Post Modern Space and Time

Identity
Modernism and Postmodernism
Taste
The Body
Advertising
Capitalism
Orientalism
Hyperreality
We live in a post modern society
Postmodernism is a key concept within.
Contemporary art and design circles
Postmodernism cant be understood is isolation from " Modernism "
Same threats argue that postmodernism is merely an extensions of modernism
Zygment Balman Has called it "Liquid Modernism" because its so hard to pin down.

Pink Lady

Very serious
Stuck in the image
Trashy
Fur coat glamour
Las Vegas
Glowing Ball
Circular paths
Technology
Time

"Fat Competitions"

Where people in Ethiopia will enter competitions which are based on being the fattest. They drink milk straight and their meats are fatty and bloody, this is their version of perfections, who can be the fattest?
Not the most healthy life styles.
People in the world will never be happy with what they see, whether its being gay, fat , having a different culture. Someone will always have something to say, I don't understand why they have to intervene but that's how it works.
Mapple Thorpe - Openly gay in the 90's, he wanted to challenge the idea of normality, have his own way of dressing. Which back then would be deemed as abnormal.

Innocence lost: the politics of something

Visual things change the way we view the world and our surroundings.
Money = Power = The people who get to control ideas that circulate. " The Garnier look" how elderly women will spend a fortune to look young again, they will believe what the adverts tell them too or what will give them the look they crave. Its all about selling the customer what they want, whether they work or cost they will still want it.
Most things nowadays consist of photoshop, adverts that we see daily that make us want to purchase the product, guaranteed there is something in that advert that has been adjusted to make us crave it more, hence the Garnier adverts where they air brushed Davina Mcalls tattoos out so she would fit the image better, I don't see how a women advertising something with tattoos will stop your purchasing, your buying the product for a reason, whether the seller has tattoos,piercings or wild hair. Shows what the world is coming too really, where we all have to be fresh clones of one and other, and cant stand out.

I feel,

That music videos have a great influence on people, especially on how we should look or how much we should earn.
There are always references to half naked women or large amounts of money. Its giving us un-realistic expectations of life and how we should peruse it.
Should we have large amounts of money and be top heavy? I find most rap videos contain this, especially nudity.
Youngsters will be watching these videos and try to aspire to be like that with un-realistic expectations.

David Guetta Where dem girls at

Girls half dressed in Bikinis

Running in order to be skinny 

David Guetta is high above the buildings showing his status as the high man

Bubbles can be seen as rhopinol 

When a bubble lands on the girl they have no control over their body

Men have more power over women

Video Lil Wayne - Lollipop ft. Static

This video contains women dressed up in suggestive outfits with their breasts exposed, this gives of the wrong impression to women on how they ought to dress and how much flesh they should expose, making women seem like a tool.

How the rapper makes several hints towards sexual references on how he wants to "hump" and touch his women, many youngsters are going to hear and see this song and get the wrong impression of "love" and give them the insensitive to go out and exploit their body.

Suggestive posses and body language,

Gambling and money, most rap videos include women,money and gambling, brings people up with the wrong priorities in life. That they should go out gambling and they will masses amounts of money.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IH8tNQAzSs

My dog and the arrow

Signs that we create with our body and how certain movements can create communication, we use our body language to show different signs that most people will underhand that possibly animals cant, we can communicate with other humans by using different movements such as a wave, pointing or thumbs up, these are all signs we can create.
We spoke of how different path ways have different uses of signs:
Fashion  
Fashion, not just clothing
Shared meaning
A system of signs,symbols that have have non verbally communication meanings.
I think what we wear is a sign of who we could be, in the 21st century there are many individual styles and how they can reflect who we are, not just that but if you see a gentlemen wearing a expensive suite you think a high class businessman or some one wearing rags you will think that they are poor or possibly homeless, these are signs of who people are.
Graphics
A sign is " something stands to somebody for something in some capacity"
Graphics uses signs to create meaning and give a message to the audience. Graphic design is a way of communicating.
Graphic Design (noun) - communication that combines signs and symbols.
Many people who study graphic design creates symbols that have a certain meaning or can communicate in a certain way that may not be noticeable to others.

The video "Pink Stupid Girls"

The video signifies how certain things we come across can effect our life and change our understanding of it and the impression they have on our life.
The song talks about how two separate individuals lead very different lives and how they live their life and which one is the right or wrong path, possibly either or neither.
We are chosen to make our own assumption of how we live our life but with media its hard to choose how to act and the path of right or wrong has been lost.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR4yQFZK9YM

Image as language

"Science of sign"
Semitics and structuralism
Signs
Syntagmatic and paradigmatic sign relation
Texts
Iconic
Denotative and Connotative meaning
How different signs mean different things, during our life we come across many signs not knowing what they mean whether they be a traffic sign or body language sings, these are all used to show feelings, information and to brand. We were shown many images that had different interpretations of signs and how they can be used in different contexts and whether some are as visible as others, and how we can use different signs.
Looking at graffiti and how they have different meanings, during my stay in Bristol I have seen many street arts , and have seen some have different meanings, I came across one of an adult running on the tread mill with a weight on top of him with a £ sign on with his child saying "When is it my turn dad" this paining has a meaning of as we get older we have the stress of money on top of our shoulders and soon our children will grow up to deal with the same problems.
We were shown different brand symbols and how they had their own meaning, once you have seen the image of a brand you automatically associate it with the company such as Apple,Chanel,Windows. Brands use this so you can automatically know who the product belongs too.

