Lecture five; the gaze and the media.

- Hans Memling 'Vanity' 1485.
The mirror is a device, sinful regard for the woman's self. 
- Alexandre Cabnel 'Birth of venus' 1863.
Both of the above are examples of works using a mirror. 
- Sophie Dahl - Opium. 
Withdrawn from advertising for sexual nature. 
Once the format was changed the vertical format was approved because emphasis changed to the face. 
- The gorilla girls campaign - do women have to be naked to get into a museum? 
- Manet 'Bar at the Folies Bergeres' 1882. 
The idea of mirrors again and how they send a message. 
- Women's bodies are used in advertising through the use of photography. 
- Men are also objectified in advertising. 
- Women are marginalised within the masculine discourse of art history. 
- Barbara Kruger uses the theories of the gaze.
- More modern artworks have the same ideas about women being looked at but in a less obvious way. 
- Reality television gives us the power of the gaze. 
- The Truman show is a film which is an example of the gaze. 

Lecture four; critical positions on the media and popular culture.

Culture? 
- One of the two or three most complicated words in the english language. 
- A particular way of life. 
- Works of intellectual and especially artistic significance. 
- General process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development of a particular society, at a particular time. 


- Marx's concept of base/superstructure links. 


Raymond Williams four definitions of popular;
- Well liked by many people. 
- Inferior kinds of work. 
- Work deliberately setting out to win favour with people. 
- Culture actually made by the people themselves. 


- Anything that aims to be understood by everyone could be described as popular. 


Inferior or residual culture.
- Popular press VS quality press.
- Popular cinema VS art cinema. 
- Popular entertainment VS art culture.


- Popular culture can begin as something which is passed by until it is created by the 'right' person. 


- The physical separation of classes eventually creates own cultures. 


Matthew Arnold culture is; 
- The best that has been thought and said in the world. 
- Study of perfection. 
- Attained through disinterested reading, writing and thinking. 
- The pursuit of culture. 
- Seeks to minister the diseased spirit of our times. 


Leavisism; "Culture has always been in minority keeping" 


Frankfurt school - critical theory; study of culture took place here. 
"The culture industry" This is an idea of culture but more like culture produced in a factory. 


- Culture in capitalism was mass produced. "All mass culture is identical" 
- Culture for the masses. 
- The idea of art as a culture is gone due to art as mass production. 
- Influences cause us to be one dimensional, creating a false consciousness. 


- Popular culture was a threat to the upper class. 
- Working class culture was bad because it 'dumbed down' thinking about political situations. 


- Contemporary culture industry for the working class de-politicises because it makes us think unacceptable things are ok for example, women flaunting themselves. 


- The culture industry is standardised so it does your thinking for you. 


Qualities of authentic culture; 
- Real
- European 
- Multi - dimensional 
- Active consumption 
- Individual creation
- Imagination 
- Autonomous (independent from the rules) 


- What happens to the cultural value of something when it's reproduced? 

Seminar two - technology will liberate us.

Technology > reproduction > value.
Photography
New techniques


The main thing to be taken from this lecture was that the reproduction of art works devalues them in a number of different ways and this is down to the development of technology. 
During this seminar we were put into pairs and given a paragraph from the text 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction' by Walter Benjamin. We had to read the text, discuss what we felt it meant and then feedback to the group and talk about these ideas. Myself and Kirsty were given paragraph four to look at. 

The key points we got from this section of the text were; 

- The value of art changes depending on the context it is in

- If something is reproduced it loses it's uniqueness but art works were reproduced so everyone could have them not just the upper class people

- With photography which is actually the original?

- As technologies began to evolve there was a sense of crisis later to come for art

- Art is treated like royalty because you tend to have to walk up a huge staircase and then whilst walking around an art gallery you talk quietly as though you are treating the pieces with respect

- When it's authority gets threatened by reproduction it recoils in order to try and save itself

- Tradition is changed by this idea of reproduction, it is lost. 

- Art is described as the cult of beauty due to its uniqueness but this has declined due to reproduction

Lecture three; Marxism & 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 the concept of dialectical materialism. 


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


Communist evolution; 
Primitive communism 
Slave society
Feudalism
Capitalism 
Socialism
Communism


Marx's concept of base/superstructure.
Base; 
Forces of production - materials, tools, workers, skills
Relations of production - employer, employee, class, master, slave


Superstructure; 
Social institutions - legal, political, cultural
Forms of consciousness - 'the history of all hithero existing society is the history of class struggles' 


Base > determines content and form of > superstructure > reflects form of and legitimises > base.


System of ideas or beliefs
Masking, distortion or selection of ideas, to reinforce power relations, through creation of 'false consciousness' 
Society = economic, political and ideological. 
Ideology is a practice through which men and women 'live' their relations to real conditions of existence. 
Ideology offers false, but seemingly true resolutions to social imbalance.


The media as ideological state apparatus
A means of production. 
Disseminates the views of the ruling class.
Media creates a false consciousness.
The individual is produced by nature.


How does advertising effect us?
What examples of graphic design could be determined by social or political factors?

Task one - Panopticism.

Thinking about modern day examples of panopticism I have chosen one example to discuss, I will also include quotes from 'Panopticism' by Michael Foucault that link to my ideas. A modern swimming pool is in my opinion panoptic because the lifeguard sits in their chair in the middle of the pool area like the tower of the Panopticon because "the registration of the pathological must be constantly centralised". This chair is high enough so that the lifeguard can over look the whole of the pool area and can be seen by the public swimmers. There are rules put in place that only tend to be followed due to the panoptic layout of the swimming pool because someone is constantly watching to make sure the public are abiding thus links the quote "Visibility is a trap". Panopticism in this case is used as a safety feature because the public are aware that they are being watched therefor they behave in a certain sensible manner. This reduces accidents because the public become docile bodies when attending the swimming pool and automatically behave themselves. "So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in it's effects, even if it is discontinuous in it's action" - There does become a point in which the lifeguard doesn't necessarily have to be there because the public self regulate so not to endanger themselves. Unlike the Panopticon however, the public can see each other when in the swimming pool so may be influenced by what others are doing in a negative way. "The first is that of a pure community, the second that of a disciplined society" this could link to the fact that some people know how to behave in modern day society and others are taught through systems such as the panoptic layout. Overall "Bentham's Panopticon is the architectural figure of this composition" because the way in which the swimming pool is laid out could have come from the ideas of the Panopticon.

Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish, London, Penguin.