study task 3 - Michelangelos david analysis

study task 3 - gainsborough image analysis

study task 2 - gallery statistics

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21591707-museums-world-over-are-doing-amazingly-well-says-fiammetta-rocco-can-they-keep

study task 2 - vernacular culture

I really wanted to explore the theme of vernacular culture as I think its a very interesting and relevant topic in relation to my quote. I think a good representation of vernacular art and the way its viewed is the snobbish approach people take when talking about 'fine art' as a pose to 'arts and crafts' what makes vernacular art less appealing to high culture? is it the fact that it isn't created or commissioned to brag or show of wealth, is it sometimes sneered at because the bourgeoisie are too scared ti face the fact that in fact art isn't just theirs to keep and control, its accessible to people from every single walk of life. however hard they try they cant stop the masses being creative so instead they must sneer at them and create high art and low art

Vernacular culture is the cultural forms made and organised by ordinary, often indigenous people, as distinct from the high culture of an elite. One feature of vernacular culture is that it is informal

'this isn’t the first time the mainstream art world has performed a celebratory rediscovery dance with vernacular artists, so the current climate of tentative self-congratulation and hopefulness comes with some serious caveats. The interest of the privileged, urban, predominantly European American classes in the expressive cultural production of those who look and live differently, whether earnest and benign or voyeuristic and exploitative, is nothing new. It’s hardwired into Western culture, and the form it takes today can be traced back hundreds of years to the misty beginnings of the condition we call modernity. We have an entire category of dichotomous language for it—high/low, fine/folk, insider/outsider, academic/self-taught—about which skeins of torturous prose have been written, but little untangled.'
http://www.artnews.com/2015/10/07/the-error-of-margins-vernacular-artists-and-the-mainstream-art-world/
upon reading this article I found it hard to gain any relevant information, from my understanding of 'vernacular culture' it felt like the whole article was missing the point especially when it started talking about the kind of money these pieces were making and who was exhibiting them. Isn't this quite the opposite of what vernacular art is? art created not for a group in society, not for money, not for anything other than personal enjoyment and self expression? I actually found more interesting content in the comments from readers and I think this comment summed up what I was thinking quite well
'The whole point of "vernacular art" is that it cannot be "contextualised" and it neither should be. Simply put, it doesn't belong. Self-taught artists need to be appreciated on their own, each as a unique individual. John Ollman lists a group of artists who have been influenced by outsider artists, as if the vernacular needed credence or the approval of a "real" artist. They do not. None knew of the others, and the most important of them never went to a museum or took an art class. None sat around the Cedar bar arguing over each other's work. There is no "school" of vernacular artists, and to lump them among others, be they trained or not, is an insult and a misnomer. They are distinguished and DEFINED by their oneness. Any claim they "belong" next to each other on a wall is not thinking very hard. It is the most perfect art world dichotomy.'

study task 2 - a history of art in three colours - white

The focus on white was the real reason I wanted to watch the series, after having read the book 'inside the white cube' and looking into galleries, the way they're set up and why, Pete suggested looking at a history of art in three colours and what they had to say on it. I found the documentary extremely interesting and helpful and its given me lots of new ideas to think about and create work from as well as educating me on the history of the colour white in our society and the influence it has had. Specifically I am most interested in the part whistler has had to play in the creation of the white gallery and want to research this further. I thought the documentary was an informative and reliable source to use for research as it comes from a respected source (the BBC) and was clearly a well researched and presented programme. Below I've summarised what I found to be the most important and interesting points.

'In the Age of Reason, it was the rediscovery of the white columns and marbles of antiquity that made white the most virtuous of colours. For the flamboyant JJ Wickelmann and the British genius Josiah Wedgewood, white embodied all the Enlightenment values of justice, equality and reason.'

'the elgin marbles were widely seen as the bedrock of ancient art, like many ancient sculptures the elgin marbels were once painted in rich colours... which had washed away. at one point we became convinced these sculptures had always been white'

why was Davine so desperate for these sculptures to be white?

Johann Joachim Winckelmann
'the whitewashing of antiquity' Winckelmann planted white at the centre of European culture for centuries to come, he decided to dedicate his life to persuading the world of the beauty of white sculpture and white marble. His writings influenced a new science of archaeology and art history as well as Western painting, sculpture, literature and even philosophy

1859, James Abbott McNeil Whistler 
took it upon himself to make white, not the colour of equality but of exclusivism and elitism. from a wealthy Massachusetts family
its a really elitist painting, because what this painting sets out to do is to divide the Victorian public, to divide people who don't understand the painting and those who do, those who did understand the painting were whistler and his tiny intellectual elite.

whistler despised the publics taste, he wanted to banish them from the art world altogether. in 1883 he opened an exhibition of new pictures he made on a trip to Venice, it wasn't the pictures but the way he displayed them - the walls were white, the frames were white even his gallery attendant was in white. he called his exhibition a masterpiece of mischief. completely unwelcoming, 

'white had become the cold and exclusive colour of the artistic elite'

'white is the negation of bourgeois decoration, its the negation of the superflous'

study task 2 - a history of art in three colours - gold

Gold : A History of Art in Three Colours (Ep1)
For the very first civilisations and also our own, the yellow lustre of gold is the most alluring and intoxicating colour of all. From the midst of pre-history to a bunker deep beneath the Bank of England, Dr James Fox reveals how golden treasures made across the ages reflect everything we have held as sacred.

