Hepworth visit

Recently me and a few friends went to the Hepworth Museum in Wakefield:

Phyllida Barlow:

INTENT:

- The intent was for the artwork to not be complete until it was occupied, that the presence of a person completed the space created by it's negative gaps

- I found occupying the space quite bizarre, as it did not seem made to inhabit humans, yet thats was its sole purpose, through as odd juxtaposition of purposes

WHAT I THOUGHT:

- I really liked the openness of the interactivity, simply by being there you were helping to create the artwork

- Also, I liked how uncomfortable I felt in the structure, almost as if it was a pain to stay in it, making the contribution to the piece even more taxing

David Medalla, 'A Stitch in Time':

INTENT:

- The message was for members of the public to sew on their own ephemera to the hammocks to create a unique artwork which is the collaborative efforts of a huge body of people

- Myself and my friend sewed on some things we had in our bags, and although they were just kinds of rubbish, it did add more intent and purpose to the artwork

WHAT I THOUGHT:

- I thought it was a wonderful way to get a collaborative project which is more than just effort, but is about physically leaving something to add to the collection

- I found myself thinking about how I could use the physical trash of one person and make it into an artwork which could be accessible by many

- Also, I loved the way the items left by others caused a talking point to the current viewers, it was like an on display time capsule, which created a dialogue between present and past viewers, regardless of the amount of time passed between their visits

Potential images

Yayoi Kusama 'Obliteration Room'. Chosen because of the complexities of where the authorship lies due to its collaborative nature.

Walker Evans 'Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife' and Sherrie Levine 'After Walker Evans'. Chosen because of the evident breach of copyright which is widely contested due to the expression of art.

Vincent van Gogh 'A Starry Night'. Chosen due to it being one of the major movements in the emergence of unarguable authorship within art.

Lecture- Postmodernist Design Theory

Modernism
- form follows function, masculine

Post modernism
- adding 'play' - rebellion against modernism, women, men, different races, Memphis player

Logocentrism
- Opposite comparisons which one is superior e.g. west v east, white v black, man v woman

Phallogocentrism
- Logocentrism but coming from a male standpoint, what society is- hidden male biases

Hegemony
- Patriarchy relies upon women oppressing themselves- all forced to think the same way

Image analysis

Interactive art work can be more than just an experience, but can leave a tangible, collaborative outcome. One example of this is Yayoi Kusama's work Obliteration Room, which showcases the importance of the audience's views, as this is the key point to the work, as without their presence, the work itself would not exist. However, this takes on more than just the physical construction of a work, but in fact breathes life into it. This is where the question of authorship becomes apparent, as it would seem that it should be that of Kusama, yet it seems to fall into the walls themselves, which breathe life and purpose into the act of using a sticker to place a physical marker to an emotional response.

Lecture- Modernist Design Theory

Modernist design- function before beauty
-If problem is solved perfectly, then that is where the beauty comes from

Rational design culture can change the world for good
-15th July 1972- Charles Jencks declares modernism is dead (Demolition of Pruitt-Igoe block, St Louis)

Helvetica- Gary Hustwit

Harry Beck 1933 underground
-Replicated all over (Massimo Vignelli 1972)

Art and culture against war and nationalism

Ad busters telling you the be 'left wing' could be same as adverts telling you to buy
-Like shadows on wall in cave
-Experiment Jetset

Bauhaus worked on democratising
-Nazi's shut it down because they don't believe in equality, believe Germany above all else

Paul Klee (1925) Pedagogical sketchbook
Wasily Kandinsky (1926) Point and line to plane
Gyorgy Kepes (1944) Language of Vision
Lazlo Moholy-Nagy (1947) Vision in Motion

Lupton (1988) Writing lessons: modern design theory

Marinetti F.T. (1909) Manifesto of Futurism
- Sided with Nazi's but still modernist- aggressive facism

Modernism not just about style- political consideration- What kind of world do you want?

Benjamin (1936) Communism responds by politicising art

Study Task 4- Images and Theory

 Commodity Fetishism:

-You are defined by your possessions, regardless of the worth or labour behind them
- Marx 'like Gods, commodities are our creation but appear to us as an alien force which rule our lives'

Postmodernism:

- The linking of texts, media, arts, social forms and concepts and representing them in parody and new media

- Using the idea of intense textuality to link ideas from across history

What is the relationship between interactivity and authorship?

