Structuralism and binary opposition

All I can say to this lecture is.....what? :)

I thought I would be okay understanding Structuralism somewhat as I studied structuralists as a part of sociology during college.....but this was completely different!! Although I think I just managed to grasp the idea by the end of the lecture I very much had question marks surrounding my head during the lecture... I noted what I could.

Structuralism is distantly related to semiotics in the sense that it is about signs and how we make meaning of things in the world. It is a deep structure of understanding.

Apparently as humans we think in halves, that we relate one thing to another which was quite fascinating to learn about myself! That we learn what one thing is by knowing what it is not.........think about it it will be clear :) Took me a few seconds to get my head around that one! For example we know what good is by knowing what evil is, they are opposites.

In a way it relates to the symmetry fact we were told during semiotics, that if a face is symmetrical we consider it to be 'beautiful'. So humans kind of obsess over symmetry? Also by the fact that we think in halves, furthermore we have two of a lot of things! Two legs, two arms, two eyes, two ears etc The entire human body down the middle is a (generally) symmetrical thing.

              

But that's not really the point :) even though there are these opposites such as light and dark, these are not absolute things they are a constant cycle. It is not possible to have absolute dark, similarly for absolute light. Really I'm not sure why we were told some of these things about symmetry......and not possible to have extreme opposites. I also never saw the distinct line in the lecture of where he stopped talking about structuralism and started talking about binary opposites or if these are the same things? I assume when he started talking about opposite things was when binary opposites started...

Anyways the main point to me was about a middle ground between two extreme opposites known as, by structuralists, the zone of anomally. An example of a pier was used to describe the effect of this zone.

A man named James Joyce said a pier is a disappointed bridge.....aww a bridge that goes no where. It will take you away from land without getting your feet wet and so as a result normal rules of behaviour are suspended because you are off land..... In honesty when he first said this I kind of ignored this as a weird silly statement in my head but as examples were used and I thought about it it's actually true. Another example used was darkness, such as candlelight, nightclub or cinemas etc are all places that we enjoy because they are darker. A nightclub that was lit up would not have the same effect? Very true.

More interesting was how we find this middle ground more interesting. Such as between human and non human, werewolves, mermaids etc more interesting than a person? True. An anti- hero, hero with a troubled past more interesting than just a hero? True! The highly explored concept of this is Frankenstein that has been remade many times.

Furthermore what is more interesting is each generations different take on this middle ground as Frankenstein was remade he was changed overtime as have been cyborgs etc.

We aren't frightened of robots but we are frightened of cyborgs? True.

Then what about 3D animation? 3D characters? Are they cyborgs? Perfected people? This was an interesting question for me to consider. And in a sense....I agree and disagree. I agree in the sense that when characters are created in animation, in particular good characters, they tend to be made with perfection (perfect skin etc). However on the other side can argue that this is because when creating a main character for a film this would be appealing to an audience. That it is possible to create an imperfect character but animators choose not to. But of course they are also not real at the end of the day so they could still be classed as cyborgs.....