Lecture 14: Modernism and Design

Looking at Modernism in the broadest terms of design - anything that isn't art; film making, photography, graphic design. Modernism has a set of unifying characteristics across all practices responding to the effects of modernity and the modern world. Usually an attempt to embrace the modern but sometimes there are critical pieces about modern techniques and technologies, making images responding to the sensations and energies and atmosphere of the modern world. The way in which the modern world allows us to discover ourselves; a fractured sense of self, missing sense of self and ordering the chaos. Sensory overload in the modern world, re-instigating order and structure. Responding to the qualities of the modern onslaught.

Modernism doesn't re-appropriate historic qualities. Modernistic qualities want to make things better, pushing forward and inventing, creating the new. Looking at the ways of making, finding new ways of making, visually communicating, celebrating the things in their very materiality. Modernists embrace the brave new world and all of its trappings; concrete, steel, gadgets, cameras and so on. New paint technologies. What modernists do is celebrate the materials and let them look as they are. Modernist painters don't make pictorial pieces but let something sit on the canvas as it is.

Modernist film making explores the beauty of shutter speed and light effects with a truth to materials. Alfred Steiglitz - In The New York Central Yards (1905). This blew people's minds at the time and they thought the trains as going to come out of the screen! Strange to think of now... Etienne Jules-Marey - Running Man (c. 1880's) explores a sense of self. Form follows function. Modernist design places functionality before aesthetics. You solve a problem with your design and solve it efficiently. That will have a beauty in itself rather than having beauty imploded onto it. Reason and rationality before the romantic. The beauty comes from the elegance of it serving its purpose.

Aesthetics of minimalism. Little fuss going on. In many ways we are still in that now. Modernist practices aim to create a neutral but universal language of culture; utopian, brining the world together, where there is one style of making, one mode of visual communication common across the entirety of the planet. Social project. You get style of making that don't look like they belong to any country; belonging to any. No Roman font or Serif decorations. No baroque decoration. Great exhibitions, expos and culture wars to show off dated at the height of modernity. Not modernist. No truth to materials, not about functionality of items, not international, looking backward to classical culture.

There was a particular style of making in the Bauhaus, where LCA is modelled on the same design, which is modernist -stripping everything down to its basic bare essentials. The essence of their practice can be found in the spoon, knife and fork as we know it today. There is no decoration, it is a polished material but is allowed to look beautiful on its own terms in its own simplicity. What is created here is an aesthetic that doesn't belong to any particular place or time. One of the big criticism of the modernists was others creating work that was stylish, on trend, fashionable... The problem is that fashions come and go. If you design to capture a style in the future the work will look out of fashion and dated. Bauhaus artists and designers wanted to create a style of making that stripped everything down and was essentially timeless. Timelessness... We are buying new versions of this stuff almost 100 years later! "Ornament is a crime" Adolf Loos (1908).

Internationalism is another element of modernism, implementing a language of design that can be recognised and understood on an international basis; successful communication over the aesthetics and prettiness and the successful communication of an idea. Illustration, in turn, should be about inventing and finding new ways of illustrating - not looking back to styles of drawing or painting or making that have been done before. New York is the main example of a modernist city. Mies van der Rohe's Seagram building (1958) was all about maximising space within a small rectangle of ground. Building upwards was the rational solution to have a small area of land. The square is the most efficient way, made completely of glass to let in light. Rational solutions with truth to materials, celebrating new ways of working and producing with reinforced steel and toughened glass, withstanding high winds. They revel in their glass beauty. Born out of logic, rationality and reason it has no historical ties or influences. IT is an international style where principles would spread around the world. All buildings would be the same size, quasi-communist before communism. Great harmonious fusion.  The flip-side to the modernist dream was the Quarry Hill Flats in Leeds (1938 - 1978). Utopia hadn't materialised, it didn't bring about equality and things weren't always clean and shiny and new. It epitomises the failure of modernism and how it didn't work in its revolutionary ambitions.

The achievements of the modernist era are legion as seen through the Bauhaus. New type face to go with it - Future. Reinvented the way art and design was taught, in the spirit of collaboration, reinventing culture and art and design education. It was very interdisciplinary with artists teaching printmakers, photographers and film makers and sharing skills and knowledge.A fusion of diffusion in art, putting high art into everyday life. Not just principles for one-off items but integrated into everyday life; the glasses we drink from, the lights we use to see at night, the chairs and tables we sit at, interior design that decorates our living space. Life becomes a total work of art. Everything contributes to this modernist ideal and it is lived every day.

Tuber Linear steel and technologies were used to ensure function was first as seen with the Wassily Chair. It was consistent with factory line production and easy to make, available to all. Le Corbusier - Ikea are doing mass-priced cheap version of modernist design. Is that a good or bad thing? Ikea, in its essence, is definitely an embodiment of this international aesthetic. Ikea is in most countries, selling all of the same items which people think of as down to their bare essentials, affordable, functional and elegant in their ability to work well. An embodiment of design for the world. Harry Beck's London Underground Map (1933) is another great example of an international style. It is not an accurate map, but a visualisation to make it easy for commuters to understand how the lines work. It was designed for functionality to understand London travel at a glance; not to understand travel speeds or distances. All about communication and legibility. What was created was a universal language that tourists could understand and this was then taken as used in New York, Paris, becoming the standard.

Reinventing a new way of making and channeling this into a brave new world involves banding together, collaborating and making revolutions. There was a cultural expansion following the Russian revolution. Socialist revolution of the workers banding together to set up a socialist country of the USSR. Distribute the wealth, everyone would be happy and fed and that was the dream. There was no ruler to rule but to rule in the interests of the people. You can't have a style of communicating this ideal with an old style - a reinvented sense of communication needs to be created. Russia went from being a backward country to being the most culturally exciting country not he planned. They skipped a stage of development from being a backward country to putting the first man in space. That created a hyper-modernisation to their culture. People look to Western Europe usually but here Russia was, on the map.

