The Gaze in the media// Lecture 5 notes..

Here are my notes for lecture 5:

John Berger:

' According to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome, men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at'

(Berger 1972)

- Women are not vain, women carry around an idea of themselves being looked at.

Hans Memling, ' Vanity' (1485)

- The mirror distracts you and makes you think the woman is looking at herself, its a moral judgement. By the woman not looking directly at us, it makes it okay for us to look at her.

- Contemporary advertising: the woman is lost in thought as she looks at herself. Her legs are slightly parted which makes us look between them and because she is not looking at us it means that she is making it okay to look there.

Alexandre Cabanel, 'Birth of venus' (1863)

In this painting her arms cover her face, which means that she is either just waking or just going to sleep. This and also the way she is laying allows us to look at her body without a returning gaze.

This is an advert by Sophie Dahl, for the perfume Opium.

This ad was withdrawn as it did not pass the census as it was thought to be too sexual. The position of the women was insinuating a sexual meaning. Also the way in which she fitted the frame meant that we were looking directly at her chest and genitals.

The image was then turned vertically and passed the census as it was no longer insinuating something sexual. Our focus changed and the women was in a less vulnerable position.

Titans Venus of Urbino, (1538)

This painting shows an upper class woman naked on a bed, she is looking directly at us, but in a relaxed and inviting way. Even though there is a direct gaze she is making it okay for us to look at her.

Manet, 'Olympia' (1863)

This image is a piece of Modernism, the stance of the woman is more assertive and she is a wealthier woman. She is a prostitute and a symbol of modernist society. The cat in the painting shows femininity and independence.

This is a billboard designed by the Guerrilla Girls. They were asked to design a billboard for the public Art fund in New York. They welcomed the chance to do anything that would appeal to a general audience. Their design was about the number of nude males and females in the artworks on display. The PAF said that their design was clear enough and rejected it,s o they rented out advertising space on New York buses, but their lease was cancelled as they said their design was too suggestive.

Manet, 'Bar at the Folies Bergeres, (1882)

This painting shows a barmaid who is serving 'us' and also Manet himself. This painting gives us another dimensional value and skewed perspective. It is almost a self portrait of Manet as his reflection can be seen on the top right hand corner. This makes us no longer a  spectator, we are involved with the scene.

Coward, R, (1984)

- The camera in contemporary media has been put to use as an extension of the male gaze at the women on the street. This model has been placed in a setting to make the image seem like it is normal for her to be dressed like this in public. No one is looking at her so that it seems normal, she is also wearing sunglasses so we are not challenged by her gaze and can look at her.

Eva Herzigova, (1994)

This is an advert for wonderbra, the woman is looking down which means she is not gazing at us and therefore means we can look at her. As this is a billboard it is hard to know if she would be looking down at us or at her own chest.

Coward, R, (1984), Peeping Tom

- The profusion of images which characterises contemporary society could be seen as an obsessive distancing of women.. a form of voyeurism.

- Voyeurism: the compulsion to seek sexual gratification by secretly looking at sexual objects or acts.

Here is an example of when the male body is objectified. This just goes to show that men are objectified like women in advertising but just not as much as women.

This image for Dolce and Gabbana is very challenging as all the men are gazing at us. The image represents a cult of fitness and the male ideals of body image.

Pollock, G, (1981)

- Women 'marginalised within the masculine discourses of art history'
- This marginalisation supports the 'hegemony of men in cultural practise, in art'
- Women not only marginalised but supposed to be marginalised

Cindy Sherman, 'Untitled film still no.6, (1977- 79)

Barbara Kruger, 'Your gaze hits the side of my face', (1981)

- Women artists challenge the male gaze

Sarah Lucas, 'Eating a banana', (1990)

- You should never look someone in the eye when eating a banana, or even eat them in public as people think eating a banana can come across as sexual.

Susan Sontag, (1979), 'On photography'

- 'To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed'
- The act of photography is more than passive observing. Like sexual voyeurism, it is a way of at least tacitly, often explicitly, encouraging what is going on to keep on happening'

Paparazzi shot of Princess Diana

- Pap images steal shots for personal financial gain

- The publication of these shots creates a market for their passive consumption (mags and newspapers)

- We contribute to the perpetuation of this cycle by buying these mags, we create the market for our own voyeuristic pleasure

- Our desire is to see the mask of celebrity lifted, and ordinary life exposed

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 that there is no reality.

- Contestants are aware of their representation (either as TV professionals or as people who have watched the show).

The Truman Show, (1988), Dir Peter Weir

- Jim Careys character discovers the limits of his world, that his life is a staged event.

