OUGD501 Gaze and the Media Lecture

The Gaze and the media.

'According to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but by have'

Hans memling
Blames the woman for the display of her body, because she holds a mirror because she is therefore looking at herself, it is okay for us or others to look at her. The hammer of witches, allows people to prosecute woman as witches, any of those outside the norm. If you drowned you were innocent, if you floated you were guilty. 

Fashion magazine.
The device of the mirror appears in contemporary fashion images, we cannot see her eyes or reflection in the mirror. She is pre-occupied by looking at herself, this gives us permission as the viewers to gaze at her too. A moment of spying upon her.

Birth of venus. 
The woman in this image is partially covering her eyes, per or post sleep, we are left to regard the named body uninterrupted. We are invited by the artist, but the woman also does not stop us. 

Sophie Dahl for opium. 
This version of the advert was deemed too sexual for publishing, felt that it was too sexual and wouldnt pass the advertising standard. The advert was then turbed on its side, the advert now had more emphasis on the face rather than the body. 

Titan's venus urbino. (1538)
Women looks out of the side of her eyes, a flirty invitation, we are then made to feel we are spying on her. The curtain dictates a personal space. Left hand covering herself modestly or a sexual gesture?

MANET olympia (1863)
- A modern nude. 
An example of the slight differences of pose. Similar body position, There is a difference in the woman's gaze. Here there is a challenge to the gaze. Hand position is definite, stopping the viewer from viewing this part of her body. The woman is actually a prostitute, rather than being a mythological figure, she is a modern nude and she has the symbols of wealth, jewellery and a servant. Money is celebrated with this powerful female figure vs mythological woman.

Ingnes 'Le grand Odalisque' (1814)

The gorilla girls took the image and made it into a poster which they put on buses. 
Less than 5% of modern artists are woman.
85% of the nudes are female. 

MANET Bar at the folies bergeres (1882)
Makes painting as a self portrait. skeud perspective, mirror reflects her back but not as it should do in feel life. Reflected in the mirror behind her is the Paris society, which she is not a part of, from this we are able to depict the tradgedy of the photo, it also highlughts the superficiality of the Parisian culture. 

Jeff wall 'Picture for women'
Same position as the previous painting, the image is complex. There is a mirrored wall behind her where he is reflected, image is divided into thirds, camera represents Manet, photographer is separated from female figure. Refers to the use of Manet's painting. 

Coward. R. 1984.
The camera in contemporary media has been out to use as an extension of the male gaze at the women on the street. 
Model is wearing sunglasses which means that the gaze cannot be returned, we are able to gaze at her without feeling we are being looked back at. 

Eva Herzigova (1994)
Looking down at the people below, we are able to survey her without her knowing. 

'Peeping tom' (1960)
The problem with objectification of the body results in the ditatchment of who women really are, real women. 
The profusion of images which characterises contemporary society could be seen as obsessive distancing of women. A form of voyeurism.

The female body is not the only who is objectified. 
He is 'sleeping' we are able to look at the image.

The problem is the volume of images. 
In what frequency is objectification evident in ads. 
Although male objectification has been increased it is no way balanced. 
however this balance does no reflect the POWER balance. 

Dolce and Gabbana. (2007)
all our gazes are returned, we are no passive. 

Laura Mulberry.
Studies spectatorship in Hollywood cinema. 
Looks at the way bodies are chopped up by the camera, framing where if there is a sexual scene, what parts of the body are in close up. Making the body partial removes us from the actress, the females in the films are never the driver os the story, they are reacting passively to the male characters. 
In the cinema, one may look without being seen, by those on screen and those in the audience. Facilitate the voyueristic process of objectification of female characters and the identification if the ideal ego on screen.  

Women are active and aggressive. Reposition the role of women in art history. The idea of the artist as a genius is always given to a male figure. Making their voices visible. Women are marginalised within masculine discourses of art history.' Women are supposed to be marginalised. 

