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Week 7 - Propaganda - Task: Re - appropriation and Subversion

This is another piece that I produced for the re-appropriation and subversion task, I chose to use Boris Johnson because he is actually a politician that I find to be hilarious! I added more patterns and illustrations than before along with the tagline ‘Brexit’ which is used to sum up Boris’ campaign to leave the EU. I love this piece because I think that it looks funny and insane which in my opinion also applies to Boris himself! I think that this piece is a legitimate representation of the charisma and attitude that this politician shows. I think that this piece looks very confused because I have used a lot of patterns to fill the image, the tone of my piece is vibrant and bold, this is because I have used a range of bright colours which are mainly primary colours. 

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Week 7 - Propaganda - Task: Re - appropriation and Subversion

This is one of my propaganda images that I created using images of Cameron supplied by my tutor, for my images I used Hattie Stewart as a reference. I still tried to incorporate the bright colours and patterns that occur in Hattie’s work because I think that they are a great way to catch the eye of the viewer and really draw the attention of the viewer to the piece, I decided to create my images to basically point fun at Cameron’s recent handling of the EU referendum and to point out the power that he clearly thinks he has over the masses. I really like this piece because it was very fun to make and gave me a chance to express my deep disillusionment with Cameron because I personally really don’t like him at all. I have tried to keep these piece’s as simple as possible. without using a wide range of patterns because I didn’t want these two images to be too confusing. I think that these images have a certain rhythm to them because of the bold colours that I have used, which I think makes makes this piece striking. 

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Week 7 - Propaganda - Illustration and Persuasion -Hattie Stewart - Illustrator

These illustrations were created by Hattie Stewart, she is a London based illustrator and self proclaimed professional doodler. I think that Hattie’s work is unique and very colourful both of which appeal to me because I really enjoy finding new and eye catching illustrations, I also think that work such as this shows that the illustrator has a very broad imagination which I think is fundamental in creating a good illustration. I think that her work appeals to a younger generation due to its playful and outrageous attitude which I think is a rare concept to come across and I love it! I have added Hattie’s work to my blog because I am going to use her work as a reference to create my own illustrations.

References:

http://hattiestewart.com/

http://printclublondon.com/artist/hattie-stewart/

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Week 7 - Propaganda - Illustration and Persuasion.

I was not present for today’s communication studies lesson due to being ill but I did email my tutor, Liz, to find out what the presentation and tasks were for today, I also decided to email the essay draft that I have been working on just to keep my tutor updated on the tasks that I am personally working on and to ask for advice.

After reading through the presentation on blackboard, I fund that today’s lesson focussed on Propaganda,the main points of the presentation were to analyse how illustration has been used to influence people’s political beliefs throughout history as well as how artists used Propaganda to visually represent their political stances or to convey a specific message. Propaganda is a means to visually communicate a biased or misleading message in order to influence the masses. Through this presentation I find Propaganda through history to be a horrendous for of manipulation and mind control (or emotional blackmail depending on the message and medium) and I think that because people at the time placed all of there faith in the government to resolve major issues, I think that any message conveyed through this medium would have been greatly influential to people as well as killing free thinking which I think is terrible. In more recent years however, Propaganda has been used as a medium to represent people’s dismay and disillusionment with political issues so in this context I think that Propaganda can be used as a force for good as it were to give people a voice, unlike the past.

Task: Re - appropriation and Subversion 

our task this week is to alter one of the supplied images to create a Propaganda piece using Hattie Stewart and Oliver Jeffers work as a reference point (We can either discredit or promote the subject) Using any medium. 

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Week 6 - Mid Point Critique - Self Assessment

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Week 6 - Mid Point Critique - Poppy Peer - Assessment Feedback

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Week 6 - Mid Point Critique - Kiki Peer - Assessment Feedback

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Week 6 - Mid Point Critique - Presentation and Peer -Assesment

This week in our communication studies lesson I was placed in a group with four other people and asked to present my blog, in doing this I also focussed on a few of my more in depth posts to provide some insight to my fellow students on how my blog was coming along as a whole. We were asked to each present for five minutes and to assess each other as well as ourselves I will post all of the feedback sheets on here as a reference for the future.

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DADA Essay Notes

Key Characteristics:

- Negative reaction to the horrors and folly of war.

- Satirical and Nonsensical.

- Destroy traditional values in art and create new art to replace the old.

- Anti-War and Anti-Bourgeois.

Key artists / Designers to be discussed:

- Arp

- Marcel Duchamp

- Francis Picabia

- Kurt Schwitters

- Man Ray

- Hugo Ball (Writer/Founder of DADA)

Research Undertaken so far:

- Tate research.

