Sexed up: theorizing the sexualization of culture
"This paper reviews and examines emerging academic approaches to the study of ‘sexualized culture’; an examination made necessary by contemporary preoccupations with sexual values, practices and identities, the emergence of new forms of sexual experience and the apparent breakdown of rules, categories and regulations designed to keep the obscene at bay. The paper maps out some key themes and preoccupations in recent academic writing on sex and sexuality, especially those relating to the contemporary or emerging characteristics of sexual discourse. The key issues of pornographication and democratization, taste formations, postmodern sex and intimacy, and sexual citizenship are explored in detail."
(Feona Attwood, 2006)
ATTWOOD, F. (2006). Sexed up: theorizing the sexualization of culture. Sexualities, 9 (1), 77-94.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Haul girls: identity performance through brand consumption and endorsement
"Helina is explaining what a haul girl is to me. 'Basically, you go out shopping for clothes or beauty products,' she says, 'then you make a haul video and show viewers on YouTube what you got. You go through the items of clothing one by one. I guess what people get out of them is not showing off, like, how much money you've got or anything, but lifestyle: you get to see how one person lives, what their taste is.'
If you're minded to sneer at a youth cult that involves making videos about your shopping, then Helina has a pretty intriguing counter–argument. 'It's not just about showing what you've got,' she says. 'It's a whole creative process behind the videos as well, which is what I enjoy about it. Choosing the right music, going from the filming to the editing. Sometimes I even storyboard things, because I want certain shots, how I can present different items and things like that.' Besides, she says, it's a genuine community. She thinks a lot of haul girls 'turn the camera on because it's a way to talk to people without having to go outside and face their fears. I know that was the case with me: I turned on my camera because I was at home, signed off work, sick, and really bored. And it helped with my confidence in a way. There's this community where you can talk to like–minded people.'"
(Alexis Petridis, 20 March 2014, The Guardian)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
How to deal with the demands of the rapidly evolving new technology and yet further the aesthetics of our filmic art?
"With digital capture and even digital intermediates, it becomes very easy to think of the image in the simplest of terms: contrast, saturation and color bias. But I think too often we forget about texture and sharpness. Film has organic grain texture that simply doesn't exist in digital cinematography. I'm not a film 'purist' but I think it's safe to say that with the advent of radical advances in digital cinema technology there has been a certain homogenization of the cinematographic image in regard to look and texture. It is common to shoot for an evenly distributed rich digital negative (protect the highlights, see into the shadows) with plenty of sharpness to endure the color correction suite and create the look in post. Everybody shoots the sensor the same way.
Painting is a great influence on me. Whenever I can I go to museums and look at the classics, the Dutch masters, Rembrandt and Georges de la Tour. Looking at these old paintings can be inspiring. These are the basics for cameramen because we can learn lighting from them. We can study the classic paintings and try to use that technique of lighting in our photography. I have lots of picture books at home–photography books and art books. When we did McCabe and Mrs. Miller, I showed a book of Andrew Wyeth's paintings to Bob Altman and said, 'What do you think of these faded, soft, pastel images?' And he liked it. Then I took the same book to the lab and explained to them that this was what we were aiming for. They understood right away why we were flashing the film. So it helps; a picture is worth ten thousand words. A picture can immediately tell you your feelings about something.
With digital capture, we have been given a completely different set of tools, trading physical lab processes for computer–driven non–destructive techniques, creating possibilities for the image to be pushed any way we wish in post. In a time when film is disappearing fast and digital is making progress in image quality improvement, it has become important for cinematographers to master these new tools."
(Vilmos Zsigmond ASC HSC, IMAGO European Federation of Cinematographers)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Kevin Allocca: Why videos go viral
"Kevin Allocca is YouTube's trends manager, and he has deep thoughts about silly web video. In this talk from TEDYouth, he shares the 4 reasons a video goes viral."
(Kevin Allocca)
Fi.1 "Kevin Allocca: Why videos go viral", YouTube: Uploaded by TEDtalksDirector on 27 Feb 2012.
Fig.2 "Nyan Cat [original]", YouTube: Uploaded by saraj00n on 5 Apr 2011.
Fig.3 "New Zealand Nyan Cat", YouTube: Uploaded by 1milliondollaz on 11 Aug 2011 [Nyan Cat + 8–Bit version of "Slice of Heaven" New Zealand singer/songwriter Dave Dobbyn with the band Herbs].
Fig.4 "bike lanes by Casey Neistat", YouTube: Uploaded by caseyneistat on 7 Jun 2011.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Pierre Bourdieu: Physical Space, Social Space and Habitus
"Habitus are structured structures, generative principles of distinct and distinctive principles – what the worker eats, and especially the way he eats it, the sport he practices and the way he practices it, his political opinions and the way he expresses them are systematically different from the industrial proprietor's corresponding activities / habitus are also structured structures, different classifying schemes classification principles, different principles of vision and division, different tastes. Habitus make different differences; they implement distinctions between what is distinguished and what is vulgar, and so on, but they are not the same. Thus, for instance, the same behaviour or even the same good appear distinguished to one person, pretentious to someone else. and cheap or showy to yet another."
(Pierre Bourdieu, 1996)
[1] Bourdieu, P. (1996). 'Vilhelm Aubert memorial lecture: Physical Space, Social Space and Habitus'. Oslo, Department of Sociology, University of Oslo & Institute for Social Research.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