Lecture- Animation Core Texts

Adorno (1941)
-Talking about culture
-Standardisation, creates pseudo-individualisation, social cement creates passivity-easy to consume
-Pop music, acts as pacifying

-When it works formula is multiplied to get some boring results
-Never ending cycle of conforming leading to pacification

Marketisation and commodification = Standardisation

Art is becoming designed more for reproductivity

Lecture- Graphic Design Core Texts

Noble & Bestley- Visual research: an introduction to...
-Appropriateness of audience and fulfilling brief-responsive?

Crow-Visual Signs
-Semiotics within visual culture

Heller & Vienne- Citizen Designer: Perspectives on...
- Authorship- collection of essays

Mcluhan- Understanding Media: The extensions of...
- Media used to communicate effects of message

Barthes- Image, Music, Text - Death of the Author
- Authorship, collection of essays

Jameson- Postmodernism: On the Cultural logic of...
- Everything reflected to capitalism

Beirut- Looking closer 1,2,3,4 and 5
-Graphic Design Essays

Packard- The Hidden Persuaders
-Old edition, tactics used in advertising

Olins- On Brands
-Works in branding industry, but critical of consumer psychology

Mulvey- Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
- Could link to packaging?

Study Task 3- Reading Texts- Triangulation

The issue of gender roles within media has been widely discussed by many theorists, with Mulvey, Storey and Dyer having contrasting views. Mulvey would argue in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema that women are often seen as lesser beings than than men, due to her lack of a phallus, meaning 'it is her desire to make good the lack of phallus' which 'produces the phallus as a symbolic presence'. Mulvey also explores how the 'male gaze' can be put onto women by viewing her only as in existence to inspire the hero, and has not the 'slightest importance' in herself. This is something Storey would agree with and push further, as in his text based around Mulveys, he states how both men and women play a part in this male gaze 'and signifying male desire' meaning 'women are therefore crucial to the pleasure of the male gaze'. Dyer would offer that the explanation of this inequality between genders is due to 'an Oedipal identification with the father and the repression of the mother' and slightly disagree with Mulvey's ideology that the male gaze is nothing more than 'sadistic voyeurism' by stating that it is due to an innate primal urge and is not, as Storey believes, a building of social inequality. Mulvey would disagree, and say that this relationship between the genders in manufactured in order to allow the male viewers to identify with the male lead character and ‘allow a temporary loss of ego, whilst simultaneously reinforcing it’, meaning cinema is often tailored to fill the male ego, which in itself oppresses the female figures. Again, Storey would agree with Mulvey, as he believes that despite the efforts to show women as stronger, independent characters in certain media at first glance, ‘the second look confirms women as sexual objects’ due to cinema being created with male ideologies firmly in mind. Dyer however, offers a fairly dismal solution, as he states that the only way to even the bias among film is to ‘feminise’ the present males and bring them down to the condescending level women are viewed with so that the woman role has a chance of over taking him, and not by celebrating the unique strong qualities of a woman, as this would make the male viewer feel emasculated and the female viewer feel unworthy.

Study Task 2- Establishing a Research Question

OUIL501 – STUDY TASK 1 – ESTABLISHING A RESEARCH QUESTION

Suggested Research Question. This can be a topic or theme, but please try to be as precise as possible.

Interactivity within illustration, and how this links to authorship

Which Theorists Related to this question? You can find these on eStudio

John Berger John Storey  Laura Mulvey  Roland Barthes

Which Academic Sources Are Available On The Topic? What examples of practice / practitioners / images have you discovered? Include a Harvard Referenced bibliography of at least 5 possible sources.

Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing, Harmondsworth: Penguin  Heller, S. & Vienne, V. (2012) 100 Ideas That Changed Graphic Design, London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd Lidwell, W., Holden, K. & Butler, J. (2010) Universal Principals of Design, Massachusetts: Rockport Publishers Lupton, E. & Cole Phillips, J. (2015) Graphic Design The New Basics, New York: Princeton Architectural Press Storey, J. (2008) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, 5th ed, London: Pearson

How Could The Research Question Be Investigated Through Practice? What types of illustrations would you make in response to this, and why? Think about processes too.

