Friday, December 18, 2009
The Idea of Home
The “Les Olympiades” building in Paris, France and the clandestine shoe manufacturing industry in Elche, Spain share the creation of a new hybrid of identities for people in the cities. These buildings take on a life like quality because they are designed and occupied by humans. The building attracts a certain type of people and community. Both buildings draw many parallels with the people who inhabit it. The identity of both buildings are shaped with the shifting lives of the people residing in them. As their new identity forms so does the new identity of the building. The Olympiades building is an example of a building that was designed to be a housing unite but the buildings targeted market rejected it, leaving the building vacant. The building remained without a true identity until a new community of Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and north Africans found it. The price was low and affordable. It created the perfect place to not only live but also an opportunity to establish a business. This new community created a hybrid of identities because they saw the home for more than the Western ideal. They saw the home as not only a place to call home but a place to call work too. They transformed what is traditionally thought to be the workplace, and redefined into something new.
The clandestine shoe manufacturing industry in Elche, Spain has changed the identity of many buildings in the area. Woman, housewives, and children all share in transforming the identity of the home, the city, and the people in it. The woman have found it very convenient and rewarding to have the opportunity to work from home. In the essay, House Factories, by Multiplicity the situation is described as very rewarding for the local economy and women, but there is a fear that challenges this hybridization. The traditional ideals have place the woman under examination because there is a traditional fear that when a woman works the home falls apart. Many fearful questions are, who is going to bear children, cook meals, and clean the house now that the woman is working? There is not only the logistical argument of the woman’s role in society, but also the appearance of it. In Elche, Spain the woman there camouflage their houses with an allusion of western ideas of normalcy but the building releases a few clues to the streets, like the spinning and ticking of sewing machines as they run thread through leather.
The clandestine shoe manufacturing industry in Elche, Spain has changed the identity of many buildings in the area. Woman, housewives, and children all share in transforming the identity of the home, the city, and the people in it. The woman have found it very convenient and rewarding to have the opportunity to work from home. In the essay, House Factories, by Multiplicity the situation is described as very rewarding for the local economy and women, but there is a fear that challenges this hybridization. The traditional ideals have place the woman under examination because there is a traditional fear that when a woman works the home falls apart. Many fearful questions are, who is going to bear children, cook meals, and clean the house now that the woman is working? There is not only the logistical argument of the woman’s role in society, but also the appearance of it. In Elche, Spain the woman there camouflage their houses with an allusion of western ideas of normalcy but the building releases a few clues to the streets, like the spinning and ticking of sewing machines as they run thread through leather.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
America's Got Talent
America’s Got Talent
The story of America’s Got Talent and media homogenization begins with the creators of the show. On June 21, 2006 British American Idol judge Simon Cowell, Ken Warwick, Cécile Frot-Coutaz, and Jason Raff debuted their creation on NBC to the United States of America. The show consisted of a stage, below it, a panel of three judges sit and watch amateur performers sing, dance, and preform just about anything that has a performance nature. This concept for America’s Got Talent is credited to an American TV series in the 1930’s called, Major Bowes Amateur Hour. A show structure that shares the same characteristics of what we know today as America’s Got Talent.
America’s Got Talent is among the reality franchise television shows, like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and American Idol. It is an example of media homogenization because the show is packaged and delivered to many places across the world, from America, to Spain, to Britain; and the list goes on. As the show ventures across geographical boundaries, minor adjustments to the show are made, different host, judges and changing a part of the name from, America’s Got Talent to Britain’s Got Talent, or in Spain, Tienes Talento (They Got Talent). However, these slight variation in the show’s title or cast does not effect the original structure of it, but it creates a distinct identity for the country. It still offers all the same services from one country to the next, and to support this claim I attached three video clip examples of the show in different parts of the world. You will notice that the entire layout of the show, from the mise en scene to the contestants is nearly identical. Michael Keane’s and Alvert Moran’s essay, Television’s New Engines address TV franchises and say, “In cases where the franchise is taken up in new markets, the challenge is to retain the original image and service to the the franchise” (Keane and Moran 156). America’s Got Talent has retained the original image from one market to the next. Every franchise from America’s Got Talent is structured with panel judges, live audiences, amateur performers, and a host or hosts (Britain’s Got Talent).
America’s Got Talent franchise uses several “new engines” to make the show more compelling. The game show involves the audience by having the judges consider their applause on wether to keep contestant on the show or not. The judges also create tension when they go against the unanimous feeling of the audience by either criticizing or eliminating a contestant based on their opinion. Simon Cowell is the most well known for entering into a debate with the audience based on applause.
In closing, I believe America’s Got Talent franchises homogenization bring people from all areas of the world together, and promotes unity because it creates and experience between people from different geographical areas that can be shared. The New York Time article about Lee Si-kap, the shy farmer living in a satellite covered house in central South Korea. Is a great example of how something from another culture can transform his life and make the lives of foreigners less home sick.
Cites
Keane , Michael , and Albert Moran . "Television's New Engines ." 9.2 (2008): 156+. Print.
SANG-HUN, CHOE . "Rural South Koreans’ Global Links Grow, Nourished by a Satellite Crop ." The New York Times Television's New Engines . N.p., 29 June 2009. Web. 29 Oct. 2009.
youtube.com video sources
España version of America’s Got Talent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVpfudOIHlM
Britain’s version of America’s Got Talent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O88k4i6pF1A&feature=related
America’s Got Talent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrwCjNPNrC0
The story of America’s Got Talent and media homogenization begins with the creators of the show. On June 21, 2006 British American Idol judge Simon Cowell, Ken Warwick, Cécile Frot-Coutaz, and Jason Raff debuted their creation on NBC to the United States of America. The show consisted of a stage, below it, a panel of three judges sit and watch amateur performers sing, dance, and preform just about anything that has a performance nature. This concept for America’s Got Talent is credited to an American TV series in the 1930’s called, Major Bowes Amateur Hour. A show structure that shares the same characteristics of what we know today as America’s Got Talent.