- DADA artists in focus.

- DADA in context.

- DADA in detail.

- The Art History research.

- Synopsis.

- Key Ideas.

- Most important art.

- Beginnings.

- Concepts & Styles.

- Further Developments.

- Resources.

- Looked through artwork.

Research to do:

- Focus on a few artists.

- Analyse their work.

- Compare their work.

- Discover the motivation behind their work.

- Look at their techniques.

- Explore in depth the full history behind DADA to gain a better understanding of the movement in order to form my own definitive opinion.

Social Context:

- Collapse of social and moral values around WW1.

- Cynical attitude toward social values.

- Anti-Art that would destroy culture and therefore war.

- Not interested in writing books or painting pictures which the public would admire in an uninvolved manner.

- Provoked the public into reacting to them.

- A violent negative reaction was better than passive acceptance.

Political Context:

- Difficult to find much that was overtly political.

- From the beginning, the movement dedicated itself to attacking the cultural values which they believed had led to the war.

Technological Context:

- Henry Ford’s Model T car.

- Radio.

- Silent Films.

- Immunizations.

References:

http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/history.htm

http://www.writedesignonline.com/history-culture/dada.htm

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-dada.htm

http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/dada

Image Examples to be included:

Raoul Hausmann - The Art Critic (1919 - 1920)

Marcel Duchamp - The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors

Francis Picabia - The Fig Leaf (1922)

Man Ray - Cadeau (1921)

Jean Crotti - Portrait of Edison (1920)

Max Ernst - Dadaville circa (1924)

Kurt Schwitters - Red Wire Sculpture (1944)

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Surrealism Essay Notes

Key Characteristics of the Aesthetic:

- Influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis.

- Oneiric dream - like work( Exploring the workings of the unconscious mind).

- Automatism. the surrealist term for Freud’s free association technique.

- Sigmund Freud’s bool ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ was central to the movement.

Key artists / Designers to be discussed:

- Salvador Dali

- Max Ernst

- Vladamir Kush

- Joan miro

- Rene Magritte

Research Undertaken So Far:

- Tate Research

- Collections 

- History

- Artists

- Video Information

- Other Perspectives

- Pop Culture

- Influences

Research To Do:

- Choose two or three artists.

- Analyse their work.

- Explore their techniques.

- Discover their influences.

- Compare the works of the artists and discuss similarities / differences.

Social Context:

- Reveal the unconscious and reconcile it with rational life.

- Widely influenced art , literature, cinema and social attitudes / behaviour.

- Changed people’s way of thinking.

- Aimed at revolution.

Political Context:

- Affiliated to the communist party for a time.

- Response to the rise of fascism in Europe.

- Politically charged during the economic depression.

Technological context:

- Henry Ford’s Model T car.

- Radio.

- Silent Movie’s.

- Immunizations.

- Vitamins.

References:

http://www.arthistoryunstuffed.com/surrealism-in-context/

http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/surrealism

http://bells1.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/technology-context.html

Image Examples to be Included:

Salvador Dali - The Persistence of Memory (1931)

Salvador Dali - Premonition of Civil War (1936)

Salvador Dali - Curtain for Bacchanale (1939)

Rene Magritte - The Son of Man (1964)

Rene Magritte - Time Transfixed (1938)

Vladamir Kush - Diary of Discovery

Vladamir Kush - Departure of the Winged Ship (2000)

Vladamir Kush - Crusaders

Vladamir Kush - Arrival of the Flower Ship (2000)

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Essay Notes

<p>For our communication studies lecture we were asked to come up with a set of essay notes to help us outline key aesthetics and points that we will need to know in order to write a detailed and informative essay as well as making sure that all of the information we include in the essay is relevant to that specific movement. I also asked my tutor of we could add Surrealism to our list of movements to choose from and created a set of essay notes for two movements just incase I was unable to focus on surrealism, my chosen movements are Surrealism and DADA. I think that I will include both sets of notes in this blog because I think that both will be useful to me as reference material in the future.</p>

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Week 5 - Postmodernism - Finished Zine

This is my final zine and I created it based on the same principles and materials as the previous one, however I added more patterns and illustrations to this zine to make the entire booklet look more chaotic (anarchic) to fall in line with the principles that accompany the punk movement. I think that this zine is very bold and heavy due to the fact that I have mainly used black and white colours which has created a deep tone that I think adds even more of a punk like effect. I love this finished zine because it was so much fun to make and I took the time to poke fun and David Cameron and the German Chancellor which is always entertaining.

