COP 1 Lecture 8 - Digital Production and Distribution

Today's lecture was based around technology and digital production.

We started by talking about how the idea of technology came from using tools and equipment back in the stone age.  We then looked at Marshall McLuhan who died in 1911, way before the digital age. He looked at the progressive development of technology to form the human condition and argued that we must study media and the chronological development of technology.

We also looked at the 'tetrad' and its four different sections based around the medium - enhances, reverses, retrieves and obsolesces. We talked about the effect technology has on these four elements.
In 1990, the globalisation of digital production began when the first Mac was made affordable for the public. This enhanced individual experience and productivity. It retrieved individual creativity - things were no longer about factory and machine production, people were able to design their own things. It reversed speed, capacity, memory and access due to the software used and it obsoleted traditional and hand-crafted production techniques such as letter press etc.

We talked about The New Aesthetic - the increasing appearance of visual language and the blending of the virtual and physical.
We then looked at The Digital Aesthetic. This was based around the idea of creating other realms and environments, surreal characters and animation and the age of digital clocks.  We looked at Paddington Bear and how that character has transformed with the times. When it was first created, Paddington was a physical puppet, but it is now a completely digital character. This creates a sense of nostalgia vs innovation.

Film impacts on how we think about the physical world. The heads-up display used in the Iron Man film is a representation of an imaginary and visionary world. Technology has an impact on how we imagine the world to be. The Bluetooth headset idea originated from a headset used in a Star Trek film, similarly to the flip phone. In the early 1990s Star Trek, the idea of the digital age included old school machinery and big buttons, whereas the more recent films feature touchscreens and software interfaces etc.

We talked about digital and analog clocks. Digital clocks have connotations of precision, technology and accuracy. Comparatively, analog clocks are a lot more visual and cognitive. It has been proven that an analog clock is easier to read as it requires less maths. An analog clock functions like a map and shows a cyclical process - time moves and travels within its own map. In cars, analog dials are still used due to how we process information. An analog dial changes the gestalt of the image, wheres in a digital image there is just a number change.

We then looked at The Mechanical Aesthetic and how robots were originally similar to analog styles with a nostalgic mechanical view - for example the film Metropolis, which has a very industrial look.
Nowadays, the development of technology has led to the demonization of robots. The old CP30 robot is now represented by the ultimate service robot iRobot, which demonstrates a recurring archetype of the 'iCulure' where everything follows  white, blue and chrome aesthetic.

We talked about a utopian aesthetic in the idea of the future, in which everything is a perfect state of being. We then talked about dystopia and how technology leaves us with a bleak outlook and future.

People are now going back to using vinyl records instead of CDS, which demonstrates nostalgia and shows we have almost come full circle. We tend to trust an analog aesthetic more than we trust an 'iCloud'. We like a physical engagement so we know things are real.

We finished off by looking at the Information Age, in which there is a shift from traditional industry to an economy based on computerized methods. Do we need to re-engage with the physical? Is this why we still visit art galleries, buy books and go to the cinema? Do we find these things more trustworthy than a digital interface?

COP 1 Lecture 7 - Print Culture & Distribution - Part 2

Today's lecture was a follow on from last week's lecture about print culture.

We picked up where we left off by talking about how digital techniques are replacing handmade traditional ways of print. iPads can now do things such as replicate brush strokes, so there is less need for traditional methods. Digital creation means instant gratification - now clients are wanting a quick turnaround, for a quick profit.

There is a movement which is based around the rebellion against dehumanising culture and is in praise of slow creation. This idea originally came from a man called Carl Honoré, The slower the design, the more the quality is increased. This led to the slow food movement, which is against fast food and quick production and more for slow cooking and food production. There is also fast fashion in today's world - clothing that is traded in large volumes with copied styles from catwalk design.
Slow design is about being individual, environmental and sociocultural.

In 2011, Anthony Burrill created a set of posters that he put up in a popular flypostering wall in Lisbon. This commented on publicity and society issues that are highlighted by this mass print culture.

The Print Project is a movement that consists of workshops that teach people the process of traditional print. This is nostalgic and explores the way that traditional print can take on the digital age, which is a way of stopping traditional techniques being lost in history.

Similarly, The Pink Milkfloat is a project in which a man tours around in an old milkfloat and shares letterpress printing techniques with members of the public, giving them a chance to learn how to create and produce their own handmade prints.

