Title// How does the use of advertising have an effect on consumerism?
My essay objectives//
1// I will be looking into different methods of advertising and how they effect consumerism.
2// I will be looking at how consumers react to advertising.
3// I will be looking at whether or not consumers are in control over what they buy or whether the use of advertising has control over consumerism.
4// I will be looking at how consumerism has evolved over the years and how we advertising has revolutionised consumerism.
5// I will be looking into what methods advertising uses, such as affecting our emotions to persuade us into buying their product.
6// I will be looking at how much power advertising has over comsumerism.
Sources//
Here are the 10 sources that I will using to write my essay.
Adorno, T (1991) The Culture Industry: Selected essays in mass culture. London, Routledge.
I think this text will be useful because it is about mass culture and part of what I will be looking at is how advertising effects consumerism and how advertising can effect mass culture and the way we buy products.
Debord, G (1994) The Society of the spectacle. London, Rebel Press.
Gobe, M (2010) Emotional Branding: The new paridigm for connecting brands to people. New York, Allworth Press.
This text will be useful because it looks at how brands use emotions to connect with people, rather than by the actual product they are trying to sell.
Lindstrom, M (2008) Buy.Ology: How everything we believe about why we buy is wrong. London, Random House.
This text talks about how advertising effects the reasons we buy things and how we can be tricked into thinking that we need to buy a product when really we will not benefit from it.
Marcuse, H (1991) One dimensional man. London, Rouledge.
Noel, H (2009) Consumer behaviour. Worthing, AVA Publishing.
This text looks at consumer behaviour and how and why we buy.
Pavitt, J (2000) Brand New. London, V&A.
Strinati, D (2nd Edition, 2004) An introduction to theories of popular culture. London, Routledge.
Turow, J and McAllister, M.P (2009) The advertising and consumer culture. New York, Routledge.
This text will be useful because it talks about advertising and the consumer culutre which is what I am basing my essay on.
Vollmer, C and Precourt, G (2008) Always on: Advertising, Marketing and Media in an era of consumer control. USA, McGraw Hill.
Wickstrom, M (2006) Performing Consumers. New York, Routledge.
Williams, R (1980) Culture and Materialism. London, Verso.
This text will be very useful because it talks about how we are a very materialist society and that we buy products for all the wrong reasons. Which links into how advertising persuades us into purchasing something that we probably dont need.
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Monday, 28 November 2011
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)
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)
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
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.
- 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.
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
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?
- 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?
Sunday, 23 October 2011
Lecture two: Technology will liberate us..
Summary
- Technological conditions can affect the collective consciousness.
- Technology trigger important changes in cultural development.
- Walter Benjamin's essay 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction' (1936) significantly evaluates the role of technology through photography as an instrument of change.
- We were asked to draw a small doodle during the lecture, faithfully copy it and then do it again and again. The thing we learnt from this was that the copy and reproduction of the original was often more valuable than the original itself.
Walter Benjamin and mechanical reproduction:
- The age of technology and art.
- Parallel and specific to new developments; a duality expressing the zeitgeist.
- Dialectical due to the copy, reproductive nature and the role of the original.
- The aura abd uniqueness of art.
- Technology first started with the simple photograms.
- Kineticism was another turning point for the evolution of technology.
- Dematerialization of art.
Karl Marx and technology:
- Associated with the term technological determinism. How technological determines economical production factors and affects social conditions.
- The relationship of technological enterprise to other aspects of human activity.
Dialectical issues:
- Technology drives history.
- Technology and the division of labour.
- Materialist view of history.
- Technology and Capitalism and production.
- Social Alienation of people form aspects of their human nature as a result of capitalism.
Post modern Post machine:
- Many electronic works were still made with modern aesthetic.
- Emergence of information and conceptual based works.
- The computer a natural metaphor.
- A spirit of openness to industrial techniques.
- Collaborations between art and science.
Simulation and Simulacrum:
- It is the reflection of a profound reality.
- It masks and denatures a profound reality.
- It masks the absence of a profound reality.
- It has no relation to any reality whatsoever; it is its own pure simulacrum.
- Jean Baudrillard (1981).
- Nam June Paik: He used technologies as a critique on their actual affect on society.
- John Walker and art and mass media: Art in the age of mass media (2001)
- Art uses mass media (1990-2000)
- Art in advertisements
- The artist as media celebrity
- Digital age//
- Margot Lovejoy; Digital currents
- Digital potential leads to multimedia productions.
- Technological reduction of all images so they are addressed by the computer.
- New contexts.
Multimedia work:
- Interactivity
- Performance
- Transdisciplinary
- Time, space and motion explored in art and as art
- Collaborations
- Computer as a tool for integrating media
- Hyperreal; reality by proxy
- Conclusion:
- Art comments on the ideology of everyday life.
- Art can be expressive and progressive.
- Technological tools can blur the line between production of fine art works and commercial and design production.
- Technological conditions can affect the collective consciousness.
- Technology trigger important changes in cultural development.
- Walter Benjamin's essay 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction' (1936) significantly evaluates the role of technology through photography as an instrument of change.
- We were asked to draw a small doodle during the lecture, faithfully copy it and then do it again and again. The thing we learnt from this was that the copy and reproduction of the original was often more valuable than the original itself.
Walter Benjamin and mechanical reproduction:
- The age of technology and art.
- Parallel and specific to new developments; a duality expressing the zeitgeist.
- Dialectical due to the copy, reproductive nature and the role of the original.
- The aura abd uniqueness of art.
- Technology first started with the simple photograms.
- Kineticism was another turning point for the evolution of technology.
- Dematerialization of art.
Karl Marx and technology:
- Associated with the term technological determinism. How technological determines economical production factors and affects social conditions.
- The relationship of technological enterprise to other aspects of human activity.
