Post-modernism

I enjoyed attending this lecture for the same reasons as the modernism lecture in that it gives insight into not only the art and design world but has information on social and political influences that are surrounding the movement. Aside from this I find the subject itself fascinating because of how hard it is to define within itself but it just kind of has things attached to it. The movement originated in the late 20th century and is a departure from modernism in terms of art, architecture and philosophy. The movement as a whole is considered a revival of historical elements and techniques.

The lecture also spoke about Jean Baudrillard, who has a very high level of influence when it comes to post modernism and its ideas. I think it was also mentioned in the lecture that he has written essays on the subject. In order to understand more about post-modernism its quite important to read his work and try to understand the theories he writes about. Out of all of his work, he has two main points that are important from an artistic perspective. Firstly he was written extensively about the world around us and how our ability to perceive it changes as we are influenced by the media. He has come to the conclusion that we almost live in a hyper reality, where the amount of entertainment and materials we consume such as film, television and video games have altered our perception of reality and changed the way we communicate. The other fundamental idea he has is that we give ourselves up to communication, and we are under the power of this form of mass media that was mentioned previously; film, television, video games. He also thinks we are doing this subconsciously and can't control it because of the amount of it we encounter in our daily lives.

Following on from this, Jean Baudrillard states that we connect with celebrities and fictional characters on a deep level, giving them more prestige and acclaim then they should have or that they deserve. Finally, he said that we get nervous when we are away from our phones or the internet for too long. "We have entered an era where third-order simulacra dominate our lives where the image has lost any connection to the real thing".

Modernism

I thought this lecture was interesting because it had a lot of social, political and historical topics incorporated into it as well as the discussion based on modernism itself. Modernism is a philosophical movement combined with cultural trends that appeared in Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We learnt about various different topics throughout the lecture and it appears that the word Modernism has a number of different connotations and meanings.

• Modernity, Industrialisation, Urbanisation
• Modern artists
• Psychology and subjective experience
• Modern art and photography
• Modernism in design

A lot of what was talked about referenced France and Paris in particular. In terms of art, artists at the time started focusing less on people and using them as subjects, but rather focusing on their environment and the setting they were in. This was to highlight the social changes within society, and to try and capture the ever evolving society that they were based in. By capturing the environment around them, artists were subconscious capturing aspects of society such as the difference in wealth across various people. This kind of detail was captured by artists paining clothes and of people featured in their work as well as other subtle details such as who owned a vehicle, which were incredibly rare at the time, and the types of places different people would visit or be able to afford. In terms of relating these ideas back to present day, trends happen all the time, whether it's fashion or food, or decoration. We all notice it and are consciously aware of the movement and forwarding of these aspects, but on the most part society accepts them and embraces them.

Overall the modernism movement is about moving forward and being conscious of changes within society and amongst people. But more importantly, to be accepting of the changes. I think this movement is also based around free thinking and expression. This is complimented by the fact that during the early 20th century when modernism was emerging, a lot of modernists rejected things such as religious, which was heavily considered a fundamental value at the time.

Chronologies 7 - Animation

This chronologies lecture was of particular interest to me as it provided a brief history of the course I'm studying on, as well as giving me insight into various animations I had never heard of or seen before. Despite it being a brief history, it covered a huge amount of content, and a lot of videos were shown or recommended to us so that we have a lot to go away and watch afterwards. The lecture had another practical use as all of the historical work it showed us could be used as research and reference when pursuing future projects.

The beginning of the lecture was focused on the origins of the idea of animation, and how the word 'animation' came into existence. The word animation is derived from the word animare, meaning "to give life to". We were then told about the basics of animation to cater for the people who hadn't yet been introduced to various concepts, this included the idea that animation is a series of images played in sequence and about the illusion of movement. We were taken through almost like a timeline about the most basic forms of animation that were created after the magic lantern in the 19th century such as, the Thaumatrope, the Phenakistoscope and the Zoetrope. From here we were shown information about the flip book and early forms of projection.

