Hyperreality theory.
1960s
production growth
industries
marketing & communism
Bladerunner 1982 - idea of simulacra
MATRIX
What is real?
Reality is turned into blank white canvas filled with constructions
Baudrillard
- early writings grounded in Marxism
Labour
> shaping the environment through industry
Became removed or alienated from the condition.
Universal condition of human experience
Products have 'use value'
- can become commodities
these have 'exchange value'
money...
- abstraction of 'use value'
Relationship to the world becomes indirect.
Directly engaging with & transforming the world around you.
Not possible under capitalism
>said marx.
A mans work becomes an object.
Exchange of labour for production disconnects the labourer from the product.
- weighing products / commodities against all others, and the quantity of money we can exchange them for.
Industrialisation would make production much more effective.
Henry Ford
> automated production line 1913
everyone contributes one element of production along the line.
Post war
Manufacturing boom
assembly line becomes method of production for all commodity items.
John Berger
Publicity as a system proposes we change ourselves an our lives by buying things.
translating words into a language 'people' understand.
Thing statement to human statements.
mpg - high - thrifty
- low - Advertise above thrifty, to those money isn't an issue. thrill seekers etc.
Baudrillard
Advertising codes products
Fitting objects into series
they are then related to individual consumers
Focus Groups.
- Basing advertising upon the information found out from a group of consumers.
Array of advertising messages out there make up a language
needs cohere with product...
Shop Environments
suggest Abundance - affluence
Surplus!
people are all made to desire in the same way
agreement of a given language system
Language . signification of meaning
Tube station
- adverts randomly next to each other (like montage)
cultural condition of hyperreality
'desert of the real'
Twin Towers.
Immune to their surroundings - appear so clearly within the vast city scape.
Media representations affecting & shaping social events.
suggesting that spectacular endings in films etc were sort of the basis for 9/11
post modernity is a game with the leftovers of what has been destroyed
> history has stopped
>No meaning
Material progress has come to an end
American psycho - personification of current social stance.
Patrick Bateman.
Monday, 30 January 2012
Lecture 7 - Identity.
- Historical conceptions of identity
- 'Discourse' methodology (Foucault)
- 'Fluid' identity theory. (Bauman)
Essentialism
> biological makeup that makes us who we are.
> inner 'essence'
Post modern theories disagree
Physiognomy
Cesare Lambroso
- founder of positivist criminology.
the notion that criminal tendencies are inhereted
Looks at features of the face, suggests that sloped face etc show criminal tendencies. Diagrams explaining this theory show those more likely to have criminal tendencies as African/black men.
This theory almost legitimises racism...attempts to give it some kind of scientific basis.
Phrenology
No real theory of scientific evidence.
Based upon parts of the brain formulating the person you are.
Each section of the brain controls an element of you as a person ( animal etc)
These sections are held in a balance.
If one section is larger in a person then another suffers as a result and will be smaller.
ANGLO - TEUTONIC > seen as racially superior.
Nazism
- Aryan race
blond hair // blue eyes // caucasian.
Heironymous Bosch (1450-1516)
christ carrying the cross.
Chris Ofili
Holy Virgin Mary (1996)
> paints the virgin Mary as a black woman
> exaggerated features.
> paints with elephant dung
Pre-modern identity
-Personal identity is stable - defined by long standing roles.
Modern identity
-Societies offer wider social range. possibility to choose identity rather than being born into it.
People then 'worry'.
Pre modern identity
institutions determined identity.
Marriage, church, monarchy, government, the state, work etc.
Secure identities.
Farm worker
Soldier
factory worker
housewife
gentleman
husband/wife.
Modern identity
Charles Boudelaire - painter of Modern life (1863)
Thorsten Veblen - theory of leisure class ( 1899)
George Simmel - Metropolis of mental life (1903)
People aspire to be a part of the leisure class } paying others to work //rather than in a factory.
'Flaneur' gentleman stroller
Baudelaire > Veblen
Simmel
Trickle down theory > upper classes seen wearing the latest fashions.
> lower classes try to emulate their style > it then become unfashionable because everyone is wearing it > upper class find something new to wear and the cycle repeats itself.
Emulation
Distinction
The 'Mask' of fashion.
Edvard Munch
Simmel suggests that :
Individuals withdraw themselves in order to find peace.
Post modern identity //
Discourse analysis.
-age
-class
-gender } 'Otherness'
-nationality
-race/ethnicity
Class - industrialisation brings on the emergence of the working class.
Mass observation - worktown project ( 1937)
Upper class toffs from London - photographing the working class of Britain. In this instance, Bolton.
Observing them
Northern people observed by Southern people
Humphrey Spender
Trained architect but did photography because he wanted to. There was no need for him to have a proper job because he was so upper class.
Suggest in his photos that the peoples lives are rubbish
> playing with rabbits feet 'cause there's nothing else to play with
Suggesting the people in them are dull.
Martin Parr
Claims hes documenting the world as he sees it...
Romantisising peoples lives.
People argue that his images are condescending } they show an upper class view.
Poke fun at the way people live their lives?
