3RD YEAR
Thursday 22 September 2011
Monday 28 March 2011
FINAL ESSAY
Discuss The Relationship Between Type and Image Through Interpreting and Understanding Representation
“Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.” (Berger, 1972, p.7)
It is as John Berger wrote, the relationship is never settled, this essay is a chance to address how the relationship between type and image works and how we interpret and understand the world through a series of representations, through semiotics, as the study of cultural sign processes. Umberto Eco notes that semiotics is somewhere between ‘a mental image, a concept, and a physiological reality’. (Chandler, 2002, p.16))
Belgian Surrealist, Rene Magritte painted ‘La Trahison des Images’ translated in English to, ‘The Treachery of Images’ or sometimes ‘The Treason of Images’, in 1929. It is an oil painting on canvas, of a pipe, with the inclusion of text in the image, this piece of art has created extraordinary revelations in the way we read the painting, and in turn how we can look at the world. The questions we ask ourselves to find the meaning within the text. It is understood that as a species we are homo significans, meaning makers, this is fundamental in our understanding of the world. We do this through the interpretation of signs. (Chandler, 2002, p.13)
Saussure shows the model of the sign to be a two part system, he showed the sign to consist of a ‘signifier’, which is the form the sign takes, and the ‘signified’ the concept it represents. This relationship between the signifier and the signified is known as the ‘signification’. (Chandler, 2002, p.15). Charles Sanders Peirce says “We only think in signs”. Signs can take the form of anything but do not necessarily mean anything or have any value unless we as a culture give reference to such objects. “Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign”, declares Peirce. (Chandler, 2002, p.13)
The painting depicts a realistic version of what we would call a pipe, a simple common smoker’s pipe. The object we refer to as a pipe is centred in the middle of the painting, and is against a simple plain light murky yellow background. The painting itself denotes the pipe to be dark brown in colour and from a side angle shows the pipe from one thick side, in order to put tobacco, to a thinner side as the mouth piece, where the pipe has a gold ring, coloured black on the opposing side. The painting is highly realistic and has not been painted to look like a painting, with no visible brush marks. The painting however does not depict any shadows cast from the pipe, and therefore floating in the composition but the painting is shown to be 3D from the use of light hitting the painting from the top left, giving the surface a polished look.
What makes this painting so interesting however is Magritte’s choice of the inclusion of text in the painting. The type is in cursive and sits below the image in black, it reads ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ (‘This is not a pipe’). This statement gives us cause to pause and think of implications this has, as image and text disagree. The painting is so clearly a smoker’s pipe, without it being recognised or mistaken as anything else, it is then that we see this statement in the painting and initially perceive the image as ‘elementary or perverse’ states Foucault. The text easily displaced the image as easy as writing an opposing statement. The composition of the image is displayed like a children’s reading book, where you could find the words ‘This is a pipe’ educating your child on what a pipe is, with a clear indication of how it looks, this is what seems perverse to the viewer (Chandler, 2002 p69).
The statement itself, ‘This is not a pipe’, in English is made up of signifiers in themselves. The letters /T/ / H/ /I/ /S/ / for example are individual sound concepts and as signifiers. This is the basis of communication as a cultural society, how we understand and break down communication problems is how we interpret signs as signs. All representations can be influenced or altered depending, the selection and use “We are in a world of objects, with given names, in turn the exchange and movement of letters and so forth we can understand objects as a concept. The name is a concept” (Swiboda, 2010)
In Malcolm Barnard’s book, 2005, ‘Graphic Design as Communication’ his thoughts on Magritte’s painting and choice of the inclusion of text is that “pointing out that this is not a pipe is to draw attention first to the fact that it is a representation of a pipe and second to the fact that we routinely refer to representations as though they were the actual thing represented.” This is incredibly common as representations are there simply to stand in for another; one thing (being the signifier) stands in for another (the signified). It is this that is being emphasized by Magritte; the text accompanying the image of the pipe displaces the pipe as an object, and shows us merely a representation.
“When type and image are used objectively, they have strong denotative properties and are relatively free of personal bias or strong connotative qualities. The designer uses rudimentary elements of communication to convey meaning. A simple additive process occurs as these communicative signals are placed in proximity to one another.” (Meggs, 1992, p.62)
Here we have a new discussion talking about the usual, or the norm of how type and image work together, where they come together in order to create one unifying message. This contradicts what we see with Magritte’s painting, where type and image do not correlate and create confusion. Meggs sees the two contexts, type and image to be strongly denotative and to have little connotative qualities, which may well be the case for simpler images but in ‘The Treachery of Images’ however it in fact confuses the denotative qualities and connotes something different entirely.
Michel Foucault’s reading of the text is that it undermines the relation between image and text, as that relation is normally experienced. Seeing a pipe represented like this we would say it is a pipe but what Magritte’s pipe does is show us exactly what it is and makes it clear that it is a representation. Foucault wrote on the subject that “representation [can be put] into two categories, ‘resemblance’ and ‘similitude’”. Where resemblance is the degree or extent to which a likeness exists, similitude is a similarity of likeness but there is strong difference in the two, which both Foucault and Magritte agree on, “‘Resemblance’ and ‘similitude’ need to be differentiated. That much is inescapable”. (Levy, 1990, p.50)
Foucault’s leading argument was that resemblance allocates how the relationship is comparable in certain respects, analogous, between an object and its reproduction. In letters to and from Foucault and Magritte, they discussed various issues and Magritte’s readings from books Foucault had published. In a letter from Magritte to Foucault he explains the principles of the two words, resemblance and similitude.
“It seems to me that for example, green peas have between them relations of similitude at once visible (their colour, form, size) and invisible (their nature, taste, weight). It is the same for the false and the real, etc. Things do not have resemblances, they do or do not have similitude’s.
Only thought resembles. It resembles by being what it sees, hears, or knows, it becomes what the world offers it." (Foucault, 1968, p.57)
Magritte’s thoughts on the two words are quite inspiring and interesting to the extent of how he has summarised what could be seen as aspects of its similitude, and resemblance. This can be applied to his very own painting, what is real and what is unreal. The representation of the pipe in this sense has to be looked at carefully and how the similitude and resemblance could shed light on the painting, The Treachery of Images.
It is from this interpretation of these two words it can be identified that the similitude of the painting bears what is physical, and what we can see from the painting. This is what we denote from the painting. As stated the pipe depicts an accurate portrayal of what a standard pipe would look like, a common pipe, a painting which does justice to our look on the depth and lighting of this object. The resemblance of this pipe however is down to the viewer, what it connotes, how it is placed in the mind. Firstly the sense of lighting connotes to us the object is to be regarded as 3D, but even this is a representation. The connotation of the pipe as an object announces a sense of old fashion, and quite a grand and posh object.