Dialectical issues:
- Technology drives history.
- Technology and the division of labour.
- Materialist view of history.
- Technology and Capitalism and production.
- Social Alienation of people form aspects of their human nature as a result of capitalism.
Post modern Post machine:
- Many electronic works were still made with modern aesthetic.
- Emergence of information and conceptual based works.
- The computer a natural metaphor.
- A spirit of openness to industrial techniques.
- Collaborations between art and science.
Simulation and Simulacrum:
- It is the reflection of a profound reality.
- It masks and denatures a profound reality.
- It masks the absence of a profound reality.
- It has no relation to any reality whatsoever; it is its own pure simulacrum.
- Jean Baudrillard (1981).
- Nam June Paik: He used technologies as a critique on their actual affect on society.
- John Walker and art and mass media: Art in the age of mass media (2001)
- Art uses mass media (1990-2000)
- Art in advertisements
- The artist as media celebrity
- Digital age//
- Margot Lovejoy; Digital currents
- Digital potential leads to multimedia productions.
- Technological reduction of all images so they are addressed by the computer.
- New contexts.
Multimedia work:
- Interactivity
- Performance
- Transdisciplinary
- Time, space and motion explored in art and as art
- Collaborations
- Computer as a tool for integrating media
- Hyperreal; reality by proxy
- Conclusion:
- Art comments on the ideology of everyday life.
- Art can be expressive and progressive.
- Technological tools can blur the line between production of fine art works and commercial and design production.
Panopticism// Study task 1..
Portfolio task one:
Choose an example of one aspect of contemporary culture, that is, in your opinion, panoptic. Write an explanation of this (200-300 words) employing key Foucauldian language such as 'docile bodies' or 'self regulation' and using no less than 5 qoutes from the text 'Panopticism' in Thomas J, (2000), ' Reading key images, NY, Paulgrave McMilan.
---------------
One aspect of contemporary culture that uses panopticism to control people is CCTV. CCTV is placed almost everywhere nowadays, most of the time we know where the cameras are placed but some can also be hidden. The ones that are on show are placed in obvious places and often with signage to let us know we are being watched. This means that we behave in a particular way that society wants us to act, the right behaviour. ' Benthan laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable', this is the case with some CCTV cameras that are not actually turned on, they are there as a symbol of power to remind us of those who have control over us.
The CCTV cameras are panoptic because they make us conscious of how we act and makes us believe that one way or another, we are being watched. Its much like the Panopticon, with the central guard tower watching over prisoners, but in actual fact there were no guards in the tower, the tower itself had the power to conciously change the behaviour of the prisoners. ' Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power..the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its actions..'. You no longer need cameras that actually watch people because they believe they are being watched anyway. Foucault talks about how we begin to self regulate and behave correctly as we 'know' we are being constantly watched. It is all to do with how the mind works and how we can control ourselves, without the pyhsical use control of others.
CCTV watches everyone, in a way it is not such a powerful thing because even those who are in charge and who have power can be watched. Much like the paparazzi and celebrities and how they use cameras, often CCTV and the pap get those in high places into trouble, because little do they know that they are being watched too. ' The Panopticon may even provide an apparatus for supervising its own mechanisms..the director may spy on all the employees that he has under his orders..'. The ones who watch are being watched and so on. CCTV is just a symbol of powerful status, and it is slightly crazy how a camera can control us, it is just a unanimus object.
' Visibility is a trap', we all believe that we have free will and we can do what we want but at the end of the day we no longer have control of our free will, yes we consciously make the decision to behave in a certain way but it is those symbols of power (CCTV for example) that determine our actions.
Often just the signs of CCTV alome are more powerful than the cameras themselves.
Choose an example of one aspect of contemporary culture, that is, in your opinion, panoptic. Write an explanation of this (200-300 words) employing key Foucauldian language such as 'docile bodies' or 'self regulation' and using no less than 5 qoutes from the text 'Panopticism' in Thomas J, (2000), ' Reading key images, NY, Paulgrave McMilan.
---------------
One aspect of contemporary culture that uses panopticism to control people is CCTV. CCTV is placed almost everywhere nowadays, most of the time we know where the cameras are placed but some can also be hidden. The ones that are on show are placed in obvious places and often with signage to let us know we are being watched. This means that we behave in a particular way that society wants us to act, the right behaviour. ' Benthan laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable', this is the case with some CCTV cameras that are not actually turned on, they are there as a symbol of power to remind us of those who have control over us.
The CCTV cameras are panoptic because they make us conscious of how we act and makes us believe that one way or another, we are being watched. Its much like the Panopticon, with the central guard tower watching over prisoners, but in actual fact there were no guards in the tower, the tower itself had the power to conciously change the behaviour of the prisoners. ' Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power..the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its actions..'. You no longer need cameras that actually watch people because they believe they are being watched anyway. Foucault talks about how we begin to self regulate and behave correctly as we 'know' we are being constantly watched. It is all to do with how the mind works and how we can control ourselves, without the pyhsical use control of others.
CCTV watches everyone, in a way it is not such a powerful thing because even those who are in charge and who have power can be watched. Much like the paparazzi and celebrities and how they use cameras, often CCTV and the pap get those in high places into trouble, because little do they know that they are being watched too. ' The Panopticon may even provide an apparatus for supervising its own mechanisms..the director may spy on all the employees that he has under his orders..'. The ones who watch are being watched and so on. CCTV is just a symbol of powerful status, and it is slightly crazy how a camera can control us, it is just a unanimus object.
' Visibility is a trap', we all believe that we have free will and we can do what we want but at the end of the day we no longer have control of our free will, yes we consciously make the decision to behave in a certain way but it is those symbols of power (CCTV for example) that determine our actions.
Often just the signs of CCTV alome are more powerful than the cameras themselves.