Parr photographs in much the same way as Spencer, with a similar consideration for humour and a way of poking fun at those in the images.
Ascot, 2003, Martin Parr
Bauman (2004)
People playing out roles they don't really belong to.
Think of England
Think of Germany
> notion of cliche and representations of the countries.
Alexander Mcqueen
Highland Rape collection (1995-96)
Claims rape of Scotland by the English was the influence for the collection.
It's a jungle out there (1997-98)
Racist?
Vivenne Westwood.
Anglomania - About Englishness
> yet used Tartan, a material synonymous with Scottish-ness.
Highly controversial.
Las Vegas
Multitude of identities in a confused space // why go anywhere else when all the places you'd go are in Las Vegas.
Chris Ofili
No woman, no cry (1998)
Captain shit and the Legend of the black stars (1994)
Making link to elephant dung but also how he feels he may have been perceived as a black teenager growing up in Manchester.
Gillian Wearing
Signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that say what some else wants you to say (1992-93)
Emily Bates- created a dress using her own hair
Gender & sexuality
Wilson. E (1985)
- the fashion industry is the work not of women, but of men.
- a gigantic unconscious hoax, perpetrated on women by the arch villains of the cold war - male homosexuals.
they have a secret hatred of women
Flapper 1952
La Garconne
Masquerade and the mask of femininity
Cindy Sherman > untitled film stills (1977-80)
Making a point of the situation she is in...
objectified.
Sarah Lucas - Au Naturel (1994)
Tracey Emin - Everyone I've ever slept with. (1963-95)
Because a woman has created it, it becomes more acceptable.
Gillian Wearing > Lynn
Post modern condition
- liquid modernity & liquid love.
> identity is constructed through social experience
> Goffman saw life as 'theatre'
Bauman
- identity is something to be invented - can now choose identity
Getting a text message becomes a justification of your existence
Theodore levitt (1970) the morality of advertising
Idea that contemporary life is dull and we use art etc to make it less so.
Barbara Kruger I shop therefore I am . 1987.
Selfridges 2006
Sell out?
Sponsored art show?
Mocking the consumers?
Darley 2000 - visual digital culture
justifying your existence through your phone
Prediction for facebook.
" I like facebook", "I got a shag out of it" (Marty Edwards)
Second life Affairs // marriage
entertainment at the expense of tragic individuals.
- 'Discourse' methodology (Foucault)
- 'Fluid' identity theory. (Bauman)
Essentialism
> biological makeup that makes us who we are.
> inner 'essence'
Post modern theories disagree
Physiognomy
Cesare Lambroso
- founder of positivist criminology.
the notion that criminal tendencies are inhereted
Looks at features of the face, suggests that sloped face etc show criminal tendencies. Diagrams explaining this theory show those more likely to have criminal tendencies as African/black men.
This theory almost legitimises racism...attempts to give it some kind of scientific basis.
Phrenology
No real theory of scientific evidence.
Based upon parts of the brain formulating the person you are.
Each section of the brain controls an element of you as a person ( animal etc)
These sections are held in a balance.
If one section is larger in a person then another suffers as a result and will be smaller.
ANGLO - TEUTONIC > seen as racially superior.
Nazism
- Aryan race
blond hair // blue eyes // caucasian.
Heironymous Bosch (1450-1516)
christ carrying the cross.
Chris Ofili
Holy Virgin Mary (1996)
> paints the virgin Mary as a black woman
> exaggerated features.
> paints with elephant dung
Pre-modern identity
-Personal identity is stable - defined by long standing roles.
Modern identity
-Societies offer wider social range. possibility to choose identity rather than being born into it.
People then 'worry'.
Pre modern identity
institutions determined identity.
Marriage, church, monarchy, government, the state, work etc.
Secure identities.
Farm worker
Soldier
factory worker
housewife
gentleman
husband/wife.
Modern identity
Charles Boudelaire - painter of Modern life (1863)
Thorsten Veblen - theory of leisure class ( 1899)
George Simmel - Metropolis of mental life (1903)
People aspire to be a part of the leisure class } paying others to work //rather than in a factory.
'Flaneur' gentleman stroller
Baudelaire > Veblen
Simmel
Trickle down theory > upper classes seen wearing the latest fashions.
> lower classes try to emulate their style > it then become unfashionable because everyone is wearing it > upper class find something new to wear and the cycle repeats itself.
Emulation
Distinction
The 'Mask' of fashion.
Edvard Munch
Simmel suggests that :
Individuals withdraw themselves in order to find peace.
Post modern identity //
Discourse analysis.
-age
-class
-gender } 'Otherness'
-nationality
-race/ethnicity
Class - industrialisation brings on the emergence of the working class.
Mass observation - worktown project ( 1937)
Upper class toffs from London - photographing the working class of Britain. In this instance, Bolton.
Observing them
Northern people observed by Southern people
Humphrey Spender
Trained architect but did photography because he wanted to. There was no need for him to have a proper job because he was so upper class.
Suggest in his photos that the peoples lives are rubbish
> playing with rabbits feet 'cause there's nothing else to play with
Suggesting the people in them are dull.