Interactive, activity based illustrations, perhaps with an ability to have a strong audience input, and an ability to change the outcome them Perhaps through using traditional print and type to make finished products

Peer Feedback – How could this topic be refined / developed / suggestions? More specific theorists More refined question

Study Task 1- Illustration and Authorship

The work of Sherrie Levine, After Walker Evans is much debated within the art community, due to the complex ideologies surrounding its creation, which in its simplest forms, is simply a photograph of a pre-existing photograph, taken by Walker Evans, entitled Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife. Barthes would be uncertain as to whether After Walker Evans is the creation of Levine, as he believes that the author ‘has the same relation of antecedence with his work that a father sustains with his child’ (1968), which would suggest that he believes the life of the art after its creation is of no concern of the artists themselves, and therefore any forms of copying could simply be regarded as have been influenced by the original. This would further suggest that Barthes would believe that although Evans is the original creator of the piece, it has then taken on a life of its own and become a creator of a piece itself, in turn, transferring the authorship of the new photograph to Levine. 

Barthes (1968) also supposes that a piece of art cannot possibly be contained by a single artist, as it is ‘a multi dimensional space… none of which is original’ as it is ‘resulting from a thousand sources of culture’. This may suggest that he would support Levines work as a new entity, as all culture and art appears as varying forms of pre-existing work. This unoriginality of art proposed by Barthes is far less despondent than it first seems, as he celebrates this through exposing how it has far more than ‘a single ‘theological’ meaning’ and is open to interpretation from anyone who views it, which in itself imbues a uniqueness in meaning through a shared authorship.

One person who would disagree with Barthes is Rock, who argues that the origin of authorship denotes ‘the person who originates or gives existence to anything’ (1996). This viewpoint would aim to persuade that there can only ever be one author to a piece of work, and that this is where the meaning is implied. It would also suggest that Levine has indeed simply copied Evans, and that her work could never actually be accredited to her in the first place, since it adds no more meaning than Evans did when he created the photograph.

Barthes has a counter argument that ‘these 'imitative' arts comprise two messages: a denoted message, which is the analogon itself, and a connoted message, which is the manner in which the society to a certain extent communicates what it thinks of it’. Here, he would suggest that the physical work itself has little to no impact on the perceived message, which is created by the meaning surrounding it. Therefore, Levine has as much ownership to the piece as Evans, as he took a photograph of a pre-existing image, as did Levine. It could even be argued that Levine has more authorship over the piece, as ‘the Author is supposed to feed the book’ and the most famous contribution to this work is Levines copy, which gives it notoriety and adds a depth to the piece, therefore extending its lifespan in the public eye. 

Lecture- Research and Epistomology

Key points for preparing a research project:

- Embrace the fact you don't know things, that's how progress is made.

- Connection making increases ideas- what you know vs what you don't know, and who does know-> benefit of group crits

- Get out there and BE PROACTIVE, think of new and useful ways to gather research

- Some parts have to be put to the side, as topic should be very direct-> put it on the back burner and allow it to still inform practice

"Research is creating new knowledge" - Neil Armstrong

Research is NEW, the purpose to research is to fit the brief

Broader research- scope and scale, driven by CoP module, going out and getting primary research-grade makes it relevant

3000 word limit put on to limit size and scale and scope of research

How does what you want to learn fit into the CoP module?

Individual and as discipline, paradigm positions-everyones is individual, helps to define question

What is there to study? (Ontology- About knowledge itself)
How can we know about it? (Epistemology)

Ontology
- The philosophical analysis of what is or can be known
- What can be known? e.g. number of people in a room (like quantitive)
- How appropriate?

Epistemology
- Analysis of scope and nature of knowledge
- How can we know it?
- Know because you're part of that circumstance
- Know because we read/saw it

Knowledge is the overlap between facts and opinions (objective and subjective)

-Using experiences/beliefs, then what are you going to prove? Combine with facts to show

-Research question will be changed in reflection to findings

Methodology includes- Approaches, techniques, analysis and interpretation

Methodology creates data

Lecture- The Flipped Classroom

- Progressive teaching-flipping teaching dynamic
- Non-hierarchical, therefore empowering

Jacques Ranciere (The Ignorant Schoolmaster)

France, May 1968
- Revolutionary civil unrest
>Youth energy and anti authoritarian
>Calls for equality, sexuality and liberty of the student
>Education as authoritarianism and discipline-wanted change

"la beauté est dans la rue"

I.S.A Vs R.S.A
Ideological state apparatus-school/family
-School is where you learn ideologies-compete rather than collate-squashed and fear of failure
Repressive State Apparatus
-The distribution of the sensible-the world is not free, everything is predetermined, so our expectations are already set before we experience it

'Police' is anything which maintains divisions in society- we act as police to repress others- E.g stereotypes and prejudices

Joseph Jacotot - 1800's
-World in French colourised Belgium- student spoke Flemmish, he spoke French
-Two books, one in French, one in Flemmish- left to figure it out
We are saying men might be all equal

