Sunday, 25 March 2012
Essay - Other sources
I came across the following publication when looking into semioligical systems in relation to the media as it was noted in the essay feedback tutorial that I should look at the newspaper front covers in more depth.
Hartley, J. (1982) Understanding News, London, Methuen & Co. Ltd
Some quotes:
"Speech, then, is the means by which we select and organise our experience, and it is the medium through which we learn how to behave, how to react, what to believe." p.1
"Speech isn't something over which we have individual control - it is supplied to us a ready made tool by other people." p.1. This could be applied to the section when I begin to analyse the media as a whole and its platform for social control.
"Our submission to the social control of the language-sytem is usually both voluntary and taken for granted." p.2.
"We identify strongly with certain language-systems, and seek to present ourselves in their terms." p.2.
"News comes to us as the pre-existing discourse of an impersonal social institution which is also an industry. As we get used to its codes and conventions we will become 'news-literate'." p.5.
"The way news is produced, what it concentrates on, how its stories are put together and who takes an interest in it, all depend to some extent on the habits and conventions - not to mention technology - which were developed in a previous historical period." p.8.
"The news is a social institution and a cultural discourse which exists and has meaning only in relation to other institutions and discourses operating at the same time." p.9.
"The corporations and capitalists who own the means of news production can mount campaigns, of exposure and investigation, or of war-mongering and witch-hunts, which help to alter the political or social direction of a country." p.9.
Hartley, J. (1982) Understanding News, London, Methuen & Co. Ltd
Some quotes:
"Speech, then, is the means by which we select and organise our experience, and it is the medium through which we learn how to behave, how to react, what to believe." p.1
"Speech isn't something over which we have individual control - it is supplied to us a ready made tool by other people." p.1. This could be applied to the section when I begin to analyse the media as a whole and its platform for social control.
"Our submission to the social control of the language-sytem is usually both voluntary and taken for granted." p.2.
"We identify strongly with certain language-systems, and seek to present ourselves in their terms." p.2.
"News comes to us as the pre-existing discourse of an impersonal social institution which is also an industry. As we get used to its codes and conventions we will become 'news-literate'." p.5.
"The way news is produced, what it concentrates on, how its stories are put together and who takes an interest in it, all depend to some extent on the habits and conventions - not to mention technology - which were developed in a previous historical period." p.8.
"The news is a social institution and a cultural discourse which exists and has meaning only in relation to other institutions and discourses operating at the same time." p.9.
"The corporations and capitalists who own the means of news production can mount campaigns, of exposure and investigation, or of war-mongering and witch-hunts, which help to alter the political or social direction of a country." p.9.
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Task 5 - The Gaze
‘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, 45, 47)
Discuss this quote with reference to one work of art and one work from the contemporary media.
Discuss this quote with reference to one work of art and one work from the contemporary media.
Hans Memling (1485) Vanity
Hans Memling 'Vanity' is used by Berger in particular as an example of the exploitation of the male gaze. An exposition on the female nude was prevalent during this time (1485) as it was predominantly a patriarchal society; men were in control through means of visual production. The majority of artists throughout this era were men, commissioned to paint pieces of nude women purely for pleasure; highlighting this sense of objectification. Men were seen to have a superior constraint over the depiction of women in art and due to their power and stance through society, the male gaze was deemed the norm - as a result, it altered how women ultimately viewed themselves.
Berger suggests that women are ‘depicted in a different way to men - because the "ideal" spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him’ (Berger, 64)
The subject is looking into a mirror therefore there is no reciprocity; as the gaze is never challenged, the painting provides justification for the viewers gaze - this in turn distracts from the fact the artist painted his subject through enjoyment. Vanity, indicated by the use of the mirror - and in the title of the piece itself - is seen to legitimise the gaze as it is believed this is how the subject wants to be viewed. Berger insinuates that conventions through masculine discourses of art history indicate that women watch or allow themselves being looked at whereas men look (gaze) upon women. The subject acknowledges our presence through the manipulation of where she is looking; conversely, if she were to be looking at the viewer, she is aware of the viewers presence and therefore challenges and opposes the gaze.