When reading the image, and we notice what is written underneath the well placed object there is a shift in our thinking. ‘This is not a pipe’ forces us to review what the painting is actually denoting. The painting here in turn is an argument between the words and images, there is a decision soon to be made as to which point of communication is truly giving us an accurate message or the meaning intended by the artist.
As Malcolm Barnard wrote in Graphic Design as Communication, Foucault on Graphic Design, that when looking at generalised compositions including text and image, the text will take over the role of the illustration, as Barnard put it ‘anchor’ images. And in turn, images portray or ‘shed light on’ the text. (Barnard, M., 2005, p.49)
This seems to be an accurate formula to how type and image works, but here with The Treachery of Images, it is no longer clear as to how these interpretations of image and texts work within the paintings. It is this slight conflict in messages that has led to such discussion and controversy of how we interpret objects and their representations in everyday life. There is at first to be a breakdown in semiotics, at a basic level there are two signifiers in the image, but they are opposing.
Representations are spoken and accepted as the real thing in culture, it is unoften that we are shown what is ultimately a crude truth, but what is actually reality within portrayal. This is by making it so apparent that it is not an object but a representation as illustration. The illustration was therefore to shed light upon the meaning to the words, and the text to anchor the image, but the point has been made to make this redundant. Its representation therefore was only to give meaning to another representation. Therefore leaving the signifier and the signified obscured, and arbitrary to how we read the images, the representation has become a product of cultural choice as any illustration no matter how simple can be turned to an ineffective signifier. What is communicated to us has been altered by another representation.
Rene Magritte
‘La Trahison des Images’, translated as ‘The Treachery of Images’
1929.
Bibliography
Berger, J. 1972. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin.
Chandler D. 2002. Semiotics. The Basics. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
Levy, S. 1990. Foucault on Magritte on Resemblance, Modern Language Review Vol. 85, p.50
Barnard, M. 2005. Graphic Design as Communication. New York: Routledge.
Foucault, M. 1968. This Is Not A Pipe. Los Angeles: University of California Press
Meggs, P. 1992. Type and Image: The Language of Graphic Design. New York: John Wiley & Sons
Swiboda, M. 2010. Reality, Virtuality and Hyperreality [Lecture] Contextual and Theoretical Studies, Leeds, 9th December
PORTFOLIO TASK 6. THEORY INTO PRACTICE
Looking at Garry Barker's blog I have decided to focus my attention on his post titled Conflict Resolution and Metaphor. This blog post discusses the use of typography in both a sense of conflict and resolving conflict. Type can be used in a number of ways but there is one specific use of type that has more power over you when interacting with it, and that is how typography is language written down, the way you speak it, its tone of voice and what it is you are trying to communicate.
Gary has pointed out how typography has been used to record part of a conversation with an IRA prisoner in one of the H blocks Her Majesty’s Prison Maze, it has been set out to to record individual rhetoric tropes, specifically metaphors. This has been done using software and therefore has been set out oddly, doesn't read clearly or with clarity, and as Gary pointed out, represent voice. Examples had been given of kinetic type videos, displaying how type can really represent a tone of voice or speak to you as the audience, this reminded me of my video I produced earlier this year for our Top Ten project, to create motion graphics in After Effects.
Here is an ident I made for the project, which was about Dubstep.
I made this ident, using a quote I found about dubstep, I did not want to use a voice over but simply let the audience read the quote to the sound of the music to the video. I used the quote in order to give an impression or an idea to what dubstep is like, it is a metaphor. The aim of using this quote feeds directly to what gary has said "It achieves its effects via association, comparison or resemblance and the concept of understanding one thing in terms of another is very powerful."
This video is a lot shorter than another kinetic type sequence I have done but I feel it works well if not better as it is simple and to the point, I have chosen different typefaces for each word of the sentence which could seem to confuse the message, or add entropy to it but it has been done in order to communicate dubstep and not let one typeface define what the genre is. This was my example as to trying to use typography properly and clearly to communicate the correct tone of voice, what typography really is as opposed to system default settings of software which we see in the example of the conversation.
Wednesday 23 March 2011
PORTFOLIO TASK 5. SUSTAINABILITY
Critical summary on Capitalist and Sustainability looking at Balser, E (2008) 'Capital Accumulation, Sustainability & Hamilton Ontario'
Sustainability is defined within the text through looking at what it is does in both concept and practical. It is said to be defined as concerning itself in the concept or idea of justice in society looking at social, environmental, economic, moral and political gages of society. This tells us of the idea that everything is down to each individual as part of a collective to help with work together, that in theory it is communal. "Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs", it can never be done by one person and is focussed on the future, the idea of helping those generations still to come.
The main characteristics of capitalism are to have an ever expanding entity as capitalism. It thrives to create, and subsume the other, constantly to gain profit, it is constantly looking for new things to commodify. It is seen as continuously expanding and trapping things, it never confines itself or has its own territory but instead overflows and internalises itself in new spaces.
A crisis of capitalism for example could be the environmental crisis, this is because of the capitalist views of the world, as it isolates and ostracises various populations who cannot afford to become sustainable. It is said that with evert crisis, capitalism will reach a limit, but the reinvention of capitalism ensures that this is not the case. Technologies, policies or ideas constantly push past limitations as time goes on, but this in itself is simply further perpetuates the cycle of capitalism. The only crisis that appears that it could destroy capitalism is one of environmental descent, where humanity can no longer beat the limitations of the earths natural resources, but the environmental crisis has continuously moved past this and reinvented itself. It adapts and acclimatises to capitalism, never ending the cycle but only perpetuating it.
There are four main points outlined for business' to become more environmentally responsible and therefore help with sustainability. These include increasing productivity of resource use, production with no waste, and no toxicity, reinvest in natural and human capital. This itself is said to be flawed simply as influential environmentalist writers validate capitalism which therefore furthers the belief in it. "Sustainability is no longer about the salvation of nature but the prolonging of human life and human social and economic systems, namely capitalism." A way of helping with sustainability is the proposed site for BIOX plant in the North End of Hamilton, which has only been chosen due to its ease and cheapness. The location only a few hundred feet from homes, and on a community green space. The fact it was so close to a residential area violates many health and safety regulations, and has had a a huge negative effect on the area, ruining the houses due to tremors. It has been done at the sacrifice of social equality, for one simple reason, to make profit.
Sustainability and Capitalism are not compatible at least not in the same way, capitalism thrives off of the idea of sustainability and uses it as it uses anything, to make money. Sustainability will never be able to get away from capitalism, it blames capitalism for the current state we are in but at the same time looks to it for solutions. Whilst doing this ostracising plenty of populations who cannot afford what shouldn't cost, being sustainable. It is all for money.
