Appropriation

Here i have added a one hundred dollar bill on the bottom of a medieval painting, symbolising lifespaces' relation with money and religion.

First Collage

There are several different elements in this collage which i have chosen in order to symbolise the christian social network within an image. The main feature being the repeated man praising Jesus, i used this image twice in order to emphasise his passion and the baby is to symbolise how children can be indoctrinated at a very early age before they can have any considered religious views. The magpie symbolises the stealing of money that i feel the christain social network does with 'virtual gifts'. The half dollar bill emphasises this and symbolises that the social network is from America. I have included the strap line of the social network as i think it is quite bizarre and may make the viewer think as to what this image is about and wheather it is a postive or nagative one.

lifespace-a place for friends and family

I thought it would be wise not to use my real name and information when joining the Christian social network so i made up a profile under the name of 'Trish'. The profile picture is of the most conservative woman i could find on google.The image that dominates the home page is of a book entitled '4 Keys to Hearing God's Voice'. This book costs $12.95, however before buying this book you are advised to take a ten week course costing $20 per family or $10 per person. Or you can buy a guaranteed package costing $175. It doesn't surprise me to see this network asking for money before the user has even signed up, for me this sums up what many religious websites and religious social networks are about.

http://lifespace.cc/ - home page

http://www.cwgministries.org/store/4-keys-hearing-gods-voice-book - 4 keys to hearing God's voice

http://lifespace.cc/profile/CharlotteWhiston?xg_source=activity#add_comment - my page

Project Outline- "LifeSpace-Christian Social Network Like MySpace or Facebook"

The social network that i have joined is called 'LifeSpace-Christian Social Network Like MySpace or Facebook' (this is the actual name!) or 'lifespace.cc'. I am not religious and enjoy having debates with people on the subject of religion in particular christianity. My work sometimes includes this theme and i think that by joining a christian social network i can observe how some of the people can be extremely prejudiced and merciless through the blogs and discussions they hold and i would ultimately like to make a piece of work that reflects this. Ideally the work that i produce will at first glance appear like a positive message for the christian social network but with the knowledge of what the piece/s is about it will be clear that the message behind the piece/s illustrates the indoctrination and exploitation of these religious social networks.

Post Modernism At The V and A

 Style And Subversion 1970-1990

Post Modernism was perhaps the most controversial of the design movements and defies definition. Post modernism was a drastic departure from Modernisms utopian visions which were based on clarity and simplicity contrasted to the complexities and contradictions of Post Modernism. It shattered established ideas about style, it had the freedom to design which often resulted in confrontation but brought a new self awareness about style itself, however later on Post Modernism became emursed in the very circuits of money and influence that it had originally sought to dismantle.

Before seeing the exhibition (Post Modernism Style and Subversion) I didn't realise all of the traits that were associated with the art movement like bricolage, collage, appropriation, performance art etc.

I found the work of Peter Saville's particularly interesting. His output from the Post Modern movement included appropriation from art and design. Design critic Alice Twemlow wrote "...in the 1980's...he would directly and irreverently "lift" an image from from one genre -art history for example- an recontextualize it in another. A Fantin-Latour 'Roses' painting in combination with a colour coded alphabet became the seminal album cover for New Orders 'Power Corruption and Lies' (below)
Savilles design for Joy Divisions album  cover 'closer' (above) released shortly after Ian Curtis' suicide (1980) was controversial as it depicts an image of christ's body entombed, however the album design pre dated Curtis' death.

This is why i find this form of design intriguing as taking an image from another genre or era makes the viewer judge the image within their own subjective context. The meaning one gets from the image can be completely contrasted to how another would view it. Saville was one of the first designers to use this technique so blatantly, relying on only the 'borrowed' image for the art piece, this can be seen as a risky thing to do opening this style up to criticism from previously embedded art movements.

Tadanori Yokoo was a pioneer of Post Modernist appropriation and bricollage. All of his works display a unique visual richness alluding to an electric array of artistic movements and images such as Surrealism, Dada, Russian Construcavism, American Pop Art, Contemporary Japanese Popular Culture and traditional Japanese art forms. The art critic Yasushi Kurabayashi wrote, "Yokoo's posters are not designed around conventional poster-like ideas. Rather his posters have been executed from his own desire for creative expression, with little regard for cognitive clarity or message"

                                    The great mirror of the dance as an
                                           immolate sacrifice 1986

A la Maison de m civecawa (to the shibusawa house) 1965

Modern and Post Modern Graphic Design

Post Modernism didn't have much impact on graphic design until the 1980's. Initially many designers thought it was just an undisciplined self-indulgence, a hodgepodge of styles with no unifying ideals or formal vocabularies, but in fact it was a new way of thinking about design, one that instigated a new way of designing. Although Jan Tschichold (below) has been celebrated as an early proponent of modernist asymmetric typography, (many designers see his body of work as an important precedent for todays postmodern typography in that it represents diversity in ideology and style) another important precursor to post modernism was W.A Dwiggins.

