Tag Archives: technology

White Rabbit Postmodern April 11

Have we become the White Rabbit? The experience of Time in the Postmodern Era

posted by

Have we become the White Rabbit in the Postmodern Era? Do we wear the watch or is the watch increasingly wearing us? How is our relationship to time changing at a semiotic level – are we thinking about time through different metaphors?

»»
culturedecanted.com September 07

Emerging Metaphors for the Human Body

posted by

Emerging Metaphors for the Human Body   Metaphors are the cognitive tools through which we understand ourselves and the world (Lakoff and Turner 1989: xi). One of the primary metaphoric resources is the human body. Probably, since we first became self-aware, we have been fascinated with our bodies: psychologically and culturally. “Man is the measure […]

»»
birdcage August 27

Semiotics of the Birdcage

posted by

A semiotic analysis of the birdcage as a cultural status symbol. Why is this symbol used so consistently by luxury and fashion brands? What is the history of the birdcage through to today? What are the psychological drivers that influence the engagement with the birdcage in society today? Since the birdcage is linked with fashion, what does this suggest about women and how they are framed in societal discourse?

»»
Personification of the City August 15

Why are we no longer in love with our Cities?

posted by

Why are we no longer in love with our cities? We personify cities, give them human characteristics.

We create our identity from where we live. Are we projecting something, of how we see ourselves, onto our cities?

»»
Semiotics of the Doppelganger July 14

The Semiotics of the Doppelgänger: the Double in Popular Culture

posted by

The Semiotics of the Doppelgänger: the Double in Popular Culture   One of the themes from the last blog I wrote on ‘evil’, was the nature of how this is depicted in popular culture from a semiotic perspective. This started out with a Kantian perspective, that evil is something that all of us have the […]

»»
culture decanted June 21

How are our brains changing in the Modern Era?

posted by

Our brains are changing size and we are getting stupider?   It’s enough to give you a brain-ache. Do any search on the human brain today and there is a lot of contradictory information about what we know about it. Some believe it’s getting larger, others that it’s shrinking. We’re getting more intelligent or getting […]

»»
Culture Decanted June 16

ARE ROBOTS TAKING OVER THE WORLD?

posted by

ARE ROBOTS TAKING OVER THE WORLD? “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein   In my last post, I was exploring why we are scared of the future, a fact that emerged is that there is no one word or phobia to cover ‘fear of […]

»»
Culture Decanted June 13

Opening a Window to the Future [Part 2]

posted by

Why are we so negative about the future?: Future Part 2   “The future is like a dead wall or a thick mist hiding all objects from our view’ William Hazlitt, 1822   Cultural Metaphors of the Future One of the manifestations of the authenticity trend in society today is the cherry-picking what parts of […]

»»
June 11

Why are we so scared of tomorrow? [Part 1]

posted by

Why are we so scared of tomorrow?   To paraphrase the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, ‘humankind has never had it so good’. Well it’s probably more accurate to say that in many ways our collective-cultures have never been so advanced, with the potential of helping so many. So why do we find western culture […]

»»
May 27

The Signature Resigned [Names: part 2]

posted by

Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable. W. H. Auden It is easier than ever to have multiple identities online; allowing us to be the virtual persona we might wish we could be. At a time when individualism is a driving force in western society, it’s ironic that so […]

»»