Brand association

I think we all remember when Burberry was associated with chavs, their popular pattern was turned into a cheap rip of trend, that our everyday chavs would wear from head to toe. And that is how we associated Burberry to and avoided the pattern to avoid branding. Burberry has got rid of that design now as they dont want to be related to it anymore.
I found out this lesson that a criminal wore a lacoste brand to court and the brand perused to sue as they didnt want to be branded as criminal wear. I find this as abit over rated, when I am watching the news or so forth I'm not looking at what brand the criminals are wearing but the news they have produced. But this shows how much power a brand has and whom be wearing it.

We spoke

of another early designer known as Paul Poiret, based in Paris. He designer basic dress patterns and sold his designs were a producer bought a dozen of them, this is how his career began out. Poiret collaborated with other artists including Dufy.
1850's fabric factories started to produce large quantities of clothes, during this era women clothes were up and coming yet men's fashion was stable and very little produced.
Coming away from history of fashion, we spoke of the different garments that altered the bodies structure, known as body modification, we spoke about bending the feet, which some countries do so that they can wear smaller shoes this method can cause long term problems. Corsets is another form of body modification as you adjust it daily to bring your waist in so in theory you are changing the shape of your ribs and altering the position of your organs. There are other forms of body modification such as piercings,plastic surgery and tattoos which the majority of are long term. During this era Paris was the place for fashion as it was made and produced there, they thought of moving the fashion industry to Berlin but in the end moved it to the populated New York.
Fashion has developed so much since the 1880's, you have designers all over the world even in Wales, and its greatly produced by designers and high street shops, which they never had. They used to go to the market and buy 2nd 3rd 4th hand clothes as they couldn't afford new garments. And in the 21st century men are just as fashionable as women, instead of fashion changing every 15 years it now changed every season. A change in body shape has occurred every body wants to be super skinny rather than curvy and a healthy shape, people are obsessed with being under weight to look good in garments.
We have different technology now  where is enables to design your own shoe, choosing the different colours and textures so that shoe is unique to you, a few brands enable this.

What is fashion and what is it not?

A way of presenting yourself
Expressing how you feel
Showing your personality
Religion and Culture
A way of getting attention
Made for art purposes
Creating a sense of identity 
Fashion is sexual
Shows wealth and status
Gender Identity
The first fashion designer known is Charles Fredrick Worth born 1826 died 1895 Worth's designs are notable for his use of lavish fabrics and trimmings, he opened his own dress making shop in Paris which was successful, during this age fashion change was rare and only happened every 15 years which made little progress. We spoke about this because back in this era very few could afford tailor made clothes so it was more of a social status when people purchased clothes. They did order clothes like we do today we walk down the high street and see what takes our fancy, back then people had to send their designs to a dress maker where they would tailor their needs, which was a very expensive way of getting your clothes. Paris was the place where fashion began, the very first designers started out there and also the first fashion magazine was made in Paris. To qualify as a fashion designer you had to employ a 100 workers and have your own workshop hence why there weren't many designers back then, it also took much time and labour, 

Part 2 of 3rd Session

This lesson also included our role as a photographer, some images we were shown were of people being tortured or being starved, if you are the photographer what is your role? are you only there to document what is happening or can you help the people you photograph. Thinking about this situation, some photographers are only their to exploit people and don't care what distress these people are witnessing. We the audience will never know if our favored photographers helped the victims they photographed. We were shown different ways of photography and different techniques, such as shutter speeds, exposures, layout of the photograph and Photoshop.

We saw images that had a long shutter speed, hence the image being blurry like so many we were shown, this is a method that can be used in both film and digital and greatly effective in photography.

There are 2 different way of laying out your photos, one is by how you lay your scene out, the image we were shown was entirely made out of paper. It was a layout of an office and down to the last detail was made out of paper, so this layout never existed. 

The second way of layout is how you lay your images once taken or developed, Like Dwaine Michael s his images were lay out as though it was telling a story, I have read his book and he shows his images with a small amount of quotation which gives you a better understanding of what the pictures mean.

Photoshop plays a huge role in photography, you never know if the image you are looking at is the original or if it has been altered, we were shown an image that was taken on film, there were two images one was the original and the other was edited. The original showed two men stood by a lake and the edited one showed only one man, they had taken one of the men out, this shows editing photos has been around for a long time and shows what you can alter and how easy it is. Most images we see today that are advertising something have been altered in some way to make what ever they are selling more appealing, whether it be a film, magazine or clothing.    

today's lecture

followed on from last weeks, but more topics were raised today that made me feel uncomfortable and was not a light subject. We spoke about an artist known as Meyer who based an art project on ten fish being placed into ten blenders, the blenders were plugged in so it was up to the viewers if they wanted purify the fish, upon opening two fish were blended and a further 5 on the Sunday, I find this disgusting. Although many people will say "they are only fish" its besides the point, its un-necessarily and didn't need to happen. Luckily some petitioner's had the same view and protested which led to police ordering the plugs to be pulled out. I can see how Meyer wanted to show how we have control over what dies and what lives but I think in this instance it went to far. 
We were shown another image of 4 models from different designer labels all wearing animal fur, I found this a strong image because it shows how far some designers will go to make a profit, the irritating thing about the use of animal fur is they only kill the animal for this product, once they have the skin and fur they have no need for the carcass, which is a waste of an animal, I am truly against this and don't condone it for any reason. After discussing this topic we arrived on the subject of animal testing and were shown which companies test on animal, there were some on there that I didn't recognize to be a harm, but after discovering I wont be using these products in the future.