“The history of the punk aesthetic cannot be told, only shown,”  - Kugelberg

Resources:

http://designobserver.com/feature/the-art-of-punk-and-the-punk-aesthetic/36708/

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Week 5 - Postmodernism Punk Zine

This is my first attempt at creating my punk zine and I decided to keep everything black and white, I decided that my zine would be about the EU referendum and the current Syrian migrant crisis because these specific issues are literally being forced down our throats at the moment which I think is absolutely the wrong way to deal with this situation. I used newspapers and fineliners to create this zine and I tried to keep it at rough and gritty as possible because I think that’s one of the main aesthetics that punk promotes but I think that I lost direction in making this zine which is why it is so simple. I didn’t like this zine and thought that it looked too rough and so I decided to quickly create another.

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Week 5 - Postmodernism

This week we had a presentation on postmodernism in which we were talked through all of the political and social elements that influenced movements like punk and psychedelia which was very interesting. 

I also had my one to one session with my tutor to discuss how the plan for my essay was coming along, I created two essay plans since I actually wanted to write an essay on Surrealism and I asked my tutor if I would be able to however it turned out that I couldn’t so it was lucky that I had two prepared in the end. My essay plan is on the DADA movement and while discussing my plan thoroughly with my tutor, there were no alterations or amendments that were necessary which is awesome. I just have to fill in my feedback sheet and email it to my tutor.

The task that we were given today was to create a Zine outlining a political issue that particularly annoys or enrages us in the punk style.

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Week 4 - Modernism Develops - Mini Manifesto

For this task we were asked to create a mini manifesto which should discuss our own illustrative practice, Social or Political stance and our Moral or Ethical standing and my manifesto reads as follows...

- In my illustrations I want to become more confident in using a range of mediums to clearly depict my own personal opinions on all kinds of issues to a wider audience(work easily understandable).

- My personal preference in creating my own illustrations is to use traditional methods rather than digital ones, this is because I think that this adds more of an intimate and personal feel to the illustrations.

- I want to explore a wider range of art styles and techniques because I think that by doing this I will not only expand my own knowledge base, but I will also gain a broader range of methods to communicate more experimental illustrations.

- I fear that as an illustrator I may become stuck in using a particular style or technique which is why I have an ever growing thirst for knowledge.

- As a person, I understand that throughout my life I will constantly be changing especially socially and this will most definitely be useful in creating future illustrations.

- I think that personal feelings, emotions and responses to social and political issues are a primary influence in creating a good piece of art and to me, the stronger the emotion, the better the illustration.

- I personally believe that all life on earth is equal, not just people but literally everything and in all honesty my personal belief is that the animal population along with the very planet itself are in greater distress than the human population.

- I think that my personal views will be difficult to communicate through illustrations and even more difficult to communicate my meaning to other people.

- I personally think that I can communicate my work two ways, firstly I could mute my own views in order to reform to everyone else’s opinions (so not to offend anyone) or be outlandish with my illustrations, because I think that people would find my views to be rather eccentric. I think that I need to focus on my views and beliefs rather than worrying too much about others , however i don’t think that I would purposefully go out of my way to offend anyone but at the same time you can’t please everyone.

- At this point in my studies I think that it is too early to definitively decide on a political, social, ethical or moral standpoint because like art, people are always changing.  

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Week 4 - Modernism Develops - Modernist Machine

This was the machine that we all came up with in response to the task, the basic idea was to create a machine that mass produces pottery along with the usual decorative design that was used considerably in this movement. We chose to create our machine in this way to show the influences that nature had on the movement as well as the mass production of goods that came with the movement i mean, since this movement gave rise to a wide range of furniture, silverware, fabrics, ceramics and jewellery among many other things, it seemed that this extremely influential movement was a must have for anyone and everyone from 1890-1910. I think that this piece is very confused because the three of us had to work on it at the same time and this led to a very complicated piece, we used a lot of bold contrasting colours on this piece to make it stand out more. I like this piece because it is unique and it has sentimental value because I created it with my friends, I also think that for a short task this was a great outcome but if we had more time I would have liked to have developed it more.

Resources:

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-art-nouveau.htm

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Week 4 - Modernism Develops -Modernist machine Research

For this task we were asked to create a machine version of an allocated art movement, This is the mind map which myself and my group made in response to our task to create a modernist machine, the movement that we were given to focus on was Art Nouveau and so in response to this we decided to begin by writing down everything that we knew about the movement along with the main characteristics and noticeable features from the movement so that we could get a better idea on what exactly our machine would look like in response to all of this information.

Resources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/homes/design/period_artnouveau.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau