Design Context: Seminar of Lectures

Popular Culture:

What is it?

• a lot to do with the class system 
• how the upper class rule the working class
• the history of the the class and popular culture

Heavy industry separated the classes

• culture vs popular culture 
• said it was shared but it wasn't

First guy to speak about popular culture - Arnoldism

• didn't think it was shared
• thought it was for the ruling class and was being ruined by others trying to create art etc.

Leavism

• Bourgeois defence of culture
• Aganist W/C threat
• Losing there grip on society

Frankfurt School

• mass culture
• culture industry
• maintains social authority - mindlessness - keep those in power in power
• social drug 
• depoliticises the working class

People think about this mass culture and what it's doing but don't revolt to create a new way of thinking culture because lives hard enough and give in to culture to relieve themselves.

Graphic Design -

• Fine Art - results of the original culture developed by the ruling class
• We are opposite traditions to this - we are popular culture - things created for the masses eg print production
• Snobbish attitudes between the two

Film and the City

Photography linking it to the arts

Industrial revolution

Postmodern and modernism - how film changed between two eras

Postmodern - how the city caused a threat the body

How the space of the city was manipulated to direct use to use the space appropriately to the consumer culture

How the space of the city is used differently from modern to postmodern - from how people use it to how people are controlled by it

Modernity

• Charlie Chaplin 'Modern Times'
• Dystopian/Utopian
• 'Flaneur' - W.Benjamin philosophy - practice that emerged from the city developing in the 19th century
• Use the city as a space to display who they are to the world - wear there suits and show who they are
• Other side of it - dark space of factories and machines

Postmodernism

• Individual acts can redefine the city
• Space of consumerism
• Space of performance eg. skateboarding
• A designed space

Graphic Design

• Stenberg Brothers
• Modernity - the way-finding and information systems designed to direct and control
• The consumer aspect of design
• Postmodernity - how the cultures revolt against it eg. graffiti 
• Subcultural activities
• Space can alter your work as well as your work alter the space

Subcultures 

Minority vs Majority -

Neglected by mainstream

Gain a sense of identity

Subcultural language of style

Is subculture redundant

Become not about the values/morals or politics just about fitting in, fashion, popular culture

Lost the purpose of the subculture - just mindless

Being a symbolic challenge - being a threat to an established order - no threat eg. punk rock now for anarchy against queen

D.Hebdige - Incorporation - ideological commodity 

Celebrity Culture

19th century - artists/poets/writers celebrities

20th - Warhol

21st - anyone can be famous

Clark Gable vs Lady Gaga

Celebrity as product of consumer culture

• History of celebrity
• Photography/ film/ television 21st century
• Victorian era of men and women in the arts - royals, poets, writers of the day. Celebrity photographer Julia Margaret Cameron to Hollywood era e.g. Andy Warhol into
• Juxtaposition between 'celebrities' of the Victorian era and current times. The line between 'someone from the public' and a 'star' has been blurred through mediums such as reality television and Youtube.
• Originally in Victorian times, photographers of celebrities used techniques such as sepia toning and soft focus to achieve romantic themes of women
• Sitters were often acting scenes that had mythological and religious themes
• Men were photographed in a different way, more of a celebration of what they did rather than how they looked
• The idea of 'celebrity' changed with the introduction of moving image, where celebrities could be documented and broadcast
• Modern celebrities emulate and reference celebrities of older times such as Beyonce and Josephine Baker. 
• Celebrities from the Golden Age of Hollywood were made up of their appearance, the films the acted in, what they did on and off screen, they became an example of everyday people and how to live their lives e.g. Clark Gable used to be in the army - hero off and on screen. Nowadays celebrities change their image from tour to tour, album to album. An example of this is Lady Gaga
• This started when Hollywood started churning out celebrities according to consumer culture and money which blurred the vision of the character
• When TV made celebrities go from public to private domain, they became owned by the public which encouraged people start emulating celebrities e.g. following them on twitter, wearing similar clothing, wanting to watch their funerals
• Warhol's work is a reflection of the dead identity of celebrity culture
• The cleverness of Warhol is that he made his work as superficial as possible, never boasted and pretended his work was something that it was not. 

GRAPHIC PRODUCTS

- Editorial design - newspaper, magazine

- Promotion and campaign - poster design, album artwork, TV advertising, celebrity endorsed advertising, celebrity branding,

- Photography -