Rhetoric of Cool: Ch 2-5

Quotations and examples regarding chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 from Rice's Rhetoric of Cool:

Chora
Appropriation
Juxtaposition
Commutation

Chora

“In digital culture, Ulmer writes, the topoi are replaced with Plato’s forgotten concept of chora, the open receptacle of meaning.” Chora, when updated for digital cutlrue, functions as an argumentative/narrative strategy b means of pattern making, pattern recognition, pattern generation” (Rice, Rhetoric of Cool 34).

In other words, think of chora as as a place (e.g. , your wiki) in which a particular “argumentative/narrative strategy” plays itself out via methods of appropriation and juxtaposition.

From Ch. 2 Chora:

While all reading and writing practices demand partiipation to some extent, writing multiple meanings simultaneously generates a method more conducive to digital culture, which itself (through Web, film, video, and other media) is constructured out of multiple texts and meanings that often overlap and interlink. “The past mechanical times was hot, and we of the TV age are cool” (Understanding Media 40). As McCluhan writes, the task is to transfer choral practices into pedagogy so that we not only understand what a cool medium is but that we write cool as well. “Our new concern with education follows upon the changeover to an interrelation in knowledge, where before the separate subjects of the curriculum had stood apart from each other (McLuhan Understanding Media 47 qtd. in Rice 35).

The best demonstration of choral moves on the Web can be seen (but not only found) in the hypertextual link that allows writers the capability of developing threads around single words or ideas, and that reuires readers to naviage these threads in various ways. The link is indicative of a new media push to reoganize space in terms of meaning contruction. (Rice, Rhetoric of Cool 35)

Note: For more information on the "interrelation of knowledge" see previous posts in "intertextuality."

Chora
Appropriation
Juxtaposition
Commutation

Appropriation

Appropriate:

Dictionary.com:
–adjective
1.
suitable or fitting for a particular purpose, person, occasion, etc.: an appropriate example; an appropriate dress.
2.
belonging to or peculiar to a person; proper: Each played his appropriate part.
–verb (used with object)
3.
to set apart, authorize, or legislate for some specific purpose or use: The legislature appropriated funds for the university.
4.
to take to or for oneself; take possession of.
5.
to take without permission or consent; seize; expropriate: He appropriated the trust funds for himself.
6.

to steal, esp. to commit petty theft.

Examples of Appropriation in Action:


1. . Examples from Music:




If you like music, here’s a good link regarding music sampling, which is an appropriative process:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(music)




Also, if you like Public Enemy, see Rice’s discussion of the rap “Caught, Can We Get A Witness” (68-9).


2. Satire:

Here is a Colbert Report satire from 5 March 2010:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/05/colbert-treats-hannity-li_n_487078.html

Here is a Fox News report from 27 Sept. 2010:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfy_i9SZomE&feature=related
So what do I do with appropriation?

3. The Mash Up:

If you look up “mash up” on youtube, you’ll find thousands of examples. Here is one involving the Wonderwoman, Superman and Company and the television show Friends.




So how do I use appropriation?

Mix it up. Find images from popular culture and or your own life. Look for patterns or interesting combinations:

“In order to apply this cool method of writing, students are asked to identify specific cultural influences from their own lives. These influences may come from background, school, history, politics, music, objectives they’ve owned, anecdotes, and a variety of other sources….[S]tudents appropriate these influences from their original contexts…. Students then present and juxtapose these influences in order to find a pattern” (Rice, Rhetoric of Cool 71).

Chora
Appropriation
Juxtaposition
Commutation

Juxtaposition

From dictionary.com:

–noun
1.
an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, esp. for comparison or contrast.
2.
the state of being close together or side by side.

Juxtaposition and Appropriation are related issues, which is why they appear in sequential chapters. For example, images that are appropriated are often juxtaposed. But sometimes, as the image above indicates, juxtaposition is just part of life.

“The challenge for composition studies is to translate the theoretical principles of juxtaposition to a pedagogy appropriate for digital writing. This kind of writing would ot analyze juxtapositions found in either popular media or professional discourse and report on their rhetorical effectiveness but would produce a writing comprised of juxtapositions. It would be, therefore, performative….[P]atterns motive readers and writersto find unrealized connections among disparate events and material things. [Composing by juxtaposition] favors discovery over the restricted topic sentence since writers composing with juxtapositions do not begin with an understanding of what they will write about. Nor do writers concern themselves with mastery of a given category (science), subject matter (film), or already establishe d belief (topos) Instead, writers writers look for ways to juxtapose from a variety of categories and subjects…in order to invent” (Rice, Rhetoric of Cool 91).

Chora
Appropriation
Juxtaposition
Commutation

Commutation

"Commutation is the exchange of signifiers without concern for referentiality" (93).





As an example of commutation, Rice disucsses images from Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol.

To a certain degree, either image could be used or discussed in commutational terms. As Rice's examples show on page 108, the questions concerning a famous Rockwell painting (Triple Self Portrait) tend to prompt thesis-driven writing. Rice's implied claim, via the famous Monroe images, is that Warhol prompts viewers to understand a subject from multiple angles and with multiple interpretations.


Here's another famous Warhol, Double Elvis





Rice writes, "No better figure could be used for commutation than Elvis, whose image is easily commutated from film to film (Elvis as scuba diver/Elvis as car driver)....Warhol's writing with Elvis in 1963 is an important moment in the rhetoric of cool because this writing situates this supposed cool figure (Elvis Presley) as a cool form of writing (commutation) (108).

Chora
Appropriation
Juxtaposition
Commutation