Martin Parr
Claims hes documenting the world as he sees it...
Romantisising peoples lives.
People argue that his images are condescending } they show an upper class view.
Poke fun at the way people live their lives?
Parr photographs in much the same way as Spencer, with a similar consideration for humour and a way of poking fun at those in the images.
Ascot, 2003, Martin Parr
People playing out roles they don't really belong to.
Think of England
Think of Germany
> notion of cliche and representations of the countries.
Alexander Mcqueen
Highland Rape collection (1995-96)
Claims rape of Scotland by the English was the influence for the collection.
It's a jungle out there (1997-98)
Racist?
Vivenne Westwood.
Anglomania - About Englishness
> yet used Tartan, a material synonymous with Scottish-ness.
Highly controversial.
Las Vegas
Multitude of identities in a confused space // why go anywhere else when all the places you'd go are in Las Vegas.
Chris Ofili
No woman, no cry (1998)
Captain shit and the Legend of the black stars (1994)
Making link to elephant dung but also how he feels he may have been perceived as a black teenager growing up in Manchester.
Gillian Wearing
Signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that say what some else wants you to say (1992-93)
Emily Bates- created a dress using her own hair
Gender & sexuality
Wilson. E (1985)
- the fashion industry is the work not of women, but of men.
- a gigantic unconscious hoax, perpetrated on women by the arch villains of the cold war - male homosexuals.
they have a secret hatred of women
Flapper 1952
La Garconne
Masquerade and the mask of femininity
Cindy Sherman > untitled film stills (1977-80)
Making a point of the situation she is in...
objectified.
Sarah Lucas - Au Naturel (1994)
Tracey Emin - Everyone I've ever slept with. (1963-95)
Because a woman has created it, it becomes more acceptable.
Gillian Wearing > Lynn
Post modern condition
- liquid modernity & liquid love.
> identity is constructed through social experience
> Goffman saw life as 'theatre'
Bauman
- identity is something to be invented - can now choose identity
Getting a text message becomes a justification of your existence
Theodore levitt (1970) the morality of advertising
Idea that contemporary life is dull and we use art etc to make it less so.
Barbara Kruger I shop therefore I am . 1987.
Selfridges 2006
Sell out?
Sponsored art show?
Mocking the consumers?
Darley 2000 - visual digital culture
justifying your existence through your phone
Prediction for facebook.
" I like facebook", "I got a shag out of it" (Marty Edwards)
Second life Affairs // marriage
entertainment at the expense of tragic individuals.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Task 3 - Essay Proposal
Subjects.
Swiss design/typography
Modernism
Analysing modernist graphic design, particularly 'Swiss' design by comparing works from modernist design movements from different continents. In this case Swiss and American modernist graphic design.
Initial Research.
Meggs, P.B - 'A History of Graphic Design'
Should give me a good grounding in the history of Graphic Design and also has a section on Modernist graphic design and more importantly the 'International Typographic Style'.
Klanten, R/Bourquin, N/Mareis, C - 'Altitude: Contemporary Swiss Graphic Design'
Will give me an idea of the development and progression of 'Swiss' design into the 21st Century and also how the 'International Typographic Style' has affected contemporary practice.
Hollis, R - 'Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style, 1920-1965'
De Jong, C.W - 'Jan Tschichold, Master Typographer: His Life, Work and Legacy'
Muller, L/Rand, P - 'Josef Muller-Brockmann: Pioneer of Swiss Graphic Design'
Swiss design/typography
Modernism
Analysing modernist graphic design, particularly 'Swiss' design by comparing works from modernist design movements from different continents. In this case Swiss and American modernist graphic design.
Initial Research.
Meggs, P.B - 'A History of Graphic Design'
Should give me a good grounding in the history of Graphic Design and also has a section on Modernist graphic design and more importantly the 'International Typographic Style'.
Klanten, R/Bourquin, N/Mareis, C - 'Altitude: Contemporary Swiss Graphic Design'
Will give me an idea of the development and progression of 'Swiss' design into the 21st Century and also how the 'International Typographic Style' has affected contemporary practice.
Hollis, R - 'Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style, 1920-1965'
- 'Graphic Design: a Concise History'
An entire book about Swiss graphic design should give me all the information I need an a really strong idea of its defining features and beginnings. A concise history, very much like Meggs' 'History of Graphic Design' should inform my knowledge of general Graphic Design.
De Jong, C.W - 'Jan Tschichold, Master Typographer: His Life, Work and Legacy'
- 'Sans Serif'
One of the defining characters in the development of this style both in terms of type design and the use of design and grids in typographic layout.
Muller, L/Rand, P - 'Josef Muller-Brockmann: Pioneer of Swiss Graphic Design'
Another of the Swiss design movements defining practitioners, Useful to learn a little about them and the ideas that the based their practice on.
Saturday, 10 December 2011
Task 2 - Benjamin & Mechanical Reproduction.
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Barbara Kruger
I shop therefore I am
1987
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.
Thursday, 8 December 2011
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
cities of the future > Metropolis (1929)
> 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)
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}
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.
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.
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.
Monday, 28 November 2011
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.
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)
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.
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