Visual Rhetoric vs. Art

I feel that art and visual rhetoric are perhaps the same things. Both are used to convey some sort of meaning and both possess cultural meaning. I honestly don't see much difference between the two. Art was invented before the term visual rhetoric came along and the dawning of the word, I feel, is just another way to express what is art and what isn't. The term originated to discern the two but I don't see any difference. This is a pretty short post but, "that's all I have to say about that!" (Forrest Gump voice) Haha!

Sincerely, 

Suso

Monuments vs. Memorials

I don't feel that cost should always be a secondary concern when it comes to memorials. Cost should always be considered but memorials help people to remember and to grieve but most times, people totally overlook the costs of what the memorial will cost the city itself. Take for example the 9/11 memorial which cost plenty money. The U.S. nor did the people of N.Y. care how much the memorial would cost to build, they just wanted it built. For the New Yorkers, the memorial is  an object of remembrance but to the U.S., the memorial is to re-establish the image of our country. We had to show the terrorists that they couldn't truly hurt us and the U.S. would pay any cost to restore their self-image to foreign countries. I feel that it was an absolute necessity to remember 9/11 because it is something that affected our whole nation but costs should always be considered when deciding how to memorialize something that won't exactly receive government funding.

Sincerely,

Suso

Textual vs. Visual

I believe that many historians and scholars look at the textual element of works as being more reliable and less subject to interpretation than they would deem visual elements to be. I honestly feel that this is the way of the scholarly world and has been for a long time now and not many people are comfortable with change. Actually, many people are afraid of change. Had the roles been reversed, it would allow for more interpretation of different events and moments that had been captured in time. It would make for a better world in my eyes. I prefer the visual over the textual elements of any piece. This allows people to be more creative in their approach to analyzing pieces and from my perspective, creativity is not often emphasized in the scholarly world. You basically come to school to unlearn all the creative aspects of your personality that you had possessed as a child. As a kid you're always told to use your imagination. Often times that is discouraged in contemporary society. I think that text/reading is privileged over the visual element because it allows for those in power to create the meaning and have you "buy" into that meaning. They don't want you to create the meaning and analyze it for yourself and this is truly sad. In my eyes, it's sort of like hegemony; getting the oppressed to buy into their oppression. I believe that you can't have one without the other. There should be some sort of a balance here and as long we, the people, sit back and allow for the powers to be to continue to "spoon feed" us a "given" meaning, we are being complicit in the matter of privileging texts/reading over the visual.

Sincerely,

Suso

YouTube maybe "MoveTube'?

I do feel that "web 2.0" and having a participatory culture serves as a good model for the public sphere. Allowing individuals to participate in online discussion boards and such can truly move a group of people. The internet provides a place for people to gather, organize, and communicate with other like-minded individuals. This is at the heart of what motivates a movement. YouTube has started to become a very important outlet for a candidate to reach a younger crowd. It has a large impact on moving people as we have seen with the last presidential election and the debate being aired live via YouTube. YouTube has begun to bypass mainstream media and online media helps to clarify issues and organize people as stated before. Candidates using "web 2.0" really have an advantage over other candidates that choose not to because younger audiences are really in tuned with the internet and are always logged on. A participatory culture such as YouTube, blogs, Twitter, FB, and others really have the ability to gather people and mobilize them to fight for a specific issue or cause.


Sincerely,

Suso

YouTube Fame

Participatory culture is good for the internet. Allowing users to submit user-generated content and allowing it to be distributed through a huge medium such as the internet is what Web 2.0 is all about. Why regulate and control what is posted on the web? We have enough rules and regulations in our society now as it is. The web is a true outlet for people who historically have not had their voices heard to finally have the agency to voice their thoughts, opinions, and outlook on the world. While this is not what occurs on the web most of the time via user-generated content, the option is still there. Sure enough, a lot of the videos posted on YouTube are "crap" and are purely used for entertainment, but that doesn't take away from the videos that are posted broadcasting someone with real talent. You have guys like Soulja Boy and Justin Bieber who have reached stardom from successfully marketing themselves via social networks such as MySpace and YouTube. In the end, regulating the internet and hindering user-generated content or a participatory culture would only take away the innovative and creative nature that the internet thrives off of (for the most part). You've got to take the good with the bad as far as "participatory culture" is concerned and to this date, the good has definitely outweighed the bad tremendously.

                                                                                                                              Sincerely, 

                                                                                                                                Suso

Web 2.0

I believe that if the internet remained in the dot com phase that it was in prior to YouTube and other outlets which allow people to publish user-generated content, it would not be the dominant medium that it is today.  Chat rooms were the 1st step in the evolution and innovation of the internet.  Then came the blogs and the 800 lb. gorilla that we've come to know as YouTube.  The purpose of user-generated content is so that the internet never gets old.  As long as people have p2p networks in which everyone can share content amongst each other, the internet has perhaps infinite ability in its stages of evolution and innovation.  The purpose would not be under-mind because of the new media and Web 2.0. If anything, new media outlets and Web 2.0 and so on is what allows this purpose to thrive and be fulfilled in many different ways.  Web 2.0 is doing much more justice than it is harm to the development of user-generated content.

Sincerely,

Suso

Rhetoric vs. Art

It is very difficult to actively argue what is classified as rhetoric and what is classified as art because there is truly no correct answer. It all depends on the individual and their point of view. It's hard for me to separate rhetoric from art. Sometimes I feel that they are one in the same.  Other times, I tend to lean back and forth on whether all art can be rhetoric or whether all rhetoric is art. Since there is no implicit meaning, I sometimes feel that the two cannot be distinguished from one another. Nearly anything can be classified as art depending on how one views it. Someone could look at a regular wooden table as art. Although we may not look at that table as a persuasive object, someone could simply argue that it persuades one to do work. Therefore, an object that may not have been usually looked at as art initially could be persuasive in its meaning which could make it visual rhetoric. That is kind of pushing it too far but someone may look at it that way. Therefore art and rhetoric are one in the same. I view a wooden table as just that, a table; unless it is baring some sort of intricate design. As you can see, I still sort of lean back and forth between the two, but at the end of the day, it all depends on the individual and the context or genre. Context plays a major role in the analysis of the two.


Sincerely,

Suso

The Naked Truth (Peta)

Pretty funny that all of the Peta ads used here are of sexual/naked women. I have chosen the very last one with for the purposes of this blog. In this image, a woman is sitting with her back facing us and her body is marked as if she were an animal. I think that Peta used the naked woman to grab the attention of male viewers who are probably more meat-eaters than are women. Although this ad could be targeted at the female audience, I think it is predominantly aimed at men because we all know sex sells. The intention of the image is to convert people over to being vegetarians instead of eating meat. The verbal component of the image is the actual text which states, "have a heart, go vegetarian". It also states that all animals have the same parts as humans.  While initially one would think that Peta would use an emotional appeal to target their audience, the naked woman sort of blurs those lines of the specific appeal. Just based on the text, I feel that a logos approach is being used here. I'm not sure of how successful this ad would be say if it was just on a billboard on the side of the highway. The woman is fairly larger than the text and the Peta logo itself so one would maybe pay attention to the woman and not get the ideology behind the ad in doing so. Great job Peta!

Sincerely,

Suso