OUGD501: Context of Practice - Cities and Film Lecture Notes

• Here is New York.
• Taken from 9/11
• Taken by professional an non professional photographers
• People watching the towers falling

The lecture looks at:

• The city in modernism
• The beginnings of an urban sociology
• The city as public and private space
• The city in postmodernism
• The relation of the individual to the crowd in the city

• Trade fair which celebrates the city at the start of the 20th century
• Leading up to the time when Freud's physcoanalysis theory

• There was a concern that the city might swallow up the person
• A worker engaged in the construction of the city
• The images are interesting in a contemporary point of view as there are no health and safety measures in place

• The rise of the city we know now
• The skyscraper was pioneered by architect Louis Sullivan
• Form follows function

• It is very decorative the way that the form follows function applies is the organisation of the building
• The mechanics of the building are unseen

• LS Influenced the city skyline
• Makes way for the new landscape
• Skyscrapers came to represent the power and strength of the commercial and industrial environment

• Silent movie illustrating the city

• Influenced by political and theoretical 
• The production line is designed and set up to use people to allow mass production
• De Grazia makes a comment that the workers will earn the wage but then spend it on the products which they are making - the money goes back to the employer

• Critique of the production line
• Typical Chaplin
• He suffers a mental breakdown because he is not very good at working in the factory and ruins the system
• Labelled as a communist

• MP's spied on Chaplin

• Juxtaposition of the people in the queue and the billboard 
• Questions the american dream

• Russian film maker

• Flaneur is the boirjous literally figure
• Walks around the city taking it in
• See it from a removed point of view
• He is expected to record what he sees

• Art should capture the city
• The image is of two men who are observing the social scene but not taking part

• Attempts to categorise and organise the planet
• Arcades which Benjamin investigates are undisturbed - Victorian
• They are unaffected by the weather etc
• Incorporate this into urban planning

• Presents the photographer as the flaneur
• Observing but not participating
• Being allowed to look

• Repeat of this motif grainy black and white experience of the city
• Started to look at it as a drunken flaneury
• Looking at a particular district of Tokyo
• Response to Americanisation

• Young boy in the streets of New York in the 1950's

• Often that the only type of figure of a female on a street is that the woman is either a bag lady or a prostitute
• It is strange to see a woman on her own in the streets

• The blackness around her body is heavier around her body
• Uncomfortable sense created
• Implication that there is some story attached to the image
• Something to reflect on, something happened before or something which is about to happen

• Photographer who constructs diaristic stories
• She writes a diary entry with every image
• She followed a man to Venice without his knowledge
• Keeps the story open ended

• Tells the story of a couple who go to Venice to recover from the loss a child
• They are haunted by a figure in a red cape
• Venice is used as a metaphor for the mind
• They are recalling the child's life
• They do not know what is real and what is fantasy

• She pays someone to follow her
• His diary is displayed in the final exhibit next to hers
• She tries to appear as if she is leading him around - love story

• The figure of the female in the city
• Played on stereotypes from films
• She is dwarfed by the city

• Shot at the base of the world trade centre
• Unidentifiable locations - she tried to take the city out of it

• Taken at 9/11

• Re-framed to look like Cindy Sherman

• Press photographer in the 1930's and 40's
• Reports the emergencies in the city
• WeeGee - people could not understand how he could get to these events before any of the other press
• He has a radio in his car which allowed him to have access to the events first
• Developed his films in the back of his car

• Book which was developed into a film

• Video game from 2011
• First video game to be shown at the Tribeca film festival
• Set in LA in 1947
• Play as the detective
• Sophisticated level of game play

• Skyscraper appearing

• Aesthetic is very post modern

• Investigates the individual
• Hides lights in the pavement and sets up a trip wire which highlights individuals and allows him to photograph them
• Sync flash a form of surveillance 

• She is not aware of his presence but she appears to be

• Came up in a law suit which was brought against him by this man
• His privacy was invaded
• The legal system backed him up
• Made for artists purposes not an advertising campaign he was allowed to use it
• Financial gain for commercial reasons

• People directly staring into the lens are actually unaware they are being watched

• Buildings can structure our behaviour

• Colour images which are very different from black and white images
• We are not told where to look
• The image is very busy with colour, action, text etc
• He does not tell us what to think

• Dark and dramatic image

• Being a detached observer
• The event is recorded endlessly on film
• But also through citizen journalism - the term was not coined until 2006
• The city and the observer become one

• Re-edits the films so it is backwards
• The footage of 9/11 was played so many times that the event became beyond experience
• She rewinds the film therefore she is re-building the towers
• The idea is child like and indulges the fantasy of turning back time

• Thomas Ruff re-works the images
• Purposely pixelates the images
• Existing imagery on google
• Photography is not able to reflect on the event

OUGD501: Context of Practice - The Gaze Seminar

We started the session by summarising the lecture from Thursday.

• Voyeurism and Sigmund Freud's sexual fantasy principle
• Sexual desire and the need to look a certain way
• Visual culture (Art and the media)
• Looking is not just neutral
• 'Men act, women appear' (John Berger, 1972)
• Men have a purpose and power, women are objectified
• Visual representations are skewed because they are made by men

Hans Melling 'Vanity'

We looked at the first image which was presented to us during the lecture.

• Dutch painting 
• The art industry was made up primarily of men up until the 1970's
• People who bought art were men, people who painted art were men
• Society at the time was run by men primarily
• Domination and exploitation of women in society
• The reason that Hans Melling painted a woman was because men would have bought the painting and they would not like to look at a nude man
• This makes a man feel more secure about his masculinity
• The fantasy which comes with this painting does not challenge you because she never meets your gaze
• The mirror has been placed in her hand to encourage you to look at her
• Constantly available to men

Alexandre Cabanel 'Birth of Venus' 1863

Manet 'Olympia' 1863

• Both depict female nudes
• Birth of venus is passive and everything is on display
• Olympia is confrontational and covered up
• Olympia illustrates a prostitute
• Venus is the goddess of love 
• Venus is clearly a fantasy
• Olympia is more like reality, this made it very unpopular when it was first shown

Titan's Venus of Urbino

• The dog in this painting is a representation of mans best friend
• The scene of this painting illustrates a mans ideal fantasy - the nanny in the background with the children whilst the wife and dog are in bed waiting for the man to come home

John Berger describes the nude:

• Naked - to be oneself
• Nude - to be naked and looked at by others and not to recognise oneself by that representation

We then spent the next half of the session looking at the text: 

Coward, R 'The Look', in Thomas, J. (ed.) (2000), Reading Images, Basinstoke: Palgrove, pages 33-39.

OUGD504: Design Production - Design for Web Underground Research

The theme of my website is the tube, I want to make my site very info-graphic lead and visual because of the sheer amount of information I have to say. I was told about an info-graphic which had been produced to mark the 150 year anniversary of the tube by one of the designers at Enjoy Digital in Leeds. 

Source

I really like this info-graphic and the style which is used to illustrate information. One of my reservations about this brief is the fact that the tube is such a recognisable piece of graphic design that it will not be made my own as it is very hard to stray from the original idea. This info-graphic uses the tube design and is also very different with the images it uses. 

I think this info-graphic is really interesting and the continuous line is very fitting with the design of the tube map. This concept is something I would really like to use for my website because I think it is a good way to illustrate the history of the tube in a visually pleasing way. 

I personally love the idea of having the information flowing in this way because it makes something which is quite dry in content interesting. It is fascinating to me that something so simple as image can transform a piece of information and make it interesting and engaging.