Sustainability is defined within the text through looking at what it is does in both concept and practical. It is said to be defined as concerning itself in the concept or idea of justice in society looking at social, environmental, economic, moral and political gages of society. This tells us of the idea that everything is down to each individual as part of a collective to help with work together, that in theory it is communal. "Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs", it can never be done by one person and is focussed on the future, the idea of helping those generations still to come.
The main characteristics of capitalism are to have an ever expanding entity as capitalism. It thrives to create, and subsume the other, constantly to gain profit, it is constantly looking for new things to commodify. It is seen as continuously expanding and trapping things, it never confines itself or has its own territory but instead overflows and internalises itself in new spaces.
A crisis of capitalism for example could be the environmental crisis, this is because of the capitalist views of the world, as it isolates and ostracises various populations who cannot afford to become sustainable. It is said that with evert crisis, capitalism will reach a limit, but the reinvention of capitalism ensures that this is not the case. Technologies, policies or ideas constantly push past limitations as time goes on, but this in itself is simply further perpetuates the cycle of capitalism. The only crisis that appears that it could destroy capitalism is one of environmental descent, where humanity can no longer beat the limitations of the earths natural resources, but the environmental crisis has continuously moved past this and reinvented itself. It adapts and acclimatises to capitalism, never ending the cycle but only perpetuating it.
There are four main points outlined for business' to become more environmentally responsible and therefore help with sustainability. These include increasing productivity of resource use, production with no waste, and no toxicity, reinvest in natural and human capital. This itself is said to be flawed simply as influential environmentalist writers validate capitalism which therefore furthers the belief in it. "Sustainability is no longer about the salvation of nature but the prolonging of human life and human social and economic systems, namely capitalism." A way of helping with sustainability is the proposed site for BIOX plant in the North End of Hamilton, which has only been chosen due to its ease and cheapness. The location only a few hundred feet from homes, and on a community green space. The fact it was so close to a residential area violates many health and safety regulations, and has had a a huge negative effect on the area, ruining the houses due to tremors. It has been done at the sacrifice of social equality, for one simple reason, to make profit.
Sustainability and Capitalism are not compatible at least not in the same way, capitalism thrives off of the idea of sustainability and uses it as it uses anything, to make money. Sustainability will never be able to get away from capitalism, it blames capitalism for the current state we are in but at the same time looks to it for solutions. Whilst doing this ostracising plenty of populations who cannot afford what shouldn't cost, being sustainable. It is all for money.
Monday 14 March 2011
PORTFOLIO TASK 4. COMMUNICATION THEORY
Use Shannon & Weaver's model of the communication process to write a 300-400 word analysis of a work of Graphic Design. Comment on the ways in which the piece of Graphic Design attempts to communicate to a specific audience, using techniques of redundancy, entropy or noise.
By looking at Shannon and Weaver's communication model, I can look at this piece of graphic design and analyse this sign on a level of how it communicates. First of all is an information source and next the transmitter which together are the message. The information source is the sign, and then the transmitter encodes the message as a signal or signals. Here what is being encoding and transmitted as signals is the simplistic image of a male and female in white with a thick stroke in between them on a dark blue background. The channel is how the sign exists, it is a physical object which appears to be present on a fence here. The next thing is receiving the signal, or decoding the signs. What or how the signals represent, connote or denote, to the viewer perception, the destination.
The image has been created with one sole purpose and that is to be a sign to show for public toilets, both male and female. The image is associated worldwide and has been accepted into culture to stand for toilets, because of this the image has been created to be redundant. It is about as redundant as possible without showing toilets or having the word used in the sign as well, but without a doubt the image has been recognised throughout culture as a sign for toilets. The fact it is so redundant means the image has a very high predictability but low information, not much needs to be said. This creates a high effectiveness to the message and also helps to fight the possibility of noise, therefore try to combat interference.
The sign has been designed to have as little noise as possible, but things that could possibly interfere with the communication of this sign might be if anything got in the way of it, obscuring some of the image or if the image had been defaced by graffiti or the paint had started to come off which would manipulate the image and interfere with its signal.
There would be no entropy to see here in this piece of communication, entropy is the opposite of redundancy. It is unpredictable, unconventional and can include a lot of information. It is because of this it can often communicate a lot more than redundant design but may target a smaller audience, as opposed to this sign for example, where it has been designed to communicate to everyone.
Sunday 13 March 2011
Monday 14 February 2011
FIRST DRAFT ESSAY
Discuss The Relationship Between Type and Image Through Interpreting and Understanding Representation
“Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.” (Berger, 1972, p.7)
It is as John Berger wrote, the relationship is never settled, this essay is a chance to address how the relationship between type and image works and how we interpret and understand the world through a series of representations, through semiotics, as the study of cultural sign processes. Umberto Eco notes that semiotics is somewhere between ‘a mental image, a concept, and a physiological reality’. (Chandler, 2002, p.16))
Belgian Surrealist, Rene Magritte painted ‘La Trahison des Images’ translated in English to, ‘The Treachery of Images’ or sometimes ‘The Treason of Images’, in 1929. It is an oil painting on canvas, of a pipe, with the inclusion of text in the image, this piece of art has created extraordinary revelations in the way we read the painting, and in turn how we can look at the world. The questions we ask ourselves to find the meaning within the text. It is understood that as a species we are homo significans, meaning makers, this is fundamental in our understanding of the world. We do this through the interpretation of signs.
Saussure shows the model of the sign to be a two part system, he showed the sign to consist of a ‘signifier’, which is the form the sign takes, and the ‘signified’ the concept it represents. This relationship between the signifier and the signified is known as the ‘signification’. (Daniel Chandler, 2002, p.15). Charles Sanders Peirce says “We only think in signs”. Signs can take the form of anything but do not necessarily mean anything or have any value unless we as a culture give reference to such objects. “Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign”, declares Peirce. (Chandler, 2002, p.13)
The painting depicts a realistic version of what we would call a pipe, a simple common smoker’s pipe. The object we refer to as a pipe is centred in the middle of the painting, and is against a simple plain light murky yellow background. The painting itself denotes the pipe to be dark brown in colour and from a side angle shows the pipe from one thick side, in order to put tobacco, to a thinner side as the mouth piece, where the pipe has a gold ring, coloured black on the opposing side. The painting is highly realistic and has not been painted to look like a painting, with no visible brush marks. The painting however does not depict any shadows cast from the pipe, and therefore floating in the composition but the painting is shown to be 3D from the use of light hitting the painting from the top left, giving the surface a polished look.