Artists created a visual language looking to shapes, colours and structures of the modern industrial world. Looking at synthetic colours, man-made colours, distilling communication down to its simplest forms. The red wedge communicates revolutionary spirit; red symbolising the forgotten or martyred. The sharpe wedge driving through the old order, the vanguard, the progressive force, the energy driving society forwards. The Russians invented their own version of the Eiffel tower, an aesthetic of the modern. Iron girders are just iron girders and the wanted to celebrate that - art for the people. There would be three layers for libraries, lecture theatres, state offices for civil servants,, telecommunications at the top. All driven down by an axis, like the epicentre of the Earth's rotation, that would grind around and around at different speeds. Russia didn't have enough money to make it, however.

There's a fine line between having a culture with a shared vision to a grimly standardised society where no one is individual or unique. Mid to late-twentieth century soviet culture: state propaganda on shelves, the same crumbling houses. This is a sad end to a modernist dream and shows examples of how modernism failed in elements being pushed too far. When walking through modernist cities there is a lack of human and individual. It is an odd side-effect as modernist wanted to humanise people. Dehumanising and standardising. All elements of modernism. Abstract production in terms of painting or communication, pushing art and design as far s it goes, but it takes the human factor our of it. All of these are attempts to do something different.

Cultural imperialism. Times New Roman font, for the Times newspaper, directly from a Roman column. The greatness of Rome is brought to Britain - empire to empire. Nazi's used Fraktur font having connotations now of Germanic peoples, gothic aesthetics, connoting through design. A nationalistic supremacy. Nazi's shut down the Bauhaus; yet another modernist idea quashed by a regime. They were stopping a collaborative world. When looking at concrete shopping centres and cities today, it is easy to forget the equality and dream of people reaching for the impossible; utopia.

Lecture 13: Modernity and Modernism

Exploring the beginning of our modern world. The earliest representations can be found through traditional art forms where people's experience of the modern were through oil paintings. Individual's social experiences of the emergence was captured in these paintings. Modernity suggests the city, urban life and industrialisation. These aspects are at the centre of the experience and the changes to these elements affect how people respond. I am keen to unpick the way in which the modern affected people's ways of thinking, seeing and doing and how the sense of themselves altered. A shift through visual culture can be seen in paintings which record and spot the individual psychology. Things began to become mass reproduced thanks to the rise in industrialisation. Etchings and photography are both products of the modern world and came into prominence at this time.

Modern carries with it a value judgement that to be modern is to be better than old, to modernise is to make something better. It hasn't always been that way, however. Prior to the modern era, to be modern just meant to be 'of your time'. It didn't carry with it connotations of being better or improved. John Ruskin wrote a book titled the Modern Painter's Book and critiqued as to whether new painters were as good as classic ones, debating the ancient and the new. I need to think of modernist as progressive, acceleration and heightened - all interlinking concepts. The Pre-Raphaelites rejected the moder world, at their time, and went back to the Raphael era of renaissance painting. They wanted to reject the horrors of the industrial world and go back to highly decorative, romanticised works. The Pre-Raphaelites and their values were considered modern. They certainly didn't progress though as they turned away from the modern world and went back to a historic vision of society.

Much of the analysis will start in 1900 Paris, which was the epicentre of modernity. It was a quintessential modern city housing great exhibitions, metropolises and examples of modern architecture. This changed in the 50's when New York became the advent of the modern world as we know it today. This timeframe represents a society that moves away from the life of agriculture, farming, relying on sunrise and sunset to map the day - to a society of condensation of life in cities. Mass cities evolved of hundreds and thousands of people in one area - squashed together but not knowing one another. This was a huge contrast to before where people lived in small towns and villages and knew each other and their roles in society - farmer, shop owner, priest, postman. People were now dressing the same, doing the same work and had an alienated sense of existence. Alongside this social alienation was the development of factory labour, mechanisation, an increase in the pace of life. Rapid acceleration of existence living in producetibe powerhouses of cities for life. New inventions and an array of distractions. We were no longer dominated by natural elements like the sunrise but schedules and timetables and production clocking on and off, being quicker and faster and more efficient. This was all to make more profit. Punch: work. Punch: leisure. A pattern emerges because of industrialisation.

World Time comes in during this era as people are now travelling between countries more often. The telephone was developed and prominent in this era so that people could communicate in different cities and countries. We now needed an agreement on standardised time as we move through time zones. People can now control light and work in the evenings, humanity had shifted the rules of nature reinventing the world order as laid down previously. The world suddenly shrinks and becomes more manageable; less chaotic and confusing. We can now get around the world in a few days rather than weeks. The world is moe conquerable and yet more dizzying and confusing. Modernity has its parameters estimated from 1750 to the mid 20th century, with it dying out in the late '50s to mid '60s. We are no longer living in modernity now; we are considered to be in a Postmodern age.

Trottoir Roulant was a powerful walkway at 7km close to the Gallery de Machines. There was a quasi-competitive streak between Paris and London to show off how experimental their city was in comparison to others. London, Paris and New York helped giant citywide expos to showcase all of their products of art and design. There was a process of secularisation where people turned away from religion and God as a way of understanding themselves and their lives - instead turning towards reason like science, technology and rationality. Society becomes more modern, urban and less religios. The city is the nexus of the modern; the epicentre of life where everything and everywhere else is peripheral. In regards to Paris, the development and unveiling of the Eiffel Tower caused a rupture in terms of its' aesthetic - looking like a support mechanism for something else rather than a symbolic decoration. It was a giant iron phallus rising over the city, looking over the beautiful gothic architecture as a lump on extended iron. It truly suggested the sweeping away of the old and imposing the modern on a historic place, whether people were ready for it or not. It signified an aggression to modernism, being invasive in many ways. The old is brushed aside and replaced at increasing speed.

