OUGD601 - CoP3 - Resolving your Research Project (Academic Conventions)

Introduction - What are you going to address and how are you going to address it?

Academic Conventions are like an institutional framework for you work.

They structure and standardise. They aspire to academic honesty.

At this level you are expected to be able to:

• Demonstrate a critical knowledge of practice
• Apply theory tot practice
• Analyse relevant material
• Evaluate theory and evidence within the context of study
• Reflect - critiquing and critically reflecting on your leaning and using this to improve practice.

Deep & surface learning

Remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, creating

Surface approach - Avoid

• Concentration of learning outcomes
• Passive acceptance of ideas
• Routine memorisation of facts
• Sees small chunks
• Ignore guiding patterns and principles
• Lack of reflection about, or ignorance of, underlying patterns and theories
• Little attempt to understand
• Minimal preparation and research

Deep approach

• Independent engagement with material
• Critical and thoughtful about idea and information
• Relates ideas to own previous experience and knowledge
• Sees the big picture
• Relates evidence to conclusions
• Examines logic of arguments
• Interested in wider reading and thinking
• Ongoing preparation and reflection

How do I evidence deep thinking?

• Academic writing is formal and follows some standard conventions
• Each academic discipline has its own specialist vocabulary which you will be expected to learn and use in your own writing
• The substance of academic writing must be based on solid evidence and logical analysis, and presented as a concise, accurate argument.
• Academic writing can allow you to present your argument and analysis accurately and concisely. Directness.
• Aim for precision. Don't use unnecessary words or waffle. Get straight to the point. Make every word count. If there is any uncertainty about a particular point, use cautious language.
• Avoid abbreviations and contractions
• Avoid slang words and phrases
• Avoid conversational terms
• Avoid vague terms

In many academic disciplines, writing in the first person is not acceptable as it is believed to be too subjective and personal. Many tutors prefer impersonal language to be used in assignments.

Structure

• Preliminaries - title, acknowledgements, contents, list of illustrations
• Introduction - The abstract, statement of the problem, methodological approach
• Main body - review of the literature, logically developed argument, chapters, results of investigation, case study
• Conclusion - Discussion and conclusion, summary of conclusions
• Extras - Bibliography, appendices

Resolving your essay - 15th January, 4pm

Getting stuck

• Ask yourself why are you really stuck?
• Avoid negativity
• Picture what being 'unstuck' would look like

Project self assessment

• Write down the major aims of the project
• Give a brief summary of the work so far
• Comment on your time management
• Do you know what the final project will look like?
• What steps will you take o ensure it gets there?
• What areas of the project are your worried about?
• What risk management plans do you have?
• How are you going to use the remaining tutorials?

OUGD601 - CoP3 - Methodologies & Critical Analysis

Methods - How the information you have found is...

• Sourced
• Collected
• Collated
• Presented

A logical predefined strategy in how you collect your information/research. Defining a strategy.

What you are research and why you are researching it.

You need to clearly evidence why you selected these methods of gathering information and selecting evidence and why they are the most appropriate for your study

This will make you appear to be in control and aware of what you are doing.

Methodology

A set or system of methods, principles, and rules for regulating a given discipline, as in the arts or sciences.

Why are you choosing that particular tactic/method?

Picking a particular side and why you picked that side

Theories

These can help you decide upon the methods you use.

Alternatively the material you find may suggest the appropriate theories.

A coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena

Examples of theories:

Psychological theory - S.Freud, C Jung,  J. Lacan

Communication theory

Social history/Marxist

Postcolonial

Feminist

Different theories will ale you to different results - each particular theory will have its own answers

What theories and methods do I need to use?

Practical studio practice could be the research. Must treat it like secondary research - document it completely

Choose the theories and methods most appropriate to your subject

1. Make decisions about how to collect and order information
2. Choose a relevant theoretical stand point
3. Apply these to your study
4. Explicitly outline this in the introduction. Address suggested failings in the conclusion.

Critical Analysis

Critical analysis is not to be confused with criticism - weighing up different sides of an argument and evaluating material based on evidence/research selection

Reasoned thinking - stepping away and using evidence and logic to come to your conclusions

Awareness of perspectives

Where was the author/artist/designer/photographer situated?

Whatever sources/methods you use - be guarded

Try to consider different points of view

Look into the time/society/prejudice when design was produced in that particular moment in time - popular attitude shift.

Where am I coming from?

How is my choice of topic influenced by my emotions; aspirations; context?

Context is everything - always consider the context

Consider the influence of one or more of the following:

• The time
• The place
• Society
• Politics
• Economics
• Technology
• Philosophy
• Scientific thought

Evidence

What is the evidence for what you are saying? Supporting research, experiments, observation

Position should be based on research that has led to the point where you can believe it

Could you find more evidence to support your conclusions?

Evidence

Reason

Logic

Argument

Argument

What do I want to say?

Have I got the evidence to back it up?

What else do I need to look in order to find more evidence?

Triangulation

Pitting alternative theories against the same body of data

Am I expressing myself clearly and logically?

Don't just do theory A against theory B - there should be a third theory which will ultimately take one side to support that argument in the essay

A clear logical plan

Keep it simple - refine what you want to say and focus on key issues

Look into your key issues in depth and bring in the maximum evidence to support your views

Discuss your issues and the evidence you have found in a clear and logical manner

Move from the general to the specific

OUGD601 - CoP 3 - Organising Your Research Project

Doing Your Research Project - Judith Bell

• 400 hours study for a 40 credit module
• 6000 - 9000 word written element, and related practical work
• Minimum 2.5 hours support on the written element of the module, in addition to support with the practical project.

Deadline - 15th January 4pm - 15 weeks

• Try to have a substantial draft submitted by Christmas

• Cohesive research project, with practical and textual outcomes
• In-depth critical research
• A coherent written argument and related practical investigation
• Analysis and Evaluation
• The work undertaken will reveal the students appreciation and application of research approaches and methodologies
• A logical and systematic to approaching the question

Planning the project

• Write down all question that you want to investigate
• Choose two - consider each on their merits and focus on two (primary and secondary)
• Write an A4 'first thoughts' sheet for each question
• What is the purpose of the study? Is your question researchable?
• Working title

Project Outline

• Consider timing
• Consider holidays/work/life
• Think about your working title and different component parts that need researching.
• Allocate timing to each
• Draw up a project outline based on the above
• Allow generous time for initial reading and writing up
• Factor in tutorials
• Consult with your supervisor about this

Literature Search

• Reading takes more time than you think
• How much can you actually read in 100 hours?
• Start by trying to find out all the key texts on your chosen topic
• Focus your reading based on an initial assessment of this survey
• Find key texts and plan time to read these
• Find secondary sources/criticisms of key texts (triangulation)
• Use journals (www.jstor.org)

Referencing

• Start compiling a bibliography at the beginning of the project
• Reference as you go along
• Include all details (name, forename, date, place, publisher, page)

Ethics

• If a students cop3 research involves human subjects and/or data not in the public roman then ethical approval must be granted by their supervisor/programme leader.
• If the researcher is interviewing or observing participants then that counts as involving human subjects. Interviewing means that you are recording the persons words, by writing, tape or any other means, and using them in your work.
• Data not in the public roman means data which are still in copyright

OUGD501 - Lecture 12: COP3 Introduction

Context Of Practice 3 Introduction

'Theory provides the basis with which to ask questions not only about work, but also through work. And if nothing else, what design lacks in terms of interesting is not necessarily more visual variety, but rather more provocative questions and polemical answers.' (Blauvelt in Noble and Bestly, 2005:166)

'Critical thinking and making skills are crucial for success...Questions that connote be answered with a simple yes or no are, in fact, research questions' (172)

What is COP3?
A new module introduced 2013/14
A common module across all degrees at LCA
An academic module, designed to assess your intellectual engagement and theoretical understanding of your creative practice.
An individually driven, synthesised research project with interrelated practical and written elements.