What makes this painting so interesting however is Magritte’s choice of the inclusion of text in the painting. The type is in cursive and sits below the image in black, it reads ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ (‘This is not a pipe’). This statement gives us cause to pause and think of implications this has, as image and text disagree. The painting is so clearly a smoker’s pipe, without it being recognised or mistaken as anything else, it is then that we see this statement in the painting and initially perceive the image as ‘elementary or perverse’ states Foucault. The text easily displaced the image as easy as writing an opposing statement. The composition of the image is displayed like a children’s reading book, where you could find the words ‘This is a pipe’ educating your child on what a pipe is, with a clear indication of how it looks, this is what seems perverse to the viewer (Chandler, 2002 p69).
The statement itself, ‘This is not a pipe’, in English is made up of signifiers in themselves. The letters /T/ / H/ /I/ /S/ / for example are individual sound concepts and as signifiers. This is the basis of communication as a cultural society, how we understand and break down communication problems is how we interpret signs as signs. All representations can be influenced or altered depending, the selection and use “We are in a world of objects, with given names, in turn the exchange and movement of letters and so forth we can understand objects as a concept. The name is a concept” (Marcel Swiboda, Reality, Virtuality and Hyperreality Lecture, 9th December 2010)
In Malcolm Barnard’s book, ‘Graphic Design as Communication’ his thoughts on Magritte’s painting and choice of the inclusion of text is that “pointing out that this is not a pipe is to draw attention first to the fact that it is a representation of a pipe and second to the fact that we routinely refer to representations as though they were the actual thing represented.” This is incredibly common as representations are there simply to stand in for another; one thing (being the signifier) stands in for another (the signified). It is this that is being emphasized by Magritte; the text accompanying the image of the pipe displaces the pipe as an object, and shows us merely a representation.
Michel Foucault’s reading of the text is that it undermines the relation between image and text, as that relation is normally experienced. Seeing a pipe represented like this we would say it is a pipe but what Magritte’s pipe does is show us exactly what it is and makes it clear that it is a representation. Foucault wrote on the subject that “representation [can be put] into two categories, ‘resemblance’ and ‘similitude’”. Where resemblance is the degree or extent to which a likeness exists, similitude is a similarity of likeness but there is strong difference in the two, which both Foucault and Magritte agree on, “‘Resemblance’ and ‘similitude’ need to be differentiated. That much is inescapable”. (Levy, 1990, p.50)
Foucault’s leading argument was that resemblance allocates how the relationship is comparable in certain respects, analogous, between an object and its reproduction. In letters to and from Foucault and Magritte, they discussed various issues and Magritte’s readings from books Foucault had published. In a letter from Magritte to Foucault he explains the principles of the two words, resemblance and similitude.
“It seems to me that for example, green peas have between them relations of similitude at once visible (their colour, form, size) and invisible (their nature, taste, weight). It is the same for the false and the real, etc. Things do not have resemblances, they do or do not have similitude’s.
Only thought resembles. It resembles by being what it sees, hears, or knows, it becomes what the world offers it." (Foucault, 1968, p.57)
Magritte’s thoughts on the two words are quite inspiring and interesting to the extent of how he has summarised what could be seen as aspects of its similitude, and resemblance. This can be applied to his very own painting, what is real and what is unreal. The representation of the pipe in this sense has to be looked at carefully and how the similitude and resemblance could shed light on the painting, The Treachery of Images.
It is from this interpretation of these two words it can be identified that the similitude of the painting bears what is physical, and what we can see from the painting. This is what we denote from the painting. As stated the pipe depicts an accurate portrayal of what a standard pipe would look like, a common pipe, a painting which does justice to our look on the depth and lighting of this object. The resemblance of this pipe however is down to the viewer, what it connotes, how it is placed in the mind. Firstly the sense of lighting connotes to us the object is to be regarded as 3D, but even this is a representation. The connotation of the pipe as an object announces a sense of old fashion, and quite a grand and posh object.
When reading the image, and we notice what is written underneath the well placed object there is a shift in our thinking. ‘This is not a pipe’ forces us to review what the painting is actually denoting. The painting here in turn is an argument between the words and images, there is a decision soon to be made as to which point of communication is truly giving us an accurate message or the meaning intended by the artist.
As Malcolm Barnard wrote in Graphic Design as Communication, Foucault on Graphic Design, that when looking at generalised compositions including text and image, the text will take over the role of the illustration, as Barnard put it ‘anchor’ images. And in turn, images portray or ‘shed light on’ the text. (Barnard, M., 2005, p.49)
This seems to be an accurate formula to how type and image works, but here with The Treachery of Images, it is no longer clear as to how these interpretations of image and texts work within the paintings. It is this slight conflict in messages that has led to such discussion and controversy of how we interpret objects and their representations in everyday life. There is at first to be a breakdown in semiotics, at a basic level there are two signifiers in the image, but they are opposing.
Representations are spoken and accepted as the real thing in culture, it is unoften that we are shown what is ultimately a crude truth, but what is actually reality within portrayal. This is by making it so apparent that it is not an object but a representation as illustration. The illustration was therefore to shed light upon the meaning to the words, and the text to anchor the image, but the point has been made to make this redundant. Its representation therefore was only to give meaning to another representation. Therefore leaving the signifier and the signified obscured, and arbitrary to how we read the images, the representation has become a product of cultural choice as any illustration no matter how simple can be turned to an ineffective signifier. What is communicated to us has been altered by another representation.
Rene Magritte
‘La Trahison des Images’, translated as ‘The Treachery of Images’
1929.
Bibliography
Berger, J., 1972. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin.
Chandler D., 2002. Semiotics. The Basics. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
Levy, S., 1990. Foucault on Magritte on Resemblance, Modern Language Review Vol. 85, p.50
Barnard, M. 2005. Graphic Design as Communication. New York: Routledge.
Foucault, M. 1968. This Is Not A Pipe. Los Angeles: University of California Press
Wednesday 26 January 2011
PORTFOLIO TASK 3. ESSAY IDEAS
The main thrust of my essay is to discuss the relationship between type and image, as to how they work with each other and looking at cases where they do not work together but actually contradict each other, by the way we interpret them as signs and representations. I will be focussing on looking at Magritte's painting, 'La Trahison des Images', translated as 'The Treachery of Images'.
The methodological approach I will be using to try and read this text and write my essay on will be a Semiotic analysis.
The texts I will be looking at include:
//Berger, J., 1972. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin.
Discussing the relationship between how what we see and what we know is never settled.