Cindy Sherman (1977-79) Untitled film still #6
Work challenges the gaze. 
Image is turned upright so that there is more of a focus on the face. 
Holding a mirror, rathern than looking at herself. We are denied the narritive that allows us to look at her without her looking back. There is something staged and awkward looking about the image. 

Barbara Kruger (1981) Your gaze hits the side of my face. 
Newspaper impression, reference to some sort of violent connotation, of objectifying women by looking at them. 

Sarah Lucas 'Eating a bannana'

Pictures herself eating a banana. Humourous work with a strong message, returning the male gaze. 
Self portrait with fried eyes - describes women with flat chests. No way that we are allowed to look at her without feeling challenged. 

Tracey Emin 'Money photo' 2001. 
Work couldnt be real or genuine because she was making so much money out of it, seen as prostitution. 

In 2013 we still have page 3, a naked picture in a national newspaper for anybody to see. Caroline Lucas MP in june 2013. Was asked to remove her tshirt, draws attention to the ludicrous acts. The sun itself was availible in palimentry houses.  (No more page 3)
It does strike me as irony ans the t shirt is not allowed to be worn, however the newspaper is availiable in different locations of the westminster estate.

Criado-Perez. 
Re-instate female figures on bank notes. removing women from history, if they are going to be replaced, replace them with powerful women. 
Argued that the equality act 2010 commits public institutions to end discrimination. 
recieved up to 50 rape and death threats a day on her twitter account. She was forced to delete her account. There is now a report abuse button. 

Lucy Ann-Homes - fought a campaign to get rid of page three, and also received death threats. 

Murray ends 77-year wait for British win, Ignores that 30 years ago Virginia won the British title. 

Social networking is used ti perpetuate the male gaze. 

Susan Sontag. 
To photograph something, you are able to have some possesion of something. Like sexual voyuerism, it encourages what is going on to keep on happening. 

Paparazzi shot of princess Diana. People desire these images, to see the mask of the celebrity lifted, to see them as ordinary people. 

Reality television. 
- Big brother appear to offer us a position of power, we see everything and have the descision on who goes and who stays. 
There is no active role for the viewer. 
contestants are aware of their representation. 

The truman show (1988)
Who life is a reality television set. He discovers his world is a sham and everything around him is a staged event. 

Big brother offers equality, both men and women but makes voyeurism an everyday activity, they cannot see us, but we can see them. 

'Looking is not indifferent. There can never be any question of 'just looking'. Victor Burgin (1982)

OUGD501 Identity Seminar

Main points from the lecture:

- Psuedo science, identity is based on physical characteristics  you are born with it and cannot escape it, It is your biological make up, this is a trait of essentialism. Eg. If you are born back you are less intelligent. 

Identity and 'the other' in visual representation. 
- Creation of identities 
- Concepts of 'otherness'
- Analysis of visual example. 

Identity: Who we are and how others perceive who we are. 

What makes you, YOU? (Individual subjectivities - our sense of self)
Discuss in small groups:

- Interests and hobbies.
- Your job/ course you study. 
- Being a student/ non student. 
- Morals (What you believe in).
- People you surround yourself with (family, friends, peers).
- Nationality and regional. (Where you are from). ENVIRONMENT.
- Appearance, how you decide to dress.
- If you have money, and If so, how you deal with your money. (Spend or save).
- Marital status (Society sees people differently, divorce, widowed, single etc)
- Era you were born in. 
- Diet. (Alters the way you look, overeat, under eat, affective of health.)
Peoples diets are commodified (M&S) Finer foods are bought as symbols of identity. 
Affects us physically and socially, we have a better outlook on life, once we have had a good meal etc. We are sometimes grumpy when hungry. 
Dialectic (Both physical and social effects)
- Education. 

How do you express your identity?

- Social media. 
- How you dress/ look. 
- Music you listen to. 
- Places you choose to go to hang out. 
- The brands you choose to buy (food, clothes, items)
- Possessions  fashion. Particularly in urban environments where people are more anonymous. Used as a barrier to stop people knowing exactly who you are. An 'artificial' performance of identity. 
However people from a more wealthy background may se it as the 'norm' to wear these brands. 
Social interactions - How you treat others. 
Mannerisms - presenting yourself differently to people ( friends as a contrast to your boss)
- Interests and hobbies. 
- Whom you associate yourself with. 

