We Are All France

The Pier 1 Imports Building in downtown Fort Worth is notable for its distinctive use of lights at the top. The displays vary with the  season and the goings-on in the city. Around Christmas, the tower is aglow with festive colors and patterns. It occasionally turns purple during major TCU games. The displays are generally related to holidays and important events on the community calendar.

I was intrigued, then, to see that the lights at the top of this landmark now depicted the French flag, in solidarity with those affected by the terrorist attacks this past weekend. While in the grand scheme of things, this building does not have the symbolic impact of many other architectural displays, I found this an important move. In some ways, this part of the Fort Worth skyline is representative of the city itself, the community as a whole. When we look at it expecting something festive or simply pleasant, the use of something as symbolic as this flag can affect the thinking of those who see it. We are directed to accept those indicated by the flag as part of our community, joining our identities in solidarity. Thus, this building has transformed our sense of community in an unexpected but powerful way.

-Wellington Owen

Visual Culture and Choral Music

Although it may look like it, this is not a shameless plug for the TCU Concert Chorale concert on SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22 at 7:30pm at ST. STEPHEN’S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (three or four blocks from campus). When I saw this poster for our concert, it made me think about some things we’ve talked about in this class about text vs. images and how text is often used as images. When you look at this poster, first there is the TCU School of Music logo (a combination of the TCU logo, a fancy script, and a seal all make it represent something), then the title of the concert, “What Wondrous Love is This” (in a very fancy design to show it represents the show…it also can mean something to certain people as it is the name of a hymn), then finally the picture of the ensemble (which provides a way to people to recognize and see the people that are in the ensemble and the ones that they may know). Using all of these things, this poster causes people to relate to the school, the concert, and the ensemble in hopes that they may come out to the concert.

GO FROGS!
Caleb M. Fritz

Rush hour icons

Earlier this year, my sister sent my family an update of how she was doing. She lives in Hawaii, on Oahu in Honolulu and commutes to her job as a teacher of a high school in a small town called Waianae. This picture stood out to me because, not only the incredibly bright rainbow in the middle of the sky, but the mirrored image on the license plate in front of her car. License plates often reflect the state that they are from using iconic images of what people relate to the idea of each state. Hawaii- rainbows, Colorado- mountains, Georgia- peach, etc. Images give us a way to manifest our ideas and generalizations into a visible and iconic picture. License plates in particular are given a limited canvas, usually narrowed down to one or two images. The visual allows for a unified understanding, even as simple as a single image, of a place, person or thing. The unified understaning can sometimes be as simple as hearing a word such as Hawaii and thinking of the first word that comes to mind, in this case a rainbow.

Zoey Clark

SLANG and other words…

“FORE WE HIT THE ROCKY-ROAD LET’S SLITHER DOWN AND BLITZ MARY, THE GRAPEVINE GIVES SHE’S STACHIN PEPSI COLA”

My favorite part of visiting the special collections unit at the library was being able to flip through the old issues of the Skiff. It was documented history, but also a document to life and what certain events were important to those who attended TCU 60 years ago. However, my favorite part was all of the old advertisements. From the movies being shown at the theater to this Pepsi Cola add, they all captured my love for nostalgia and the art of advertising. Then I started to think of this class more. Images are not the only way visual culture is communicated, but words contribute to the experience as well. The women’s attire and the way this add is drawn contributes to dating this piece and heightens to the confusion I feel trying to understand the slang words used within it. I have read the quote over and over again, but still fail to truly understand all of the words, even with the “English Translation’, which I believe does little help.

Slang is an integral part of our everyday interaction with the world. It connects and separates generations. Advertisements today use slang in their works. I wonder if these phrases so foreign to me in this Pepsi add will be the same for those 60 years down the road analyzing the slang we choose to put into out adds today. This advertisement is not special because it is selling Pepsi, it is special because it is connecting to an audience who interacts with this language and visual culture on a daily basis.

-Madison Burke

More Than the Movie

 

I went to the Movie Tavern to see The Hunger Games. I had never been to a movie tavern before, so this was a completely new experience for me. It reminded me a lot of the reading we had where the author discussed how a film/show could change, based on your surroundings: people interrupting, walking in and out, commenting, etc. As you can see, there’s a lot going on in front of me, other than what’s on the screen. Waiters are walking about, people are eating, people are talking, people are walking, etc. This can change the meaning of the movie. For example, during a very intense scene, a baby (not sure why there was a baby…?) started crying. As I too, get scared of intense movies, I thought, “same,” which took me out of the drama of the scene.

I just thought this was a perfect example of how the meaning of an image can change, based on context, whether it be cultural, historical, or environmental. All of these small details of the scene work together to make one comprehensive meaning of the image.

-Logan Schurr

Patricia Pan and the Lost Girls

Every year there is an ultimate frisbee tournament called Harvest Moon in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is a Halloween tournament, and every team has to have a theme and play in corresponding costumes. This year my team went as Patricia Pan and the Lost Girls and dressed as characters from Peter Pan. By dressing up in costumes, it made me realize how much Halloween involved visual culture. In class, we have talked about how clothing is a main component of identity, and I feel like Halloween demonstrates a similar concept. For Halloween, you take on another identity for a day, and you do so by dressing as such. In this tournament, every team had their theme, or team identity, and they represented it by dressing up in certain costumes.Whether it be of a cartoon character of a type of identity seen in the real world (like a certain occupation or style), simply acting like our character is not usually enough to be recognized by others; it is the physical appearance that solidifies that identity. Without the physical component, Halloween would not be possible. Halloween itself is kind of a play on “visual culture”, because it is a holiday specific to our culture that is celebrated almost entirely visually.

Senna Nilsson