a link this colour
and underlined
and size
we should know
where it is going
where are we going?
don't get lost,
are we lost?
i'm scared.
lost in the interwebs
in the internet
trapped
waiting for a spider
i will be eaten
i will
i will
oh
panic
i need
oh
anxiety
get me
out
of this
web
help
anxiety
panic
false.
savior.
we will be saved.
sense will be made.
google, take us, place us
don't panic.
the power to change
maintained
after publication
the readers have the same capacity as the maker
but a difference, my friend, between constructive and exploratory hypertext
oh wikipedia, construct me!
oh interwebs, EXPLORE ME!
oh, wait, hold on, that's really weird.
who doesn't go there, first and foremost?
oh wikipedia, your tender caress, your bottomless information! britannica doesn't compare
she costs so much and gives so little
and her attitude!~ so condescending.
oh wikipedia. don't leave me.
i need you. i'll give back, i promise.
britannica and i are breaking up.
she makes my life a misery with her demands.
you're constantly changing, evolving,
unprinted
unbound
and so accessible.
i love you.
i come from a land where
when i go to a movie
i can't change the screen size!
and on television
i can't change the screen size!
but here is video online
trying to be television
and you kids are making it happen.
nothing is fixed here. nothing is fixed.
let's make it a bit more dramatic here. drama.
one second. a jpeg. that's all it is.
but now, my high fidelity
super cool soundtrack
OH, COMPUTER, TELL ME!
give me more, more information
stay with the object, metadata! don't get stripped down.
i like you better with all your clothes on.
now i'll copy my bit of bush, put it together. oh.
a photo that now goes for one minute.
a movie that doesn't move!
a movie with a zero frame rate
a revolution!
this can only be done in this environment
quicktime
not final cut
quicktime is chill
hey! i'll hold this,
just make it a slideshow, man
just chill out.
final cut will chop it up, rip it up
many many many frames
not so chill, yeah?
will this work in the third world?
hold on, let me get my waves.
i have a movie made up of objects
like nodes in a hypertext
like snus in a korsakow film
unrendered
and all the tracks can stay independent of each other
they have layers
and they can be moved.
i can make a movie
that lets that video
talk to that video
one part can change
not the other
like an open relationship
just like in a hypertext
no fuss
no worries
this is what happens
when we treat the screen, the computer
as the publication format for video
final cut, and imovie, and all their brethren
like a word processor.
exactly the same
as the word processor
going to the page
hard media
hypertext
soft media
changeable
malleable
addressable
take-home-able
edit me
add to me
do anything you like,
with anyone,
with whoever
and make software to try and let us access these things
let us in
let us go now you and i
....the vast majority of software assumes
(oh how dare it)
that what you want is a traditional
linear
fixed thing.
i am not looking for a housewife,
i am looking for excitement.
soft videos.
oh here are two video movies in the same player -
i can play with them!
i can play! - and we all remember the importance of play
frames per second are an artefact of traditional linear media
but there is no playhead on a computer!
as i mouse into one,
the one on the left becomes exponentially faster
and look
now they can both go crazy
oh, what are frames per second when it comes to a computer
and why
when things can be completely user definable?
this video, sliced into 9 panes and reassembled
all user controlled
an art project
moving image
video
text
toggle! inside the space
a visual presence in its own time
toggle
mouse around
off and on
they come and go and come
depending on what the user does
choose your own adventure experience
show it
hide it
move it
change it
faster
slower
if it's a tuesday, do this
and on friday, friday,
make it do whatever you like.
a movie in a cloud?
yes. this is a movie
that can only exist on a computer
no frame rate
no play state
no media file
not even a square edge
shock me! a revolution
all the things that you take for granted
(in say, final cut)
all these things disappear,
all we know is falling.
soft movie
triptych (like this, my favourite)
all different
all part of a whole
here they all are
video tracks
sound tracks
image track
text
and i use this for people like you
to image
conversation one
conversation two
conversation three
so i hear his point of view
and her point of view
and the estranged boyfriend's point of view,
it's not why you would do it,
it's what you would do WITH it!
so why don't you?
i can select that bit of text,
and go edit,
copy,
and paste it anywhere i like.
i have quicktime player
i have quicktime pro
but why on earth
can't i do this with video
to edit
to cut to paste
why
and on that note, thank you.
