Lecture Notes: Communication Theory

Laswell Theory of Communication

Shannon-Weaver model, including feedback (not on model).

Three levels of potential communication problems
Level 1: Technical
Accuracy
Systems of encoding and decoding
Compatability of systems.need for specialist equipment/knowledge

Level 2: Semantic
Precision of language
How much of the message can be lost without meaning being lost?
Which language to use?

Level 3: Effectiveness
Does the message affect behaviour the way we want it to?
What can be done if the required effect fails to happen?

Communicator A > Encode with language > Message with medium > Receive and Interpret > Communicator B > Encode with language > Message with medium > Receive and Interpret > Communicator A

BARB: Broadcasters Audience Research Board
Audience categories such as men, children, adults

Audience sub categories/demographics
A: Upper Middle- lecturers
B: Middle- Teacher
C1: Lower Middle- Call Centre worker
C2: Skilled working- Plumber
D: Working- Unskilled workers
E: Bottom- Relying on state

Semiotics
Semantics addresses what a sign stands for
Syntactics: the relations among signs
Pragmatics: how to apply the theory- making it practical.

Systems theory is interdisciplinary

Semiosphere
Semiotics are languages. Medicine boxes, for example, all look similar and can be recognised as having their place in a pharmacy.

Barthes grammar of narrative
Levi Strauss ethnography and semiotics
Lacan relates semiotics to psychoanalysis

Trainers
Trainers being bought to send signs not to be practical running or exercise shoes. They had become a sign- people trying to send a signal.

Limitations of semiotics
Prioritise structure over usage

Semiotics
Panzani Image code

Building codes

Danger, place and Airport analogy. How do we decode this?
Semiotics presumes that readings are clear.
Gestalt Psychology: Psychotherapist/Psycho The Rapist
Changing patterns are key. Why are we in tune to this? A change in the pattern is noticed.

The Phenomenological Tradition
Phenomenon refers to the appearance of an object
Authentic human relationships lack, but are needed

The embodied mind
Body and mind are joint
Physiological classification of coding and encoding
faces and emotions. Animators use prosthetic protractor. Phenomenological thinking.

Interpretation
the process of interpretation is central
What is real for the person

Rhetoric
Hyperbole
Irony
Personification
Art of persuasion
Socrates/Plato.
Rhetoric used for power in males in ancient civilisations when speaking at senate. Problematic though as used by dicators.

Pictures without con(text) are meaningless. They need to be anchored to mean anything.

Metaphor: Memory Theatre.

Socio Psychological
Constitutive
Cognitive
Biological

Socio Cultural Tradition
Yorkshire ISP: better because of culture
Cultural traditions work out interactively in communication
Accents mean something
Mediate culture

Socio critical
Christ sensitive analogy.

Lecture Notes: The Gaze

Call of Duty
1st Person & 3rd person options- the 1st person is preferred.
What causes us to engage with hurt? Power & gameplay.

Pyschoanalysis is the analysis of the options and controls that we choose in life.

Laura Mulvey
Visual pleasures - Narrative Cinema

Scopophilia
- Pleasure of looking at others bodies as object (Freud)
- Perversions and objects

Narcissistic identification

Mirror stage: Jacques Lacan
-A childs own body is less perfect than reflection e.g Radioactive Man/Comic Book Guy

Structures of looking
-Cinema thrives on this

Male is not to be looked at & represents power

Suture
-Spectators look through eyes of the actors in the film
-Suture can be broken to make viewer feel guilty

Spectators gaze- looking at one
Intradiagetic gaze- looking at others in scene
Extradiagetic gaze- looking outwards e.g TV newsreader/break 4th wall

Etant Donnes- Being Give. Are we being given the power of the gaze?

Blog Task: On Popular Music

Kylie Minogue: Can't Get You Out of My Head.

Can't Get You Out of My Head proves that 'the whole structure of popular music is standardised' (Adorno, 1941). It successfully manages to stick in people's heads because there are very few aberrations, and when they occur, it soon 'leads back to the same familiar experience'. One can fully know what to expect in the entirety of the track just from listening to the introduction. Adorno describes it as 'the whole is pre-given and pre-accepted'.