Big Bother 2011

- Males and females to gaze upon.
- The BB chair is designed for maximum exposure.
- Voyeurism becomes everyday.

'Looking is not indifferent. There can never be any question of 'just looking'.

Victor Burgin, (1982)

Critical positions on the media and popular culture// Lecture 4 notes..

Aims:

- Critically define 'popular culture'
- Contrast ideas of 'culture' with 'popular culture' and 'mass culture'
- Introduce cultural studies and critical theory
- Discuss culture as ideology
- Interrogate the social function of popular culture

- What is culture?
- ' One of the two or three most complicated words in the English language'

- General process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic developments of a particular society, at a particular time.

- A particular way of life.

- Works of intellectual and especially artistic significance.

- What is popular culture? Authentic, high, the mass culture- value judgements

Raymond Williams (1983) 'Keywords' - important cultural theorist

- 4 definitions of 'popular'
- Well liked by many people
- Inferior kinds of work
- Work deliberatly setting out to win favour with the people
- Culture actually made by the people themselves

1// Idea of popular culture as quantitively measured.
2// Most common: Inferior of real culture, aspires to be important but fails (someone needs to make a value judgement: what is good/ bad?
3// Anything that aims to be populist (something understood by everyone). Work not understandable is inferior/ elite, simple work for the people is not.
4// Culture made by people for the people (working class).

- Describing a way of living- set of values/ ways of thinking/ working/ sub/ elite/ global cultures

- Inferior or Residual Culture:

- Popular press vs quality press
- Popular cinema vs art cinema
- Popular entertainment vs art culture

Matthew Arnold (1867) 'Culture and Anarchy'

Culture is:
- 'The best that has been thought and said in the world'
- Study of perfection
- Attained through disinterested reading, writing, thinking
- The pursuit of culture
- Seeks 'to minister the diseased spirit of our time'

- Who decides whats significant in culture of the people?

- Marxist culture/ because of those relations- superstructure emerges from organisation of society

- Culture could be from political conflict.

Raymond Williams (1983) 'Keywords': Four definitions of 'popular'

- Idea of popular culture as qua natively measured
- Most common: interior of real culture; aspire to be more important but fail (someone needs to make a value judgement: what is good/ bad?
- Anything that aims to be populist (something understood by everyone) work not understandable is inferior and elite, simple work for the people is not.
- Culture made by people for people (working class- brass bands)

- Caspar David (Monk by the sea): Insignificance of man in Gods existence, makes you question= elite
- Sea and sky: Popular culture= inferior or residual?

- Quality and popular newspapers: what content and who are they for?

Newspapers like the Independent are designed to be inferior, the language and layout they use, including long words and small text. It is a newspaper for those who are more intellectual and come from an upper class background. The Sun is an example of a popular newspaper, the headlines, language and layout are simple and easy to read and understand, this means that it is a newspaper that everyone can read.

- Exhibitions:

- When it comes to art and defining on whether or not it is inferior or popular, we seem to struggle and blur the line. The image above shows a piece of work called culture eggs, the eggs have been painted with clown faces that represent different people. These would be seen as popular art as they dont seem to be taking art seriously. We laugh at work like this, but why? Is it because it looks crap and we think we could do better, why do we make judgements so easily, is it because we have been taught in an institutional way?

- This is graffiti created in south Bronx, this is an earlier example of graffiti on the streets and it is very hip hop and popular. By it being where it is it makes it less of a piece of art work. Banksy is another example of graffiti street artist, his work is done in the same manor as the Bronx work.

- But if you take a piece of graffiti and place it into an exhibition, does it change its meaning? If you start to sell pieces of graffiti, surely that makes it more inferior, as you would be limiting who can look and purchase a good piece of graffiti.

- Popular culture can start off representing people and being incorporated for the elite.

- The dynamics of culture and popular culture are very complex.

- There can be a physical distinction/ separation which creates culture division.

Matthew Arnold (1867) 'Culture and Anarchy':

Culture is:

- ' The best that has been thought and said in the world'
- Study of perfection
- Attained through disinterested reading, writing thinking
- The pursuit of culture
- Seeks to minister the diseased spirit of our time

Anarchy:

- Culture policies 'the raw and uncultivated masses'
- The working class..raw and half developed..long lain half hidden amidst its poverty and squalor.. now issuing from its hiding place to assert an Englishman's heaven born privilege to do as he likes, and beginning to perplex us by marching where it likes, meeting where it likes, breaking what it likes (1960)

- Matthew Arnold (1867), first books were written about culture as a discipline, defining culture.
- He wants to define culture, its about perfection, beauty, truths and can only be done through disinterested reading (no agenda)

- Leavisism: cult figure
- Culture: minority keeping, defend culture from dumbing down.
- Popular fiction, collapse of authority- emerge of working class culture.

