Labour in the Creative Industries

Industry - for instance, factories that produce a product

Creative - Critical thinking, artists those who create symbolic meaning etc.

Creative industries are processes like production combined with the symbolic meaning. Rather than use value as the primary aim, symbolic function takes it's place.
Bristol is a hot spot for speciality investment, a center for creative industries.

Self exploitation can occur when you are self employed (pushing yourself too hard and not giving yourself enough credit/ charging enough for your work).
   - See McRobbie

What is the value of my creative practice?
   -To be seen?
   -In the objects I produce?
   -In the way it's produced?

What do you value?
   -Your practice in your eyes as the maker?
   -Peoples perception of your practice?

How do I look?

Today we looked at how to analyse images using the ways we looked at last week. We also looked at the WAYS of seeing. "Men act; Women Appear". Within images there seems to be a trend of men being the lookers and women being the looked at. Read John Berger's "Ways of Seeing".

We then started a tutorial on what we needed to do to start our essays and what to look for when researching.

- I need to do some research (reading) on my subject. I want to look into homosexuality and the trends it has been associated with in the passed 40-50 years.
- I need to fill out a proposal form before next week which will be on Blackboard detailing what my argument is and what content am I analysing (images etc)?
-On the 9th of January I need to bring in two texts that I will be using in my essay.
- I need to start collecting images I can analyse.
- I want to look at the history of homosexuality and the attitudes towards it that have been recorded.

Image as Language: Semiotics

Key theorists - Roland Barthes, Charles Sanders Peirce and Perdinand de Saussure.

Ways of looking at and analysis texts using signifiers ad te signified.

Iconic - portraits, photos etc look like the things they signify.
Indexical - Natural signs i.e. Clouds signifying rain (call on some prior knowledge)
Symbolic - Usually a reference to cultural (religious) ideas i.e. the angel and devil on someones shoulder symbolising an inner debate.

Structuralism
Everything is a 'text' that we 'read' and subject it to any type of analysis.

Syntagmatic relation - a relation between signs into a more complex text. Think aout it like grammer (how things fit together in sentences or instances)

Paradigmatic relation - the relationshop between a set of signs within a text which can be changed without altering the text.

Parol - the spoken/ individual usage of signs within a system.

Langue - the structural riles and conventions of a system.

After this lecture we were asked to write an essay plan of how we would lay out out essay. I've been thinking about what my essay will be about and I think I will choose question two of the given questions: "In what ways do images construct identities? Discuss using specific examples"

I've decided to write about how the gay culture is associated with certain fashions, and how these fashions have changed from what had been assumed previously.