Adorno states that 'it is imperative to hide standardisation' and this is because 'the reality of individual achievement must be maintained'. In this instance for example, Kylie retains her individual image but is merely another cog in the wheel of Parlophone.

Woman as Object

Much like many of her videos, this video portrays Kylie as an object to be admired. The entire concept is based on a scopophilic pleasure.

In terms of beauty being dictated from men, is there any better example than Kylie's video for 'Slow'? There is a heavy spectators gaze with Kylie often in the emphasised centre of the shot.

Both of the videos shown above are almost so obvious in demonstrating the standardisation of popular music and displaying the woman as an object that one would be forgiven for thinking the videos are parodistic. Of course in truth, the tracks are not parodistic, they are simply pre-digested.

Blog Task: The Panopticon

London Underground’s Oyster Card is a prime example of panopticism. While it claims to make journeys and paying easier, and arguably does, it also has a secondary role as an extra security force- tracking each persons movements from the moment they touch in, including how long they have been on the network.

In a metaphorical sense, this is a devolution of power. Foucault states that ‘each street is placed under the authority of a syndic, who keeps it under surveillance’ (Foucault in Discipline & Punish, 1977, P61). In this case, a metro network has been placed under the authority of a syndic.

He also mentions that ‘the crowd is abolished and replaced by a collection of separated individualities’(Foucault in Discipline & Punish, 1977, P65). Perhaps formerly, commuters thought they could merge into one mass- now each is tracked as individuals.

It’s also a clear example of submitted power by the bearer; ‘the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they themselves are the bearers’(Foucault in Discipline & Punish, 1977, P65). No-one is forced to get an Oyster card, but an increasing majority submit to it.

Oyster has enabled outer stations to not have ticket barriers; instead penalties ‘may’ be incurred if you do not touch in/out; comparable to the Foulcauldian idea that ‘there are no more bars, chains or heavy locks’(Foucault in Discipline & Punish, 1977, P66).

Oyster claims to be an easy fare paying system when actually it cannot be linked to any specific use. Foulcault says a panopticon is a figure of political technology that may and must be detached from any specific use. Through Oyster’s party-political foundings (a Livingstone project) used for other purposes (security/tracking/surveillance) and its obvious use, it is a clear example of a panoptic method of control.

Foulcalt, M (1977), Penguin Books Ltd, London

The Digital Age

This blog has discussed modernism, post modernism, the document, media, art and advertising among other things; however they have all been studied in relation to ‘traditional’ mediums. Traditional here is used in the sense that it is not a design of the digital era.

We are at the dawn of perhaps the biggest revolution in history that is already changing not just the way we communicate, but the way we live, work and think. It is critical to recognise this change in relation to design otherwise we risk losing out to the fast changing world.

The BBC is currently running a season called ‘Superpower’, asking the question ‘is the internet the most powerful thing the world has ever seen?’ A simple answer would be no. At a first glance, one would analyse the internet alongside other forms of media and simply as another new thing in society. On closer inspection however, it is hard to think of something that comes even close to the power of the internet.

For the very first time in history, anybody can publish anything, to anyone, anywhere. And most incredibly, it can be done within seconds. There are some who have yet to acknowledge this, but the sooner they do, the better. Humans can embrace the internet to pursue whatever goal they want in life, but equally it can be used for bad.

It is changing the way we live. We are connected twenty four hours a day. When we are not at home on the computer, we are carrying mobile internet around with us on our phones. When this is related to design, this gives designers incredible power to try new concepts. Designers are already working on many new ideas in this area. One example is Google’s Street View, where companies are able to pay for virtual advertising space on billboards on street view. In real terms, this literally doubles the amount of physical advertising space in the world. Another concept being tested is demand-driven adverts; billboards that via a camera using technology similar to face recognition can see the brand on the bag one is carrying, and display an advert for that retailer.