We were then given a real chronology of animation, starting in the year 1900 and leading all the way up to the digital age starting in around 1985. It was really interesting seeing the development of animation in the form of a timeline, and it was useful to see how certain movements and techniques that had been discovered and utilised inspired other works. One of the most important eras we were shown was the Golden Age of Cartoons. It became clear to me how important this era was in terms of animation as well as everything else because of the events that happened during that time. For example, there is a huge amount of political and propaganda animation in this period such as Disney's animations based on Hitler. As well as this innovative and brilliant animated works that are still popular today such as Fantasia and Snow White. This was also a time for experimentation, and pushing the boundaries of animation, not just in terms of the technical boundaries or visuals, but in terms of the content and narratives that could be shown publicly. More specifically on the golden age of American animation.'The Golden Age of American Animation', was a period in the history of U.S animation that began in 1928 with sound cartoons and continued until 1960 when theatrical shorts began to fall short to the new medium of television animation, which was becoming popular. During this period, many popular characters emerged within the animations that were shown such as, Micky Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Popeye and Tom & Jerry. During this golden age period, feature length animation also began. The first of Walt Disney's feature films were produced during this time, including and post notably; Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi. So overall, this was a time for emerging animation, and the cartoon industry was thriving in this time, hence the name.



Following the Golden Age of Cartoons there was the television age. This era still featured propaganda and animations that showed sensitive content, such as; The Hand and Surogat that we looked at in detail during our context of practice seminars. During this era, boundaries were still being pushed in all senses. Animators such as; Gordon Murray, Terry Gilliam and Oliver Postgate created popular content to be shown on television. At this point feature length animation films were becoming more popular and seen more frequently, releases such as British feature animations, Watership Down and the American release of A Christmas Carol were proven to be popular also.



From here, the digital age of animation began opening an unlimited number of doors for animation and making the industry come alive once again. In Japan films such as Akira being released and being hugely popular around the world in combination with Studios such as Studio Ghibli proved that good animation can come from all over the world and not just the western world. The company pixar was another huge contribution to the progression of digital animation with releases such as Toy Story amongst others becoming hugely popular. The industry has continued to grow up until this point, and animation is seen everywhere from music videos, to feature films and advertising.



Overall, as an animation student I found this lecture incredibly useful and also very interesting. I learnt a huge amount about the development of animation over the course of a century and can use what I've learnt to influence my own work in the future.

Chronologies 6 - Photography

I was looking forward to this lecture quite a lot, as photography itself is something that I enjoy a lot outside of studies, and I try to incorporate it into my work whenever possible. Despite it only being invented in the 19th century, the amount of documentation we have and the amount we know because of it is astounding. It is an incredibly interesting medium, capturing a moment in time, a fraction of a second that will be preserved for virtually forever. It is estimated that since the invention of photography, over 3.5 trillion photographs have been taken. That is a huge amount of documentation, and today with the ease of access to digital cameras, with almost all mobiles phones having one built in, it's no surprise that this number is growing at an extreme rate. Photographs have an infinite number of uses; some of the more practical uses are things such as evidence, documentation, advertising, design, art, forensics and commercial use.

Photography can also be used in controversial ways. Documenting or photographing sensitive subject matter and showing it publicly can be upsetting to some people, and there is certain restrictions on the type of material that can be shown to a universal audience. Photography depicting graphic or grisly images and nudity for example have certain restrictions on them depending on their purpose.

Throughout the photograph presentation we were shown a number of photographs of historic events or what we consider now very interesting documentation of various people, locations or just an interesting subject matter. The ability to see history in images is something that you don't think about until your attention is brought to it. The subjects of the photographs at the time, would have thought nothing of it, but being able to see people going about their day over a hundred years ago is really something incredible when you think about it. However, photographs aren't always what they seem. with the movement and development of technology, photo editing software has become more available both in industry and for personal use. This means that photographs can be altered in a variety of ways, and this can be dangerous for various reasons. Firstly, photographs that are used for things such as evidence or documentation can be altered to be misleading or false, which could cause serious repercussions. Secondly, in more recent years the way people are represented in the media has been criticised due to the manipulation of photographs of people to the point where their bodies and faces look different to what they actually are. Meaning society is constantly being bombarded with unrealistic and unnatural representations of people that are simply modified versions of their real selves. So, unfortunately like everything, photography and the way it's used has it's complications.

Overall, this was an incredibly insightful lecture, not just looking at photographs and their uses through history. But a look into history itself at some key events, which was interesting on its own. Furthermore, it reinforced to me how powerful photography is and what a versatile tool it is in the modern era. Given the ease of access in modern society, I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to use it as freely as I am.

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Chronologies 5 - Advertising

I wasn't able to attend the Advertising lecture because we were at Bradford Animation Festival that week. However, when looking back through the lecture notes on eStudio, the question on the first slide was; Is Advertising Prostitution? However, I find advertising an interesting topic to learn about and it coincides well with some of the previous lectures such as Communication & Mass Media and The History of Print.

