Week 7: WHOSE REALITY IS IT ANYWAY? 9th Jan 2014

How do we relate to the world and how we position ourselves in it.

1. Context: we live in a post modern , post industrial society- communication and information technology has made everything more accessible resulting in 'shrinking' of the world, collapsing and condensing.
2. Fusion and Homogeneity: we are part of this 'Global village' which has its benefits of cultural fusion. But there is also a risk of homogeneity( uniformity) and 'cultural imperialism'( where two cultures meet and one dominates ,discarding the cultural significance and hammering in our own dominance)E.g. British Empire, Contemporary American cultural imperialism.
3. Reality? we can communicate , send and receive messages, images, film with people across the world. Risk- believing that we know and understand what's going on, when we stop seeing images we risk thinking that they are no longer important or an issue of concern. We are at risk of confusing what we 'see' with 'reality'.We see what is shown to us, hyper real,from another's view point
4. Conclusion: our understanding of the world is mediated i.e. interpreted and framed for us, the representation that we receive are selective, edited and sometimes created anew for specific consumers, seeing translational cultural form walk a fine line between cultural fusion and cultural imperialism, so how should we define what is real today.

Prof Practice 6: Research & referencing for the ESSAY Question

Content: Plan for Research on essay question

• The question
• Planning your research
• Referencing: Academic integrity
• Prep task

My chosen subject is The Mona Lisa
Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
It was painted in his studio in Florence, Italy and now resides in the Louvre museum, Paris.
 
In the book ' Mona Lisa the picture and the Myth ' by Roy McMullen I read that much of the earliest information on this subject comes from Giorgio Vasari's biography published thirty-one years after the artist's death as part of the author's best-selling 'Lives of the Most Excellent painters, Sculptors and Architects'.

I looked up the website of the Louvre for more information on the Mona Lisa
http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/mona-lisa-%E2%80%93-portrait-lisa-gherardini-wife-francesco-del-giocondo

It was painted between 1503-1506.
It is thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco Giocondo, a cloth merchant.
 There is a bibliography on the website which might be useful to research.

 Whilst there are a number of  questions around this subject like  the identity of the sitter, who commissioned it, why it took so long for da Vinci to complete this painting, the explanation of the Gioconda smile, the landscape in the background or how it came in the possession of Francis 1, I am going to look at the enigmatic smile depicted in this painting.


 This image is taken from the following website:
http://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Mona-Lisa.html

Week 6 - 5th Dec 2013 : Creativity- Definations & Histories

What is creativity? or to be a creative person?

The different models of a creative practitioner are:

• Collaborator- a group event
• a celebrated sole author- individual with extraordinary talent
• facilitator- creating a space
• consumer - to consume something is to create
• hybrid manager- multi practitioner
• conceptual thinker- not making
• maker- materiality of making
• culture jammer- intervening corporate messages

Creative industries have been the fastest growing sector of the UK economy in the last 10-15 years.
Creativity is an important part of what makes us employable.
Creativity is a complex term, it is used by many different people like chefs, sports professionals, tourism managers, and the understanding changes historically.

Ways of creating has been understood in art over the centuries: the 18th century saw art being recognised as a separate activity and lots of museums were built.
Romanticism- quite a lot of ideas about creativity were taken for granted. To be creative meant to be progressive, somebody can do something that not everyone can do, an artist with insight and imagination.
Modernism-late 19th to early 20th century when an attempt was made to deny history and move forward with the belief that art and design could make a better life and result in technological progress. Distinguishing art from popular culture was the Avant-garde movement.
Post-Modernism- not just a style but a way of thinking, a set of ideas. It refers to a borrowing of previous styles, historical ( neo+ retro designs)mixing up of different time periods, a melting pot of styles.

Recent idea of creativity- combines creativity with commerce and the marketplace.


 So what does culture industry mean?

During WWII, many German intellectuals emigrated to USA . Some like Horkheimer & Adorno went back to Germany after the war was over. They were very hostile to American culture; the Hollywood movies, music, magazines. They argued that these products of the culture industry were homogenous and predictable. In their opinion the culture industry continually reproduced the same thing. It encouraged people to conform, which made them less likely to revolt to social inequalities in their life.
This theory was challenged by Walter Benjamin who believed that merging culture and industry would open  arts to a wider range of people. For example where painting were reproduced in books or as postcards made it accessible to more people  who didn't have to go to the art gallery to view it. Benjamin argued that meanings changed when we consume things. This resulted in the emergence of the ' Creative Industries'.

Recent idea of creative industry combines creative arts with culture industries.

Week 5: Let's talk about sex...and gender

Contents:

1. Why is 'sex' still an issue?

2. Why should you care?

3. What is a man?

4. What is masculinity?

5. Conclusion

1. Why is 'sex' still an issue? What does it mean socially and politically?

So we look at global statistics

• Equality Act 2010 (UK) replaced previous anti-discrimination laws with a single cut
• it legally protects people from discrimination in workplace and in wider society.
• UN Declaration of Human Rights 1948 with particular attention on Article 7 which says all are equal and will get equal protection.

