COP lecture programme summary

Lecture Programme Summary

• everything we do  in terms of our work will be about making meaning
• visual lit- how to negotiate and make meaning in the form of an image
• based on the idea that pictures can be read (symbols, signs, images, photos)
• some of what we do is universal, and some of it is only culturally understood, but once we put  something out online, its out there for good and people will see it
• “work the metaphor”
• things are simple and we already know the basic principles, we just need to learn how to use them
• 90% of what we know culturally relating to our practise wont matter in the future, because everywhere is different and histories are different everywhere
• we’re referencing a language thats been used before, people that have been perceived as ground breaking are now being used for new work to formulate
• “design is both a political and cultural force for change, although most designers choose not to think about the power it has”
• where do you position yourself, is it about image or message, both?
• research is what we do, process of finding facts which lead to knowledge, done by using what you already know 

Review the information you’ve already been given and build on that/ try and make sense of it for next year. COP 5 starts in October.

Start with what you already know.

Identify what you want to know more about.

Plan how you are going to find out about it.

Semiotics

Semiotics Lecture

• aims: 
• understand the basics of semiotic theory
• have an idea how to apply the theory
• understand the importance of meaning in the study of art, design and culture
• understand: code, sign, signifier, signified, arbitrary, denotation, connotation, myth
• the investigation of signs

• semiotics: the science of studying signs
• MEANING
• Ferdinand de Saussure (Swiss linguist) trying to figure out exactly how language operates
• how things attain the meaning that they do

• STRUCTURALISM: 
• very popular in France, approach to humanities, philosophy, that thought that everything in the world had some kind of underlying logic or order, a system of rules
• modernist approach

• SIGN: individual communicative gestures, anything that conveys meaning, a colour, a technique of drawing
• all of communication works through signs working in conjunction with each other
• TWO aspects to a sign: 
• the signifier- the thing that invokes meaning
• the signified- the thing that it creates in the heads of the receiver 
• theres no inherent meaning behind things, its created by social means, the relationship between all these things is ARBITRARY
• e.g. traffic lights: red doesn't literally mean stop in any circumstance, its socially conditioned into us that in this instance it means stop
• destroys the idea that anything essentially means anything, its all arbitrary 

• CODE: the way signs interact together 
• signs act on two different levels, conscious and unconscious
• DENOTATION: literal meaning
• CONNOTATION: cultural association 
• a code is a system of symbols or signs
• we operate in terms of a code, like with our clothes we communicate something about our personality or interests
• CODES: are found in all forms of cultural practise
• in order to make sense of cultural artefacts we need to learn and understand their codes
• we need to acknowledge that codes rely on a shared knowledge 

PARADIGMS & SYNTAGMS:

• Saussure defined two ways in which signs are organised into codes
• PARADIGM: a set of signs from which one is to be chosen (choice)
• SYNTAGM: the message into which the chosen signs are the be combined (relationship)
• all messages involve selection (from a PARADIGM) and combination (into a SYNTAGM)
• all of these operate within CODES
• CODE is the overarching system

• CODES: signifying systems
• PARADIGM: the alphabet, we arrange the letters together SYTAGMATICALLY to make words
• doesn't mean the same thing in Africa, culturally specific to us, just as they way we dress means something different here to in Japan or elsewhere
• other types of PARADIGM: 
• changing shot in TV
• typefaces
• headgear: trilby, cap, beret, stetson
• types of cars we drive
• colours of front doors
• swear words
• where there is a choice there is a meaning
• these PARADIGMS are arranged SYNTAGMATICALLY to form a meaning
• once a unit has been chosen from a PARADIGM it is combined with other units. This combination is called a SYNTAGM
• our clothes are a SYNTAGM of paradigmatic choices of hats, gloves etc

SYNTAGMATIC analysis:

• synatagmatic analysis seeks to establish the surface structure of a text and the relationships between its parts
• the study of syntagmatic relations reveals the rules underlying the production and interpretation of texts

PARADIGMATIC analysis:

• structural technique which seeks to identify the various paradigms which underlie the surface structure of a text
• this aspect of structural analysis involves a consideration of the positive or negative connotations of each signifier (revealed through the use of one signifier rather than another)

SYNCHRONIC VS DIACHRONIC:

• synchronic: in the moment
• diachronic: how things develop over time

- We can accept, reject or negotiate the meaning of a text. 

- Accept: no thought, meaning transferred, no argument

- Negotiate: i understand but I don't agree

- Counter-hedgememonic: oppositional

Post Modernism

Post Modernism Lecture 

Modernism:

• initially born out of optimism, aspirational section to ww1, with a view to harnessing technology to improve peoples lives
• ends up doctrine, almost blind obedience to rules above all
• form follows function
• does modernism and modernist design wipe away any influence of humans and personality? 