'I think this colour is one of the most alluring and beguiling colours of them all' (gold)

in religious art gold represented not material things but immaterial things, and its perhaps the most immaterial thing of them all. 
'the gold is not just representing god looking at us and sitting on a throne, god is mingling with us, transforming us, communicating with us'
no other colour responded to light or reflected light in the way gold did, that's why for Christians it became the colour of the light of god.
its interesting to wonder did the church commission art and use gold as a sign of their power and might, or as a sign of their religious devotion? probably a bit of both 

'in the consumer age, gold came to represent little more than wealth itself'
'from the 1500's there was a flowering of wonderful golden jewels, flights of fancy made to satisfy the vanity of kings queens and their courts'
'what its really about is power politics and above all status'
'king Francis the 1st was of of Europe's most flamboyant and art loving monarchs, he wanted to make his kingdom the centre of the renaissance' - a clear example of how power and money control the flow of high culture

'endlessly reproduced, this kiss has just become another golden idol of our consumer century'

personal overview:
its interesting to thing of the importance of gold in art culture and how gold has such strong connotations in our society of wealth and power. the use of it in art therefore is very complex and very interesting. the most relevant parts of this episode to my quote were those focusing on the use of gold from the 1500's onwards, especially the pieces commissioned by kings and royals. the amount of money and power over the creation of art, objects and therefore culture is insane and amazing, some of the things created featured in the episode just the pure amount o work and dedication put into them is stunning let alone the pieces themselves. but it is interesting to realise almost any gold object existing in an art gallery or museum must only ever come from a position of wealth, it was such a valuable material that work created with it is literally only commsiionable by the rich and powerful, they have the full control in this strand of our culture.

some interesting examples I saw of gold used in artwork when in poland, the first as a sign of devotion and worship, the second as a symbol of luxury wealth and power

study task 2 - Christo and Jeanne Claude

Christo and Jeanne Claude are probably two of the most famous land artists so I decided to a bit more research on them and look into their thought processes and rationale behind their work. I think the fact they create contemporary work which were dismantled and not thrown away but passed on is very representative of the themes I'm trying to express when talking about the land art movement. These ideas of anti establishment, anti capitalist work which is accessible to all people. its important to make art so public that you cant ignore it, art may be hung in a free gallery in a public square but is it really 'public' if your separated by the hierarchy of the gallery? the feeling that because of your class you don't belong or understand?

the artists have repeatedly denied that their projects contain any deeper meaning than their 

immediate aesthetic impact. The purpose of their art, they contend, is simply to create works of art for joy and beauty and to create new ways of seeing familiar landscapes

- http://www.msa.ac.uk/mac/assets/2012/wrappedreichstag/contextpages/context_cjcb.html

'Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s huge, usually outdoor sculptures are temporary and involve hundreds of assistants in their construction. Seen as they are by all manner of passersby, including those who would not necessarily visit museums, these works force observers to confront questions regarding the nature of art. As the scope of the projects widened, increased time was needed for planning and construction phases, the securing of permits, and environmental-impact research. For each project, they formed a corporation, which secured financing and sold the primary models and sketches. Most installations were documented in print and on film, and the materials that created them were sold or given away after the projects were dismantled.'

- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christo-and-Jeanne-Claude

interview with Christo and Jeanne Claude:

Christo: Nobody can own this project, nobody can buy the project, nobody can possess the project, or charge tickets. This project is a demonstration of freedom. A demonstration of absolute freedom and total irrationality. The world can live without Umbrellas, without Valley Curtain or Running Fence. They have no other reason to be there except poetical creativity, total creativity. That freedom is the most important part of this project and this is why they cannot stay, because freedom is the enemy of possession and possession is equal to permanence …

Jeanne-Claude: … Possession is equal to permanence, so freedom is the enemy of permanence.

Christo: Of course, to keep that freedom to exist absolute, we pay for our projects. No strings attached, no bowing to anybody, no sponsors, no compromises …

Jeanne-Claude: It is very expensive to be free …

Christo: Yes. No compromises, we decide what to do, how we would like to do it, which way we should do it and when we should do it. Of course, that is an incredible demonstration of that aesthetic creativity, it is poetical creativity. This is very important because that is what these projects are about. When they happen, they translate that freedom. When people come to the Umbrellas they were 2 million, 3 million 250 thousand people. It was not because of Walt Disney or some big museum, or some big corporation, or Coca Cola, or IBM, or General Motors, or the President of France, or the minister of culture, or the NEA, but because some artists would like to live with total irrationality, with no justification, no moralization, there are not any reasons, that is something nobody can invent, nobody can buy.Christo: I should repeat that our projects are not works of painting or sculpture but have elements of urbanism and architecture. Also, the temporal character of the project is an esthetic decision. I and Jeanne-Claude would like our projects to challenge and question the people's notion of art. The temporal character of the project challenges the immortality of art. Is art immortal? Is art forever? Is building things in gold and silver and stones to be remembered forever? It is a kind of naiveté and arrogance to think that this thing stays forever, for eternity. It probably takes greater courage to go away than to stay.

musings on capitalism

If I could do anything I wouldn't be an illustrator, I would create land art, let it be destroyed everyday and create it again, not for any institution or any organisation just for me - selfishly. But we live in a society which requires trade - we are capitalists CONSUMERISTS and we cant escape it. I need a licence to own chickens and live off the land, I need to buy a passport to move from one place to another. We have fit our entire world into systems and boxes and its virtually inescapable. I think in some ways we've trapped ourselves. Can I not just create art for arts sake and NO OTHER REASON? no, because I need money to s u r v i v e. money controls us, constricts us, consumes us.

Study Task 4: Initial Ideas

exploring formal elements

In today's lesson we had to explore what Line, shape, colour, texture and collage mean as definitions and what they mean in relation to Politics, Society, Culture, History, Technology or Aesthetics. we started off as groups thinking about definitions of formal elements and how certain formal elements can represent concepts, it was interesting to think of how the weight of a line or the force with which you use the pencil can represent a mood or a concept. At the moment the idea of the concertina sketchbook is a bit scary to me, how do I represent culture with line? with collage? or more specifically how do I represent the themes I'm focusing on within culture, such as class divide and the rich and powerful. to give me some starting points I made lists of the different elements and how they might specifically relate to culture

line:

• delicate, detailed, expensive line
• angry fast line
• decorative line vs functional line - industrial rev

collage:

• money controls us - drowning in objects
• jewels, coins, watches, consumerism
• advertisements buy now - consumerism
• big people squashing small people
• capitalism, one person over many, owners over workers
• photography - shift from rich portraits
• corporate monsters made of advertisement

texture:

• shiny smooth textures, connotations of wealth
• woven fabric, coarse - working class
• industrial revolution woven cotton, workers clothes
• denim - proletariat, velvet - bourgeoisie
• silk, cashmere, fur
• leaves, nature - land art 

shape:

