Week 9 - Cultural materialism

Every culture has their own identifiable symbols, for example, in Singapore's case, there is no symbol that could represent this country better than the famous Merlion. For the first time I stepped onto the grounds of Singapore, the giant Merlion sculpture that stood at Singapore bay by Anderson Bridge left a deep impression on me inevitably. Therefore it fuels my enthusiasm for understanding the cultural background of this country, such as the original legend that why Singapore was called “Singapura’’ which means the city of lions in Malay, and the historical transforming process of Singapore from a fishing village to a commercial port. The creating inspiration of the Merlion comes from the cultural foundation of Singapore, and as the cultural carrier of this country, this unique visual sign could attract people to learn about the cultural information of Singapore further.

The Merlion symbol is a successful designation which also conforms to the concept of cultural materialism. The infrastructure that represents the material realities give birth to the structure that includes things like economic and political organisation. And these two conditions promote the superstructure — symbolism. Furthermore, this cultural symbol could benefit in turn to the technological and social.

In the class activity this week, our group had a discussion about the internet as the infrastructure based on cultural materialism. We both agree that many advantages can be achieved through the internet, first, designers could communicate with viewers in visual, and optimize designers’ creating experience. For example, I save a lot of time looking for references by using the digital database instead of flipping through books. But it is also easy to divulge private information due to the well-developed internet, so the structure — government should formulate related legal documents for protection.  (289 words)