Woe is me?
Today I am sick.
I will not be in the IM lecture or in the classes. This is a shame, really, but I'm determined to do some work here, at home, in close proximity to my own private bathroom...
I know what you're probably thinking. Gross, Cassie! Who needs to hear about your nausea?
Don't worry guys, I'm definitely not pregnant. But I will post up my video and a personal reading of From Work To Text to make up for my not being in class.
It's about time I read it properly instead of skimming over it and remaining confused. I've already started and it IS making sense! Shock horror - we'll see how we go.
Week 5 Lecture – Film-TV
Note: I really like Robin as a lecturer. He seems really clear. Plus he shone an image from outside the window onto a piece of white paper through a lens - automatic brownie points there.
FOCAL LENGTH is the size of the lens, usually measured in millimetres. The shorter the focal length, the greater the field of view, so the longer the focal length, the narrower the field of view.
The closer the object to a short focal length lens, the more exaggerated the speed when travelling towards or away from a camera. The further away the object from a long focal length lens, the slower the speed of objects travelling towards or away from the camera.
In other words - SHORT SPEEDS UP, LONG SLOWS DOWN. Short gets more dramatic when closer, long gets more dramatic when further away.
The shorter the focal length lens, the closer you'll be able to focus on something.
Different focal lengths are chosen for different purpose - different depth of field - and we can change lenses and move the camera to get this effect. A zoom lens is a varying focal length lens. This makes it very flexible, allowing you to customise and make small adjustments to your focal length and allows you to get your scenes shot fairly quickly.
The danger of using a zoom lens is becoming complacent. You can stop making decisions about what focal length you are going to use, and simply get it all on the zoom because you can.
In A Clockwork Orange, the director didn't want the characteristic speeding up of a short focal length lens to be evident in the exercise yard shot, so the actors compensated by walking slower as they approached the camera - this is screencraft.- A really exciting concept!
The two different examples of A Clockwork Orange and Lucky Man show a different way of looking at the world, different views, different approaches, even though the subject matter (a man getting out of an English prison) is essentially the same. It shows that cinematography is the film.
Another thing than affects depth of field is exposure - iris size. They are measured by f-stops - by increasing the number, you are doubling (or halving) the amount of light that is allowed into the shot.
The size of your piece of film/CCD chip affects how much you can see - your field of view.
Week 5 lecture, week 5 anger.
Okay, so even though Adrian did just get up at the start of the lecture and remind us all that our blogs are open to the entire internet, and that we can get arrested or sued for what we write, or what we say, and to be careful, I feel like I've just got to discuss some of the ideas presented in these lectures. Nothing against Adrian, or even Barthes - it's just the ideas here that have to be discussed.
Notes from the Integrated Media blog
So far, the different notes presented here, between 'work' and 'text', seem to me to be intensely sexual, and also very male for something that claims to be breaking away from the 'patriarchal.'
Sure, it seems that in the concept of 'text', which is above linked to the 'maternal', also covers many other 'feminine' aspects - 'playfulness', 'exploration', 'creative', 'open', 'body'...which all seems to be getting a bit too much. I'm not claiming that the author of these ideas has a necessarily negative attitude towards women (in fact, he seems to praise them highly, applying what he sees as feminine characteristics to a concept of text he wants to explore) but it is his overaching simplification of what it means to be feminine and masculine that makes me want to challenge him.
Adrian:
"In romantic comedies, it is normal to have one character from the world of WORK, and one character from the world of TEXT."
He then went on to naturally describe the 'work' character as male and the 'text' character as female.
(Sure, I do realise there are movies which are the other way around - the uptight, work-obsessed girl and the laid-back guy (such as Knocked Up, but what I'm trying to get at is the outdated notions of femininity and masculinity which the discussions so far seem to absolutely scream. Maybe this is due to certain words having certain connotations - whenever Adrian mentions texts 'bleeding' I instantly think of periods, which is kind of disgusting, but I certainly have more research to do in this area.