• diamond, jewels, cut crystal shape 
• coins, money money money 
• the frame - the gallery space
• architecture, plinths 

colour:

• colour connotations - purple = rich, brown = poor
• use of rich colours vs muted or washed out colours
• colour was wealth, pigment was expensive, vivid vibrant rich
• black v white, racial hierarchies
• green/gold = money

mind maps from the lesson:

what is research? lecture

• research isn't just in COP its a fundamental part of PPP and studio practice
• this idea of experiential learning is fundamental to research, you become better at doing things by going out and experiencing things and practicing activities
• research is about knowledge analysis understanding and comprehension, bringing everything you've learned together into a unified whole
• 'process is more important than outcome' when the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where were going, but we will know we want to be there - an incomplete manifesto for growth
• research isn't just about clarifying the world, its about problem solving and problem solving is a part of research
• 'success comes from having brighter ideas closer together' - the secret to success 
• you have to get things wrong is essential to developing a practice, making mistakes and learning from those mistakes - don't be afraid to get it wrong. fail quicker and you'll have more time to improve
• if we knew what it was we were doing, it would bot be called research, would it? - Einstein
• stupid people don't ask questions, intelligent people research
• ideas are the currency of what we do
• we all experience similar things but the way we make connections between things shows our own unique view of the world, research is looking at things that are already there but thinking about it in ways that no one else has thought about it before 
• there is a conscious or subconscious search for inspiration
• intuitive approach - the development of thought process, primarily based on internalised perceptions and knowledge. this thought process may occur spontaneously
• stimulated, intuitive and systematic approach
• what is research? research is something we have to take an undergraduate view of. research is the process of finding facts, its about collection information, source materials. research is finding out by asking the questions how, why, what if?
• types of research:
  primary research - developed and collected for a specific end use, usually generated to help solve a specific problem.
  secondary research - deals with facts, figure and measurements produces data which can be analysed.
  quantitative research - numerical data, provable fact, the gathering and analysing of measurable data, its objective and relies on statistical analysis.
  qualitative data - a way to study people or systems by interacting with and observing the subjects regularly. research that is involved in quality, it can describe events people ect without the use of numerical data.
• what is information? information is the result of processing, manipulating and organising data, its about creating meaning and thinking about strategic ways of taking that data so that it can be communicated effectively. information should be sufficient, competency, relevant, and useful
• phase 1 assimilation, the accumulation and ordering of general information specifically related to the problem in hand
  phase 2 general study
  phase 3 development, the development and refinement of one or more tentative solutions
  phase 4 communication, the communication of one or more solutions to people either inside or outside the design team

developments in the sketchbook - the colour gold

Inspired by the art in three colours documentary I've started exploring this in my sketchbook by including the colour gold in my work. I've looked at themes such as money, wealth, the gallery and religious iconography. I thought it would be visually intriguing to create black and white work just with one bold inclusion of gold really standing out and making a point of being showy and expensive. Almost like the colour is showing of to the viewer - much like how originally gold in art was used as a show of wealth and a way to impress fellow peers. In the pieces pictured below I really like the delicate line work and detail contrasted with the block colour I think it adds a new level of intrigue to the visuals of the work.

some examples of sketchbook pages:

Digital production and distribution

• the digital revolution is far more significant tat the invention of writing or even printing - Douglas Engelbert
• 
• we shape our tools, and then our tools shape us - Marshall McLuhan
• McLuhan believed that to fully grasp the impact of a new technology, one must examine figure (medium) and grounding (context) together, since neither is completely intelligible without the other. we must study media in their historical context in relation to the ones which preceded them
• where we are today will not be the end point, theres an acceleration in the way were developing new technologies which will have a fundamental impact on all of society.
• relationship between the medium and the message - we must consider 4 qualities, what does it improve, what does it retrieve, what happens when its pushed to its limits, what has it made obsolete
• 1990- globalisation of digital production, first affordable apple mac, it enhanced productivity it allowed for ultimate editability and allowed you to make mistakes and delete them. the mac brought back individual creativity and the creation of personal fonts. 
• were creating a digital aesthetic which has grown out of this use of technology and production
• nostalgia v innovation
  
  
• this idea of a digital aesthetic starts to influence the way developers create new products
• the technology we create starts to have an impact on how we imagine the world to be and how we imagine the world to be effects the new technology we create 
• digital culture is about our relationships with technology and how we engage with it
• how does technology start to define us as human? 
• starting to think about the relationships between military and technology, this idea of the hacker cyber crimes
• the analogue aesthetic - a nostalgic experience, away from the digital and back to the analogue
• how  has the digital age shaped communication management? distribution, technology going mobile and how information is being communicated
• access to broadband is a basic human right 

study task 2 - book: No Logo

I wanted to read at least some of the book that my quote is from to get a better understanding of the context and find any other helpful quotes or ideas. In general the book isn't particularly helpful for the direction I want to go with when adressing the quote but it is a very well written and interesting book so ive included both interesting and relevant quotes here

By the mid-nineties, companies like Nike, Polo and Tommy Hilfiger were ready to take branding to the next level: no longer simply branding their own products, but branding the outside culture as well

Artists will always make art by reconfiguring our shared cultural languages and references, but as those shared experiences shift from firsthand to mediated, and the most powerful political forces in our society are as likely to be multinational corporations as politicians, a new set of issues emerges that once again raises serious questions about out-of-date definitions of freedom of expression in a branded culture.

when Philip Morrisowned Altoids mints decided in January 1999 that it wanted to get into the game, it cut out the middleman. Rather than sponsoring an existing show, the company spent $250,000 to buy works by twenty emerging artists and launch its own Curiously Strong Collection, a travelling art exhibition that plays on the Altoids marketing slogan, "Curiously strong mints." Chris Peddy, Altoids brand manager, said, "We decided to take it to the next level."

