Study Task 4 - Triangulating

1. A paragraph that shows the ability to triangulate between the four texts.

In the 1964 first things first manifesto the signatories talk about the mass amount of advertising that designers are being designated to, they say that there are vast amounts of other things that should be spending their time designing. They also say that they want to pursue work that is more long standing more worthwhile. 
'we are proposing a reversal of priorities in favor of the more useful and more lasting forms of communication.' (Garland.K, 1964)

In the reviewed version of 2000 the signatories have more of an urgent message for example, 
'There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention.' (Adbusters, 2000)

This is in relation to the great rise in consumerist culture since 1964, causing pollution and devastation in exploited countries   through corporate elitism. The following manifesto tells of the great distaste of the corporate elite and how they have engineered these disasters through providing this culture.

'Corporations have become the sole arbiters of cultural ideas and taste in America. Our culture is corporate culture.' (Kalman.T,1998)

2. A paragraph that shows close analysis of an animation which relates to one of the texts.

In the animated series south park, a show noted for its satirical content, the episode 'sponsored content' features the characters of south park in a narrative whereby the relentlessness of corporate advertising reaches a point of artificial intelligence, I feel that this quote from the First Things First manifesto points towards what Trey Parker and Matt Stone were trying to get across in their animation - consumerism and advertising has made people very distrusting of each other as the idea of the individual and what they can get out of an interaction has taken over.

'it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse.' (Adbusters, 2000) 

3. A paragraph that shows evaluation of one of the texts

Overall the manifesto 'Fuck Committees' is very accurate of it's time and still relevant today more than ever, Kalman makes an excellent point that in america, culture is bought and paid for, aswell as the fact that any art from creative minds is now deemed as 'content'.



4. A paragraph that shows your ability to paraphrase, summarise, or produce a ‘précis’ of one of the texts.


The first things first manifesto of 1964 carries with it a tone of dissatisfaction within the design industry with the work that they feel they have been 'deduced' to, 

'advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable means of using our talents.' (Garland.K, 1964) 

To summarise one could say that the the manifesto is the first in a long line of statements that artists and designers have held dear since the beginning of the consumerist age - when their imagination, hard work and art became content. 

Study task 3 - Essay Plan

Essay Plan


Question
“Discuss the role that Animation played during a period of social or political change."



what academic sources will I reference?


Propaganda - Edward Bernays 

First Things First Manifesto - Ken Garland

Occupy - Noam Chomsky

The world History of Animation - Cavalier


What animation will I analyse?

'Hans Richter - ghosts before breakfast'

'commando duck - donald duck 1944'

'Coonskin - Ralph Bakshi'

'momotoro vs mickey mouse'


Essay Map

introduction 

Thesis - explaining why i think animation is a tool that can be used just like any other creative outlet to carry out any message or agenda.

Analysis of animations - using quotes from academic sources to back up certain points about the animations 

Conclusion - to make a point that is relevant to animation being used today in our own times of social and political change 

Colour Theory 2

This lecture covered the colour theory in relation to design. The lecture first touched upon johann it ten's colour wheel and the discovery of complementary colours - for example when we see a flat block of colour on a blank background and that colour is removed our eyes will react by imposing the complementary colour of the block of colour that was on the screen.
The lecture also covered the temperature and weight of colour, subjective colour and reactive colour.
I shall have to revisit the subjects of this lecture to gain a better understanding of how colour works in design to better apply it to my practice in animation.

Colour theory 1 - Lecture summary

This lecture covered the fundamentals of colour theory and how colours work together, before looking at colour theory being applied to design. In this lecture it was touched on how, our eyes only see white spectral light reflecting off of objects, and that there are rods and cones in our eyes that allow us to perceive colour and tone - our brain then receives this information and builds the 3D world wee see around us.
The lecture also made the point that understanding of colour is based on the comparison of one colour to another, this infers that when two colours are placed next to each other the way we see one colour may be affected by the colour placed next to it. This also means that there is no such thing as the purist of one colour, as you could have many hues of the same colour and each time a new hue is revealed you might decide that a different hue is the purest form of that colour.
This being said then leads us on to the subject of classification: pantone - the coding of different hues of colours, the swatches we see in certain programmes such as photoshop are organised using this code.
Overall this lecture was interesting and informative, gave a scientific answer for why we see certain colours the way we do.

Practical Response - Comic

Here is the comic that I have created for the practical response to the question chosen for my essay. The narrative is relative to news stories that have featured whilst the tory government has been in power.

