Monday, 26 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)
Throughout history, men have been noted as the dominant sex, in almost
every culture and at almost every stage of development. Even in the world of
art, until very recently, it was male dominated.
Women have always been objectified; almost all nudes in fine art
throughout history have been female, painted for rich men to admire. Although
today the story is very similar, there is a feeling that women, in art and
advertising are becoming more dominant.
This first image, the Birth of Venus, painted by Alexandre Cabanel in
1863 is a perfect example of the female nude seen throughout history. Lying
backwards with her hands above her head, like a damsel in distress, her pose is
incredibly submissive. Cherubs surrounding her add to the fantastical element
of the painting, men can look upon her in a way that she would never be viewed
in reality.
Historically the female has been submissive and is not entirely present
in the act of being viewed. For example in the Birth of Venus, her gaze is
everted from the viewer, implying she is there only to be looked upon and will
not look back upon you. However contemporary advertising puts women in a much
more dominant position in this process of being viewed.
The Lynx advert above shows the woman scantily clad, looking directly
at the viewer. She is much more a part of this process of being gazed upon and
she is fully aware of it. Her
stance suggests dominance within the ad and her lack of clothing suggests
confidence.
This change in the gaze, may only be slight and advertising and art is
still very much based around the female model, however women now appear to have
power over men as opposed to the other way round. They control the advertising
with their gaze upon the viewer. The objectification of women has never
changed, however the use of the gaze has.
Friday, 9 March 2012
Task 4 - Hyperreality
Hyperreality
is a concept based around simlations, copies of things that existed in reality
used in different contexts. These simulations of reality then become difficult
to distinguish from reality or people take these simulations to be the real, in
turn creating a cycle of simulation and simulacrum that continuously repeats
itself.
The
film industry is based entirely in this idea of simulating reality, to the
point that people often believe what happens in films is the reality because it
is the only way that they have ever experienced it. The Matrix is a film based
around the concepts and theories described by Jean Baudrillard and focuses on
the idea that people live in a world completely constructed from simulations of
reality, or what people perceive to be real. The difference between reality and
its simulations had been blurred to such a point that they had created a
program to replace what was now described as ‘the desert of the real’, quoted
in the film from Baudrillard’s 1981 book Simulacra and Simulations.
Films
surrounding the subject of war, however are what I’d like to suggest are
hyperreal in today’s society, more so than other genres, because of the way in
which these simulations of war are then accepted so readily as the reality. The
majority of films and even games produced about war have very little actual
grounding in war and show incredibly intense, over the top, explosive
depictions of battle. These tend to focus on the visual elements of war, which
they compact into (very) small periods of time, in (very) small spaces, often
all coming down to spectacular endings with a HUGE EXPLOSION. The reality is for the most part very different.
It is
even suggested by certain theorists like Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj Zizek that
the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centres had ‘parallels with disaster movies’
and was ‘the stuff of popular fantasies long before they actually happened’.
Suggesting that the attacks were simulations of war, acted out in the form of a
terrorist attack.
Sources:
Simulacra
and Simulations – Jean Baudrillard
Media,
War and Postmodernity – Phil Hammond.
Thursday, 8 March 2012
Lecture 12 - Globalisation, sustainability and the media.
Shift towards a global world with one mono-culture
- Increasingly unsustainable
- Ruthless, capitalist global system.
Desire shared by socialists and capitalists
Socialist
- For collectivity
- resources can be shared - unified and working together
Capitalist
- Increases the amount of markets you can tap into
- global markets
Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy
(good source)
Domination
Westernisation of all other cultures
Americanisation
George Ritzer
'McDonaldization'
- Not shared culture. All cultures operate in the same way as America
- Principles and values of American capitalist business dominate other cultures
Marshall McLuhan
- Wrote about developments in technology and how it would change the world.
- New technologies extend our own senses and us as individuals
- Can now hear and see events on a global scale - in the age of communication.