Chesney considered himself a distant relative of the graffiti kids — though less a cousin than a rich uncle. The way he saw it, as a commercial artist and billboard salesman he was also a creature of the streets, because even if he was painting for corporate clients, he, like the graffiti artists, left his mark on walls

 The campaign was in the cookie-cutter co-optation formula: take a cool artist, associate that mystique with your brand, hope it wears off and makes you cool too. It sparked the usual debates about the mass marketing of rebellion

For their part, many artists now treat companies like the Gap less as deep-pocketed pariahs trying to feed off their cachet than as just another medium they can exploit in order to promote their own brands

Rather than softening its image, Mike's feminist-themed ads and antiracist slogans have only served to enrage women's groups and civil-rights leaders, who insist that a company that got rich off the backs of young women in the Third World has no business using the ideals of feminism and racial equality to sell more shoes. 

 It is not Art for Art's Sake as much as Art for Ad's Sake. In the public's eye, art is yanked from its own separate and theoretically autonomous domain and squarely placed in the commercial.... Every time the commercial intrudes on the cultural, the integrity of the public sphere is weakened because of the obvious encroachment of corporate promotion.- Matthew McAllister 

the creeping corporate capitalism of our cosmic counter-culture"' and where the organizers regularly confiscate bottled water that has not been purchased on the premises, despite the fact that the number-one cause of death at raves is dehydration.

In our final year of high school, my best friend, Lan Ying, and I passed the time with morbid discussions about the meaninglessness of life when everything had already been done. The world stretched out before us not as a slate of possibility, but as a maze of wellworn grooves like the ridges burrowed by insects in hardwood. Step off the straight and narrow career-and-materialism groove and you just end up on another one — the groove for people who step off the main groove. And that groove was worn indeed (some of the grooving done by our own parents). Want to go travelling? Be a modern-day Kerouac? Hop on the Let's Go Europe groove. How about a rebel? An avant-garde artist? Go buy your alterna-groove at the second-hand bookstore, dusty and moth-eaten and done to death. Everywhere we imagined ourselves standing turned into a cliché beneath our feet

study task 2 - essay planning triangulation

what do I want to focus on in my first essay?

Cultural products are the all time favourite playthings of the powerful, tossed from wealthy statesman such as Gauis Cilnius Maecenas, who set up the poet Horace in a writing estate in 33 B.C.., and from rulers like Francis 1 and the Medichi family, whose love of the arts bolstered the status of Renaissance painters in the sixteenth century. Through the degree of meddling varies, our culture was built on compromises between notions of public good and the personal political and financial ambitions of the rich.

Are cultural products the playthings of the powerful?

Do the rich control art?

Our culture was built on compromise but does it continue to thrive on it?

Has the control of culture shifted from the powerful to the public? If it has then why?

Should artists focus on making money or making a difference? Where do we find the balance?

how to structure essay

- talk about how the rich used to control art and why, ways of seeing, claude levi straus

- has this shifted? yes - photography, print press, John Martin

- argue against john martain ideas of galleries reference white cube, how do the wealthy control the art market, guardian article land art

- compromise between public good and financial ambitions of the rich. who are the rich now? discuss how brands and marketing have taken over the rich. still one section controlling us still controlled by money - reference no logo

- we still have the capacity to create work for the public good - fuck committees, first things first, site specific art

- can we ever escape the power of money

study task 2 - book: One place after another site specific art

I read this book to explore the concept of land art and community art - art that rebels against any form of upperclass control and as an example of art that is not controlled by the rich and powerfull

'Initially conceived by Jacob in 1991, “Culture in Action” (originally titled “New Urban Monuments”)5 was intended to be a critique of two institutions: the organization of Sculpture Chicago specifically, and more broadly the field of public art.'

' art in the public interest forges direct intersections with social issues. It encourages community coalition-building in pursuit of social justice and attempts to garner greater institutional empowerment for artists to act as social agents. Artists engaged in such art “aspire to reveal the plight and plead the case of the disenfranchised and disadvantaged, and to embody what they [the artists] view as humanitarian values'

'9 Rather than an object for individual contemplation, produced by a distant art specialist for an exclusive art-educated audience equipped to understand its complex visual language, new genre public artists seek to engage (nonart) issues in the hearts and minds of the “average man on the street” or “real people” outside the art world. In doing so, they seek to empower the audience by directly involving them in the making of the art work, either as subjects or, better, as producers themselves.'

' By extending the hitherto specialized privilege of art-making and art appreciation to a larger number and broader range of people (not restricted to the privileged minority of the dominant class, gender, race, and sexual orientation), new genre public artists hope to make art more familiar and accessible (because it is now not only for the “public” but by the “public”)'

'Such temporal, issue-specific artworks are a form of artmaking that grows out of the desire of artists to reach audiences in ways that are more direct and unexpected than is possible in a museum or gallery setting.”'

'the term “community” is associated with disenfranchised social groups that have been systematically excluded from the political and cultural processes that affect, if not determine, their lives. It defines coalitions of people seeking to counter such processes of exclusion and repression by collectively demanding equal rights, greater social recognition, economic support, and political power'

study task 2 - book: Inside the White Cube

I decided to get some books out of the library that I thought would be relevant to my quote and read some of them during our COP week starting with 'inside the white cube'

I've read this book to find more information and understanding about the idea that the rich and powerful control art in the sense they control galleries and it gave me some amazing ideas and insights into the gallery space.

'a white, ideal space that, more than any single picture, may be the archetypal image of twentieth century art; it clarifies itself through a process of historical inevitability usually attached to the art it contains.'

' This gives the space a presence possessed by other spaces where conventions are preserved through the repetition of a closed system of values. Some of the sanctity of the church, the formality of the courtroom, the mystique of the experimental laboratory joins with chic design to produce a unique chamber of esthetics. So powerful are the perceptual fields of force within this chamber that, once outside it, art can lapse into secular status. Conversely, things become art'

'the gallery itself becomes, like the picture plane, a transforming force. At this I point, as Minimalism demonstrated, art can be literalized and 1 detransformed; the gallery will make it art anyway.'

