"Dressed to Kill"
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This is a Joe Brown's 1998 leather jacket in a striking deep teal, which calls to the culture of racers and bikers in the late 90s- a period of time wherein biker culture, which was known for being violent and disruptive, was entering the mainstream and making a mark in popular fashion. In today’s cultural climate biker-style jackets are seen as highly versatile pieces that can make an outfit and are largely divorced from their initial context in which they were typically made of durable hard leather that can withstand harsh conditions suitable for riding at high speeds, which were soon turned into a sense of harmony and community within gangs and contrast between them. They’re seen as strongly masculine and powerful and especially in an eyecatching colour like this teal and the durable leather give a sense of boldness and confidence.
"The Image of Passion"
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Semiotics terminology, as in Bignell's 'Mythologies' -
Sign: Arbitrary signifiers that are universally agreed upon within a singular culture, though not necessarily consciously. I.e. that the verbal or written symbol 'cat' refers to felines is easily understood by English speakers, but the French 'chat' will not be as easily recognisable to the same English speakers.
Langue: A system of signs that work in tandem. I.e the langue of chess involves the board, the pieces, and all their possible moves.
Parole: A single complete and comprehensible sequence of signs; a 'sentence'.
Code: A collection of signs that are connected and relevant to one another, like a dress code being what a person can signify through their clothing.
Syntagm: The order in which signs are understood, I.e. 'the man bites the dog' and 'the dog bites the man' have different meanings despite utilising the same signs due to the order in which they are placed.
Paradigm: A list of signs that serve similar functions with different meanings; i.e. verbs 'bites, licks' or nouns 'cat, dog'.
Sign: Arbitrary signifiers that are universally agreed upon within a singular culture, though not necessarily consciously. I.e. that the verbal or written symbol 'cat' refers to felines is easily understood by English speakers, but the French 'chat' will not be as easily recognisable to the same English speakers.
Langue: A system of signs that work in tandem. I.e the langue of chess involves the board, the pieces, and all their possible moves.
Parole: A single complete and comprehensible sequence of signs; a 'sentence'.
Code: A collection of signs that are connected and relevant to one another, like a dress code being what a person can signify through their clothing.
Syntagm: The order in which signs are understood, I.e. 'the man bites the dog' and 'the dog bites the man' have different meanings despite utilising the same signs due to the order in which they are placed.
Paradigm: A list of signs that serve similar functions with different meanings; i.e. verbs 'bites, licks' or nouns 'cat, dog'.
Roland Barthes 'The World of Wrestling'
Barthes resents the idea that wrestling is an 'ignoble' sport instead insisting it isn't a sport at all, rather a performance no more ignoble than theatre. He disparages professional wrestling as 'false wrestling', which prioritises a needless show of fairness, and presents the greatest quality of 'amateur wrestling', which he calls 'true wrestling', as the 'spectacle of excess' - taking place in a 'squalid arena' but giving the feeling of open-air from the flood of bright vertical lights spotlighting the fighters. He explains the preordained nature of the match - that 'the function of the wrestler is not to win; it is to go exactly through the motions which are expected of him', that the audience are aware of this and give themselves wholly to the show of play justice, emotions swelled through great, exaggerated gestures of cruelty and come-uppance. Every aspect of the fighters is designed to be made of easily understood signs right down to their bodies; Barthes describes an approximation of the 'bastard' as one of 'asexual hideousness' that from the moment he steps into the ring the audience knows him to be the image of evil to be struck down by the heroic champion. He exists not to win as he would in a sport, but to inspire hatred in the audience, to sway them to hatred as he taunts and cheats and to cheer as he is inevitably defeated in a grandiose manner, signalling the unfaltering victory of a clearly defined good.
"Reading Words & Images - Anchorage & Connotation"
Semiotics - study of signs within popular culture; a critical method of deconstructing communication
- anything capable of conveying meaning is a sign (words, images, gestures, clothing, etc)
- developed across studies of language by Ferdinand Saussure & Charles Pierce
Saussure took on a structuralist perspective - a focus on the function, everyday use of language (synchronic). A language system of words is entirely arbitrary and based around recognisable differences between signs. Each sign has two signs (dyadic) - the signifier and the signified.
Signifier = physical representation (word, image - stimulus)
Signified = mental concept (response)
Communication depends on a mutual understanding of signs and cooperation on sharing certain concepts (Saussure's circuit of speech.)
Words are arbitrary signs that do not resemble what they represent. They are codified into language and culture and require knowledge of linguistic rules. They are a mental stimuli, causing a reader to search for conceptual equivalences or mental visualisation, and are subject to change in form or meaning over long amounts of time, or between locations/cultures.