                                                  

Dwiggins (below) was a tireless experimenter with form who took inspiration from eastern cultures, history and new technology. Unlike Tschichold, Dwiggins never embraced the Modernist movement nor was he defied by it. However he was absolutely commited to being a modern designer. Both Dwiggins' and Tschichold's work was initially misrepresented with Tschichold being celebrated as a modernist typographer which downplayed his more substantial body of design and writing based on traditional and classical ideas and Dwiggins being represented as a traditional designer in spite of the innovative and experimental nature of most of his work. It has only been in recent years that discussions of both designers have expanded to include the full scope and plurality of their work.

This is because the Postmodern context has encouraged diversity and complexity and the line dividing modern and classical, good and bad, new and old has become very blurry and fractured. In the late 1980's an anti-aesthetic impulse emerged in opposition to Modernists 'good design', a reaction against the narrow and formalist concerns of late Modernism. The new aesthetic was impure, chaotic and crude and was so successful that, in terms of style pretty much everything was allowed in the professionalized filed of graphic design and typography would also go along with this.

By the mid eighties Paula Scher had become known as a designer producing original and inventive work which often reflected the past. The Swiss watch company Swatch asked Scher and her business partner Terry Koppel to help promote the Swiss watch company. They were asked to develop a campaign that was reminiscent of American 1950's advertising. 

Swatch's head quarters was in the Swiss international business building where upon the walls hung the work of Swiss designer Herbert Matter. His style was fresh using contrasting photos, typography and colour he developed a series of powerful posters for the Swiss National Trust Office (Above). Fifty years later Scher held admiration for these pieces and decided "They were all crying out for a swatch watch". The poster had to have some of the elements re-created. The lady in the ski hat was a reshot at a different angle, with the title changed and made bigger and the arm dropped in. 

Designers were beginning to push aside context and look at things through a narrowing view of retrospect and nostalgia. 

But does Paula Scher get away with this design because she is Paula Scher, because of her reputation, because she was one of many doing it? What role does design history play for us today? I want to question and investigated this myself through this project as appropriation played a big role in post modern design and is one that i feel drawn to.

Cildo Meireles's Coca Cola Project

For the Coca-Cola Project Meireles removed Coca-Cola bottles from normal circulation in Brazil and modified them by adding critical political statements, or instructions for turning the bottle into a Molotov cocktail. For me the reason why this is so effective is that the message only shows when the bottle is filled up as the white text contrasts with the dark liquid and as these bottles were returned, refilled and resold consumers would receive these bottles with these messages on them. 

'Your Feet Look Gorgeous'

'Your Feet Look Gorgeous' is the slogan that the retail shop New Look use for their shoes which is usually printed on the soul of the shoe. I came across this idea and the above image when I had to take the soul out of my shoe out as it was wearing away and coming off from the heel of the shoe. Obviously the shoe does not look gorgeous, quite the opposite and seeing this statement made me think how fickle a majority of advertising can be. When I brought the shoes from New Look they were new and the slogan could have applied to them however now the statement 'Your Feet Look Gorgeous' seems completely meaningless and insignificant due to the current condition of the shoes as they are dirty and worn away however the slogan remains.

Mish Mash-Swastika

This image came about when looking for material to produce an object/s which function we had to change to produce a different meaning/statement. Our group came across a box of dried flowers and my initial idea was to make an image or symbol which juxtaposed the colours and vibrancy that flowers hold. The symbol of the Swastika seemed befitting and we were sure that this would make a strong statement.


However earliest archaeological evidence of swastika shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilisation of ancient india and remains widely used in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism primarily as a sacred symbol of good luck. This image plays with our perceptions. Due to a brief surge of popularity in western culture, the swastika was adopted as a symbol of the Nazi Party of Germany in 1920 and as a result became strongly associated with ideologies such as fascism and white supremacism. 


The colours of the swastika are critical in terms of its oppressive feel and by removing the red white and black alone transforms how one reacts to the symbol. It is interesting to see how colours alone can create a certain emotion. In the above image the colours are natural and light, this is a contrast to the colours of the nazi swastika, and this makes the image less oppressive. The statement we wanted to make through this image was how our pre conceptions dictate how we perceive an object/symbol and when a component of a known object/symbol has been changed that symbol becomes something different resulting in a new statement.

Technology Matters

https://learning.westminster.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/courses/MIVC503.1/TechnologyMatters_Ch1_Nye%281%29.pdf

What is Apparatus?

https://learning.westminster.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/courses/MIVC503.1/What%20Is%20an%20Apparatus_Agamben%281%29.pdf