What COP3 isn't
A dissertation
A dissertation with a related piece of practical work
An academic module unrelated to studio concerns
The same on every course

Learning Outcomes
Knowledge & Understanding
Cognitive Skills
Practical and Professional Skills
Key Transferrable Skills

Synthesis
All component parts of the project engaging in one complex, dynamic process
Informed engagement
The realisation of theory in, and through, practice
PRAXIS
Cop3 is a synthesised research project from the very beginning.

COP3 Proposal Form
Kickstarts the module
Makes you consider all aspects of your project in detail
Allows you to receive focussed feedback
Allows staff to consider to viability of your research
Download from the E-Studio
Try complete in as much detail as possible
A detailed response will probably mean better feedback

Subjects of contextual research already undertaken
List context of practice 1 & 2 essay titles/topics
This work may act as a springboard top COP3
Try define a subject
Be as specific as you possibly can
Think about it, then be more specific again

What research needs to be undertaken into the general and specific contexts of your practice?
What factors sit 'behind' your chosen subject?
How have historical, cultural, social, technological, economic, political and other factors influenced it?
Who are the key figures within my chosen subject?
What is the specific history of my chosen subject?
Are there dominant or prevailing attitudes that inform my subject?
Is my subject culturally specific? If so, how?

What approach(es) will you take and what processes, methods, materials and tools are to be involved in research into your practice?
How will you approach your chosen subject?
What sort of questions will you ask? Why?
Research conducted 'through' practice
What effects dod changing the materials that you use have on the end result?
What factors could disrupt your creative practice?
What is the relationship of techniques that you use to other techniques in the sector?

Methodology
Method - a way of proceeding about something in a systematic or logical manner

What preparation or investigations do you need to undertake for your creative practice to take place?
How will you go about investigating my chosen subject?
Do you have to research into methods of research?
Do you need to research into materials?
How do you improve your research skills?
How do you maximise the effectiveness of your research?

What research do you need to undertake regarding who your creativity is for?
Who is your research project for?
What professional contexts could you research be aimed at?
What specific organisations could use your research and how?

OUGD501 - Lecture 11: Synthesis

Aims

• To provoke you into thinking about design rather than just 'doing it'
• To encourage you to pursue issues in more depth
• To form your own conclusions independently of practitioners and academics
• To experiment with ideas to see if they work in practice

Learning Outcomes

• Knowledge & Understanding
• Cognitive Skills
• Practical & Professional Skills
• Key Transferrable Skills
• Knowledge & Understanding 2 - Synthesis

PEST Analysis

• Political
• Economical
• Social
• Technological

David Hoffman

• Dead End Streets: Photography, Protest and Social Control
• Variety of photographs - was exhibition
• PEST Analysis - the way photography is used as a political took - about how technology is transforming our social relations with each other
• Everyone has the ability to become a documentary photography because they have the tools to do it

Synthesis

• All component parts of the project engaging in one complex, dynamic process
• Informed engagement
• The realisation of theory in, and through, practice
• PRAXIS

The purpose of a theoretical discipline is the pursuit of truth through contemplation; its telos is the attainment of knowledge for its own sake. The purpose of the productive sciences is to make something, their telos is the production of some artefact. The practical disciplines are those scions which deal with ethical and political life; their telos is practical wisdom and knowledge. (Carr & Kemmis 1986:32)

Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory

• Practitioners are right to worry that academic study of what is essentially a hands-on subject removes it from the reality of practice.
• Designers often work intuitively, without knowingly applying theory. This module aims to get you to reflect on that process.

OUGD501 - Lecture 10: What Is Critical Analysis?

Aims

• To explore the meaning of critical analysis
• To develop critical thinking and writing skills
• To begin critically analysing some examples

Definitions

• critical analysis - an appraisal based on careful analytical evaluation http://www.thefreedictionary.com/critical+analysis
• Critical analysis is a central process involved in all academic work. It involves hard (critical) thinking which is applying rational and logical thinking while deconstructing the different texts that a person reads http://uk.ask.com/question/what-is-the-definition-of-critical-analysis

What is it?

• `In academic terms, critical analysis means considering the claims of theorists, governments, authorities and so on, what they are based on, and how far they seem to apply or be relevant to a given situation’.  (Univ of Sussex Language Institute (1998) Critical Analysis, Argument and Opinion. [online]  http://www.sussex.ac.uk/langc/skills/conc-det.html  [Accessed 28.06.04]

Why use Critical Analysis?

• Critical analysis is a key skill for writing essays
• it allows you to assess the various ideas and information that you read, and decide whether you want to use them to support your points
• it is something we do everyday when assessing the information around us and making reasoned decisions, for example whether to believe the claims made in TV adverts
• it does not always mean disagreeing with something; you also need to be able to explain why you agree with arguments

How does it work?

Critical analysis involves:

• Carefully considering an idea and weighing up the evidence supporting it to see if it is convincing
• Then being able to explain why you find the evidence convincing or unconvincing.

Bloom’s (1956) Hierarchy/Taxonomy of Thinking Skills

Differences between descriptive and critical analytical writing

Differences between descriptive and critical analytical writing

Also involves analysis of images.

Next image happened before 9/11.
Natural reaction is that it is referencing 9/11, when really it is very different.
If 9/11 didn't happen, the image probably wouldn't have been withdrawn.

Some considerations …

• Date?
• What was happening at the time?  
• Historical, social, political, economic factors etc.
• What is it?
• What is it for?
• Who is the target audience?
• Is it fit for purpose?
• Who produced it?
• Where was it produced?
• Where was it designed to go?
• Where is it now?
• How was it produced?
• Production techniques
• Materials

Practicing critical analysis

• It helps if you ask yourself a series of questions 
• about the material you are reading:
• Who is the author and what is their viewpoint or bias?
• Who is the audience and how does that influence the way information is presented?
• What is the main message of the text?
• What evidence has been used to support this main message?
• Is the evidence convincing; are there any counter-arguments?
• Do I agree with the text and why do I agree or disagree?

How to get more critical analysis into your essay

• Avoid unnecessary description – only include general background details and history when they add to your argument, e.g. to show a crucial cause and effect. Practice distinguishing between description (telling what happened) and analysis (judging why something happened).
• Interpret your evidence – explain how and why your evidence supports your point. Interpretation is an important part of critical analysis, and you should not just rely on the evidence "speaking for itself”
• Be specific - avoid making sweeping generalisations or points that are difficult to support without specific evidence. It is better to be more measured and tie your argument to precise examples or case studies.
• Use counter-arguments to your advantage – if you find viewpoints that go against your own argument, don't ignore them. It strengthens an argument to include an opposing viewpoint and explain why it is not as convincing as your own line of reasoning.

Writing Critically
How do I criticise the work of established academics/practitioners? 

• By reading other established academics/ practitioners that may have different views
• By looking for practical evidence that may support or refute the established theory. 

How can I criticise other’s work?

