Study Task 5

What is my question?

Does having a physical album cover as the initial point of contact between a consumer and artist allow for a more in depth and meaningful relationship/experience between the two?

How has the interaction between Artist and Consumer changed within the music industry with the rise of technology?

Did cover art have a cultural/societal importance that has been lost in the digital age?

Where’s middle ground between these two questions? Maybe focus on the first question and then include the rave scene as your example to demonstrate point?

Did the visual language of the rave scene in the 1980s/90s hold a cultural and societal importance that has been lost in the age of technology?

Exploring the evolution of visual artwork production for musicians over the last 30 years

Does album artwork hold a cultural/societal importance that has been lost in the digital age?  (maybe conclusion of essay is that it hasn’t been lost, yet it has been changed. In which case you need to make clear the changes that have occurred.)

How can digital technology be used to reintegrate the qualities of a physical album cover? – this is not 

THEORIES:

SEMIOTICS AND VISUAL REPRESENTATION

(http://www.arch.chula.ac.th/journal/files/article/lJjpgMx2iiSun103202.pdf)

·      Semiotics plays huge role in the desired impact of an album cover. Heavily important in helping someone to resonate with the imagery and allow them to begin forming new interpretants of that imagery in their mind.

·      “Furthermore, as a result of a pervasive link between visual art and the idea of expression, art has been thought of as more intuitive, unconscious and basic than language; therefore, transcending the specifics of the culture(s) it emerges from. This, of course, is not true. “ – how does the way we interpret meaning from music/art/literature differ? And what may this say about the relationship between visual & audible art in comparison to that of literary & visual arts relationship? (pg.55)

BARTHES RHETORIC OF THE IMAGE (YOUTUBE ANALYSIS)

·      Talks about the associations that advertisers intend to communicate through imagery in a frank and emphatic manner. Do cover artists/musicians attempt a similar style of communication? If not, is there something more or something less that the latter are trying to portray?

·      Interpreting images is challenging, however interpreting advertising images is less challenging because we already know the intention of the image. The interpretation of an album cover is therefor more based on connotations and subjectivity. LOOK AT PRACTICIONERS AND THEIR INTENTIONS BEHIND PARTICULAR ALBUM COVERS!

·      Does having a physical album cover as the initial point of contact between a consumer and artist allow for a more in depth and meaningful relationship/experience between the two?

MUSIC IN THE DIGITAL AGE: THE EMERGENCE OF DIGITAL MUSIC AND ITS REPERCUSSIONS ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY (Sadie A. Stafford)

(http://www.elon.edu/docs/e-web/academics/communications/research/vol1no2/09staffordejfall10.pdf)

·      “As technology and new media advance and improve, so do the means for marketing and promoting of anything and everything. The music industry is no exception to this ever-changing whirlwind that has scooped up artists and their music and has moved them to an entirely different level of sharing, purchasing, marketing and distributing. The pressure consumers have placed on the music industry to keep up with their demands is enormous. It is expected that record companies and independent artists develop new means of communication and distribution of their music as the Internet and online databases explode with popularity. In this digital age, labels are losing much of their importance and artists are more capable of promoting themselves, granting them more ownership over their own work (Halonen-Akatwijuka and Regner, 2004)” (pg.113) This quote displays the strain that advancements in technology have put on the music industry as a whole. And that the marketing strategies that may once have worked are no longer tangible due to an increase in demand from consumers. This is causing a lot of the magic that originally surrounded the process of purchasing an album to be lost in a sea of instant and ultimately detrimental gratification.