Tuesday 30 October 2012

Study Task Two - The Gaze.

Using quotations from 'The Look' by Rosalind Hammond critically analyse an image from the media.


I have chosen to analyse these two images from a Dolce & Gabbana advertising campaign in 2007. The first thing that strikes me when looking at this image is obvious dominance of the group of males, not only is the woman out numbered greatly but her lying down position also gives the impression of submission. The aspect of male power is intensified further by how all are looking straight at the female form, "In this society, looking has become a crucial aspect of sexual relations, not because of any natural impulse, but because it is one of the ways in which domination and subordination are expressed." This quote explains that this looking gesture is a sign of male domination and how the female gazing away puts her further into submission. Her vacant stare makes her seem distant from reality, maybe showing that this behaviour is no longer a conscious thought but something that has been programmed into her. Continuing this thought further, it can also be said that the woman isn't just being passive out of her own mind but is acting in a way that is expected of her, "The relations involved in looking enmesh with coercive beliefs about the appropriate sexual behaviour for men and women." people are forced into dominant and submissive roles by society. Advertisements like this within the media are created by men, with men in mind which is why we are saturated with images that give men the powerful persona, "Clearly this comfort is connected with feeling secure or powerful. And women are bound to this power precisely because visual impressions have been elevated to the position of holding the key to our psychic well-being, our social success, and indeed to whether or not we will be loved." this may give men confidence but it gives women anxiety that if they don't conform to this idea they won't be loved. Therefore creating the fantasy, as they feel they need to act this way to be accepted. The positioning of the females body in both images is very sexual which categorises her further as a sex object. In the top image she is being forced down by the man, forcing her into this docile fantasy, implying to women that there is no escape from it. The authority of women over time has changed, "Where women's behaviour was previously controlled directly by state, family or church, control of women is now also effected through the scrutiny of women by visual ideals." they are now manipulated not by more physical means but by a mental constraint of constant images in the media on how they should look and act.

Thursday 25 October 2012

Lecture Three - Panopticism.

  • social control
  • the way society affects our unconscious
  • the power institutions hold over us - prisons, army, police or family, marriage etc

Lecture aims
  • understand the principles of the panopticon
  • understand michael foucault's concept of 'disciplinary society'
  • consider the idea that disciplinary society is a way of making individuals 'productive' and 'useful'
  • understand foucault's idea of techniques of the body and 'docile' bodies

Michel Foucault (1926 - 1884)
  • books
    • 'madness and civilaisation'
    • 'discipline and the punish: the birth of prison'

The Great confinement
  • late 1600's
  • 'houses of correction' to curb unemployment and idleness
  • mad people were seen as the fabric of society, no separation (before 1600's)
  • new sensibility started to emerge, new attitude to work and social usefulness towards work
  • anxiety started to emerge around the people who were said to be 'socially useless'
  • houses of correction started to be built.. prisons/factories
  • criminals, drunks, diseased, single mothers
  • were assigned to work and if they didn't they were physically beaten
  • a way of making the unproductive, productive
  • making them better people through the honesty of work
  • 18th century, houses of correction were started to be seen as a massive mistake
  • people inside would influence each other: sane to insane, criminal to non criminal
  • special institutions then came about to correct the insane, the birth of asylum
  • correcting the inmates in a very different way to the houses of correction
  • no physical violence but more subtle techniques, like being treated like chill dren
  • if they behaved appropriately they would be given awards and if bad they would be chastised
  • shift from premodern society - physical control to modern society to social control
  • modern form of discipline
  • new forms of institutional specialist knowledge, therefore legitimising them. psychology and psychiatry
  • new group of experts
  • these institutions affect the way we think and control our behaviour
  • start to take control of our own discipline

The Pillory
  • visible reminder of the power of the state
  • visible and disgusting punishments
  • reminder to not test the power
  • based on fear

