Applied Media Aesthetics

Chapter 1

Group 1 Members: Joe Katulak, Cynthia Porta, Julian Ellzy, Melissa Thompson, and Kristal Noyan

Applied Aesthetics and Contextualism

• Art is not always something finite such as a painting in a museum

• We encounter things that can be considered art on an everyday basis based on the context of the given situation

• Composition can greatly affect the way that we view or perceive a given situation

Contextual Perception• We screen out most of the sensations that reach our eyes and

ears, and stabilize and simplify as much as possible what we do perceive.

• Stabilizing the environment- our perceptual mechanisms are designed to stabilize and simplify our surroundings as much as possible so that they can become manageable. Also. Our “hardwired” perceptual stabilizers is the figure-ground principle, whereby we order our surroundings into foreground figures that lie in front of, or move against, a more stable background

• Selective Seeing-In our habitual ways of seeing, we generally select information that agrees with how we want to see the world, and we screen out almost everything that might interfere with our constructs.

The Power of Context• Many of our perceptions are guided, if not

indicated, by the event context• Context is something we perceive, & evaluate

specific perceptual phenomena. Every aesthetic elements operate within, & is dependent on the context.

The Medium as a Structural Agent

• Even when your primary function is to communicate specific information, you exert considerable influence on how a specific message is received.

E.T. Flying Bike Scene

E.T. I’ll Be Right Here

Method

• There are five main image elements that are incorporated into television and film (also known as fundamental image elements)

• light and color• two-dimensional space• three-dimensional space • time and motion• sound

• Encoding- the molding or beginning process when composing a shot

• Encoding includes everything that makes up a shot such as cameras, lenses, lighting, sound, framing and others

Two Dimensional Space

Three Dimensional Spacehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwdGYMM2bHM

Motion and Sound

● http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW23RsUTb2Y