• Check for logical coherency of the arguments.
• May the author be biased?
• Cultural, gender, professional biases, etc. 
• Does the author clearly outline his/her theoretical base?
• Are the author’s arguments supported by relevant evidence and other people’s work? 
• Are the author’s methods trustworthy? 

Is critical writing about criticising other’s work?

• Yes but it is only a small part. 
• It is also about:
• Integrating different sources of information (books, articles, etc.) to provide a fuller picture of your topic. 
• Giving an overview of your topic:
• What are the key themes, arguments and conclusions?
• How were they developed?
• Do the authors in the area agree/disagree with each other?
• What does the theory in your topic mean for practice? 
• Providing practical evidence to illustrate and support your arguments. 

Critical Analysis at work

• Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work Of Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction’, 1936

‘One might subsume the eliminated element in the term “aura” and go on to say: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art. This is a symptomatic process whose significance points beyond the realm of art. One might generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced. These two processes lead to a tremendous shattering of tradition which is the obverse of the contemporary crisis and renewal of mankind’

‘Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.  This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence.’

Presence, Authenticity, Authority

OUGD501 - Lecture 9: What Is Research?

The Age of Enlightenment

• Process of rationality and reason
• Enlightenment - period in the 18th C when scientific philosophical thinking made leaps and bounds
• Secularisation - reason rather than Metaphysics
• Belief in an unified scientific method
• Positivism

C.P Snow

• The two cultures and the scientific revolution - 1959
• The arts & the sciences were two different agendas - could never fuse together

Positivism

• Positive outcome - definite outcome - it does something
• Facts
• Separation of facts from value (value freedom)
• Measurement rather than argument
• The facts speak for themselves
• Causation
• Separation and control of variables
• Rigorous methods

Approaches to research

• Empiricism - scientific research - setting up an experiment & observing
• Quantitative research - numbers, charts
• Qualitative research - opposite side to quantitative - interviews etc
• Subjectivism

Action research

• Academic way of planning out & carrying out research - actively taking part
• Cycle - Researcher enters - Real world takes part in - action in the situation enables - reflection on the involvement leads to - findings/beginning of cycle

Cycle of Synthesis

• Unification of doing
• Theory, Action, Reflection

Methodology

• Method - A way of proceeding about something in systematic or logical manner
• Methodology - The science of method, employed in a particular activity
• Some methodologies: Historical, communication, theory etc.

Epistemology

• Ways of thinking about thinking
• Ways of thinking, and selecting between different approaches to a subject - knowing the routes and their outcomes & choosing one in particular because of this

The Hermeneutic Circle

• First grasp - inspection of detail - global inspection - deeper understanding
• Constant refinement
• Developed by Heidegger
• Interpretation is a process designed to clarify an experience and assign meaning to it
• This is aided by the hermeneutic circle which involves looking at different perspectives on events and relating individual components
• Ricoeur - anything in the world can be interpreted in three different levels - behind the text, in/through the text & in front of the text

OUGD501 - Lecture 8: Subculture and Style

Definition of subculture:

In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.

• An introduction to writings on subculture
• Skateboarding/parkour and free running/graffiti as a performance of the city
• the Riot Grrrl movement
• The portrayal of youth and culture in film & photography

Dogtown & Z Boys (2001)

• Documentary film mixes original footage and recent interviews
• History of skateboarding evolves

Skater Peggy Oki

• Not much difference between the clothing that boys & girls wore - jeans & long sleeved shirts for protection
• Long hair fashionable for boys as well as girls

Ian Borden 'Performing the City'

• Urban street skating is more 'political' than 1970's skateboarding's use of found terrains: street skating generates new uses that at once work within an negate the original ones
• Resistance to commercialisation

South bank closure threat to skates

• Festival wing under the queen Elizabeth hall - redevelopment
• Resisted strongly by skaters & bikers - redevelopment of space would remove this area for them
• Review of the space by the Guardian - computer generated idea
• Henry Edwards-Wood 'It would be a complete desecration of the entire artistic ethos of the undercroft'

Lords of Dogtown (2005)

• 'Skateboarders do not so much temporarily escape from the routinised world of school family and social conventions as replace it with a while new way' - Borden, 2001

Parkour/ Free running

• Parkour - a method of movement focused on moving around obstacles with speed and efficiency
• Free running - a version of parkour that typically places greater emphasis on acrobatic techniques and self-expression.

Yamakasi (2001)

Jump London (2005)

Nancy McDonald 'The Graffiti Subculture'

• Here real life and the issues which may divide and influence it, are put on pause. On this liminal terrain you are not, black, white, rich or poor. Unless you are female, you are what you write

Black Graffiti writer, Prime

Miss Van

• Mcdonald suggest that women come to the subculture laden with the baggage of gender in that her physically and her sexuality
• Does't play down her female identity and does the opposite

Swoon (US)

• 'In the meantime there was a lot of attention coming my way for being female, and it just made me feel alienated and objectified, not to mention patronized'

Angela Mc Robbie and Jenny Garber

• Girl subculture may have become more invisible because o the very term subculture has acquired such strong masculine overtones
• In postmodern subcultures overly feminine subcultural movements like the Lolita fashion are often assumed to be sexually suspect
• Motorbike girl - Brigitte Bardot 1960's - suggests sexual deviance which is a fantasy not a reflection of real girls in that subculture at the time
• Hells Angels - in rockers and motorbike culture girls usually rode pillion - girls were either the girlfriend or the 'mama' figure

Mod girl

• Mod culture springs from working class teenage consumerism in the 1960's in the UK
• Teenage girls worked in cities in service industries for example, or in clothing shops where they are encouraged to model the clothing
• Quadrophenia (1979) - Hebdige outlines there hierarchies within the mod subculture where the face or stylists who made up the original coterie were defined against the unimaginative majority

Hippy girl

• Subculture arises through universities of the late 60's & 70's
• Middle class girl therefore has the space to explore subculture for longer before family etc.
• Space for leisure without work
• Bad hippy vs good hippy - Janis Joplin vs Peach and 'flower power'

Riot Grrl - mid 1990's

• Underground punk movement based in Washington DC, Olympia, Oregon etc.
• Bands - Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Excuse 17, Heavens to Betsy etc. - Create zines & support network around issues that are specifically female
• Mount Pleasant Race Riots in 1991 - Documented in zines

What makes a subcultural activity true?

• Zines revived from 1970's DIY Punk ethic
• In turn this was influenced by posters & graphic design from Dadaist
• Raoul Hausmann- Dada - ABCD self portrait (1923-24)
• Media attention turns to the Grunge Scene - Courtney Love & Hole - style without the subculture - distorts even further as the 90's continue into the more media friendly Spice Girls

Spice Girls

• Band styling presents a set of visual types that are easily consumable by the target audience
• There is no empowerment for young women as there is nothing but the reduction of young women to cartoon representations

Dick Hebdige - Subculture: The meaning of Style

• Subcultures represent noise" interference in the orderly sequence which leads from real events and phenomena to their representations in the media
• Offence caused by lyrics and behaviour is important as it leads to questions about 'the parent culture'
• The commodity form - subcultural signs like dress styles and music are turned into mass produced objects - clothing which is ripped as an anarchic anti-fashion statement becomes mass produced with rips as part of the design
• Zandra Rhodes act white Gold Diamond safety pin brooch - although pink seems to challenge eventually and surprisingly quickly it goes mainstream/high end fashion
• 21st C demonisation - style in particular provokes a double response. It is alternately celebrated and ridiculous or reviled
• Bricolage: Edwardian Style - Savile Row - Teddy Boy
• Roger Mayne - 1956 - Teddy boy culture was an espace from claustrophobia of the family, into the strew.
• Chris Steele-Perkins 'The Teds' (1979)
• Racist gives Nazi Salute in London, 1980 - Skinheads
• Gavin Watson - Skins (1980s) - influenced portrayal of characters in This Is England (2006)

This is England

• The new kid on the estate transforms into a british skinhead - his dad has been killed in the Falklands War and his new friends become his new family
• The film explores the differences between the skinhead style and the politics of the National Front skins as they infiltrate the working class estate of the 1980's
• The subordination on Milky as 'other' by Combo

Post Subcultures

• In a global society with a rapid proliferation of images, fashions and lifestyles, it is becoming increasingly difficult to pinpoint what a subculture actually means.