//Chandler, D., 2002. Semiotics. The Basics. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
Looking at critical writing on semiotics as a baseline for my investigation, including signifers, the signified, representations, resemblance and similitude.
//Levy, S., 1990. Foucault on Magritte on Resemblance, Modern Language Review Vol. 85, p.50
Foucault and Magritte both talk on representation of Magritte's own image, and see where they agree and disagree on such items.
//Barnard, M. 2005. Graphic Design as Communication. New York: Routledge.
Critical writer discussing his views and the views of some others on image 'The Treachery of Images', as 'This is not a pipe'.
//Foucault, M. 1968. This Is Not A Pipe. Los Angeles: University of California Press
Talking specifically on the image I am concentrating on, discussing what is its resemblance and how we see such items.
The methodological approach I will be using to try and read this text and write my essay on will be a Semiotic analysis.
The texts I will be looking at include:
//Berger, J., 1972. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin.
Discussing the relationship between how what we see and what we know is never settled.
//Chandler, D., 2002. Semiotics. The Basics. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
Looking at critical writing on semiotics as a baseline for my investigation, including signifers, the signified, representations, resemblance and similitude.
//Levy, S., 1990. Foucault on Magritte on Resemblance, Modern Language Review Vol. 85, p.50
Foucault and Magritte both talk on representation of Magritte's own image, and see where they agree and disagree on such items.
//Barnard, M. 2005. Graphic Design as Communication. New York: Routledge.
Critical writer discussing his views and the views of some others on image 'The Treachery of Images', as 'This is not a pipe'.
//Foucault, M. 1968. This Is Not A Pipe. Los Angeles: University of California Press
Talking specifically on the image I am concentrating on, discussing what is its resemblance and how we see such items.
Sunday 16 January 2011
LECTURE 5 // HYPERREALITY
HYPERREALITY
Jean baudrillard and hypereality
Father christmas representation as something real - embedded.
Haddon sundblom illustrations from the 1930s
Mexican version of coca cola
'Brand trumps taste' 'we care more about the logo than the actual product' - wired.com
Cognitive illusion of what we think of as the real thing
Jean baudrillard (1929-2007)
French philosopher, critic, social and cultural theorist
Pioneering in semiotics, political economy, post modernism, popular culture and medioa theory
Post Structuralism
-Deleuze
-Barths
-Derrida
-Cixuss
-Foucault
Everything can be read as a text, contextually read
Structuralism - Can we determine the structure under and certain phenomenon. The underlining meaning/structures.
Other key precursors
Guy debord. Marxist
Author of the society of the spectable (1967)
Analyse commodity - relations in the age of the consumer culture
Marx - Developed the critique of political economy
argues capitalism constitutes one kind of mode of production.
Is it socialism?
Is it communism?
In Capitalist society -
- 'all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned'
Money is an abstraction of value
Ferdinand de Saussure
Linguist and pioneer of semiotics
World of objects with given names. In turn the exchange and movement of letter etc. We can understand objects as a concept, the name is a concept.
PHOTOHPGTOTOOHOTOTPTOHOPPHOTPPHOTOTOTPHOTO
Marcel Mauss
Anthropologist
Georges Bataille
Writings on death, transgression and general economy
'Expenditure without return e.g the potlatch
Marshall Mcluhan
Meida theories and developed distinction between hot and cool
Argued that the medium is the message.
Baudrillard: Keyworks
Simulacra and Simulation (1981)
Theory of simulacra. Intended to represent or stand in for, or in recent history, copies of other copies.
Physical object/ painting of object
Representations of representations.
Keyterm in post modern theory and culture
Desert of the real.
'Reflection of a profound reality' (Body and blood of Christ)
'Masks and denatures a profound reality.
'Has no relation to any reality whatsoever, it is its own pure simulacra.'
DisneyLand
Neither coke or santa are real.
They are profound reality.
German Market
Guardian
-Generic model, hundreds of them
-Flat pack. No orginal model based on representation.
The Loud Family (1970's)
TV is not real - it is hyperreal.
Three orders of Simulacra
-The counterfiet
-Production
-Simulation
Jean baudrillard and hypereality
Father christmas representation as something real - embedded.
Haddon sundblom illustrations from the 1930s
Mexican version of coca cola
'Brand trumps taste' 'we care more about the logo than the actual product' - wired.com
Cognitive illusion of what we think of as the real thing
Jean baudrillard (1929-2007)
French philosopher, critic, social and cultural theorist
Pioneering in semiotics, political economy, post modernism, popular culture and medioa theory
Post Structuralism
-Deleuze
-Barths
-Derrida
-Cixuss
-Foucault
Everything can be read as a text, contextually read
Structuralism - Can we determine the structure under and certain phenomenon. The underlining meaning/structures.
Other key precursors
Guy debord. Marxist
Author of the society of the spectable (1967)
Analyse commodity - relations in the age of the consumer culture
Marx - Developed the critique of political economy
argues capitalism constitutes one kind of mode of production.
Is it socialism?
Is it communism?
In Capitalist society -
- 'all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned'
Money is an abstraction of value
Ferdinand de Saussure
Linguist and pioneer of semiotics
World of objects with given names. In turn the exchange and movement of letter etc. We can understand objects as a concept, the name is a concept.
PHOTOHPGTOTOOHOTOTPTOHOPPHOTPPHOTOTOTPHOTO
Marcel Mauss
Anthropologist
Georges Bataille
Writings on death, transgression and general economy
'Expenditure without return e.g the potlatch
Marshall Mcluhan
Meida theories and developed distinction between hot and cool
Argued that the medium is the message.
Baudrillard: Keyworks
Simulacra and Simulation (1981)
Theory of simulacra. Intended to represent or stand in for, or in recent history, copies of other copies.
Physical object/ painting of object
Representations of representations.
Keyterm in post modern theory and culture
Desert of the real.
'Reflection of a profound reality' (Body and blood of Christ)
'Masks and denatures a profound reality.
'Has no relation to any reality whatsoever, it is its own pure simulacra.'
DisneyLand
Neither coke or santa are real.
They are profound reality.
German Market
Guardian
-Generic model, hundreds of them
-Flat pack. No orginal model based on representation.
The Loud Family (1970's)
TV is not real - it is hyperreal.
Three orders of Simulacra
-The counterfiet
-Production
-Simulation
LECTURE 4 // COMMUNICATION THEORY
COMMUNICATION THEORY
Laswell's Maxim
'Who says what to whom in what channel with what effect'
-Key quote as designer
Seven
Cybernetic/ Information theory
Semiotics
Phenomenonological
Rhetorical
Socio-Psychological
Socio-Cultural
Critical
1. Cybernatic
- Companies for distribution and networking. Theory using mathematics percentage to understand
The infromation OR Cyerbernatic theory
Worked complex system to see if what work in a world war.