Gustav Caillebotte's paintings spoke of the new Paris, the Paris of modernity. His works captured how industrial society brings with it the rate of profit and wealth through factory labour, affluent middle class and upper classes and labouring classes. Class distinctions being created. A couple parading through the streets of New Paris. Grand arteries and giant streets were capable of accommodating motor cars as well as carriages. In some ways it was also a political project, employed by Napoleon from the 1850's to resign Paris, to control the city is a militaristic way to bring tanks in. The modern was able to control us as much as it was able to free us. Paris was becoming gentrified; expensive and affluent for only the rich. The working classes and the less desirable elements get marginalised and pushed to the outskirts (something which is still see in today's cities). Manet talked about how new society gives us new material things - fancy new clothes and houses but we become less human and less connected in the process.

The birth of psychological society, psychiatry, disciplines of understanding mental processes happened at this time through a desire, out of a worry, that the rapid change in the pace of life would send people insane. The fear that people's sensibilities would be distracted by new possibilities. Class distinctions emerged in paintings sowing social rituals, flanneurs and proto-hipsters. The high classes strolling through the city experiencing modernity, walking slowly and showing off how finely dressed they are with extravagant pets such as monkeys and parrots. Taking in the city with little time for rejects. New forms of social behaviour were formed. A picture of modern life and all of its trappings, relaxing by the Siene. In its form and technique a product of modernity. Optical science was being developed at this time. Different coloured dots would create an illusion of blue. The technique removes the art. Seurat was anti-expressive, anyone can do it and be another cog in the machine. No creativity, laboriously and painstakingly adding dots. Using faceless characters without expression - the modern world if turning us into faceless zombies but decorated ones with new fashions and new forms of leisure.

The modern is not neutral. It, in some ways, suggests improvements or to make things better, alluding to a better path. Modernism is not a sarcastic movement, It is Utopian wth a whole range of style, effecting everything including the ways in which we teach art and design.

Lecture 11: Systematic Colour Part 1 - An Introduction to Colour Theory

I will be exploring what colour is, how I work with colour and how I work will with it as part of my practice. There are theories directly related to the work I will create as an illustrator in relation to colour. I need to uncover how and why I need to control colour as a practitioner... Colour is arguably infinite, contextual and dependent on what is around it. It is very rare that we see isolated colour; it is always surrounded by other colours and objects and that manipulates how we respond to it. There is a physical aspect and a physiological aspect to colour; the physics of it in terms of light and optics in terms of refraction. Physiological calculations and measurements depend on the human being and how we each individually see colour - how we interpret it through the eye and into the brain. Any single colour we see is aligned with a certain light. Colour is directly linked to light. If all the lights were switched off there would be no colour to differentiate between. Our perception of colour is based on principles of light.

Monochromatic light is the spectrum dividing down into singular colours, with each colour having its own wavelength. Not seen as an individual or separate entity. It is always a series of wavelengths in a broader spectrum; there are no edges, no boarders. It just keeps going. However, our eyesight is limited (mine even more so!) and we are only able to pick up a certain number of wavelengths. Cats and dogs have a far more sophisticated way of seeing colour and are able to see infrared and ultraviolet - where we cannot. The eye represents the pyramid of light. When all colours exist together it creates white light. Only when hitting a lens or a prism can those wavelengths start to separate into a spectrum of chromatic values - areas of colour that we can identify but all based on the principle of white light.

Different colours travel at different speeds, vibrating at different wavelengths, continuing beyond what we can see. Our perception of any colour is based on receiving that light and refracting it. Looking directly at light without any form reflecting it - looking at the sun, for example, will only show light. The way we receive colour is through reflection on a surface; something for the white light to bounce off. We can prove that the surface is important to how we perceive colour. The surface is just as important as the light itself. A demonstration of white card was shown; the surface is very reflective - any light that hits it will bounce back. It has no properties of its own. It shows the properties of light and how we read it and understand it. White is contextual, neutral, highly reflective. It takes on all the colour around it. Another demonstration of black card shows it absorbing most of the light and the colour around it. Even when we have colour, the coloured surface itself will change because of the properties of light. The amount of light that is absorbed by the surface and the amount of light reflected will effect the colour itself.

This presents a problem... If we are working on a body of work, that is print based, and someone reads it in a red light - whatever you have created will come across as purple. We need to understand these problems so that we can have control of colour. The sky has no colour whatsoever. At no point can we grab a piece of the sky and declare that it is blue. It is pure white light oscillating at different wavelengths; bouncing off of pollen, pollution, particles and atoms in the atmosphere, picked up by the short wavelengths. Sunsets coming in at a low angle gives a more reddish sky - again, bouncing off particles. The sky has no colour; we perceive it based off the light hitting the crap that is floating in the sky.

Rods and cones. Rod cells are photoreceptor cells in the retina of the eye that can function in less intense light than cone cells. They are used in peripheral vision and are almost entirely responsible for night vision. They have little role in colour vision which is why colours are less apparent in darkness. Cones are responsible for colour vision and function in bright light. Type 1 is sensitive to red, Type 2 is sensitive to green and Type 3 is blue. When any single cone is stimulated then we see green. It is not a simple process though; if red and green are stimulated then we see yellow. Yellow arguably doesn't exist; we see red, orange and green wavelengths to perceive yellow. MY RODS AND CONES are completely knackered! I have been told many times whenever I do colour tests (which I fail). I find it hard being in intense light situations which is why I have to wear UV glasses to filter out intense brightness that cause me remaining functioning left eye a combination of strain, weepiness and headaches. I was born with underdeveloped Optic Nerves as a result of being a premature baby - so my eyes are less than stellar in the first place. I have no night vision and colours are very washed out for me. I know for a fact that whatever I perceive to be red is not what someone else would call red, and I have accepted and work with that every day. I am very thankful to be able to perceive some level of colour though!