OUGD501 - Lecture 7: Censorship & Truth

Overview

• Notions of consulships and truth
• the indexical qualities of photography in rendering truth
• photographic manipulation and the documentation of truth
• censorship in advertising
• censorship in art and photography

Ansel Adams

• Moonrise Hernandes New Mexico, c.1941-2
• Moon over Half Dome, 1960
• Aspens
• Exposed photo negatives for different amount of times to get different effects - makes the images look like they are taken at different times of year/day etc.

Pravda

• Five years before coming to power in 1917 October revolution, the soviets established the newspaper Pravda.
• One sided truth
• One side that the government wants you to see 

Digital

• Photoshop makes it easy for anyone to manipulate photos
• People making fake advertising playing on images - 9/11 images
• Kate Winslet on cover of GQ magazine - legs elongated in photoshop
• Is the representation of truth an important factor? Can you manipulate to sell?
• Iraq war - two images combined to create one image - not representing the truth - can combine different images to change the message

Robert Capa

• Robert Capa is a pseudo name - built up an identity
• Death of a Loyalist Soldier, 1936 - is this the point of moment of death or is it set up? Does it matter?

'At the time (WWII), I fervently believed just about everything I was exposed to in school and in the media. For example, I knew that all Germans were evil and that all Japanese were sneaky and treacherous, while all white Americans were clean cut'

Jean Baudrillard

• Simulacra and Simulations, 1981
• It is a reflection of a basic reality
• It masks and perverts a basic reality
• It makes the absence of a basic reality
• It bears no relation to any reality whatever
• The Gulf War Did not Take Place, 1995 - It is a masquerade of information
• Caused a lot of offence to people who had relatives who died in the Gulf War - they mistook his comments as saying the war never happened without reading the book

Peter Turnley, The Unseen Gulf War, 2002

• There was censorship in the first gulf war
• Photographers in the first war were controlled by the US forces and had restrictions on what they could photograph & represent
• 'The mile of death' - on the last day of the war - no photographs were published at the time

Ken Jareke

• Iraqi Soldier, 1991 - image was put in newspapers - one of the first truly shocking images captured in colour and put in the newspaper - british press was criticised for it - depicted a gruesome reality

Do you want an accurate gruesome truth?

• An-My Le, Small Wars
• An-My Le, 29 Palms: Mechanised Attack
• An-My Le, Small Wars

Censorship in Advertising

• To ban or cut portions (a film, letter or publication)
• Morals & Ethics
• Cadbury's Flake, 1969 - played on sexual ambiguity - a questions of other connotations to it - does it say more about the certain individuals or a universal?
• United Colors of Benetton adverts, 1992 - stereotypical uses shocking adverts - racism & religion
• Opium advertisement, Stephen Meisel, 2000 - most complained about advert in five years (2001) - sexually suggestive and likely to cause 'serious or widespread offence' thereby breaking the British codes of advertising and sales promotion.
• Agnolo Bronzino, Venus Cupid, Folly & Time, 1545 - as a mythological subject does that make it acceptable?
• Does painting make certain types of scenes more acceptable than photographs?
• Balthus, The Golden Years, 1945 & Therese Dreaming, 1938 - represents an uncomfortable ground
• Andy Earl recreated Manet's 'Dejeuner sir l'Herbe' with Bow Wow Wow record cover, 1980
• Does a piece of fine art photography change the way we view it from commercial photography?

Amy Adler

• The Folly of Defining 'Serious' Art
• Professor of Law at NY University
• 'An irreconcilable conflict between legal rules and artistic practice'
• 'The requirement that protected artworks have 'serious artistic value' is the very thing contemporary art and postmodernism itself attempt to defy'
• The Miller Test - 1973 - asks three questions to determine if a piece of work is seen as obscene

Obscenity Law

• To protect art whilst prohibiting trash
• The dividing line between speech and non-speech
• The dividing line between prison and freedom

Sally Mann

• Candy Cigarette, 1989
• Immediate Family, 1984-92

Tierney Gearon

• Untitled, 2001
• News of the world - upper crust art lovers are paying £5 a head to ogle degrading snaps of children plastered across the walls of Britain's art galleries

Nan Goldin, Klara and Edda Belly-dancing, 1998

Richard Prince, Spiritual American, 1983

Richard Prince, Spiritual American IV, 2005

Final thoughts

• Just how much should we believe the truth represented in the media?
• Should we be protected from it?
• Is the manipulation of the truth fair game in a capitalist consumer society?
• Could art sit outside the censorship laws?
• Who should be protected, artist, viewer or subject?

OUGD501 - Lecture 6: Globalisation, Sustainability & The Media

Globalisation
Socialist

• The process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones. It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together. This process is a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces.

Capitalist

• The elimination of state enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders and the increasingly integrated and complex global system of production and exchange that has emerged as a result.

• Covering a wide range of distinct politics, economical, and cultural trends, the term globalisation has quickly become one of the most fashionable buzzwords of contemporary political and academic debate.
• In popular discourse, globalisation often functions as little more than a synonym for one or more of the following phenomena: the pursuit of classical liberal policies in the world economy, the growing dominance of western forms of political, cultural, technological.

• If we are talking about the cultural, we are concerned with the symbolic construction, articulation, and dissemination of meaning.

• George Ritzer coin the term 'McDonaldization' to describe the wide-ranging socioculture processes by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world.

Marshall McLuhan

• 'Today, are more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned' (1964: p3)
• Rapidity of Communication echoes the senses
• We can experience instantly the effects of our actions on a global scale
• Global Village Thesis - 'As electrically constructed, the globe is no more than a village. Electric speed at brining all social and political functions together in a sudden implosion has heightened human awareness of responsibility to an intense degree' (1964: p5)

• This global embrace has not happened - almost desensitised

• McLuhan says: We live mythically and integrally...In the electrical age, when our central nervous system is technologically extended to involve in the whole of mankind in us.

Centripetal forces

• Bringing the world together in a uniform global society

Centrifugal forces

• Tearing the world apart in tribal wars

Three problems of Globalisation

Sovereignty

• Challenges to the idea of the nation-state

Accountability

• Transnational forces & organisation: who controls them?