1st formulation - the telephone
3 levels of communication
ONE
Technical - Accuracy. Systems of encoding/ decoding
Always need technology
-Language. Decoding
TWO
Semantic - Percision of language
How to preceive?
How much of the message can be lost without meaning being lost?
THREE
Effectiveness
- Does the message have affect behaviour the way we want it to'
Communications theory is a part of a bigger theory
SYSTEMS THEORY
2. Semiotics.
Semantics - addresses what a sign stands for.
Dictionaries are semantic reference books, what the sign means
Syntactics - The relationship among signs
Pragmatics - Studies how they are pratically used
Semiosphere
What's wrong with semiotics?
Does everything really have a sign?
Medicine - Context of the communication
Language
Trainer - Social group
- Object materialises as signs
Limitations - Doesn't fit, everythibg changes all the time
Semiotics - Highway code
Presumes meanings are clear but we are taught what they mean
3. The Phenomenological
The process of knowing through direct experience. The way humans come to understand the world.
Authentic human relationship
Phenomenology
Heightens and lowers your sense of tension of what is around you. Your awareness. Walking noticing the ground because you have but if you dont just carry on walking.
Rhetoric
About persuasions. Let people know how to listen to you - to sound powerful
Improve memory
Authentic communication
Physical
Type of language
Hyperbole - Push an idea to the limit
Irony -
Rhetoric - Very powerful
Adventurous
World leader/Dictators
Without using it communications is something that is subject to problems
Images need context - Type to be a message
Trained in Rhetoric
The sociopsychological traditions
- Study of the individual as a social being
- Three key areas
Expression, Interaction and Influence
Sociocultural tradition
Define yourself in a group, frames your cultural identity
All about context - Changes
Age can be a massive factor
Critical Communication theory
Idea of power structures
- Panopticon
Feminist studies - The issue of gender
Post colonial theory - The way different areas of the world suffered for being colonies
Laswell's Maxim
'Who says what to whom in what channel with what effect'
-Key quote as designer
Seven
Cybernetic/ Information theory
Semiotics
Phenomenonological
Rhetorical
Socio-Psychological
Socio-Cultural
Critical
1. Cybernatic
- Companies for distribution and networking. Theory using mathematics percentage to understand
The infromation OR Cyerbernatic theory
Worked complex system to see if what work in a world war.
1st formulation - the telephone
3 levels of communication
ONE
Technical - Accuracy. Systems of encoding/ decoding
Always need technology
-Language. Decoding
TWO
Semantic - Percision of language
How to preceive?
How much of the message can be lost without meaning being lost?
THREE
Effectiveness
- Does the message have affect behaviour the way we want it to'
Communications theory is a part of a bigger theory
SYSTEMS THEORY
2. Semiotics.
Semantics - addresses what a sign stands for.
Dictionaries are semantic reference books, what the sign means
Syntactics - The relationship among signs
Pragmatics - Studies how they are pratically used
Semiosphere
What's wrong with semiotics?
Does everything really have a sign?
Medicine - Context of the communication
Language
Trainer - Social group
- Object materialises as signs
Limitations - Doesn't fit, everythibg changes all the time
Semiotics - Highway code
Presumes meanings are clear but we are taught what they mean
3. The Phenomenological
The process of knowing through direct experience. The way humans come to understand the world.
Authentic human relationship
Phenomenology
Heightens and lowers your sense of tension of what is around you. Your awareness. Walking noticing the ground because you have but if you dont just carry on walking.
Rhetoric
About persuasions. Let people know how to listen to you - to sound powerful
Improve memory
Authentic communication
Physical
Type of language
Hyperbole - Push an idea to the limit
Irony -
Rhetoric - Very powerful
Adventurous
World leader/Dictators
Without using it communications is something that is subject to problems
Images need context - Type to be a message
Trained in Rhetoric
The sociopsychological traditions
- Study of the individual as a social being
- Three key areas
Expression, Interaction and Influence
Sociocultural tradition
Define yourself in a group, frames your cultural identity
All about context - Changes
Age can be a massive factor
Critical Communication theory
Idea of power structures
- Panopticon
Feminist studies - The issue of gender
Post colonial theory - The way different areas of the world suffered for being colonies
LECTURE 3 // THE GAZE
THE GAZE
1st and 3rd Person
Theories of power.
SCOPHILLIA, SUTURE, INTRA AND EXTRA DIAGETIC, NARCISSISM.
Physcoanalytical
Panopticon - 'Discourse Analysis'
Physcoanalysis
Mish Mash of phscology (Behaviour)
and Physchiatry (Mental Illness)
Way of thinking, not always about sex.
Laura Mulvey - 'Visual pleasures and narrative cinema'
Hollywood - The gaze shows both powerful and male. Heroes.
SCOPHILLIA
-The pleasure of looking at others as objects.
Babies - Prime example. Instinctive.
Narcissistic Indentification - Identify with a reflective version of ourself.
Jacques Lacan. -Mirror Stage
Ideal ego in image reflected
Childs own body less perfect than reflection.
The more he idetnifies, he loves himself (EGO)
Fantasy world - product of patriarchial,
Quotes on identifcication.
Brad Pitt.
SUTURE
Often forces empathy.
Spectators look through the eys of the actors in the film.
When suture is broken, the viewer realises the power of the gaze.
Intra Diagetic Gaze. See you working as others. 'Le Viol' - 'The Rape'
Allows you to not feel guilty.
Extra Diagetic Gaze.
Directly addresses the viewer. More affective, enhances guilt.
Manet - Invited to be viewed as the artists.
Etant Donnes - Can be translated as 'Being Given'
-Being given the power?
CONCLUSION
Different forms of the Gaze. evoke digestion.
Structures of Power.
1st and 3rd Person
Theories of power.
SCOPHILLIA, SUTURE, INTRA AND EXTRA DIAGETIC, NARCISSISM.
Physcoanalytical
Panopticon - 'Discourse Analysis'
Physcoanalysis
Mish Mash of phscology (Behaviour)
and Physchiatry (Mental Illness)
Way of thinking, not always about sex.
Laura Mulvey - 'Visual pleasures and narrative cinema'
Hollywood - The gaze shows both powerful and male. Heroes.
SCOPHILLIA
-The pleasure of looking at others as objects.
Babies - Prime example. Instinctive.
Narcissistic Indentification - Identify with a reflective version of ourself.
Jacques Lacan. -Mirror Stage
Ideal ego in image reflected
Childs own body less perfect than reflection.