Friday, 14 October 2011
Lecture one// Panopticism..
Lecture aims:
- Undertstand the principles of the panopticism
- Understand Michel Foucault's concept of 'disciplinary society'
- Consider the idea that disciplinary society is a way of making individuals 'productive and useful'
- Undertsand Foucaults idea of techniques of the body and 'docile' bodies.
- Michel Foucault// 1926-1984
- Books// Madness and Civilisation, Discipline and Punish: The birth of the prison
- In the late 1600 The Great Confinement came to light, this was a seperation in society where criminals, unemployed and the insane were made social out casts. They began being punished for who they were and by this process were 'forced' to become more productive members of society.
- ' Houses of correction'// These were the first ever prisons built in the late 1600's, they were built to curb unemployment and idleness. Before now the insane for example led an easy life, they were simply seen as the village idiots or mad fools and belonged to society. But in the late 1600s societys attitude changed towards this particular group of people and they saw them as useless. Society began to have a moral attitude and those who fell outside of the normal, productive society were thrown into correction houses to bring them up to societys new mark. People within this group include criminals, lazy people, the insane and even single mothers, they were to put to work under the threat of being beaten if they did not get up to scratch.
- The houses of correction became a gross error, they ended up corrupting more people. This then became the birth of Asylum which seperated the sane from the insane, before ow there was no line drawn between the two within society.
- Places were built for asylums and the insane would be treated very differently, much like children. If they were good then they would recieve rewards. This was the turning of point of how outcasts in society would be disciplined. They realised there were other ways to control people, there then became a shift from physical control to mental control.
- Foucault talks about how instituitional power within places like the prison, asylum, hospitals and schools now effects humans in such a way that they alter our conciousness and that they internalise our responsibility.
- Years ago punishment would take the form of public humiliation, the outcasts would be placed in pillories and have food thrown at them as well as being spat on. Everyone would come and watch and know why those indivuals were in the stocks.
- Guy Falke's execution is a good example of how punishment used to work. It was done publically and the King decided on how he would be killed. The execution was brutal and a warning to anyone else who dared try and go against the 'system'.
- Disciplinary society and disciplinary power//
' Discipline is a 'technology' [aimed at] 'how to keep someone under surveillance, how to control his conduct, his behaviour, his aptitudes, how to improve his performance, multiply his capacities, how to put him where he is most useful: that is discipline in my sense'
(Foucault, 1981 in O'Farrell 2005:102)
- This was called Panopticism
- In 1971 a man named Jeremy Bentham designed a proposal for a building called The Panopticon. The Panopticon was a circular building that had hundreds of individual cells inside, each sell faced towards a large central tower. The cells each had a small window which backlit each cell. The central tower was a place for guards. The building would have been used as a prison and the prisoners would have been constantly watched from the central tower.
- There are modern Panopticon buildings built in Cuba called the Presidio Modelo. The Millbank prison in london also used the structure of the Panopticon.
- Because of the way in which the Panopticon was built around the central tower and how all the cells were facing it. Anyone kept inside a cell felt constantly watched by the guards which meant they would behave in such a way as to not get caught doing anything they shouldnt. The tower was known as the institiutional 'gaze'. The tower was never lit up and blinds were often used to enclose those inside, this would then make prisoners unaware on whether or not they were actually being watched. As the prisoners became more self controling over thier own behaviour simply because they thought they were constantly being watched. The tower started to be left empty, it now had its own pwerful status, guards were no longer needed to watch the prisoners because they had been set in a frame of mind that made them behave through the unknown knowledge of whether they were actually being watched or not.
- It got to the point that the cells no longer needed bars on them because prisoners had a conscious control over themselves, they had begun self disciplining themselves. The Panopticon had internalised the individuals conscious state that he is always being watched.
- Panopticism//
' Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.'
(Foucault, 1975)
- By using the Panopticon method on criminals and the insane it allowed scrutiny, allowed supervisors to experiment on subjects and it aimed to make them productive.
- It helped reform prisoners
- Helps treat patients
- Helps instruct school children
- Helps confine, but also study the insane
- Helps supervise workers
- Helps put beggars and idlers to work.
- What Foucault is describing is a transformation in Western societies from a form of power imposed by a 'ruler' or 'sovereign' to A NEW MODE OF POWER CALLED "PANOPTICISM"
- The 'Panopticon' is a model of how modern society organises its knowledge, its power, its surveillance of bodies and its 'training' of bodies.
- Its much like an open plan office in modern society, the Panopticon method is used. An open plan office is designed so that the 'boss' can see what everyone is doing and therefore making the workers aware that they are being watched and should be working hard. Where in actual fact they may not even be being watched but their internalised conscious state of mind makes them act in a way that their boss would be wanting them to work.
- It has also effected places like pubs, they used to be designed to have a cosy and personalised feel to them in terms of where you sat. Now they have been made very open planned so that customers are aware that they can be seen by bouncers for example, which then makes them act in a particular way knowing that they are being watched/ can be seen by everyone.
- Google maps is another example of us being watched. You can find out where anyone lives which is a weird feeling. Someone could be watching your house, again this effects how you behave.
- In Pentonville prison in the USA, they had rooms designed for lectures to prisoners, they were set up as seperate individual compartments for inmates. It stopped them from interacting with one another.
- Even things like libraries use Panopticism, we could walk into a library and automatically be quiet, even if there is no sign saying to be quiet. It is a conscious decision that we make where we know that we have to act in a certain way to be accepted in society. There is an instituitional power over us that makes us control our own behaviour.