Identity

• Who are we? Nation, group, community

• Multi-national businesses can act outside of the control of the government - laws may be passed in one country but not apply in other countries.
• 'Does globalisation make people around the world more alike or more different?...A group of commentators we might call 'pessimistic hyperglobalisers' argue in favour of the former. They suggest that we are not moving towards a cultural rainbow that reflects the diversity of the worlds existing cultures. Rather we are witnessing the rise of an increasingly homogenised popular culture underwritten by a Western culture' (1964)

Global Imperialism

• If the global village is run with a certain set of values then it would not be so much an integrated community as a assimilation of one
• Rigging the 'free market' - media conglomerates operate as oligopolies (giant clusters of businesses in the control of one central business/individual)
• Effectively around 5 or 6 multinational oligopolies are controlling the worlds media, all of which are American.
• One company controls the cultural output of a percentage of the worlds media, e.g. Time Warner
• Focus their attention on the areas where they can make the most money - e.g. concerns for North America instead of concerns for Africa shown in the media/magazines - the values of american capitalism are spread

US media power can be thought of as a new form of imperialism

• Local cultures destroyed in this process and new forms of cultural dependency shaped, mirroring old school colonialism
• Schiller - dominance of the US driven commercial media forces US model of broadcasting onto the rest of the world but also inculcates US style consumerism in societies that can ill afford it.
• E.g. Big Brother - repackaged commodities to different markets to make money

Chomsky & Herman (1998) 'Manufacturing Consent'

Argues that the entire media system can be thought of as propaganda for the western life - constant lesson that it is the way of life etc.

5 basic filters

• Ownership
• Funding
• Sourcing
• Flak
• Anti Communist ideology

All combine to make a propaganda for the western world

Ownership

Rupert Murdoch, selected media interests

• News of the World
• The Sun
• The Sunday Times
• The Times
• NY Post
• BSkyB
• Fox TV

Sourcing

• The stuff that is reported is the stuff that is only allowed to be
• Political input

Funding

• They are there as businesses - advertisers will withdraw their money if certain stories are printed in the media outlet
• All bias and representative of big businesses

Flak

• US based Global Climate Coalition
• Compromising fossil fuel and automobile companies such as Exxon, Texaco and Ford. The GCC was started up by Beurson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest public relation companies, to rubbish the credibility of climate scientists and 'scare stories' about global warming
• Flak is characterised by concerted and intentional efforts to manage public information

Al Gore, (2006) 'An Inconvenient Truth' dir. Davis Guggenheim

• The media is a powerful way of influencing the consciousness
• Retreat of Glaciers
• Since 1880 temp of the rise
• Keeling of CO2

Messages

• The way to save the planet is to release CO2
• Plant more vegetations
• Try to be CO2 neutral
• Recycle
• Buy a hybrid car
• Encourage everyone you know to watch the film
• Buy more stuff - more money for the big businesses

'Flat Earthers' - denying global warming

• Jim Inhofe
• Nigel Lawson

Sustainability

• 'Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs' Brundtland Commission, 1987, 'Our Common Future'
• Needs (Particularly of the worlds poor)
• Limitations of technology

Erin Balser, 'Capital Accumilation, Sustainability and Hamilton, Ontario: How technology and capitalism can misappropriate the idea of sustainability'

• BIOX Biofuel plant, Canada
• Alternate clean fuel
• Renewable
• More expensive to produce
• Not a model thats going to interest large oil companies as there isn't as much profit in it
• Situated in the poorest area of Ontario, Hamilton
• Negative social and environmental outcomes

Greenwashing

• Exploiting the fact that everyone is concerned about environmental destruction
• Companies create 'green' products
• Make everything eco friendly
• People buy the products because they feel they are saving the planet

'Most things are not designed for the needs of the people but for the needs of the manufacturers to sell to people' Papanek, 1983, p46.

OUGD501 - Lecture 5: Ethics - What is Good?

First things First manifesto - Garland, 1964

• Frustration that talented designers were wasting their talents flogging pointless products
• Waste of designers in a capitalist society
• Produced in a 'boom' time for consumerism
• Unethical to waste talent in pointless products

Replaced by First things First manifesto2000 - Adbusters

• Republish and update
• Tone of voice changes - much more critical
• Advertising gets a lot more criticism
• Accusing you of being involved in a meaningless consumer system - complicit in a system of global exploitation
• Affecting the way people interact with people and feel about themselves
• By who's standards do you decide what design work is worthy to be ethical?
• If you work to advertise, market or brand companies that make any sort of consumer item, you are somehow being unethical
• Should be using talents to stop consumerism and 'start a revolution'

• The original 22 who signed the first manifesto - the majority were famous and had a large wealth - it's easy to sign something ethical when you have the luxury of choosing who you work for - an unfair judgement to look down your nose at everyone - Ken Garland, Milton Glaser, Rick Poyner, Kalle Lasn
• To be an ethical designer - aim to use your talents to do more with your life

Culture Jamming/Mem warfare - Adbusters & Kalle Lasn

• "A meme is a unit of information that leaps from brain to brain to brain. Memes compete with one another for replication, and are passed down through a population much the same way genes pass though a species. Potent memes can changes minds, alter behaviour, catalyse collective mind shifts, and transform cultures. Which is why meme warfare has become the geopolitical battle of our information age. Whoever has the memes has the power"

Victor Papanek

• 'Design for the real world' (1971)
• Makes the argument that most design was wasteful, a lot of design was exploitative & harmed the world - behind this book is a cry for ethics
• Wants people to use their skills to do something more important
• "Most things are designed not for the needs of the people but for the needs of manufacturers to sell to people" (Papaneck, 1983:46)
• Papanek Beer Can Automobile Car Bumper (1971) - he thinks people are ignoring design solutions for the profit
• He thinks the designers just tinker with the top of the problem - making them look better/more desirable instead of actually sorting the problem
• Design for benefitting all

How do we determine what is good?

• Way of working in the capitalist system being ethical or unethical

Ethical Theories

• Subjective relativism - there is no universal normal norms of right and wrong - all persons decide right and wrong for themselves
• Cultural relativism - the ethical teary that what's right to wrong depends on place and/or time
• Divine Command Theory - good actions are aligned with the will of God - Bad actions are contrary to the will of God - The holy book helps make the decision

Kantianism

• Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) a German philosopher
• People's will should be based on moral rules
• Therefore its important that our actions are based on appropriate moral rules
• To determine when a moral rule is appropriate Kant proposed two Categorical Imperatives

Two formulations of the Categorical Imperatives

1. Act only from moral rules that you can at the same time universalise - if you act on a moral rule that would cause problems if everyone followed it then your actions are not moral
2. Act so that you always treat both yourself and other people as ends in themselves, and never only as a means to an end - If you use people for your own benefit that is not moral

Utilitarianism

• John Stuart Mill
• Utilitarianism
• Principle of utility - an action is right to the extent that it increases the total happiness of the affected parties - an action is wrong to the extent that it decreases the total happiness of the affected parties - happiness may have many definitions such as: adverting, benefit, good, or pleasure
• Rules based on the principle of utility - a rule is right to the extent that it increases the total happiness of the affected parties - the greatest happiness principle is applied to moral rules
• Similar to Kantianism - both pertain to rules - but Kantianism uses the categorical imperative to decide which rues to follow

Social Contract Theory

• Thomas Hobbes (1603 - 1679) & Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778)
• An agreement between individuals held together by common interest
• Avoids society degenerating into the 'state of nature' or the 'war of all' (Hobbes)
• "Morality consists in the set of rules, governing how people are to treat one another, that rational people will agree to accept, for their mutual benefit, on the condition that others follow those rules as well"
• We trade some of our liberty for a stable society

Criteria for a workable ethical theory?

