Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Pseudo Individualisation Blog Task
Adorno also suggests the idea of Pseudo- Individualisation, which is the idea of the listener having a preconception of a particular kind of music and them already judging that song whether or not it fits in with there interests. This is also apparent in other things around the world, fashion especially. Adorno's view is that if a piece of music is standardised but appears to people that it is different they will listen and buy it out of knowing they will enjoy listening to the music but not realising that they have listened to something very similar before.
This video is a perfect example of what may be thought as non pop music is actually far from that. Mainly focusing on the actual genre of music itself rather than the video. Dubstep although not classed as popular music can be seen to be standardised. Dubstep prides itself as not following a specific structure as seen in music that it has derived from such as drum and bass and garage. Structural characteristics such as the wobble base, bass drops and rewinds are all things that are featured heavily in the music.
Adorno believes that people want to escape the harsh realities of the real world and wish to engage with something that isn't serious. It is suggested that those who listen to the music do not understand the music but merely due to the type of people that listen to ... are listening to it because it is what is represented to them in that culture and what it means to them.
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Monday, 29 November 2010
Panoticism Blog Task
If for any reason the sign up sheet is taken down and the students have missed a there chance to sign up, a thick black marker is placed through their name, which allows staff and fellow students to "judge at a glance, without being concealed" (Foucault, 1977 p67). This brands that particular student as an outcast, isolating and excluding them from the there fellow peers. This formalisation of the sign up sheet is introduced from the beginning of the course which the tutors (people with the knowledge and power) indoctrinate the students affectively conforming and becoming docile bodies creating a disciplined society within the course.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Sunday, 7 November 2010
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Graphic Design as Communication (Notes)
- reproducible
- affordable/accessible to a wide audience
- conveys ideas through a combination of words and image
- Fine Art is pure
- Illustration is the beginning of selling out
- Graphic Design is commercial art
- Advertising is selling- Period
- Identification- the graphic designer has the role to say what some is
- Information and instruction- these indicate the relationship between one another, scale and position. An example of this can be seen in maps
- Presentation and promotion- aim to envelope the spectator
- Symbolic- (Represent something,
- Epistemic- Convey information about the world and its contents
- Aesthetic- Intended to please the audience
Advertising, Publicity and the Media
Advertising, Publicity and the Media
- Time Square New York City
- 11,000 adverts on TV in 1990 and has trebled by now if not more
- 25 million Print adverts produced every year
- Advertising is unavoidable, it effects everyone consciously and subconsciously (bombardment)
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
- Communist Manifesto (1848)
- Das Kapital (1867) Volume 1
- Philosopher
- Theorist of the way of the world works
(Marxism Console/own life based on)
- The Stanley Range.
- The Uncle Sam Range
Critique of Consumer/Commodity Culture
- People are identified through consumer products rather than by what they produce themselves
- Stewart Ewan- 'The commodity self'
- Marxists do not agree with the capitalist idea of personal wealth and the gain above others. They believe that you shouldn't be defined as a person by what you buy and who you have relationships with
- Judith Williamson, author of Decoding Advertisements
Symbolic associations
- People buy into the consumer market through various mechanisms of advertising.
- It perceives the idea that the consumer could make a change. An example of this is the CK1 aftershave, makes us believe that we will become like the model in the advert, playing on the needs of the consumer
- Perfume adverts - Sex appeal
How does commodity culture perpetuate false needs?
Novelty
- Advertising makes us think that we need something that is not necessary to live in the world but commodity culture tricks us into thinking that we need it.
Planned obsolescence
- Products are designed to last a few years at the most.
- This is so that the consumer has to go out and buy the same product a couple of years down the line where the product has broken or it has become obsolete.
Aesthetic innovation- the way things look, newer, more modern and sexier
Commodity Fetishism
- Advertising conceals the background 'history' of products
Reification
- this is where a product is given human associations
- Products themselves are perceived as sexy, romantic, cool, sophisticated ect
John Berger Ways of seeing- theorist, interrogates systems of advertising
Societies Views on figures
- Play on the idea of being inadequate
- Mythical goddess replaced, in modern society by glamor models
Positives
- Economy
- Subsidizing the media quality
Negatives
- Stereotyping
- Encourages addictive, obsessive and acquisitive behaviour
- It makes people unhappy with there existing material possessions
- Causes envy and inadequacy
- Seeks to make people unhappy with existing materials
- No morals in advertising
- Subvert the adverts with mechanisms that detract the popularity
- Adbusters Absolut Vodka
- Adverts to attack adverts
Monday, 22 March 2010
Semiotics (Notes)
'Codes' - found in all forms of cultural practice and RELY on shared knowledge - i.e. red can signify love a rose - romance / love etc.
Ferdinand de Saussure's theory - 1916 – 'Structuralism'.
Bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary (random) - people naturally assign meaning.
Charles Sanders Peirce's theory:
3 catergories of signs that Peirce identifies: - ICON - directly references objects (photos - iconic signs) - INDEX - (an inferred) direct link between sign and object . (INDEXICALLY) use a sign but no direct link. - SYMBOL - no logical link between sign and object (pure learned meaning).