Because this is about individual interpretation, light hitting the eye, different bits being shown when light is received and divides - the only colours we actually see are red, green and blue. Any other colour we see are made up of a combination of proportional adjustments of wavelengths between red, green and blue. Our brain can be fooled, however. What are these implications? Impact? There are variances in how we see tones. Everyone sees colour but there are many types of colour variations and the way in which eyes and cones see colours. Colour itself is not a constant in the way we perceive it and it can be affected by psiological contexts. If an apple is red; are we seeing the same shade of red? Colour is a real core awareness.

Josef Albers and Johannes Itten really started to study the principals of colour and how they can be used. Colour, pigment, media; solid, physical stuff. The historical aspects of colour theory are based on mixing pigment. The colour wheel was developed over the past century documenting the primary colours and how mixing them will give secondaries and tertiaries. It is a colour system we have been introduced to at some point in our lives. Complementary colours refer to the chromatic opposite of one colour. Yellow is the opposite of violet, blue to orange and red to green. Itten's colour wheel demonstrates this and maps out / builds relationships between colours.

From this point forward my approach to colour will need to evolve; I need to consider production and distribution when making work in the world, considering the colours I'm suing and ensuring they will be what other people perceive too. I need to think about what is colour and what is chromatic value - how is it created? The colour swatches, hue and saturation, and colour mapping I experience in Photoshop ever day have a core principal in colour theory and the need to define colour.

Lecture 10: Consumerism - Persuasion, Society, Brand, Culture

Suggested reading: Century of Self by Adam Curtis and No Logo by Naomi Klein (a bible of the 1990's documenting the Seattle protest of G8). Consumerism is a mechanism to keep us controlled. It acts on our innermost want and desires. We need to understand what it is that drives us to covet thing, to desire, to want things, to spend by exploring Sigmund Freud's ideas. He was the inventor of psychoanalysis as a method. He theorised the unconscious mind and the level of psyche that we are unaware of but affect our actions. Accessing the unconscious through dream analysis - the section of our psyche bubbling under the surface. Theory of human nature; we as a species retain our primitive, animalistic, instinctive behaviours. The desire to satiate every whim and become violent, if necessary. Conquer anything that becomes a barrier to our wants.

Prevent a certain status in the world we want to destroy them. Animalistic tendencies are incompatible to a society. Repression of the urge to satiate our desire. Civilised society cannot work if we all want sex and violence. Civilisation is incompatible with human instinct and human desire. A conflict emerges... However, he talks about the pleasure principle. If our desires are met we are momentarily happy and therefore pacified. The conscious desire is what we think about and are aware of. It is the tip of a giant iceberg which makes up Freud's model of personality structure. This is what we understand of ourselves, what our aptitude is. There is an unconscious block of repressed memories of the id - animalistic, childlike, monstrous, primal, the driving engine of our desires. It motivates our actions. The unconscious is where we store our dangerous experiences.

Animalistic tendencies are incompatible with civilisation as a whole and it makes people repress their instant gratification for the benefit of everyone else.The First World War shouldn't have come as a surprise; this is how we should expect people to behave. When there is a whole world where people are repressing over and over again there will be an eruption of apocalyptic violence. Those are the characteristics of a human. The single most important influence on the rise of consumerism came from Freud's nephew - Edward Bernays. Freud didn't just influence him with his work, but Bernays knew him and his work personally from a young age so was very familiar.

During the War, he was employed as a propagandist. He knew Freud's theories about people's desires and the unconscious and used his background and familiar knowledge to come up with a sophisticated form of advertising. He was employed to sell products to public relations, where this discipline of PR was created by him. Bernays fused advertising and organising public opinion together using propaganda to persuade the masses. He came up with strategies for making products, brands and companies really popular. He didn't shy away from any negative connotations with the word propaganda. He single-handedly organised a PR stunt during the 1929 Easter Day Parade to draw attention to women smoking cigarettes - as during this time it was a social taboo. It wasn't becoming of a woman of gentile status and not a classy, ladylike thing to do; which was difficult for tobacco companies as half of the country is their market! Glamorous actresses dresses as high-class debutantes and walked past the crowd lighting up a smoke. Bernays tipped the newspapers and received massive publicity for this stunt - lighting Torches of Freedom. All across America smoking was seen as a symbolic act of feminism and freedom, emancipation and equality of men. IT was so successful that the taboo was smashed overnight. However, it was so successful that the same thing had to be done again in the '50s with the Marlboro Man to make smoking appear more macho.

This system of influence was so successful that politicians wanted to start getting into it. 'If you can make people love smoking, you can make people love me!' Coolidge, a socially awkward man who wasn't very popular, went to bernays for assistance and by using a pop song he became cooler by extension. This was the beginnings of celebrity endorsement where celeb qualities were placed onto a brand. They weren't against paying doctors for pseudo-scientific reports - more Doctors smoke Camels, proven to sooth your throat, lose weight, curb cravings and so on. All of these tactics are attempts to to attach desirable qualities to things that otherwise wouldn't necessarily have those things. A celebrity's endorsement equates to desire of being in charge, desired, a leader, status and wealth. All of these desires that society doesn't allow us to realise for various different reasons. The system of this time is known as Fordism - originating from Henry Ford. This idea of creating things on a production line, accelerating the speed of production. Rather than micro production, mass production - caused by industrialisation - of a thing and applying it to every product by 1916. A society where in a small amount of time the market became saturated with stuff. It was a very real problem and the crisis of overproduction.