It is changing the way we work. Many teachers and lecturers still advocate libraries as the best place to research, whereas those of the younger generations turn to the internet before any other method. How does one reach a balance; if there is one at all? We are also not commuting to workplaces as much as we once were. The internet has opened up ebusiness, where one can host online meetings and conferences while each person works from home. It is increasingly the case that an employee will only have to visit the office once a week, if ever.

It is also changing the way we think. Younger generations no longer associate themselves with their county, but with the network they are part of on Facebook. They no longer associate themselves with their country, but the online community they are part of, such as YouTube. Friends have been redefined; ‘friends’ means the number of connections you have- even if it is to total strangers because no-one truly has thousands of friends. Our concentration spans have shortened too. We do not think linearly anymore, but associatively. Surfing the web using hyperlinks hopping around information is a completely different way of learning to reading a book from cover to cover, working through chapters.

Upcoming designers cannot afford to miss out on this revolution. They must embrace these changes in society in order to allow their designs to be understood by society. The critical thing about the internet is that it is not just another form of communication; it is something that is changing our very humanity.

Banksy: Image Analysis

This Banksy classic conveys a strong political point regarding to the Palestine Wall.

The initial reaction is thought-provoking and evokes the feeling of anger. Banksy has cleverly used faith, an issue personal to many, as a political tool. The use of Mary & Joseph drives the issue home to the western world, where the large majority of people are Christian (or at least are ‘culturally Christian’).

It is interesting how there is a metaphorical juxtaposition in that Mary & Joseph, and by extension Christianity, represents things like peace and love, where as the wall is a product of hate and division. In this image, the wall prevents the good intentions from being carried out. It therefore motivates the viewer to act on the issue, even though there is no stated intention to do this on the image itself; it speaks for itself.

There is also a visual juxtaposition between the old/traditional and new/modern. A very traditional picture-perfect scene is depicted in oil paints, yet this has been purposely vandalised by a modern monstrosity cutting through the image. There is the use of modern English as graffiti on the wall, as well as strong geometric shapes coloured shades of grey. The construction of the image is a complete reflection upon society.

In many ways, the picture is realistic and depicts an event that many believe occurred. In other ways however, the image represents the negation of humanity that the barrier represents. One would assume that ‘the grass is greener on the other side’ as the star is on that side, however the reality is that life is not particularly better on that side- and in fact if one is to study the nativity, life is certainly worse in Bethlehem. It is therefore intriguing that the image provokes feelings of anger and the urge to tear the wall down in order to create peace, despite the reality being somewhat different to what we want to believe. The image makes us believe what we want to believe, rather than what is true.

One may read into the position of the Shepherd in the image too, and question why he is there when the wise men are not. Banksy is attempting to make a further political point, demonstrating that it always has been, and always will be, the poorest and most disadvantaged in society that suffer from the evil in the world. It could be assumed that the wise men had ‘arrangements’ to get through the barrier, just as those in positions of importance today have.
It is indeed a powerful image that the majority of people can relate to in various ways. It seems that this painting is the peak of Banksy’s series of works relating to the Palestine Wall, and he has created an incredibly successful piece of work here to summarise his feelings.

Postmodernity

Postmodernism is often used to poke fun at things. It is a fusion of contrasting styles, and asks ‘why do we have to be these things anyway?’ Keywords:
• Innovative
• Individualism
• Progress
• Purity
• Experimentation
• Originality
• Seriousness

Postmodern Condition:
• Exhaustion
• Pluralism
• Pessimism
• Disillusionment with total knowledge

Modernism: Expression of modern life
Postmodernism: Reaction to modern life

Origins

1917- German writer Rudolph Pannwitz spoke of postmodern men. 1964- Leslie Fielder.

Is the Postmodern a culture reserved for the rich/elite?

Visual culture: 1990s- popular

‘After Modernism, historical era following modernism; contra-modern’.

Late Capitalism, Stylist Eclecticism

The ‘global village’ phenomena referring to globalisation and the homogenised world

1977- The Language of Postmodern Architecture
Jencks: 1532 15th July 1972- demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe development St. Louis. Le Courbusier- not consistent with the diversity of human life.