• MODERNISM associated with: 
• experimentation
• innovation
• individualism
• progress
• purity
• originality
• seriousness

Postmodernism characterised by:

• exhaustion
• pluralism
• pessimism
• dissillusion with the idea of absolute knowledge 
• can be seen as a reaction against modernity

• Jean Tinguely “homage to New York” 1960- commentary on the destructibility of technology 
• 1960’s: beginnings
• 1970’s: established as a term (Jencks)
• 1980’s: recognisable style
• 1980’s & 90’s: dominant theoretical discourse
• Today: tired phrase, people talk about it but its been and gone, really no more post-modern artists etc

Uses of the term “postmodern”:

• after modernism
• the historical era following the modern
• contra modernism (actively against modernism)
• equivalent to ‘late capitalism’
• artistic and stylistic eclecticism, mixing the new and old, serious and jovial
• global village internet age, globalisation of cultures, races, images , capital, products 

“modernism dies” the demolition of the Pruitt- Igoe development, St Louis 15 July 1972, 3:32pm according to Charles Jencks

• maybe modernism died because it was too grand an idea from the start?

Postmodernism:

• postmodernism has an attitude of questioning conventions (especially those set out by Modernism) 
• postmodern aesthetic= multiplicity of styles and approaches
• space for ‘new voices’
• when you embrace diversity, old patriachal systems of society crumble and new wave ideas take hold
• a reaction to all these rules
• only rules is that there are no rules
• celebrates what might otherwise have been termed ‘kitsch’
• celebrates things like advertising, television, film and all the things that weren't deemed ‘high art’

- AT & T building, Phillip Johnson, NYC, 1982

• building looks a bit like a grandfather clock, but also a grid and a roman temple, why not?
• Frank Gehry, Guggenheim museum, Bilbao, 1997- a bunch of skyscraper looking buildings, different cultures, but letting the material rule how it looks still, creative new and kooky
• James Striling, Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart Germany, mixes all old and new styles, plastic, marble, iron girders, makes us laugh but not because its offensive or awful
• The ‘Leeds look’ Magistrates court, university, mix of red and yellow brick
• Quinlan Terry, builds in a classic style, and hates the new, rejects the modern. The maitland library at Cambridge University

• JF Lyotard 
• The postmodern condition 1979
• incredulity towards meta narratives
• meta narratives= totalising belief systems such as religion or marxism
• result- crisis in confidence 
• modernism is a meta narrative
• were in an age where we don't believe in those meta narratives anymore, people are less effected by politics and grand social movements
• instead we make our own micro narratives, 20 rival and competing ways of organising our ideas and lives, feeding and affecting off each other
• instead of minimal aesthetic and utopian ideals and truth to materials we have MODERN AESTHETICS: complexity, chaos, bricolage a mix of materials, parodies of old styles
• LICHTENSTEIN: took old comics and made them into massive screen prints and put them into galleries to be enjoyed as high art, laughing at modern art, charging a lot of money for it
• division between high and low art beginning to CRUMBLE
• in 1972 the embodiment of postmodern was Las Vegas, lots of attractions blended together in once place, but not for culture. Hybrids, mucking things up, being ambitious and vague rather than precise, perversion

• Andy Warhol, ultimate figure of post modernity
• exact opposite of modernist idols
• “I’m famous but so can anyone be for 15 minutes”
• he didn't make his work, it was made in the factory, factory chosen to say that theres no creativity, theres always flaws cause they were always high
• art as anti-art
• ridicules anything that was important about art
• Marilyn Monroe Diptych, 1962, portrait of modern mechanical productions of fame, being churned out in the media
• THERES NO DEEPER MEANING TO THEM THAT WHAT THEY ACTUALLY ARE
• exact opposite to Pollock, record of himself straight from the soul onto the canvas
• Lichensteins Red brushstroke painting, pastiche of this
• Piero Manzoni- Artists shit, 1961, canned signed and sold his own shit by hand, playing games with those that dictate culture, if anything can be art can my own shit be art, and will you pay for it?

• Memphis group founded 1981- new international style, kooky, friendly, weird 
• become a bit of a trend again
• working and laughing with the world, nothing pretentious
• David Carson RAY GUN magazine 1992- found an interview boring so he set it all to wingdings so no one could read it anyway
• questioning the old critically and coming up with something more human, freedom and possibilities 

Modernity And Modernism 2/2

Design and Modernism- 2/2:

• Modernism: can be about embracing modern techniques of making images, responding to sensations of modern times, a particular sense of self gained from a technological world. They way in which the modern world makes us understand ourselves in a new way

• Modernism in design: criteria
• anti-historicism- inventing new things, being progressive, implies making things better and pushing things forward
• truth to materials- looking to the ways of making and celebrating them in their very materiality, particularly new ways of making, such as steel, concrete, new cameras. Celebrates using these materials and the way this makes something look, the effect it gives. The material dictates the outcome
• form follows function- places the rational before the pretty and romantic, you design something to work and its beauty comes from how well it functions. Concepts similar to minimalism 
• technology
• internationalism- natural visual language to bring the world together, where one style of making and representing would be common across the planet, social and utopian. Styles don’t look like they belong to one specific country or culture

