Codes and Reality

….”reality is always encoded, or rather the only way we an perceive and make sense of reality is by the codes of our culture.

–There may be an objective …reality out there, but there is no universal objective way of perceiving and making sense of it.

What passes for reality in any culture is the product of the culture’s codes, so ‘reality’ is always already encoded, it is never ‘raw’. ~Fiske 87

The approximately 350-foot-diameter wheat formation, which was reported on August 13, 2005, at Woolstone Hill, northwest of the Uffington White Horse, Oxfordshire.

Wheat formation estimated to be 320 feet in diameter, reported August 9, 2005, near the ancient burial site of Wayland's Smithy, Oxfordshire, England

6-pointed wheat pattern filled with nearly a hundred diamond, or lozenge, shapes of standing crop was reported on Sunday morning, August 6, 2006, on Blowingstone Hill in Kingston Lisle, Oxfordshire County. Ring diameter was measured at 330 feet.

September 13, in Toot Baldon, Oxfordshire, Wheat

The Vesica Piscis is an ancient symbol known in the early Mesopotamia, African and Asian civilizations. The geometry is made from two circles of the same radius, intersecting in such a way that the center of each circle lies on the circumference of the other. The name Vesica Piscis in Latin means "fish bladder." In the Christian tradition, the Vesica Piscis is also equated to Christ, the fisherman. It is called a mandorla (almond) in India.

Flower of Life geometry made by pattern of overlapping circles. The Flower of Life symbol is considered to be sacred among many cultures around the world, both ancient and modern. Within this symbol can be found all the building blocks of the universe that we call the Platonic Solids. The symbol can be used as a metaphor to illustrate the connectedness of all life and spirit within the universe

July 17, 1991, Barbury Castle, 300-foot-diameter in wheat. Spiral ratchet in foreground. Several people reported seeing mysterious lights over the field the night before. Photograph © 1991 by George Wingfield. Comparing Spiral Ratchet in 2008 Barbury Castle to 1991 Barbury Castle

Joe Fafard 1997

Nazca lines

dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: the reader fully shares the text's code and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading (a reading which may not have been the result of any conscious intention on the part of the author(s)) - in such a stance the code seems 'natural' and 'transparent'; negotiated reading: the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests (local and personal conditions may be seen as exceptions to the general rule) - this position involves contradictions; oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but does not share the text's code and rejects this reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of reference (radical, feminist etc.) (e.g. when watching a television broadcast produced on behalf of a political party they normally vote against).

dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: the reader fully shares the text's code and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading (a reading which may not have been the result of any conscious intention on the part of the author(s)) - in such a stance the code seems 'natural' and 'transparent'; negotiated reading: the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests (local and personal conditions may be seen as exceptions to the general rule) - this position involves contradictions; oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but does not share the text's code and rejects this reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of reference (radical, feminist etc.) (e.g. when watching a television broadcast produced on behalf of a political party they normally vote against).