Author: carlquerin1

Public Sphere

A public sphere. A place in which a gathering of citizens are able to come together to discuss key issues, ideas and news. A public sphere is open to any citizen that wishes to express opinions. This stems from a theory created by Jurgen Habermas. A virtual or imaginary community that does not thrive in the same space. He compared his theory to an 18th century coffee house, a metaphor of this space of gathering. An egalitarian and open place for everybody to make input. Today a public sphere is highly ‘mediated’. This is due to the media provoking debates about issues that concern people. The rise of the internet today has reiterated Habermas’ theory of the 18th century coffee house as anyone with an internet connection is able to participate and express their opinions freely. HipHop (rap), a genre of music that consists of predominately African American men who have successfully made it through their music. In 2017 ‘R&B/HipHop’ music was the most popular genre in the United States. This figure being 25.4% of consumption Whether it be fast paced hyped Travis Scott rapping style, to the more chilled mellow xxxtentacion beats with subtle meaning and story behind it.

My public sphere,

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xxxtentacion, 2018

 a place in which I feel that I can freely and openly express my opinions and ideas within the hiphop, rap scene through the amazing tool of social media. Throughout social media I am apart of pages on Facebook which allow me to contribute and discuss everything rap with these people who feel the sae toward the music we love. Instagram also a vital tool in enabling me to express opinions through commenting with other die hard followers on pages such as Rolling Loud, RapCaviar, Xantacion  and RapSpotlights. Places where I can debate hot topics such as the ignorant labelling of late rapper “XXXTENTACION” born, Jahseh Onfroy a young teenage man, murdered at the age of only 20. He was highly successful and promotional in world peace and positivity in his movement but this legacy was being remembered as a ‘domestic abuser’ and of the likes. An allegation that had been proven to have been confessed to lying by Geneva.  To the labelling criticism of outsiders to rap claiming all rappers of the 20th century are “mumble rappers” which to a degree I can agree but there is way more to the songs then just that, for example the production of the beats which are creatively thought up of.  Those included in these public spheres are fans and followers like myself and even the artists on occasion. All likeminded people towards hiphop. Anyone can be apart of this community as long as you have an internet connection really and want to keep update with this community, discuss and relate to concerts and festivals. Unfortunately this does mean ‘trolls’ too. The media in this public sphere has great significance in two ways. It is key in keeping us fans up to date and in the know on latest news or songs/albums that are upcoming. Helping to promote artists to a global audience, enabling them

 

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Media Ownership

News and information is how we enable ourselves to keep update with day-to-day life around the world and are informed almost to the minute when news breaks across the world. All thanks to the media, from the live on site journalists covering the unfolding news to it being distributed via visual, verbal or written format right in front of us, its unmissable. Although we trust that the media must be a reliable source the questions are asked, “who ‘owns’ and/or ‘controls’ the media you use to access your ‘news’ ? Does it matter ? and What trust do we have in our news sources ?”.

British-NewspapersWith the money required anyone can really own a media source. Examples such as Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook and a publicly recognised person and Rupert Murdoch, the owner of “Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation” which he owned two-titles account for almost 64.2% of the metropolitan circulation. Both of these highly successful men who have opened platforms that produce news and information quickly to our finger-tips have both breached codes of ethics and make us reiterate this question “What trust do we have in our news sources ?” Recent allegations have found that separately Mark Zuckerberg and Rupert Murdoch in hot water on their own media platforms.

The Mark Zuckerberg case in which found data breaches to users accounts, breaches of data that included Names and passwords. This being such a risk as a media company called Cultura Colectiva based in Mexico had this data stored, although publicly stored people that obtained passwords that are the same as they may be for Facebook had the potential risk of hacking to other private information. This put Zuckerberg under scrutiny as there was no privacy control on the media platform and therefore exposed many users that had trusted Facebook.