Disciplinary society and disciplinary power
  • modern form of discipline
  • mental rather than physical
  • infuses every aspect of our lives
  • 'The Panopticon' designed by Jeremy Bentham in 1791
  • proposed by Bentham as a multifunctional building: workhouse, prison, asylum etc
  • circular building, with cells along the walls, number of floors, each cell is totally open from the front, large window at the back
  • has a very strong mental effect
  • Bentham believed it would function perfectly
  • inmates constantly staring into the centre where the guards would be. Inmates could not see each other but just the constant surveillance of the supervisors
  • opposite to the dungeon - hide, lock away deviant classes, forgotten about
  • panopticon - light, visible, everything can be seen, object of scrutiny and study
  • constantly reminded that you are being watched by someone who expects you to behave in a certain way
  • never behave in a way your supervisor wouldn't want you to as you would be spotted and punished
  • permanently isolated, no one to look at or talk to 
  • psychological torture
  • 'the panopticon internalises in the individual the conscious state that he is always being watched'
  • 'induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permeant visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power'
  • no longer needed guards, people controlled themselves
  • Foucault believes this building is like an analogy for our society
  • system for classifying and scrutiny
  • reforms prisoners, helps treat patients, helps instruct school children, helps confine and study the insane, helps supervise workers, helps but beggars and idlers to work
  • start to behave in the interests of the institution
  • what foucault is describing is a transformation in western societies from a form of power imposed by a 'ruler' to a new mode of power called 'panopticism'

Modern examples
  • open plan office
    • social
    • workers in open plan offices can always be seen by the boos
    • less social because alway being watched
  • open plan bars
    • everything is visible to bouncers and bar staff
    • socially awkward because you're always on display
    • change your behaviour
  • google maps
    • every single street in the world can be viewed
    • live in a surveillance society
    • every aspect of lives is recorded
  • lecture theatres
    • lecturer can see everyone
    • students limited view
    • Pentonville prison - lecture, barrier between seats
  • registers
    • able to keep tabs
    • form of surveillance
  • gyms
    • open plan
    • windows
    • demonstrating your health
  • social media
    • you are aware everything is observed and monitored
    • makes you behave in a certain way
    • you can almost shape an identity for yourself

Relationship between power knowledge and the body
  • disciplinary society produce what Faucault calls 'docile bodies'
  • self monitoring, self correcting, obedient bodies
  • e.g soldier
  • disciplinary techniques - e.g 5 a day, the ideal body

Foucault and power
  • his definition is not a top-down model as with Marxism
  • power is not a thing or a capacity people have - it is a relation between different individuals and groups and only exists when it is being exercised
  • the exercise of power relies on there being the capacity for power to be resisted
  • 'where there is power, there is resistance'

Monday 22 October 2012

Seminar Two - The Gaze.


  • the objectification of women, denying the individual
  • looking at others as objects
  • Hans Memling 'Vanity'
    • viewer is sexually objectifying the women,
    • her gaze is being turned back on herself via a mirror, more comfortable looking at it because she isn't returning the gaze
    • sexual elements but fundamentally about power - power dynamic
    • all artists during this time were men, art production was dominated until the late 20th century
    • painted by men for men, can tell because of subject matter
    • artistic genre, 'the nude'
    • art historians (also men) write about how beautiful this genre is, female form beautiful, more worthy of artistic study. Writing like this disguises its pornographic function
    • justifies the male objectification by retaining class and guilt
    • not a neutral depiction of the female body but a male fantasy
    • traits of female forms, society insists - passive, docile, beautiful, subservience to the male, meek, mild, sex object, wants to be gazed at
    • 'vanity' women gazing at herself, mocking the woman even though this idea has been constructed by the male
  • This idea is reflected in celebrity culture e.g Katie Price. Presented as stupid, sex object, mocked, vain, characature of female sexuality, wants to appeal to men
  • Men made images for men in the past and still do now through the mechanisms of media
  • Images from 1863, Manet's 'Olympia' and Cabanel's 'Birth of Venus'
    • The Salon, gallery/exhibition in France. Images had to be approved as art
    • One image approved (Venus) and one wasn't (Manet)
    • all down to the women looking at the viewer, challenging power/confrontational, defensive positioning
    • Godess of love in the ancient times, Venus and recent times, prostitute. Different types of sexual power
    • scandalised people at the time tasteful to sleazy. Even though one is more like reality
  • Manet based his image on Venus of Urbino, 1538
    • more relaxed
    • more passive
    • more romantic
    • dog (loyal) to cat (independent)
    • domestic maid one looking after the children the other giving the women gifts
  • Vue magazine (50's)
    • similarities to old new paintings
    • reclining pose
    • passive meeting of the gaze
    • 'my hobby is men'  - made for men
    • 'hypnotism: cure for fridgidity' - problem with the woman not the man
  • These representations aren't always about sex but social control and keeping women in their place, the domination of women, keeping males higher status within society
  • Wonderbra ad 'I can't cook. Who cares?'
    • doesn't need domestic qualities because of her sexual beauty
    • product is for women
    • female power or submissiveness? assertive pose, challenging gaze, powerful, reflects assertive femininity, still successful OR semi naked woman on display, she can't cook so therefore disappointing the man, compensating with sex, illusion of female independence
    • successful ad in simultaneously appealing to men and women