Utopia: Postmodernism rejects this idea. It also rejects the idea of technological determinism.

Park Hill Flats, Sheffield (1960).
AT&T Building, NYC - Philip Johnson 1982
Guggenheim, Bilbao – J F Lyotard

‘The Postmodern Condition’ 1979 ‘increduity towards totalising belief systems results in crisis in confidence’.

There is a directionless society which is a reflection of the simplified aesthetic, utopia and truth to materials.

Roy Lichenstein
Las Vegas

Postmodern city; the idea that it has given up in trying, but is also a city that pokes fun.

Claves Oldenburg – Depped Cave 2001 Koln
Postmodernism – Dystopia
Red painting- Brushstroke 1965 Lichenstein
Jenny Holzer – uses adverts to make art
High art/low art divide crumbles.

Memphis Group

Crisis in Confidence: questioning old limitations. Freedom and new possibilities emerge.

Conclusion is disputed, but most agree PoMo questions conventions and encompasses multiple aesthetics.

The Document

Documentary Practice

A photographer in a way is perpetuated peace. The images are not just documenting/recording, but an intervention in a human agenda.

Joseph Nicéphone Niépce (1826)

View from a window at La Gras. The ability to capture the world brings an element of responsibility to the photographer as they record reality. James Nachtwey says we don’t just need to record but we need to expose the world. ‘These events I have recorded should not be forgotten or repeated’/

Frances Frith (1857) ‘Entrance to the Great Temple’

A subjective western depiction of Africa.

William Edward Kilburn ‘The Great Chartist Meeting at the Common’ (1848)

Hallmark of neutrality- no-one looking at camera and a bird’s eye panorama. But because the photo is staged, it is not neutral.

Roger Fenton (1855) ‘Into the Valley of the Shadow of Death’

A romanticised scene of war.

Cartier- Bresson

Capture a split second that represents human condition. A ‘sound-byte’ of the situation. Aesthetics, such as the ballerina, are important.

Jacob Riis (1888) ‘Bandits Roost’ / ‘A Growler Gang in Session (Robbing a Lush)’

Photograph real life and squalor. Not real though- all people in the photo are looking at the camera; they are all aware of the camera. It is a construction, not a snapshot of slum life.

Lewis Thine: Russian Steel Workers- Homestead 1908, Child Labourers in glassworks, Indiana (1911).

FSA Photographers 1935-1944

Department of Farm, Security and Administration. Roy Striker was the director. The government had to try and sort out migration problems.

Photograph as both photo journalism and emotive lobbying tool. Photographers looking for a certain response. Photographs are invalid as records of history.

Margaret Bourke-White ‘Shore Coppers Home’ (1937)
• Elicit and emotional response
• Peasant, child and dog
• Consumer culture images as wallpaper

‘Migrant Mother’ Doretha Lange (1936)
Mimics a residential shot to give impression that the subject is thinking ahead.

FSA- for a government agency, not individual photographers. Although the archive photos are mostly neutral, they are rejected by the FSA. FSA don’t want the ‘real’ reality but they want to create an image of the reality they want to expose.

Walker Evans- Graveyard Houses & Steel Mill, Bethlehem Pennsylvania (1935)

Scientists used photographer as a means to document people. In this case, photography is hiding its real agenda. Images supposedly used for science but not really.

Cesore Lombroso ‘Portrait of Melancholy’ / ‘Portraits of Italian & German Criminals’ (1889)

Theory: If you collect several photos of criminals, it will create the perfect image of criminality and you can judge criminals by their looks.

Robert Capa 1945- Normandy Landings

Neutral because of the subject. Famous for a blur- did he do this purposely later?

Magnum Group

1947 founded Cartier-Bresson & Capa.

Ethos of documenting the world and its social problems as well as internationalism and mobility.

Roberta Capa- 1939 ‘The Falling Soldier’ 1936

Seems staged; could be fact but really?

Nick Ut (172) ‘Accidental Napalm Attack’
Don McCullin (1968) ‘Shell Shocked Soldier’

Don McCullin was banned from going to the Falklands during the war because he would have produced negative images.

