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.

Lecture 3 - Marxism & Design activism

" The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."
K. Marx 
He's saying there should be synthesis between thinking and practice.

Marxist is: Communist
-Political manifesto outlining what Marx saw as the best way to organise society and the way to go about achieving it.
-A philosophical approach to social science, developing a new way of looking at the role of society in determining human behaviour.

Capitalist is:
Society that we live in (in the West)
-Control of means of production is held by a few individuals.
-Everyone else works for money
-Revolves around a market (buy & sell)
-Controlled through the exchange of money/currency
-Makes us compete - being better due to being at the top of society.

{Accidental heirarchy in the market}

Communist evolution.
-Primitive communism
-Slave society
-Feudalism
-Capitalism
-Socialism
-Communism - (Ideally) - A classless, stateless society...

Marx thought the huge difference in wealth would mean workers would revolt.
Due to the unfairness of their exploitation.


Materialist philosopher.
Marx argues society can be split into two.

BASE
Forces of production - materials, tools, workers...
relations of production - employer/employee, class, master/slave
everything is a result of these & everything can be traced back to these factors.

SUPER STRUCTURE
Social institutions
Base > determines content & form > Superstructure > reflects & legitimises > Base

Could be likened to the education system
bosses & workers
Teachers & students

Bourgeoisie exploit the proletariat 

Base shapes the superstructure
Superstructure maintains and legitimises the base.

Marx (1857) 'Contribution to the critique of political economy'
Society defines who you are
Forced into relations we have no control of.
All determines consciousness produced by this concept of base/superstructure.

Changing the base will change the politics, attitudes, art, culture etc.

Pyramid of capitalist system 1917
ruling class - aristocracy
the state > a committee for managing the common affairs.
Controlling the way subjects think
> through ideology
> organised religion
Marxist reading > religion is the ultimate form of mental control.

Ideology - system of ideas & beliefs.
- masking, distorting or selectively choosing ideas through creation of 'false consciousness'
Ideological mechanisms operating around us cause this false consciousness. 
Ideology usually emerges from the ruling class
Yet everyone else begins to believe this is their view.

'Religion is the opiate of the masses'

Art as ideology
- Only the rich make art
- Only men make art
- White

> Bought & dictated by rich people
Won't reflect the views of the working class. 

Vladimirski 'Roses for Stalin' (1949)

Completely warped view on Stalin as a leader, dictated by him.











Lincoln Cathedral - art is always ideological

Althusser (1970) 'Ideology and ideological state apparatuses'
ideology is a relationship
A practice through which we live our lives.
Offers reasons for why this may happen

Female nudes > male artist > coincidence? I think not.

Ideological state apparatus.
Media
> Majority is owned by 8 super rich people / reflects their views.
> Very invasive.

The Times > upper class - sophisticated stories - worded differently.
Daily Star > ideological assumption that the working class are only interested in tits & football
Self-fulfilling prophecy > becomes true as they are fed only that...

Each paper shows simply a judgement on the cover & in the headlines.

TV ideology.
Darcus Howe - respected broadcaster and writer.
Explains social reasons > accused of being a rioter.

Berger ,'Ways of seeing' 1972

Wonderbra adverts.

Tricked into thinking that through buying we are gaining status in society. However we are actually getting poorer and making someone else richer.

Commodity fetishism
The object then takes on the idea that it's cool, not the person using/wearing it.

Garbage of New York City

7% of the population own 84% of our wealth.

F. Fukuyama (1992) 'The End of History'
Gandhi > society is judged on how it treats its weakest members.

social movement starting - largely through social media.

Adbusters 
> culture jamming
- billboard > do something that changes the message entirely
> will in turn make people believe your message

Sao Paolo banned advertising as it's visual noise.
Art and design is conditioned by society.

Task 1 - Panopticism

Panopticism is a theory of social control outlined by Michel Foucault in his book, Discipline and Punish, and is based around an idea of surveillance developed during a period when institutions such as asylums, penitentiaries and reformatories were in their earliest forms. It relies entirely on the reformation of individuals captive through controlling them mentally.