Key Words:
  • objectification of women
  • power
  • domination
  • control
  • passive/submissive vs. dominant/active

Key quotations from 'The Look', Rosalind Coward:
  • "Women's experience of sexuality rarely strays far from ideologies and feelings about self image. There's a preoccupation with the visual image - of self and others - and a concomitant anxiety about how these images measure up to a socially prescribed ideal." - because of how women have been portrayed for hundreds of years they now believe this is how they should act.
  • "Western culture has become obsessed with looking and recording images of what is seen." - visually dominated society.
  • "For looking is not a neutral activity. Human beings don't all look at things in the same way, innocently as it were." - could be referred to the nude art genre.
  • "While I don't wish to suggest there's an intrinsically male way of making images, there can be little doubt that the entertainment as w know it is crucially predicated on a masculine investigation of women, and circulation of women's images for men." - entertainment industry dominated by men, created for the male eye, all visual culture aimed towards this, culture is gendered.
  • "Women in the flesh, often feel embarrassed. irritated or downright angered by men's persistent gaze." - frail form of power.
  • "Those fantasy women stare off the walls with a look of urgent availability." endless fantasy.
  • "In this society, looking has become a crucial aspect of sexual relations, not because of any natural impulse, but because it is one of the ways in which domination and subordination are expressed." - appearances are important in our culture, not just a natural reaction but a part of domination.
  • "The relations involved in looking enmesh with coercive beliefs about the appropriate sexual behaviour for men and women." - people are forced into dominant and submissive roles.
  • "The saturation of society with images of women has nothing to do with men's  natural appreciation of objective beauty, their aesthetic appreciation, and everything to do with and obsessive recording and use of women's images in ways which make men comfortable." - images represent a consistent reminder of male dominance.
  • "Clearly this comfort is connected with feeling secure or powerful. And women are bound to this power precisely because visual impressions have been elevated to the position of holding the key to our psychic well-being, our social success, and indeed to whether or not we will be loved." - made to make men feel confident but to make women feel anxious to conform, bringing the fantasy to life because the women feel they need to act this way to be accepted.
  • "Men defend their scrutiny of women in terms of the aesthetic appeal of women. But this so-called aesthetic appreciation of women is nothing less than a decided preference for a 'distanced' view of the female body." - easy defence, makes women unobtainable.
  • "Perhaps this sex-at-a-distance is the only complete secure relation which men can have with women. Perhaps other forms of contact are to unsettling." - joint anxiety
  • "Voyeurism is a way of taking sexual pleasure by looking at rather than being close to a particular object of desire, like a Peeping Tom and Peeping Tom's can always stay in control.
  • "Turning back the sheets on the twentieth-century bed, sexology found a spectacle of incompetent fumbling and rampant discontent with 'doing it'." - men don't live up to dominance, created a perverted voyeurism of sex, unobtainable idea, makes both genders discontent.
  • "Freud casually added to his account of the development of all humans that women were, however, 'more narcissistic': nor does their need lie in the direction of loving, but of being loved." women are self obsessed.
  • "Advertisements, health and beauty advice, fashion tips are effective precisely because somewhere, perhaps even subconsciously, an anxiety, rather than a pleasurable identification, is awakened. We take an interest, yes. But these images do not give back a glow of self-love... The faces that look back imply a criticism." - pressure upon women to be perfect, not innately vein but pushed into being so, contemporary anxieties: diets/corsets/bulimia etc, women must stick to a beauty regime to be beautiful, must by these products in order to have a happy life.
  • "Where women's behaviour was previously controlled directly by state, family or church, control of women is now also effected through the scrutiny of women by visual ideals." - historically women were controlled by men and if they stepped out of line they would be punished, but are now controlled by images of other women in circulation, a more mental constraint.

Saturday 20 October 2012

Study Task One - Century of Self.