GLOBAL VILLAGE THESIS
- The world would shrink and everyone would know each other. McLuhan thought this shrinking of the world would bring people together
- Definitely not the case
- Almost distances us from events
- de-sensitises us to the pain of others
"Brings us together but tears us apart"
R.Miles 2012
McLuhan was naive
- Thought individualism would become obsolete
DIDN'T!
- Always moving further away from a unified 'Global Village'
Jihad vs McWorld
Problems of Globalization
Sovereignty
- Challenging the idea of National identity
Cultural Imperialism
- Forcing culture on people and making them think in the way you do.
- Mass media is the vehicle for cultural imperialism in the West
Argue that the global village is not integrated community but an assimilated one
Time Warner
- Massive company owning hundreds of smaller companies in the media worldwide
All CNN news controlled by them
Hundreds of disparate things answer back to one CEO at Time Warner
Therefore one voice/view is spread globally
One way of thinking about the world
Media Oligopolies
- Target the world in the amount of money they can make
1. North America
2. Western Europe, Japan & Australia
3. Developing Economies etc, India, China, Brazil, rest of Europe
4. The rest of the world
Utterly dominant American culture spread worldwide
Big Brother - Western program
- Repeated in other cultures around the world
"It's popular, we should be like this"
-Version of Western culture imposed on other cultures. Applies to all media
- the effect of this is cultural assimilation
- People believe they should aim for this culture
Giant system of propaganda for Western Capitalism
Chomsky & Herman 1998
- Manufacturing consent
Ownership - Who they're controlled by
Funding - How they get money
Sourcing - How and where they get information
Flak - People working against them
Anti-communist ideology - Underlying agenda
Rupert Murdoch
- The Sun wins elections not political parties
He controls the power to influence cultures
Nearly 40% of newspapers influenced by this one man
- If the owner has an agenda - the information coming from it will always be flawed
Sourcing
- Papers are only as good as the stories they're allowed to publish
- Questions to people have to be delicate
- cannot be invasive
- most media organisations are funded by advertising
- they cannot push stories that would upset the people funding them
US based - Global Climate Coalition
- directly contradict scare stories of global warming
Information spread in the interests of oil companies. Big capitalist companies
Ideologies
Making others look more evil.
In turn making British views etc look better
Al Gore
- Campaigner for environmentalist views
All solutions he poses for global warming rely on people spending money and buying things
AMERICA AND CHINA DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO ANYTHING IN THE INTEREST OF THE PLANET, BECAUSE IT IS NOT IN THE INTEREST OF BUSINESS
-Sustainability and growth appear contradictory
BIOX Biofuel Plant . Canada
- Alternative, ' clean ' fuel
- Renewable
- Expensive to produce
- Built the factory in the poorest area of Hamilton, Canada
- Very close to peoples homes who couldn't afford to move.
THE ATTEMPTS TO RIGHT GLOBAL WARMING HAVE MORE DAMAGING EFFECTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT THAN CURRENT SYSTEMS
Greenwashing - branding companies in a way that makes them appear caring, when they're more than likely not.
SUSTAINABILITY IS IMPOSSIBLE UNDER A CAPITALIST SYSTEM AS IT RELIES ENTIRELY ON CONTINUOUS GROWTH
Al Gore - Environmentalists
Radicals - Ecologists
Internet has given people who want to resist the mechanism to do so. As a group
- Activists are mobilising on the internet
- Global resistance
the media is a weapon wielded against us.
But can be used for our own means aswell.
- Increasingly unsustainable
- Ruthless, capitalist global system.
Desire shared by socialists and capitalists
Socialist
- For collectivity
- resources can be shared - unified and working together
Capitalist
- Increases the amount of markets you can tap into
- global markets
Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy
(good source)
Domination
Westernisation of all other cultures
Americanisation
George Ritzer
'McDonaldization'
- Not shared culture. All cultures operate in the same way as America
- Principles and values of American capitalist business dominate other cultures
Marshall McLuhan
- Wrote about developments in technology and how it would change the world.
- New technologies extend our own senses and us as individuals
- Can now hear and see events on a global scale - in the age of communication.
