WordPress seems determined to embed my emojis as images which breaks my careful formatting around line-breaks so behold: a screenshot.
Reflection
Working on this emoji story I selected my story largely based on what media I had consumed recently, eliminating a more recently consumed option that wouldn’t have been fun or entertaining for anyone, myself included due to how I didn’t even know where to start. A big thank you to my friend for making us all watch Zardoz (1974) last night, where would I even begin. So, minor spoilers, this isn’t Zardoz (1974).
As I was developing my emoji story I spent some time thinking back to my undergrad in fine art. The selection and placement of emojis reminds of a formal analysis of ancient Egyptian art when compared to more naturalist approaches of Greek and Roman. In ancient Egyptian art this person is larger because they are more important, they are portrayed ahead of the others because they are leaders, there is often text presented with images… not to even mention hieroglyphics and how we may view that as a blurring of text and image.
Admittedly, I use a lot of emojis in my day-to-day. I routinely find myself baffled by the emoji selection in MS Teams and it was a very good day for me when they allowed reacting with any emoji rather than the pre-set corporate starter pack of thumbsup, heart, etc. I found this entertaining!
Thinking about Kress (2005) specifically while composing this I found myself wondering about the immediacy of image compared to the unfolding of text. The emoji story finds a pretty comfortable middle ground. Kress (2005) also mentions considering both the fit of modality and content, but also the fit of modality and audience. I wonder about how my colleagues will find this task, how this course has provided a huge range of activities for assignments (tempered with writing for each one).
I also found myself reflecting on how this text is almost 20 years old – how have our ideas around multimodality changed in that intervening time? I wonder if we are now experiencing a similar semiotic revolution around video with the meteoric rise of short form video content in the last five years. It’s an interesting tension – video takes the audience back to the unfolding of written text, compared to the immediacy of the image.
References
- Kress, G. (2005). Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, 22(1), 5-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2004.12.004
I’m struggling with this one. My initial guess was Saving Private Ryan based on the title emojis… but as I work my way through the emojified plot, I think that is clearly not the case. This movie seems to have a lot of heartbreak and deceit?
I’ll need to think about it.
Now that the course is wrapping up I feel like I should say what my movie was! It was “Swiss Army Man” (2016) with Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe! VERY odd and I enjoyed it immensely.
Hi Brie,
My guess is Hacksaw Ridge. I actually have not watched the movie, I’m just basing that on the medic symbol, the island, the boats, and so forth. Did I nail it?
I find it interesting that you have a background in fine arts, and it’s very cool that you brought hieroglyphics and so forth into this! Your comment about taking us back to the early days of the written word with a short-form video is a very compelling thought! This was a great post.
Thanks!
Steve
Hi Steve!
I think the army helmet took folks in a different direction, haha. It was “Swiss Army Man” (2016) with Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe!
Brie,
Your experience with creating the emoji story appears to have been influenced significantly by their background in fine arts. This is evident in your selection and placement of emojis reminded them of formal analysis, drawing a parallel between the use of space and symbolism in ancient Egyptian art and the way emojis were arranged in their story.
This artistic perspective is distinct from my approach, which was more focused on conveying the plot and characters of the TV series in a way that represented broad themes and ideas. My reflection highlighted the challenge of representing character nuances and the temporal progression of the plot.
Despite this difference, both of our reflections engaged with the idea of how emojis serve as a hybrid between text and image, a theme that aligns with Gunther Kress’s (2005) discussion on multimodality. We both recognized the challenge of using emojis to convey complex ideas and narratives, although our reflections approached this challenge from different angles—Brie through an artistic and symbolic lens, and myself through a narrative and thematic lens. This shared struggle highlights the broader conversation on the limitations and possibilities of emojis as a form of communication, especially in academic and creative contexts.
Abdulehed