Essay proposal

No defined essay title yet but I want to use Barthes' theory of/essay on 'the myth' from his book, Mythologies and apply this when comparing and analysing two newspaper front pages from a tabloid and broadsheet, purchased on the same day.

Signifier (form) - Signified (concept) - Sign (signification)

The topics I cover will inevitably be influenced by the front covers themselves, whether the main stories centre on celebrity culture, politics, war and so on - it may differ substantially between the two.

Source material

- Barthes, R (1957) Mythologies / Myth Today

Barthes addresses the question of "What is a myth, today?" with the analysis of ideas such as: myth as a type of speech, and myth on the wings of politics.


- Barthes, R (1961) The Photographic Message
Another essay by Barthes that explores semiotics in terms of photographic imagery. I can apply this theory to the photographs typically displayed on newspaper front pages.

- Crow, D (2008) Visible Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics

Visible signs provides insight into the fundamentals of semiotic theory and how the term originated. It also explores 'basic communication terms and theoretical contexts through visual examples of graphic work.'

- Chandler, D (2002) Semiotics
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/semiotic.html

- Silverman, K (1983) The Subject of Semiotics

Another essay exploring semiotic theory as a whole; applying this theory to various 'things'.

- Hartley, J (1982) Understanding News

We rely... on what we've learnt in language as the way of organising the world around us into some semblance of order". As this publication focuses primarily on the news and the associated signs, myths and connotations that comes with contemporary media, I believe this would provide a great insight.

Potential essay topics

1) Semiotics & Semantics

In terms of iconography?
How icons are multi-lingual? Used as a form of communication.

"Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning. 'Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign', declares Peirce (Peirce 1931-58, 2.172)."
- http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/Documents/S4B/

Possible sources

1) F Saint Martin (1990) Semiotics of Visual Language (Advances in Semiotics) - Amazon

"Saint-Martin elucidates a syntax of visual language that sheds new light on nonverbal language as a form of representation and communication."

2) S Hall (2007) This Means This, This Means That - Amazon

"Semiotics is the theory of signs. Signs are amazingly diverse: from simple road signs that point to a destination, to smoke that warns us of fire, to the culturally-conditioned symbols buried within art and literature, our reading of signs is very much a part of everyday life. Yet semiotics is often perceived as a mysterious science."

2) Re-branding


McDonalds red to green
Starbucks logo re-branding
Branding as a whole? How it impacts the consumer?

3) Panopticism in supermarkets


Used as a topic for the Panopticism task
Engaged with the lecture programme

4) Semiotics of newspaper/magazine front pages

Could use several case studies to then compare and contrast
Tabloid, broadsheet etc
Imagery, spoken word, language
Target demographic

Interim Briefing

Essay briefing

The essay is the most significant part of the CTS module
The standard needs to be higher than last year
Can be used a stepping stone to the 3rd year dissertation (briefing of which is in April)

Detailed, complexed arguments citing multiple writers and challenging them all
More research, more context, more analysis

With just 2000 words, you need to make the topic focused (allowed 10% either way)

• Needs to be specific and focused
• Don't have a broad topic
• The title is up to but make sure it is appropriate and relevant

Topic

1) Can be based on a lecture. Apply that theory to an aspect of graphic design.
2) Take an aspect of graphic design and find ways to theorise it e.g. Infographics - Modernist theory

• Print - Eco politics, sustainability
• Branding - Theorise how a brand works (capitalist approach?)
• Commodity fetishism

Detailed theoretical analysis on a chosen topic

Don't write in a conversational manner
Our opinions need to be backed up with evidence - never say "I think..."
Formal, academic style

Essay structure

1) Formal introduction
2) Developed main section - supported by AT LEAST 6 sources with quotes/summarised copies of text
3) Conclusion - making up 10% of the essay

Use a 1.5pt line spacing



Module outcomes

Knowledge & understanding

• History and theory of graphic deign
• Show your understanding
• Well analysed
• Semiotic understanding?
• Contextual knowledge

Cognitive skills

• Research
• Quality & quantity
• Primary and secondary research
• Gallery visit?
• Use original sources

Communication

How well you write and reference

Key transferable skills

• Graphic design discipline
• Methodology
• Find and use a theory to challenge a case study

DEADLINE: 23/1/2012 (2 months prior to module deadline)

Lecture 6 - Cities and Film

Summary

• The city in Modernism
• The possibility of an urban sociology
• The city as public and private space
• The city in Postmodernism
• The relation of the individual to the crowd in the city

Gerog Simmel (1858 - 1918)

• German sociologist
• Writes 'Metropolis and Mentl Life in 1903
• Important as it influences critical theiry of the Frankfurt school thinkers e.g Benjamin

Dresden Exhibition 1903

Simmel was asked to lecture on the role of intellectual life in the city but instead reverses the idea and writes about the effect of the city on the individual

Herbert Beyer Lonely Metropolitan (1932)

• Comes from surrealism and dada
• Epitomises the idea of the individual who is surrounded by people but simultaneously alone

Urban Sociology

'The resistance of the individual to being levelled, swallowed up in the social-technoligical mechanism'
- Georg Simmel 1903

• Lewis Hine (1932)
• Man working on skyscraper
• Idea of the city 'engulfing' the human figure
• City in the background almost as a threat but also being dependent on the manual labour

Architect Louis Sullivan (1856 - 1924)

• Architect credited for being the creator of the modern skyscraper
• Influencial architect and critic of the Chicago school
• Coined the phrase that 'form followed function' in the 'Tall building artistically covered'

Guaranty Building

• Guaranty building was built in 1894 by Adler & Sullivan  in Buffalo NY
• Details on building come from the arts & crafts movement
• The inside of the building is tightly organised and ordered
• Divided into 4 zones - basement, ground (floor, street facing shops), office (identical office cells around the central elevator shaft), terminating zone 
• Embellished in terracotta blocks (red colour)
• Sullivan was quoted as saying: 'it must be every inch a proud and soaring thing...'

Carson Pririe Scott store in Chicago (1904)

• Skyscrapers represent the upwardly mobile city of business opportunity
• A fire cleared buildings in Chicago in 1871 and made way for Louis Sullivan new aspirational buildings
• Made way for a new approach of architecture

Manhatta (1921) Paul Strand and Charles Scheeler

• An America that is built on immigration
• Documentary film by photographer Paul Strand and painted, Charles Scheeler
• 65 shots in a loose, non narritive structure
• Relationship between photography and film
• Each frame provides a view of the city that has been carefully arranged in an abstract composition

Charles Scheeler

• Ford Motor Company's plant at River Rouge, Detroit (1927)
• No figures but depicts the city as a tower; a powerful and mechanical presence
• Commissioned to take this photographs (although he is a painter) as a $1.3 million advertising campaign

Fordism: Mechanised labour relations

• The human body becomes  part of the machine
• Coined by Antonio Gramsci in his essay 'Americanism and Fordism'
• 'The eponymous manufacturing system designed to spew out standardises low-cost goods and afford its workers decent enough wages to buy them'  - De Grazia 2005. p. 4
• The labourer is also the consumer

Modern Times (1936) Charlie Chaplin

• Chaplin wrote, directed and starred in the film
• Portrays Chaplin as a factor worker employed on a factor line
• 'Force fed by a modern machine'
• He suffers a mental breakdown causing chaos
• Consumed and 'swallowed' by factory environment

Stock market crash of 1929

Factories close and unemployment goes up dramatically
Leads to 'great depression'
Margaret Bourke-White

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

Silent documentary film
Explores the idea the role of the camera in the city
Range of cinematic techniques which Bertov 'invents'
This includes trapping shots, zooms, fast, slow motion,
Seeking to create a futuristic city which is a commentary on the existing world
Celebration of industrialisation, mechanism, transport etc
Focuses on intimate and personal situations swell as public and outdoor scenes

Flaneur

The term 'flaneur' comes from the French masculine noun 'flaneur' which has the basic meanings of stroller, lounger, saunterer, loafer which itself comes from the French verb, 'Flaner' which means 'to stroll'