Companies wanted to continue to make more things but there was the danger that people think they already have this product or have enough stuff and do not want to purchase anymore. Overproduction and underconsumption... Brands become prevalent at this time; branding is not too dissimilar to public relations. Companies needed to distinguish their products in the market and start to give things human names to imbue human qualities; providing an essence of the home made, artisan connotations, craft behind it. Taps into our desire for human contact. Aunt Jemima, for example. Another route was to use the illusion of increasing sexual dire and virility. A man dominated the house, a man was in charge, so show advertising from his point of view. Adverts traded off the lifestyle you could have if you bought this product. A gateway to this life. Dominant, successful, loved. Access to desire. Through focus groups it was discovered that people didn't like pancake mix as they thought of it as cheating; embarrassed by the fact they couldn't cook. It made no difference to Aunt Jemima - they took our the dehydrated egg ingredient from the pancake mix so that consumers add their own egg and milk and people felt like they were cooking then. Attaching the idea of creativity and involvement to something then made it desirable.

What is created as a society is a shift from a society based on needs (providing what people need) to a society based on wants (creating a desire culture). People don't need things anymore, but want - desire - it. 'I need the latest car, not because I need it, but because I believe it will change my identity.' We understand ourselves as composites of these magical totems, accessing a certain status unaccessible to us. We become a collage of the totems around us. Vance Packard looked at 'The Hidden Persuaders' and 8 tactics of this age; selling emotional security, reassurance of worth, ego-gratification, creative outlets, love objects, sense of power, sense of roots, immortality. If you can attach the promise of emotional security in the belief they will be more content or less nervous, for example. The fridge freezer was sold on the advertising line of 'buy a fridge freezer and you will always have something in the freezer for your family. Your family can eat dinner together all the time.' However, research shows that owning a fridge freezer wastes much more food. Reassurance of worth - to be loved by someone, to feel like you are meaningful in the world, part of a group, community, society. Love objects - sexy, desirable or more powerful to a community. Roots - The American beer, the American car, embedding yourself into the idea of being a true American for buying the item.

Edward Bernays made a killing inventing this discipline of PR and he enjoys as much success as a celebrity. He had many high-status clients and changed the way brand culture was marketed. Other people started to look at PR as a social phenomenon and thought you could apply this to the organisation of society. Walter Lippman looked at forming a social system where people's needs are catered for and a PR group of people working, beyond government, will stop moments of eruption. Our pleasure principal is met and people are happy; meeting our desires through consumption. We might not really feel happy but through little acts of micro-consumption we are bonded, part of a community, loved and wanted. We believe that we can make a variety of independent choices and live meaningful lives. The extent of that is questionable; we live in the most unequal society ever. People aren't happy, we haven't mounted together to create a worker's revolution, we haven't followed a world war - we are sat content, passive. Making us poorer but making us think we are richer.

The great Depression threw America into crisis for years. Capitalism to keep expanding, recirculating to shareholders, only works when you have a profit. It reached a point where it couldn't expand anymore and there was a monster explosive depression. Mass unemployment, poverty, fortunes and incomes lost. Roosevelt came into power and instead of backing big business he said he would tax businesses more. This creates restraints on the market, the welfare state looked after people, businesses couldn't do what they wanted anymore. It was the start of a challenge to renegade market capitalism. Business didn't like that things would be regulated and clubbed together to try and lobby roosevelt out of power. They came up with a giant publicity stunt at the New York World Fair - a giant advert for consumerism. Consumerism is the best way of life, dragging us out of depression. It is the key to the problems of the world. Giant trade show disguised as entertainment; robots who would do your wooking, gadgets, space age cars driving themselves. It was organised by Bernays to depose a government. A world where it isn't governments or people but commodities and companies - giant Democracity. Dictatorship of big business; far from democracy. It goes back to Freud again who argued that democracy and freedom were incompatible with society.

Conclusion: You are not what you own. The public relations discipline and people to attempt to use those tactics do so to organise the world and society. We are all part of this system constantly falling into the trap. There must be more to humanity than just meaningless commodities. Even though we are reduced to this at times. Advertising still exists today and still works. Have we really moved on from the '20s or '50s? This isn't a historic concern, it is now. Consumerism is an ideological project. We believe that through consumption our desires can be met. The legacy of Bernays and his public relations discipline can still be felt in the 21st century and is still as at the forefront today. The conflicts between alternative models of social organisation continue to this day; Labour and Tories, G20 and grassroots activists. To what extent are our lives free under the Western Consumerist system?

Lecture 9: What is Research?

When talking about research, it isn't something that is confined to just Context of Practice, with separate research for Personal and Professional Practice and another isolated approach to Studio Practice. Research is fundamental across all areas of my practice and it should underpin all modules continually; not singularly. Research isn't just about collecting data - it is also organising, documenting, analysing critically, interpreting, evaluating and reflecting. It is a practice where going to places, experiencing things and talking to people drive independent learning. Activities drive ideas. Trying and applying, bringing together the results of findings into a coherent output. Research is practice. 

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• PPP - research of practice: research into practitioners, researching about practice and reflecting on my own practice.
• COP - research as practice: making up a fundamental part of my written responses as essays and visual journal.
• SP - research put into practice: through experimentation, conceptual ideas as making.

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There are a range of different ideas as to what research is. The process of research is more important than the outcome, it isn't about a defined end point but about exploring a plethora of possibilities appropriate to the brief. Without research there is no development or innovation - only sameness and familiar solutions. Not knowing should propel me forward. Research itself isn't clarifying the world but posing more questions, problem solving, experimenting, discovering. Everyone is a genius at least once a year. As a professional I need to be able to come up with idea after idea after idea... with strategies, methods and models as a foundation to success. I need to evolve strategies to go into a situation where I am inspired and want to innovate and generate visual communication.

I have to get over my fear of failure and accept that I will get things wrong and make mistakes - otherwise, I will forever sit in my comfort zone. I will have a stagnant process that won't evolve. Failure is central to developing my practice. 'Practice makes perfect!'. Knowledge will come through iterating, repeating, making mistakes, failing quicker. I need to learn to get it wrong straight away, rather than later on, to improve quicker. More time to get it right next time. 'You won't know the outcome until you engage with the process'. As humans, we want to get it right before we get it wrong but developing work will help from the mistakes that are happening - rather than doing no work at all in fear of failing in the first place. Even when I do get it right, I need to push further!