Ten most important points raised in the documentary 'Century of Self':
  1. Power of Freud's ideas - threat to control and the empire in Vienna hundreds of years ago, started to unearth powerful emotional and sexual forces that were repressed and believed couldn't be shown
  2. Controlling of government - through presidential popularity and election propaganda
  3. Changing wants to needs - tricked into irrational needs
  4. Overproduction crisis - making people want spare products so companies don't go bust
  5. The basic reasoning of the mass mind - mass control of groups, easier to direct people to products and ideas
  6. Democracy through consumerism - believe we're free, was compared to sedative drug. Through doing this makes people believe there needs are being met so remain docile and don't complain
  7. Change in democracy - citizen to consumer. 'Consumerism and consumption'
  8. Shift in advertising - went from demonstrating practical values to linking products with emotions
  9. Smoking experiment - discovered associations with objects could be changed. By finding out what cigarettes meant to women he could break the symbol that was associated with them and apply it to the female psyche
  10. Bernay's skills - covers very vast areas such as government, PR, stock markets, brands, publishing, economy etc.
Image from the mass media that focusses on consumerism, desire and unconscious:


I have decided to focus on these two advertisements for Tom Ford eyewear, both are focussed towards different genders so the connotation taken from each are very different. The first of the advertisements is definitely aimed towards men and shows the male model in a very dominant role. Whereas the female is extremely submissive from her lack of clothing to her combing the mans hair. This ind of imagery will appeal to mens sexual desires and make them believe that by purchasing these products they to could be part of that kind of lifestyle. The second image has a very strong idea of a dominant women, extremely phallic imagery has been used and the fact she is biting it with her teeth lends itself to 'vagina dentata' an innate male fear that a women's vagina could contain teeth, leading to pain or castration during intercourse. Imagery like this appeals to women as it shows them in a powerful manner over men and gives a response to the 'penis envy' theory.

Thursday 18 October 2012

Lecture Two - The Gaze and the Media.

helen.clarke@leeds-art.ac.uk

according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome - men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at
  (Berger 1972)


Tendancy to depict the female body in a way that doesn't allow the female to return the gaze

Alexandre Cabanel - Birth of venus
  • goddess, virginal picturing of the women
  • the position she reclines in allows her to cover her eyes
  • technique used in advertising and photography
  • 2/3 of picture taken up by the naked body, concentration on the body rather than her character.

Sophie Dahl for Opium
  • 3/4 taken up by body
  • overtly sexual pose
  • advert was deemed to sexual for print or billboards
  • image was rotated to make it more acceptable, more focus on the face rather than the body

Titians Venus of Urbino, 1538
  • women regards us coquettishly
  • knowledge of presence but not succinct recognition
  • very passive nude
  • covers herself but in a casual manor'

Manet, Olympia' 1863
  • titans venus very casual, Manet more defensive
  • identifies olympia to be a prostittue
  • lifts her head as if she is addressing us

Ingres, Le Grand Odalisque
  • basis for a poster for Guerrilla girls
  • advertisement  stating percentage of male and female nudes

Manet, Bar at the Folies Bergeres
  • mirroring of the gaze
  • the woman is ready to serve us, arms open standard stance for bar worker
  • mirror is used to give an impossible reflection (to the right rather than behind)
  • allows her to be viewed in two separate ways
  • paris society - hall of mirrors, false social perception
  • what is different about this is that she returns the gaze

Jeff Wall, Picture for women
  • uses Manet's image as inspiration
  • gaze of the women and gaze of the camera reflected in the mirror
  • composition is divided up very cleverly

Coward, R
  • "the camera in contemporary media has been put to use as an extension of the male gaze at women on the streets"
  • nudity on the streets as the norm
  • this idea is repeated on billboards
  • the use of sunglasses means the figure cannot return the gaze
  • free to look because she can't see us

Eva Herzigova, 1994
  • wonderbra campaign
  • figure looking down on us
  • normalisation of nudity on the street
  • comedy of the line 'hello boys'

Coward, R
  • Peeping Tom
  • "the profusion of images which characterises contemporary society could be seen as an obsessive distancing of women, a form of voyuerism.