'At its most serious, the artist/audience relation can be seen as the testing of the social order by radical propositions and as the successful absorption of these propositions by the support system -galleries, museums, collectors, even magazines and house critics -evolved to barter success for ideological anesthesia. The main medium of this absorption is style, a stabilizing social construct if ever there was one. Style in art, whatever its miraculous, self-defining nature, is the equivalent of etiquette in society. It is a consistent grace that establishes a sense of place and is thus essential to the social order.'

' Each art licensed a premises where it conformed to and sometimes tested the social structure- concert hall, theater gallery.... Such places are, then, metaphors for consciousness and revolution.'

'For many of us, the gallery space still gives off negative vibrations when we · wander in. Esthetics are turned into a kind of social elitism -the gallery space is exclusive. Isolated in plots of space, what is on display looks a bit like valuable scarce goods, jewellery, or silver: esthetics are turned into commerce - the gallery space is expensive. What it contains is, without initiation, well-nigh incomprehensible-art is difficult. Exclusive audience, rare objects difficult to comprehend -here we have a soda!. financial. and intellectual snobbery wh1ch models our system of limited production, our modes of assigning value, our social habits at large. Never was a space, designed to accommodate the prejudices and enhance the self-image of the upper middle classes, so efficiently codified.'

'Was the white cube nurtured by an internal logic similar to that of its art? Was its obsession with enclosure an organic response, encysting art that would not otherwise survive? Was it an economic construct formed by capitalist models of scarcity and demand?'

'Is the artist who accepts the gallery space conforming with the social order? '

'Museums and galleries are in the paradoxical position of editing the products that extend consciousness, and so contribute, in a liberal way, to the necessary anesthesia of the masses- which goes under the guise of entertainment'


interesting side point: Tate galleries were built on slavery (Tate and Lyle sugar plantations)

Print culture and distribution part 2

• theres been a return to mechanical methods of production in the modern age, its getting taught now whereas in art school in the 90s it was all digital focus
• why do people maintain an interest in these methods of production when there are easier quicker more reliable methods of production available
• in a world where so much happens through computer screens, touching the raw materials, engaging all the senses can be a soothing release.
• people are discovering that doing things more slowly often means doing them better and enjoying them more. It means living life instead of rushing through it.
• our obsession with speed, with cramming more and more into every minute means that we race through life instead of actually living it.
• slow design - about focusing not on the product itself, not on the output but how your practice relates to the rest of the world. its stopped being fast but is about thinking about the consequences of you actions. It proposes a way of life completely different to the culture of capitalism and you could read contemporary print culture in these terms.
• it adds human and social value to creative practice
• Nicolas Bourriaud 1998 - theres a tendency in contemporary art practice to move away from creating things symbolising a particular word view to artwork that is about forming human relationships which he calls relational art. its about creating a participatory world, based on equality, networking, sharing, participation.
• how many places are there where you can hang out with your friends without having to buy something? even relationships are being comodified.
• Barbara Kruger - I shop therefore I am
• the Glastonbury free press - political newspaper, authored and designed by the people for the people. people come up talk to nick and they include it in the newspaper and teach people how to type set and
• how to print. It's all free. its a relational piece its about cooperation. relational design.
• post print culture? new technologies could create the possibilities for mass sharing of knowledge
• a return to handmade production could be argued to be a re introduction of the idea of 'aura' doing small print runs adds an auratic value and allows you to sell things for much more money.
• what is wrong with creating a world where anyone can be an artist an illustrator a designer, if were angry at the idea of that then are we all still elitist?
• perhaps were in an era now where we've moved beyond print culture again and new understanding and innovation is to be found in  digital print.
• mongrel - hack of the Tate website
  
  
• digital culture kills aura my taking art out of the galleries and delivering it to our homes
• the Tate family were one of the biggest slave owners, their wealth and status is written in blood and oppression
• 
  

Print culture and distribution lecture

print culture and distribution part 1

'late age of print' term comes from theorist Marshall McLuhan beginning around 1540 with the Gutenberg press, taking the ownership of knowledge from the few and to the many. Kick starts the enlightenment, the dawn of a new civilisation.

somerset house - the sight of the first art school in the country opened in 1780, aristocratic institution, the arts at this point are really for the ruling class. art schools at this time taught the beavx arts. only men were allowed to go to these art schools and only men allowed to be life models. that was the function of art in pre modern society when people had fixed class identities

in the industrial revolution (1780-1832) production becomes mechanised, people start taking shift labour, the cities and new technologies boom. the whole nature of our society is changed, for the first time a very clear and noticeable distinction between the classes - the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the workers and the owners of the means of production. for the first time in British history you get a kind of sense of your place in the world and a sense of what your class is about. because of this segregation the working classes start to commune together and create new forms of popular entertainment like the music hall and forms of art, creating their own organic culture.  it gets sneered at by the rich as low art. it doesn't just revolve around music and imagery but around an identity struggle, things like chartism starting to evolve and the working class demanding for the vote

John Martin (1820) Belshazzar's feast - rather than work for a king or a queen, John Martin put this painting on sale in a commercial exhibition and said people could pay a small amount to come and see it, this was unheard of at the time. Because of the new technologies of production and engraving he sells engravings of it and sells hundreds.

for the first time you can just be your own entrepreneurial artist, you can make money by reprinting and distributing art. People make careers as etchers and reprductionists. you get the birth of  a culture where art isn't just kept in a gallery but its everywhere, recycled by print culture.