Robert Hoeberle (1969)

Took pictures of people about to be shot because he had given up trying to stop it/accepted he was part of the machine.

William Klein, St. Patrick’s Day Fifth Avenue (1955)

He accepts the photography is always somewhat staged, so he makes it explicit rather than trying to hide it and keep it a secret.

Bernd and Hilda Beeher

To try and remove subjectivity/aesethetics, they set rules on how to take pictures so they are netural and just record.

Conceptual Art

Richard Long (1981) A long line and tracks in Bolivia, tries to make art that can’t be bought or sold by trying to make a point- not trying to be bought and commissioned in galleries.

Bertol Brecht (1931): ‘You can’t capture reality’.

Allan Sekula- Fish Story. Lukacs ‘Theory of Novel’.

Narration vs. Description

In this book, there are essays and images- not just photos. It tries to represent reality as widely and neutrally as possible.

Andreas Gursky (1999) ’99 cent’
Jeff Wall (1992) ‘Dead Troops Talk’
Gillian Wearing (1992-1993) ‘Signs That Say What You Want Them To Say’

Jeremy Deller ‘The Battle of Orgreave’ (2001) Miners Strike.

Recreate/reconstruction of a scene. Channel 4/UK Art Angel with director Mike Figgis.

John Harris

Everyone has cameras now- we are all powerful. No need for Magmum- there is a reversal of power.

(Art), the Mass Media & Society

1. Characteristics of new digital media
2. Definition of, and critical look at, mass media
3. Relationship between art and mass media

‘Late Age of Print’- Media Theorist Marshall McLuhon

He believes that the age of print begins in 1450 with the invention of the printing press by Gutenburg. The press brings a new society. Knowledge becomes more freely available and more people can get it as it is wider circulated, not just to those few.

Computer Literacy

We can now consumer knowledge but also distribute it. Press has changed the way we read and engage with the world.

Ebook

• Are ebooks democratic?
• Will they replace books?

The digitisation of literature changes the way we think & read. Ebooks allow the reader to subvert the dogmatic authority of the authority. This is because the reader can ‘control’ the way they read. The reader can take on the role of the author.

Computer Media

Hypertext: ‘Surf through knowledge’. Hypermedia problems:

Hypertext can allow you to ‘skip’ knowledge and skip through it. It gives you the sense you have read up on an issue well, but you have only touched upon it and some aspects of it. Schools support this because the learner constructs the learning.

Definition of Mass Media

Modern systems of communication and distribution supplied by relatively small groups of cultural producers, but directed towards large groups of consumers. I.e. A few people have control of most knowledge creation. The internet doesn’t fit with this however.

Critical Analysis of Mass Media

1. Superficial, uncritical, trivial. Little content, not much to learn. Re-iterated entertainment.
2. Viewing figures measure success. Nothing changes because of this.
3. Audience is dispersed.
4. Audience is disempowered. Makes the feeling that viewers have power such as the XFactor
5. Encourages the status quo- conservative. It encourages the popular consensus and doesn’t challenge.
6. Apathy. Can’t do anything to change the world- only watch.
7. Power held by a few motivated profit driven people- propaganda.
8. Bland, escapist and standardised.

Positives
1. Not all media is low quality
2. Social problems and injustice are discussed by the media
3. Creativity can be a feature of mass media
4. Transmission of high art reaches broader audience
5. Democratic potential

John A. Walker- Art in the Age of Mass Media

What happens to art when it is being filtered through the mass media and the ignorant can engage with it and criticise it.

Leeds 13- pretended to go on holiday. United Colours of Benetton; art into adverts.

Can art be autonomous? Can it exist on its own within a vacuum? Should art be autonomous?

Jackson Pollock- elitist art that is ‘above society’. Thomas Gow says art vs. media is untrue and art has always been linked to mass media. Pop art- art revelling its own relationship with mass media. Lichtenstein takes the piss out of high art- but it is still high art.