The nineteenth century French poet Charles Baudelaire proposes a version of the flaneur as 'someone/a figure who walks the city to experience it'

Walter Benjamin

• Adopts the concept of the urban observer as an analytical tool and as a lifestyle as seen in his writings
• Arcades Project, 1927-40, Benjamin's final incomplete book about the Parisian city life in the 19th century
• Interaction of the body and the city
• Berlin Chronicle/Berlin childhood (memoirs)

Photographer as flaneur

Susan Sontag on Photography:

The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitring, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flaneur finds the world 'picturesque'

Flaneuse

• Alternative of the flaneur - a female version
• Janet Wolff looks at this idea in 'The Invisible Flaneuse'
• "The literature of modernity, describing the fleeting, anonymous, ephemeral encounters of life int he metropolis, mainly accounts for the experiences of men..."
• She suggests this time was when women were never seen alone on the street

Susan Buck-Morss

In this text, she suggests that the only figure a woman on the street can be is either a prostitute of a bag lady

Arbus/Hopper

Woman at a Counter Smoking, NYC (1962)

• Observed moment
• Distant
• Sense of threat

Edward Hopper - Automat (1927) 

• Darkness surrounds the female figure, adding depth
• The representation of the blackness is deeper and darker around the head and shoulders
• Foreboding manner

Sophie calle 'Suite Venitienne' (1980)

• She creates a photographic piece of work that is a reflection of the city
• 'For months I followed strangers on the street... I photographed them without their knowledge'
• Document of a following, similarly to a diary
• The act of following encourages obsessive reflection

Venice

• City as a labyrinth of streets and alleyways in which you can get lost but at the same time will always end up back where you begin
• This idea is also evident in 'Don't look now' (1973) Nicholas Roeg - issues of memory, trauma of grief; but also plays on the idea of time

The Detective (1980)

• Asks her mother to get a private detective to follow her - role reversal
• Leads him on a walk/journey around Paris which is ultimately controlled by her
• Wants to provide photographic evidence of her existence
• His photos and notes on her are displayed next to her photos and notes about him
• Evidence; what is truth
• Contrast between visual evidence and written account

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Stills (1977 - 80)

• Female stereotypes come from film noire
• The woman is almost lost or trapped by the city
• Low angle viewpoints
• Also shot the base of the World Trade Centre

'The shots of the World Trade Centre don't look like the World Trade Centre unless you knew the towers well. I wasn't trying to take (stereotypical) photographs of Manhattan... unidentifiable locations which look like they could be anywhere'.

Weegee (Arthur Felig)

Dark side of the Lower East side of NYC
Follows the emergency services and documents their activity
Pursues the incident in a similar way to how the Police do
Had a mobile darkroom and developed photographs at the scene resulting in instantaneous reporting
His images were collected in a book entitled 'The Naked City' in 1945
The book was translated into a film in 1848 with the same name

LA Noire (2011)

The first video game to be shown at the Tribecca Film Festival
Based on film noire techniques and characteristics
Challenges the player to control the police department
Incorporates 'MotionScan' where actors are recored by 32 surrounding cameras to capture facial expressions from every angle. The technology is central to the game's interrogation mechanic, as players must use the suspects reactions to questioning to judge whether they are lying or not.

Fritz Lang 'Metropolis (1929)

Cities of the future/past
Futuristic, cybord

Ridley Scott 'Bladerunner' (1982/2019)

Depicts the city in the future

Lorca diCorcia Heads (2001) NY

• He sets up a trip effect with flash lighting in a certain spot on the street
• When a person walks in into the area, the photographer can activate the flash
• Detached observer; not seen by the subjects - idea of surveillance
• Alienated subjects in the crowd
• Doesn't request permission
• Give a sense of heightened drama
• Insignificant facial expressions

In 2006, a New York trail court issued a ruling in a case involving one of his photographers. His subject was an Orthodox Jew who objected on religious grounds to diCorcia's publishing in an artistic exhibition a photograph taken of him without his permission.
- Anything that happens on the street is available for artistic interpretation

Walker Evans 'Many are called' (1938)

• Made with the use of a hidden camera
• Evans travels on the subway in New York with a camera hidden in his trench coat
• Subjects do not know they are being photographed
• Private moments in the public space

Postmodern city

Ed Soja  - The postmodern city

• Discusses the idea of becoming lost in architecture
• Submit to forms of overseeing
• The outside becoming the inside and vice versa

Joel Meyerowitz 'Broadway and West 46th Street NY' (1976)

'Offers an eye level of confusion, although the image is full of detail, there is no sense of unity'.
The city reflects this mental state itself

9/11 Citizen journalism: the end of the flaneur?

Liz Wells says the phrase, 'Citizen journalism' is first seen in an article by Stuart Allen Online in 2006. She discusses the 7/7 bombings in London and the immediacy of the mobile phone images which recored the event as commuters travel to work. These images were online within an hour of the event.

• Replaces the use of journalism
• Different aesthetic
• Returns photography to its original use - a piece of evidence
• No longer a separation of the individual and the city

Adam Bezer 2001

• Citizen journalist
• Used his mobile phone to record evidence
• Took photographs as it happened

Surveillance City

"Since the attack on the Twin Towers of the WTC in 2001 and the ensuing 'war on terrorism' there has been an enormous ramping up of investment in machine reading technologies..."

Lecture 5 - The Gaze and the Media

The Gaze and the Media

"according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome - men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at"
Berger 1972

This does not mean women are vain. This is a result of images of women in contemporary society. Women carry around an idea of themselves being looked at.

Hans Memling 'Vanity' (1485)

The mirror is present in the painting as a device which distracts from the fact that the artist paints the womens body because he enjoys it. It appears the women enjoys looking at herself as opposed to the artist and acts as a reference to the title, 'Vanity'. The period in which the painting was painted was when witch hunts were common.

The mirror is also used in contemporary advertising.

Alexandre Cabanel 'Birth of Venus' (1863)

Berger uses this as an example of the tradition of the nude to depict the female figure in a reclining position. Venus is reclining on the wave and raises her hand which partly covers her eyes. This gesture implies she is just waking from sleep or just about to go to sleep. This covering of the eyes allows us to look at her body without having her looking back at us. The body composes almost 3/4's of the painting.

Sophie Dahl for Opium

A contemporary version of the aforementioned painting. This advert was withdrawn initially because of its overt nudity and sexual nature. There is a similar spacing and composition to that of the 'Birth of Venus'. After the advert was refused for publication, they re-released the image simply by changing the orientation from horizontal to vertical. The emphasis is now on the face as opposed to her body in a horizontal format.

Titian 'Venus of Urbino' (1538)

Berger puts this forward as a traditional nude in the sense of although the woman is looking at us, she looks at the viewer as if she is aware of their presence.

Manet 'Olympia' (1863)

Manet represents a 'modern' nude and points out the differences between this and Titian's nude. The subject is elevated and looks at us in the eye. Her pose is more assertive and wears adornments which are reflective of wealth. Although she is a prostate, she gives the impression she is of more wealth.

Ingres 'Le Grand Odalisque' (1814)

1985 - Guerilla Girls - formed in response to an exhibition at the museum of modern art. Only a minority of the artists featured at the exhibition were female. They devised a poster using this image in a poster which 'Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female. The campaign was never publicised, however, due to its 'sexual' connotations.

Manet 'Bar at the Folies burgers' (1882)

Manet himself is featured in the painting and provides several different perspectives at once. We are facing the barmaid but he is allowing us to see him/ourselves in the painting, also as we are placed in his shoes. It is a distorted mirror reflection as her reflection, in reality, would be composed differently.

Her body is arranged in an open gesture, suggesting an approachableness.

Jeff Wall 'Picture for Women' (1979)

Picture for women was inspires by Manet's masterpiece. In Manet's painting, the subject gazes out of the frame and forms a complex web of viewpoints. Jeff Wall uses this theory and creates a sense of spacial depth through reflections and light. Wall updates the theme by positioning the camera in the centre of the work. There is no hidden recording device as it is looking straight back at the viewer.

