COP2 - Consumerism notes

Sigmund Freud - known as the father of  psychoanalysis -

Reading/research Material:

The Interpretation of Dreams 1899
The Unconscious 1915
The Ego and the Id 1923
Beyond the Pleasure Principle 1920
Civilization & its Discontents 1930

New theory of human nature, how and why we behave the way we do - this theory basis - the hidden primitive sexual forces and animal instincts which need controlling. Once the individual is asleep the unconscious desires begin to manifest themselves - ID is the base of these animal desires. Argued that there is a fundamental tension between civilization and the individual - each individual absorbs a sense of violence, aggression and sexual instincts which all piece and entwine together to form our biological make up. Theory - Pleasure Principle - in which we repress and don't fill our desires, leading built up frustration and depression - this is the primary process thinking with in the ID (wish fulfillment) - a biological component that incorporates instincts that are associated with the unconscious mind and the ID. - The unconscious mind - difficult to retrieve material as it is below the surface of awareness - seeps through into our dreams - the need to displace these desires elsewhere - consumerism.

Edward Bernays - pioneer in public relations and propaganda -

Was a press agent employed by public information during WW1 - Post war set up 'The council on Public Relations' - based his ideas on Freud's interpretations, interestingly he was Freud's Nephew - Bernays made people believe that their desires could be fulfilled by the collections of things - creating demand for products - he created this mass market for products by using adverts to appeal to the audience, making products seem more desirable - for example advertisements for cigarettes were created, making the toxic product appealing to both sexes in which helped women become more independent with associated smoking with social status - becoming more about appearance to other people - The use of pseudo scientific reports - more appealing - began to use doctors with in the product advertising, giving a sense of false security in how these cigarettes actually attack your health -  these product placements began to engulf this attachment of instinctual desires, it became irrational.

Fordism - closely linked to the development of PR - worked well together to sell these desired products through the use of well placed advertisements -

Henry Ford - Transposes Taylorism to car factories of Detroit. Taylorism - a system of scientific management advocated by Fred W Taylor, production management, machine like system.
Standard production models built as they move through factory - requires large investment - increasing in productivity, high wages can be paid allowing the workers to buy the product they are making - The more these companies created products, eg more than one car company competing in selling their wares - they needed something that would make them stand out from the other competitors, the idea and creation of branding was born. Cars were seen to be masculine - making the man more desirable - knowing the man can afford it with his wages - becomes the head of family - controlling - male dominance.

Forming a need culture into a desire culture - a culture where individuals buy things in which they do not necessarily need, becoming more of a luxury than a necessity.
Hidden needs that sell:
Emotional security - is it good for your health? - calories intake - safety for family - security blanket
Reassurance of worth - feeding emotional states
Ego-gratification - to satisfy desires
Creative outlets - hobbies
Love objects - relationships - to be desirable
Sense of power - social status - dominance - ego
Sense of roots - belonging
Immorality - leaving something behind - a legacy - to be remembered - beauty

Walter Lippman 1920 - A new elite is needed to manage the bewildered herd - manufacturing consent - researched into what people want and desired - the illusion of freedom - Stock market crash - Great Depression .

The illusion of free will - you are not what you own - does what you own identify you?

COP2 - Research Paradigms (What is research? Part 2) notes

Process is more important than outcome.

An incomplete manifesto for growth -
"When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there" - Bruce Mau Design In 2006. Ideas are essential, the context in which the practice exists. Coming up with an idea and then experimenting and developing is research. You are trying out new ideas to inform your understanding. Control the research that you undertake, have a clear idea of what you could possibly want to produce. A process of formalising and identifying - more efficient and more confident in these processes. Not knowing something you need to know about is research, you are looking at new knowledge. How do we identify and expand things that we already know?
How, Why, What if? Ask questions - Possibilities, we identify that there is something we don't know about. Analysis - talking to people. Primary Research is collected for a specific use, data that has not been used before. Secondary Research is data that exists from another source, has been researched by another individual. Quantitative Research is a measurable amount of research, statistical data. Qualitative Research is how people interact with surroundings and environments, it is not based on a objectively or statistical data. How is researched gathered, what form of information is it? What is information? 'Any communication or representation of knowledge such as facts, data, or opinions in any medium or form, including textual, numerical, graphic, cartographic, narrative, or audio / visual forms'