The Panopticon (Jeremy Bentham, 1791) became ‘the architectural figure of this compostition’. Foucault states that ‘it reverses the principle of the dungeon’, preserving only its primary function of enclosure. Inmates are kept in cells individually, which surround a central tower that is not lit. Each cell is lit from the outside wall, meaning that the inmates can always be seen from the central tower, but cannot see into the tower themselves. The major effect this has is ‘to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power’.

There are many elements of contemporary society that could be seen as remaining elements of this panoptic form of social control, one of the major examples being CCTV cameras. It is thought that people are filmed more than 300 times a day by these cameras and we are constantly reminded of this fact through the media. They are always present where ever you are so it is evident that one could always see you. However like the central tower in the panopticon it is unclear as to whether you’re actually being watched by anyone at the other end of the camera; ’power should be visible yet unverifiable’.

This means that people act in the way that they believe they should act if they are being watched, whether they are or not. CCTV cameras also have the effect of deterrence in their positioning, and the signs that are used to warn people of their presence, as soon as someone is made aware that they could be under surveillance they will act as they believe they should, becoming, as Foucault described, a ‘docile body’. This also means, that often the cameras don’t have to work, as it is impossible to tell whether they are or not, and it is the possibility that you could be being watched that makes you behave in such a way. The sign warning you of the camera and the actual presentation of the camera therefore becomes more important than itself due to the effect of ‘self-regulation’ that this instills upon the person.

Seminar #1 - Panopticism

FOUCAULT.
Panopticon - Jeremy Bentham - 1791
Psychological effect
Internalise the idea that you're always being watched / under surveillance
-Makes you behave in the way you THINK people believe you should

-Most lunatic asylums used the panoptic structure. Prisons still around with this design
-Can be found everywhere

Key features
-Seperated/isolated - can conspire/talk/relate to other there if they aren't isolated
Designed as a sort of laboratory to monitor behaviour.
- Invisibility/visibility - inmates must believe that they are permanently on view
the person viewing them must always be invisible
Central tower is there as a reminder to inmates that someone with power could be watching... this prevents people from doing things wrong through fear. 
"invisibility of power"
-Productivity - was designed to make people more productive
not go crazy...
Efficient reform of behaviour.

CCTV cameras - not panoptic if they are hidden but constantly recording / stealth recording.
When they are made visible .e.g. the yellow signs about the signs become more important than the cameras themselves.


Open plan offices - where the boss can always look over people working.
People are less likely to procrastinate.


Social networking & online media - measure yourself against people and act in a way that you think they will like.
- constantly visible to the world
- productive because people bring business to the company without realising.

Docile Bodies
-productive
-obedient
-self-regulating     self-monitor  <>  self-correct


They are created by modern disciplinary society
modern > shift from physical control > mental control 
Often spectacular & humiliating physical control...

Although panopticism is a form of mental control, it also controls the body physically.
Foucault said :
"Power is a relationship between people" A <> B
Which works both ways...

Teacher has qualification - knowledge - status allowing him to control&discipline his pupils.
> this relies on his pupils allowing this, and not resisting to his discipline.

Media - TV programs - Films.
Display perfect situations - ideals
-perfect bodies
-perfect lives etc
people blindly follow and in turn are productive in a way thats beneficial to the company.

Lecture 2 - 'Technology will liberate us'

Digital currents - Margot lovejoy
The art in the age of mechanical reproduction - Walter Benjamin (1936)
Art in the age of mass media - John Walter
Simulacra & simulation - Jean Baudrillard (1981)

Implications of technology on different design areas
Technological conditions can affect the collective consciousness
- materialism // it's effect on society.

Triggers important changes in cultural development

By copying something - mimicking - it becomes a work of art in itself, because it has been altered by the copying process . It's a work on its own // image representation.