The metal poles separates the image into 3 frames - one with the woman, the centre featuring the camera and the third featuring the man.

Coward, R (1984)

The camera in contemporary media has been put house as an extension of the male gaze at women on the streets. There is almost a normalisation of nudity and nakedness in the street - people walk behind the model without looking at her suggesting she is of a normal appearance.

The woman is wearing sunglasses - we are not challenged by her look as her sight is covered.

Eva Herzigova, 'Wonderbra' (1994)

Billboard campaign for the Wonderbra. There is a play between the text and the image - we assume it is Eva Herzigova saying the words providing a flirtatious interaction suggesting it is okay to look at her. She is looking down which in one sense, she is looking down at herself or alternatively, the viewer (as this is a large scale billboard).

Peeping Tom (1960)

The profusion of images which characterises contemporary society could be seen as an obsessive distancing of women... a form of voyeurism. In this film, the man lures women to his apartment to film them being killed.

Men in advertising

Men are also objectified in the media/advertising too. The subject is in a similar position to that of the 'Birth of Venus'.

Dr Scott Lucas 

Scott Lucas Authors the website, genderads.com (A resource for advertising images). He looks at this 'gaze'. He states, "The issue of the male objectification is often raises in gender classes I have taught. I have heard many men and women that men are equally objectified in popular culture. Can men be objectified as much as women are?"

Dolce & Gabbana ad

Display of male strength. The subjects are looking at the viewer directly in the eye.

Laura M (Essay in 1976)

Looks at Hollywood cinema in the 1950's and 60's and analyses the treatment of the female body. The framing of the camera separates the subjects body and features the woman as an object for consumption. She declares than in Patriarchal society that pleasure in looking has been split into active male and passive female roles.

Marilyn: William Travillas dress from 'The Seven Year Itch' 1955)

Artemisia Gentileschi 'Judith Beheading Holofernes' (1620)

There is a tradition in art history that presents this idea of the female as a passive role and the male as an active role. This painting reverses these traditional roles.

Pollock, G (1981)

Women 'marginalised within the masculine discourses of art history'
This marginalisation supports the 'hegemony of men in cultural practice, in art'
Women not only marginalised but supposed to be marginalised

In the history of painting, a womens role is often left out.

Cindy Sherman 'Untitled Film Still #6' (1977-79)

She wasn't making this work with the theory of the gaze in mind. Similarly to the Opium advert, she has rotated the orientation of the reclining body. There is a subversion of tradition. The subject is holding a mirror but is faced away from the viewer - it is therefore not used as a device for vanity.

She has left small clues which remind us that this is a constructed image - one of which being a photographic timer. We are looking at a reconstruction. The womans gaze looks away from us - out of the frame - which makes the viewer slightly uncomfortable due to an unnatural/awkward pose/stance.

She also makes a similar point where she reproduces a paparazzi shot. There is a sense of a celebrity character - the subject comes out of the room looking disheveled.

Barbara Kruger 'Your Gaze Hits the Side of my Face' (1981)

Her work combines text and found imagery. Kruger presents us with statements that are ambiguous and difficult to read. She is offering us the side of the face as an alternative to a full, returned gaze. There is also a reference to violence... 'Your gaze hits the side of my face'.  Kruger is better known for 'I Shop therefore I am'.

Sarah Lucas 'Eating a Banana' (1990)

Seemingly innocuous.

'Self Portrait with Fried Eggs'

Similar theme - she uses food to challenge the idea that the female body is there to be consumed.

Tracey Emin 'Money Photo' (2001)

Represents a pornographic pose - making money from her art/work.


The Gaze OF the Media


Article by Joan Smith on the Amanda Knox case. The article looks at the idea which came from the prosecution, that Knox is represented as an 'evil witch'. "The idea that women are natural liars has a long pedigree. The key document in this centuries-long tradition is the notorious witch-hunter's manual... they claimed that 'all witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable'... it's not difficult to see these myths lurking behind Pacelli's description of Knox".

Amanda Knox is acquitted yet the Daily Mail online published the wrong verdict. 'Guilty: Amanda Knox looks stunned as appeal against murder conviction is rejected'. This is completely fabricated and the featured image is unrelated.

'The Daily mail has emerged as the major fall guy by mistakenly publishing the wrong online version of the Amanda Knox verdict. The Mail was not the only British news outlet to make the error. The Sun and Sky news did it too... so did The Guardian in its live blog. In time-honoured fashion, echoing the hot teal days of Fleet Street, it prepared a story lest the verdict go the other way. But it over-egged the pudding by inventing 'colour' that purported to reveal Knox's reaction along with the response of people in the court room.... The Mail exposed itself as guilt of fabrication"

Susan Sontag 'On Photograph' (1979)

'To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed'
The act of photographing is more than passive observing.

Paparazzi shot of Princess Diana

We are implicit in the cycle of the production of paparazzi images. The cycle is perpetuated every time we buy a publication featuring these images. Our desire to see a celebrities mask exposed drives the need for these images.

Reality Television

Appears to offer us the position as the all-seeing eye - the power of the gaze
Allows us a voyeuristic passive consumption of a type of reality
Editing means that there is no reality
Contestants are aware of their representation (eiher as TV professionals or as people who have watched the show)

The Truman Show (1988)

Directed by Peter Weir.

Whole world is fabricated and filmed for reality television. He is the only person that doesn't know his life is scripted.

'Looking is not indifferent. There can never be any question of 'just looking'.
- Victor Burgin (1982)

Further reading

John Berger (1972) Ways of Seeing, chapter 3
Victor Burgin (1982( Thinking Photography
Rosalind Coward (1984) The Look

Panopticism Task

Write a short, 300 word analysis of something in contemporary society that we believe is panoptic. Use terminology referenced in the lecture and seminar and 5 quotes from Foucault's writing. Seamlessly integrate these quotes and fragmented sentences into the analysis.

The panopticon (Jeremy Bentham, 1791) is the 'diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form'. Our actions are controlled through self-discipline as a result of our ever-growing panoptic society. We are subject to surveillance which, for the most part, is unbeknownst to us but this pre-existing self-monitorisation controls how we act in society and forces us to consider our actions in comparison to how we believe society wants us to act.

Control and surveillance are in all aspects of our daily life, one of which being supermarkets. There are numerous finite details which stores use to control and influence the way we buy and ultimately act in-store;  cynical promotions, architectural details and pricing strategies all combine to form a sense of panoptic control. We conform to the supermarkets environment; the rigid structure and the 90 degree angles of aisles almost force us to to follow a specific route whilst tills, positioned at the entrance of the store, are in direct viewpoint of all customers.

We are constantly reminded we are being surveyed albeit our only indication are the CCTV cameras, hidden by translucent domes; this invisibility is 'a guarantee of order' and as a result induces a 'state of conscious and permanent visibility'.

Foucault states that through this sense of modern discipline, we come 'docile bodies' that are self-monitoring and obedient. Similarly to the Panopticon, where prisoners were looked upon by a central observation tower without the need of constant surveillance, our daily routine is governed by an ideology which is pre-installed within us and therefore we act in the way we believe we should act without us even realising.

Lecture 4 - Popular Culture

Critical positions on the media and popular culture

Aims

• Critically define 'popular culture'
• Contrast ideas of 'culture' with 'popular culture' and 'mass culture'
• Introduce Culture Studies & Critical Theory
• Discuss culture as ideology
• Interrogate the social function of popular culture

What is culture?

• 'One of the two or three most complicated words in the Enlgihs language'
• - Raymond Williams Keywords
• It is the general process of intellctural, spiritual and aesthetic development of a particular society at a particular time
• A particular way of life - Sub culture, set of values, a certain way of thinking about the world. 
• Works of intellectual and especially artistic significance
• Culture can be used to describe a canon of important art works, literature etc - Da Vinci, Beethoven. Institutions accept these as 'canonic' which is why become part of our culture.

