THE PUNK TAKEOVER!

Punk exploded into the 70’s with a massive bang, it created a cultural sea of change evolving music culture, fashion and leaving behind attitudes and sensibilities of the early 20th century. Britain was moving forward finally, punk was a movement that outrageously expressed a loud scream for freedom.

In this session we focussed on the graphics of punk, questioning of how punk changed graphic design forever. Punk was a political movement shouting out antiestablishment and anarchy for the rest of the world to hear. When the sexpistolls played their first gig at st Martins college of art in 1975, their outrageous performance announced the beginning of punk. Punk was a movement of handmade style, revolutionary music and fashion.

The DIY style of punk graphics was well reprisented by Jamie Reid an art student that developed his own unique collaged ‘ransom note’. in the 70’s graphic designers  commissioned typesetters to create type having to wait for the finished copy before seeing what it looked like. Reid simply cut out letters from newspapers and magazines and collaged them together and then photographed them to see the final result instantly. As he went along he played with the different sizes and fonts of the writing this was the typesetting and pasteup of he 70’s. Reads designs where shocking at the time it seemed uncontrolled but the influence on design was revolutinary.

 

How Punk changed Graphic Design

Discussing Important Terms within our Society.

This lessons discussion was built around Identity, Narrative, Subculture and Representation.

A persons Identity is a conception built of personal qualities, beliefs and expressions. Sociologists ague that people create their identities from the relationships they have with society. When looking at Identity, it is important to focus on its individual categories not just understand it as something that stands by itself. Identity focusses on gender,age, class, ethnicity etc. It is also interesting discussing the matters of how we are socialised into these individual and group identities. Throughout our lives we are socially constructed into our identities through different experiences, identity can be understood as a dynamic feature that is constantly evolving. if you focus on different sections of your life it is easy to contrast and compare behavioural differences and attitudes. for example, i am going to focus on the socialisation into gender identities using (Oakley) study on 4 key aspects of gender socialisation. Oakley used canalisation, verbal appellations, different  activities and manipulation to explain Gender socialisation from the family. Oakley argued manipulation used to encourage behaviour seen as normal for a child oaf a certain sex and abnormal for a child of the opposite sex. Different activities such as football for boys and ballet for girls socialising girls into pretty dainty identity and boys into a tougher matcho identity. Verbal apalations focusss on using phrases such as ‘pretty little princess’ for a girl and ‘brave soldier’ for a boy. Canalisation looks at ‘channelling’ of children down towards toys suited to their sexes, for example girls and barbies and boys and action men

A Narrative can be fiction or factual based. A narrative could be an account or story of an event based on experiences.

When looking at subcultures in a general nature, they form a divide between the parenting culture and smaller groups of people who follow there own norms and values within their specific subculture. Subcultures help to provide a sense of belonging, as post war Britain ended there was a rise in subcultures within youth groups, opportunities arrived for british working class youths, there was a general rise in prosperity and availability of credit. sociologists  argue that post war deviant subcultures such as the Punk movement where developed and used strategies such as aggression to deal with the changes.

 

There are three types of Representation within our society, the First being symbolic. The symbolic representation focusses on a certain object that represents and stands for some sort of belief or action.  The second being a political representation which focusses on making our citizens voices and opinions present within our public policy. The third is Cognitive, meaning a mental representation of certain beliefs.

 

Oakley, Ann. “Revise Sociology – Revise.Purplemapgie.Com”. Revise.purplemagpie.com. Web. 13 May 2016.

Dangers of Stereotyping Individuals

Stereotypes are distorted or exaggerated generalisations cast upon groups of individuals as one, they fail to make the acknowledgement of personal variation. Stereotypes can lead to discriminating groups of individuals due to ascribed status that is cast upon them, this becomes something that is not easy for the person to get rid of. It is often argued that stereotyping is often brought about due to the effects of labelling.

To begin the lecture, we watched a clip from Little Britain focussing on the Character Vicky Pollard. Although we all found the clip hilariously funny, it is very clever the way it challenges the audiences expectations and likeliness to stereotype. The scene Shows Vicky Pollard with her new black boyfriend ‘Jemain’ who is wearing a baggy tracksuit, snapback and gold chains. When Vicki starts talking she talks with a Jamaican accent, she then refers back to her boyfriend, who to the audiences surprise responds in a very posh British accent,  ‘I don’t really know Victoria i am just happy to go with he flow‘. This completely breaks the expectation of the viewer, they have already made the judgement of the boy and cast upon a typical black ‘roadman’ stereotype.

We discussed what happened in the scene presented and what we thought it was aiming to show, we where given the task to illustrate our own ideas around stereotypes and labelling of individuals. In groups we focussed on a certain type of stereotype, then illustrated an image of what we had discussed but added something to distract away from it, not quite fitting in to the expectation. My group focussed on the typical ‘stoner’ stereotype. We drew a young man that fitted this image but instead of a skateboard we drew a biology book. This creating the idea that although there maybe a sense of ‘going with the flow not giving a shit’ attitude the image also showed a hard worker that aspires to getting good graded educational qualifications.

Stereotyping often works together with Labelling and can have a very negative effect on whom it is representing. looking at these ideas in conjunction with the Police, a study by (Duncan 2006) argues the idea that social reactions to certain ‘criminal’ behaviours and people being labelled criminals can worsen the situation. A classic example could focus on  a sociological study by (Becker 1963) focussing on marujanna use in the US. Becker argued that growing social disapproval and criminalisation of the drug had the ironic effect of intensifying the use of the drug.

