Wednesday, 7 June 2017

Media Cultures - Regarding - Questions (Part 1)

A fresh start to a new semester! Let’s start off with a breakdown of these questions!

1.Critically review a local art/ design exhibition in-depth. Discuss it in terms of its curatorial goals and exhibition design with related research.
Looking at this question, let's begin by understanding what are a curator’s goals. In America, the Curators Committee had developed a document called the A Code of Ethics for Curators. It describes the fundamental principles, core beliefs and critical responsibilities and provides guidelines for ethical conduct. In this document it mentions that their curatorial work should serve the public good, the institution and the museum profession. From here it would be say to say that the curatorial goals of an exhibition is to contribute to and promote learning, inquiry, and dialogue, and by making the depth and breadth of human knowledge available to the public.  
Now let's, look at the objectives of the National Museum:
  • Conduct museum activities such as research, collect, record and publish all the heritage of the country's history
  • Exhibit and enhance the country's historical heritage artifacts for the purposes of public education towards national identity and nation-building and;
  • Ensure the museum as one of the country's tourism product.

As we can see above, it seems to be similar to those of the goals in the document.

While I have yet to begin looking into local art exhibitions, here are some that I am will be looking into if I were to so choose this question as my topic of research:

2.Compare and contrast the relationship of celebrities with their fans in two different creative communities. Which one is relatively more healthy in their connections?

Regarding this question, well first and foremost, what is a healthy connection? Is it based on how often they meet with their fans? Or maybe it's by how one's fans are towards the general public? I suppose in some sense, we would have to take all of that into account as we further delve into this topic.

Next is, what are creative communities? Sarah Stanton from the Conscious Magazine believes that a creative community is “when your ideas, thoughts, opinions and passions are shared, received and reciprocated in a positive way”

This question seems fairly vague as the scale of a creative community by definition, is rather massive. Are we limited to actors, artists and songwriters? Does a youtuber like Pewdiepie count as such a celebrity? I am rather on the fence with this question as I have not the slightest idea on how to really go about this question.


3.  Examine the issue of cultural appropriation within a domain of beauty, fashion or music industry. Why are some communities cautious of, or against this practice?

Regarding this question, earlier today, there was an issue regarding a Watson Ad which has a prince haunted in his dreams by a sweet and alluring voice. To find that voice he holds an audition to find said voice. Many “pretty” faces come and try but none can really sing till a veiled woman who has the same voice as the prince’s dream appears only to unveil to find the woman with pitch black skin, later in the video she washes her face to show her beauty.

To say the least, the ad received a vicious backlash from the community for the use of blackface which implied that black is ugly. The ad was then taken down hours later.

Cultural appropriation is defined as the adoption or use of the elements of one culture by members of another culture and blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-black performers to represent a black person.

So about this question, my initial impression, especially with the recent ad, as to why some communities would be cautious of this practice, is that it is rather difficult to represent one’s culture in a proper manner without stepping on anyone's toes.


4. What are some issues and best practices for design in multilingual communities? Write from the perspective of either a graphic designer or interactive designer.

Well as someone who can only speak one language, I can see a number of issues. For example, the obvious language barrier. That in itself causes more issues than one, miscommunication, less job opportunities and more.

As I think about this question now, one of the best practices for designing for a multilingual community would be the consideration of culture and language.

Right, a multilingual community is one where the community speaks many languages, for example Malaysia, the four most used languages are, Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil.

I would need more time to think and research about this one to fully write up a proper report so this will stop here for now.


5. Explore a variety of media used within the context of branding or transmedia storytelling.   Does variety dilute the effectiveness of an advertising campaign or story.

If I understand this correctly, the question is about if the use of various platforms to promote a campaign or story weakens its effectiveness.
This question is still rather vague to me so Ill leave this alone for now.

Well with that said and done. My current choices for deeper exploration are questions 1,2,4 and 5.
1 would be interesting to explore.
2 would be something fun to discuss.
4 would hit home for me.
and 5 feels familiar but is currently far too vague to consider.

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