We talked about how social relationships are now commodified, and how everything is now about a transaction i.e going for a coffee with a friend. We looked at a 1991 art piece based around this idea, Untitled (placebo) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. We also talked about Barbara Kruger's work about consumerism being used for the Christmas Selfridges campaign in 2007.

COP 1 Lecture 6 - Print Culture & Distribution - Part 1

Today our lecture was based around print culture and how it came about.

We covered four topics:
 - Mass image culture
- Culture vs popular culture
- Aura and politics of print
- Contemporary print culture

We started by talking about Somerset House, the first art school in the country, established around 1780. The topics of study were painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry. These were fine/high arts and only men were allowed at art schools. Something that evidences this is the fact that paintings around this period tended to be portraits of famous men, glamorising them.
In between 1780 and 1832, there were very prominent fixed class indentities, and the industrial revolution took placed in 1760 - 1840. During this time, new technologies were developed and so began mass production. The industry rapidly expanded and because of this, new forms of art were created.Culture was no longer set by the upper class, but created by the working class. There were political movements, one of which being the working class demanding the vote.

In 1820, emerging artist John Martin painted Belshazzar's Feast. He was not part of the upper class, so to 'get his name out there', he reproduced his paintings via etchings and sold them for money. This meant that the working class were able to make careers for themselves and there was no longer a need for the upper class. From this emerged reproducers and a secondary market - a culture where art was no longer kept in galleries and instead around us, everywhere.

This led to a huge backlash from writers such as Matthew Arnold in 1867 who wrote Culture and Anarchy. This book was based around the idea that culture is pure, eternal, perfect, it has no agenda. He was unnerved by the idea of the working class 'rising up'. This was similar to the view of F.R. Leavis, who had a repressed, common sense attitude to popular culture. There was a nostalgia for an era lost, and disdain at the addiction to popular culture.

Art schools suddenly started to become schools of design instead, and the spread to everywhere in the country. There was political divide between two different cultures - the culture of art, and the culture of design. Around 1936, Walter Benjamin shared his views on art - as if it's something other than what it is, something eternal, something mystical. He believed that the technological reproduction of art removed the aura of art - the creativity, genius, tradition, authority and authenticity.

People began re-contextualising art, such as recycling the Mona Lisa and printing the portrait on t-shirts, plates and other products. People believed that this threatened the auriatic state of the original art and almost 'removed the specialness'. When taken out of the gallery, art no longer had the same value.

The culture of design was an attack on traditional culture, it was the art of the people vs the art of the elite. In 1781, the Eidophusikon was created and became the first sense of a moving image. Traditional artists did not like this as new technological art was now doing something better than normal art. Similarly, in the 1840s photography was developed, and there was no longer a need for portrait painters anymore. Photography was cheaper and quicker and meant that the working class now had the option of having their own portrait done.

We also looked at the idea of 'Print Capitalism' and how artists outside of capitalism are creating art for reasons other than a paycheck. Print replaces art with a 'new form of art', which is something elitists hate as they believe it is mindless and cheap.

William Morris was the motivation for making screen-prints, and he was a romantic anti-capitalist. He was part of 'The Lesser Arts' in 1877. This was part of the mechanical vs intellectual culture, and Morris wanted to make craft design equal to fine art.

People began a radical revolution in which they were trying to raise the stakes, level culture and overthrow capitalism. This was very political and was born out of the struggle for equality.

We then briefly touched on the idea of contemporary print culture and how we are moving back away from digital design to more traditional, handcrafted techniques. We will be talking more about this in next week's lecture.

COP 1 Lecture 5 - The History of Type - Production and Distribution - Part 2

Today's lecture was a continuation of last week's topic, the history of type.

We discussed how the Bauhaus movement revolutionised type design due to the change in production methods and the fact that practitioners from different disciplines had begun working alongside each other rather than separately. The idea that 'form follows function' became the main focus as commerce started to drive design. This led to the real 'birth' of graphic design.

We also looked at pre-modern, modern, and post-modern design.

-Pre-modern design was based around the idea that 'God put it there', therefore that's the way its meant to be

-Modern design was about moving onwards and upwards with inevitable progress - it is very linear, with one thing coming after another

-Post-modern design was about complexity and contradiction, being non-conformist and non-modernist

We talked about Max Meidinger creating Helvetica in 1957, which is the epitomy of the modernist idea of type.The focus around that time was mass communication and mass deliveration, and Helvetica was an accessible, neutral type that could be used for many purposes.
We also learnt that Helvetica was stolen by Microsoft and turned into Arial 25 years later.