Matthew Arnold - culture and anarchy, culture is a study of perfection, culture is about ministering the diseased spirit of our time. anarchy is a synonym for the working class rising up, thinking for themselves, demanding to vote.

you get a snobbishness emerging saying that working class culture isn't acceptable, political prejudices against the working class start to arise, they claim they're batting for the side of culture against commercialisation but really they're just trying to preserve the class interests of the working class

what we really need is an elite, an intellectual minority who can set the standard of culture - the minority cant understand

'popular culture offers addictive forms of distraction and compensation' 'this form of compensation...is the very reverse of recreation, in that it tends, not to strengthen and refresh the addict for living, but to increase his unfitness by habituation him to weak evasions, to the refusal to face reality at all' (Leavis and Thompson, 1977:100)

schools of designs start to emerge, government school of design also opened at Somerset house, after the first one opened in London they spread everywhere. They are the fathers/mothers of art schools today. Theres only three left today one of them is us (LCA) we were never actual a school of rt we started as a school of design.

two different cultures, a culture of art and a culture of design

Walter Benjamin - the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction 1936,

fine art has aura = creativity, genius, eternal value, tradition, authority, authenticity, autonomy, distance, mystery.

what happened when people can knock of the Mona Lisa and recycle and re contextualise an image? It threatens that auratic status. Art has a cult value people adapt their behaviour as if they're worshipping something it mirrors the way the upper class try to make the working class admire and bow down to them.

the battle is still being fought today between the art of the people and the art of the 'eleite'

in neoclassical architecture you often have to go up steps to access a place, its deliberate its to make you feel inferior, you are on a level below what you are about to see, you have to ascend. Art galleries constantly employ this tactic

Philip James de Loutherbourg - came up with the eidophusikon exhibition in Leicester square and charged people exhibition fees. It was a dark room and you look through a glass window, behind this are moving images being moved with string with actors behind the screen moving about in the set. Its like the first moving image piece of work, people loose their minds about this its a sensation

the panorama - set up in regents park, people started showing these panoramas created by taking photos of the city scape and putting it in the roof of this rounded building

new ways of making art are totally changing art and what art is and destabilising it. you get the popular illustrated press, newspapers being able to use images in their publications and publication developed that are led by the images not the text. Often magnificent etches, pieces of at that come to you in our living room, you don't even need to go to galleries anymore.

with the invention of photography there was no need for portrait paintings anymore, its more realistic and massively cheaper, now anyone can have a portrait not just rich people.

the name for this period is print capitalism, you get a glut f images made for profit, these markets overtake traditional fine art markets, they make a lot more money. the myth that artists are somehow outside of capitalism certaintly comes from here, from this period.

print capitalism replaces culture with popular culture, for good or for bad. Whats good about it is its not answering to any elite force. the elitists HATE it because its 'mindless' and its 'cheap'

William Morris is regarded universally now as middle class, but he emerged from this moment of print capitalism, his position is from a position of romantic anti capitalism. what he was trying to do is produce really complex and interesting craft design and mechanical design the equivalent of fine art practice and fight against the reduction of a craft worker to just a were labourer. he was actual a radical revolutionary, it wasn't just about raising the status f the crafts and the popular art, he wanted a level culture he wanted to overthrow capitalism and welcome in socialism. his work focuses on nature so much because they strive for an ideal of human and the world and nature that's beyond the grip of capitalism. He opened an idependent craft studio, a collective studio that wasn't just run by him but all the labour was shared out equally, a combined effort not an owner and a worker. sadly they could never compete with these massive factories spitting out shoddy goods and paying shoddy wages. William Morris wanted an alternative to mass production within print culture.

the making of the English working class - E P Thompson

typography lecture - part 2

Type - production and distribution

• Bauhaus started to feed through all areas of practice, textiles, jewellery. New ideas emerged about the connections between form and function
• the idea emerged that form follows function as opposed to the decorative. Key principle of modern design
• reductionist view, less is more. On the left here is a Bauhaus fashion piece and bowie on the right shows the influence they had on mass culture
• focused on the clarity with which something can communicate an idea - this is counterpoint to any argument  we have as designers
• the first time graphic design/illustration was applied as a promotional tool
• first time the industrial age had a visual language
• commerce started to drive design, birth of modern graphic design
• 1933 - Hitler shut down Bauhaus because they had too many ideas
• 1957 - Max Miedinger, created helvetica. The epitome of the modernist idea of type. designed for mass production, mass communication, focusing on the function of type. So simple it can be interpreted by the viewer it doesn't have to offer its own narrow interpretation. The most dynamic type face ever created,
• Arial was released exactly 25 years later after Helvetica by Microsoft. 25 years is the amount of time before a type face goes into the public domain, you still cant copy it but Microsoft did the bare minimum to change it into Arial so they wouldn't have to pay for helvetica.
• post modernism = anything goes, anything can be a type face, language is fluid and in a state of flux.
• 1977 - Jamie Reid created the visual culture that surrounded punk, anti graphics, the reinvention of type, a completely destructive approach to modernism
• however punk didn't just appear it was evolutionary it ha its influences in, John Heartfeild (30s) Hannah Hoch (20s)
• the language of protest started to arrive, social critique within a fine art context
• 1992 - David Carson, Ray Gun often described as post modernistic but he was actually redefining a modernist view of typography, still about communication, about appealing to an audience
• 1990 - Steve Jobs, the first apple mac made available for under $1000, creatives could now own their own computers. also the first computer to have a mouse. First small computer that designers could have in their own personal studios, it freed up the individual to create type faces. First time we had digital type design and development, the computer became a design tool.
• 1994 - Vincent Connare, created comic sans. Nothing more needs to be said..
• 1990 - Tim Berners Lee created the world wide wed and gave it to the world for free!
• 1995 - Bill Gates introduced the first globally accepted browser, Internet explorer. He restricted the web into a series of rules and templates using only 6 fonts which included arial and comic sans.
• today even SMS text messaging is dropping off because we use twitter, instagram, facebook. We have started to replace letters words and ideas with emojis. It is a global language
• we have almost gone full circle back to the first hieroglyphics 
• so what is our role today as the designers of the future? its not just about making a type face or designing a page. The role of visual culture is not about can or cant but should?