It needs to be relevant, it needs a function. How do we identify on essay research, how do we take a range of research approaches? It needs to add to peoples knowledge with practicality and theoretically. The process of finding facts, looking at what is already known and challenging this. Theoretical - Knowing that Practical - Knowing how } Knowledge Contextual - Knowing where Linking the theoretical, knowing that and the practice - knowing how = Synthesis. 
Broader sense of research - what is useful to you in terms of the rest of the knowledge? What do I want to know and what do I need to know? - being able to distinguish the two - how do things connect, link and relate? Research is what is already known - thinking outside the box - a different outlook on what research is already out there. Interpreting - Becoming an individual.

Paradigm Position - Paradigm, who does it effect? Your view on the world. A shift of your perception on the world - A paradigm shift.
What is there to study? whats out there and what you have learnt so far, your own personal experiences. Some experiences may be common but your understanding is individual and unique, ontology. How can we know about it? Shaped by personality, what you already know, epistemology. 

Ontology - A philosophical analysis of what is or can be known. Certain thinfs that we just cannot know therefore it is about what exists. If it exists, what is it?

Epistemology - A philosophical analysis of the scope and nature of knowledge and how we can know something. This distinguishes between how we know knowledge. Using knowing how we research, looking at practical knowledge, rather than theoretical knowledge.

Investigation, truth, belief and justification - we know something for a fact - we can prove or evidence the terms. Once we know this we start to gain an opinion shifting from truth.

Objective - Facts and Truths
Opinions - Beliefs

How would you justify your opinion? How would you prove this? Broadening research - Market research - gain more opinions that relate, agree and disagree with your own. Propositional knowledge is objective and subjective = Fact and Opinion

We research for inspiration, knowledge is not knowing.

Initial Research - can change your opinion you initially thought in the early process as you discover more research, more information informs your idea generation - Revisited Research - another route towards the initial knowledge you wanted to find out.

Methodology, Ontology and Epistemology = Paradigm

Methodology - refers to how you will find this information. Specifics - how you will turn this data you have found into something to use for knowledge, how it is relevant. Methodology approaches - what do I do? Research Activities, e.g mindmap - word associations - secondary research. Techniques - how do I do it? Research tools.

You know if you use a certain process you can predict where  it could lead you. Once you have decided on a method, this source material can be turned into data, something that can be turned into fact or knowledge - before you can process this, analysis of this, need justification, evaluation and communication. Relate to the source material that you have gathered - other data that people have collected - similarities, the interpretation process.

'What does it show' - analysis
'What does it mean?' - interpretational  

How can this link? Outside of the box - small similarities that can aid your research further, a different aspect on the outcome you have gained so far - context on background, themes of theories, hypothesis, leading to reflection. You are at the centre of your research, all of these different elements are one aspect of how you see the world.

Knowledge, Analysis, Comprehension, Application, Evaluation and Synthesis. It is not a linear way of working. At some point you have to stop researching - need to make a decision to stop researching.

Advice - write big when you are going to stop researching - and start writing. Research needs a purpose, you need some form of purpose for your research.

Proposals - start with what you already know, identify what it is, what you want to know more about, plan how you are going to find out more about it. 

COP2 - Identity notes

Theories - Essentialism, a traditional approach - Our biological makeup makes us who we are - Modern art theorists disagree.

Physiognomy - Phrenology
Cesare Lombrose 1835 -1909, was the founder of Positivist Criminology - the notion that criminal tendencies are inherited, a suggestion that criminal tendencies are passed down - born with it.