Steve Jobs created the first Macintosh computer available under $1000 in 1990, meaning creatives could now have their own computer for designing purposes. This allowed the individual to create a typeface, turning the computer into a design tool. This was a major step forward in digital type design and development as type became a focal point and something everyone could use.

Also in 1990, Tim Berners-Lee invented the internet. He gave this to the world for free without taking a penny in return. This was introduced globally, and helped create a culture of email and websites - meaning there was no demand for book publishers and hand produced type.

In 1994 Vincent Connare created Comic Sans, a sans serif casual script typeface. Connare worked for Microsoft, and in 1995 Bill Gates created Internet Explorer for Microsoft, which was the first globally adopted browser. Templates and rules were imposed and only 8 fonts were available to use - including Arial and Comic Sans. Due to this internet, people began making less phone calls and emailing instead. People stopped speaking and began typing and the spoken word started to decline.
We also looked at how emojis are increasing in popularity, where we are replacing words with images as a global language. This demonstrates how we are almost reverting back to using symbols to communicate ideas.

Post-modernism was heavily influence by artists such as Jamie Reid in 1977, who created the visual culture surrounding punk and the Sex Pistols. This style was about reusing type, ripping it up and starting again, not using the grid. This was an integrated way of looking at culture around commerce, the language of protest and politicisation of communication.

Barbara Kruger uses type in a clear way that delivers a message effectively, and this shows type moving into the fine art gallery system. This is similar to David Carson's work that has an aesthetic drive to change what type is.

This lecture has helped me gain a full and better understanding of type and its origins, which will definitely help inform my design decisions in the future.

COP 1 Lecture 4 - The History of Type - Production and Distribution - Part 1

Today's lecture was based around the idea that language is an agreement between people that one thing will stand for another. This means that language is negotiable - and type is what language looks like, a visualisation of language.

We started by looking at how typography is the art and technique of printing work, the composition of printed material from movable type and the arrangement and appearance of printed matter. Type is important because the written word endures, whereas the spoken word disappears.

In 7,000 BC the first ever example of type was recorded, and this was driven by trade - it was used almost as a receipt as an acknowledgement of commerce.

We also looked at things such as the Ancient Hebrew Alphabet and Sino Tibetan, which were crucial parts of the development of language. We talked about the Occidental and the Oriental hemispheres, the Western and Eastern hemispheres. Cuneiform came from the Western hemisphere and was the basis of the occidental alphabet.

The Rosetta Stone from 196 BC was the first recording of language as a common thing - there are three different languages recorded for the same thing - Egyptian, Demotic and Greek. This demonstrated an agreement amongst cultures that one thing stood for another.

We also looked at how words that are completely jumbled up can still be read and interpreted - this is because our brain reads words as a whole rather than single letters, so as long as the first and last letters are in the right place, we are able to interpret the word correctly. This shows that we can bend, break and change letters and they still make sense.

There is a range of different processes by which type is produced, from chiselling out of stone using tools used to make marks into materials, to brush based ink on papyrus paper. Different techniques make type appear in different ways, but this is always still legible and intelligible.

In 1450 Johannes Gutenberg began creating the first printing press, which meant 10 pages could be produced at the same time whilst looking the exact same. This revolutionized type and made it more accessible - which in turn lead to the Elementary Education Act in 1870 by William Foster, who made it compulsory for children aged 5-12 to learn to read in schools.

After the first World War, there became a need for mass production to help revive and rebuild society. This led to the Bauhaus movement, started in 1919 by Walter Gropius. This meant drawing arts and crafts together with industrialism and mass manufacture took place over handmade crafts.
There was new ways that type could be produced, and this is when typography was really first born.

To summarise this lecture, we talked about how type is a communication method, and we are able to navigate our lives using words.

COP 1 - Triangulation and Referencing Task

Today we have had another group session with Simon, this time focused around referencing and triangulation.

We were given a sheet with a grid on to fill in to help us with citing our sources and recording any information we are using. This including noting down the author and year of publish, the main key points and any additional comments to add for each section.

I personally found this grid really useful as it helped me get my head around referencing more and broke it down into manageable chunks. So far I have reference On Brand by Wally Olins as I have been reading this book and noted down lots of different view points that Olins has on consumer culture.

My next move is to read more texts and reference these in similar ways so that I am able to compare and contrast a variety of opinions within my essay.

COP1 Lecture 3 - A 20,000 Year Non-Linear History of the Image

 This lecture was based around looking at how image and visual communication has evolved over time.