- CCTV is a prime example of Panopticism, there are cameras watching us everywhere, often we do not even know they are there. This makes us behave ourselves knowing that if we do do something wrong, there is a chance someone has caught us in the act and we would have to face the consequences. Places now use CCTV cameras in places that are not even on, because they know that we will think they are on or we see them and think we are being watched. It is all pyshcological. Its the same with speed cameras, we are aware they are about which therefore makes us slow down, and sometimes these could be fake cameras.
- Relationship between power, knowledge and the body//
' Power relations have an immediate hold upon it [the body]; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs'
(Foucault 1975)
- Disciplinary society produces what Foucault calls:- 'docile bodies'.
- Self monitoring
- Self-correcting
- Obedient bodies
- Disciplinary Techniques
" That the techniques of discipline and 'gentle punishment' have crossed the threshold from work to play shows how pervasive they have become within modern societies"
(Danaher, Schirato & Webb 2000)
- Foucault and Power
- His defintion is not a top-down model as with Marxism
- Power is not a thing or capacity people have- it is a relation between different individuals and groups, and only exists when it is being exercised.
- The exercise of power relies on there being the capacity for power to be resisted
- 'Where there is power there is resistance'
- Facebook is an example of how we create an ideal image of ourselves that we want people to see of ourselves. Everyone can see anything we do which makes us behave in an ideal way to appear as a good person in society.
- There was also a Panopticism effect on art during the 1960s. Vito Acconci's 'Following piece' (1969) was piece of art designed to show the power the artist had over another person without them realising. He would follow someone around everywhere and take photos without the person knowing.
- Another piece of his work called 'Seedbed' (1972), was a piece where he made a fake floor in a gallery and hid underneath it. The people who came to view his work didnt realise the floor was fake and that he was actually hiding underneath it masturbating.
- There is also 'Samson', created by Chris Burden (1985). The art was a huge iron mechanism attached to a turn style. A huge piece of timber was placed across the length of the room and every time someone came through the trun style to view the work it would make the timber push outwards on the walls. Effectively the gallery would eventually be destroyed by being viewed. Very clever.
- Key things to go away with:
- Michel Foucault
- Panopticism as a form of discipline
- Techniques of the body
- Docile bodies
- Undertstand the principles of the panopticism
- Understand Michel Foucault's concept of 'disciplinary society'
- Consider the idea that disciplinary society is a way of making individuals 'productive and useful'
- Undertsand Foucaults idea of techniques of the body and 'docile' bodies.
- Michel Foucault// 1926-1984
- Books// Madness and Civilisation, Discipline and Punish: The birth of the prison
- In the late 1600 The Great Confinement came to light, this was a seperation in society where criminals, unemployed and the insane were made social out casts. They began being punished for who they were and by this process were 'forced' to become more productive members of society.
- ' Houses of correction'// These were the first ever prisons built in the late 1600's, they were built to curb unemployment and idleness. Before now the insane for example led an easy life, they were simply seen as the village idiots or mad fools and belonged to society. But in the late 1600s societys attitude changed towards this particular group of people and they saw them as useless. Society began to have a moral attitude and those who fell outside of the normal, productive society were thrown into correction houses to bring them up to societys new mark. People within this group include criminals, lazy people, the insane and even single mothers, they were to put to work under the threat of being beaten if they did not get up to scratch.
- The houses of correction became a gross error, they ended up corrupting more people. This then became the birth of Asylum which seperated the sane from the insane, before ow there was no line drawn between the two within society.
- Places were built for asylums and the insane would be treated very differently, much like children. If they were good then they would recieve rewards. This was the turning of point of how outcasts in society would be disciplined. They realised there were other ways to control people, there then became a shift from physical control to mental control.
- Foucault talks about how instituitional power within places like the prison, asylum, hospitals and schools now effects humans in such a way that they alter our conciousness and that they internalise our responsibility.
- Years ago punishment would take the form of public humiliation, the outcasts would be placed in pillories and have food thrown at them as well as being spat on. Everyone would come and watch and know why those indivuals were in the stocks.
- Guy Falke's execution is a good example of how punishment used to work. It was done publically and the King decided on how he would be killed. The execution was brutal and a warning to anyone else who dared try and go against the 'system'.
- Disciplinary society and disciplinary power//
' Discipline is a 'technology' [aimed at] 'how to keep someone under surveillance, how to control his conduct, his behaviour, his aptitudes, how to improve his performance, multiply his capacities, how to put him where he is most useful: that is discipline in my sense'
(Foucault, 1981 in O'Farrell 2005:102)
- This was called Panopticism
- In 1971 a man named Jeremy Bentham designed a proposal for a building called The Panopticon. The Panopticon was a circular building that had hundreds of individual cells inside, each sell faced towards a large central tower. The cells each had a small window which backlit each cell. The central tower was a place for guards. The building would have been used as a prison and the prisoners would have been constantly watched from the central tower.
- There are modern Panopticon buildings built in Cuba called the Presidio Modelo. The Millbank prison in london also used the structure of the Panopticon.
- Because of the way in which the Panopticon was built around the central tower and how all the cells were facing it. Anyone kept inside a cell felt constantly watched by the guards which meant they would behave in such a way as to not get caught doing anything they shouldnt. The tower was known as the institiutional 'gaze'. The tower was never lit up and blinds were often used to enclose those inside, this would then make prisoners unaware on whether or not they were actually being watched. As the prisoners became more self controling over thier own behaviour simply because they thought they were constantly being watched. The tower started to be left empty, it now had its own pwerful status, guards were no longer needed to watch the prisoners because they had been set in a frame of mind that made them behave through the unknown knowledge of whether they were actually being watched or not.
- It got to the point that the cells no longer needed bars on them because prisoners had a conscious control over themselves, they had begun self disciplining themselves. The Panopticon had internalised the individuals conscious state that he is always being watched.
- Panopticism//
' Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.'
(Foucault, 1975)
- By using the Panopticon method on criminals and the insane it allowed scrutiny, allowed supervisors to experiment on subjects and it aimed to make them productive.