Marx's Concept of Base / Superstructure

Base

Forces of production - Material, tools, workers, skills etc
Relations of production - Employer, employee, class

Superstructure

Social instituions -  Legal, political, cultural
Forms of consciousness - Ideology

The base determines content and form of superstructure which reflects form of, legitimises and makes possible, the base relations.


Raymond Williams (1983) 'Keywords'

There are 4 definitions of 'popular'

1) 'Well liked by many people'
Popular culture quantitively measured; well liked by a large amount of people. However, this may lead to confused results. Although Shakespeare is known and liked by many people, it may not be referred to as popular culture.

2) Inferior kinds of work
They aspire to be important. Who historically has acted as the 'taste-maker' or the judges of cultural importance?

3) Work deliberately setting out to win favour with the people
Anything that aims to be populist (understood by everyone) is referred to as popular culture. It is seen that works which are different is more important. There is an elitism in this judgement.

4) Culture actually made by the people themselves
Made by the people for the people - an organic popular culture which is usually associated with the working class. Symbolises the people and their identity.

**Our choices depend largely on our political decision**

Caspar David Freidrich (1809) 'Monk by the Sea'
Power of nature and makes you question the world and contemplate your relationship with nature

Jenny Morrison 'Sea & Sky in Watercolour'
Popular culture - no one would discuss and analyse this work in the same means as Freidrich's work


Inferioir of Residual Culture

Popular Press vs Quality Press
Quality newspapers as opposed to popular newspapers - what content do these have?

Popular Cinema vs Art Cinema
Popular cinema and foreign, art house cinema

Popular Entertainment vs Art Culture
Pop entertainment and TV and

The latter tend to target towards the 'elite' whereas the others appeal to the masses.


Jeremy Deller & Alan Kane (2005) 'Folk Archive Archive'

These works are examples of artefacts from an art show which toured around the country looking for example of popular culture made by the people, for the people. The first reaction to these works is to laugh as these are pieces of works which are either poorly made, have no significance or simply have humorous connotations. Where do these institutional ideas come from?

To judge by our aesthetic codes and institutional thinking is flawed and evidence of class judgement. Are we laughing at the working class trying to make art and failing?

What happens when this culture enters into the spheres of high culture.


Graffiti

Started out as the expression of youth in the South Bronx in the 1970s. The aesthetic was entirely sub-cultural and reflected in the language and stylised form it used.

Banksy 

His art work is bought and sold, despite being applied to the walls of buidings in the form of graffiti. Although the work represents the people, it is translated to appeal to the interest of the few or minority. The inter-relation between the two forms of culture has broken down.


Urbanisation

Prior to modernity and urbanisation, society had a common culture with on top of shared culture, the elite are an extremely small minority.  The working class work in factories as a mass and are clearly separated from the owners. When industrialisation emerges, there is a clear distinction between the working class and 'elite'. There is now a physical separation as opposed to an ideology which begins to form a cultural separation.

The working class begin to author their own culture as they now belong as a mass. They are cut off, ghettoised and therefore start their own cultural activities - devising their own form of literature. A working class voice emerges.

E.P. Thompson (1963) 'The Making of The English Working Class'

There are two competing voices working against each other and the first workers movement emerges - 'chartism'. The working class were not considered important enough to have a say in society.


Matthre Arnold (1867) 'Culture & Anarchy'

Culture

• 'The best that has been thought and said in the world' - What humanity has achieved; the idea of perfection and beauty of the world
• Study of perfection 
• Attained through disinterested reading, writing and thinking - Without an agenda
• The pursuit of culture
• Culture is the force that can minster the diseased spirit of our time

Known as 'Arnoldism'

Anarchy

Culture polices 'the raw and uncultivated masses'

'The working class... raw and half developed... long lain half hidden amidst it's poverty and squalor... now issuing form it's hiding place to assert and Englishman's heaven born privilege to do a he likes, and beginning to perplex us by marching where it likes, meeting where it likes, breaking what it likes'
(1960, p.105)

There is a definite class division

These theories emerge when the control (upper class) is threatened by the working class. This can still be seen in the modern day.


Leavisism

F.R Leavis & Q.D. Leavis

Became a cult figure and his lectures were massively attended
Very similar to Arnoldism - almost an extension

• Still forms a kind of repressed, common sense attitude to popular culture
• For Leavis, the 20th century sees a cultural decline - degraded and dumbed down
• Standardisation and levelling down

'Culture has always been in minority keeping'
- There has always been an elite whose role it is to preserve culture for humanity
- To defend culture against this 'dumbing down' and the rise of debates and less important forms of culture

'The minority, who had hitherto set the standard of taste without any serious challenge have experience a collapse of authority'

• Collapse of traditional authority comes at the same time as mass democracy (anarchy)
• Nostalgia for an era when the masses exhibited an unquestioning deference to cultural authority
• Culture is more desirable how it was then, than now
• Popular culture offers addictive forms of distraction an compensation whereas real culture is empowering and uplifting - he believes popular novels, for example, creates 'cheap' thrills
• Form of snobbery in attitudes towards popular culture, still seen today

Frankfurt School - Critical Theory

Culture was very different in Germany

Institute of Social Research, University of Frankfurt (1923-33)
Relocated to the University of Columbia in New York (1933 - 47)

Its relocation was because it was closed down by the Nazis due to the emerging Marxist thinkers

5 of the most important writers

• Theodore Adorno
• Max Horkheimer
• Herbert Marcuse
• Leo Lowenthal
• Walter Benjamin

Adorno & Horkeimer

• Reinterpreted Marx for the 20th century - era of "late capitalism"
• Defined "The Culture Industry"
• Culture produced in a 'factory'
• 'All mass culture is identical'

For them, culture in America was mass produced as they believed people began to expect the same things in popular culture. In a way, we start to want these conventions.

'As soon as the film begins, it is quite clear how it will end, and who will be rewarded, punished or forgotten'

'Movies and radio need no longer to pretend to be art. The truth, that they are just business, is made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce.'

The idea of art under capitalism has become a business and all existing notions of art has gone
It is now masquerading as 'real' culture


Herbert Marcuse (3)

Popular Culture vs Affirmative Culture

He believes we are coded to think about the world in certain ways as we are receiving. We become one-dimensional as were are stripped of an identity and opinion and think of the world in one way. 'The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood... it becomes a way of life.'

Arnoldists and Leavisists were concerned about mass culture as it represents a threat to the authority of the ruling class. They worried that this anarchy would overcome the ruling class and find its way into 'high' culture.


'Authentic Culture vs Mass Culture'

• Products of the contemporary 'culture industry'
• Depoliticises the working class
• Aspects of culture have become neutralised and simply becomes a symbol

Che Guevara - Used to be a symbol of revolution but has now become part of popular culture; it is stripped of any sense of importance
X Factor - Judged by the middle class of England; teaches people this is the only way they can succeed
Big Brother - No skills required but still forms an aspiration for many people

**We become identified by the culture we consume**

Qualities of auethentic culture

• Real
• European
• Multi-Dimensional
• Active Consumption
• Individual creation
• Imagination
• Negation
• Autonomous

Adorno 'On Popular Music' (1)

The Frankfurt school attacked all forms of mass culture from TV and movies to art and theatre.

• He believes popular music is standardised
• Peculiarity of the industry does your thinking for you and leads your thought processes
• Reduces your capacity for independence and free thought
• Becomes a 'social cement'
• Listening to such popular music makes you passive and adjust your behaviour in various ways; you begin to regulate your behaviour which results in 'rhythmic' and emotional 'adjustment'
• Music becomes an emotional escape from the 'horrors' of the world
• As soon as culture becomes mass produced, it is lost forever

Walter Benjamin (5)

'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' (1936)

The way in which techniques of mass production change the status of works of culture.