The gaze is also prominent through contemporary society and consumerism advertisements. The advert above, for Opium, features model Sophie Dahl, lying naked against a dark backdrop. Due to the provocative nature of the photograph and its overt use of nudity, the ad received hundreds of complaints as it was deemed too 'degrading' to women - it was subsequently withdrawn in its entirety.
'Christopher Graham, ASA director general, said the poster was sexually suggestive and likely to cause "serious or widespread offence" thereby breaking the British Codes of Advertising and Sales Promotion.'
As with Memlings 'Vanity', the subject is looking away from the viewer, indicating no reciprocity or challenge of the gaze. The primary focus of the advertisement is the model due to the stark contrast between the subject and the backdrop. The advert was later re-released, however, simply with an alternate orientation; the emphasis now being on the subjects face as opposed to her body. Although this advert implies a male point of view, due to the suggestive nature of the photograph, the intended viewer is female. The women viewing these advertisements are seen to 'identify both with the person being viewed and with an implicit, opposite-sex viewer' (Berger, 44)
The theory of the gaze, particularly the male gaze, is still prevalent in contemporary society and form part of social conventions. Ideals and these notions are pre-installed within us but are ultimately controlled by society as a whole; we therefore deem these aforementioned conventions as the norm.
Sources
Berger, J (1974) Ways of Seeing, Viking Press, New York
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1077165.stm
Task 4 - Hyperreality
Hyperreality is the simulation of reality - where the real has been replaced by the simulacra. Every day, we are subject to an onslaught of images as governed by the media; images that we take for granted, as 'real'. The media ultimately has a controlling stance on what we perceive as reality and therefore provides constructs and foundations within society which we accept as real. Photographic imagery featured on magazine covers, for example, are largely fabricated and are not necessarily a true representation of the real. However, as a society we deem this acceptable - or at least perceive this as the norm - therefore we rarely challenge or deconstruct what we see. Hyperreality can be applied to many mundane 'objects' however, that as aforementioned, we deem the norm.
It is a Christmas tradition to put up a christmas tree in the living room. In contemporary society is becoming common practice to use an artificial tree as we perceive this to be a better alternative to the real. However, we still refer to this as a 'christmas tree' due to its resemblance despite not being a tree at all - it is a fabrication of one, a copy. The image below references this theory in a more exaggerated form. Several books have been arranged in such a way to resemble a christmas tree yet a real tree could easily have been used - is this perceived to be a better alternative? Despite attempting to replicate the original? This replication of reality becomes the new original.
The over-commercialisation of christmas is often associated with the TV special, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965). The idea of hyperreality is reinforced within the plot of this programme. The protagonist, Charlie Brown, ignored requests to get a 'big, shiny aluminium tree' and instead purchases a smaller, less aesthetically pleasing 'real' tree. However, in comparison, the replication of the original seemed much more desirable, hence why Aluminium trees became more popular in the 1960's. Artificial trees have soon become the norm in contemporary society as we believe an artificial replication is better than the original.
It is a Christmas tradition to put up a christmas tree in the living room. In contemporary society is becoming common practice to use an artificial tree as we perceive this to be a better alternative to the real. However, we still refer to this as a 'christmas tree' due to its resemblance despite not being a tree at all - it is a fabrication of one, a copy. The image below references this theory in a more exaggerated form. Several books have been arranged in such a way to resemble a christmas tree yet a real tree could easily have been used - is this perceived to be a better alternative? Despite attempting to replicate the original? This replication of reality becomes the new original.
The over-commercialisation of christmas is often associated with the TV special, A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965). The idea of hyperreality is reinforced within the plot of this programme. The protagonist, Charlie Brown, ignored requests to get a 'big, shiny aluminium tree' and instead purchases a smaller, less aesthetically pleasing 'real' tree. However, in comparison, the replication of the original seemed much more desirable, hence why Aluminium trees became more popular in the 1960's. Artificial trees have soon become the norm in contemporary society as we believe an artificial replication is better than the original.