Historical theories:

- Pre Modern Identity
A persons identity is stable, defined by long standing roles within society. You are judged by what you accomplish, what actions you take.
- Modern Identity
Modern societies begin to offer a winder range of social roles, a possibility to start 'choosing' your own identity rather than have one being forced upon you by society.
- Post modern Identity
'Secure identities' - related to institutional agency, eg. Farm Worker - landed gentry. The Soldier - the state, Factory Worker - industrial companies/capitalism.

Charles Baudelaire - the surge of a new class - Flaneur (gentlemen stroller) seen in Le pont de l'Europe, 1876. Velben - 'conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.' Here women are seen as an accessory - time to walk around meaning he doesn't have to work.

Gustare Caillebotte Paris Street Rainy Day 1877- seeing no work clothing suggests that they are all upperclass, they don't need to work - have the money they need.

Georg Simmel - tickle down theory, emulation, distinction, The mask of fashion.

The lowerclasses want to look like the upperclass, using the money and materials at hand to recreate the fashion - the upperclass then change their clothing and vice versa.
Edvard Munch 'Evening on Karl Johan' - sense of isolation within a crowded place, not seen as a person but another one of the crowd, no sense of individuality. - Simmel suggests, because of the speed and mutability of life, people try to change and standout.

Discourse Analysis
Identity is constructed out of the discourses culturally available to us - age, class, gender, education, income. Further divided into, class, race and gender. What is a discourse?

‘… a set of recurring statements that define a particular cultural ‘object’ (e.g., madness, criminality, sexuality) and provide concepts and terms through which such an object can be studied and discussed.’ Cavallaro, (2001)

'Class' - Humphrey Spender - Mass observation, Worktown Project, The rich documented life with in the working class, recording through photography. An insight into different classes of their way of life.

'Race' - Chris Ofili - One of the black artists to become recognised and famous. 'No woman, no cry' and 'Captain shit an the legend of the black stars' - a perception of what a white person would consider a black hero to be.

Emily Bates - Red Hair
"Hair has been an issue throughout my life, it often felt that I was nothing more than my hair in other peoples eyes'

 Bates piece, Dress- made from her own hair and other ginger hair from the hair dressers.

'Gender' 1920's women cut their hair short and finally began to create an identity for themselves.

Post Modern Theory - constructed through our social experience. Erving Goffman saw Life as 'theatre' made up of 'encounters' and 'performances'. This can be related to Barbara Kruger's work 'I shop therefore I am' 2006. Further implies that we are evaluated by the actions and roles that we play in public, we are labelled.

COP 2 - Cites and Film notes continued

Depicting this theme with in film, I believe that the most well known examples would be Alfred Hitchcock's work, such as 'Psycho' and 'Vertigo.

- In the film 'Psycho' the house is purposely situated in its location to emit the atmosphere of abandonment, desolate, daunting and foreboding, knowing something is lurking in the house. The Gothic architecture of the exterior of the house helps to make it seem aged with a sinister appeal, through imagining what could be looking back at you though the windows, the wind making the whole house shriek with a high pitch as the wood creaks. This appeal to the architecture makes the audience feel a sense of fright without the need for a description or dialogue to know that their is something or some form of 'evil' emitting from the house,

- In the film 'Vertigo' the buildings are filmed from a low angle as to make the height more daunting to the viewer, the mist/clouds hiding the top of the building to make it seem higher than it is. The scene at the bridge, makes the whole city seem unreachable, the bridge being the only connection to the city. The scene where the main protagonist, John Ferguson, runs up the stairs to save Judy Bartons life, the camera captures the stairs from a high angle, so the viewer is able to see the distance from the top of the stairs to the very bottom. This creates an atmosphere of anxiety, a lurch in your stomach as you see the ground. I believe that the use of the black and white footage, even though this was due to the state of technology at the time, helps to saturate the scene with these emotions through the use of the solid black shadows and tonal shading.