PART 1

Reading Sally Manns Interview

Just looking at the images and reading that they were donated to a Anthropology Centre (body farm puts us on edge, as were not used to this type of imagery only in films, and only then it isnt as realistic, but after you read her interview you see a different approach to it. In the interview it explains that she took images in both colour and black and white, I studied Photography as an A-level so I know that images in different colours give of different moods, like black and white is more subtle, I think thats why Sally Mann went for this so that her images didnt seem as powerful, if she went for her colour images I can imagine them being very shocking showing how the flesh looked like and how grim these bodies looked. Sally Mann stated that she wanted to photograph the un speak-able like she did with her children and her husband, although some people will still have their opinions in this area its all a matter of how you see it and how you interpret it. Although I see the images of her children wrong, I dont see the photographs of her husband wrong, because shes photographing an adult in the nude and I can imagine she has done these in interesting ways that wouldn't be considered as pornography. I can understand where she is coming from when she says "That attitude started in the 1800s with the rise of romanticism and the emphasis on the importance of nature and honouring the dead. And with that came an almost prudish attitude to death. It used to be sex that was the unspeakable but now nobody wants to get old and nobody wants to die" because not many people spoke of sex but nowerdays its everywhere, you cant escape it, when you walk down the high street,magazines and internet. So it shows how time changes certain things, Although I dont think images of dead bodies will be publicized like this but it is showing us that it isnt something to fear or to not talk about, its part of life like sex. However I understand Sally Manns uptake to her photography but I'm not sure how I feel about it, as its not an everyday thing to see naked bodies.

October the 5th Creative Histories

During our second lesson of Creative Histories we split of into groups that included 2 people from 3 different areas of study where we would talk about the ethical s of each of our subject, being a fashion student there are many topics that raise awareness such as The use of animal fur and skin, whether myself as a designer would condone this or be against it, there is money to be made in animal fur but its up to an individuality to see the right and wrong of it. How clothes are made in other countries, this topic is always in the papers about how much they pay the workers and how much we sell our clothes, I have read some articles about "people who made your clothes" and in other countries they earn the price of a top in a month, which ridiculous to how much they make and home much profit we make, but some designers do not see this as a problem more so cheap labor. There is another high topic with fashion is the size and health of models, how designers choose to have size 0 models to promote their clothing, I presume seeing someone gorgeous and slim wearing it will make the public want to buy it so they look just as gorgeous, but in reality it is give youngsters un-real expectations of how they should look and of what size they should be, which portraying a un-healthy out look.   Other people from other subjects gave us their views, such as graphics which included Airbrushing - false advertisement, especially when businesses are trying to sell make-up but end up enhancing it in Photoshop for instance adding lashes to make a certain mascara more appealing or airbrushing blemishes to make a foundation seem clear and concealed, after all it is the advertisement that intrigues us to buy this product, but only a selection of us know the power of Photoshop, and how far that product actually goes. Advertising a bad product, some business are always striving for more money so they will promote anything whether the product is un-healthy, dangerous or illegal as long as they have their money at the end of a working day. Our final subject to give us their opinions was Photography, but I'm not going to write about it at this instance as this is what our lecture was about. The Ethnics of Photography, during this lecture we learnt the history of photography and the first steps of taking photographers, our tutor showed us a selection of images from different photographers and ages with different methods, this was an interesting lesson as it gave us an insight on the history of it and how it originated. We also learnt about the different types of photography such as Sports,Fashion,Nature,Crime scene and advertising, I think this gave the students who take photography an idea of what trade they wanted to go in. During this lesson we spoke of how photographs taken in the past were no long acceptable today as their content was explicit, looking at these images I can see why they are not acceptable I see no reason for taking images of this sort and I don't see of what interest they were to a photographer, I think there is a fine line between photography and pornography, specially of this caliber, they are not tasteful in any context. But this is on of the ethical for photography, is it pornography or photography, and many can argue which belong were, I am open to nudity in photography but today's images were disgusting. We were also shown images from when Britney Spears had her break down, and how paparazzi would wait outside her house and expose her, I found this upsetting as she was being hauled into an ambulance whilst photographers fling at the doors and windows , it appears to me that these people dont have respect and are only there to sell photos no matter what they are of.
Todays lesson was very two sided, people would often have a for and an against of everything, there is no right or wrong it is all matter of opinion. Which I find interesting because people get to express their opinion on different subjects.