Sources
Trees made of tinsel (Online) Available at: http://abcnews.go.com/US/ChristmasCountdown/story?id=1414607 [Accessed 25th March 2012] Originally sourced from Wikipedia
Task 2 - Benjamin & Mechanical Reproduction
Read the Walter Benjamin's essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'. Write a 300 word analysis of one work of Graphic Design, that you think relates to the themes of the text, and employing quotes, concepts and terminology from the text.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
I came across this video a few weeks back and thought it would be greatly applicable to this task. The 'Keep Calm and Carry On' poster was a propaganda tool commissioned by the British Government during the second world war among 2 other designs. Utilising a uniform design combining just 2 colours for a large print run and a graphic of a crown, the posters were devised to incite reassurance and raise morale. Although the 2 other posters were heavily publicised, the Keep Calm and Carry on design was never officially issued but later found in Barter Book store in 2000 - 61 years after it was commissioned.
A crown copyright (used on artworks created by the UK government) lasts just 50 years therefore the design immediately outsourced to the public domain allowing free usage and interpretation. Due to its prominence and rise in popularity, many designs emerged, reproducing, altering or replicating the design. Berger introduces the theory of the original and the copy in his essay, 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'. Berger believes the 'authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning'; in other words, the 'orignal' has an 'aura' surrounding it; its history defines it and it defines history. The copy removes any remaining sense of aura and authority; its authenticity is stripped though some may see a copy as a work in itself that occupies new meaning.
The economic substructure has changed substantially and society is rapidly changing due to advancing and emerging technology. People have immediate access to artwork through the internet and ultimately have more say in the creation of media, redefining sub-culture; the meaning of the artwork is authored from below. 'Technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself.' The multiplicity of copies that emerged (and still emerging) from the Keep Calm and Carry on poster, however, lose much resonance of the original, that of reassurance to the British public during difficult and troubled times. Conversely, people may see that the message is retained through its associations and is still applicable to the modern day; its communication is embedded and it is the stylistic aesthetics that seem to resonate.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Lecture 11 - The production & Critique of Institutions
Aim / Objectives
- To examine the historical development of practices of institution critique in relation to the corresponding development of the modern art gallery
- To demonstrate the importance of the art museum to the rise of the bourgeois public sphere in the 19th century
- To analyse Peter burger's theorisation of the twin development of aestheticism (formalist) art practice, and critical avant-gardism in the first three decades of the 20th century
- To consider the postwar cirque of the convention of the white cube through attention to Brian O'Doherty's Inside the White Cube, and Michael Asher's 1974 Claire Copley Gallery installation
Ideology
- Ideology for Marx - Form of social mystification
- Mans failure to comprehend his own alienation
- We are not free to think for ourselves regarding our position in the world
- The voice we have is a construct - an amalgamation of different voices
- Systems of beliefs, images, values, techniques of representation
- Social classes in conflict with one another attempt to naturalise their place in history
- Our life circumstances are rooted in our material situation
- Socially constructed in relation to many voices that all express thoughts and feelings
- Institutions such as schools and churches have an important role in ideology
France
Hubert Robert, Design for the Grande Galerie in the Louvre, Oil on canvas (1796)
- Neutral space of artistic display
- Specific political function - promoting values of the new regime
Michael Asher, Untitled (1974), (Installation view, Claire Copley Gallery, Los Angeles)
- To examine the historical development of practices of institution critique in relation to the corresponding development of the modern art gallery
- To demonstrate the importance of the art museum to the rise of the bourgeois public sphere in the 19th century
- To analyse Peter burger's theorisation of the twin development of aestheticism (formalist) art practice, and critical avant-gardism in the first three decades of the 20th century