- It helped reform prisoners
- Helps treat patients
- Helps instruct school children
- Helps confine, but also study the insane
- Helps supervise workers
- Helps put beggars and idlers to work.
- What Foucault is describing is a transformation in Western societies from a form of power imposed by a 'ruler' or 'sovereign' to A NEW MODE OF POWER CALLED "PANOPTICISM"
- The 'Panopticon' is a model of how modern society organises its knowledge, its power, its surveillance of bodies and its 'training' of bodies.
- Its much like an open plan office in modern society, the Panopticon method is used. An open plan office is designed so that the 'boss' can see what everyone is doing and therefore making the workers aware that they are being watched and should be working hard. Where in actual fact they may not even be being watched but their internalised conscious state of mind makes them act in a way that their boss would be wanting them to work.
- It has also effected places like pubs, they used to be designed to have a cosy and personalised feel to them in terms of where you sat. Now they have been made very open planned so that customers are aware that they can be seen by bouncers for example, which then makes them act in a particular way knowing that they are being watched/ can be seen by everyone.
- Google maps is another example of us being watched. You can find out where anyone lives which is a weird feeling. Someone could be watching your house, again this effects how you behave.
- In Pentonville prison in the USA, they had rooms designed for lectures to prisoners, they were set up as seperate individual compartments for inmates. It stopped them from interacting with one another.
- Even things like libraries use Panopticism, we could walk into a library and automatically be quiet, even if there is no sign saying to be quiet. It is a conscious decision that we make where we know that we have to act in a certain way to be accepted in society. There is an instituitional power over us that makes us control our own behaviour.
- CCTV is a prime example of Panopticism, there are cameras watching us everywhere, often we do not even know they are there. This makes us behave ourselves knowing that if we do do something wrong, there is a chance someone has caught us in the act and we would have to face the consequences. Places now use CCTV cameras in places that are not even on, because they know that we will think they are on or we see them and think we are being watched. It is all pyshcological. Its the same with speed cameras, we are aware they are about which therefore makes us slow down, and sometimes these could be fake cameras.
- Relationship between power, knowledge and the body//
' Power relations have an immediate hold upon it [the body]; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs'
(Foucault 1975)
- Disciplinary society produces what Foucault calls:- 'docile bodies'.
- Self monitoring
- Self-correcting
- Obedient bodies
- Disciplinary Techniques
" That the techniques of discipline and 'gentle punishment' have crossed the threshold from work to play shows how pervasive they have become within modern societies"
(Danaher, Schirato & Webb 2000)
- Foucault and Power
- His defintion is not a top-down model as with Marxism
- Power is not a thing or capacity people have- it is a relation between different individuals and groups, and only exists when it is being exercised.
- The exercise of power relies on there being the capacity for power to be resisted
- 'Where there is power there is resistance'
- Facebook is an example of how we create an ideal image of ourselves that we want people to see of ourselves. Everyone can see anything we do which makes us behave in an ideal way to appear as a good person in society.
- There was also a Panopticism effect on art during the 1960s. Vito Acconci's 'Following piece' (1969) was piece of art designed to show the power the artist had over another person without them realising. He would follow someone around everywhere and take photos without the person knowing.
- Another piece of his work called 'Seedbed' (1972), was a piece where he made a fake floor in a gallery and hid underneath it. The people who came to view his work didnt realise the floor was fake and that he was actually hiding underneath it masturbating.
- There is also 'Samson', created by Chris Burden (1985). The art was a huge iron mechanism attached to a turn style. A huge piece of timber was placed across the length of the room and every time someone came through the trun style to view the work it would make the timber push outwards on the walls. Effectively the gallery would eventually be destroyed by being viewed. Very clever.
- Key things to go away with:
- Michel Foucault
- Panopticism as a form of discipline
- Techniques of the body
- Docile bodies
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Graphic design and desconstruction...
What is deconstruction?
Deconstruction arrose from Post- modernism and Post- structuralism, it was something that became visually interpreted in Graphic design. Deconstruction was not a style as such, it was more of an approach about questionning the hidden assumptions in life, unpicking hidden structures.
500 word analysis on Lupton, E (2008) 'Thinking with type'
Lupton talks about type in a very different way compared to contemporary theorists. The first points that he makes about type in his writing 'Thinking with type' is that text is not just there to be read, ' it can be viewed as a thing- a sound and sturdy object- or a fluid poured into the containers of a page or screen. Text can be solid or liquid, body or blood.' The point he makes about text not just being text is very important in contemporary design, when a designer sets about formatting a piece of text they need to do it in a way that makes it different from others and interesting, the layout and design of the text should reflect on its content. It should make the reader feel something and it should make them think about the text 'design' and not just the content they are 'reading'.
Next he talks about the way in which designers layout text on a page and how it can be indented and broken up so that the reader can find ways to read the parts that they need to rather than reading the whole text of which half may not be relevant to their readings. The designers job is to make reading an easier and quicker process, Lupton says ' although many books define the purpose of typography as enhancing the readability of the written word, one of design's most humane function is, in actuality, to help readers avoid reading'. The techniques that are used to make readers reading experience easier actually diverts them from reading hardly anything at all.
Errors and ownership became very important around the 1960's. When handwritten documents were reproduced, before printing was invented, they were riddled with errors. The copies were copied from copies so each reproduced piece had its own glitches or gaps. After the invention of new ways of printing, proof copies were proof read before a mass was reproduced, so thay any mistakes could be justified and corrected. But again as technology evolved, text became downloadable from online and users could then reformatt the text.