We began by looking at the cave drawings in Lascaux Caves in France. These drawings are the earliest example of image making and they are done in a very spiritual, primal way.
There is an element of magic and mysticism, making the images very spectral and powerful.
This kind of image from 20,000 BC can be linked in with modern day work, such as Cy Twombly's Lepanto, 2001. Again, he has created these images in a very powerful emotive and spiritual way, and this connects to the cave drawings in an energetic way.
We also looked at how Richard Long's 1989 Red Earth Circle proves a point of similarities between modern and aboriginal art, there is a continuity.

We looked at how Rothko's paintings from 1971 are based around looking into the abyss as they suck light in, with no reflection. This again represents a spiritual experience, similar to ones we experience in places such as old churches like Papal Alter & Frescoes, 1230. In both senses we gather to worship infront of an altar or culture. The behaviour in galleries is very similar to the behaviour in churches.
This is demonstrated with pieces such as the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, Paris. People visit the gallery to almost worship the painting, which shows the power of image making. It has glamour and importance.

But why is this art meaningful? Just because people are queueing up to see it? Or because it is behind bullet proof glass?

Creating byproducts of capitalism, such as Mona Lisa mugs, bags and plates does something to the authority of art and greats an aura of greatness and power. Or does it degrade art? In the digital age of photography and film, people are now able to take art, steal it, recycle and reuse it.

We then looked at how the socialist realism painting style was a way of creating art everyone understands, the art of the every man, in response to the Western, kooky, fun art that Russia claimed nobody understood.

We also looked at famous and powerful images, for example Alberto Korda's image of Che Guevara
that became one of the most popular photographs in history. This is similar to Shepard Fairey's Obama 'HOPE' poster, and Nick Ut's Nepalm photograph from 1972.

Overall, the main message from this lecture was that imagery has the power to move us. Image making has a persuasive power that can effect us emotionally and that helps change, adapt and shape the world around us.

COP1 - Research Task

Today we had a short talk from Simon who showed us a few different ways we can approach the research for the first CoP essay. He talked us through using Google Books and Google Scholar, as well as showing us a few websites such as JStor.

We were then told to use the library or internet to begin some research. Using the list of books recommended, I took out four texts from the library:

- Media, Gender & Identity - D Gauntlett

- On Brand - Wally Olins

- A Theory of Shopping - D Miller

- Consumer Culture -

I picked these books based on the fact I would like to do my essay based on the social quotes, looking at capitalism, consumer culture and the world of branding.

I have begun reading On Brand and taking notes to help push the content of my essay forward and develop it further.

I found this two hour research session really useful as it gave me time to really focus on what I would like to include within my writing.

COP1 Lecture 2 - Visual Literacy

This lecture was based around the idea of visual literacy and how we can use this to share message and meaning.

Visual literacy is creating a message or meaning using imagery or type. These messages communicate to an audience and create a level of understanding. It based around the idea that pictures can be read - for example pictograms or symbols.  A section of the lecture was based around toilet signage and how we can determine which toilet is the correct one for our gender by simply interpreting a very basic drawing. The reason we are able to interpret our correct bathroom is due to our highly developed level of visual literacy and language.

We then looked at how a simple cross can mean different things, depending on its context. Along with a divide and subtraction symbol, this cross clearly means multiply. Similarly, extended the lower bit of the cross instantly makes it resemble a religious cross, symbolising Christianity or the church.
Make the cross red, we instantly recognise it as the charity The Red Cross. Make it green, we immediately think of first aid. These simple adaptations change the meaning of the same symbol completely and immediately carry different connotations.

We also looked at how being visually literate requires an awareness of visual syntax and visual semantics. The visual syntax of the image refers to the pictorial structure and visual organisation of elements. These elements include colour, font, weight, layout, composition, etc. We looked at examples of pictures of fried breakfasts to demonstrate this. People were less tempted by the worser pictures of the breakfasts, whereas a picture of a plate containing all the same components was more attractive simply due to the composition of the image.

Visual semantics refers to the way an image fits into a cultural process of communication. These elements include cultural references, religious beliefs, political ideas, individual experience etc.

Semiotics is the study of signs and sign processes. We looked at the Apple logo to demonstrate this. The symbol (logo) is that it represents an actual apple. The sign (identity) is that it is a sign for Apple products. The signifier (brand) means that it signifies quality, innovation, creativity and lifestyle.

I personally found this lecture very interesting and useful as I learnt lots more about the technical terms involved within visual literacy, and this will certainly aid my studies in the future.