While watching TV. I have noticed seeing this commercial on more than one occasion. This commercial is related to, what Dan Lacey describes as “Image of Reality.” He writes “Beyond the bounds of our daily lives, we all react not to reality, but to an image of reality, created for us through the media of communication, and in the last generation, the nature of the media that create this image has changed fundamentally.” One reason this commercial is relating to image of reality is through the look of the beer being advertised. In the commercial there are beer bottles that appear to look frosted, and they happen to be behind a light that is giving the bottles a glowing look. Also later in during the end of the commercial, three beers are shown with chunks of ice dripping off of them. This effects attempts to make the beer seem ice cold, along with refreshing. This commercial is referring to the new smart phones that are now able to have a bunch of different kind of “apps” that can be used for all kinds of things.

 Update: After a quick google search, The same effects used in the commercial can be seen here in this picture. There is an apparent light behind the bottle which illuminates the contents of the glass. There is also an appearance of condensation on the outside of the bottle which attempts to give the impression that the beer is very cold, which in turn would be refreshing.  

Anchorage and it's Relationship to Physics

      In my physics class yesterday I realized that the slides my Professor was teaching to us were related to what Roland Barthes describes as anchorage. Barthes describes anchorage as giving meaning to the images being shown. He writes “The denominative function corresponds exactly to an anchorage of all the possible (denoted) meanings of the object by recourse to a nomenclature…” This means that of every possible reason for that image shown, anchorage gives the image a specific meaning for what the image is shown. This is related to physics through the use of images depicting what exactly the image is showing through the use of text. This is especially important when learning new theorems or formulas for new material. In physics it is also especially important to draw diagrams when solving many of the problems given to help give an idea of the best way to go about solving it. Without diagrams physics would be extremely difficult, especially when dealing with forces, or vectors. Thus anchorage is needed to give an understanding of what the image is describing, which in turn gives an understanding to what the problem is about.


Update:  Anchorage is also found in the popular lolcat images on the internet. Anchorage is used to provide a  single meaning from a image of a cat doing something funny. Thus in this picture, the cat has somehow found itself in an upward position midair, which the creator of this image decided that it looked like this cat was riding a bike. If the image was presented without the text, it would be hard for the viewer to determine this. With the text "INVISIBLE BIKE" it gives the viewer anchorage, and a better ability to imagine a bicycle beneath the cat.

The Function of Relay

 

While surfing the internet this afternoon, I came across this comic strip. Comic strips like this one and many others relate to what Roland Barthes describes as relay. Barthes describes relay as the use of text to create a deeper meaning of the images through the sum of the texts. He writes “Here text (most often a snatch of dialogue) and image stand in a complimentary relationship; the words, in the same way as the images, are fragments of a more general syntagm and the unity of the message is realized at a higher level, that of the story, the anecdote, the diegesis.” The function of relay in images is used to give the reader an idea about what the image is describing throughout each frame. Relay is limited and can be seen primarily in comic strips. Relay becomes important where it is used however. If comic strips were produced without any sort of dialogue between characters, or text describing what was going on throughout the frames, it would be hard for the reader to understand what was going on at all. Without relay, comic strips would just be a series of related images strung together without a reason of why there connected in the first place.

Update: After deleting the text in each of the images, it makes it almost impossible to figure out what is going on with this comic and whats the point. Thus relay is used to guide the reader to what the subsequent images are meaning individually and as a whole. Relay describes the single image as well as the summation of the images in a comic strip.

Oddvertising

In the past few days I have seen this Dairy Queen commercial that relates to the relatively new form of advertising, called “Oddvertising.” One of the best known examples of oddvertising is the new Old Spice commercials which features a man in a bathroom but quickly changes over the course of time. This form of advertising seems to be very effective at getting people’s attention. I think that another reason this form of advertisement is so effective isn’t the ability of the commercial to sell it product, but rather the ability of the commercial to be remembered by the audience later on. I think that if a viewer thinks that the ad was funny, he or she will remember it later in the store while there buying something and make a decision to by a product produced by that company. I don’t think that oddvertisement is going to be going away anytime soon and that more companies will be sure to follow Dairy Queens, Old Spice, and many other products examples.

Update: While browsing on stumbleupon I came across a .gif that pokes fun at the Old Spice commercial mentioned earlier.