The more he idetnifies, he loves himself (EGO)
Fantasy world - product of patriarchial,
Quotes on identifcication.
Brad Pitt.
SUTURE
Often forces empathy.
Spectators look through the eys of the actors in the film.
When suture is broken, the viewer realises the power of the gaze.
Intra Diagetic Gaze. See you working as others. 'Le Viol' - 'The Rape'
Allows you to not feel guilty.
Extra Diagetic Gaze.
Directly addresses the viewer. More affective, enhances guilt.
Manet - Invited to be viewed as the artists.
Etant Donnes - Can be translated as 'Being Given'
-Being given the power?
CONCLUSION
Different forms of the Gaze. evoke digestion.
Structures of Power.
PORTFOLIO TASK 2. ON POPULAR MUSIC
'On Popular Music' by Theodor Adorno, 1941.
Adorno discusses the difference between serious music and popular music which is marketed for the masses. Popular music simply refers to a less serious type of music, and has been seen as the one fundamental characteristic of popular music to be 'standardization', which 'extends from the most general features to the most specific ones' (Adorno, 1941, p.73). Standardization also refers to how the song or hit will always lead back to the same familiar beat or experience in order to keep the song simple. Nothing fundamentally new or fresh will be introduced.
Discussing Popular music I have decided to concentrate on music video 'What you talking about?' by Redlight ft. Ms Dynamite. The song was produced in 2010 and shows clear indications of being popular music. The song cannot be described as a complicated or serious song, as Adorno mentions other more specific phrases used to discuss the difference between popular and serious music, such as 'lowbrow and highbrow', 'simple and complex' and 'naive and sophisticated'. It is the simplistic reasoning that Adorno states 'position is absolute. Every detail is substitutable', by this Adorno is stating how nothing used in the hit song has been thoughtfully crafted, it fits into what Adorno says is 'pre-digested'. This is 'pseudo-individualization, giving the masses what seems to be a whole free choice and open market but the standardization of songs 'keeps the customers in line by doing the listening for them'. By buying the music feels like it is us as free individuals, but is actually mistaken as it simply marketed to the masses as 'standardized music'.
It is suggested that those who listen to popular music don't understand music as a language in its self, but merely due to the type of people of listen to Redlight ft Ms Dynamite are only listening to it as what it represents in culture, what it means to them. This is in turn is transformed into an idea of the song as what they think is there own, 'which is served as a receptacle for their institutionalized wants', what the sub-culture of the music presents and appears to talk to its audience.
'There are two major socio-phsychological types of mass behaviour toward music', states Adorno, referring to general and popular music, the 'rhythmically obedient' type and the 'emotional' type. 'What you talking about?' conforms to the rhythmically obedient type, focussing on what any piece of music has, the underlying beat of the song. Adorno talks of how being musical is to follow given rhythmical patterns and not to be disturbed by 'individualizing abnormalities. This expresses the viewers individual response to obey to the standardization. This is entirely different from that of a 'emotional' type which 'What you talking about?' clearly isn't, and has no expression of unhappiness of allow of the consumer of music to be allowed to weep due to the music. This song holds no grounds for a deeper level of thinking, to communicate in any sort of thoughtful considerations.
Adorno discusses the difference between serious music and popular music which is marketed for the masses. Popular music simply refers to a less serious type of music, and has been seen as the one fundamental characteristic of popular music to be 'standardization', which 'extends from the most general features to the most specific ones' (Adorno, 1941, p.73). Standardization also refers to how the song or hit will always lead back to the same familiar beat or experience in order to keep the song simple. Nothing fundamentally new or fresh will be introduced.
Discussing Popular music I have decided to concentrate on music video 'What you talking about?' by Redlight ft. Ms Dynamite. The song was produced in 2010 and shows clear indications of being popular music. The song cannot be described as a complicated or serious song, as Adorno mentions other more specific phrases used to discuss the difference between popular and serious music, such as 'lowbrow and highbrow', 'simple and complex' and 'naive and sophisticated'. It is the simplistic reasoning that Adorno states 'position is absolute. Every detail is substitutable', by this Adorno is stating how nothing used in the hit song has been thoughtfully crafted, it fits into what Adorno says is 'pre-digested'. This is 'pseudo-individualization, giving the masses what seems to be a whole free choice and open market but the standardization of songs 'keeps the customers in line by doing the listening for them'. By buying the music feels like it is us as free individuals, but is actually mistaken as it simply marketed to the masses as 'standardized music'.
It is suggested that those who listen to popular music don't understand music as a language in its self, but merely due to the type of people of listen to Redlight ft Ms Dynamite are only listening to it as what it represents in culture, what it means to them. This is in turn is transformed into an idea of the song as what they think is there own, 'which is served as a receptacle for their institutionalized wants', what the sub-culture of the music presents and appears to talk to its audience.
'There are two major socio-phsychological types of mass behaviour toward music', states Adorno, referring to general and popular music, the 'rhythmically obedient' type and the 'emotional' type. 'What you talking about?' conforms to the rhythmically obedient type, focussing on what any piece of music has, the underlying beat of the song. Adorno talks of how being musical is to follow given rhythmical patterns and not to be disturbed by 'individualizing abnormalities. This expresses the viewers individual response to obey to the standardization. This is entirely different from that of a 'emotional' type which 'What you talking about?' clearly isn't, and has no expression of unhappiness of allow of the consumer of music to be allowed to weep due to the music. This song holds no grounds for a deeper level of thinking, to communicate in any sort of thoughtful considerations.
PORTFOLIO TASK 1. PANOPTICISM
An example of Panopticism in contemporary culture using quotes from Panopticism' in Thomas, J. (2000) 'Reading Images', NY, Palgrave McMillan.
Panopticism in contemporary society, we see various applications that could hold panoptic aspects but what I am going to be focussing on is the relationship of discipline in cafe's and coffee shops. The coffee shop in its panoptic form is a fundamental place where, how Foucault puts it "the existence of a whole set of techniques and institutions for measuring, supervising and correcting the abnormal". Once entering you are corrected and become standardised, "to brand him and alter him".
There is a key power relationship between you as a customer and the coffee shop as a controlled area. Upon entering you undergo segregation where immediately you as a customer has to abide by what is seen as normal, the idea of normal put into place by the coffee shop. The customer in order to recieve service has to become subservient to those in the coffee shop, regualting themselves to what could be seen as a docile body, otherwise would not be served or even allowed in the shop. The coffee shop as a controlled area, stays panoptic and constant with the intention to keep order so that it "assures the automatic functioning of power".