Mona Lisa

• Significant example of our culture
• However, we know nothing of its origin/meaning
• In an institution, it is placed behind bulletproof glass, connoting its importance
• It is not in one place for the rich and privileged
• We can now redefine the meaning and challenges the meaning of the original

'The technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes plurality of copies for a unique existence...'

Mass production allows us to redefine culture against the way of 'taste makers' decided it would be

In a way, we are allowed the possibility of challenging high culture

The aura of high culture begins to eradicate 

Adorno - When culture becomes mass produced, it is lost forever

Benjamin - Amongst mass production and plurality, there is an opportunity to form your own meaning

Hebdige, D (1979) 'Subculture: The Meaning of Style'

Young people begin to develop cultures that are challenges to the mainstream/status Quo

Symbolic challenge, radical, creating possibilities

Creates new industries and becomes conventional

• Incorporation - Similar to Banksy and graffiti, these radical challenges are incorporated into mass culture and become neutralised
• Ideological form
• Commodity form

Seminar 1 - Panopticism

Panopticism

• The shift in society from physical discipline/control to mental control
• Society makes us conform and behave in the way we believe we should act
• Foucault believes discipline is to train and to make someone more useful and productive in society

Panopticon

• Proposed by Jeremy Bentham in 1791
• Originally designed as a prison but also used for schools, asylums, 
• Prisoners were unable to see the other inmates as they were isolated and internalised
• Works around visibility - everyone is constantly on display but for it to work, the surveyors must have a sense of visibility and invisibility. Inmates need a reminder that they are being watched.
• Relies on surveillance 
• System for order and control of subjects

Power should be visible but never verifiable


Foucault and power

• Power is a relationship and not a thing or capacity we have. A <--> B. A only has a power over B if B willingly succumbs to the power/control. Marxists would say the ruling class have power over the working class A --> B. 
• SELF REGULATION - You control yourself
• There is always the possibility of resistance 
• Factories cannot function without workers 
• A school institution has power over teachers and students (panopticon).  It provides a system to monitor the monitor aswell as the monitored. 

Examples of Panopticism in today's society

1) Open plan office 

Appears to be more social than it actually is

All of the employees are being watched

2) Speed cameras 

Many do not even have cameras (removes the need for person A in Foucault's analogy - self regulation). There is a constant reminder of the camera therefore you begin to drive as you are supposed to drive. Where there is power, there is always a possibility of resistance as people usually just slow down for the camera). 

3) House of Commons 

Politicians know they are being recorded therefore they behave in a way which they believe will appeal to the general public in order to sway more votes. Their actions are constantly being assessed.

4) Facebook, Twitter

Panoptic monitoring system 

5) Gym

On display to people internally and externally

Docile Bodies

Disciplinary society produces what Foucault calls Docile bodies

- Perfectly trained

- Pliable

- Conforming to society

- Obedient

- Self-monitoring


Task


Write a short, 300 word analysis of something in contemporary society that we believe is panoptic. Use terminology referenced in the lecture and seminar and 5 quotes from Foucault's writing. Seamlessly integrate these quotes and fragmented sentences into the analysis.

Lecture 2 - Technology will liberate us

Development of technology with art and design

Relevant books:

Digital currents by Margot Lovejoy
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin (essay)
Art and the Age of Mass Media by John Walker
Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard

Summary of the lecture:

- Overview of the criticial and practical implications of technology upon art and its emergence within design.
- Evaluating what the implications of technology are on our design areas

• Technological conditions can affect the collective consciousness
• Technology trigger important changes in cultural development
• Walter Benhamin's essay 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction' (1936) significantly evaluates the role of technology through photography as an instrument of change. Balances between past and future in the emergence of technology. Critics are still writing about this essay due to its implications on how we work today.

All of these asses how technology is an instrument for change.

Task

Draw a doodle.. faithfully copy this.. and again.. and again.

This is my outstanding work of art:

Anything that is copied, reproduced or replicated is not in essence, the same as the original. It can either be a work in its own right or merely an image representation of the original. Benjamin's discussion is cruciial to understanding how art, design and media (early technology advancements aswell as new), is born from this scenario.

There are some artists and designers who purposely use the idea of replication and copy and some artists who critically comment on this in society.

Machine age / Modernism

The conversation between the two is all part of one period

Walter Benjamin and mechanical reproduction:

• The age of technology and art
• Parallel and specific to new developments; a duality expressing the zeitgeist
• Dialectical due to the copy, reproductive nature and the role of the original
• The aura and uniqueness of art

He claimed technology is parallel and specific to new developments.

Reproduction of the copy and the role of the original - Because of technology and the emergence of photography there is now such a thing as the original. We did not need to think about was the original and the copy before technology - it is only because of technology that we need to consider the uniqueness of the copy and its 'aura'.

When encountering the original work, there is an aura that is distinct.

An analogy of this would be a film sequels where people believe they are 'not as good as the original'

Photography

Photography is at the beginning of the technological relationship between art and design.

It is not just your own perception and what you see with your eye, it can used to create multiple viewing points and interpretations. 

John Berger's writing is in direct relation to the thoughts and critique of Walter Benjamin

Dziga Vertov - Man with the Movie Camera (1929)

The camera eye has a variable gaze and Benjamin claims a new consciousness is a result. It represents an idealism of faith and progress through technological process. 

Paul Valeria

'We must expect great innovations to transform the entire techniques of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing..." (rest on moodle)

Series of photogram

Merely a sheet of photographic paper with objects on top and exposed to light (early experiments with photography and technology).

Benjamin and two Parallels

Freud and Marz

Freud explores

Marx's thought explores economic that gave new political models of thinking over the work value of a work of art. He brings an understanding that technology changes the value of a work of art.

Marx

In reference to the doodles: Is the original worth more than the copy? What if a celebrity created the copy? The value can be distorted and changed. While the original may be valued, the copy, in consumerism and reproduction, adds value and consumed as valuable.

When distorted by mass media and celebrity culture, the value is again up for interpretation.

Marx foresaw this debate. Mass production and labour would lead to a bigger consumption of art and design.

Modernism likes to remain formal, composed whereas post-modernism destabilises these conventions and puts them into a new context. 

Freud

While Marx pursues the effect of art and design on society and the nature of art, Freud explores the materialism of technology in terms of how it can express our deepest subconscious.. this resulted in the movement of Dada etc. 

Kineticism

The idea of capturing movement.

Photographer (Marey Etienne-Jules) in 1888, he produced a series of kinetic photographs exploring the movement of the human body. 

- Development of chrono-photography. 

- His development of photography was vast.

- Space, time and place in a technological age. 

- These are the start of exploring how we portray movement in time.

This begins the de materialisation of art and design primarily because when you look at the recorded image, it starts to move away from form and object and moves into the realm of mere image. Once you move into just image, you can replicate it, reproduce it and transform it with the emergence of technology.

Dematerialization of art

Richard Hamilton (1922)

"Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?'

Experiments with the Dada movement

- Photomontage

- Clearly using technology to create image

What we see - images and objects are ordered, coded and styled. This is the beginning of art and design merging together. These separately lie within either art or design or both. 

Design is seen increasingly within art from this period.

Karl Marx and technology

Marx is associated with the term 'technological determinsm'. How technological determines economical production factors and affects social conditions. He examines closely the relationship of technological enterprise to other aspects of human activity.

He sees it as a role and tool for progress but also, a tool for alienation.

Dialectical issues

• Technology drives history
• Technology and the division of labour - Original & copy. The original is produced by one person with their own mode of production. 
• Materialist view of history of history
• Technology and capitalism and production
• Social alienation of people form aspects of their human nature as a result of capitalism

Workers do not own their means of making work. (Look at Marx and alienation in more depth)

Cartoon (on presentation) explores link between capitalism, competition, selling of products and also the issue of power in the consumption of objects. There is a distinction between the labourer, the worker and the people who are selling.

