Task 2 - Benjamin & Mechanical Reproduction.

Barbara Kruger 

I shop therefore I am

1987

Selfridges - Barbara Kruger  
Sale promotions
2006

Walter Benjamin was a Marxist philosopher who looked in incredible detail at the idea of reproduction and the effect that it has on the value of an original work, in terms of art. However ideas from his theories can be applied very easily to works of graphic design in the same way. 

The first thing of note from the text is the mention of the way people critique and look upon art, and the idea that this has never changed, so people still view art with ideas of creativity, genius, value and mystery in mind. All these are traits of the creative genius that are intrinsically related to the work of art.

I chose this Barbara Kruger work as it’s a piece of design that has been reproduced and imitated massively over the years and is a great example of design in the age of mechanical reproduction. Benjamin mentions that,’ In principle a work of art as always been reproducible’ and artifacts could always be ‘imitated by men’, however I find the idea that with mechanical reproduction ’the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility’ very interesting.

The original work by Kruger was a silk screen print, just like photographic negatives, many copies, all differing slightly can be produced from one screen, it is most likely that these would have been in a limited print run. However Kruger’s work went on to be used as a slogan on many different items, most notably she was commissioned by Selfridges to produce a range of promotional material. By doing so, the aura of the work shrivels, the idea that the work was produced by a creative genius is also somewhat lost, and the idea that owning an original print from the first run becomes much more impressive.

Even the most perfect copy of Kruger’s prints therefore is always going to be ‘lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence and the place where it happens to be’. By imitating the style and creating copies the time at which it was created becomes unimportant and the placement of these copies takes the original work and concept behind it completely out of context.

Lecture 6 - Cities & film.

Looking at :
> the city in modernism
> the city as a public & as a private space.
> the city in post modernism.

George Simmel (1858-1918)
- Dresden exhibition 1903
- Simmel is asked to lecture
> urban sociology
- the resistance of the individual to being levelled, swallowed up in the social-technological mechanism.

Louis Sullivan (1856-1924)
- Architect
- Credited with being the creator of the modern sky scraper

Guaranty building
- ornate // decorative exterior
(despite appearance)

building was split :
4 interior zones
Basement - public area - office zone
organised // ordered environment
3 types of exterior block corresponding with the three visible exterior zones.

America as an upward moving, land of opportunity.
Manhatta (1921) Paul Strand
Documentary film > loose / no narrative
Explores the relationship between photography and film, minimal camera movement.

Charles Sheeler 
ford plant > river rouge > detroit
{fordism}

Production line gains maximum productivity with minimum effort via repetitive/robotic human activity.

Modern times (1936) Charlie Chaplin
body is consumed/swallowed by the factory

Stock market crash of 1929
>immigrant population hit first > then laborers

Man with a movie camera (1929)
noted for it's range of video/movie techniques
celebration of industrialisation and everything that goes with it.
Flaneur 
Stroller / lounger / saunterer
A person who walks the city to experience it.
Both apart from, and a part of the crowd.
Walter Benjamin
> bit of a flaneur
> Adopts the concept of and urban observer as an analytical tool and as a lifestyle.
Susan Sontag
> the photographer as a flaneur
> Photographer is merely an 'armed' flaneur
Flaneuse
Female wanderer.
Susan Buch-Morss 
Bag lady or prostitute.

Arbus // Hopper 

 Hoppers 'Automat' (1927)

Diane Arbus' 'Woman at a counter smoking N.Y.C' (1962)

Observed moments with sense that something has just happened

Sophie Calle - Suite Venitienne (1980)

About the experience of the city

Accompanied by a text explaining her relationship with the man in the pictures.

Venice > labyrinth of streets and alleyways 

Good place for a filthy stalker...I mean...photographer 

Don't look now (1973) <film>

Nicholas Roeg 

The Detective (1980)

Having private detective following her 

> wants to provide photographic evidence of her existence

Cindy Sherman ( 1977-80) 

Typical representation of women in the city

Pictures were intended to be mysterious 

typical of post modernism { no concrete location (could be anywhere) } 

Weegee (arthur felig)

Documented the dark side of city

Following and documenting police detectives.

With a mobile darkroom so he could develop pictures and be the first to the press. 

The Naked City

Noire tradition 

L.A. Noire set in 1947 Los Angeles (2011)

Homage to the visual style of film noire. 

cities of the future > Metropolis (1929) 

Blade runner (1989 > depicting 2019) 

Lorca di Corcia - heads (2001) NY

Not seen by the people he photographs 

Set off like a trip flash from people walking past.

Sense of height & drama 

A man in one of his photos objected to the use of his image on religious grounds

The image was subsequently allowed.

Anything that happens in the city is open to artistic interpretation. Private is taken back.

Walker Evans - Many are called (1938)

Intensely private moments shot unaware. 

Postmodern city 

"the outside becoming the inside" Ed Soja 

Being lost in architecture 

Confusing/difficult to navigate 

Joel Meyerowitz

Postmodern city in photography. Chaotic. Busy 

Citizen Journalism > the end of the flaneur? 

Impossible to be a detached observer

9/11. destroyed in a mental capacity aswell. 

Destruction of the twin towers represents a destruction of the American Dream.

Adam Beezer (2001) 

involved in the tragedy. Pictures from a phone camera.

Returns photography to it's roots // merely to document events. 

Surveillance city 

Coming together of photography & film on the street.