When considering research, in its many guises, if we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be called research... it would just be doing. Part of the process is not knowing, it should be embraced. Ultimately, the Context of Practice module is based on not knowing. Stupid people don't ask questions - be open about not knowing! - by discussing and talking to people a path can be found to lead to solutions. Ideas are the currency of what we do as practitioners. Technical skills and practical work are the core of our work and we should be able to draw connections between ideas and research. They are not separate entities but part of a whole practice. Ideas are what drive our practice and form possibilities but research drives our skills, understanding and knowledge. We all live in the same world, in the same city, go to the same university, see, hear and taste the same things - but how we make contemporary or historical connections forms our opinions, interpretations, responses, visualisation. Research is about looking at what is there but thinking about it individually. Conceptual thinking, ideas generation, design theory and design principals. Collect information and material from a range of sources - online, library, lectures, seminars, magazines, podcasts, ephemera.

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Approaches
• Stimulated approach: Looking for inspiration all around us. Putting ourselves in situations to see, hear, touch, taste and smell. Listening, watching, visiting, talking, being inspired by what's happening around us. Going to the library, watching a film, looking at an artist's work and practice. Making analogies to it; relating to your own work the exhibition you visited or the work you've seen. Drawing connections to the problem that needs solving.

• Systematic approach: Taking something that exists (images, collected items) deconstructing and reconstructing to see how it works. Draw it, redraw it, using systems and processes to restructure what has been collected. For creative people it is the core of their practice. You know your process of developing ideas and experimenting in your sketchbook to creating a visual journey to publication. We set ourselves up to do that.

• Intuitive approach: The previous two are an external processes; working physically. An intuitive approach is different. It is an internal repertoire of what we know, the skills we have developed and a reliable, successful approach to a problem. Not copying but acknowledging what has worked for someone else. It is something that comes from experiences. This approach is what we aspire to in relation to practice, in my profession as an illustrator... Where I become the person that people come to with a brief, an issue, a problem. My internal repertoire is my practice.

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Research Types
• Primary Research: Collected for a specific end use and for solving a certain problem. Physically doing something we have never done before. Generating new experiences for yourself and new knowledge.

• Secondary Research: Facts, data, stuff that is already out there. Written by someone else, researched for something else at a different point in time. Analysing that research, considering tis relevance to your project. Secondary research has an analytical angle.

• Quantitive Research: Numerical data, figures, provable facts through measure. Objective.

• Qualitative Research: Observation, opinion, talking with people and finding out what they think, quality rather than quantity. Not necessarily provable but doesn't mean it's wrong. Subjective.

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Process
• Assimilation: Process of analysis. Accumulating, processing and organising data in such a way that it turns into body knowledge.
• General Study: Structured, stimulated approach leading to ideas generation.
•Development: Identifying possibilities to move forward and develop further. Concepts, content, composition. Refining and solving.
• Communication: Understanding who is receiving the information and creating a sense of meaning.

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For an essay, we need to read and research in order to form the basis of our writing. It is the same for other aspects of the illustrative practice. Finding facts leads to knowledge, which forms the basis of an intuitive approach. Innovation is born out of research. How do we use our starting points, initial concepts and ideas to go into the unknown? It isn't just about physically creating and being happy with the outcome - but also trying something else. Extending points of resolution. Asking questions is central to being an intelligent, forward-thinking practitioner. What are those questions? How do we identify the right methods of questioning? How? Why? What if? Developing answers and possible solutions. Research is driven by a question. In terms of research having an output, we need to understand that information has to be sufficient, competent and relevant.

Start anywhere! We don't know where we are going and we can't predict the outcome but we can make a start on finding out and making connections. The process is what is important and will lead to resolutions. When given a research problem or essay do not worry about getting it right from the start - just start doing it and a body of work will be created. You are at the centre of your research; you are the research tool, the interpreter, generating the material. You are the person making sense of the experience and the world unique to you. Research is what i'm doing and I don't know what I'm doing. Negotiate the space of what we know and don't know. Get it wrong, evaluate any mistakes and don't do it again next time. It is an ongoing process through blogs, test pieces, roughs, ideas and drafts - developing a body of research to document, reflect on and evaluate. Avoid panic and putting things off - just do!

Lecture 8: Digital Production & Distribution

There is a chronology to everything and exploring it can ensure that I make informative decisions in my practice. Making connections and establishing between knowledge from the past and present will help to strengthen my understanding of what came before and what I can create for the future. This was the last of the lectures where I would be looking at lineages, histories and chronologies. 

The digital world is part of my everyday life as a young person living in the 21st century. Information is a significant part of the human condition. Embracing and using technology has been the single biggest step forward we have made. There has been a moderate development over the past 7,500 years through the creation of language, written language, recorded concepts and ideas, through to the alphabet. In the last 100 years our development has escalated and in the past 10 years even more so. Technology has moved beyond anything we could have imagined; we have new ways of working, new ways of organising and new tools to help us with this.

Before we even had the internet and world wide web, Marshall McLuhan had realised the idea of a global culture and connectivity across the globe; a global village where we can barter, discuss, exchange dialogue between people. His theories were very forward thinking and progressive to further to human condition in relation to the development of industry and science. It formed the basis of how we engage with technology. Once we start to develop and use these tools to help live our lives they ultimate begin to shape us and we become dependent on them. Our point today is not the end point and things will keep developing and improving. Aesthetic judgements, society, culture and a historical context have all played a key part in why we now have accessories such as the iPhone, iPad, social media, and so on. Our developments have not finished yet and as it continues to evolve it will have an impact on culture and society who use these tools. What McLuhan suggested was the relationship between the medium and the message - in a Tetrad of media effects - elements of technological progress and the impact on society as well as its use. What does it enhance? Improve? What does it reverse and make obsolete? In technology going forward what has been retrieved from history?

