Poetica Remix…elise

This is long, but I want the information out there for all to see. My wheels are spinning in new directions I’m excited about, but I need to know if it makes any sense. If you have the time to read through this and give me feedback, you are amazing. 

New realizations:

 

Communication cannot happen without wonder and curiosity, which leads to play.

 

Media breaks apart our language barriers yet leaves us with the question of how to build a new “language,” one that leaves no one in the global village lost in translation. 

 

 

Concept background:

 

As media advances and envelopes the globe, our written and spoken language is breaking apart. Our cultural community broadens each day, requiring a new “language,” one that leaves no person left behind or lost in translation. Media moves fast and lacks a break system, and whether or not we realize it, we are the drivers. Every day we further integrate with media (by choice and subconsciously), extending our bodies and minds through innumerable information channels. Our communication is changing, our native tongues quickly being replaced by signs, symbols, and simulacra. The development of a new “language” is already occurring, regardless of our paying attention to it. The times when I feel overwhelmed by media’s “all-at-onceness” stem from a basic conflicting construct: media is built on immediacy, my native tongue is not. Written and spoken language will always remain linear, sequential, with one letter following another. Media is just the opposite. Its immediacy reflects our auditory processing: we hear sounds all-at-once, whether they are layered or spaced apart. Our ears simulate the experience of media: an open channel allowing multiple sounds to filter in and out simultaneously and at will. We do not hear sounds in any particular order, but we read from left to right. We build equations (and words) in rational sequence. The spread of literacy and the development of formulas such as the Scientific Method led us to believe the world was entirely tangible, able to be broken down to its individual parts so that we might grasp the whole. Media resists this delusion. The earth is not an equation, it is an ordered chaos of incredible complexity. 

 

And media is its mirror.

 

As children we are quickly taught sounds and words so that we might develop an individual voice. Eventually, this communication skill extends to tracing letterforms in writing tablets, and suddenly we are reading and writing. Along the way, our natural wonder and curiosity is both excited and thwarted by this new code we’re struggling to understand. Our ability to wonder is an immediate and natural response to things that stimulate our senses and intrigue our minds. Yet wonder is tempered by rational thought. And while reason and passion must work in balanced tension, our Western developed world emphasizes logical thought over the “simultaneous burst breakthrough” that is pure imagination. Our insistence on order and rationale is the antithesis to media’s insistence on chaos and “all-at-onceness” [McLuhan]. Our basic need to communicate perpetuates in media. Without communication we remain isolated, mute individuals. With language (be it visual, verbal, nonverbal, written), we connect and contribute to a community, and the community reciprocates in response. As the Group develops with individual contribution, the Self is reminded of its unique and integral relevance to the whole. Our personal identities are supported, confirmed, challenged, strengthened. This results is a positive feedback loop: we grow as individuals AND as a community. Communication, and therefore participation, serves as the connection between the parts and the whole. And the outlet by which we communicate manifests in media. 

 

When we develop a language, there must first exist a mutually-accepted base construct. In the English language, we agree upon twenty-six letterforms, each containing multiple yet specific sounds. Our agreement on these sounds and symbols allows us to build upon the twenty-six letters, create words, sentences and thoughts, and know that another English-speaking individual will understand what we are trying to communicate. Without this mutually accepted support structure, our language would remain meaningless code.

However, in media there is no basic agreed-upon construct. Though often built with mechanical code, this remains merely its skeletal structure. Beyond that, media is an open channel, an ever-evolving free-for-all that allows us to communicate with anyone and everyone all at once. My native language does not fit within this construct: it is too linear, too limited, too slow for such an immediate-response environment. 

 

So what do we communicate with as media continues to grow and break apart our linear language? How will we define a new “language” in media, one that encourages the communication needed to develop our global village and reaffirm our personal identity?

 

 

Concept:

 

I want my Poetica project to revolve around these questions, not necessarily provide an answer, but PLAY with the questions. As linear constructs break down in media, our ability to wonder and imagine gains strength. I believe without wonder we lose our desire to communicate. We become apathetic, isolated, egotistical. Our desire to connect and participate is sparked when we’re touched in an emotional way. Empathy is wonder’s best advocate. I also believe what sparks our imagination as children continues to excite us as adults (who doesn’t love a Pixar film? Who doesn’t enjoy discovering a shape in a cloud?) Its not about the latest and greatest electronic gadget or sleek machine. Wonder is basic, archaic. It existed millions of years before the iPhone or Nintendo Wii. 

 

As our language evolves in media, we find ourselves responding to signs and imagery faster than written words. A symbol, a logo, an icon: we respond to them with immediacy because of their power to convey an ALL-AT-ONCE layered meaning. To me, a symbol such as the cross or the Swastika is not unlike a poem. Positive or negative, they remain simple yet richly layered, power packed in a punch. (What I’m devising for this project perhaps connects to the Swastika assignment, but no matter, this is probably a good thing!) Within the context of media, a medium based on instant retrieval and exchange, the immediacy conveyed within visual icons and symbols naturally works as a “new” language. It isn’t especially new, though. We were sensual people before we were literate people. And at its root, our ability to understand is based on the immediate perception of our senses, which then informs rational thinking. Our wonder must first be intrigued before logical connections take place. We drew abstractions of our world on the walls of caves to tell our stories. Now we draw a new visual language in media so that we may continue to share an oral tradition with our global village. 

 

I want to build a viral campaign that first begins in a book. This book will mimic the style of a children’s book because this medium is open to every generation. And we all share in this same basic child instinct that is wonder. The book is informed by a symbol that comes out of our language, but I see it as a metaphor for media. It is the ellipsis symbol. So three circles in a row, the dot dot dot. Its grammatical definition evokes symbolic meaning: it is both continuation and pause in thought, both three parts and one whole. It is both a logical progression from beginning, middle, and end as well as a representation of continual flux without end. To me a single dot contains the potential to be both tiny and enormous, reflecting how our universe can go infinitely small or large–from electron to galaxy. A dot is a circle, one of our most basic shapes. A circle is continual, reciprocal, renewing. A grouping of three is symbolic in of itself. From the Holy Trinity to ABC to the designation of giver, gift, receiver. And here we have communication in media: speaker, message, interpretation represented in three dots. The ellipsis, just like the media, conveys a passing-beyond to something more. And as media can become a mass of white noise, so too can the ellipsis refer to an absence of thought, an intentional omission. It is tension and rest. 

 

To me, “…” is both everything and nothing all at once. 

 

Have I floated off into conceptual space? Arguable, but do recall that Ray wants to start a revolution and Melissa plans to rewrite the Declaration of Independence (!) Anything is possible if you can imagine it, so The Cowboy loves to remind us. Grounding my concept in a “children’s book” that adults can appreciate helps communicate the idea to the masses. Basically, what can you do with these three circles? It’s more about presenting the ellipsis form to the public in a new and participatory way, on that encourages the audience to play with and explore the form as a means of communication. Hank reminded me of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ, which combined a high and low icon, and therefore an incredible power and tension. What happens when you infuse meaning to something so simple as three circles? How can you play with the symbolic meanings that already exist within this form? How does this basic construct of a mutually agreed-upon meaning, already inherent in the ellipsis, inform the development of a new visual language in media? Can it? Why not?

 

More to follow…