GLOBAL VILLAGE THESIS
- The world would shrink and everyone would know each other. McLuhan thought this shrinking of the world would bring people together
- Definitely not the case
- Almost distances us from events
- de-sensitises us to the pain of others
"Brings us together but tears us apart"
R.Miles 2012
McLuhan was naive
- Thought individualism would become obsolete
DIDN'T!
- Always moving further away from a unified 'Global Village'
Jihad vs McWorld
Problems of Globalization
Sovereignty
- Challenging the idea of National identity
Cultural Imperialism
- Forcing culture on people and making them think in the way you do.
- Mass media is the vehicle for cultural imperialism in the West
Argue that the global village is not integrated community but an assimilated one
Time Warner
- Massive company owning hundreds of smaller companies in the media worldwide
All CNN news controlled by them
Hundreds of disparate things answer back to one CEO at Time Warner
Therefore one voice/view is spread globally
One way of thinking about the world
Media Oligopolies
- Target the world in the amount of money they can make
1. North America
2. Western Europe, Japan & Australia
3. Developing Economies etc, India, China, Brazil, rest of Europe
4. The rest of the world
Utterly dominant American culture spread worldwide
Big Brother - Western program
- Repeated in other cultures around the world
"It's popular, we should be like this"
-Version of Western culture imposed on other cultures. Applies to all media
- the effect of this is cultural assimilation
- People believe they should aim for this culture
Giant system of propaganda for Western Capitalism
Chomsky & Herman 1998
- Manufacturing consent
Ownership - Who they're controlled by
Funding - How they get money
Sourcing - How and where they get information
Flak - People working against them
Anti-communist ideology - Underlying agenda
Rupert Murdoch
- The Sun wins elections not political parties
He controls the power to influence cultures
Nearly 40% of newspapers influenced by this one man
- If the owner has an agenda - the information coming from it will always be flawed
Sourcing
- Papers are only as good as the stories they're allowed to publish
- Questions to people have to be delicate
- cannot be invasive
- most media organisations are funded by advertising
- they cannot push stories that would upset the people funding them
US based - Global Climate Coalition
- directly contradict scare stories of global warming
Information spread in the interests of oil companies. Big capitalist companies
Ideologies
Making others look more evil.
In turn making British views etc look better
Al Gore
- Campaigner for environmentalist views
All solutions he poses for global warming rely on people spending money and buying things
AMERICA AND CHINA DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO ANYTHING IN THE INTEREST OF THE PLANET, BECAUSE IT IS NOT IN THE INTEREST OF BUSINESS
-Sustainability and growth appear contradictory
BIOX Biofuel Plant . Canada
- Alternative, ' clean ' fuel
- Renewable
- Expensive to produce
- Built the factory in the poorest area of Hamilton, Canada
- Very close to peoples homes who couldn't afford to move.
THE ATTEMPTS TO RIGHT GLOBAL WARMING HAVE MORE DAMAGING EFFECTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT THAN CURRENT SYSTEMS
Greenwashing - branding companies in a way that makes them appear caring, when they're more than likely not.
SUSTAINABILITY IS IMPOSSIBLE UNDER A CAPITALIST SYSTEM AS IT RELIES ENTIRELY ON CONTINUOUS GROWTH
Al Gore - Environmentalists
Radicals - Ecologists
Internet has given people who want to resist the mechanism to do so. As a group
- Activists are mobilising on the internet
- Global resistance
the media is a weapon wielded against us.
But can be used for our own means aswell.
Lecture 10 - Deleuze, Guattari & creativity
Richard Pinhas
Strange music
- sounds come together - disperse - reconfigure
Constructed and contingent nature of social reality
Creativity > generative force
Contrasting 'Rhizomatic' with traditional 'tree-like' thought
Concepts of 'the visual' and 'the actual'
1970s & 80s philosopher and psychologist
Faris May 1968
- student and worker protests
Re-thinking social change - could be ongoing as opposed to a point of revolution/revolt.
Which in Paris' student and worker protests was unsuccessful
Traditional thought - Tree-like
- lines of argument 'branching' out from one central point. trunk.
Alternate structure of thought - Rhizomatic.