Male advertisement
  • but there are images of women
  • although switching it merely reinforces the idea of the gas rather than challenging it
  • the quantity is far outweighed by the number of female naked bodies

Dolce & Gabbana, 2007
  • men are pictured in a more active pose, rather than womens more passive
  • all looking at the camera

Marilyn: William Travillas dress from 'the seven year itch'
  • looks at the way the camera breaks up the female body in film
  • separate components

Freud
  • pleasure of looking at female bodies
  • cinema is the perfect place for voyeurism

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider
  • active character
  • overly sexualised object, pleasure in looking at a sexually exaggerated character
  • a visual spectacle to be consumed
  • pleasure is in the fantasy of her destruction

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith beheading Holofernes
  • challenging the gaze
  • very physical
  • alternative character, active female role

Cindy Sherman, Untitled film still 
  • filmed without the gaze theories in mind
  • reclining female, although the image has been rotated to draw attention to the face
  • mirror in the womens hand, although there is no reflection
  • awkward hand, staged photography not natural

Barbara Kruger, Your gaze hits the side of my face
  • turning away from the gaze
  • feminist work
  • implication of violence 'hits'

Sarah Lucas, Eating a banana
  • implies a sexual act
  • picturing the self consciousness of the connotations
  • critiquing the idea
  • the look is very confrontational
  • this idea runs through her work

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Study Task Two - Colour for Print.

Definitions
  • Duotone - a halftone reproduction of an image using the superimposition of one contrasting colour halftone (traditionally black) over another color halftone. This is most often used to bring out middle tones and highlights of an image. The most common colors used are blue, yellow, browns and reds.
  • Spot Colour - In offset printing, a spot color is any color generated by an ink (pure or mixed) that is printed using a single run. Offset technicians around the world use the term spot color to mean any color generated by a non-standard offset ink; such as metallic, fluorescent, spot varnish, or custom hand-mixed inks.
  • Monochrome - paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one colour. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colours or hues. Images using only shades of grey (with or without black and/or white) are called grayscale or black-and-white.
  • Tintis the mixture of a colour with white, which increases lightness, and a shade is the mixture of a color with black, which reduces lightness. Mixing a color with any neutral colour, including black and white, reduces the chroma, or colourfulness, while the hue remains unchanged.
  • Pantone - world renowned authority on colour and provider of colour systems. The Pantone name is known worldwide as the standard language for colour communication from designer to manufacturer to retailer to customer.

CMYK







Spot Colour








Monochrome and Tints









Monday 15 October 2012

Seminar One - Psychoanalysis.

Notes from documentary
  • Edward Bernays - freuds nephew
  • First person to control the masses using frauds theories
  • Dominates our world today
  • There is a psychotherapy ball in vienna, hundred years previous these people hated freud ideas, threat to their control
  • Believed you couldn't/shouldn't show your feelings - to maids/public etc
  • With frauds ideas society was questioned, threatening their empire
  • 1914 austrian hungarian led europe into war
  • Governments had unleashed primitive forces in human beings and they didn't know how to control it
  • During this time bernays was living in america
  • Bernays was employed to promote the usa's war effort, he was successful at this for home and abroad
  • Went to the peace conference in paris with the president
  • Portrayed wilson a hero for the masses
  • Bernays wondered if he could do they same during peace time, propaganda for war and peace
  • Set up a public relations council in new york, first time the phrase was used
  • Turned to the writings of freud, sent him an introduction of psychoanalysis
  • He was inspired and set about trying to apply it in another way
  • Changed from factual info and persuasion
  • Early experiment was trying to get women to smoke, break the taboo
  • Arranged a psychoanalysis to find out what cigarettes meant to women
  • Cigarettes linked to the penis and male power, bernays had to find a way to portray them as a challenge against male power
  • Female suffragettes lighting cigarettes during protest 'torches of freedom' memory, rational phrase
  • Next day it was a news subject around the world, made cigarettes socially acceptable for women
  • Made him realise you could make people link emotions with objects. 
  • Link products with emotions - irrational
  • Fascinated americas corporations, mass production had flourished, were scared of this stopping when people had enough products
  • Advertisements used to show products practical virtues
  • Shift from needs to desires, shape the mentality of america
  • Early 20's department stores were created, bernays was in charge or creating the new type of customer
  • Linked his represented firms with celebrities and sexuality
  • Used models in fashion shows to convince people to express their personality through clothing
  • Change in democracy - citizen to consumer
  • Millions followed bernays advice
  • Was not a one to one person, thought of people in groups of thousands, understanded the mind of the crows
  • Was involved in stock market boom 
  • Linked the president with celebrities to boost his popularity
  • Arranged for his uncles works to be published in america to save him from bankruptcy
  • He started to publicise his books, made him acceptable and then capitalise on the results
  • Had an extraordinary effect on journalists in 1920's
  • The basic reasoning of the mass mind his unconscious instinctual drive, bernays was fascinated with this idea
  • Engineering of consent - people had to be guided in what they wanted, tap into deepest desires and fears
  • Consumerism had become the central part of american culture
  • Made the economy stable, people were happy, feel good medication
Examples