The School of the Damned
- Free, autonomous
>Not linked with/validated by any other
-Run by students
-Tutors unpaid, but time spent will be returned in time
-Time spent s time repaid, equalises field

Evaluation

Leeds College of Art BA (Hons) ILLUSTRATION	Level	04
OUIL401 Context of Practice	Credits	20
End of Module Self Evaluation

NAME	Megan Ojari

1.  What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?
This module taught me how to generate work without a final outcome as a goal, which was a new experience to me, but I think it has helped to loosen up my working process and let me be more creative in what I make. I also managed to spend a lot of time in the print room, which helped me to improve my technical screen and lino print techniques, which I know ill be useful next year, as I want to focus more on print. Another skill this module has helped me with is academic research and communicating facts through language, as although I did English Language A-level, I have never had to analyse texts this closely, and found learning how to properly Harvard reference a very valuable skill.
2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your practical outcomes?
Because this module has been quite self-directed, I found it even more valuable than ever to look at contemporary artists work, and see how my work would fit alongside theirs in a ‘real world’ context. I also discovered the importance of gaining input from my peers, as through asking for their responses to my work, regarding colour especially, I was able to compile a reflective and accurate evaluation of my colour choices. Also, the mix of academic research and practical work, although being something I found quite difficult, really showed me how important it is to keep in mind context whilst creating work, as after university, this will be how my work will be received. I also learnt the importance of asking peers for help with my practical work, as I found the sharing of skills, such as lino and book binding, meant I was able to confidently and quickly adapt my practice in these areas. I also found the resources of the library invaluable to the production of my essay, as the compilation and analysis of theoretical books ensured I thought deeply about my topic before I started writing.
3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalise on these?
The biggest strength I feel of my submission, is my more developed practical work, as the boxes/zines help to compile quite a lot of my research into fairly resolved outcomes. I also am really quite pleased with the finish of these outcomes, as I feel they are of quite a high quality. The screen print outcomes are also something I am proud of, as I think the ambitious use of different colours and overlays works to make them a successful set of prints. I also like the lino printing techniques I tired, as I found it a fun and quirky way to quickly produce hand rendered prints, and I feel my final prints from these offers a strong visual response to my task. In this module I also found the structure allowed me to quite freely explore the subject, and come up with inventive solutions, such as repeat pattern packaging and zines, which I had never made before, which I wouldn’t have experimented with if I had had a set outcome to make. I also feel that my broad research for my essay ensured I had a good, strong starting point which I could slowly pare down to the essentials.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these in the future?
I fear I lost sight of the content of my essay through this practical project, as I didn’t really look at branding too much, as I had initially wanted to, however, I found this freedom from a context ensured I experimented freely with media and ideas. Next time I will ensure that I stick to the subject matter more though. I also struggled a lot with motivation during the start of this course, as I think the lack of practical tasks, and uncertainty about how much/what to make meant I wasn’t really exploring the subject. But once I understood what was expected of me in this module, I really enjoyed the creation and development of different ideas. However, because of this lack of working at the start it meant I wasn’t able to complete all the work I wanted to near the end, as my time management wasn’t very good. During Context of Practice next year I will make use of timetables, as I have in my previous modules, to ensure I manage my time effectively. I also felt that near the end I kept adding new tasks and outcomes to my workload, which I should have been less ambitious with, as near the end I struggled to finish my essay to the quality I would have liked, as I had had to spend time finisheing off my practical work.
5. Identify five things that you feel will benefit you during next years Context of Practice module? - More effective time planning from the start and using timetables would ensure I was on top of my workload. - A more effective understanding of what is expected of me from the start would have helped to ensure that I was confident in the direction of my practical work and explored ideas more thoroughly. - A stronger link between the theoretical and practical work would have helped, if I had started my practical work alongside my essay production I feel I would have had more relevant and effective outcomes. - The strong theory of the subject and developing understanding of how my work fits into the context of illustration will help me in the production of work in all of my future modules. - I feel more deadlines and tutorials of both theory and practical work would have helped me to know where I was heading and given me the chance to discuss any concerns I had.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance				x
Punctuality					x
Motivation		x
Commitment			x
Quantity of work produced			x
Quality of work produced			x
Contribution to the group				x
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

A copy of your end of module self evaluation should be posted to your studio practice blog. This should be the last post before the submission of work and will provide the starting point for the assessment process. Post a copy of your evaluation to your COP blog as evidence of your own on going evaluation.

Notes