In an essay 'From work to text' written by French critic Roland Barthes, he talks about linearity ( meaning the property, quality or state of being linear) and the two opposing models of writing: ' the closed, fixed "work" versus the open, unstable "text". The work was a tidy, neatly packaged object, all proof read and perfect where as the text was the complete opposite, it was impossible to contain. The text was something that was very different, it could be a jumble of references, recieved ideas, echoes and cultural languages.He then goes on to talk about the attack on linearity, new devices that were being used in writing were providing means of escape and entrance from the one way stream of discourse. Meaning that writing occupies space as well as time and typography's most urgent tasks was to now liberate readers from the bonds of linearity.
He then goes on to talk about the importance of the author within a piece of text. When a reader reads a piece of text, whose voice is in their head whilst reading, is it their own, the author's or the voice of a character in the text. And if it is their own voice then do they still interpret the piece of wrting as it was meant to be interpreted by the author, or does it change by the way the reader reads or sees words. Is it now the death of the author, do they simply write and then all the power falls into how it is displayed by typography and how the reader interprets.
Katherine McCoy, a designer talks about how typography is not only read but also seen and much like images and pictures, they can be read like text, the way in which we read and see things is changing all the tie and this is through the evolution and change within type design and layout, it is a constant battle of what is more important, the text or what they mean.
Examples of Deconstruction in Graphic Design:
David Carson is a well known Graphic Designer who uses deconstructive techniques in some of his work, a prime example is his designs for Ray Gun magazine. The way he used typography went against traditional graphic design 'rules', there is no form of layout or grid, everything seems as though it had just been thrown on a page. Type overlaps and becomes illegible, again going against the purposes of good graphic design.
Deconstruction arrose from Post- modernism and Post- structuralism, it was something that became visually interpreted in Graphic design. Deconstruction was not a style as such, it was more of an approach about questionning the hidden assumptions in life, unpicking hidden structures.
500 word analysis on Lupton, E (2008) 'Thinking with type'
Lupton talks about type in a very different way compared to contemporary theorists. The first points that he makes about type in his writing 'Thinking with type' is that text is not just there to be read, ' it can be viewed as a thing- a sound and sturdy object- or a fluid poured into the containers of a page or screen. Text can be solid or liquid, body or blood.' The point he makes about text not just being text is very important in contemporary design, when a designer sets about formatting a piece of text they need to do it in a way that makes it different from others and interesting, the layout and design of the text should reflect on its content. It should make the reader feel something and it should make them think about the text 'design' and not just the content they are 'reading'.
Next he talks about the way in which designers layout text on a page and how it can be indented and broken up so that the reader can find ways to read the parts that they need to rather than reading the whole text of which half may not be relevant to their readings. The designers job is to make reading an easier and quicker process, Lupton says ' although many books define the purpose of typography as enhancing the readability of the written word, one of design's most humane function is, in actuality, to help readers avoid reading'. The techniques that are used to make readers reading experience easier actually diverts them from reading hardly anything at all.
Errors and ownership became very important around the 1960's. When handwritten documents were reproduced, before printing was invented, they were riddled with errors. The copies were copied from copies so each reproduced piece had its own glitches or gaps. After the invention of new ways of printing, proof copies were proof read before a mass was reproduced, so thay any mistakes could be justified and corrected. But again as technology evolved, text became downloadable from online and users could then reformatt the text.
In an essay 'From work to text' written by French critic Roland Barthes, he talks about linearity ( meaning the property, quality or state of being linear) and the two opposing models of writing: ' the closed, fixed "work" versus the open, unstable "text". The work was a tidy, neatly packaged object, all proof read and perfect where as the text was the complete opposite, it was impossible to contain. The text was something that was very different, it could be a jumble of references, recieved ideas, echoes and cultural languages.He then goes on to talk about the attack on linearity, new devices that were being used in writing were providing means of escape and entrance from the one way stream of discourse. Meaning that writing occupies space as well as time and typography's most urgent tasks was to now liberate readers from the bonds of linearity.
He then goes on to talk about the importance of the author within a piece of text. When a reader reads a piece of text, whose voice is in their head whilst reading, is it their own, the author's or the voice of a character in the text. And if it is their own voice then do they still interpret the piece of wrting as it was meant to be interpreted by the author, or does it change by the way the reader reads or sees words. Is it now the death of the author, do they simply write and then all the power falls into how it is displayed by typography and how the reader interprets.
Katherine McCoy, a designer talks about how typography is not only read but also seen and much like images and pictures, they can be read like text, the way in which we read and see things is changing all the tie and this is through the evolution and change within type design and layout, it is a constant battle of what is more important, the text or what they mean.
Examples of Deconstruction in Graphic Design:
David Carson is a well known Graphic Designer who uses deconstructive techniques in some of his work, a prime example is his designs for Ray Gun magazine. The way he used typography went against traditional graphic design 'rules', there is no form of layout or grid, everything seems as though it had just been thrown on a page. Type overlaps and becomes illegible, again going against the purposes of good graphic design.
David Carson, Ray Gun magazine
David Carson, Ray Gun magazine
Essay bibliography using Harvard referencing...
What is Harvard referencing?
When writing an essay or distertation it is important to know how to correctly reference your information sources throughout your written work and within your bibliography. The system used is called The Harvard referencing system.
When referencing you must try and include the following information:
- The author or editors name
- The year the book was published
- The title of the book
- If it is an edition other than the first
- The city the book was published in
- The name of the publisher
With journals you will need:
- The authors name (s)
- The year the journal was published
- The title of the article
- The title of the journal
- The page number of the article/ journal
- As much information as you can about the journal like the volume and issue numbers
For electronic sources:
- The date you assessed the source
- The electronic address or email
- The type of electronic source (email, discussion forum, WWW page etc)
My essay bibliography using Harvard referencing:
- Packard, V (1957) 'The Hidden Persuaders', IG publishing, Reisse Ed
- Berger, J; www.thinking-about-art.blogspot.com/2008/06/john-berger-ways-of-seeing.html, website
- Berger, J (1972) ' Ways of seeing', British Broadcasting corporation
- Reeves, R (1961) 'Reality in advertising', Minnesota, Knopf
- Reeves, R (2011), .www.wikipedia.org
- Bernbach, W (1950-1970), http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_bernbach.html
- United Colours of Benetton (1989) Campaign for black and white equality, Oliviero Toscani
When writing an essay or distertation it is important to know how to correctly reference your information sources throughout your written work and within your bibliography. The system used is called The Harvard referencing system.
When referencing you must try and include the following information:
- The author or editors name
- The year the book was published
- The title of the book
- If it is an edition other than the first
- The city the book was published in
- The name of the publisher
With journals you will need:
- The authors name (s)
- The year the journal was published
- The title of the article
- The title of the journal
- The page number of the article/ journal
- As much information as you can about the journal like the volume and issue numbers
For electronic sources:
- The date you assessed the source
- The electronic address or email
- The type of electronic source (email, discussion forum, WWW page etc)
My essay bibliography using Harvard referencing:
- Packard, V (1957) 'The Hidden Persuaders', IG publishing, Reisse Ed
- Berger, J; www.thinking-about-art.blogspot.com/2008/06/john-berger-ways-of-seeing.html, website
- Berger, J (1972) ' Ways of seeing', British Broadcasting corporation
- Reeves, R (1961) 'Reality in advertising', Minnesota, Knopf
- Reeves, R (2011), .www.wikipedia.org
- Bernbach, W (1950-1970), http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_bernbach.html
- United Colours of Benetton (1989) Campaign for black and white equality, Oliviero Toscani
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Post modern graphic design...
Terry Jones,i.d young British culture magazine, published 1980, found on wordpress.com.
This is a piece of Postmodern graphic design because of the way in which it fights against the strict constraints of design, it has been designed using an aggressive collaged style in order to be young and cultured and appeal to its target audience, its much about rebellion.
Sex pistols music poster, released in 1977.
This music poster is postmodern again because of the way it rebells againsts the traditional techniques of graphic design and poster design, its design was seen as so rebellious that the actual song was band after people thought the poster was personally attacking the Queen, when in actual fact it was meant to be portraying old Britain.
Barbara Kruger, 1981.
This piece is very unconventional, it goes against the rules of typography. It has been designed in a way that is very untraditional to what we know, the layout and the way that the text has been organised like a ransom note is very unconventional.
Reid, J (1977) 'Album cover'
http://gds.parkland.edu/gds/!lectures/history/1975/postmodern.html
Greiman, A (USA 1980) Nightclub/ Advertisement
http://gds.parkland.edu/gds/!lectures/history/1975/postmodern.html
This example of post modernism uses traits from other artists work rather than designing from scratch. It uses a similar style to Weingart and even Kandinsky.
Coy, J (USA 1994) poster
http://gds.parkland.edu/gds/!lectures/history/1975/postmodern.html
The use of collage in this poster, using well recognised faces makes it more appealing and it also makes it witty, which was part of the post modern design. The use of collage was also a new way of working, unlike traditional methods such as painting.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Avant Garde...
Avant Garde was an Art and design style that's purpose was to be progressive and inovative. Avant garde was quirky and original, in a way it mocked the elitism of art and challenged the conventional assumptions of what art is. It was very anti- conventional and anti- elitis.
Now a days the term avant garde has been dispositioned and it is slightly weird in what people call avant garde today.
To be avant garde one must be ahead of society and outside of it, to be able to become a creative genius and inovative.
Avant Garde is a French military term meaning cutting edge/ political and aesthetic.
I have found two pieces of Avant Garde Graphic design:
Now a days the term avant garde has been dispositioned and it is slightly weird in what people call avant garde today.
To be avant garde one must be ahead of society and outside of it, to be able to become a creative genius and inovative.
Avant Garde is a French military term meaning cutting edge/ political and aesthetic.
I have found two pieces of Avant Garde Graphic design:
The two images are proposed pieces of avant garde graphic design, they aim to be inovative and striking. Both images are from the Adbusters website. The top image shows a woman breast feeding a branded baby. Adbusters purpose is to be very anti- consumerist and the ad above is doing this in a very avant garde way. They have branded the baby to show that it has already been pumped with consumerism. Its a spoof ad that is trying to be progressive by going against society and representing their ad in a controversial way.
The second as is also by Adbusters, it shows a rather large man's stomach, its pretty much saying that to be free means to be fat. The man had the freedom of food and by that he has consumed too much and became grosly obese. Again they use a very striking technique to get their point across. They have tryed to challenge the way in which consumerist advertisment is protrayed. Their work is more grounded, aggressive and real. It is showing it as it is, not in an elitis way. I think this is why avant garde is so important when done in the right way.
It is to be real and not show fantacies, to be out there and to be almost better than the world but in an anti- elitis way. As a society we have always known art to be for the rich and fortunate. Avant garde allows the lower classes to enjoy art too.
Monday, 24 January 2011
Essay...
‘Advertising doesn’t sell things; all advertising does is change the way people think or feel’
Jeremy Bullmore
Evaluate this statement with reference to selected critical theories (past and present).
This statement can be quite controversial, but in a way true. When adverts are produced their aim is to sell a product to its target consumer, they seem to promote a way of life, which their product can provide or create. Sometimes manipulating the consumer into buying something that maybe they hadn’t thought about or intended to purchase. But they make you feel that actually they do need this product to full fill their lives. Advertising promises another, better way of living.
Persuasion in advertising can be cunning and clever; they play on our thoughts and feelings. They create a need for a person and the persuasion appeals to the persons need for love and self-esteem. They will also try to appeal to the social needs of a person, to be popular and respected by having their product. Television plays on this a lot, as it is widely accessible to almost everyone.
Opinions on advertising and the way it affects consumers are very diverse and somewhat arguable.
John Berger, an English art critic created a series of TV programmes looking at different types of art, he also wrote a book ‘Ways of seeing’, he talks about the effect art can have on our lives and in one instance he focuses on advertising, he says
‘...publicity as a system only makes a single proposal. It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more...publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable...’
Quote taken from ‘Ways of seeing’ by John Berger.
(Enviable meaning: worthy of envy; very desirable).
Berger in a way agrees with the above statement, he has said that publicity (advertising) is only a system to make us feel that a product can help us to be a better person and to live a better life. But of course it has the intention of selling things because people believe that they need the product.
‘Advertising is not merely an assembly of competing messages; it is a language itself which is always being used to make the same general proposal...’
Another quote from Berger continues his theory and belief of advertising techniques, it has one purpose and one purpose only, to propose better well being.
Another theorist of advertising is William Bernbach, Bernbach says
‘Advertising doesn’t create a product advantage. It can only convey it...’
He is proposing that advertising does not try to trick consumers into buying a product which will change their way of living, it merely shows how it could if used in the correct way and with the correct person, it gives a bit more freedom to the consumer, to be able to make the decision for themselves in whether or not this product could or in fact will change their life as it were.
He quotes
‘The most powerful element of advertising is the truth...you can say the right thing about a product and nobody will listen. You’ve got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut. Because if they don’t feel it, nothing will happen...’
In other words, if a brand wants to publicise a product they should do it in a truthful and honest way, show how this product could positively affect someone’s well-being or lifestyle, they need to have trust in the brand in order for them to make a purchase. Trust is the key to good sales.
Rosser Reeves was a successful American advertising executive and TV advertising pioneer, he focused on one key technique when creating his advertisement, ‘The unique selling proposition’. The unique selling proposition is the one sole reason that a product needed to be bought by consumers or how it was better than its competitors.
Reeves quotes
‘ Successful advertising for a flawed product would only increase the number of people who tried the product and became dissatisfied with it...i believe it is a waste of money to claim uniqueness that doesn’t exist, because consumers will soon find out, they won’t come back to the brand...money would be better spent building some kind of meaningful advantage to the product before launching a costly advertising campaign to promote it...’
Quote and above information founded on Wikipedia.
Reeves, much like Bernbach, believe in truthful advertising, why lie to the consumer when you don’t actually need to. So in relation to the statement of advertising, it appears that Reeves’s theory may in fact disagree. The statement says ‘advertising doesn’t sell things’, but it must in order for any kind of brand to make a profit, Reeves just believes that it must be done in a way that is honest to the consumer in order to make them feel or think in a different way, it’s by choice in Reeves’s eyes rather than brainwashing a consumer.
Vance Packard and his book ‘The Hidden persuaders’ was first published in 1957, it was about media manipulation in the 50’s and it sold more than a million copies.
It reveals ways in which advertisers use tactical techniques to manipulate the expectations of the consumer and inducing desire for their product. He also identified eight ‘compelling needs’ that advertisers promised their product would full fill. He focused on the way in which advertisers could change the way in which people did think or feel through product publicity, he explores how these worked and if they worked. He looked into consumer motivational research, psychological techniques and subliminal tactics. He seems to have an undecided opinion in relation to the statement, he mainly focused on tactics and techniques and the effects these have on consumers, rather than saying yes advertising does change the way we think or feel; or no advertising does sell things and these techniques often aid in doing that, they are not solely to brainwash our thoughts.
An example of advertising that does change the way we think and feel, is the campaigns bought out by The United colours of Benetton. The purpose of their campaigns is to captivate us and in some cases shock us. They aim to produce striking campaign images that will make us stop, look and think and if successful feel different. An example of an older campaign is that of a black woman breastfeeding a white baby. The campaign, directed by Oliviero Toscani; was released in 1989, it was to campaign for black and white equality and it caused a strong reaction in the black community.
Now although Benetton is renowned for selling clothing, which it does using advertising, it has these campaigns to induce a reaction and feeling, so in relation to the statement Benetton has two ways of publicity for their brand, one to sell things and one to change the way the consumer thinks or feels.
Apple is another example of strong advertising, Apple’s goal is to make the consumer believe that if they buy one of their products they will have a higher status in society and they will become a better person living a better life. Apple is known brand for being expensive and sophisticated. They are a brand that is constantly evolving, which is where they make their profit, if a consumer buys an Apple product they are ‘cool’ as it were, and everyone always wants the newest piece of technology, so by generating newer and better products within shorter spaces of time than some brands, Apple can convince its consumers to update more often, you can see one type of Apple product, for example the ipod, evolve several times in the space of a year.
We could be presented as consumers with an mp3 player and an ipod, both having the same qualities and specifications, the ipod costing the most, and in most cases we would choose to purchase the ipod because we know the brand and we trust the brand. People trust Apple, which is why they are more willing to part with their money, to own an Apple branded product.
In conclusion to the statement ‘Advertising doesn’t sell things; all advertising does is change the way people think or feel’, i think that advertising can be used in many ways to sell a product, some ways are honest and some lull us into false values of a product in order to sell an item and in many cases we fall for this. Advertisers are clever and know how to manipulate us. I can’t say whether i agree with Bullmore’s statement, advertising must sell things or it would be pointless and a waste of money to publicise a product in the first place, it’s just depends on the way in which some advertisers do this on whether or not we think or feel in a different way as consumers.
- Published in 1957, Vance Packard’s, The Hidden persuaders, book details and blurb founded on www.thesocialcontract.com
- Rosser Reeves, Wikipedia
Kirsty Hardingham
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