- Snobbery: dismiss things like big brother due to elitist inferior culture.

- Five important writers:

- Theodore Adorno
- max Horkheimer
- Herbert Marcuse
- Leo Lowenthal
-Walter Benjamin

- Authentic culture vs Mass culture:
- Qualities of authentic culture:

- Real
- European
- Multi-dimensional
- Active consumption
- Individual creation
- Imagination
- Negation
- Autonomous

Products of contemporary culture:

- X factor: de politicises people
- Hollyoaks: sexually objectifies

Adorno on popular music:

- Standardisation
- Psuedo- individualisation
- Social cement
- Produces passivity through rhythmic and emotional adjustment

Conclusion:

The culture and civilisation tradition emerges from, and represents, anxieties about social and cultural extension. They attack mass culture because it threatens cultural standards and social authority.

The Frankfurt school emerges from a Marxist traditon. They attack mass culture because it threatens cultural standards and depoliticises the working class, thus maintaining social authority.

Pronouncements on popular culture usually rely on normative or elitist value judgments.

Ideology masks cultural or class differences and naturalises the interests of the few as the interests of all.

The analysis of popular culture and popular media is deeply political, and deeply contested, and all those who practise or engage with it need to be aware of this.

Lecture 3// Marxism and Design Activism: Notes..

Aims:

- To introduce a critical definition of ideology.
- To introduce some of the basic principles of Marxist philosophy.
- To explain the extent to which the media constitutes us as subjects.
- To introduce 'culture jamming' and the idea of design activism.

Marxism is:

A political manifesto, leading to socialism, communism and the twentieth century conflicts between capital and labour.

- A philosophical approach to the social sciences, which focuses on the role of society in determining human behaviour, based on concept of dialectical materialism.

- What is Capitalism?

- Control of the means of production in private hands.
- A market where labour power is bought and sold.
- Production of commodities for sale.
- Use of money as a means of exchange.
- Competition/ meritocracy.

- Communist Evolution:

1. Primitive Communism: as seen in cooperative societies.
2. Slave Society: develops when the tribe becomes a city state. Birth of aristocracy.
3. Feudalism: aristocracy becomes the ruling class. Merchants develop into capitalists.
4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the real working class.
5. Socialism: "dictatorship of Proletariat": workers gain class consciousness, overthrow the capitalists and take control over the state.
6. Communism: a classless and stateless society.

- Ideology:

- System of ideas or beliefs (eg beliefs of a political party)
- Masking, distortion or selection of ideas, to reinforce power relations, through creation of 'false consciousness'.

Ideology is we feel and where it comes from. Its about how and what we do as designers to change the world we love in.

' There is no point in just thinking, you must combine this with action.'

' The ruling class has to represent its interest as the common interest of all members of society.. to give the form of universality and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones.'

Karl Marx, (1846) The German Ideology

- Society= economic, political and ideological

Ideology is a practise through which men and women 'live' their relations to real conditions of existence. Ideology offers false, but seemingly true resolutions to social imbalance.

Althusser, (1970) 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses'

The media as ideological state apparatus:

- A means of production.
- Disseminates the views of the ruling class (dominant hegemonic).
- Media creates a false consciousness.
- The individual is produced by nature; the subject by culture. (Fiske, 1992)
- The constitution of the subject
- Interpellation (Althusser)

An example is how newspapers such as the daily star (which the working class would read) are dumbed down and use gossip stories and women flashing their bodies, because they believe that the people who read these papers are uneducated.

Another example of how the media maked assumptions about large groups of people was the london student protests. Newspaper headlines were saying things like 'brainless', 'highjacking' and 'thuggish' to describe the students who were standing up for their rights and the rise in tuition fees.

Marx: Ideology

' Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most of the relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves'.

Berger, Ways of seeing, 1972

Althusser's 'problematic':

The wonderbra adverts undermine women and make it seem as though as long as women have a good rack then they can make it in life, it doesnt even matter if they cant cook!

' Advertisments are selling us something else besides consumer goods; in providing us with a structure in which we, and those goods are interchangeable, they are selling us ourselves.. Thus, instead of being identified by what they produce, people are made to identify themselves by what they consume.'

Williamson (1978), 'Decoding Advertisements'

Adbusters and culture jamming:

Culture jamming is where adverts are altered to change the message so that those who see it interpret a completely different and potentially opposite message than what was to be intended.

Questions to think about:

- What examples of art or design in your field could be determined by social or political factors?
- Where is ideology hidden behind appearance of design?
- What other aspects of political divisions, or class conflict, affect design?