• Moral decisions and rules
• Based of logical reasoning
• Come from facts and commonly held or shared values
• Culturally neutral

OUGD501 - Lecture 4: Cities & Film

• The city in modernism
• The beginnings of an urban sociology
• The city as public and private space
• The city in postmodernism
• The relation of the individual to the crowd in the city

Georg Simmel (1858 -1918)

• German sociologist
• Write 'Metropolis and Mental Life' in 1903
• Dresden Exhibiton - Simmel is asked to lecture on the role of intellectual life in the city but instead reverses the idea and writes about the effect of the city on the individual
• Urban sociology - the resistance of the individual to being levelled, swallowed up in the social-technological mechanism.

Architect Louis Sullivan (1856 - 1924)

• Creator of the modern skyscraper
• An influential architect and critic of the Chicago School
• Mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright
• Guaranty Building was built in 1894 by Adler & Sullivan in Buffalo NY]

• Carson Pririe Scott store in Chicago (1904) - Skyscrapers represent the upwardly mobile city of business opportunity - Fire cleared buildings in Chicago in 1871 and made way for Louis Sullivan new aspirational buildings

Manhatta (1921)

• Fordism - Coined by Antonio Gramsci in his essay 'Americanism & Fordism' (1934)
• 'the eponymous manufacturing system designed to spew out standardised, low-cost goods and afford its workers decent enough wages to buy them' (De Grazia:2005:4)
• Also explored in 'Modern Times' (1936) Charlie Chaplin
• 'In handicrafts and manufacture, the workman makes use of a tool, in the factory, the machine makes use of him' (Marx cited in Adamson 2010 p75)
• Stock market crash of 1929 - factories close and unemployment foes up dramatically - leads to the great depression
• Maragret Bourke-White

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

Flaneur

• The term flaneur comes from the French noun which has the basinal meaning of 'stroller', 'lounger'
• Charles Boudelaire
• The 19th century Boudelaire proposes a version of the flaneur that of 'a person who walks the city in order to experience it' - Art should capture this
• Walter Benjamin - Adopts the concept of the urban observer as an analytical tool and as a lifestyle as soon in his writings

Photographer as flaneur

• Susan Sontag - The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitring, stalks, cruising the organ inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovered the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes.
• Daido Moriyama (1970's) Skinjuku district of Tokyo - influenced by William Klein's work

Flaneuse

• The invisible Flaneuse. Women and the literature of modernity
• Janet Wolff
• The literature of modernity, describing the fleeting, anonymous, ephemeral encounters of life in the metropolis, mainly accounts for the experiences of men.
• Susan Buck-Morss - The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project
• Arbus - Woman at a couter smoking NYC (1962)

• Hopper - Automat (1927)

• Sophie Calle 'Suite Venitienne' (1980)
• Venice - city as a labyrinth of streets and alleyways in which you can get lost but at the same time will always end up where you begin
• 'Don't look Now' (1973) Nicolas Roeg
• The Detective (1980) - wants to provide photographic evidence of her existence - his photos are notes on her are displayed next to her photos and notes about him - set in Paris
• Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Stills (1977-80)
• Here is New York book/exhibition
• Weegee (Arthur Felig) - press photographer in the 1930's/40's - signature style is photographing emergencies in the city
• The Naked City - book of Weegee's images (1945) - develops into a film (1948)
• LA Noire (2011) - the first video game to be shown at the Tribecca Film Festival - Incorporates 'Motion Scan', where actors are recorded by 32 surrounding cameras to capture facial expressions from every angle. The technology is central to the games interrogation mechanic, as players must use the suspects reactions to questioning to huge whoever they are lying or not.
• Cities of the future/past - Fritz Lang 'Metropolis' (1929)
• Ridley Scott 'Bladerunner' (1982/2019) LA
• Lorca di Corcia 'Heads' (2001) NY - investigates idea of the individual and the relation to the crowd
• Public/Private - lawsuit against Corcia
• Walker Evans 'Many are called' (1938) - concealed camera

Post Modern City/Bonadventure Hotel

Postmodern city in photography

• Joel Meyerowitz - 'Broadway and West 46th Street NY' (1976)
• 9/11 Citizen journalism: the end of the flaneur?
• Liz Wells says that phrase is first seen in the article by Stuart Allen 'Online News: Journalism and the internet' (2006) - Discusses the 7/7 London bombings and the immediacy of the mobile phone images which recorded the even as commuters travel to work - online within hours
• Thomas Ruff
• Surveillance City - Liz Wells - everything is recorded

OUGD501 - Lecture 3: The Gaze and The Media

'According to the 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)

• Berger is saying women internalise the gaze - see themselves in the way they see images around them

• Hans Memling 'Vanity' (1485) - mirror is a device. She is looking at herself so we can look at her too. Berger picks up on the contradiction.
• 1485 is a time when there was harsh judgement on women outside the ideal at the time

• Mirror appears in contemporary advertising and fashion all the time

• Alexandre Cabanel 'Birth of Venus' 1863 - invited by the artist to gaze upon the woman

• Sophie Dahl for Opium - turned onto it's side so the emphasis changes so it could pass advertising regulations

• Titian's Venus of Urbino (1538), Manet's 'Olympia' (1863) - Berger draws the difference between them. Woman in 'Olympia' is looking straight, challenging the gaze. Hand position is more definite.
• Berger also looks at 'Le Grand Odalisque', Igres (1914)
• Gurrilla Girls challenge the amount of women in modern art vs the amount of nudes of women

• Manet - Bar at the Folies Bergeres (1882) - what's reflected in the mirror behind her is the Paris society that she's not a part of - her reflection in the mirror is not what it should be
• Jeff Wall 'Picture For Women' (1979) - Recreation of the 'Bar at the Folies Bergeres' - split reflection into thirds. Hard to work out where you are compared to the woman.

• Coward, R, (1984) - 'The camera in contemporary media has been put to use as an extension of the male gaze at women on the streets'
• Normalisation of the display of the female body referring to the billboard tradition
• Eva Hezigova, (1994)
• 'The profusion of images which characterises contemporary society could be seen as obsessive distancing of women...a form on voyeurism - Coward on Peeping Tom, 1960
• Objectification of male bodies in the media - D&G ad, 2007 - every male returns the gaze - no passive positioning that you get with the female

• Marilyn: William Travillas dress from The Seven Year Itch (1955)
• Zelda Pollock
• Atemisia Gentileschi - Judith Behading Holofernes (1620) - looks at this as there is unusual violent females.
• Pollock argues that women are generally being left out of art history.
• Women 'marginalised within the masculine discourses of art history'
• This supports the 'hegemony of men in cultural practice, in art
• There are artists who are addressing this issue - Cindy Sherman, 'Untitled film still #6' (199-79) - similar to what is going on in Sophie Dahl image - turned upright, more focus on her face. Mirror is face down, denied the narrative to look at her without her looking back - is an awkwardness to the gesture - challenges the gaze - not allowed to look on her without feeling the awkwardness. Comes up regularly in her film stills
• Sherman also creates history portraits

• Barbara Kruger, 'Your gaze hits the side of my face' (1981)- Uses text to look like cut out of the newspaper - reference to violence - challenges idea of looking at the female body
• Sarah Lucas 'Eating a Banana' (1990) - humorous work with a serious message
• Sarah Lucas 'Self portrait with fried eggs' (1996)
• Tracy Emin 'Money Photo' (2001)