Our subjectivities are given to us through our wider society, but also our self creation of who we choose to be. 

Stuart Hall. 

Our identity is not something innate, there may be innate factors that go towards our subjectivities. These 5 categories equally decipher our selves. 

- Laws that limit how we exist, suppressed by legality, society limits our desires by a certain extent. 

- What we buy, the way we act, our affections, our mannerisms. 

- What you do in society, what you do for a job. The role that you have is ultimately part of your identity through choice or not. 

The things that you buy are related to your role, for instance if you are a business man you are expected to but your house certain things. From a welfare point of view you have the funds to purchase what others do not etc.

It is not enough to describe our identities as something that we just express, or about our jobs or what we own, because it is all of these things in a complex multi determining shift and cycle. All 5 of these elements to our make up, combine to create the ultimate you. 

Jacques LACAN.

- Working after Freud as a physcoanalyst.

- Worked after Freud. 

- Came up with the otherness. 

- Came up with the idea that when you are born you do not understand and do not have any comprehension that you are distinct or separate from your mother, through breast feeding etc you are semiotically linked. When you are born you are a 'hommelette' a scrambled mix of parts you don't understand. They do not understand the separation of themselves from anything else in the world. 

In the mirror stage 6-18 months, first stages of identity, a baby looking at itself in the mirror and seeing for the first time externally a sense of itself as a cohesive being in the world. First sense of being an individual. Particularly occurs through things like giving out signals and noticing these things have a response. Crying and helping, hungry and food. 

We gain a sense of who we are through the actions/ response of the outside world to the things that we do, this is how we know ourselves to be independent individual and isolated. 

After 18 months a lot of our sense of identity is secured. 

Not who we would like to be or who we think we are, it is formed by the reception of others. 

But this sense of our own identity is fragile. It is illusionary, We believe we are a powerful unit making changes in the world, however this is not true because babies cannot live without others help. 

All of our identity masquerades, link back to our mirror phase, we are individual and when we act the world responds. 

All the rest of our actions (dress, act, strive for status - popularity) same process, trying to strive for stability and identity. Never one moment when we are entirely happy because we never have that stable identity. 

In the mirror phase in order to secure our identity we have to measure our selves as subjects against objects, against what we are not, involves taking other people and simplifying what they are (I am black because I am not white, I am a man because I am not a woman) Taking a limited reading of what others are to reaffirm to ourselves what we are as individuals. Securing our sense of self.

EXAMPLES OF OTHERING:

- Brands: Not about buying a gucci watch to be part of that affluent world, having a gucci watch to know you are not one of the council estate underclass. 

- Accent: If you have renounced pronunciation, you are saying you are part of an educating cast, not part of the general working class who communicate with slang. By trying to be this way, we are trying to seem more secure, assuming we are better. 

In the lynx advert:

Not just about buying something to smell nice. More complex, stereotyping, pushing another sense of society away. Buy using this deodorant  you attract lots of women and are therefore more masculine, if not you are like the 'others' who are less masculine.  

Whole societies depend on this. On a social level, shoring up unstable identities through the illusion of unity. We have to invent new cases of othering to constantly feel stable. 

A problem of the other, at least we are not like this, and we do not have these problems, we live rightly and live in a stable world. Looking away from the problem, we are distanced from people and these issues. Article about aids next to advert about a boots advantage card in a magazine. 

OUGD501 Identity Lecture

I had not attended this lecture due to Illness however these are the notes I was given from other members of my class

Identity lecture. 

Essentialism (traditional approach) draws on the idea that you have an inner essence, a biological make up that cannot be changed. 

Physionogomy.
The closer you are to the vertical, the closer you are to the perfect race, the more intelligent you are, as you move away towards a diagonal line you are seen as unintelligent. 