Electronic age / Postmodernism

Post modern / Post machine

• Many electronic works were still made with the modern aesthetic
• Emergence of information and conceptual based works - how data is collected and documented
• The computer a natural metaphor
• A spirit of openness to industrial techniques - moves away from a modernist aesthetic. We replace, move on and develop. We consume technology and in turn, develop new techniques - this is a shift from modernism. Everything becomes image and illusion-based.
• Collaborations between art and science

This collaboration breaks boundaries as a result of technology. The computer and technology allows you to shift one idea across to another context or media.

'Falling / Falling' by Douglas Rosenberg (1998)

- Multimedia, video installation (itself becomes an object)

- Dance, performance and media with text projection

- Different artistic forms merge and form new works

Publicly cremated 13 years worth of art (look up)

'I will not make any more boring art'

Simulation and Simulacrum

A simulated image (or a copy) of an experience, a replication of something. It is simulated and not meant to be real. However, simulacrum explains the simulation also becomes real - a huge effect on art and design. It becomes and object and a form in its own right. It plays with what is 'real' and what is an 'illusion'.

Jean Baudrillard (1981)

• It is the reflection of a profound reality
• It masks and denatures (distorts) a profound reality
• It masts the absence of a profound reality (it can become reality in its own right)
• It has no relation to any reality whatsoever; it is its own pure simulacrum

What is virtual and what is not, what is seen as real and what is not.

Benjamin talks about society an illusion. Baudrillard extends this to simulacrum and the reality and illusion of art and design.

We take word and mouth as factual as we view the spoken word as reality and truth.

Nam June Paik

He used technologies as a critique on their actual affect on society
- Cello out of televisions
- Bhudda watching TV just chilling

Plays with the idea of what is real and what isn't.


'Art in the age of mass media' by John Walker (2001)

• Art uses mass media (1990 - 2000)
• Art in advertisements
• The artist as media celebrity - Andy Warhol - Art has become design

At what point does art become design and vice versa? 

Digital age

'Digital Currents' by Margot Lovejoy

• Digital potential leads to multimedia productions
• Technological reduction of all images so they are addressed by the computer
• New contexts created as a result

Jenny Holzer

• Digital projections as installations and illusions of images
• She transforms surfaces and buildings as images alone
• Experiments with Simulacrum 
• Visually extends space beyond its immediate space

'Blue Tilt' (2004)

'Baltic Centre' (2000)

Staircase (1998)

Fran Gillette

• Real and fantastical imagery
• Patterns can be created as a result of this

Nancy Bersom - The Human Race Machine

• Morphing technology (originally used in the FBI)
• Examines characteristics in the human face

Multimedia work

• Interactivity
• Performance
• Transdisciplinary approaches
• Time, space and motion explored in art and as art
• Collaborations between different technologies and artforms
• Computer as a tool for integrating media

Hyperreal; reality by proxy

• These images are not all real
• Part animation, part real people
• How we project and play with what is real

Conclusion

• Art comments on the ideology of everyday life
• Art can be expressive of the progressive
• Technological tools can blur the line between production of fine art works and commercial and design production - they are no longer distinct

Lecture 1 - Panopticism

Institutions & institutional power  

"Literature, art and their respective produces do not exist independently…"
 - Randal Johnson in Walker & Chaplin (full quote on VLE)

How institutions control our thoughts and behaviour
How our ideas are not produced independently - everything determines what we product

Michael Foucault  
1926 - 1984

Activist for gay rights, civil rights etc (research in more depth)

1) Madness & civilisation (asylum, psychiatry)
2) Discipline & punish (the birth of prison)

In pre-modern societies, madness was through differently as they led a very tolerant life. They were seen as endearing and entertaining and were accepted as part of society.

In the end of the 1600's, there was a change of society due to the rise of religion Those who fell out of the socially accepted norm were stigmatised

The Great Confinement (GET IMAGES)

- For those who were not socially productive
- The insane, criminal, poor, unemployed, single mothers and those who couldn't work
- They were forced to work with the threat of being beater
- Used to curb unemployment
- Corrupted people even more

Different institutions began to emerge
- The birth of the asylum
- Sane were separated from the insane
- Distinction between 'normal' and 'abnormal'
- Were judged who was 'right' or 'wrong'
- Insane were treated like minors
- Given rewards for doing things well

Foucault sees this as an important shift as society soon starts to realise there are other ways to control citizens than using physical punishment.

Emergence of forms of knowledge

- Biology, psychiatry, medicine etc
- Legitimise the practices of hospitals
- Foucault aims to show these affects society dramatically (LOOK AT VLE)

Pre-modern societies  

Abnormal/deviants were publicly humiliated and punished
Punishment wasn't used to 'correct' or 'train', it was simply a means of showing being abnormal is not acceptable

Guy Fawkes
- "That you be drawn on a hurdle…" QUOTE ON PRESENTATION
- Made an example of him
- Shows no one should challenge the King

Guillotine
- Idea of control
- Wielding the head in-front of others connotes power

Panopticon  

Designed by Jermemy Bentham (LOOK IN MORE DEPTH)
- An analogy of modern disciplinary society and social control
- Foucault writes in 1970 about 1791 Panopticon
- There were many uses including
    - Hospitals
    - Schools
    - Asylum
    - Prison

Cells around the outside were looking onto a centralised tower where guards were stationed. Prisoners were constantly backlit and were unable to communicate with others.

- Each prisoner can see the central observation tower
- Were unable to see each other
- Permanently on display & isolated
- The tower was not lit so prisoners could not see they were being watched but knew they were; however, this could not be verified by themselves

** The panopticon internalises in the individual's conscious state that he is always being watched **

- Prisoners always under scrutiny
- People begin to control themselves and did not attempt to escape
- Bars or even guards were not necessary as people controlled themselves rather than having to be controlled
- it was an internal responsibility
- Mental punishment, not physical

"Hence the major effect…" ON PRESENTATION

Surrey Asylum
- Isolated laboratories
- Treated as lab rats
- Were compared and contrasted against one another

Presidio Modelo

The Presidio Modelo was a "model prison" of Panopticon design. It was built in Cuba under President-turned-dictator Gerardo Machado between 1926–1928. Although it was built to house 2500 prisoners, by 1961, there were 6000 - 8000 prisoners leading to riots and hunger strikes due to overpopulation.

The purpose of the Panopticon

- Allows scrutiny
- Aims to make them productive and useful
- Allows supervision to experiment on subjects

In a lecture theatre, for example, the tutor can see everyone who are aware they are being watched, therefore making them more productive - the know they will be inevitably caught out if not behaving in the 'correct' manner.

- Reforms prisoners
- Helps treat patients
- Helps instruct schoolchilden
- Helps confine and study the insane
- Helps supervise workers

Elements of panopticism can be seen in contemporary life  

** Acting in the way you THINK a NORMAL citizen should act **

Open plan office
- Boss can see all employees
- Employees known they can be caught out
- People are more productive
- Boss is a reminder of institutional power, much like the guards in the Panopticon

The Office (TV show)
- David brent knows he is being filmed, watched and observed
- Causes him to change his behaviour, much to the confusion of his employees

Library
- Behaviour changes
- Automatic silence without any indication/warning necessary

Pubs/bars
- Traditional pubs are modular and intimate
- In modern/contemporary bars, you know you are being watched and therefore feel less at ease
- Spaces are easier to control

CCTV is an obvious example
- Visible reminder therefore there is no need for them to be hidden
- Instructed to behave
- People shouldn't need to be caught out, they should already know how to behave therefore CCTV cameras are used as a warning

Google Maps
- Personal knowledge is available for everyone to access
- Our lives are recorded and we are constantly reminded
- Fear of being caught out

Pentonville Prison (LOOK UP ONLINE)

Broherton Library (LOOK UP ONLINE)
- Elements of the Panopticon

Registers
- Constantly monitored
- Compare and contrast with other students
- We as students are subject to panopticism

Disciplinary techniques  

QUOTE BY DAMAHER, SCHIRATOR & WEBB

- Gyms, 5-a-day, health initiatives
- Everyone becomes healthier so they are better workers
- Visual reminders that bodies are always on display
- No-one forces you to go to the gym
- Self-anxiety

