sensory detail practice-visual texts

    This is image of a painting. There is a girl sitting in a wooden chair. Next to her is a white wooden chair, and on it is a neatly arranged pile of hay. Underneath the chair there lyes little piles of hay on the wooden floor. The floor looks like it was made out of 2inch by 6inch beams which pulls you into the painting/image. When you look past the pasty green walls and into the outdoors.The lighting is morose .Right outside the window there is branches with several leaves on them,and several leaves fall off of the branches. This helps give the image empty autumn feel to it. Past the tree branch you see a mustard/golden field of wheat. In the field of wheat it there looks to be a cross where the scarecrow was previously hanging to protect the crops. Deep in the mist which seems to be miles away, is a small village.The village seems to be made of white two story homes.
    The girl that is sitting on the wooden chair appears to be a teenager to young adult. She is wearing pants and a shirt at which a farmer would wear but on top of this she wear a olive green suit jacket. I feel that the jacket helps bring the time of the year into play, which is autumn. She wears a red,white and black plaid button up shirt, which is tucked into her kaki colored pants. The pants are cut off just below the knees. She is wearing black and white striped socks that come up above and under her cut pants.All though there is little room between her socks and pants there is a little bundle of hay sticking out. There is also hay sticking out of where the button on the shirt is undone close to her neck, this undone button leaves a little room to see that she has pastes white skin. Around her neck she wears a navy blue scarf. On her scarf there seems to be flowers. Her face is tilted to the left which leaves you with a feeling of curiosity. Her brown hair seems to be blowing in the wind.

Cultural Signs and Signifiers

First Picture: Ed Hardy Ugg Boot

Things that I think about when I look at this picture: Female, expensive, fad, Ed Hardy, sold out tattoo artist. Not many know history of Ed hardy before clothes. If you don’t have real uggs people think of them differently. Fashion. Young Kids wear them. Americans traditional/Japanese Traditional tattoo style. California. Who says you can’t stop tattooing to make money elsewhere. All styles of girls wear them, mostly younger people though.

What does this say about American mass culture? When I look at this picture of these Ed Hardy Ugg boots I mostly think about female fashion. I’ve noticed over the past couple years they have been growing from teenaged females to younger girls. As for the Ed Hardy logo I think about many other things. Tattooing, art and clubs all come to mind. I know that his career was tattooing for many years and then gave it up for other forms of art. I believe that he also chose to do that because it’s hard to make money as a tattoo artist. I can understand that, but from my perspective. I think it’s totally lame. I also think that the whole club scene is really obnoxious. Drinking, partying and etc, and because of most of the people in that club scene wear Ed Hardy. The first thing that comes to my mind when I see it is clubs, ”Guido’s” and “fist pumping”.

Second Picture: Facebook symbol

Things that I think about when I look at this picture: Started as a social networking site for college people and then slowly older people started using it. Eventes, drinking, popularity, online celebrities, birthdays: if the 350 friends didn’t have you a facebook friend they would most likely not know its your birthday, if you aren’t close with everyone of them. Fake friendships, booty calls.

What does this say about American mass culture? When I look at this image I automatically think about facebook, friends and tagging people in photos. Before I deleted my facebook, I looked at other college kids photos; they have some variations of photos that are of drinking at a party or something. I can understand that they want to have a good time, their young or what ever. It’s annoying to me. I feel like people using this, as a way to keep in touch with people is just really phony. If you actually wanted to keep in touch with someone wouldn’t you have his or her number or whey would have yours?

 Third Picture: Teenager

Things that I think about when I look at this picture: Teenager, marijuana, and gangster/alternative 90’s style. White-Caucasian. Suburban home.

What does this say about American mass culture? American mass culture looks at these “type of kids” as bad or up to no good. I feel like that when a typical American (mom, dad, dog, two kids) would look at this, they would think maybe he dropped out, does drugs, and listens to rap all day long. What I am trying to say is, maybe the typical American (or maybe just anyone) loves to judge and criticize. 

internet deathbeds

   I don't know how I feel about the way technology is advancing. For the most par, I’m totally down with it. I like intricate cameras, cars and etc, but when this new technology makes me think about the users safety concern. It makes me second-guess how much I actually like how fast and in what direction this technology has advanced. Personally, I don't want any part of it. For example publishing this blogspot on the Internet with my full name and email defiantly raises concerns for me. Another thing that has been bothering me is applying for jobs over the Internet. A couple years ago I was desperate for a job, so I applied to Old Navy. Several weeks later I received a letter in the mail. Not saying anything in regards to me actually getting the job, but information about my identity getting stolen through an online database in which I used in order to apply for the job. It was all resolved pretty quickly after that letter, since then I’ve defiantly have been more protective about my personal information being on the Internet. I think that publicizing addresses, phone numbers and family information on social networks are also defiantly a big problem. Literally not even a week ago, my mom had received a friend request on face book from old friend. Small talk went on shortly after my mom confirmed the friend request. Then he kept insisting that they would get coffee, even though it says that for his relationship status he’s “in a relationship.” My mom politely said she wasn’t interested. Then a couple days go by and my mom is getting texts from this creep, “So when am I going to take you out?” Even though, she never had given him her phone number. After being wierded out for a little while, she politely asked him how he received her phone number; he nonchalantly responded, “Facebook.”

            While there are a lot of disadvantages to putting your life on display, there are a bunch of advantages. I use flickr, carbonmade as online portfolios for my art and photography. In addition to uploading my artwork to these sites I provided contact information to go along with it. By doing this it allows a lot of people to see my work that wouldn’t otherwise see it. The only reason why I upload contact information to these sites is because if someone would like to give me feedback on my art/photos they can get in touch with me more directly. Although I am not trying to be an “online celebrity” a lot of people use this social climbing tool. For example before I deactivated my facebook account I was a friend with several people on there that loved getting attention online.  Several times I would be at the mall with these people and they would see or spot a certain person that comments on their pictures, and their news feed but when it came down to actually confronting and speaking in person to that certain someone, they didn’t. I think that this shows that social media online does connect people, but only to a certain extent. There are also many not so many fortunate people that had no intention what so ever of becoming an Internet celebrity, but instead someone else chose this fate for them. For example “Star Wars Kid” never intended on becoming a youtube celebrity. Just one of the many videos that were remixed of the video of has over twenty million views. I can only imagine what all of the videos add up to in views. By doing this, not only do many people know about how he decided to play with a fake light saber but also they become apart of his continuing humiliation every time someone new watches it. While our society sits back and laughs at this poor kid, society feeds us not so great role models on a platter that they call celebrities. I have never really been fascinated with celebrities much at all. My whole family is pretty much obsessed with them. They get about three magazines each month on things anywhere from fashion, glamour and celebrity gossip. It makes me sick. Why do people have obsessions about “famous people”? Is is cause they are insecure with them selves and want to be someone else? I am not sure what the reason is but what I do know is that being a part of any online network struggling for attention is not how I want to spend my time.