Research - Visual Response

I visited the library in search of some form of satirical material as this is the approach I want to take for my visual response to the question I chose to discuss in my essay. The question/subject for the essay was ' discuss what role animation plays in times social/political change'.
In my essay I brought up the point that animation could be used as a tool to suit any given agenda much like any other creative outlet, and for this reason (other than time constraints) I have decided to opt for a satirical comic - still relevant to animation, yet still image. I may decide to make a short motion comic out of the work I have produced.
The research that sparked this idea came in the form of the book ' Notes From Underground Zines (and the politics of alternative culture) ' by Stephen Duncombe. This book talked about the personal aspect of zines in that the creators of each zine would express their own opinions and perception of a given topic.
It is this idea of personality that I wanted to get across in my short comic I have dubbed 'The Privelaged'. I have not however researched any visual styles to inspire my work, I have only worked intuitively on this project to produce something that I feel is unique to me and how I perceive the political ruling class at this current time.
There are subtle nuances and visual references in the comic that poke fun at the physical appearance and demeanour of certain politicians. The story of the short comic is based upon actual news stories that  have come out recently.  

The Designer as Social Critique

I found this lecture to be very informative and it gave me lots of names and work to explore after the lecture. I found this particularly interesting because having a voice and a specific message in my work are important to me as a creative practitioner. The lecture covered the importance of recognizing that as designers we have a responsibility in that we should consider the implications of the messages we are wanting to project out on to the world.

postmodernism - lecture summary

In this lecture we covered postmodernism which is a topic I have studied before but not in as much depth as modernism. The lecture helped me to understand the postmodern age and the attitudes that were held by creatives at that time. In the postmodernist art movement there was a rebellion against 'modern life' and modernism, a disillusionment with capitalism with many calling this time 'the end of days' for capitalism. Postmodern art and design was a mish-mash of different styles with combinations incorporating the modern and the classical.

Modernism - Lecture Summary

Having previously studied modernism in art I feel that in this lecture there was a lot of information that I had previously taken on board and this lecture acted as a recap.
However in this lecture the insight into modernism was much more in depth and gave me an idea of why society progressed in the way that it did with the combination of urbanization and the industrial revolution. One of the key aspects of modernism at it's height I feel was this principle of functionality in design with form following function. This principle permeated all areas of art and design for example architecture, furniture, graphic design, fine art, typography etc.

consumerism - lecture summary

This lecture delved deeper than I had gone before into the subject of consumerism and it's faculties. What I found most interesting in this lecture was how consumerism came about- through the thinking of learned men giving advice to politicians and the elite, these learned men being Sigmund Freud and Edward Bernays. Freud was a psychoanalyst who believed that human instincts must be supressed - or rather controlled -  in order to sustain civilization. One way to do this was through consumerism, to provide the individual with an outlet for them indulge in their primal desires/needs, all for a price.
In this lecture it was made clear that consumerism is an ideological project that has continued to the present day, it is unclear how long the grip of consumerism on society and culture will last due to the need for a new model of organizing society and the economy.
A thought that was left at the end of the lecture was ' to what extent are our lives 'free' in a consumerist society.

Print Culture and Distribution - Lecture Summary

In this lecture it became known to me that because of print culture, the 'everyman' became able to own a piece of artwork - art became domesticated and was no longer reserved for the aristocrats, public elite etc. Print culture also allowed the working classes to produce their own culture rather than the elite designating what would be seen as the culture of the country.
In regards to print culture the industrial revolution brought acted as a catalyst for social change through the introduction of the printing press, and the working class producing and distributing their own material, forging their own culture. And with the means of production in the hands of the working class, 'pop culture' emerged - this was something that the elite detested and were afraid of.
In this lecture it was also brought forward that the reproduction of an image/a piece of art kind of devalues it or rather breaks up some of the mysticism and pretense that surrounds art.

What is Research? - Lecture Summary

This lecture has helped me by taking a step back just to look at the research process and how we should research in order to formulate new ideas effectively in order to come up with a solution to a creative problem.
This lecture covered that research both qualitative and quantitative and should be evaluated even before you have even generated any ideas from the research, this is to make sure that the research has been relevant and that it is substantial enough to generate ideas from.
A point that I really found to be true in this lecture is that in order to arrive at a solution you must be prepared to compromise what you initially wanted to do.
Overall this lecture has been a very informative an helpful recap on what i have already learnt about the research process.

History of Type - Lecture Summary

What I will take from this lecture is the knowledge of how typography has developed further than being an agreed upon set of symbols to represent the individual sounds/phonetics of a language, to more of an art form that is very much an illustrative discipline rather than being more associated with graphic design.
I also caught on to the notion from this lecture that type also unifies the people, making them more connected through written communication, and having an agreed upon system of symbols to represent the spoken language helps to educate and provide the people with the means for organisation through written communication, this helps build towards an egalitarian society.