Television
- Metaphor of panopticism
- Fixed, controlled (even if communal)
- Constantly receiving instructions

1984 book/film
- Panopticism is evident throughout
- Every single action of the protagonist is caught out
- Everything is done internally

Facebook/social media
- Everything you post is recorded and watched by your circle of friends
- Your own behaviour is monitored constantly
- Forces you to alter your own behaviour - you are not always 'yourself'

Art  

Vito Acconi 'Following piece' (1969)
- Responded to panopticism
- Follows people around their daily life

** We live in an illusion where we are in control of our own lives **

Chris Burden 'Samson' (1985)
- Visitors become subjects
- Beam of oak attached to a vice which is pushed against the supporting walls
- The turnstile entrances tightens the vice
- The more people who enter, the more likely the room will collapse
- Art controlling the institution and its visitors

Summary  

Panopticism relies on people knowing they are visible and being monitored
Relationship between power, knowledge and the body
- Direct relationship between mental and physical control
- "Power relations have an immediate…" QUOTE PRESENTATION

Displinary society produces what Foucault calls 'docile bodies'
- Self-monitoring
- Self-correcting
- Obedient, docile bodies

Foucault's definition is NOT a top-down model as with Marism (that ruling class has a power over the working class which they can exercise whenever. Power is not a thing or a capacity people have - it is a relation between individuals and groups and only exists when being exercised.  The exercise of power relies on there being the capacity of people. (REST ON VLE)

OUCS206 Module Brief

END OF 1ST YEAR

Defining Avant-Gardism

In terms of art and design, avant-garde is usually defined through innovation and exploration of emerging styles and techniques. It is known to originate in the 1850's with the realism of Gustave Courbet who was influenced by previous socialist ideas. The term is synonymous with modernist design as the concept of 'pushing ideas forward' is evident in both. People often use the term to refer to works which are deemed experimental or novel.

The belief that the artist should be an agent for change is what avant-gardism strives to achieve. The term is associated with art considered socially progressive, innovative and that which seeks to break down the boundaries of normality. Recently, however, the term has neutralised, without meaning. The origin of the term is often disregarded and is now applied to mundane 'things'. Nevertheless, contemporary designers constantly strive for new and progressive ideas as evident in the following designs:

Corporate America Flag [online] Available at: http://www.adbusters.org/cultureshop/corporateflag

Adbusters is an anti-consumerist organisation devoted to challenging consumerism and how our culture is led by commodities. It is well known for their 'subvertisements' - spoofs of popular advertisements. The 'Corporate America Flag' suggests our ever-growing commodity culture is, in this case, controlling America. The stars which depict the 50 states of the USA have been replaced with popular logos in order to connote their domination and manipulation in our society. The designer has challenged the social normality and disregards any potential copyright issues by using well known brands and their identities to portray an apparent corrupt culture.

United Colors of Benetton (1991) [online] Available at: http://press.benettongroup.com/ben_en/about/campaigns/list/newborn_baby/

The Benetton group is a fashion brand who appointed Oliviero Toscani, a famous Italian photographer, to direct the 'United Colors' campaign. It featured images which had social and universal relevance but evidently created immediate controversy. The majority of these striking imagery (in this case, a newborn baby) were set against a white background accompanied simply with their logo. This campaign was intended for peace, multiculturalism and harmony but has instead, instigated anger. Nevertheless, Toscani states it is not Benetton, but the media that presents us with a distorted image of the world: 

‘We are getting further away from reality of the world. We have no point of view any more, because we read the paper, watch TV. Women have to be blond, tall and thin. Everything is based on the fact that we have to be accepted in society. Everybody needs consensus. Everything is getting flatter and flatter. People say that what I do is ‘just a provocation’. It’s not true.’ 

The aforementioned image encapsulates the definitive aspect of avant-gardism - to push the boundaries of what is considered socially acceptable by striving for originality.

Deconstruction - 'Thinking with Type' Task

According to Lupton, text has more 'integrity and wholeness' as opposed to content surrounding it. Text is usually composed and treated for a specific purpose or context as indicated by either the writer or the designer; each of which poses its own limits. However, although the main purpose of typography within text is to engage people with the written word, Lupton suggests its focus is to 'help readers avoid reading'. This is supported by the views of deconstructionists who believe readers should not be forced to read though a particular structure but instead, text should instigate shortcuts and offer the readers own interpretation.

Before printing allowed text to be mass-produced, handwritten documents were abundant with individual errors which would be duplicated and altered when copies and copies of copies were made. Due to the innovation of the printing press, authors were put in the forefront and people were made well aware of the ownership of a particular piece of text. This form of closure meant the text was unchangeable and as a result, provided one meaning; the meaning what the author intended to evoke.

Roland Barthers, in his essay 'From Work to Text', disputes two forms of writing, the 'closed, fixed work' in comparison to the 'open, unstable text'. As typography was fixed and unchangeable due to printing and mass production, written text was supported by features which enhanced the readers navigation and engagement with the aforementioned text; some of which include page numbers, footnotes and contents. As a result, the 'death of the author' emerged and indicated how typography allows the reader to create meaning and understanding by looking at the form aswell as the intended function.

Deconstruction was a term coined by Jacques Derrida for the comparison of the conceptual binary oppositions or distinctions of a given subject to prove that one is not more fundamental than the other. It became a dominant mode of graphic design in the 80s and 90s as contemporary designers began to explore Barthes's theory - that the author no longer controls the significance of text but instead its form indicates how it should be interpreted.

Katerine McCoy, Cranbrook Graduate Poster, 1989 [online] Available at: http://www.webdesignstuff.co.uk/hp005/2011/01/26/deconstruction-and-web-page-design/

Katherine McCoy was a leading tutor for the design program at Cranbrook Academy of Arts. Pluralism and the art of combining pre-existing materials through photo montage and overlaying text is evident in this design by McCoy and is typical of deconstructionist graphic design. Rather than conforming to a usual structure, McCoy seems to have spontaneously placed the text to allow open interpretation for the reader. The design has been composed so there is no definitive starting point and as a result, creates a non-linear structure. 

5 Examples of Postmodern Graphic Design

In art, it is said that postmodernism is a reaction or challenge against modernism. It breaks down the boundaries between high and low culture and refuses to have its own distinctive style; it encompasses pre-existing techniques, processes and materials and has no definitive reasoning. These are some examples of where I believe postmodernism is apparent in graphic design.

Barbara Kruger Exhibitio, 1991, [online] Available at: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/kruger/card2.html

This exhibition space by Barbara Kruger is typical of postmodern design, combining a range of pre-existing materials and quotes, predominantly black and white photographs overlaid with quotes. The text doesn't conform to a usual structure but is instead strewn across the walls, floor and ceiling.

Katherine McCoy, Cranbrook Graduate Poster, 1989 [online] Available at: http://www.webdesignstuff.co.uk/hp005/2011/01/26/deconstruction-and-web-page-design/

There is an onslaught of type and image. Katherine McCoy rejects rigid genre boundaries and breaks typical conventions by avoiding a uniform grid and composition. The majority of the body text is illegible due to the photo montage imagery underneath - the basis that function follows form. 

Artist unknown, Strawinksy Berg Fortner

Similarly to the previous designs, this does not conform to a stereotypical grid. There is no coherence to image and type as the shapes, although following the same perspective as the type seem to be spontaneously placed.

Part graphic design, part fine art. The designer has re-created the Mona Lisa - a 16th century oil painting portrait in just 140 coloured dots. Pluralism - it has references to high and low culture (traditional paintings and pop art).

David Carson, Ray Gun Magazine Cover, [online] Available at: http://clickyclacky.tumblr.com/post/1980763392

Typical of Ray Gun magazine covers by David Carson, this design overlays type on image. Although still legible, the text has been devised to confuse the reader - the tracking has been increased, some letters have more emphasis despite having no particular importance and the main body has been aligned to the right.