In 1990 the low-priced Mac Classic was released, presenting an affordable access to digital production. In regards to type and what is allowed us to do was that we could now investigate and explore a range of ways to use typography. It enhanced productivity meaning we could work quicker and more effectively. There were very slow methods of production before but now we could correct mistakes within seconds without wasting materials. What did it retrieve? Typography became a mechanical and corporate process but the Mac brought back individual creativity, not just a standard set of fonts.Where there were only the methods of traceable type, letraset and hand-made methods we now had a graphic interface instead. What happened when pushed to its limits? Problems came down to speed, access, cost, memory. So the Tetrad works in relation to the introduction of the Mac Classic and type design and can be applied to most things.

34 years on we now have touch screens, smart phones, iPads - all enhancing individual experience in a learning context. People can learn in different ways and develop interactive approaches to learning. Old work stations, laptops, taking notes with pen and paper and large scale computers aren't necessarily needed anymore to connect. What happens when the iPad is challenged? Access. cost, limited space, memory, iOS apps only. From an educational aspect you are able to record and document your own learning. From the Gutenberg printing press to the Mac Classic has been a slow and arduous process; but the Mac Classic to the development of the iPad has been much quicker.

The shift of analogue into digital in terms of aesthetic has been considerable. New aesthetic has grown out of production and design and a whole shift in visual language. Technology has it's own visual language. It is very much about seeing the world and how we associate that with how we see technology. When looking at the digital clock, the way the interface looks and how that layout works we associate with technology. Likewise, virtual reality creating environments, websites, film sets; creating an aesthetic around digital processes. When we see the clock on the right, we associate it with precision, accuracy and science. The clock on the left is far more visual and provides a cognitive  response. For most people, the clock on the right will be easier to read as it shows a map of what has come before, what will come next, a sense of consequence and is cyclical. Visual cues and seeing the dial physically affects how we interpret the time. The digital clock only shows what is, not what will come next.

From my own individual standpoint, I much prefer the digital clock and everything it represents for me as a severely sight-impaired person as opposed to the analogue clock which is far too visual and, when displayed on a wall, impossible to read. Because of the advancements of Apple technology specifically, I have the ability to partake in the aforementioned 'global village' and have the same even footing as everyone else with the plethora of accessibility options available to me. From zoom, VoiceOver and a Braille keyboard I am able to read the time, blog, document, shop, socialise and browse at my own leisure and I sometimes prefer the online landscape to the real world; where obstacles are far more prevalent in day-to-day life. While other tech manufacturers are catching up in terms of accessibility, I will remain true to Apple as they have provided so much for me in the past 16 years - right from owning my very first desktop iMac in 2000. While I was being made fun of at school for not being able to see the time - and had to set aside time with my mum to puncture holes into a wall clock so I could physically feel what the hands were pointing to - I was ahead of everyone else in the virtual reality.

Paddington Bear is another good example of analogue and digital processes. With the 2014 film, the real world was green-screened into hyper-real character development, blurring the lines between the cyber world and the real world. Realistic hair and fur created the basis of Paddington who was super-imposed into filmed footage. It develops a sense of nostalgia mixed with the transference and visual attributes to a human being; associations with reality even though it is super real. Digital aesthetics grown out of and in response to the digital age we are living in. Minority Report, Blade Runner, The Matrix, Iron Man, Star Trek - all impacting on the way we see the real world aesthetically, digitally, technologically. Shaping the environment we live in and the way we develop products. This creates new technologies. The ear pieces from Star Trek have become our bluetooth headphones, their clam-shell communicator became the flip phone, Iron Man's suit interface has become Google Glass, Minority Report's shopping centre personalising itself to a customer has influenced the virtual Dior store in the States. A key factor in digital production isn't just about what something does - but what something looks like. We have to engage with and consider the relationship we have with technology - physically, emotionally and technically. Rather than just a straightforward acceptance of something, we go through psychological changes as humans to train ourselves to use and implement these tools.

The mechanical aesthetic of the past has similarities to the digital aesthetic of today. Our current / present will change. The next generation of digital natives are now coming through. Who are they? How is that going to affect technological development and how will that affect me as an illustrator and visual communicator and, ultimately, citizen of the world?

Lecture 7: Print Culture - Part 2

In the 21st century we are now in the Late Age of Print and truly within a Digital Age where all forms of art and design exist. Before this, the traditional forms of artistic practice included painting, sculpture and poetry. New media and mechanical revolution paved the way for textiles to be produced on a mass scale, print production, art reproduction, printed pattern wallpapers and mass-manufacture. The aura of the traditional art practice was seen as being something superior, mystical, magical; the product of geniuses and great men reinforced by the art institutions of the time. Fine art began to diminish because of the creation and multiplication of printing and reproduction means. New forms of art smashed through the elitist club and fought for culture and representation of everyone. Collectives were emerging among practitioners, William Morris and Merton Abbey Mills for example, where independent studios and spaces were organised as a form of rival practice against entrepreneurial practice. New tech was implemented into anti-capitalist art projects that proposed different ways of organising the world.

In the illustrative discipline there has been a noticeable return to to older methods of handmade production, as well as in other forms of visual communication such as graphic design and animation. Screen printing, linocut, wood block printing, letter press and mechanical type on old machines are taught in art schools now - whereas in the '90s everything was purely digital as that was the landscape we were entering at the time. There are whole print festivals dedicated to graphic arts showing that there is a real taste for it again. Why is the case? Why retain an interest in these methods of production? Especially since we have easier to use, quicker, reliable, and proficient techniques to hand now. Why retain an interest in the hand-made?