• Caroline Lucas MP in June 2013 - wanted to bring the issue of page three - was asked to change her t-shirt in parliament even though The Sun is available to buy
• Criado-Perez argued that as the Equality Act 2010 commits public institutions to end discrimination - he received up to 50 threats a day via Twitter including threats to rape and murder - campaign to represent women on British currency
• Lucy-Ann Holmes, who founded the campaign to end the publication of topless 'Page 3 girls' in the sun newspaper last year - also received death threats
• Aspect of social networking that can be used to perpetuate the gaze
• Susan Sontag (1979) 'On Photography' - 'To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed'
• Paparazzi shot of Princess Diana
• Reality Television - appears to offer us the position as the all-seeing eye - the power of the gaze
• Allows us a voyeuristic passive consumption of a type of reality
• Editing means there is no reality
• Contestants are aware of their representation (either is TV professionals or as people who have watched the show)
• The Truman Show (1988)
• Big Brother - making voyeurism an everyday activity
• 'Looking is not indifferent. There can never ben any question of 'just looking'.' - Victor Burgin (1982)

OUGD501 - Lecture 2: Identity

• To introduce historical conceptions of identity
• To introduce Foucaults discourse methodology
• To place and critique contemporary practice within their frameworks, and to con sider their validity
• To consider postmodern theories of identity as guild and constructed (in particular Zygmunt Bauman)
• To consider identity today, especially in the digital domain

Essentialism

• Our biological make up makes us who we are
• We all have an inner essence that make us who we are
• Post modern theorists disagree

• Physiognomy - the idea that race dictates intelligence - how facial structures determines how smart you are - relates to Nazi Germany's mission to keep the perfect people (Blonde hair, blue eyes, etc)
• Phrenology - the idea that the brain is made up of different parts
• Cesare Lobomroso (1835 - 1909) - founder of positivist criminology - the notion that criminal tendencies are inherited

• Hieronymous Bosch (1450 - 1516) - Christ carrying the cross, 1515
• Chris Ofili, Holy Virgin Mary, 1996

Douglas Kellner - Media Culture
Pre modern

• Personal identity is stable - define by png standing roles
• Related to the church, monarchy, government etc.
• Secure identities:
• Farm worker....landed gentry
• Soldier....the state
• Housewife...patriarchy
• Husband-wife...marriage/church

Modern identity

• Modern societies begin to offer a wider range of social roles. Possibilities to start 'choosing' your identity, rather than simply being born into it.
• Charlies Baudelaire - The painter of modern life (1863)
• Thorstein Veblen - Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)
• Boudelaire - introduces concept of the 'flaneur' (Gentleman-stroller)
• Veblen - Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods in a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure
• Simmel - Trickle down theory. Emulation. Distinction. The 'Mask' of Fashion.
• 'The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one actually finds oneself physically alone, as when one is a stinger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on the train, or in traffic of a large city.'

Post modern

• Can change to who you want to be. Identity is constructed out of the disco use culturally available to us.
• 'Discourse analysis'
• Michael Foucault
• Possible discourses: Age, class, race/ethnicity, education, income etc.
• Class 
• In order to know which class you are in, you need to know what the other classes are and how/why they are that class.
• Humphrey/Spender/Mass Observation, Worktown project, 1937 - project to observe Britain - upper class photographers going up to Bolton (Working class) to observe them - took stereotypical pictures etc. - making assumptions of working class people
• Martin Parr, New Brighton, Merseyside, from The Last Resort, 1983 - 86 - potentially condescending photographs of working class on holiday - almost like a self congratulatory way of looking at people of a lower class
• Society...reminds one of particularly shrew, cunning and pokerfaced player in the game of life, cheating if five a chance, flouting rules whenever possible' - Bauman (2004)
• Nationality
• Martin Parr images again - stereotypical images
• McQueen fashion show - Much of the press coverage centred around accusations of misogyny because of the imagery of semi-maked staggering and brutalised women, in conjunction with the world 'rape' in the title. But McQueen claimed that the rape was of Scotland, not the individual models as the theme of the show was the Rebellion.
• Papanek, V (1995)
• Race/ethnicity
• Chris Ofili - starts thinking about the perceptions of black people - references to black culture
• Gillian Wearing - made a series of photographs in 1992 - won the Turner prize 
• Gender
• Emily Bates - 'Hair has been a big issue throughout my life...it is often felt that I was nothing more than my hair in other peoples eyes' (red head)
• 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
• Femininity

• In post modernity identity is constructed through our social experience
• Erving Goffman - The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959)
• Goffman saw life as 'theatre'
• Bauman - Identity (2004), Liquid Modernity (200), Liquid Love (2003)
• Andy Hargreaves - 'Introspection is a disappearing act. Faced with moments alone in their cars, on the street or at supermarket checkouts, more and more people do not collect their thoughts, but scan their mobile phone messages for shreds of evidence that someone, somewhere may need or want them'
• Levitt - 'We use art, architecture, literature, and the rest, and advertising as well, to shield ourselves in advance of experience, from the stark and plain reality in which we're fated to live'
• Descartes - Enlightenment philosopher: 'I think there I am'
• Barbara Kruger, I shop therefore I am
• Darley, Visual Digital Culture (2000)
• Hodgkinson, 'With friends like these...' Guardian, (2008)
• Bauman, Identity (2004)

OUGD501 - Lecture 1: Consumerism: Persuasion, Society, Brand & Culture

Aims:

• Analyse the rise of US consumerism
• Discuss the links between consumerism and our unconscious desires
• Sigmund Freud
• Edmund Bernays
• Consumerism as social control

• Century of self - Adam Curtis (Film)
• No Logo - Naomi Klein (Book)

Freud (1856 - 1939)

• New Theory on human nature
• Psychoanalysis
• Hidden primitive sexual forces & animal instincts which need controlling
• The Interpretation of Dreams (1899)
• The Unconscious (1915)
• The Ego & ID (1923)
• Beyond the Pleasure Principle
• Civilisation & Discontent (1930)

• Freud says most actions are driven by hidden 'ID' (Primitive desires) we don't access them consciously but they do cause most decisions
• Fundamental tension between civilisation & the individual
• Human instincts incompatible with the well being of community
• The pleasure principle
• WW1 was the testament to his theories

Edmund Bernays (1891 - 1995)

• Press agent
• Employed by public information during WW1
• Post war - set up 'The Council on Public Relations)
• Birth of PR
• Based on the ideas of Freud (His uncle)
• His idea is that any kind of business can be successful if they relate the product to the subconscious desires
• Psychological techniques to link these products to desire
• Was employed by tobacco company to get women to smoke - was a taboo for women to smoke at the time - organised for women to smoke at the same  time on a parade - tipped press off saying these women were suffragettes/feminists & that smoking was their symbol of freedom/power
• Product placement & celebrity endorsements
• The use of pseudo-scientific reports
• System of mass marketing & cross marketing basing on the idea that it gives satisfaction
• Things are bought under the illusion that it will satisfy people

Fordism

• Henry Ford (1863 - 1947)
• Transposes Taylorism to car manufacturing
• Moving assembly line
• Standard production models built as they move through the factory
• Request large investments
• Based on modern consumerism is giving USP's to products - marketing products as if they are more special than others
• Bernays applied this to business

• Culture starts to shift to a society based on desire and not what is needed

Marketing hidden needs:

• Selling emotional security
• Selling reassurance of worth
• Selling ego-gratification
• Selling creative outlets
• Selling love objects
• Selling sense of power
• Selling of immortality
• Selling a sense of roots

• People just given the illusion that they are happy
• A new elite is needed to manage the bewildered herd
• 'Manufacturing Consent' - governmental propaganda

• Russian Revolution 1917 - poor overthrew the rich - communism
• America saw this as a threat to capitalism

• Walter Lippman started to consult government in how to keep people happy using Bernay's principles

• Oct 24th 1929 - Black Tuesday - American economy fell - the great depression

• Roosevelt and the 'new deal' 1933-36 - promise to introduce benefits, pensions, job creation, investments etc
• Big businesses were in uproar - government wanted to limit their control/profits
• The world's fair New York 1940 - giant exhibition for all which is good about the American Culture - essentially a propaganda for big businesses - 'Democracity' - could be free as long as you buy the big businesses products

Conclusion

• We are free but how free?
• Society is based on the illusion of freedom
• Consumerism is an idealogical project - belief that desire can be met through consumption and consumerism
• Conflicts between alternative modes of social organisation happens to this day

OUGD401 - Lecture Notes: Photograph as Document

• Killburn - 1848 - documenting a social event - protest

• 'Window to the past'

• Photographer is an invisible observer - not commenting, just documenting

• 'How the other half live' - Jacob Riss 1890

• Lewis Hine - 1908 - his work makes changes to the law - especially children - reports conditions - doesn't try shock the viewer

• Margeret Bourke-White - 1937

• Not subjective - should be objective - photography was trusted to be this

• Sharecropper home - dramatic creative - very directive - contrast

• Russel Lee - 1939 - Interior of a black farmers home - less composition - no human presence - recording - no manipulation

• Dorothea Lange - Migrant Mother - 1936 - manipulation of the viewer - image becomes more important than poverty & the people
• Her other images provide some context & conditions

• Walker Evans - 1936

• Modernism style of photography

• Bill Brandt - 1937 - UK - work class life

• Robert Frank - 1958 - Travels through America & photographs - redefinition of document - uses titles to contradict image - 'Parade' - shows observers, not the parade.

• William Klein - 1954/55 - Acknowledgement of the photographer - known for use of blur - 'Dame in Brooklyn'

• Magnum group - founded in 1947 by Cartier-Bresson & Capa - ethos of documenting the world - not fixed nationally.

• The decisive moment - photography achieves its highest distinction

• Document & War - Robert Capa - The falling soldier 1936 - Normandy France 1945

• Robert Haeberle - 1969

• George Rodger

• Hung Cogut - 1972

• Lee Miller

• William Neidich - 1989 - purposely constructed

• Edward Curtis

• Rodger - More document in the middle of a wrestling competition

• Bruno Barney - 1972

• Jeremy Dour - 2001 - Reconstructs history in present day with people who originally took part - preserving the memory of political struggle

OUGD401 - Lecture notes: Avante-Garde Cinema

• In opposition to Mainstream cinema
• Non-linear/non figurative/none narrative
• Open rather than closed
• Requires a different kind of spectatorship

• Un Chien Andalon (1929)

• Matthew Barney - The Cemaster 3 (2002)

• Oskar Fischinger - Spirals (1926) - early abstract cinema

• James Whiting - Lapis (1966)

• Stan Brockhage - Black Ice (1994) - short - hand made - scratched/painted onto reel
• Mothlight (1963) - uses moth & wings instead of paint/scratches
• Hyprogogin vision - moment between waking & sleeping - where everything is confusing & nothing makes sense

• Andy Warhol - Empire - static camera filming Empire state building for 10 hrs

• Outside Capitalism

• Doesn't get shown because it's radical & doesn't make any money

OUGD401 - Lecture Notes: Advertising & New Media

• New Media - media that works not through persuasions or impression but through engagement & involvement

• Emotive strategy - Speaking to the masses & high feeling

• Old communication models - Old transmission - Transmits ideas to an audience
• New - cybernetic - engage with an audience

• Kaiser Chiefs - new album - recorded 20 songs - user chooses 10 & creates album cover - wanted to emotionally engage

• New Media model - shift from mass to 'my' - more targeted - audience involvement - voluntarily passing ads - create spoofs etc - more personalised

• The guardian - 'Three little pigs' viral - BHH for the Guardian

• Joseph Kony viral - power of micro blogging - twitter etc.

• Internet  - allows little ideas to communicate

• UK is a world leader for online ads

• Old Spice

• The Kairos factor - presenting the desired message at the opportune moment - phone ads

OUGD401 - Lecture notes: Fashion as Photograph

• Nicephore Niepce - 1826 - one of the first photographs
• Louis Deguarre - 1838/9 - student of Niepce

• William Henry Fox Talbot - fixing process - calotype - silver nitrate - 1839/40

• Countess of Castiglione - photographed by Adolphe Braum 1856

• Age of new fashion magazines - first 10yrs of 1900's - photography replaces illustrations in magazines

• Paul Poiret - House of worth - freedom from corsetry

• Edward Steichen - photographs Paul Poiret's designs for 'Art et Decoration' 1911

• Adolf de Mayer - 1920's - Romantic theme was popular in pictorial tradition

• Mid 1930's (modernism) - photographers testing technical capabilities of the camera

• Steichen - switches from traditional to modernism - more abstract - creative lighting

• Photography starts to become magazine front covers

• Surrealist influence - Horst P Horst - photographs costume from Dali's 'Dream of Venus' 1939

• Vogue Vs Harper Bazaar

• Cecil Beaton - 1904-1980
• Photography materialistic lifestyle - the wealthy
• British Vogue & Vanity Fair
• Photographed members of the 'Bright Young Things'
• Celebrity photography - Vivien Leigh for Vogue - Stephen Tennent - Queen Elizabeth - Dramatic Scene

• Lee Miller - photographed by Steichen
• American photographer & fashion model at age 19
• Gets involved in Surrealism
• Goes to Paris 1929 with photographer Man Ray
• Photographed documentary - liberation of concentration

• Louise Dahl Wolf - photographs for Harpers Bazaar - took models outside the studio - works on locations around the world

• 1935 - first colour photography - not extensively used in fashion

• William Klein, 1950 - documentary photographer - got commissioned for fashion

• David Bailey - 1960's popular culture photography - music & Fashion scene - Mick Jagger

• Terence Donovan - fashion spread story by photographs - 'spy drama'

• Brian Duffy

• Awareness created between photographer & model

• Richard Avedon - Vogue 1966 onwards
• Pioneer - really uses sense of reality
• 'In American West' - documentary project

• Helmut Newton - photographs nude - 'power body' 1980's

• Guy Bourdin - Charles Jourdan shoes - cuts away body apart from important bit

• Jamel Shabazz - 'Back in the days' - hip hop scene 1980's New York

• I-D Magazine - straight up photography - normal people

• I-D Vs The Face - No Airbrush

• Juergen Teller - German - photo's for The Face & Vogue - Vivienne Westwood & Marc Jacobs

• Corrine Day - British Fashion photographer - worked for The Face & Vogue - Vogue cover of Kate Moss - credited for the 'waif' look - documentation

• Photoshop - digital image manipulation - graphics edition program - 2003

• Terry Richard - hyper real body through surgery/photoshop
• Nick Knight - Futuristic body

• Fashion blogging - democratises fashion photography - eg/ Tavi Genison - Street style Copenhagen - Company magazine

• Ari Vershus & Ellie Uyttenbrock - Exacitudes