typography lecture

the history of type

• All that is necessary for any language to exist is an agreement amongst a group of people that one thing will stand for another
• language is negotiated. The sender and receiver both must understand
• type is what language looks like
• typography is the art and technique of printing movable type, the composition of printed material from movable type, the arrangement and appearance of printed matter, the craft of expressing human language with durable visual form
• the written word endures, the spoken word disappears. Type has charted and documented changes in culture over 1000's of years
• 7000 years BC, hieroglyphics - one of the earliest physical representations of language 
• type was very much driven by trade, it was a form of receipt and of a record of what had been bought, it was a lot later that descriptive language began to arise. There was no glyph for rain, only water because you cant trade rain.
• 3200 BC - Mesopotamia, middle east to the Syrian gulf occidental view point, western hemisphere
• Arabic, Syriac, Hebrew, all different alphabets, they needed to develop a common language of trade = cuneiform system which is the basis of occidental language
• the Rosetta stone, discovered 1799 - the point at which we started to recognise distinct root origins of language. It represents three languages Egyptian, demotic and Greek. Our first example of the idea of translation
• Greek alphabet was adapted from the Phoenician alphabet into what we recognise today, Greek is our closest neighbour alphabet wise
• 
• tools also effected how alphabets looked, rush based alphabets and ink are much more smooth and cursive than the Arabic strand of language 
• Lindisfarne bible = the last significant cultural document produced using bone, the production method effected the quality of line and type
• Gutenberg 1450, produced the first movable printing press in the west approximately 1436, they had already been doing it for 600 years in china. Through travel and trade routes the technology was brought to Europe. From then on it became a physical thing and typefaces started to emerge
• 1540 garamond, 1722 caslon, 1757 baskerville
• William Foster 1870 - elementary education act, compulsary to be taught how to read which pretty much gave typography its job. We then had to shift to mass production, invention of type writers, more developed printing presses
• 1919 Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus 1919-1933, the coming together of industrialisation and design, drawing together pre-industrial European craft and the development of industrial technology. Design as a discipline being informed by new mass manufacture, this is when type design and typography was born.

study task 3 - image analysis

In today's COP session we had our first go an analysing images to support the quote we had chosen, we paired up and discussed the 20 images we'd each collected. Me and Alice both had the same quote but we'd collected very different pictures and had both come at it from a different angle which was really interesting. We decided to pick two of each of our pictures and annotate them in a mind map format. Discussing with Alice and creating the mind maps was really interesting and helpful and it gave me done great new themes and ideas such as the concept of land art as an anti communism anti establishment movement and a good counter argument to my quote.

Study task 1 - research sources

Finding research sources

Jstor has a really helpful and indepth advanced search option which helps you narrow down everything to subject area. It also highlights your searched term throughout the documents like google books. However I didn't find it great with a time limit as theres so much content it can be hard to find whats really relevant.

The library took the most time in terms of finding relevant texts, even searching books on the library computers then having to locate them took a while which isn't good if you have limited time. What is good about tthe library is that all the texts there are proffesional published texts from reliable authours which increases the validity of the information gathered and means I'm more likely to be reading informed and well judged opinions.

 Google books was very helpful for scanning a document as you can enter a key phrase such as 'public good' and it highlights this phrase throughout the book which means you dont have to skim or read the entire document and saves on time. I found it was a bit like the library but quicker and easier.

Google Scholar didn't really appeal to me as a resourse, I found it hard to find any text in laymans terms and everything I found was too complex or academic to be helpful for me, I think I just need to spend more time looking at things

Websites were the best research tool for finding answers to very specific queries or questions compared to all the other resources and it's much more fast which much less time having to filter through whats relevant to me. The main problem with websites is the question of validity, anyone can say pretty much anything on the internet so it's good to cross reference or be careful what sources you're using. Also more in depth discussions on your topic such as whole essays are very rarely found on websites, other online resources were better for deeper discussions of themes.

the best research I collected

• I found a very promising book on Jstor called, with this already interesting and helpful quote; 'political art signifies a capacity to shape well the practice of power in a collectivity. Words are its primary tools; deeds are its direct objects; the common good is its ultimate aim. Exercising the political art transforms discourse into action that would benefit a political community.' I'm definately going to look into this book futher as it seems like it has interesting and developed themes and is also very relvant to my quote and the idea of the 'public good'
• where is culture created - a really short and interesting discussion on the origins and structures of culture, also helpful as it references other sources I could look into.
  
  
  

lecture 2: 2000 year non-linear history of the image

Todays lecture was one of the most interesting lectures I've ever listened to and I seriously enjoyed it. Our lecture was great because he was so passionate and interested in the themes he was talking about, theyre also things I'm really interested in and have a lot of opinions about. I've tried to summarise the lecture and take out non important aspects but that was pretty hard! I've typed up the main points and ideas we were introduced to today in my own words along with some of my own thoughts and opinions mixed in throughout, I think I just think and write better this way instead of splitting things up.

• History is not necessarily linear, one event does not cause one more then one more then one more, it is more tangental and complex than that
• the power of the image is a primal mystical power
• Pre historic cave drawings - no one really understands what they're about (as they're pre history) there is only speculation on their meaning. The best or most interesting theories are that they're attempts to communicate with a higher power, they hold magic and mysticism. they're spectral images attempting to achieve something powerful magical with.
• Cy Twombly - a similar concept, his work is not just created by chucking paint at a canvas, its actually something more spiritual and primal than that, theres more energy and meaning in them.
• Richard Long red earth circle - aboriginal sand painting to try and prove the point that theres similarities between ancient aboriginal art and western conceptual artists, theres a continuity, something core that relates to us all as people. Very controversial piece, criticised for cultural appropriation and cultural imperialism. third world being roped into the western worlds endgame story.
• Rothko Chapel Texas - If you look into a Rothko painting its like looking into the abyss, the paintings are dark maroon painted on black mixed with a wax so that theres no reflection. they are described as a spiritual and emotional experience. Rothko actually killed himself, the idea is that when you look at his work you feel his tragedy as well. He was interestingly commissioned for the 4 seasons restaurant in new york but felt so guilty (anti capitalist) that he said he wanted everyone who looked at the paintings to feel physically sick, naturally when they found this out they didn't take his commission, the paintings are now hanging in the Rothko room in Texas. In the room these paintings are now displayed its 2 degrees colder and it is the only room in the gallery that's not white but is a pale shade of grey, apparently people actually sit in front of these paintings and cry. Is that a genuine response? Is there something in visual communication that hooks our soul or is it just in the institutional framing and authority of the art which causes this? Anything in a prestigious gallery automatically seems more important than it actually is or what it was before it was curated in such a way. Certain galleries and University's actually make things important. Are you crying at the Rothko because its a genuine human response or because that is how your expected to feel?
  