Plane of expression - the manner something is said, written, or drawn affects the mental reading of it. (ie dog or 𝓭𝓸𝓰)
Images are iconic signs that directly resemble what they represent. They are primary symbols, normally learnt before words.
Plane of abstraction - how an image is captured/rendered affects the mental reading of it. (ie photographic or cartoonish)
Anchorage - describes the connection between words & visuals, "where text and image stand in a complementary relationship" (Barthes)
Words and images are often placed together in popular culture, ie televised sports, graphic design, websites, comics/illustrated books, product packaging/advertising, news
Types of anchorage-
- word specific (words communicate the majority of necessary information, image is secondary)
- image specific (the reverse)
- dual message (text and image convey the same information - redundancy or amplification, of tone or message)
- convergent/interdependent (text and image convey different information relevant to one another, that would lose meaning without the other - unification, reconciliation)
- parallel/divergent (text and image appear to contradict one another or otherwise be unrelated, multi-modal narratives)
Barthes & connotation - signifier + signified = denotative sign (+connotative signifier)
Denotation = non-coded, the simplest and most immediate reading of a sign, reflects broad consensus and requires little deduction or reasoning.
Connotation = secondary reading - style, production, medium, material, shape, size, plane of expression/abstraction.
Idea induction - triggering of associated readings, linked concepts, intertextuality.
Denotative reading -> DOG = domesticated 4 legged canine.
Connotative reading -> Breeds -> Companionship -> Loyalty -> Smell -> Tenacity -> Pavlov -> Training -> Dog show -> Tiredness -> Hangover cute (hair of the dog) -> Cultural perspectives, intertextuality
Intertextuality - 'may echo or carry traces of other cultural texts' - meaning, usage of 'dog' in popular culture (worked like a dog, dog's got personality)
Barthes argues signs are polysemous -> can be used, read, interpreted in many ways.
- anything capable of conveying meaning is a sign (words, images, gestures, clothing, etc)
- developed across studies of language by Ferdinand Saussure & Charles Pierce
Saussure took on a structuralist perspective - a focus on the function, everyday use of language (synchronic). A language system of words is entirely arbitrary and based around recognisable differences between signs. Each sign has two signs (dyadic) - the signifier and the signified.
Signifier = physical representation (word, image - stimulus)
Signified = mental concept (response)
Communication depends on a mutual understanding of signs and cooperation on sharing certain concepts (Saussure's circuit of speech.)
Words are arbitrary signs that do not resemble what they represent. They are codified into language and culture and require knowledge of linguistic rules. They are a mental stimuli, causing a reader to search for conceptual equivalences or mental visualisation, and are subject to change in form or meaning over long amounts of time, or between locations/cultures.
Plane of expression - the manner something is said, written, or drawn affects the mental reading of it. (ie dog or 𝓭𝓸𝓰)
Images are iconic signs that directly resemble what they represent. They are primary symbols, normally learnt before words.
Plane of abstraction - how an image is captured/rendered affects the mental reading of it. (ie photographic or cartoonish)
Anchorage - describes the connection between words & visuals, "where text and image stand in a complementary relationship" (Barthes)
Words and images are often placed together in popular culture, ie televised sports, graphic design, websites, comics/illustrated books, product packaging/advertising, news
Types of anchorage-
- word specific (words communicate the majority of necessary information, image is secondary)
- image specific (the reverse)
- dual message (text and image convey the same information - redundancy or amplification, of tone or message)
- convergent/interdependent (text and image convey different information relevant to one another, that would lose meaning without the other - unification, reconciliation)
- parallel/divergent (text and image appear to contradict one another or otherwise be unrelated, multi-modal narratives)
Barthes & connotation - signifier + signified = denotative sign (+connotative signifier)
Denotation = non-coded, the simplest and most immediate reading of a sign, reflects broad consensus and requires little deduction or reasoning.
Connotation = secondary reading - style, production, medium, material, shape, size, plane of expression/abstraction.
Idea induction - triggering of associated readings, linked concepts, intertextuality.
Denotative reading -> DOG = domesticated 4 legged canine.
Connotative reading -> Breeds -> Companionship -> Loyalty -> Smell -> Tenacity -> Pavlov -> Training -> Dog show -> Tiredness -> Hangover cute (hair of the dog) -> Cultural perspectives, intertextuality
Intertextuality - 'may echo or carry traces of other cultural texts' - meaning, usage of 'dog' in popular culture (worked like a dog, dog's got personality)
Barthes argues signs are polysemous -> can be used, read, interpreted in many ways.
The Treachery of Images
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'Decoding Advertisements'
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'The Graphic Code of Comics'
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Unique approaches to page layout -
Kamome Shirahama
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JH Williams
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David Mack
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