(10th October 2013)
This lecture was incredibly intriguing to me, as it was not particular to any course area, however it exhibited extremely well, the application of design to a real world situation. This is obviously a very important thing to consider within the course; and something that heavily interested me due to there not really being much information available to us in terms of real world application, bar Creative Futures Week.
Camp Little Hope were three guest speakers from an art collective based in both the UK and US, they not only create art on a commissioned basis but it is also geared towards making a difference. Some examples of their work that we were given was the Hidden City Festival, Philadelphia 2013 which aimed to open up abandoned parts of the city. This in particular struck a chord with me, not for the way in which it was executed but the idea of using abandoned areas of the city. This idea has always attracted me as I like the thought of something being useful even though it has already passed it's original use, that perhaps it can have almost a second life. It could be seen as it's on way of recycling, recycling an area. Or perhaps it could be seen as a contrast between the beauty of the art in the place, and the abandonment of the place itself.
The building chosen was Fairmount Waterworks and so a theme of water was picked, the artists created 3 different boats that would allow an individual or family to survive within three possible predicted futures. The art is not only beautiful but also helpful and educational. This reinforced the fact to me, that art does not simply have to be physically appealing, on top of this it can be used to highlight important points within society and educate other's to the issues around them that they may have not otherwise seen. This is very important to me, as I find that a lot of people can see art as less than it actually is, specifically my field of photography. To me, it seems that people will see photography as simply a documentation of a thing, person, or event etc. Yet, conceptual photography is very important to me as it shows off just what photography can do for both society and the individual. In the words of Berenice Abbott, "Photography helps people to see."Moving Beyond the Limits of Language - Autobiographical Narrative of Animation Shorts
(7th November 2013)
Although at the beginning of this lecture I did not take an interest as I saw the subject matter as not to do with my design area, certain aspects of the lecture could be interpreted in such a way that it is relevant to my practice. For example, the film process can be evaluated, along with the analysis of both the themes and the actual techniques of putting together a film.
We were told in the lecture that the main areas to analyse were the themes, narrative, effect and visualisation. Although the pieces being discussed were all animation, the same ideas could be put forward for any film. For myself, the most important idea behind film is being able to convey relatable ideas through a narrative and main themes, so I quite easily took an interest in this. Victor Papanek is quoted as saying "The only important thing in design is how it relates to people." I agree with this to an extent, but I also believe that there are other important aspects in design, for example, how much attention is put into it, like Jony Ive said, "the most important thing about design is that you care."
There were a few examples given of animation shorts, which all seemed to use metaphors as a major theme such as, my favourite, Daddy's Little Bit of Dresden China - Karen Watson. The maker of the film uses fabrication of inanimate objections to represent characters, for example the father being portrayed as sharp, dangerous objects such as razors and scissors, and the child's delicate nature shown through the use of a feather pillow. This piece was my favourite as she used photographic collage making the whole thing much more real to me as well as being closer to my subject area.
Some other examples of metaphors used were use of colour to convey mood and metamorphis used as a structural device to move from one scene to another; these all help to open up the filmmaker's personal world, allowing the viewer not only to reflect outwards but to in towards themselves. As Karen Watson explained when asked about her work, the films act as therapy, allowing the filmmaker to express feelings they don't have words for. All of the films given as examples were autobiographical in some way, they used personal yet universalised storylines to make them more likely to touch other people. A quote that stood out for me in this respect was as follows "One of the outstanding advantages of the (animated) film is its power of penetration...The depth of a man's soul is more than a phrase to the filmmaker; it can also be a picture." - Halas and Batchelor(1949).
The Art of Persuasion (14th Nov 2013)
This lecture interested me a lot as it was geared more towards what we were going to do after getting our university degree, applying our skills, in particular to get a message across. Perhaps the earliest example of this being the political portrait, first used on coins by Alexander the Great. This was described as a "insidious and ubiquitous use of imagery", meaning it was the easiest way to display something for multiple people to see and understand.
Another example given was graffiti which I thought was quite fascinating as even though graffiti can be seen as crime and vandalism, it can also be very artistic and it's nature help to spread a message. Graffiti is getting more and more recognised as art in today's society, and the most famous of the artists in this field, such as Banksy, are more political than not. This form of art is most definitely used in a persuasive manner, and to push forward some very big messages and opinions on issues such as gay rights and gang culture.