Phrenology. 
18 th century - In a balanced human being you have equal parts of the brain broken down to represent 'society's good character'. If your animal instincts are larger, you are looked down upon by society. 




Historical phases of identity. 

Pre modern 
- Personal identity is stable, desfined by long standing roles. 
Institutions defined identity - church, monarchies etc. 
Farm workers, soldier, factory worker, housewife and gemtleman, husband and wife. Tied to institutional agencys, industrial capatilism, the state, the church. 

Modern
- People begin to have anxiety about who they are, and the idea that you can start choosing who you are. 
Charles Baudelaire - The painter of modern life (1863)
Introduces the gentleman stroller, they are seeing and being seen, he has time on his hands, doesn't have to go to work, this is how his identity is formed. 
Veblen - Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. Consuming things that can be seen by others. Showing off wealth, in terms of visible objects. If you can show off in what you're wearing, you do not need to go to work. 
Thorstein Veblen - The theory of leisure.
Emulation - The lower class aspires to be the upperclass, invention of cheap knock offs, and so the upperclass constantly change what they are wearing. Relevant today in the idea that new things always come around, Thinks are built in...
The mask - People hide behind what they wear. 

'The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one actually finds oneself physically alone, as one is a stranger without relations...
demonstrates the anxiety we feel when separated in society by what we own/wear, so much so that we feel more alone when surrounded by people than we do when we are alone. 

Post Modern 
- You can change at will who you want to be. 
Discourse analysis.
Cavallaro quote on discourse. 
- Age
- Class
- Gender 
- Nationality
- Income
- Education
- Race

Class
Nationaity
Race/ Ethnicity
Gender and sexuality. 

To be non white european, middle class, and hetro sexual you are cast out. 
others of this are deemed the 'Otherness'.

Zygmunt Bauman. 
quote on identity. 
 Introspection - when you find yourself alone, instead of collecting their thoughts, scan their mobile phone etc, in case someone out there may want them. 

I think therefore I am/ I shop therefore I am. 
Barabra Kruger - Buy me, i'll change your life. 

In the past on sundays family would have gone to church. The family trip to the shopping mall is the of incarnation.

OUGD501 Study Task 2 Consumerism

Using the text Berger, J. (1972) 'Ways of Seeing', write one critical analysis of an advert which, in your opinion, reflects the logic of consumerism, or the social conditions of consumerism, discussed in the lecture 'Consumerism' (17/10/13). Use at least five quotes, referenced according to the Harvard system, in support of your argument.

The above image is the advertisement I have chosen to write my analysis on. As a matter of fact this advertisement was in fact banned from the UK for being too unrealistic with the use of Photoshop.

We now live in a society where looks and appearance are everything to a lot of people, in the past the focus was heavily on women however the pressures of looking ones best is also being put on to men; with the increase of male products being brought out along with clever ads insinuating that they need these items or products. This has been the result of consumerist advertisements being in the public eye for many years. If the society we lived in didn't have a necessity for these things then ultimately there would be no such thing as make up in this instance, because people would just generally be happy in there own skin. 'In no other form of society in history has there been such a concentration of images, such a density of visual messages' (Berger, Ways of Seeing p.g 129) As we live in a culture surrounded by visual media thus puts pressure on both males and females to aspire to the glamour and the beauty that is forced in our faces on an everyday basis. The advertisers of beauty products use this to there advantage of living in a society that ignore the small print and in a sense the laziness of our society makes looking at images the easier option then reading. In essence once seeing image they believe they will become just like that image or reflect that image due to the consumerism within our society, and what it has brainwashed us into believing.

The advertisement also highlights 'problem' areas that the product will 'erase' such as crows feet, dark circles and fine lines' but if it wasn't for these advertisements who says that these areas are problem areas when every person eventually has the same so called problems. 'A person may notice a particular image or piece of information because it corresponds to some particular interest he has' (Berger, Ways of Seeing, p.g 130) although the highlighted issues within the advertisements aren't necessarily interests like a hobby they are an interest in a sense that the majority of public would be interested in hiding these so called flaws on there face. The advertisers have edited the image to take an already beautiful women to give the illusion that these issues would be erased by contrasting her natural face with editing of smoother softer looking skin. One could argue that this is false advertisement because people are well aware that no matter how many cosmetics products you use the natural ageing of ones skin will obtain these so called imperfections yet so many people are made to believe that this product will hide this. This begin emphasised by the clever use of wording such as '7 years of research 3 patents' but without reading the imagery clearly attempts to trick you into believing it. 

'Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable. The state of being envied is what constitutes glamour. And publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour.' (Berger, Ways of seeing, p.g 131)

The advertisement plays on the idea of natural competition, everyone striving to be better then the next person, if you have the above flaws it makes you less of a person to be envied or admired therefore you are not intact worthy. Due to the consumerism and the penultimate vanity of this society advertisers play on this within there advertising campaigns for beauty products that it increases the ideology who can be better which enforces people to but things. 'It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more' (Berger, Ways of seeing) Community and society buy into competition.

Ultimately the deeper picture is that you can put this make up on now but as soon as you take it off the so called problem still lies, it may not be an issue for a day and one may tell themselves that they are more beautiful by putting  on this mask and 'erasing' the problem but ultimately it will never go away. 'Publicity images also belong to the moment in the sense that they must be continually renewed and made up to date. Yet they never speak of the future' (Berger) This is an incredibly depressing thought that these false needs means that one can never actually be happy because the 'problem' is not a permanent solution and because of this advertisements are ruining societies belief in themselves; and the vicious circle will carry on through generations and generations because it is instilled in every one no matter where you may go.

OUGD504 Design Production Design for Print

Brief

Produce an approriately designed 'info-pack' of things to know, consider or remember in order to produce successful Design for Print. You should use the seminars and tasks from the module as a starting point for your own individual/independent investigation of the methods, processes and formats that can be used to create innovative but practical solutions to print based design briefs and all aspects of print- based delivery.

For submission and assessment you will also be required to select, summarise and evaluate appropriate primary & secondary source material and submit it in an appropriately designed and produce graphic format that reflects your cretaive and technical appreciation of graphic design.  Your submission should demonstrate your understanding of print processes, conventions and creative options from the perspective of a graphic designer. It should also demonstrates your ability to effectively organise and present a body information in a designed format. As well as presenting your resolution you should  upload a multi page pdf version to your Design Practice & Design Context blog via 'Issuu'. See additional briefings for further information.

Commercial print processes are of concern to you especially as, at times, you will have to relinquish the hands –on production control of your work for a more specification/managerial role.

• Your research will be informed by the seminars delivered as part of the module but how much more can you find out?

• What do you need to know about print production and what is relevant to your own practice?

• How do you communicate your research in a way that is reflective of your creative ambitions.

• Your considered opinion is important. You should use appropriate examples of professional creative practice in order to demonstrate your breadth and depth of understanding

Different methods of Printing.

Screen Printing:

 http://visual.ly/what-screen-printing 17th October 2013

Cyanotype- 

http://printclublondon.com/2013/cyanotype-printing/ 17th October 2013

We begin by making our artwork as a negative as opposed to a positive like we would do with screenprinting. This way, areas which are black will block the light and appear white [or the colour of the media] on the print.

A light sensitive solution is made up from 2 different chemicals mixed with water. As you would coat a screen in light sensitive emultion, here we coat directly onto the paper with this solution then leave to dry in a dark room environment.

We then expose UV light through the negative onto the prepared paper. Here, we’re using the exposure unit for exposing artwork onto our silk screens. The beauty of using an exposure unit designed for exposing silk screens, is that we can control exactly how much UV Light we want to expose with, as this can have a big effect on the final print.

As if by magic your artwork immediately appears as a positive on your paper once exposed to the UV light!!

The light yellow green areas are where the light has been blocked out by your negative. These unexposed areas need to be washed out under cold water ‘fixing’ your artwork so it is no longer light sensitive. This turns this greenish hue in a beautiful prussian blue and the unexposed lighter colour washed away to the colour of the paper!