Warhol Green Coca-Cola bottles says something about the ‘same-ness’ of modern society- of how boring media is today. ‘Mask’ on Marilyn Monroe. Celebrity glamour is repeated and given to us consistently with all its imperfections.

‘Campaign Fatigue’

Images fed to us so much that we are insensitive to it. Art becomes a subject of mass media. The meaning of art is shifted. Art is claimed by society e.g Jackson Pollock- Stone Roses and L’Oreal – Piet Mondrian.

Always has been a relationship between mass media and art. Symbolic- media is better artists reciprocate.

Myra Hindley – Marcus Harvey 1995. 1997 in Sensation in London. Handprints make up Hindleys face. Our relationship with Myria is 100% concerned with the media. Attacked the press. Iconic connotation with evil. Meditation with media not subject.

Advertising, Publicity & the Media

Mass Advertising

Times Square: A bombardment of adverts; the epitome of capitalism.

There are 11,000 new adverts per year, and 25 million print adverts per year.

Pop ups- they invade our lives.

Karl Marx 1818-1883: Communist Manifesto 1848

A Marxist would argue that we live in a commodity culture where we are governed by markets and materialism. In our capitalist culture, our identities are build upon commodities. What we own defines who we are. Stewart Ewen terms it ‘the commodity self’. Judith Williams says ‘instead of being identified by what they produce, people identify themselves through what they consume.

We perhaps believe in the commodity culture because the adverts lead us to believe that our lives will get better by it. CKI lead us to believe that buying perfume- aka flavour water- will turn us into sophisticated, sexy, popular people. Our purchases make us believe we are those things.

Traditional adverts used the virtues of the product to promote it. The Stanley Range ad says your life will be improved by a better cooker where as the Milady Pipe tries to attach a lifestyle to the pipe.

Commodity culture perpetuates false needs by bringing aesthetic innovation, planned obsolescence and novelty.

Aesthetic Innovation: iPod

If a product looks nicer, it becomes ‘needed’ because it is nicer.

Planned Obsolescence

Products in the commodity culture are designed to break so that you will feel you have lost something when you don’t have it, thus meaning you are compelled to buy more.

Commodity Fetishism

Advertising conceals the background history of products. Theorists would say that we know each other through the things we own rather than our genuine personalities. Our relationships are mediated through commodities.

Niked trainers are marketed as empowering females, but they are produced through sweatshops where females are slaves.

Reification

Products are given human associations. When we associated humans with commodities so much, the commidty gains a ‘human’ aspect and becomes a character. In the mini advert, the family are bounded by the car as it becomes part of the family. With this, people become less ‘human’ and are judged more like commodities. Rather than describing their personality, they describe their physicial attributes. Lip Gloss- becomes sex.

Frankfurt School 1923

Herbert Marcuse- One Dimensional Man: Commodity Culture stops us seeing things in several ways.

John Berger- Ways of Seeing: Advertising shows us we become richer when paradoxically we become poorer. Both of the images in adverts show we are inadequate until we gain the product.

Painting

A painting of a guy who is identifying himself through the trappings of their lives; their commodities.

Adverts are tricks, but there are positives; economy, subsidising the media quality, stereotyping. But it makes us unhappy with what exists, it manipulates people, encourages addictive, obsessive and acquisitive behaviour. It distorts the language and encourages bad grammar. It is specially indoctrinated in children because it encourages us to buy unhealthy products. It encourages people to deplete the worlds resources. www.anti-ipod.co.uk Culture Jamming.

Victor Burgin

What does possession mean to you? 7% of our population own 84% of our wealth.

Graphic Design: A Medium for the Masses

Cave paintings and paintings that depict religious scenes demonstrate the earliest indications of visual communication to an illiterate world.

John Everette Miallais paints an image of a boy blowing bubbles; fine art. But when text is added by Pears’ soap, does it become graphics? Graphic design is a recent term for a concept that has existed throughout history.

The square paintings on the wall resemble a comic strip.

Images with block colour indicate they have been produced for mass production as it’s cheap and easy to copy. LNER poster & other UK design follows a different fashion to the mainland.