Whilst looking through the slides of the presentation I cam across one that read, 'Does sex actually sell?'I linked this back to the idea about advertising being comparative to prostitution and it made more sense. Branding or advertising often includes people with model status to brand and advertise various products, and there are multiple examples of products, from perfume to clothing items and even food that are depicted in what could be considered a 'sexual' way, with the exposed bodies of various people as a focal point. I suppose in this way, 'sex' does sell. Using sexual connotations as a method of branding and as an advertising tool has been a growing practice for decades. It's now at the point where most of us see an advert or a billboard advertisement of that nature, and don't think twice about it because it's such a common practice.

One of the slides also puts forward the idea that advertising is a capitalist tool that is used to change the values of society. Which to an extent is correct. In a way it works both ways, as society changes its values so does advertising and it adapts the way the advert is designed to societies values and way of thinking. On the other hand, the way advertising is done can also change the values of society, like a vicious cycle of continually changing values and trends. Furthermore, the way advertising can operate, especially in a modern society where people care more and more about social status, and their place amongst and in relation to everyone else; advertising can be quite influential and change individual peoples perceptions when it comes to making them think, and behave in a certain way.

Relating back to the question that was raised at the beginning; Is Advertising Prostitution? The idea of sex is often used to sell products to the general population because in modern society it has such a big influence. This may not necessarily be a bad thing, but it can change societies perception of reality to an extent and perhaps change its values. However, advertising can also be a positive influence. At this point, some adverts are very enjoyable to watch and companies go to extreme lengths to produce interesting and well made adverts. Finally, advertising is an extremely powerful tool and has the potential to manipulate society through various means, so it's important to keep this in mind, and think for yourself when considering some of the ideas it portrays through advertising in the media.

Communication & The Mass Media

The idea of the term Mass Media is essentially a means of public communication that reaches a large audience. Things that we consider mass media are; radio, television, newspaper and magazines because these are types of communication that reach large portions of the population, and a large number of people in general.

The technologies that mass media is communicate through varies greatly depending on what it is. For example, broadcast information though mediums such as radio, television, film and recorded music is communicated electronically using the electromagnetic spectrum, or more specifically, radio waves using a one-to-many model. In contrast to information communicated this way, print media uses physical copies of objects such as newspaper, magazines, books or pamphlets to distribute to the general population. Furthermore, outdoor media comprises billboards, signs, shops and information posted on transport. In the context of a design school the kind of course you would be studying on to transition into the communication and mass media industry in a visual way would be;

• Communication Design
• Visual Communication
• Graphic Design

During the lecture, we were shown how communication and transmission of information has developed in the past 17,000 years or so. Firstly, we were shown cave painting from around 15,000 to 10,000 BC that was found in France. The image itself was of cattle and horses, and shows even this long ago early humans were documenting and taking note of their environment and surroundings. From here we were shown an image of a painting that was produced around the 14th century on a chapel wall, located in Italy. The interesting thing about this image was that it had a narrative to it and appeared to be showing an event or sequence of events. This kind of documentation allows us to investigate events that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago. Next we looked at a soap advertisement from the 19th century, and in a way the start of graphic design as we know it today. In 1922, William Addison Dwiggins said; ‘In the matter of layout forget art at the start and use horse-sense. The printing-designer’s whole duty is to make a clear presentation of the message - to get the important statements forward and the minor parts placed so that they will not be overlooked. This calls for an exercise of common sense and a faculty for analysis rather than for art.' on the subject of design. In a sense this was the time when graphic design and layout started to be recognised and the importance of conveying the message through design became more relevant. Richard Hollis also said ‘Graphic Design is the business of making or choosing marks and arranging them on a surface to convey an idea.’ Which is a very simplified idea of design or specifically graphic design.



‘Although graphic design as we know it originated in the late nineteenth century as a tool of advertising, any association today with marketing, advertising, or capitalism deeply undermines the graphic designer’s self-image. Graphic design history is an integral part of advertising history, yet in most accounts of graphic design’s origins advertising is virtually denied, or hidden behind more benign words such as “publicity” and “promotion”. This omission not only limits the discourse, but also misrepresents the facts. It is time for graphic design historians, and designers generally, to remove the elitist prejudices that have perpetuated a biased history’.

After looking at the origin of graphic design we were shown some propaganda before looking closer at logos and what they represent. Finally, we were able to look at the communication of messages through campaigns and how those type of advertising campaigns have developed up to modern day.