Marlboro Campaign
  • because of the boom with women smoking men felt it was less masculine
  • the Marlboro man was created - cowboy, instinctual macho
Silk Cut Campaign
  • advertising code of practice, no longer allowed to be associated with:- glamour, sport, business success, masculinity/femininity, should not seek to actively persuade people to start smoking
  • work with instinctual/hidden desires
  • old add - sophistication, life style aspirations, price
  • name - luxurious, smooth, feminine connotations (silk) removing half of target market
  • new add - feudian associations, link brand to primal desires (life and death instinct/eros thantos), reproduction/self destruction, killing e.g rock and roll lifestyle.
  • bagpipes - blow into, cigarette/phallic

  • conscious level - silk with a cut in it
  • unconscious level - vagina, knives cutting silk in a violent/sexual way, silky/luxurious, bed sheets

Thursday 11 October 2012

Lecture One - Psychoanalysis.

Simon Jones
simon.jones@leeds-art.ac.uk

Intro
  • the development of psyche from birth
  • the development of the unconscious
  • the development of gender identity
  • understanding the complexities of human subjectivity
  • not only a form of therapy can be applied to other things an over arching theory of subjectivity
  • a way of categorising and understanding desire, motivation, dreams
  • we are not entirely in control of what we do

Sigmund Freud
  • conceived the idea in the late 1890's
  • treated hysteria patients using psychoanalysis by guiding them to accept repressed thoughts
  • he analysed his and his mothers dreams in terms with their hidden associations with 'wish-fulfillment'
  • observed infants and their relationships with their parents

Dynamic Unconscious
  • created through infancy to protect our conscious selves from events, ideas and thoughts that are not acceptable
  • continues to affect our conscious selves in some way
  • the unconscious is chaotic and without order and language
  • makes itself present through ticks, slips and symptoms (accidentally saying something)

Stages of Development
  • our development is full of contradictory thoughts and ideas
  • an attempt to make sense of both biological/instinctual and logical/thinking
  • we create associations and assumptions, often incorrectly
  • the developing child goes through stages: oral, anal and phallic

Psycho-sexual Identity
  • oedipus complex - 'to want' vs. 'to be wanted', confusing feelings, sexual/love, misunderstanding of ideas and emotions
  • development of both masculine and feminine identities in relation to the penis/phallus
  • castration complex - to boy fears castration while the girl accepts she already has
  • penis envy - the girl begins to realise she doesn't have a penis. Not as a sexual organ but as a way of relating to the father figure
  • both create negative feelings, powerlessness and missing something
  • the child must overcome these issues in order to become a 'normal' member of society

The Uncanny
  • relates to the visual world
  • something that is simultaneously unnatural yet familiar
  • when the barrier between fantasy and reality break down
  • analogies between the psychology and aesthetics

Freudian Models
  • id, ego and super ego
  • id - instinctual, fulfilling needs as biological beings
  • ego - memories, thoughts, individual personality of ourselves
  • super ego - slightly outside of ourselves,  represents the parts of ourselves in relation to others (social order/language) placed upon us by society
  • unconscious, preconscious and conscious
  • unconscious - selfish ideas
  • preconscious - memories, natural thoughts
  • conscious - opinions and thoughts

Jacques Lacan
  • 1960's 70's presented his own brand of psychoanalysis
  • he reconceptualised Freud's findings through the theoretical model of structural linguistics
  • he said the development of the psyche is entwined within the structures of language
  • brings back psychoanalysis a 'return to Freud'

The Mirror Stage
  • the childs recognition of itself in reflection (reflection in object/other people) 
  • signifies a split or alienation
  • rivalry - while the child may recognise its own image it is still limited in movement and dexterity
  • resulting in a formation of ego which aids a reconciliation of body and image
  • captation - the process by which the child is at once absorbed and repelled by the image of itself

Lacanian Unconscious
  • 'the unconscious is structured like a language'
  • the unconscious in the discourse of the Other
  • highlighting the ways in which meaning is encoded within linguistic signs
  • unconscious details are encoded in various ways as they slip into consciousness