Advertising Essay - Bibliography

Cook, G, 1992, The Discourse of Advertising

Williamson, J, 1984, Decoding Advertisements

Heath, R, 2001, The Hidden Power of Advertising

Karl Marx, 1848, Communist Manifesto

Jeremy Bullmore, 1998, Advertising and its Audience. [online] Available at: http://www.wpp.com/NR/rdonlyres/ED5FD8FF-F951-4C77-8ADA-FB5E61C85587/0/advertising_and_its_audience.pdf

Apple, 2011, Apple Reports First Quarter Results. [online] Available at: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/01/18results.html

Coca Cola, 2011, Coca Cola Brands. [online] Available at: http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/brands/

DifferenceBetween, 2010, The Difference Between Diet Coke and Coke Zero. [online] Available at: http://www.differencebetween.net/science/health/difference-between-diet-coke-and-coke-zero/

The Independent, Jannson-Boyd, 2010, Gender Targeting is Advertising industry's secret weapon. [online] Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/men-buy-mars-women-prefer-galaxy-gender-targeting-is-advertising-industrys-secret-weapon-1922941.html

matgomad, 2006, British Coke Zero ad. [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A8DNWu2c5k

Advertising Essay - Final Essay

‘Advertising doesn’t sell things; all advertising does is change the way people think or feel’ (Jeremy Bullmore). Evaluate this statement with reference to selected critical theories (past and present).

Wherever we go, we are subject to an onslaught of promises, messages and unattainable desires that we cannot escape. The aforementioned statement by Jeremy Bullmore not only encapsulates this essence of advertisement persuasion but also implies the value of advertising is “doubted by many of those who pay for it”, as suggested by Jeremy Bullmore himself in the 1998 Advertising Association lecture. As a result, activist consumers believe advertisements should be stripped of any sense of "mass-mediated persuasion". Advertisements succeed by influencing us both consciously and subconsciously; changing our outlook on all things around us – not only in relation to the brands themselves but our way of life.

Guy Cook in ‘The Discourse of Advertising’ (p. 17) defines advertisements as ‘…merely the invisible conveyers of undesirable messages’.  Advertising is seen as a harmful, social source that is used solely for manipulation, persuasion and to "appeal to feelings of inadequacy". It seeks for us to question our existing materials and as a result perpetuates false needs. 

For example, Apple is a multinational corporation specialising in consumer electronics and software. Every year, multiple products are released, whether this be an update to a previous model, such as the iPhone, for example or something entirely new. The first iPhone was released in January 2007 and the iPhone 3G was released just a year and a half later with entirely new features, design and a brand new worldwide advertising campaign. 

The 3G in its name showcases its new feature; 3G is a wireless internet access which mobile users can access from their phones. Although this technology was readily available, Apple only released this feature with the second generation of its iPhone giving the impression that Apple has listened to its consumers and provided a service which they didn't have with the previous version. However, this case study fits perfectly with Guy Cook''s perception of advertising - Apple consumers question their existing products, what is deemed as an 'older generation' and as a result, existing consumers upgraded their phone to the new model - a brilliant marketing and advertising scheme which has proved to be extremely successful. Objects, or in this case, Apple products, display social status and are used as symbols we associate with one another. Apple is a brand which aims to exceed its expectations and meet the growing needs of its consumers; although these needs are somewhat artificial and instigated by Apple. 

In ‘The Hidden Power of Advertising’ (p.40), Robert Heath states: “The way we reference intuition is through a system of markers generated from past experience and brands are able to influence us by exploiting these”. The advertising industry is forever evolving and these aforementioned social markers are interchangeable. Brands need to adapt to this ever-changing world by seeking new ways to target a specific demographic. 

The Coca Cola brand has over 3,300 beverages, 800 of which are low and no-calorie and is a perfect example of how brands change their means of advertisement or in this case, devise new products, depending on altering factors. As not one product appeals to the mass consumer audience, Coca Cola has devised a diverse and wide range of products; all of which appeal to a certain demographic. For example, their sports drinks are advertised to provide 'rapid hydration and terrific taste for fitness-seekers at any level'. This implies that the consumer would not only benefit from the taste of the product, but that the product can aid their athleticism - no matter what 'level' the consumer is in terms of fitness. As a result, consumers believe that by obtaining this product, they would become a better athlete and ultimately become invigorated.

A debate which has arisen from the Coca Cola products has been the difference between Diet Coke and Coke Zero, two diet variations of the original Coca Cola. Diet Coke was introduced by Coca Cola in 1982 and soon afterwards became the number one sugar-free drink due to its suggested beneficial qualities. It is predominantly aimed towards those who are “calorie conscious” and most importantly, women. Jansson-Boyd explains, “On pack messaging has an important role to play, with products clearly marked ‘low calorie’ or ‘healthy’ predominantly aimed at, and bought by, women.” 

Conversely, Coke Zero, was introduced in 2006 but is inversely approached in terms of marketing. Despite only a subtle variation between the two products in relation to the proportion of ingredients, the connotations in which they evoke are fields apart. As ultimately, men are reluctant to purchase Diet Coke, Coke Zero has been marketed solely for exploitation, to appeal more towards men as opposed to women. By connoting masculinity through its advertising and fundamentally imposing a belief that it is okay to purchase this product, men will be less reluctant to buy this diet variant of coke as opposed to the more female orientated, Diet Coke. 

For example, a television advertisement released soon after the Coke Zero launch featured a man’s bewilderment at discovering that removing sugar out of coca cola does not impair the taste. He then goes onto say, “Why can’t all things in life come without downsides?”.. “like girlfriends without five year plans.” Evidently this is an attempt to relate to the stereotypical man by incorporating everyday ‘pub banter’ - as portrayed later on in the advert. As the advert progresses, more men join his movement, each carrying a bottle of Coke Zero and inputting their own responses to the rhetorical question, “Why can’t all things in life come without downsides?” including, “..bra’s without the fumbling”.

Aforementioned, the subtle difference between Coke Zero and Diet Coke is the proportion of ingredients – the latter having half a calorie less. It is interesting to see how two products, although similar, are marketed on two different ends of the spectrum. Although a diet variation of Coca Cola, the majority of advertisements for Coke Zero feature limited aspects of its diet benefit whereas this is the opposite for Diet Coke. It gives the impression it is a more “acceptable” drink for men to have with their friends and in result, provides a diet product that is seen to improve their masculinity, not hinder it. This is supported by their decision to be the primary sponsor of the Coke Zero 400, a NASCAR cup series car race, a sport predominantly targeted towards males. They have also sponsored the latest James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, a suave, sophisticated film which ties in with Coke Zero's red and black corporate colours, connotations of which are power, sophistication and masculinity. All these factors come hand-in-hand. The imagery portrayed not only in Coke Zero adverts but the majority of advertisements for other products, ‘create a false desire to gain the symbolic associations’.

Judith Williamson once stated, “Instead of being identified by what they produce, people identify themselves through what they consume.” The basis of this quote relates directly to how the connotations portrayed through the Coke Zero advertisements affect our social interaction; in this case, how the product can emit masculinity. Advertisers want the consumers to believe that their products will change the way they are perceived by others and as a result, create a false façade. However, some argue that by using the latest product or trend as a social status symbol, our culture will soon be controlled by consumerism and our social markers will be instigated by our commodities. In the Karl Marx Communist Manifesto (1848) and subsequently referenced by Marx cultural theorists, it is stated that commodities control how our society works as we as consumers “begin to define ourselves and each other on the things we buy”. To summarise, they critique our consumer and commodity culture, the detrimental effect of capitalism and how this influences individuals.

Jeremy Bullmore believes advertising changes the way we feel as opposed to its primary focus - to sell. Regardless of this, changing the way consumers feel about themselves will in someway result in sales. Consumers have an ideology they wish to obtain and will go through all means to achieve it; advertisers are able to exploit the consumers’ naivety by targeting their feelings of inadequacy.