Relationship between art, design & media can be summed up by the doodles on the previous page, copying an image three times from an original sketch, each one differs from the last.

MACHINE AGE - modernism
Walter Benjamin
- commited suicide after the war
- the age of technology and art
- A duality expressing the zeitgeist
- Dialectical due to the copy, reproductive nature and the role of the original
-The 'aura' and uniqueness of art

Never would have had to think about this without the emergence of technology and developments in reproduction processes and quality.

Photography is the beginning of the technological art, art/design relationship.
 - Isn't only what you see // photography creates multiple viewing points

Dziga Vertov - Man with a movie camera (1929)

The cameras eye has a variable gaze.
represents technological progress and faith in it.
Paul Valery

Moholy Nagy
-Photograms
Early experiments with photographic technology

Benjamin and two parallels
Freud & Marx 

Freud - obsessed with the subconscious and the material aspects of technology
Marx - Looked at the economics of art - economics & value of a piece.

the value of art can change because of consumer nature due to endorsement etc
Consumerism & reproduction can add value to art
Celebrity-ism adds further.

"photography overturned the judgement seat of art"
Margot Lovejoy 

How technology can express deepest subconscious
-virtual realities/surrealism


Kineticism 
-Capturing movement - Etienne Joules Maret
images of the moving body , 'chronophotography' 1888 was the forefather to cinematography.

Explores how time - duration - space can be depicted in art and photography through the development of technology.

De-materialisation of art
-moving image - recorded image moves away from form and object and become JUST IMAGE
This makes it easier to copy / reproduce.

Richard Hamilton - 1922
- collage
technology to create image 
images are ordered, coded and styled
beginning of art and design merging.
-Printed image is part of everything.

Karl Marx & techology
- Technological determinism
- believes theres a logical relationship between economical production & social factors.
- alienation - works as a tool

-technology drives history
-technology and division of labour
-materialist view of history
-technology, capitalism & production
-social alienation of people from aspects of human nature as a result of capitalism.

alienated from distinctive creativity and community

ELECTRONIC AGE - post modernism 
post modern & post machine
- Many electronic works were still made with a modern aesthetic
- Emergence of information & conceptual works.
- Computer is a natural metaphor.
- Spirit of openness to industrial techniques - much more cased in consumerism & materialism
- Collaborations in art & science.
- Boundaries are broken between distinct areas of art as a result of technology.

Chalayan...
Conceptualisation of fashion
divergence of factors

>Douglas Rosenberg - Falling/falling

-Electronic/video work showing collaborations between many areas of art & design

 video itself becomes an object, something that can be displayed in an exhibition.
>Douglas Rosenberg - Venus Flow

Shift in attitude for discovery of post modern age
Simulation - reflection of a profound reality.
A copy of something real...

Simulacrum states a simulation then becomes a work in its own right.
Real > illusion 
Original > copy
Distorts profound reality.
yet can become reality in its own right, and doesn't need to appear realistic. fantastic...
ONE CAN REPLACE ANOTHER 

Word of mouth masks the absence of the thing itself > so it is taken as fact / reality.


Nam June Paik
Plays with the idea of real and virtual
> Two go hand in hand
> whos watching who?

John Walker (2001)
criticises the use -art and mass media.
                            -art in advertising
                            -artists as celebrity
(Andy Warhol)

DIGITAL AGE
- Digital potential leads to multimedia productions
- Technological reproduction of all images so they are addressed by the computer...
Jenny Holzer - transforms through projection.
Blue tilt (2004)

Baltic (2004)

Extension of gallery space beyond its actual size... to the outside...

Frank Gillette
the human race machine
Developed technology for morphing faces . Collaborated with the FBI

Multimedia work
-Interactivity
-Performance
-Transdisciplinary
-Time, space and motion explored in art & design, also as art
-Collaborations

Hyper-real - reality by proxy.
- art comments on ideology of everyday life
- technology blurs the line between production of fine art & commercial design production
- art can be expressive or progressive.