Roland Barthes's theory:
Sunday, 21 March 2010
Postmodernism
- Experimentation
- Innovation
- Individualism
- Progress
- Purity
- Originality
- Seriousness
- Exhaustion
- Pluralism
- Pessimism
- Disillusionment with the idea of absolute knowledge
- Expression of modern life, technology and new materials (Modernity)
- Reaction to modern life, technology, new materials and communication (Postmodernity)
- 1917- German writer Rudolph Pannwitz, spoke of 'nihilistic, amoral, postmodern men'
- 1964- Leslie Fielder described a 'Post' culture, which rejected the elitist values of modern culture
- 1960s beginnings
- 1970s established as term (Jencks)
- 1980s recognisable style
- 1980s & 90s dominant theoretical discourse
- Today: Tired & simmering
- After modernism
- The historical era following modern
- Contra Modernism
- Equivalent to 'late capitalism' (Jameson)
- Artistic and stylistic eclecticism
- 'global village' phenomena: globalisation of cultures, race, images, capital, products
- The demolition of the Pruitt- Igoe development, St Louis
- Complexity
- Mixing materials and styles
- Re-using images
- Postmodernism begins to crumble
- Crisis in confidence and also freedom
- TV quiz shows
- 'Reality TV'- Big Brother
- TV shows about TV
- A vague disputed term
- Attitude of questioning conventions
- Multiplicity of styles and approaches
- Crisis in confidence
- Space for new voices
- Rejection of technological determinism
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Portfolio Task 4 (Semiotics)
Monday, 1 February 2010
Portfolio Task 3 (Preliminary Bibliography)
Malcolm Barnard, 2005 'Graphic Design as Communication', Oxon, Routledge
Craig Elimeliah Art vs design, January 13 2006, http://aiga.org/content. Cfm.art-vs design
Tomas Kulka.(1996) Kitsch and Art, The Pennsylvania State University Press,
306.21
Jody Berland, Shelley Hornstein. (2000)Capital Cultures: A reading on modernist legacies, state institutions and the value of art ,Kingston McGill-Queens university Press
745.2
Penny Sparke, (2004), An introduction to design and culture:1900 to the present, London and New Yor
Sunday, 17 January 2010
The Mass Media and Society
Late age of print
- Term comes from theorist Marshall Meluhon
- Age of print 1450, Guttenburg's printing press
- Allowed written word to be distributed
Electronic book (e- book)
Internet has changed the way that we read- hypertext/hyper media
This fragments the knowledge due to the way that we skip information as we get distracted by sub-links
Definition of Mass Media
Modern systems of communication and distribution supplied by relatively small groups of cultural producers, but directed towards large numbers of consumers. Some examples include:
- Television
- Cinema
- Advertising
- Publicity
- Newspapers
Criticism of Mass Media
- Superficial and trivial
- Viewing figures measure success
- Audience dispersed and disempowered
- Encourages the status quo
- Power held by the few that are motivated for profit or social control
Positive Criticism
- Not all mass media is low quality
- Social problems and injustices are discussed by media
- Creativity can be a feature in mass media
- Democratic potential
John A. Walker wrote a book entitled 'Art in the age of Mass Media' exploring Art and the Media.
Can art be autonomous? (exist in its own vacuum)
Artists use of Mass media
Leeds 13- The group faked spending there grant money from the university for going on to Spain. They told the Sun newspaper and an article was published, they even faked photos of there holiday at there home in Leeds.
Jackson Pollock-
- No meaning in the world
- Elitist- art that is above society
Thomas Crow- Modern Art in the Common Culture
- Pop artists come after abstract expressionists
- Attack on elitism
Andy Warhol-
'I consume therefore I am'
His work symbolises a consumerism society by the use of repetition
Marilyn (1962)-
The image of Marilyn is taken from a publicity shoot, were it depicts her smiling when in reality she has serious drug problems and is far from happy.
"Warhol found in Monroe a fusion of two of his consistent themes: death and the cult of celebrity. By repeating the image, he evokes her ubiquitous presence in the media. The contrast of vivid colour with black and white, and the effect of fading in the right panel are suggestive of the star’s mortality." Available from: http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=15976&tabview=work [Accessed 20th March 2010]
The reference suggests that even though she has this celebrity status, it is some what lowered to the level of the audience as she has been depicted to be be no different to any ordinary person. Like many of Warhol's work the repetition expresses the consumerist society, this could suggest that often celebrities are nothing more than the faces of these multi-coperate companies.
Piet Mondrian- Loreal Packaging (twisted De Stijl)
Marcus Harvey-
He painted a controversial painting of Mira Hindley, which was made up of children's handprints, this is referencing the murders of the children that she was found guilty of. This is what Times art critic,Richard Cork wrote after seeing the work on the day of it opening:
"Far from cynically exploiting her notoriety, Harvey's grave and monumental canvas succeeds in conveying the enormity of the crime she committed. Seen from afar, through several doorways, Hindley's face looms at us like an apparition. By the time we get close enough to realise that it is spattered with children's handprints, the sense of menace becomes overwhelming."Cork, Richard (16 September 1997), The established Clubbed, The Times, retrieved 30 September 2009