Some other examples we were given included a well known piece The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, and a few poster campaigns by an anonymous group named Guerrilla Girls; both in the interest of feminism and women's place in art, which is obviously close to me as a women studying an artistic subject a degree level. Judy Chicago claims to "set her sights upon becoming the kind of artist who would make a contribution to art history." which, judging by the statistics displayed by the Guerrilla Girls is a respectable statement to make.As well as these, there were a few examples which lent themselves directly to my design discipline such as John Heartfield's photo montages. John Heartfield's work is extremely admirable to me as he is described as "a pioneer in the use of art as a weapon." A lot of his work was anti-facist and anti-nazi. What intrigues me most about his work is that he uses the images of other's to create his own and completely reverse the message being spread. Also in my discipline was "The Photographer" a graphic novel composed of both photographs and illustrations, depicting a war-torn Afghanistan, however I was not fond of this work as I do agree with the persuasion being put forward but I believe that the work uses photographs to display fact and the illustrations to show emotion.
On top of this, this lecture really touched me and inspired me to look into more photographers who use their work as a weapon and to push a message as to me photography is not simply about recording. My two favourite finds were Deborah Parkin, and her work surrounding isolation and neglect of children and Rankin. I have always been a fan of Rankin's work, but in particular his more recent photo-set "Alive In The Face Of Death" displaying terminally ill individuals and highlighting mortality. His work in this project is particularly commendable due to his ability to take something quite daunting and turn it into art. I feel he is trying to dispel any negative connotations with death, not necessarily to glamorise it but to perhaps remove the fear surrounding it and make it more comfortable for those facing it; and in my opinion he does so beautifully.A Discussion of Ethics
Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this lecture in person but was able to access the notes and powerpoint online. This lecture covered the ideas of ethics within the art and design industry and how it affects others within society. We were told that ethics means “…the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation”. Ethics of course come from individual thoughts and feelings and so become difficult to generalise and define. It is hard to define something that comes from intuition and inner feelings rather than logic and deduction. We can look at ethics as three layers - practical, theoretical and descriptive.
Practical ethics being the first level, looking at what action should be taken to make something fair. The theoretical level of ethics then looks at why this action is right and finally descriptive ethics being a much more personal look at ethics as a whole; why do YOU believe that the action is right? This can then of course, be applied to any action but for the sake of this blog I shall apply it to art and design, especially my chosen field of photography.
There are a long list of things to consider when looking at the ethics behind art and design. Some of these include:
Ethical sourcing - the materials you use and were they come from
Professional ethics - organisational and corporate standards
Research ethics - design and implementation of research
Community ethics - ideals behind anything involving other people within the community
Environmental ethics - decisions made to respect the environment
Personal ethics - decisions made from your own moral compass
A brilliant example of photography we were given, that can easily be analysed in terms of ethics is Kevin Carter's Pulitzer Prize winning shot. On one hand, we can look at it in the sense that it is art, and it highlights key themes in terms of mortality and dread; on the other hand we can obviously question the ethics behind it. Is it right to photograph something like this, and not even help the child in the image? Our first instinct is of course, to say no but if we look more deeply into the image, we can say that it is helping by broadcasting what is happening and manipulating people's thoughts and feelings about the issues that are being photographed. The New York times have described this shot as ‘a metaphor for Africa’s despair’, strengthening the idea that it truly portrays the emotion within the situation rather than just the situation itself. The image created uproar with one editorial stating ”The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene.” These two different quotes prove the two extremes of what people think of this image. Then again, opinions on ethics tend to be extreme.Another photograph that could be used as an example in this way is the very famous Napalm Girl photographed by Nick Ut, both cropped and uncropped versions. This photo is again ethically wrong in that the photographer is at the scene and not helping, yet on top of this, the crop makes it a lot more simple than it needs to be. Is the crop employed to be more ethically correct due to the soldier nonchalantly adjusting his camera on the right? Would this have created much more controversy? But then in that respect is it not more ethical to leave the image uncropped, show the soldier's true brutality?
An interesting website I found on top of what was presented in the lecture talks about the relationship between art and ethics and claims that "Art can open us up to new ideas and beliefs, and artists can make a massive impact as role models, either in a positive or a negative manner." This can clearly be seen in the two examples of photojournalism above.
Overall, I found this write up quite difficult due to missing lectures for various reasons and the unavailability of notes on Moodle on top of this some of the lectures did not feel all too relevant to my subject area. Nonetheless, I have been able to look into each lecture and explore my thoughts and feelings towards design. The main of these being issues about how photography is perceived, both ethically and quite literally, I value photography as a form of art and believe it is so much more than simply documenting an image. It captures the emotions and atmosphere of something and can be used to spread a message. On top of this I find it very important to me that women are recognised just as much as men in artistic professions, obviously as a women looking to go into such a profession but also as an equalist. I feel as though the main viewpoints in my manifesto are that of equality and sharing a message, maybe I'm trying to change the world, maybe that sounds too ambitious. I'm not quite sure, all I know is that I'd like to use my art to make a difference.
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