America’s Got Talent is among the reality franchise television shows, like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and American Idol. It is an example of media homogenization because the show is packaged and delivered to many places across the world, from America, to Spain, to Britain; and the list goes on. As the show ventures across geographical boundaries, minor adjustments to the show are made, different host, judges and changing a part of the name from, America’s Got Talent to Britain’s Got Talent, or in Spain, Tienes Talento (They Got Talent). However, these slight variation in the show’s title or cast does not effect the original structure of it, but it creates a distinct identity for the country. It still offers all the same services from one country to the next, and to support this claim I attached three video clip examples of the show in different parts of the world. You will notice that the entire layout of the show, from the mise en scene to the contestants is nearly identical. Michael Keane’s and Alvert Moran’s essay, Television’s New Engines address TV franchises and say, “In cases where the franchise is taken up in new markets, the challenge is to retain the original image and service to the the franchise” (Keane and Moran 156). America’s Got Talent has retained the original image from one market to the next. Every franchise from America’s Got Talent is structured with panel judges, live audiences, amateur performers, and a host or hosts (Britain’s Got Talent).
America’s Got Talent franchise uses several “new engines” to make the show more compelling. The game show involves the audience by having the judges consider their applause on wether to keep contestant on the show or not. The judges also create tension when they go against the unanimous feeling of the audience by either criticizing or eliminating a contestant based on their opinion. Simon Cowell is the most well known for entering into a debate with the audience based on applause.
In closing, I believe America’s Got Talent franchises homogenization bring people from all areas of the world together, and promotes unity because it creates and experience between people from different geographical areas that can be shared. The New York Time article about Lee Si-kap, the shy farmer living in a satellite covered house in central South Korea. Is a great example of how something from another culture can transform his life and make the lives of foreigners less home sick.
Cites
Keane , Michael , and Albert Moran . "Television's New Engines ." 9.2 (2008): 156+. Print.
SANG-HUN, CHOE . "Rural South Koreans’ Global Links Grow, Nourished by a Satellite Crop ." The New York Times Television's New Engines . N.p., 29 June 2009. Web. 29 Oct. 2009
youtube.com video sources
España version of America’s Got Talent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVpfudOIHlM
Britain’s version of America’s Got Talent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O88k4i6pF1A&feature=related
America’s Got Talent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrwCjNPNrC0
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The "Nation" and Globalization
The writing encompassing the entire movie frame, some words are cut into halve as the frame ends and the unknown space begins. The Palestinian letter that forefront's Mona Hatoum’s movie serves several purposes to the topic of national identity and globalization.
The writing showcases a major component in the movie, by foregrounding the Palestinian letter over the images of her mother’s nude body. It roots the viewer into a specific cultural element from the beginning of the movie and serves continually to the end.
Isaiah Wells Migration and Visual Art Section 314 Instructor: Shelleen Greene Group Project: One Individual Essay 30 September 2009 The “Nation” and Globalization
Measure of Distance, by director Mona Hatoum emotionally references a Palestinian family separated by the 1981 war in the Middle East. However, the movie extends a specific example of national identity and globalization through Mona’s struggles with her ideas and feelings about her national and sexual identity due to globalization. Mona has become distanced from her family because of the war and forced into a new environment, but it is this new environment were she documents and displays the elusive product of national identity and globalization.
In our class lectures globalization was defined two ways: The first, an intensification of world wide social relations which link distinct localities in such a way that local happenings are shared. The second, a resent phenomena brought about by technological advances and economic policies of the post industrial era. A major point to note is that even though globalization has the ability to share local happening between two places, it does not make the two places alike. They both have individual cultural identities that in some instances can only be understood face to face, or in Mona’s circumstances, the feeling of lost identity can still take place even with means of communication. Mona Hatoum’s confusion and loss of identity could arguably be contingent on her new cultural environment that she is faced to understand. A. Aneesh writes an article, Virtual Migration that quotes, “There is something to be said about face-to-face communication, being in face-to-face communication and being part of the team physically is very different from being just online.” This quote reinforces Mona Hatoum’s feeling of lost identity and understanding because even though our world has become smaller with globalization; cultural identities can indeed become confused. The experience of living in one place compared to another can create a struggle to understand one’s personal identity.
The first sign of globalization and mixed national identity is displayed immediately in the beginning of Mona Hatoum’s movie. The movie slowly opens with the image of Palestinian writing encompassing the entire movie frame, some words are cut into halve as the frame ends and the unknown space begins. The Palestinian letter that forefront's Mona Hatoum’s movie serves several purposes to the topic of national identity and globalization. The first, it showcases a major component in the movie, by foregrounding the Palestinian letter over the images of her mother’s nude body. It roots the viewer into a specific cultural element from the beginning of the movie and serves continually to the end. The letter that comes between the viewer of the movie and the nude body of her silhouetted mother separates the viewer from a clear focus of her. However, it is the letters that join Mona and her mother, and the words that of it that donate the understanding to both us and Mona.
Once we hear Mona’s English speaking voice combine with the images of her mother and the subtle sounds of a Palestinian conversation in the background; it is made clear that Mona has now made an understanding of her new surroundings and her new identity is now a hybredization of the two places, and she showcase it to us via dvd.
Cite(s)
Hatoum, Mona , dir. Measure of Distance . Narr. Mona Hatoum . 1988. Web. 30 Sep. 2009
Aneesh, A. “Virtual Migration.” Virtual Migration:The Programming of Globalization. Durham and London:Duke University Press, 2006
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