- favours creativity/play
Multi-disciplinary construction
re-contextualised
reverberate
Rhizo from the plant form - like tree
Rhizos are like wall climbing plants
Ginger is a rhizo
- growing underground then pushing up shoots
Forms the alternative mode of thought
Linked not through vertical progression like tree. But through jumping between many different ideas
Principles of inter-relationship
Produced ideas between users of a given language system
Dog > log } changing single letters can completely alter the meaning
Draws upon the nature by which meaning is constructed between different language systems.
Embrace our connection with reality around us. Rhizos are creative forces shaping new ways of thinking/practicing
Isa Genzken , Hospital (Ground zero) 2008
Things appear put together provisionally
Found materials
Suggests the possibility of architectural construction that could be reconfigured
Assemblage. Developed by Deleuze and Guattari
Arranging > organising > Putting together
coming together of 'things'
School > example of an assemblage
Home > assemblage
Dinner Party > assemblage
Singing pr humming a tune in order to bring back familiarity to an unfamiliar place
Home not necessarily a house
Places and language and how the two together can be meaningful
"here is your diploma"
- under currents in this statement of duty, get a job... well done, congratulations.
Laden with implicit pre-propositions of what people say and do in these situations.
Statements that enact their meaning
"I do" at a wedding > both an utterance and an action.
Bruce Nauman - good boy, bad boy
Repeating statements that continually change, by very small amounts > single word change each time.
"I", "you", "we"
Language is not just about transmission of messages - it is also about the reply.
Value - power - prejudice
"hoody" - person wearing a hood up. some kind of criminal tendencies.
History of assumptions surrounding 'hoodies'
"hoodies" assembling outside shop
- are judged by everyone passing
- people make assumptions
- area they are then becomes territorialised
- with each judgement, the assemblage changes
Tabloid press
status of teenagers in society change very quickly
Whereas status of the military is fixed
Zaha Hadid
Creates buildings that come together as assemblages
Subjectivation.
Sense of self/identity is not given, it is always under construction.
Ideology
Close to the views of Marxism
( or bears some kind of relation to it)
Some ideologies dominate, or they reflect dominance within society.
- Person owning means of production etc
- relations of dominance
conflictual nature of ideology
"We're all in it together"
Mantra following the banking crisis
repressive state apparatus - the police?
Commuters
- Thrust into the tasks of wage labour.
- Forced to perform as a parent
Have to do your job properly
Have to behave in public } each have recurrence if not.
Have to be thoughtful to partner
How we ought to behave within a given situation
How we as individuals are shaped by society
Schizo analysis
Our psyche is shaped by our relationship to our parents growing up.
Freud is a tree-like thinker
psycho analysis is a practice aswell as a theory
I understand you/ I can treat you
etc
set notion of who a person is
Through role play and discussion and suggestion etc therapists aim to reconfigure who that person is.
Schizophrenia
In the process of breakdown > is the possibility for change and rehabilitation
The unconscious is a factory that continually produces and constructs.
Planting a tree in the mind of the individual.
Socially constructed assemblages
> psychological assemblages
The body without organs
The radical reduction of state to something like a 'loss of self'
Being in the middle of a mosh pit.
Bodies breakdown
Balance and intensive body - variations in amplitude
Loss of linguistic
Feel the body as a singular sensing organ
A STRUCTURE
Loss of awareness of structure that generates the possibility of individual change
Francis Bacon - study of george Dyer, 1969
- Doesn't paint people - paint flesh etc
Body without organs
De-territorialising from identity
Nothing is inevitable > Everything changes
- Change in the term 'banker' and what it connotes to us
Western thought is pre-occupied by identity
Difference for Deleuze and Guattari precedes identity
Even mountains are considered constructions
'real' is the relation between the thing itself and all its constituent parts
synthesis of change and perminance
Any object us a contingent construction
Made up of molecular constituents
Francis Bacon
- Messy studios - full of stuff he used to work from
- the images influenced his own work
Series of tools for strategic thought
Way of understanding how we exist in relation to an ever changing work.