• similarities exist between churches and galleries, you go to them, they do not come to you, its like a pilgrimage where you bow down to the alter of culture. This tells you something about institutions and their power over us.
• louvre - interestingly the Louvre is actually a palace turned gallery. The Mona Lisa is kept there behind bulletproof glass, the room is always full of tourists and theres sign posts around the whole gallery to the Mona Lisa like its the only thing of importance. It already sounds like a religious experience; worship at the alter of the Mona Lisa! It's not really a very fulfilling experience (how can it be surrounded by so many smart phones) your not moved emotionally. No one really knows why its the most famous painting in the world, the price alone gives it half its intrigue, decide a painting is worth millions of dollars and it becomes culturally valuable it seems. The Mona Lisa certainly isn't famous because everyone who sees it is bowled over by its majesty. I went to see it years ago in Paris and to be honest its shit. Da Vinchi is so much more than that one painting. Is this painting meaningful because of its essential characteristics or is it because its behind a bullet proof piece of glass.
  
• Duchamp 1919 LHOOQ - if you say the name of this piece fast it sounds like 'she's got a hot ass' in french. Duchamp's piece was about attacking the institutional authority of art and the 'taste makers'
  
• This leads us to the bigger question, do people actually have a meaningful relationship with visual communication or is it institutionally led?
• 'exit through the gift shop' has this capitalist culture of souvenirs added to the magic and culture of it or does it degrade its authority. Is a masterpiece less important now its on your umbrella or does the reproduction of image make art more accessible and increase its potential?
• Theres a strong relationship between money, authority and culture. The art world decide Banksy is worth attention and people start knocking down buildings to put walls into galleries, they're trying to sell something that was created for free. Once graffiti is in a gallery it's not graffiti anymore your missing the point trying to control culture like that.
• Jackson Pollock, Hans Namuth film - back to this idea of the actual existence of spiritualism and meaning in art, Pollock paints to jazz music, almost in this shamanistic trance like state. It's like an existential record of the self 'the soul just vomited out on the canvas' (a great quote from today's lecturer...) its not just drips on a page.
• OR IS IT
• Roy Lichtenstein Red Paint - we live in a superficial age, made of mass culture, art can't move you in the way your claiming.
• Warhol - Pollock style painting just walking all over a canvas, taking the piss out of abstract impressionism.
• Stalin in Russia actually banned radical modern art in the 50s which I never knew and find extremely interesting. The only style you were aloud to paint in was socialist realism. Vladi Mirshi 'roses for Stalin' They banned avant garde modern art because it was 'elitist' and pretentious, no one understands modern art its an exercise in elitism. If people don't understand it we'll ban it, instead we should all paint in socialist realism, its not an art of oppression its an art of the everyman. however this limits freedom pf expression, you cant dictate whats meaningful to people and what is not. Plus half of these socialist realist pieces at the time were blatant propaganda and most of them pretty creepy..
  
• What you wont hear in most of the art history books (but on the very good authority of our wonderful lecturer) the CIA were funding Jackson Pollock to oppose the soviets through the means of art. The goverment use abstract impressionism as a 'cultural weapon' and a form of unrecognisable propaganda. Did Pollock represent a new era of freedom of expression and artistic enlightenment or were we sold another goverment lie?
• Alberto Korda Guerrillero Herocia - the image of revolution, its been reapropriated and its meaning changed. the image has almost lost meaning because of its recycled nature, its just become pop culture, posters on bedroom walls it doesn't represent Cuba or socialism anymore. until today I didn't even know that the image was in anyway connected to Cuba.
  
• Politicians are also always photographed 3/4 to show they're thinking of the future. 
• Shepard Fairey - a graffiti artist employed by the Obama campaign, he created the famous hope poster, he was positive about Obama and what he could do as the first black president which in his opinion turned out to be anti climactic as America continued American imperialism, bombing the middle east just more of the same. He recently created this second poster reevaluating his opinions, the Guy Fawkes mask has become an image of revolution.
  
  
• digital memes/ the image as a political weapon - a good example of this is Gillrays 'little boney in a strong fit' Napoleon actually said his downfall was because of Gillray. Steve Bell has been hailed as the modern day Gillray
  
  
• Disney cartoons were also used as political weapons, the CIA commissioned them to fight the Germans and the Nazis through image during WW2. Society recognises the power of the image, we can see that clearly just by looking at the history of propaganda.
• guerrilla girls - less that 5% of the artists in art galleries are women but 85% of the nudes are female. The guerilla girls actually paid for huge advertising spaces outside galleries to plaster up their work. As artists i have a lot of respect for what they're trying to say and I think there message is still relevant now.
• art as a weapon - in 1968 there was revolutionary unrest in France with the beginnings of a new existential philosophy and the idea of free love. Students were the revolution, a group of art students in France kicked out the professors from their school, took the means of production and turned the print rooms into a production factory to further their revolution. they were young people crying out that another world is possible
• Places can be branded, citys are now trying to sell themselves through image rather than reality.
• Jean Jullience, peace for Paris - this symbol became the unofficial symbol for paris' solidarity after the attacks recently. It was a quick automatic moment of expression which i think is why it meant more, why it was more moving than a planned detailed drawing. Its similar to Enso Kanjuro Shibata, the artist spends their life trying to figure out how to draw the perfect circle in one act.
  
• Nick Ut 1972 Napalm attack - this photograph shows the power of visual communication, after this the support for the Vietnam war coming from the public dwindled and we had to draw out.
  
• Gainsborough Mr and Ms Andrews - it isn't a beautiful study of landscape and culture its a painting commissioned by a couple of posh aristocrats to boast and show everyone how much land they have and how rich they are.
• Throughout this lecture we explored both sides of the argument of the power images hold. Is the importance of a masterpiece institutionally manufactured or is image making about creating something primal, eternal and immortal?

side note;

Plutonium is not supposed to be on this planet - we created it. Nuclear power plants are needed to create plutonium for nuclear bombs and the goverment sells the idea of them to us as a 'green' and environmental act. Something our lecturer felt he had to stop and explain to us, not necessarily related but important none the less