Radical Cartography: References

For referencing this project, I turned to different types of provincial maps:

As well as elevation maps:

as visual and technical references.

Radical Cartography: Finished Touches

While my drafts were becoming more and more complicated, I decided to crank it down some and go with a little more simplistic approach:

The key indicates what sort of "province" every color represents, or the degree of obsession of a fan within their particular fandom. As you can see, the train tracks that travel amongst many of the "provinces" of the island has become "derailed" at some point after entering the "Otaku" territory. This indicates the difficulty that some people have to "pull away" from their particular anime obsession, and how bleak it can be to fall into this type of state.

To underline my point further I did an alternate elevation map of the island of Fandom to further indicate the "peak's" and "absolute lows" that an obsession with anime can elicit. Notice how there is a ring of grossly high elevation (mountains) that ring around the sub-sealevel pit that marks the "Otaku" territory. These mountains are representative of what people who aren't associated with that type of fandom "see" when they look on people with an Otaku complex; something insurmountable and grossly overblown, something that seems wholly inaccessible. In short, it becomes unthinkable that someone could fall into such a state of absolute addiction.  

Radical Cartography Project: Phase One

Due to recent events, I've decided to map out the phases of "Fandom", or the range of interests found in pop culture.

The Red part represents "Obsession", and will have many markers outlined/defined within the perimeters of unhealthy interest. There will be a very fine line in between the Red and the "Acceptable" parts of the island (for fandom interest is its own island of a mental state) such as a creek or some thin forested area, while the train tracks leading into the Red Zone will be damaged beyond repair, preventing/hindering return. The entire Zone will be a ruin-like scape. 

Logo Heist

I decided that my logo victim would be the recent update of deviantART's logo:

I felt that there was enough of a charged circumstance regarding this logo from the community to warrant a viable heist of the design!

My original ideas, while being mocking, were pretty one-dimensional in terms of scope and impact:

I decided I wanted to go for something that would not only physically alter the logo instead of changing its meanings, but change it into something that really brings into perspective the kind of community drama that unfolded with its unveiling:

That is, until I learned that this wasn't an all-together original idea:

Original artwork by "zebdal"

In the end, I settled for a logo that, while heavily modded, I feel still harbors the true, original spirit of the new logo:

FINAL

Culture Jam: Response

The term "guerrilla semiotics" encompasses this article very nicely.

Here we see a particular semiotics at play, particularly pertaining to cultural critique by means of vulgar, seemingly random yet meaningful gestures and pieces scattered throughout media culture.

I wonder if this is smaller, or larger, than the satirical movies and television shows that are prevalent today? Whether or not something like the antics found in "The Boondocks", a cartoon that is heavily satirical of black American culture, would count as culture jamming?

Semiotics for Beginners: Reflection

At least now I somewhat understand what "Anterior Semiotics" was supposed to mean. Somewhat.

As it was mentioned in the article, I've seen breeds of this field of study in many different places under many different titles--namely Linguistics, although there's also cultural anthropology and, to a certain extent, theology as well (I believe the term for it is "iconography"). Whatever the case, semiotics in some form has been present in art for hundreds and thousands of years; indeed, the vast majority of artwork spanning from the Classical age all the way to the High Renaissance was nothing but piles upon piles of representative artwork displaying signs from Mythology or the Bible!

On a basic level, one could also argue that semiotics proves a certain correlation between human interaction and the systems within computer networks. While human life seems boundless and often random, it is actually limited within our own perceptions, which in turn are based by the "signs" we've read in our lives, interpreting them in ways that we've decided to interpret them (either personally or by long-standing tradition). In much the same way, computers are similarly limited by the set "code of conduct" that is set before the first launch.

Mail Art

Illustrator is definitely turning out to be a much more different and complex program to learn with. I think I'm getting the hang of it, however!

Both images were primarily done in Illustrator (including text) with minor edits made in Photoshop:

This piece was in equal parts based off of the song"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" originally by Pete Seeger (although my favorite version is the rendition done by "Earth, Wind, and Fire") as well as lily plants I received for my birthday. The nuance ended up being something either hopeful or wistful, as though something were being lost--or born.

This one was a direct response to my first piece, conveying a darker, gloomier atmosphere with harsher contrast. It may also be an echo to the wartime theme that's presented in the song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"; a dog-print amid a confused, eccentric, violent flux of imprints on an indistinct background.