Symptom
  • a word is used to represent something else which possess similar characteristics
  • symptoms are translated elements of unconscious material adopting a metaphor style coding

Lacanian Phallus
  • not a biological organ but a symbol of power attained through it association.
  • lack - the potential/actual lack
  • masculinity/femininity are not biological definitions but symbolic positions
  • provides a 'speaking position in culture'

The 'orders' of reality
  • the real - that which cannot by symbolised, where our most basic sleeves exist
  • the imaginary - the order which exists before symbols, where the ego is born and continues to develop
  • the symbolic - exists outside of ourselves

Pschoanalysis and Art Criticism/theory
  • subjectivity - what it is to be human, motivations, desires, the unconscious. To help us understand why things are as they are. to helps us understand the designers motivation
  • model-based theory - models provide a tool for categorising or breaking down individual and groups of design work

Edward Bernays
  • 'the godfather of PR'
  • applied knowledge of psychoanalysis, unconscious desire to advertising and PR campaigns
  • revolutionised advertising by applying manipulation techniques
  • promoting lifestyle rather than the product

Conclusion
  • psychoanalysis provides us with the definition of the unconscious
  • a definition of subjectivity outside of logic and rationality
  • a tool to help understand motivations of art works
  • a tool to help understand how art and design affects us

Wednesday 10 October 2012

Web Design Research.

Good:
I like the simplistic appearance of this design and how this allows the image to be a huge focal point without any unnecessary distractions. Also because of the white the photograph seems even more bright and effective.

I like how this sites navigation has been split up into numbered sections, making it easier for the user. Also, before I would have thought that having an image as a background would be distractive and not very aesthetically pleasing. Although with this example it blends in very well with the overall feel, having the opacity on the cream is also good as how the images shoes through is very interesting.

She Was Only
This layout has the navigation in the top right corner, which is something I have never really come across before, I like this because it is different. The charcoal grey is also very attractive as it looks less harsh than black would have done and also compliments the photographic imagery really well.

Brice Martinez
These large scale images have a lot of impact and are very successful in getting the viewer to notice and acknowledge the products. How the type overlays them also gives a great effect.

Raewyn Brandon
This is another simplistic approach that allows the imagery to have the majority of attention. This is a good technique I could consider for the future.

http://psd.tutsplus.com/
This design works as a scrolling format, this may not be the best layout but how this particular one has been designed still works. The use of the heptagonal shape throughout also helps the consistency.

http://www.lp-sf.com/
I really like the use of colour on this website, the rich tones work nicely together and with the white to create contrast. On the actual page the screen has transitions of pieces of work which will grab the users attention. Also on the navigation when something is highlighted it will change colour, a nice touch.

www.mangotree.com.ar
I love the pastel shades of this design, this linked with the imagery gives a very feminine feel. One of my favourite aspects of this website are the illustrations, I like the digital yet naive quality they have. Using these helps the site to be consistent as you navigate through.

http://www.makersandbrothers.com/
This design has a clinical feel, the images and other design aspects marry perfectly together which I think really pushes the brand identity.

http://chezerbey.com/
The colours in this design are very strongly linked throughout from the logo, images and type. I feel it is very successful.

Bad
This website hasn't really got much going for it, from the logo choice of colour, highlighted text, layout and inconsistent type.

 
http://imprint.mnsi.net/
The background here is horrendous. Another bad point is the size of the frame that the pages are displayed. As you can see on the second image not all the information can be seen and you'd have to scroll, even though there is plenty of space underneath.

http://www.lowpriceskates.com/
This one has almost every colour imaginable and none of them compliment each other. Another aspect visible is the awful transition.

Not only is this website generally strange it is also hideous. It has music and animated sparkling imagery.

Again I can't see much going right here. The tiled background is awful and so is the patterned drop shadow on the title. The title typeface also doesn't work as well as the fact it has been distorted.

http://www.mrbottles.com/
Very bad layout design and colour choices. I don't like how the links have been overlaid onto images. There is also a really annoying man that floats on the screen and talks to you.

Horrible tones of blue that really don't compliment each other. The type is also hard to read as it stretches across the entire screen.

 http://www.boogersite.com/
This is a website that criticises other websites, even though it itself is horrible. Very bad colour, type and layout choices.

So many jarring colours and contrasting backgrounds Animated entrance and extremely weird noises when you first go on the site.

http://www.arvanitakis.com/en/
So much animation and horrible music.