Rupert Murdoch chairman and chief executive officer or News Corporation, a news corporation in which runs various newspapers across the world. Rupert too broke the trust of millions of readers across the world when an investigation carried out in 2005 to 2007 on News of The World found that employees of the newspaper company headed by Rupert Murdoch were found to have hacked phones that of “celebrities, politicians, and members of the British Royal Family, in July 2011 it was revealed that the phones of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, relatives of deceased British soldiers, and victims of the 7 July 2005 London bombings “

For me, anyone can control your media sources. The perfect example of this being Mark Zuckerberg. He was only a university student creating a media platform for users to message and share pictures or videos in which now has become a viral success. He did not have any qualifications in this nor did was he certified to be either reliable or trusted. I believe the news that is fed to us daily and the platforms that we access it from are un-trustworthy. The influence in which the news is delivered is upheld by the ideologies of a higher person (the owner) such as Rupert Murdoch who is a far right activist in politicians who makes his view evident when covering political related stories. News at its most reliable is when it is live-streamed. It is at its truest form and can not be manipulated in anyway. As live-streaming is becoming a very big way of social media it helps viewers such as myself to gain more trust in news sources. A very big shift in the way news has ever been delivered before.

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Complex Images (Stop Burning Your Life)

Its understood through its name ‘complex’. A series of information built into an image, more then what can be conveyed through short phrase and sentences. This challenges the viewer to think “outside the box” so to speak. Complex images can be seen through still images and advertisement. Semiotics a tool in which the company can use to  challenge their audience to think deeper into the image being conveyed. The signifier, what is seen on the page. This being the words written, the images both in the foreground and background. The signifier, what is being challenged and/or what you think of immediately after seeing the image. This influenced by a persons ideologies or experiences.  

This image from an company called Rehab Fix, a rehabilitation company that is promoting the quitting of smoking cigarettes for personal well-being. We see written “stop burning your life” accompanied by two cigarets burning. A message that the artist is perceiving, that through smoking you are only minimising your lifetime and the world around you. In the writing, there are two emphasis’ made. The decoding of a message where the audiences common knowledge is challenged, for example Banksia’s wall art of the Queen with David Bowie face paint of a lightning bolt across her head. Mixing two different objects and putting it it together for the audience to decode.This being similar in the awareness advert poster by RehabFix, the familiarity of cigarettes in replacement of chimney pipes. The two objects that cause great amounts of pollution to our environment.  

First the bold text used in “stop” accompanied by the cross through the ‘O’ to emphasis the idea of quitting, initiating the sentence with this word. As well as the change of colour in “your”, this is change in colour away from the black bold is used to create realisation that it is away from everyone else, it is your life and you need to act now.

This image can also be depicted in another way, the welfare of the world, in a global warming aspect. This image conveys two cigarettes burning, releasing toxic smoke and ash into the air that is wafting over the city landscape. A symbolism of chimneys that are globally recognised as pollutions to our air. This contrast allows the audience to quickly come to decode the message put forward by RehabFix, recognising the health risk that smoking has on an individual and in a global aspect. An idea of guilt and causality, one thing causing another thing to happen due to smoking, that they are in a way affecting our world today.

Through complex images challenges audiences to think about to image and find more meaning to what is being told. Through still images advertising companies can use this tool to engage their audience and therefore delve deeper in thought to what is being told. 

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Composition (VCD)

BAUHAUS: Bauhaus is the German term in which translates to “building house”. The most influential part of modernism in the 20th century art. This influence was felt across Europe and the United States long post the closure under Nazi pressure. Bauhaus had two major international reincarnations including Jugendstil and Vienna Secessions. The school is renowned for its outstanding faculty in which led development to modern art and thought in Europe and across the United States. Bauhaus always aimed to unite both fine arts and design to incidentally create practical objects.

SWISS MODERNISM: The style of art and design originated in Switzerland in the 1940’s and 50’s and was the basis of modern graphic design as seen today in the 20th century. This style was one that captivated artists and designers due to its simplicity, legibility and objectivity. The fondness of this style was the use of grids and asymmetrical layout formats. Stressed through the style was the combination of typography and photography, subsequently creating visual communication.