Strange music
- sounds come together - disperse - reconfigure
Constructed and contingent nature of social reality
Creativity > generative force
Contrasting 'Rhizomatic' with traditional 'tree-like' thought
Concepts of 'the visual' and 'the actual'
1970s & 80s philosopher and psychologist
Faris May 1968
- student and worker protests
Re-thinking social change - could be ongoing as opposed to a point of revolution/revolt.
Which in Paris' student and worker protests was unsuccessful
Traditional thought - Tree-like
- lines of argument 'branching' out from one central point. trunk.
Alternate structure of thought - Rhizomatic.
- favours creativity/play
Multi-disciplinary construction
re-contextualised
reverberate
Rhizo from the plant form - like tree
Rhizos are like wall climbing plants
Ginger is a rhizo
- growing underground then pushing up shoots
Forms the alternative mode of thought
Linked not through vertical progression like tree. But through jumping between many different ideas
Principles of inter-relationship
Produced ideas between users of a given language system
Dog > log } changing single letters can completely alter the meaning
Draws upon the nature by which meaning is constructed between different language systems.
Embrace our connection with reality around us. Rhizos are creative forces shaping new ways of thinking/practicing
Isa Genzken , Hospital (Ground zero) 2008
Things appear put together provisionally
Found materials
Suggests the possibility of architectural construction that could be reconfigured
Assemblage. Developed by Deleuze and Guattari
Arranging > organising > Putting together
coming together of 'things'
School > example of an assemblage
Home > assemblage
Dinner Party > assemblage
Singing pr humming a tune in order to bring back familiarity to an unfamiliar place
Home not necessarily a house
Places and language and how the two together can be meaningful
"here is your diploma"
- under currents in this statement of duty, get a job... well done, congratulations.
Laden with implicit pre-propositions of what people say and do in these situations.
Statements that enact their meaning
"I do" at a wedding > both an utterance and an action.
Bruce Nauman - good boy, bad boy
Repeating statements that continually change, by very small amounts > single word change each time.
"I", "you", "we"
Language is not just about transmission of messages - it is also about the reply.
Value - power - prejudice
"hoody" - person wearing a hood up. some kind of criminal tendencies.
History of assumptions surrounding 'hoodies'
"hoodies" assembling outside shop
- are judged by everyone passing
- people make assumptions
- area they are then becomes territorialised
- with each judgement, the assemblage changes
Tabloid press
status of teenagers in society change very quickly
Whereas status of the military is fixed
Zaha Hadid
Creates buildings that come together as assemblages
Subjectivation.
Sense of self/identity is not given, it is always under construction.
Ideology
Close to the views of Marxism
( or bears some kind of relation to it)
Some ideologies dominate, or they reflect dominance within society.
- Person owning means of production etc
- relations of dominance
conflictual nature of ideology
"We're all in it together"
Mantra following the banking crisis
repressive state apparatus - the police?
Commuters
- Thrust into the tasks of wage labour.
- Forced to perform as a parent
Have to do your job properly
Have to behave in public } each have recurrence if not.
Have to be thoughtful to partner
How we ought to behave within a given situation
How we as individuals are shaped by society
Schizo analysis
Our psyche is shaped by our relationship to our parents growing up.
Freud is a tree-like thinker
psycho analysis is a practice aswell as a theory
I understand you/ I can treat you
etc
set notion of who a person is
Through role play and discussion and suggestion etc therapists aim to reconfigure who that person is.
Schizophrenia
In the process of breakdown > is the possibility for change and rehabilitation
The unconscious is a factory that continually produces and constructs.
Planting a tree in the mind of the individual.
Socially constructed assemblages
> psychological assemblages
The body without organs
The radical reduction of state to something like a 'loss of self'
Being in the middle of a mosh pit.
