I jest, I jest, there was something about semiotics too.

Ivan started the lecture by having us pair up. One had to face the back with pen and paper in hand while the other had to face the front and watch Ivan draw. The task was to convey what Ivan was drawing to the non-seeing partner and see how successfully his drawing could be copied this way...

Not very successfully it would seem. I think this proved his point about the difficulty of communication. =S

Many attempts were made to maximise the efficiency of communication thus semiotics and a load of funny words and diagrams were born. 

In our seminar we explored semiotics in a much more fun way looking at the various ways in which the Joker has been portrayed. Each incarnation of the character has different traits and characteristics with different sets of denotations and connotations. Cesar Romero's 1960's Joker with his extroverted and almost friendly stance, is presented as a jolly little sociopath. Whereas Jack Nicholson's 1989 Joker with his stylish costume and taunting stance have connotations of a different, more malevolent insanity. Heath Ledger's most recent version of the Joker has none of this style, instead being very dishevelled and grungey appearance suggesting a level of madness and nihilism that i personally find the most scary as he clearly just doesn't care anymore and could do anything. One thing they all have in common is the gloves which suggest an unwillingness to touch or be touched directly by other people, a symptom of the character’s sociopathic insanity. We also looked at the reason behind their fixed grin's. It stems from Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughed (1928) whose character gad a permanent grin carved into his face to pay for his fool of a father. Ivan kindly demonstrated the negative and creepy effect of smiling too much *shudders* 

We also talked about clowns for far too long. I fucking hate clowns! They're all creepy peadophiles that's why they're always smiling because they get to be around children all day. And i don't like masks anyone who hides their face clearly has more to hide. Yeah so maybe society suspect that somebody trying so hard to be funny and hide their true selves must have some form of inner emotional turmoil, projecting an overwhelming façade of happiness to hide an inner pain? And there is also the concept of what role clowns play in society. According to the established “rules” children have the right to behave like children and adults must be responsible and act as adults. Clowns are permitted, even encouraged, to become adults acting like children. If clowns are not restricted by the same social norms as their audience, they could be capable of doing other things besides entertaining children perhaps... And the media certainly doesn’t help, with clowns being portrayed as emotionally unstable or even psychotic such as in the novel and subsequent movie It and John Wayne Gacy being dubbed the "Killer Clown" as he liked to moonlight as a clown when he wasn't raping and murdering  young boys.

Look! a creepy grinning cup of coffee =D