The first proposal is that using analogue methods provide an explicit retreat from instant gratification.  In a world where we can pull up any answer on our phone from a Google search, and there are apps and software that can recreate any digital technique we want - things have become dehumanising, and using older methods of production is a symbol of rebellion against our world of mass-information and quick turnarounds. The Slow Movement, as an example, is a manifesto to contemporary society. It is an attempt to reclaim your life where humanity should re-engage with raw materials, think about and consider the world around us and connect with other people using physical capacities. Avoid rushing when going about your daily routine, even in creative production, and seize the opportunity to enjoy what is around you in its simplest forms. It is about doing less with an increase of quality; taking regular breaks, clearing space, not being reactionary, being nostalgic and changing the structure of our society. Locally sourced methods of production are favoured, implementing a small network of producers and consumers, using grown ingredients rather than pre-packed foods, and working so that you are more environmentally conscious. Learning skills and taking charge of your own life rather than having everything handed to you instantly.

Similarly, there is a Slow Fashion movement reacting against the quick overhauls of the catwalk and seasonal trends. Throughout high street stores, every retailer is selling the same clothes - even the same things that were sold a few years ago - but as consumers we are tricked into thinking these are new things that we need. Retailers rip-off the couture and mannequins are dressed to show you how to assemble your dress sense. There is no individuality; no personal identity. Slow fashion introduces the idea of using local, independent producers and / or using what couture discards and would eventually become landfill. It focuses on humanity and prioritises a model of practice where economic growth is not the most important thing. Creativity is! Genuine human qualities of sharing knowledge, being affordable, being inclusive - not unlike what William Morris was doing back in the day. Slow Design follows the same principals - focusing not on the end product or the quick solution, but how a practice can relate to environmental issues in a harmonious way. Progress rather than regression. Print culture is important because of these subtle policies in the example Slow Movements.

Flyers from the Leeds Print Festival in 2013 uses letter press printing and vintage poster techniques, harking back to older methods of production and presenting a feeling of nostalgia and the simpler times of yesteryear. Anthony Burrill's posters were inserted into the circuits of mass markets and makers of capitalism, who have no thought for real creativity or art, commenting on publicity, society and the environment. It created an interesting rupture in advertisement. Their works appropriate the aesthetic of print culture but are explicitly political in nature.

The Print Project reclaims old industrial printing presses and puts them to use again. The studio space looks like a museum of defunct machines from 500 year old ago. The machinery, which has been killed off by modern society, is reused and provides comment on sustainability, how our culture has no regard for maintaining and reusing anything and disregards the old in favour of the new. It is an educational project as well as a graphic design project where part of it is about using the antique machinery in modern briefs but part of it is also about setting up workshops so that the public can learn the process and see their prints being made in front of them. It's not just about nostalgia, The Print Project explores the ways in which old-fashioned print mediums can take on the digital age on its own terms. Older processes such as glyphs, letter press and woodblock are blended with glitches of the media age - testing the aesthetics of old and new.

The Pink Milkfloat, a creation of Richard Lawrence, houses a simple hand-operated press that is transported to events allowing visitors to create keepsakes of their own. People can invest in and learn about printing processes rather than just buying a print and not seeing the craft behind it. It adds value - human and social value - to creative practice when an audience can participate and engage. People have a much more bonded relationship with the artist when they understand the complexities of your practice. In creative practice we are making social relations happen; creating networks, providing fun, happening upon chance meetings and sharing skills. Building collaborations rather than transactional relationships, in a participational world. How many social spaces are there where we don't have to buy something? Social relationships are seen as commodities by big corporations such as Starbucks, who rely on your financial transaction while providing you with the shared warm space, with a treat, for £5. Is this what friendships are built upon now?

The Glastonbury Free Press, an off-shoot of The Print Project, marries the audience as journalist and reporter. A Vandercook printing press is housed in a tent and used at every Glastonbury festival to create a free political newspaper; designed by the people for the people. Visitors come to the tent, talk to the printers inside about burning issues and turn it into a physical newspaper edition. It is typeset, printed, documented, co-authored, spat out and relayed around the festival free of charge. A relational piece spotlighting equality, inclusion, co-authorship, participation. Older methods of communication are partnered with modern opinions and sharing that with festival-goers. It isn't just about a technical process that is a legitimate and valid politics to it. Humanising politics in a digital age. Reclining and reusing what our society and culture has thrown away in a creative way - a defence of revivalist practices. Post-print culture?

In the digital age there is an infinite amount of software available to use where people can edit their photographs, create their own fonts, paint their own pictures. If we are angry at that then are we being the elitists? Instead, the majority share cat pictures on Tumblr and Facebook. New technology should be providing creativity and inspiration - the possibilities of infinite knowledge. There is an argument to be had that actually the resurgence of hand-made production methods have recreated aura again; aura is the admiration for the traditional, using a high level of skill, mystification around it, respect for the master craftsman. In our digital environment screen prints and letter press, rather than just drawing on a tablet, has aura now. The mechanical arts have aura. There is a negative politics to this as, while small print runs will allow you to have aura and a solid community of consumers, things can be sold more expensively. However, the real radicalism and the real social consequence is to be found in digital printing. We are in an era now where the radical practices are through digital printing; the capacity of a computer to steal any image and share it online for free. An interconnected network of creatives outside the studio partaking in a commodity exchange.

Print culture has the capacity to be exponentially greater within the digital age. When used right and used for the benefit of humanity it can achieve some amazing things. The digital age takes the art out of the gallery and into the online landscape so that we no longer need to behave in a certain way in a space and towards a piece of work. The parameters are removed and we are free to browse and behave at our leisure. There is a politics to popular art and to print culture. Digital print is not just about the output but the capacity to steal and use knowledge and imagery and use it to our own gain - just like Duchamp did when scribbling on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa - but it is the death of aura and a revolutionary shattering. Art being deactivated and recycled in a democratised way with contemporary mass-movements being reinstated.