Bodies breakdown
Balance and intensive body - variations in amplitude
Loss of linguistic
Feel the body as a singular sensing organ
A STRUCTURE
Loss of awareness of structure that generates the possibility of individual change
Francis Bacon - study of george Dyer, 1969
- Doesn't paint people - paint flesh etc
Body without organs
De-territorialising from identity
Nothing is inevitable > Everything changes
- Change in the term 'banker' and what it connotes to us
Western thought is pre-occupied by identity
Difference for Deleuze and Guattari precedes identity
Even mountains are considered constructions
'real' is the relation between the thing itself and all its constituent parts
synthesis of change and perminance
Any object us a contingent construction
Made up of molecular constituents
Francis Bacon
- Messy studios - full of stuff he used to work from
- the images influenced his own work
Series of tools for strategic thought
Way of understanding how we exist in relation to an ever changing work.
Lecture 9 - Censorship & truth
-Notions of censorship
-Quality of photograph in rendering truth
-Photographic manipulation
-Censorship of advertising
-Censorship in art & photography
Ansel Adams
-Quality of photograph in rendering truth
-Photographic manipulation
-Censorship of advertising
-Censorship in art & photography
Ansel Adams
Moonrise Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941-42
A given that photographs can be 'improved' be commonly used photographic manipulation.
-software etc
- Digital photography is code that 'exists'
Moon over half dome, 1960
Countless reproductions using different exposures and darkroom techniques to alter their effect.
Manipulation in photography isn't new...
Stalin & Nikolai Yezhov
- Manipulated image in Pravda
Newspaper doctored the news
They censor the news and manipulate it to give you the story they think you should read.
Kate Winslet on GQ Magazine
Making her legs slightly longer...
Images put together in order to sell a story
pictures from Iraq etc.
Viewing allied soldiers in a dim view.
Robert Capa
Death of a loyalist soldier, 1936
Is it real? does it matter?
Up for discussion for a long time. Proved he probably is quite dead.
Also the truth of images can be coloured by the caption they are put with > emotive
Manipulative advertising, 1984
Is it rational or is it suggestive of what people want you to see
Simulacrum - phases of image.
- reflection of a basic reality
- Jean Baudrillard
Peter Turnley
- The unseen Gulf War
photographs documenting the Gulf War
The photos however were approved by the U.S army, so the images are not exactly showing the truth
His book offers all the unpublished images so people had their own opinions and could see what really happened.
Jean Baudrillard - The Gulf War did not take place (1996)
Making the point that it was a war that took place as a simulation of other wars.
- manipulated representation of war
- Strategized media event
Turnley tries to show that it was a real war - taking place - people dying.
Black & white
- 'arty' - colour as opposed to black and white making it more real?
Peter Turnley 1991
Backlash to an image that was very graphic - what does it say about society that we can't see images like it, of real things that are taking place.
Contrived representation of reality.
An-My-Lee - Small Wars
- Fine art photographer turned to capturing war
is there a place for this style of photography or is Turnley's more valid?
"landscape photograph with some tanks in it"
Censorship
- The practice or policy of censoring films, letters or publications
- Obscene - objectionable
- Standards of right and wrong
Theodore Levitt
- The morality of Advertising, 1970
Cadbury's Flake advertising 1969
- orgasmic situations
- 'Inserting' a chocolate bar into her mouth
says more about the viewer than it does about the images themselves.
Oliviero Toscani, United Colours of Benetton, 1992
- Photographer building a career off adverts meant to shock
Cook.G - The Discourse of Advertising
" No such thing as bad publicity"
Balthus, the Golden Years
Does the fact that it's a painting make it acceptable to be graphic?
Bow wow wow record cover
Contains image representative of a painting, however one girl in the band was 14 yet the cover was still released.
Amy Adler - The Folly of defining 'serious' art
- The Miller Test. 1973.
When art starts to become too graphic.
obsenity law.
Sally Mann - Candy Cigarette, 1989
A mother who photographs her children and publishes them.
Should a mother be showing images like this, and what is going on in the images.
Immediate Family, 1984-92
Should she do this or is it different because they are her own children. Family photos...
'A REVOLTING EXHIBITION OF PERVERSION UNDER THE GUISE OF ART '
News of The World
Richard Prince - Spiritual America, 2005
What should we believe? should we be protected from it?
Thursday, 1 March 2012
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