- To consider the postwar cirque of the convention of the white cube through attention to Brian O'Doherty's Inside the White Cube, and Michael Asher's 1974 Claire Copley Gallery installation
Ideology
- Ideology for Marx - Form of social mystification
- Mans failure to comprehend his own alienation
- We are not free to think for ourselves regarding our position in the world
- The voice we have is a construct - an amalgamation of different voices
- Systems of beliefs, images, values, techniques of representation
- Social classes in conflict with one another attempt to naturalise their place in history
- Our life circumstances are rooted in our material situation
- Socially constructed in relation to many voices that all express thoughts and feelings
- Institutions such as schools and churches have an important role in ideology
France
Hubert Robert, Design for the Grande Galerie in the Louvre, Oil on canvas (1796)
- Neutral space of artistic display
- Specific political function - promoting values of the new regime
Michael Asher, Untitled (1974), (Installation view, Claire Copley Gallery, Los Angeles)
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Lecture 10 - Deleuze and Guattari and Creativity
Aim & Objectives
To examine how Deleuze and Guattari draw emphasis to the constructed and contingent nature of social reality
(1) To contrast their model of creative, "rhizomatic" thought with traditional 'tree-like' models of thought based in sequential argumentation
(2) To examine Deleuze and Guattari's interpretations of processes of social change and development
(3) To consider how they propose individual people might transform themselves
(4) To contextualise these theories of change and development in relation to the concepts 'the virtual' and 'the actual' (central to their thinking)
Deleuze and Guattari
- Influencial in numerous fields - Architecture, music, geography, sociology, literature etc
- Collaboration developed against the student and worker protests in Paris
- Directly challenged the French state
- Let to the reassessment of the role of the activist in society
A Thousand Plateaus
- Tried to rethink social change
- Change was ongoing and incremental
- Revolt against the traditional modes of thought, represented by a tree-like structure
- Trunk - central thesis, branch - argumentation
- One line of arguments must sequentially lead to another
- Still continues to have resonance
- They suggested the reader takes in information in the same way you would listen to a record
Rhizomatic Thinking
- Drew idea from plant forms
- Underground stem that grows horizontally and draws up horizontal shoots
- Unforeseen configurations
- Provides an alternative mode of thought against the traditional 'tree-like' structure of thinking
- Linked through leaps of association - seemingly unconnected ideas
- Emphasised that ideas need to be invented - they are not 'waiting'
Saussure's model
Concept (signified) <---> Sound-image (Signifier)
- Concepts we use in thought and reading gain meaning from repetitive contextualisation
- Agreement of meaning through society
- Entirely constructed by a pattern of usage
- The Rhizo links objects, places, ideas
- Produced intentionally and unintentionally
- Become creative forces that create new configurations
Isa Genzken, Hospital (Ground Zero), 2008
- Represents chaos of urban landscape
- Manual production
- Held together in provisional ways
- Made of materials found in a shop, or even on the street
- Brought together in a configuration
- Takes on the form of an assemblage
The Assemblage
- Processes of arranging, organising
- Emphasise the convergence of food, furniture, people and so on in recognisable structures
- A dinner party or a school are examples of an assemblage
- Home is a place where we express comfort
- How places become meaningful
- Assemblages can be rooted / embedded in society
Language
- Language is not just about the transmission of messages
- Simple language use imposes a role upon the language user
- Value, power, prejudice
Zaha Hadid for MAXXI, national Museum of XX1 Century Arts
- Designed by Hadid as an assemblage
- Architecture flows around and in-between surround buildings
- Mutating in relation to people through the space
Subjectivation
- Deleuze and Guattari believed this is how we are constructed
- Our sense of identity is always under construction
- The subjects recognition is an afterthought
- The word 'I' is empty and can only be appropriated to different bodies
- Used as a self reference
Ideology
- Ideology shapes how we view ourselves and our shape in the world
- Circulate in any given society at any given time but some are able to dominate
- Those who get the means of productions 'shout the loudest'
