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.
Monday, 14 November 2011
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Lecture 4 - Popular Culture
Critical positions on the media and popular culture
Aims
What is 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
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
'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'
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
Adorno & Horkeimer
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'
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
Adorno 'On Popular Music' (1)
The Frankfurt school attacked all forms of mass culture from TV and movies to art and theatre.
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
Monday, 31 October 2011
Seminar 1 - Panopticism
Panopticism
Panopticon
Power should be visible but never verifiable
Foucault and power
Docile Bodies
- 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
- 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.
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.
Thursday, 27 October 2011
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
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:
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)
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
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
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)
"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)
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