Integrated Media Lecture Notes, week 2
Delicious bookmarking & blogging -
These days, there is a wide variety of stuff floating through the Internet. In our culture, we have developed practices of 'saving things for later', of bookmarking things we might need in the future. This is where Delicious steps in, as we can not only bookmark things for later but tag them, save them into categories, and tag them to allow other people to view them.
Blogging is not just something you do to read over, however. It's about forming your voice in a public space, and chronicling the NOW. People don't question WHY they are required to write essays, even if they don't read them ever again. In the same way, blogging should become a recognised practice, and even something done as a force of habit.
Adrian posed a question to us: What are three texts that have shaped your way of thinking, in terms of Media?
Personally, I wouldn't be able to answer this off the top of my head at this moment. It's something I definitely should be thinking about.
ROLAND BARTHES
was a structuralist, and then became a post-structuralist.
For some people, novels (and film) become a sort of weird autobiographical reflection of the author's own life. For them, researching the life of the author and drawing parallels to the work is important.
For others, the work of art (or fiction) is whole in itself, without any reflection upon the author (or the author's point of view) needed. The text can speak for itself, make its own stand-alone claims.
Critical theory is another approach, that looks at the text from different perspectives. You can critique the way texts socially construct meanings, with theoretical applications into gender relations, post colonialism, Marxism, feminism - even if these things are not implicitly stated.
Critical theory wants to make us think critically and differently about the world, including the world of the text.
Metatheory is theory about theory - Critical theory is about this, a constant awareness that your own argument is influenced by sociological aspects. For example, if you are critiquing a text for making big claims, you have to make sure you are not also making big claims about the text.
Adrian also discussed an idea of illumination, with reference to his own experience when studying 'Ode to a Grecian Urn' at university. There can be dual layers of meaning to a text that may be incomprehensible to those who don't have the knowledge to understand it.
We don't usually write in a way that allows the reader to see the thinking. Barthes attempts to create a style that allows this, to display the intuitive moments, which may be why many people find reading the text difficult as it is so different from other texts we usually read.
Barthes role is not to explain, just to think, inviting the readers to come along for the ride as he realises that much writing is just about explaining, which Barthes is protesting against. He was writing at a time when France was on the brim of revolution.
The essay From Work to Text is about movement, the passage between Work and Text, and therefore is constantly moving.
"...in a way it can be said that for the last hundred years we have been living in repetition. What History, our History, allows us today is merely to slide, to vary, to exceed, to repudiate."
Newton and Einstein are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to Work and Text.
Newtonian science is very certain, very confident, and rule based, operating on the belief that certain things are an absolute given.
The sum of a triangle is 180 degrees. All well and good, but this does not apply to curved space. In Newtonian universe, the perspective of the viewer is irrelevant, however in Einstein's theory of relativity, the viewer's perspective does matter and this affects everything.
Now, let's look at this in terms of text (as opposed to science)
In theoretical work, the default position used to be the English speaking educated white male - a very fixed frame of reference.
With critical theory, people are more aware of multiple different audiences, multiple social groups that may be reached by the text.
Sometimes, it can be worthwhile to make propositions and then explore them, as opposed to having to prove what we say with facts. Because we have been brought up with this way of teaching, thinking, speaking and writing, we would probably struggle to just follow ideas with no proven basis.
A text explores ideas and offers propositions, and methodology, that sometimes can make sense and sometimes will not, whereas work is all about the outcome. Text based thinkers are good at initiating projects, whereas work based people are good at following them to their completion. Together, the greatest ideas can be brought into fruition, however having a group of initiators together can lead nowhere. Work based thinkers can come up with good ideas, but they are not "the engine that drives it."
Works are all about classifications. "This is a masterpiece, while this is rubbish." However, when it comes to theory, the hierarchical system does not make sense and cannot operate in the same way. When you start questioning the 'great works', you may find that they have been chosen and acclaimed way back in our society by upper/middle class white men. Is this still representative of everyone, and something we should uphold and follow?
Adrian also talked about two different forms of pornographic texts - one based on the 'work' side, and the more common one in our society, focussing on pleasure and with the intention of arousing the audience, while 'text' based pornography, focused on ideas, can be deeply disturbing and shocking - choosing to push the boundaries rather than please the audience/readers.
Hi, I’m Cassie.
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