Lecture 4 - Critical Positions on the media & popular culture.

What is culture?
 Raymond Williams 
- General process of intellectual development as societies advance through history.
- A particular way of life > sub-cultures etc.
- Works of intellectual and artistic significance. 
> works that are accepted as very important // represent cultures.


Culture emerges because of the economic organisation of society.
> emerges from the base
> LEGITIMISES IT.
Marx (1857)

Raymond Williams (1983) Keywords
4 definitions of popular culture
> well liked by many people (quantitative)

> inferior kinds of work
Lesser or inferior form of high culture. mass production/kitsch

> work deliberately setting out to win favour with the people.
Relies on taste // aims to be populist

> Culture actually made by the people themselves
Value judgements // organic - e.g. brass bands in mining communities.


Caspar David Freidrich (1809) 'Monk by the sea'
High. 

 

VS

Jenny Morrison's 'Sea & sky in watercolour'
Popular. 

Popular press vs Quality press
Popular cinema vs art cinema
Popular entertainment vs art entertainment

Jermey Deller & Alan Kane 
'Folk Archive'
Works of creativity made by people for people.
Humorous reaction caused by judging the works and believing you can do better.
Judging things in the same way you'd judge elite art.
Judging them by your aesthetic code is flawed...
Laughing at the working class
Failing to make art

Popular culture entering into the sphere of high art.
> Graffiti
- Banksy exhibiting in galleries
Starts representing the people, is then taken on to represent the views of the minority (high culture)

E.P. Thompson // 'The making of the English working class' 

Change in culture happens during time of industrialisation & urbanisation.
Classes are put together yet seperated. In close proximity in the cities yet seperated in areas of high & working class.
Working class in factories / slums 
Bourgeoisie in nicer areas of city. 

People then create their own cultural forms
- literature - music - recreational arts etc.
before this - the classes did not work against each other.

Chartism - allowing the working class to vote.
Political movements.
Matthew Arnold (1867) Culture & anarchy

Culture is :
> "The best that has been thought & said in the world"
> Study of perfection
> Attained through disinterested reading, writing and thinking.
> Pursuit of culture
> Minister the diseased spirit of our times. (anarchy)
 Culture of 'the raw and uncultured masses'
- were once hidden but have now started to emerge.
> upper class control is threatened by the working class.
> upper class defends itself by claiming to be better than the working class - mocking them.

Leavism - F.R.Leavis & Q.D.Leavis.
- Mass civilisation & minority culture
- Fiction & the reading public
- Culture & environment

Believes there was a cultural peak, which declined throughout the 20th century. 
> critics role is to defend it against the lesser forms.
> collapse of traditional authority
- come at time of mass democracy (anarchy)
popular - offers cheap emotional thrills as opposed to pure thrills from the high class.

Frankfurt school - critical theory
Snobbery with which people dismiss popular culture comes from Leavis & Arnold's theories.
> their views & reading of culture is as baised as the one they are trying to dismiss.

Institute of social research (1923-33)
Closed when Nazis came to power.
Relocated to New York 1933 - 47

Theodore Adorno
Max Horkheimer
Herbert Marcuse          }       Entering into one of the most developed cultures.
Leo Lowenthar
Walter Benjamin

Emergence of "the culture industry"
An idea of culture...but not this.
Fordism (1910 onwards)
Factories 'spewing' out cultural artifacts.
"all mass culture is identical"

Homogenity & Predictability
Spawned out for the masses
films & radio need no longer pretend to be art, it's business

idea of art & culture has been turned into business 

Herbert Marcuse
Popular culture - affirmative culture > reduces capacity for thought
turn into 1-dimensional people.
Bound into the producers.
Militates against change
Code us into single train of thought.

> mass culture represented a threat to high class
 > think it cements authority & creates obedience
'Dumming down' of culture industry.
De-politicising the working class.

Hollyoaks babes - teaches women it's OK to be like this, even when you're in education.
Che Guavara - symbol of 'cool' not revolution.
The x-factor
Big Brother
> both teach that it's the only way to succeed.
-Instead of being identified by what they produce, people are identified by what they consume.

Adorno - 'On popular music'
- Standardise } same beat // same instruments.
does the thinking for you...
reduces capacity for free thought.
- social 'cement'
- produces passivity ( rhythmic & emotional adjustments.)
 ' Slave to the beat'
Mindlessly dance to the rhythm of their own oppression

Joy Division - emotional adjustment
Counter revolutionary 

Authentic culture
- real
- european
- multi-dimensional
- active consumption               }          Culture is lost forever under capitalism
- individual creation
- autonomous
- negation

Walter Benjamin
Mechanical reproduction allows us to view stuff from anywhere
> would have had to go to it.
> meet it on the galleries terms
Uniqueness is substituted by mass production.

Threatens to liquidate cultural tradition.

Aura
Mona lisa
> on mug
> on t-shirt   
> on poster
} changes how it is viewed , allows us to challenge high culture.
Mystical quality withers away
Defining your own meaning from it.

Hebdidge (1979) 'Sub-culture : the Meaning of style'
- incorporation
- ideological form
- community form
claims that young people create cultures designed to challenge high culture.
creating new industry
- radical status is then lost . Especially when it is bought & sold.
Neutralised > incorporated.

- Emerges from anxieties about social and cultural exclusion.
- De-based form of ideal culture
- ideology masks cultural or class differences & neutralises interests of the few as those of all.