Stereotyping and labelling force people to adjust themselves to fit in with people around them, over time these adjustments cause labels to become a reality wether good or bad.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Duncan,. “Labelling Theory”. Compass.port.ac.uk. N.p., 2006. Web. 13 May 2016.

Becker,. “Labelling Theory”. Compass.port.ac.uk. N.p., 1963. Web. 13 May 2016.

Alice in Wonderland Review

Since 1865, Alice in Wonderland has played a fantastic role in encouraging the British public of all ages to enter an intense world of imagination, simply reached beyond the burrow of a rabbit that is consistently running late. Personally i am a massive fan of the book, having read it repeatedly as a child i feel i am in the position of it being possible to recite the entire text! The Exhibition opened with a life-size spiralling vortex, pulling you into an Alice in Wonderland daydream joining her on the trip down the rabbit hole, entering the imagination of David Carroll. The visuals of the exhibition where absolutely phenomenal, as you make your way through the Fragments of classic illustration inflated upon illuminated panels, you instantly begin shrinking on the spot with shire amazement.”Don’t go this way, go that way” “Eat me, drink me” echoes through your mind as you read the mismatching type faces demanding you to do so.

The amount of extraordinary Alice inspired material is truly inspiring with the cross sections of computer games designed by De Montfort university students to the original manuscripts. Carroll famously designed the stories to entertain his Daughters, Lori, Alice and Edith during a summer boat trip. After begging their father to write it as a book the story was soon being passed from palm to palm until it landed under the pillow of Great Britain’s queen Mary as she slept.

Alongside the many pleasures this exhibition presents, Jefferson Airplanes white rabbit is available to listen to along side Jan Svankmajer’s creepy animation of 1988. My main obsession of this exhibition lay with the ongoing fascination Brits have with the story of Alice in wonderland, decades after its creation it is still a permanently relevant material suitable for the enjoyment of any age group. How has this book staid so fresh within society 150 years after its creation? Carol presents Alices character and her experience of everyday life in such an appealing manner, the mind of a child is something so innocent conveying this idea the book constantly juxtaposes from the rational to the irrational with which is relatable to any reader with the force of growing up but the never ending desire to remain a child.

CTS ZINES

Zines, (abbreviated from ‘Fanzine’) are commonly known self published booklets used to portray a persons views and propositions of a specific subject. Zines can be printed and bound in anyway, originally being created by cutting and sticking image with text. In this lesson we were given the chance to sit and discuss in groups subjects evolved and questioned by writers of zines, from the rise of subcultures to the important argument of feminism. We also discussed how zeins where used within art movements such as dada and Situationist with directly influenced the DIY look of the Punkzienes.

The popularity of punk culture in the 70’s suddenly sparked an interest in self-publishing. Zines began used as a way to promote this exciting new music scene, although they received very minor attention from the press. In 1975 Legs McNeil published the first known fanzine with friends in New York. ‘Sniffin glue’ one of the most recognised punkzines was published just a year later. Zines played a huge part in developments of movements in the 20th century, such as the organisation of Queercore and Riot Grrrl of the late 80’s ad 90’s. From mid 80’s publications formed a network of zine publishers and consumers in which they composed a variety of different interests and aesthetics. By the 90’s Zines had gathered mainstream attention with there broad centralised coverage and have continued to grow since then.

Throughout time zines have developed through their visuals and mediums. The zeine visuals have not always been so commercial; they are now used to inform and influence members of society. Zines are used as a way of expressing personal views to the wider society, people can often relate to the personal elements of the text. Writers are given a chance to express and voice their own opinions and views on subjects important to them.

 

SKETCHBOOK RESEARCH:

this post shows some of the this post shows some of the research i have done, visiting the welcome gallery, tate modern, imperial war etc… and the work that has interested me.

 

 

Where to begin?

Recently beginning my studies of illustration and visual media… of course i am going to question the fact of what actually is illustration? Can an illustration only be classified as a simple line drawing, or could it be a physical object with texture and movement? In the first chapter of this learning curve, I am going to explore this idea through my work and research of the subject…

Our first consecutive week consisted of a range of gallery visits and lectures. So far we have been introduced to different illustration styles and artists, helping inspire us to become our own expressive individual. We began research at the Tate Modern, a place filled with contemporary images and objects for young creatives (like myself) to feed from. A group of artist’s brought together promoting and inspiring a modern and experimental approach to art. later on in the week we visited the imperial war museum; this had a juxtaposing approach to the work displayed at the Tate Modern, instead of presenting the future, it presents a past; Objects ageing over time, forever holding memories of pain and suffering.

When researching at the imperial war museum, I found it quite an emotional experience. Inspecting objects that have survived such shocking events, with intension of protecting future generations; I think it is so insane to be standing over them, the real memories and emotions forever trapped in the past. I wanted to learn and be inspired by our county and ancestors history, yet i was left disappointed when some objects had barely been exhibeted with any information at all covering their past; this really did create a great annoyance for both myself and other class members. The next day in class we where set the interesting task of having to make an 8 paged political story about one of the objects from the museum; I based my piece around the idea of change over time from the point of view of an old rusty war plain, focussing on how protected we are from the truth of pain and torture people suffered. we were given a very short amount of time to complete this task all being dragged right out of our comfort zone but creating some very imaginative and thought provoking pieces of work.