- Privileged status of politicians and the media within society
The working day
- 'Shocked out of dream fantasies'
- Commuter -> Labourer etc
- Unique demands upon the individual - how we ought to 'behave'
- Roles defined by their context
Psycho-analysis
- Individuals reconfigure their own subjectivities
- Guattari's psychiatric practice
- Re-negotiated the role of the analyst
- The patient and analyst would take on roles
- Sets a process of change and development
Body without organs
- Initially developed by a play writer in the 1920s
- We are a structure
- Francis Bacon, Study of George Dyer, 1969
To examine how Deleuze and Guattari draw emphasis to the constructed and contingent nature of social reality
(1) To contrast their model of creative, "rhizomatic" thought with traditional 'tree-like' models of thought based in sequential argumentation
(2) To examine Deleuze and Guattari's interpretations of processes of social change and development
(3) To consider how they propose individual people might transform themselves
(4) To contextualise these theories of change and development in relation to the concepts 'the virtual' and 'the actual' (central to their thinking)
Deleuze and Guattari
- Influencial in numerous fields - Architecture, music, geography, sociology, literature etc
- Collaboration developed against the student and worker protests in Paris
- Directly challenged the French state
- Let to the reassessment of the role of the activist in society
A Thousand Plateaus
- Tried to rethink social change
- Change was ongoing and incremental
- Revolt against the traditional modes of thought, represented by a tree-like structure
- Trunk - central thesis, branch - argumentation
- One line of arguments must sequentially lead to another
- Still continues to have resonance
- They suggested the reader takes in information in the same way you would listen to a record
Rhizomatic Thinking
- Drew idea from plant forms
- Underground stem that grows horizontally and draws up horizontal shoots
- Unforeseen configurations
- Provides an alternative mode of thought against the traditional 'tree-like' structure of thinking
- Linked through leaps of association - seemingly unconnected ideas
- Emphasised that ideas need to be invented - they are not 'waiting'
Saussure's model
Concept (signified) <---> Sound-image (Signifier)
- Concepts we use in thought and reading gain meaning from repetitive contextualisation
- Agreement of meaning through society
- Entirely constructed by a pattern of usage
- The Rhizo links objects, places, ideas
- Produced intentionally and unintentionally
- Become creative forces that create new configurations
Isa Genzken, Hospital (Ground Zero), 2008
- Represents chaos of urban landscape
- Manual production
- Held together in provisional ways
- Made of materials found in a shop, or even on the street
- Brought together in a configuration
- Takes on the form of an assemblage
The Assemblage
- Processes of arranging, organising
- Emphasise the convergence of food, furniture, people and so on in recognisable structures
- A dinner party or a school are examples of an assemblage
- Home is a place where we express comfort
- How places become meaningful
- Assemblages can be rooted / embedded in society
Language
- Language is not just about the transmission of messages
- Simple language use imposes a role upon the language user
- Value, power, prejudice
Zaha Hadid for MAXXI, national Museum of XX1 Century Arts
- Designed by Hadid as an assemblage
- Architecture flows around and in-between surround buildings
- Mutating in relation to people through the space
Subjectivation
- Deleuze and Guattari believed this is how we are constructed
- Our sense of identity is always under construction
- The subjects recognition is an afterthought
- The word 'I' is empty and can only be appropriated to different bodies
- Used as a self reference
Ideology
- Ideology shapes how we view ourselves and our shape in the world
- Circulate in any given society at any given time but some are able to dominate
- Those who get the means of productions 'shout the loudest'
- Privileged status of politicians and the media within society
The working day
- 'Shocked out of dream fantasies'
- Commuter -> Labourer etc
- Unique demands upon the individual - how we ought to 'behave'
- Roles defined by their context
Psycho-analysis
- Individuals reconfigure their own subjectivities
- Guattari's psychiatric practice
- Re-negotiated the role of the analyst
- The patient and analyst would take on roles
- Sets a process of change and development
Body without organs
- Initially developed by a play writer in the 1920s
- We are a structure
- Francis Bacon, Study of George Dyer, 1969
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