• criticism of modernists- if you make your work superficially stylish fashions will come and go, the style will go out of fashion and look dated really quickly
• modernists tried to strip down products to their bare essentials so products would be timeless, like cutlery inspired by Bauhaus that we still buy today
• modernism relevant to all our disciplines 
• Anti-Historicism- no need to look back to older styles “ornament is crime” Adolf Loos
• Seagram building 1958- Bauhaus architect Mies Van Der Rohe- still a modern looking building today, building up to accommodate more people, all glass to let light in, also truth to materials made of steel and glass they look like what they are, not nationalistic
• the international style: all buildings same size, all clean and new, natural world mixed with technical, clean, shiny and white (modern world doesn't always look like this, hasn't worked completely)
• Bauhaus building- concrete, cheap and efficient, whole wall filled with windows, invented a new type face to make their lettering (futura). In the spirit of reinventing the world, they started interdisciplinary learning in their institute, resulted in a fusion of ‘high art’ into everyday life. 
• these new things made using new materials like tubular steel were specifically designed with mass production in mind

• Internationalism: a language of design that could be recognised and understood on an international basis e.g. Harry Beck design for the underground map (1933), or Ikea? 
• Herbert Bayer’s sans-serif typeface, no need for serifs now were not carving words into marble with a chisel. Modernists ditch the decorative features (sans-serif), also argued that we don’t need capital letters
• -Laszlo Moholy Nagy- photography and films: how much can you do with the film camera? how far you can push it to still make images
• Reinventing EVERYTHING

-Russian revolution 1917:

• A push from un-education and no culture to development and modernism
• Malevich and Suprematism, distilling communication to the simplest form, red gets attached to the idea of revolution, the peoples flag stained with blood
• 80% of the peasants were illiterate so graphic designs etc had to be immediate and obvious using minimal words. Visual comm for those who can only understand the visual
• Sergei Eisenstein 1925- montages in film started to be used, soviet film-making
• constructivists- theres no difference between disciplines, everyone is just creative individuals collaborating, boundaries built up by society between people or jobs etc are broken down, lean towards equality, more women lecturers and influencers 
• What would once have been seen as the women’s delicate arts become respectable, textile design, art forms in themselves 
• VKhUTEMAS- progressive art school, arguably as important and radical as Bauhaus, but isn’t talked about due to Russia being (the enemy) and not wanting to be seen as that progressive by us
• non-gender specific sports and other wears developed by people like Stepanova, clothing as a collective politic, not designed to objectify in contrast to western fashions. This makes everyone equal but arguably makes everyone look very similar and reduces individuality in favour of standardisation. One thing you can feel in very modernist places is a lack of human and personality? 
• Stalin came in and said we need to stop this modernism as the people don’t understand it, brought in social realism 

• Times New Roman, Stanley Morrison, 1932: directly taken from roman pillars
• Fraktur Font, used by the Nazis as it throwback to nationalistic, gothic times (Nazis also shut down Bauhaus, effectively trying to shut down a world based on collaboration)

In conclusion:

- modern isn't a neutral term, it suggests novelty and improvement 

Rationale

The theme I am tackling in my COP work currently is the theme of offensiveness and what makes something (in particular art) offencive. Alongside of this I am also looking at the different ways we can categorise offenciveness and why these might apply to different people in different ways. So far I have looked at different pieces of art that have famously caused outrage with the public such as Myra by Marcus Harvey. I have found a few sources which have given me an idea of what different ways offense can be caused, be it religious, satirical, political, cultural etc, and I plan on looking at individual examples of this a lot closer in my visual journal. 

In my visual journal so far I have begun by looking at intersection and the different types and categories of human that inhabit the planet and how we all fit around each other in society.I've also been looking at diversity in terms of what we see in magazines e.g. different races, and religions. Most recently I have been looking at how the media tarnishes certain peoples reputations in the public eye by responding to stories about them in certain ways. For example how in the recent scandal with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, how everyone was reluctant to believe he could be capable of beating her, but instead were very quick to believe that she'd made the hole thing up and was a gold-digger. Was this the opinion because people genuinely know and understand the way in which Johnny Depp works or because of the way the media portrayed the situation and the words they carefully selected to describe them both? In addition to this I have also been looking at the way in which we as society tend to see classical art sculptures that depict nude people as 'high art' and 'cultured' where we see nudity displayed in public by celebrities etc as vulgar and pornographic. 

Next I plan to look at more examples of this in the public eye, I might start with the medias treatment of women like Kim Kardashian and Beyonce on their nude photos and pregnancy's as I feel like that links quite closely to my work. I also need to work on finding some more source material linking to my subjects to give me some more visual stimuli to work off of.