Since Bentham designed the infamous Panopticon, panopticism has spread into contemporary culture and self regualting and everyday occurance. The coffee shops however are different to a typical panoptic mechanism in that who is in control. As a customer on arrival, you are not only confronted with those who work in the shop but also other customers, an uncomforatble feeling of being watched, "He is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information". However this is a relationship that goes in cycles, a customer who is already seated and served has power which over the new customer, but in time the new customer will become as comfortable and seated like previous customers ready to continue the cycle "The first is that of a pure community, the second that of a disciplined society."
Panopticism in contemporary society, we see various applications that could hold panoptic aspects but what I am going to be focussing on is the relationship of discipline in cafe's and coffee shops. The coffee shop in its panoptic form is a fundamental place where, how Foucault puts it "the existence of a whole set of techniques and institutions for measuring, supervising and correcting the abnormal". Once entering you are corrected and become standardised, "to brand him and alter him".
There is a key power relationship between you as a customer and the coffee shop as a controlled area. Upon entering you undergo segregation where immediately you as a customer has to abide by what is seen as normal, the idea of normal put into place by the coffee shop. The customer in order to recieve service has to become subservient to those in the coffee shop, regualting themselves to what could be seen as a docile body, otherwise would not be served or even allowed in the shop. The coffee shop as a controlled area, stays panoptic and constant with the intention to keep order so that it "assures the automatic functioning of power".
Since Bentham designed the infamous Panopticon, panopticism has spread into contemporary culture and self regualting and everyday occurance. The coffee shops however are different to a typical panoptic mechanism in that who is in control. As a customer on arrival, you are not only confronted with those who work in the shop but also other customers, an uncomforatble feeling of being watched, "He is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information". However this is a relationship that goes in cycles, a customer who is already seated and served has power which over the new customer, but in time the new customer will become as comfortable and seated like previous customers ready to continue the cycle "The first is that of a pure community, the second that of a disciplined society."
Saturday 15 January 2011
LECTURE 2 // CRITICAL POSITIONS ON THE MEDIA AND POPULAR CULTURE
WHAT IS CULTURE?
"One of the most complicated words in the English language" Raymond Williams
General process of intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development of a particular society at a particular time.
A particular way of life.
Works of intellectual and artistic significance
Marx’s Concept of Base/ Superstructure:
BASE
Forces of production - materials, tools, workers, skills etc.
Relations of production - employer, employee, class, master and slave.
SUPERSTRUCTURE
Social institutions - legal, political, cultural.
Forms of consciousness - ideology.
Base determines content and form of Superstructure
Superstructure reflects form and legitimises Base
If you can change the base, you change the superstructure - the way people see the world.
Easy to determine a shift in the base but not in the superstructure.
IDEOLOGY
Definition -
-A system of ideas and beliefs.
-Masking, distortion or selection of ideas, to reinforce power relations through creation of ‘false consciousness’.
Raymond Williams 1983 ‘Keywords”
There are four definitions of the term ‘popular’
1. Well liked by many.
2. Inferior kinds of work.
3. Work deliberately setting out to win, favour with the people.
4. Culture actually made by the people themselves.
Inferior Culture vs Residual Culture.
- Popular press vs. quality press.
- Popular cinema vs. art cinema.
Both are aimed at different classes.
Graffiti culture - for the people by the people. Banksy piece taken from the street and now exhibiting in galleries. Is this then considered to be popular culture?
EP Thompson 1963
‘The making of the English working class’
The working class and the bourgeois are separated both physically, i.e. where they live, obviously the bourgeois are not going to live in the slums with the working class. But also by where they go, go out for dinner etc, and lastly separated by how they are educated.
They cannot afford to be a part of 'high culture'.
Matthew Arnold 1867
‘Culture and Anarchy’
Culture is:
- ‘The best that has been thought and said in the world’
- The study of perfection
- Attained through disinterested reading, writing and thinking.
- The pursuit of culture.
- Anarchy is really what Arnold sees as ‘popular culture’ talks about the working classes as being “Raw and half developed”.
- The upper class were considered to be cultured, whereas the working class were uncultured, should not set their own culture but should strive to be more like the bourgeoisie. Arnold considered it to be the only culture, the right culture for everyone.
Leavisism.
F.R Leavis and Q.D Leavis.
- Still forming repression and common sense attitude to popular culture
-“Mass civilisation and minority culture fiction and the reading public”
- Collapse of the ‘traditional’ culture. Authority comes at the same time as mass democracy (anarchy)
Frankfurt School. Critical theory.
The progress of the school:
• 1923-1933 - Institute of social research.
• 1933-1947 - University of New York Columbia.
• 1949 - University of Frankfurt.
When the Frankfurt school moved to NY they were initially shocked by the fact that this mass/popular culture was everywhere, they were not used to this.
Herbert Marcuse
Theodore Adorno &
Max Horkheimer.
Adorno and Horkheimer were critical thinkers of this mass culture they believed that by it being called a mass culture connotes that it is something that is mass produced, mechanically produced therefore it is all the same.
All of mass culture is identical rise of the TV etc. they defined the ‘culture industry’ two main products homogeneity and predictability, mass culture produces conformity as supposed to anarchy which is just as bad they would argue.
For example gives us an example of modern films, as soon as the film begins you know how it will end, this stops you having to think about the film at all.
Herbert Marcuse says Popular culture or affirmative culture locks you into the status quo and maintains structure that illusion of a one-dimensional thought makes us not want to change the world. Affirms the dominant system when we should be rising against it, we become too comfortable where we are and there is nothing pushing us to change it.
"A false way of looking at the world"
For example the che Guevara t-shirts, by having so many of them around now a days desensitises what he actually did, by wearing one of the t-shirts does not mean anything anymore, it does not mean that you are independent it just means that you are exactly the same as everyone else who owns one of those t-shirts.
Authentic culture vs. Mass Culture
- Qualities of authentic culture
- European - although America was the epitome of mass culture
- Negation.
- Autonomous (Against Marx)
- Active consumption
- A culture that is independent of the structure or system that it was born into.
Adorno ‘On popular music’
-Standardisation -Social Cement
- Produces passivity through ‘rhythmic’ and emotional ‘adjustment’.
- The working class should leave culture to those who understand it i.e. the bourgeoisie. By them trying to be cultural threatens the culture itself.
- Music is used to escape the horrors of the world
Walter Benjamin
‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ 1936.
Benjamin took a more positive approach towards the popular or mass culture.
The idea of new technologies was a good thing, shows that society is progressing toward the future. Opening up new possibilities, possibility of working against social repression.
Conclusion
- Somehow culture is civilising. They attack mass culture because it threatens cultural standards.
- Frankfurt school attacks popular culture also depoliticises the working class thus maintaining social authority.
- Popular culture is ideology
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