Graphics & Advertising
Herbert Spencer mechanises art in Europe. Paul Rand claims a strong link between graphics and advertising because the designer is trying to persuade and inform. Eskilson challenges this by saying that advertising originates from capitalism.

Birth of views Cabonel- Fantasy Love Godess. Fictional.
Olympia Manet- realistic representation where Manet shows a class divide. This is an early origin of graphic design.
Courbet- Origins of the World 1886- crude and impersonal with no face.

Art & Power: Europe under the Dictators

Abram Games, Saul Bass, Paul Rand (ABC logo, IBM logo)

Savile Lumley was a pioneering British WW1 propaganda designer.

Julius Gipkens challenges tradition in war posters (like the Alfred Leete & Montgomery flag) in Germany by producing ‘Trophies of the Air War’ in 1917. Odd angles, block colours and unsymmetrical designs characterise the new modern designs. Lissitzky depicts the Russian Revolution with ‘Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge’ in 1919.

Graphic Design Later
The Great Bear- Tube Map. Link between art and design illustrations rationalisation.

Under the Nazis, the Bauhaus moves out of Germany. Hitler rejected modern values and reverted to tradition, stalling progress in design- at least in Europe. There is a lack of ambition.

Graphic Design: An art that responds to social & political views.
Advertising: A divisive tool that gets people to buy more & more.

Postmodernism in Graphics
Hipgnosis in the 1970s began the period of postmodernism. A meaningless and detailed (ie not minimal) image on a record cover marks this.

Neville Brody, David Carson, John Lydon

Hard-Fi used their cover art to illustrate the expensive black and white images used on many CD covers. Spiritualised album by Jason Pierce was disguised as a packet of tablets.

Modernity & Modernism

Modernity & Modernism
The modernist project can be roughly defined as the era starting circa 1760 and concluding around 1960. Today we are living in the Post Modern world.

What do we mean by modern?
Modern implies that something is better than it was before. Things are not modernised to make something worse. Modern has positive connotations and can be linked to words such as ‘progress’, ‘change’, ‘efficiency’ and ‘new’- an ideology linked to commodity culture. Using the example of ‘new’, New Labour can be seen as a political example of how the new, the modern, is seen as an improvement on what preceded it. The Tate Modern implies the idea of a new, forward thinking institution.

Hirling Shepherd: William Holman
Not everything in the modern era is modernist. The Hirling Shepherd is a painting from the modern era but has been executed in a classical style. Both the style and subject of the image is traditional. The concept of a shepherd seducing a girl on a farm as the animals run wild is not at all modernist.

The City
By 1900, Paris has become the world’s most modern city. Previously, like other European cities, Central Paris had narrow and awkward street patterns that promoted unhygienic conditions, fit only for the poorest residents of the city. The modernist project welcomed Haussmann with his grand plans for Paris. Wide, spacious, tree-lined boulevards improved efficiency, but most importantly helped control society more easily. Flanking the boulevards were extravagant new buildings, equipped with balconies. The rich moved in as the slums were swept away, and they admired man’s creation from the balconies and terraces of the buildings.

Paris didn’t just ‘build the modern’, it revelled in it. The Grand Exposition brought many new structures to Paris including the famous Eiffel Tower. These grand steel and iron icons of modernity and industrialisation dominated the cityscape.

Later, New York became the world’s most advanced city. As New York was laid out, the grid pattern ensured maximum efficiency. Skyscrapers maximised available space in the city. An image illustrates a park surrounded by buildings; Central Park is a manmade creation within the urban jungle. These artificial environments demonstrate how nature had its place within the order and rationale of the human creation.

Modernism
Modernism can be defined as the cultural interpretations to the experience of the modern world. It is seen as utopian. From a design perspective, a few concepts are raised:
1. Truth to Materials
2. Embrace new technology
3. Function over Form
4. Progress
5. Anti-historicism: Not looking back at the past and the hierarchies of the old.
6. Globalisation: Making things universal and accessible to all. A new international language, perhaps somewhat born out of the fall of colonisation.
7. The idea that changing environments would change people’s thinking.
8.