But inspite of these laws in place equality of sexes is still not achieved as evident from global stats:

• 70% women are victims of physical and sexual violence( majority from their husbands or partners),
• in women between age of 15-44 this violence causes more deaths than by malaria or such other diseases.

UK stats

•  2011 ; gender pay gap for hourly wages is 20.1%
• 2013: official hourly rate for men is £26.54 and for women is £18.32.
• Women in full-time employment earn almost £5000 per year less which is 15% less than men.

2. Why should you care? How does this impact on us as artists?

• because your sex affects how you have been treated since birth, how you are being treated at present and will be treated in future and what is expected of you.
• understanding how your identity is constructed and perceived will help you understand and communicate with the audience of your work.

So basically we as artists and makers are responsible for the influence of our work on future consumers / audiences.

3. What is a 'man'?

• depends on who you ask.

Professional Practice 4- The Essay Question

Provide a detailed critical analysis of a cultural text.

What is a cultural text
-anything produced by a culture; a central core study e.g. a garment, film, music, video, magazine, tattoo, painting, computer, mascara, etc.
What does critical analysis mean.
-to approach the topic methodically
- evidence of what other people have to say for and against
-positioning yourself in this
Analysis- a well-rounded balanced investigation. One that is well researched, methodical, logically structured and clearly articulated.

The essay has got to be 1200 words and after attending the Study Skills lecture today I realised that it is not simply having a full systematic research and writing on the subject chosen but also  adding all these references following the Harvard UWE system and maintaining a bibliography.

As homework we are to consider what cultural text we might choose to study and write about for our essay.
So here I am putting my initial thoughts on a cultural text I might choose to write about.

During my recent visit to Paris I visited the Louvre and amongst everything else I went to see the Mona Lisa as well. There have been so many controversial theories about this painting and its model that I just had to see it in person. As I entered  this large room with double height ceiling and very large paintings on the walls, I noticed  a crowd of people gathered in front of the wall at the far end. My curiosity drew me magnetically to this crowd to find out . It was the famous Mona Lisa painting by Da Vinci. The painting which is not really very large was displayed on this  wall with a barrier in front so you could not get up close. There were lots of cameras clicking away but hardly anyone was actually viewing the art.  I got pulled and pushed in this crowd and can't deny I took some photographs myself too. This one below is what I managed to take.
 I think I would like to research on this famous painting by such an intelligent artist .

Image as Language: the science of sign systems

Contents

1. Semiotics & Structuralism

Semiotics is a study of language systems relating to sound, oral and written text.

Structuralism is about applying these theories.

    2. Signs: signifiers + signified ( how a sign is constructed)

eg a fur coat( signifier) + signified: a piece of clothing that keeps you warm, glamour, old money, cruelty to animals. Here the sign is complex  and does not necessarily mean the same for everyone.

    3.Texts-Everything is text, not just what we can read but also the objects that surround us.

    4. Iconic, indexical and symbolic signs.

Iconic signs: look like the thing they represent e.g. photos, portraits

Indexical signs refer to other knowledge e.g. footprints symbolise feet, clouds signify rain. These marks are made physically.

Symbolic signs: they only have meaning due to convention e.g. words, flags, these have to be learnt through knowledge.

Structuralism

A new idea that everything is text- everything we encounter is a 'text'.

Langue: the structural rules and conventions of a system e.g. dictionary contains all the tools you need to do something with language. e.g. form, frame, media, tools: they are the language of our chosen discipline of DAA.

 eg langue for ceramics: clay, tools, kiln.

Parole: the spoken/ individual usage of signs within a system.

Parole for ceramics: Ai weiwei's sunflower seeds, Nicholas Homoky's teapot.

Poststructuralsim

 Everything is text but the meaning is not contained in the text.It relies on the knowledge of other text

to make sense of it. Its about connecting ideas.

Paradigm

Seminar Task 4: Reflect on fieldwork posted on 11th Nov 2013

What were your group's findings?

What did you find challenging / surprising?

If you had to do it again what would you do differently and why?

Here are the positives  as discussed within our group:

• Planning, research and communication within the group was spot-on.
•  Time keeping - Travel time was precisely calculated by Gina as she arrived on the dot to pick me from my house resulting in reaching on time at designated place to meet Leigh. Due to other engagements on the day we knew we had only the morning  2 hours to complete our site visit. Hence time management was crucial and the group supported each other on maintaining this precision.
•  Having considered all the risks, we had no problem with the parking facilities or the weather condition on the day.
• On observing the Street art closely we realised that a variety of techniques had been used in the artworks. Each had its own distinct style.

The following are some points which we would have done differently:

• Although we had two weeks to plan and execute this visit, we felt the need for a bit more forward planning so that everyone in the group could have made it to the sites.
• We were too absorbed by the task that we didn't have enough time to reflect on the artworks .
• It was not evident who the artists were making the street art on North Street.

On exploring the hire charges at the Grant Bradley Gallery, we found out that their admin and commission percentage was much lower than the more acclaimed galleries in Bristol. This could be a possible option for students to collaborate and put up a show together in the future.