This image extracted from the film “Twelve is the new eleven” we see the use of the composition of both bleeding and white space. This composition of bleeding is when an image forms to appear to leave the compositional space, where it has been cropped to perceive this perspective. Giving a sectioning off of an image in which the viewer knows there is more to the image then what meets the eye. This technique is ideal in promoting something such as a movie poster to entice audience to feel and thing that there is more to the story then what can be seen, not everything is being conveyed. This other use of white space composition which can be used to describe the ground of an image, also called the negative space. This use of having a white space is almost as important as having the forms inside it. The ignorance of the white space can make the image feel disconnected and oppressive. Within this image the mixture of both the composition in bleeding and white space creates this looming idea that there is more to the image then what is seen.

This poster in which is composed with the use of cropping and positive and negative space is used to give the viewer an idea of what the story of the poster is trying to explain through the simplicity of the word form “error” and the way in which the artist has cropped the aiming cross to be off centre. Cropping is used to cut off or mask the unwanted parts of an image or type. Cropping is a good method for abstracting forms to create new compositions. The use of the negative and positive spacing also helps to focus the audiences attention solely on the whales tail which is the positive space. Through these compositions we as the audience are able to gather an understanding of what this image is trying to convey. The awareness of the whale culling that is rapidly killing off this species to extinction for their meat and skin. The artist has composed these forms in the work such as only being able to see that whales tail and not the rest of its body supported with the visual observation of the cross aim missing off centre and the written expression of “error” details this idea of error of human action and failure to kill the whale.

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Audiences (BCM 110)

Audiences are the public congregation of individuals to immerse themselves in spectating or listening to another person, group or film that they enjoy greatly or have never heard or seen before live in person. This enjoyment of being part of an audience is fulfilling, the enjoyment that tends to bring this public congregation of people together, live. An audience whether it be small or large, music or film, it is something that almost all humans have been apart of.

Rolling Loud, January 2019

I have been one in this congregation of people enjoying the same viewing or listening live. An atmosphere of people immersed into what is in front of them. This for me is the attendance of music concerts and festivals. A place in which a gathering of thousands of people go to listen to their favourite artist/band or group live in concert. This for me is the rap scene. From the variations of Groovin the Moo – Migos – Rolling Loud all in which contained thousands of young people like myself who faithfully play these performers music on an almost loop. Singing along and creating moshes of people to the songs. A boiling climate of hot bodies squished in, to get as close to the front as possible while still dancing and sweating, gross right ?. Why do people like myself still go back though ?. Simply, to be apart of the atmosphere that audiences create. The enjoyment of all the people around you with this same taste in genre and then hopeful chance that you can get close to the front and see the performer eye for eye, almost impossible to do though when there is thousands of young people with the same goal.

Although this overwhelming experience of hype and enjoyment surrounding and being apart of this audience is positive and exciting it does come with negatives. For one even though it is easy to submerge yourself into the depths of an audience, Your body overheating with all these sweaty bodies around you dancing is your queue to get out, sounds simple enough ? No, definitely not. This posing severe negative health risks to an individual. From personal witnessing of a young girl overheating and was needed to be rushed out of the audience at Rolling Loud. An article from the website https://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4804513&page=1&page=1 written by Emily Friedman that an estimated 10,000 people have been injured in and around these moshpits in the last decade. Overheating or simply being hit by another person unintentionally.

Even though there can be the slight chance of negative fallbacks of being apart of an audience such as my personal witness at a Rolling Loud concert it is an experience that is unique to each individual and should not be feared from. The most important thing I take away from the experience i had as an audience member is that everyone is there to enjoy this viewing and listening just as much as you are. People that may bump into you or knock you is unintentionally done and does not require retaliation It is an experience that should be enjoyed with and around others.

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