Vertigo

Psycho

Metropolis is a Japanese animated feature that entails a world filled with advancement in technology through the inclusion of robots and the creation of a robot that can think and have thoughts of its own, one of a kind. The use of the city with in this film is caught between the surface in which the rich live and the beneath which is where the poorer classes live, using scrap metal to create their homes. This side of the city shows the heart of the city as it is portrayed warmly with saturated colour schemes whereas the surface is portrayed as a cold and dismal place with the dark side of the city lurking with in the huge corporate identities of the city.

Metropolis

COP 2: Cities and Film notes

Modernism, urban society, lecture notes

Dresden Exhibition 1903 
Georg Simmel, a german sociologist, was asked to give a lecture on the role of intelligent life in the city but instead reversed the idea to the effect of the city on an individual. This relates to urban sociology. The resistance of the individual to being leveled, swallowed up in the social, the technological mechanism.

Architect Louis Sullivan (1856 - 1924)  was the creator of the modern skyscraper, it was a practical design with a simple interior however the outside detail related to the arts and crafts movement rather than modernism. The fire in 1871 made way for more buildings in which he could create.

Manhatta 1921 - Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler
Sheeler dived into industrial environments - modernism, compositions of shapes relating to a more abstract structure.

Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist theoretician, turns the worker into part of the machine, much like the cogs that would make the machine function. Relating to this subject, Charlie Chaplin created a political comment in the film, Modern Times. Stock Market Crash 1929, unemployment goes up, leading to the 'Great Depression'. "The Man with a Movie Camera" (1929) looked into the term of flaneur, french masculine for 'stroller'. A means to stroll, a way of investigating people and the affects of the city. A person who gathers information for artistic work, an observer, holds a certain detachment to the city. Walter Benjamin, took this term and used it as an urban concept for an analytical tool and as a lifestyle seen in his writings. The street photographer is seen as a modern day version of the urban observer. Sontag records and captures city life through the use of photography, 'a stolen moment in the bustle of the city'.The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world 'picturesque. Daido Monyama 1970's, Shinjku district of Tokyo - Captures the dark side to the city, exposes himself to this material of life. Janet Wolff, The invisible Flaneuse, Mainly all men, separates the genders. Susan Buck Moss, suggests the only woman figure you see on a street is either a 'bag lady' or a prostitute, a dark perception on city life and how the public perceive others. Sophie Calle, "Suite Venitienne" (1980) - Calle would follow people that she would see on the street and photograph their journey until she lost sight of them, in which she would then forget them and find another person to photograph without their knowledge. I found this quite interesting through how the photography recorded was essentially the only information that you would have of the person Calle would have been following, the clothing and the places that the individual visits being the only defining thing for their identity. Venice - City as a labyrinth of streets and alleyways in which you can get lost but at the same time you always end up back to where you began. - This form of narrative and movement with in the city of Venice, creates a suffocating and claustrophobic atmosphere for the audience, the idea of not being able to escape the maze of the streets. The Detective (1980) - Wants to provide photographic evidence of her existence. She pays a detective to follow a woman, taking photography and notes, in which she then takes photography of the detective, in which she purposely takes photography - leading him to places that mean something to her, an interpretation of a love story. Cindy Sherman - Here is New York Documentation of Photography after and during 9/11 - Not professionals but others as well, the public who captured photography of the event. Could buy prints and money was donated. Wee Gee (Arthur Felig) - Uncanny ability to find these scenes, interpreted that he had a police car radio and was able to get there before the police, to be able to take photography of the graphic scenes before him. A dark side of the city in which he was situated in - consumed by this obsession. Lorca Di Corcia - 'Heads' 2001 New York - Lost in thought images in which she took of unsuspecting individuals on the street, was dramatic, a powerful image - look as if they had been staged. However she was taken to caught due to not getting permission for taking photography of one of the people that she photographed. Thomas Ruff - Pixelates images of 9/11, replaying and reinterpreting the footage and creating imagery from which. Liz Wells makes a film where she runs the 9/11 footage backwards were the building seems to piece back together. She then took her work further by documenting cities, 7/7 bombers through mobiles and surveillance - unseen.