Research into my theme

So today I sat in the library and got really into researching my theme.
I used the search system and found some books which I LOVE the look of and am really excited to get this essay underway.
The books I have read so far are:-

• Cervantes-Carson, Alejandro and Rumens, Nick ‘Sexual Politics of Desire and Belonging’ (2007)

• Cole, Shaun ‘Don We Now Our Gay Apparel: Gay Men’s Dress in the 20th Century’ (2000)

• Dijk, Lutz van and Driel, Barry van ‘Challenging Homophobia: Teaching about Sexuality Diversity’ (2007)

• Johansson, Thomas ‘The Transformation of Sexuality: Gender and Identity in Contemporary Youth Culture’ (2007)

• Suthrell, Charlotte ‘Unzipping Gender; Sex, Cross-dressing and Culture’ (2004)

• Ribeiro, Aileen ‘Dress and Morality’ (1st: 1986) (2nd: 2003)

• Tseelon, Efrat ‘Masquerade and Identities: Essay on Gender, Sexuality and Marginality’ (2001)

I have highlighted quote from these books and will start to think about starting this essay... although I seem to have writers block!

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.

A lecture missed

I missed a lecture this week but I managed to get the notes and I understand them as much as I can. The lecture was on the sexes and gender and how they were defied in Western society.
This gave me the idea for my essay question which I have been doing a little research on. I want to write about sexuality, particularly homosexuality.
I'm not quite sure what I will write about but I'm going to read around a little and hopefully get some inspiration.

Truth and Meaning

An image in itself is an imitation of itself. A painting of a pear, for example, is an imitation of a physical pear (it is not the pear itself).

A representation of an object that is not the object itself. Images are/ can be seen as a type of language
Meaning comes from culturally significance and significance that we draw as human beings from familiarity.
Pictures ca signify certain stuff to certain people eg. Panzani Advert

 When you get passed looking at something culturally, you can start looking at the messages just with your eyes (linguistic message, literal).
Literal accompaniments in advertising can also have meaning passed the literal. Linguistic use in images can have meaning within the image.

When have you ever seen an advert with text? Here are some examples!

Language tells you what the image is or what it is about much more clearly than the image by itself  It denotes meaning directly rather than you interpreting connotations about the meaning.

Text also tells you what an image is NOT about. It point you away/ manipulates your view on the connotations that you get from the image.

Can be used to enforce ideology - a reading selected in advance by an author for your consumption.

Words can have a repressive value - it excludes other meanings and values of the image. It fixes the meaning of the image.

Speech and image can work together in images in comics for example  The images meaning is shown through the text but the visual meaning extend the meaning given by the text.

Relay - the meaning is fluid depending on the cultural significance.

Sticking - text etc tells us the meaning; one fixed meaning.

Literal - You will ne er get a purely literal image. Even if you had a poster of a cup you would still being emotional attachment to it.

We are constantly pushing meaning onto everything; we can't observe things literally.

A drawing does not produce a whole image because it is selective and has personality whereas photos cannot be intervened with unless after they are taken e.g. Photoshop.

So it can be argued that the photograph is more of a literal registration of images/ objects etc. Image is removed from the human process which can ultimately ruin a reproduction.

There is a sense of truth within art with photographs. Paintings are/ could be illusions and an emotional attachment of an event. This could mean that they are embellished with emotional meaning personal to the creator.

Photos give evidence of ho the event actually took place. A photograph is a fixed point in time. It can be seen as a more natural artwork because they are a non-human influenced object.

Pseudo-Truth - false truth

Photo take our mind to that place in time.

Who decides what is 'good taste'?

Canon = what goes into...

Canon of Art = storage of art (art packed away that has been picked to be displayed)

Now, in the next week, I need to read part 3 of 'Rhetoric of the Image' in the 'Responsibility of Forms' by Roland Barthes.

I also need to read 'Civilising Rituals' Carol Duncan and 'Death of the Author' Also by Roland Barthes. Mean can't be given,  only the reader can decide what meaning they get from an object.

I will also be posting an image on here that I will analyse, using the language I have been learning in my lectures.

Some missed bits but a lot of enjoyment!

Had a lecture today and I have to say I am definitely getting the hang of most of the terminology now. I have a couple of tasks I need to fullfil which I missed out in the last post and also a few things that I learned today!

SO! Post-modernism.

Angela McRobbie's "Postmodernism and Popular Culture" states that "...postmodernity as a space for social change and political transformation"

I think that this quote is important because it subtly offers the idea that Post-modernism is a free space where people or artists etc can experiment with pushing the 'truths' they have been taught culturally and testing the boundaries.

This here is an advert for the fashion brand Dolce and Gabbana from Vogue's September 2009

The picture here is supposed to advertise fashion, however, none of these items that the models are wearing are for sale. All of the clothes are made form soft furnishings such as pillows etc. This advert is no longer about telling you what is for sale (having its traditional use) but rather its about selling you an emotion or mindset. Death of the author means that we take what we want from the image rather than being told what this is about. Because culturally (for Westerners) this art nouveaux style of house (austere living) is associated with wealth and status we then assume that by owning something by this brand, we ourselves will accrue wealth and status by association.

Production and Reproduction

The industrial revolution seemed to create a mass paradigm shift within our society that stems literally from the invention of steam power. It is commonly agreed that the Industrial Revolution was the start of the modern society.

Because steam power was invented, there was an increased rate of printing and information as well as quicker transportation. Therefor art was easily printed en mass and transported even faster and further. Things began circulating a lot quicker and people became more knowledgeable as a result.

Industry became more large scale (mining, textiles, farming etc) so people upped sticks and moved to large cities to find work and left rural living. Lots of people became unemployed as a result of a job needing 20 people only needing 1 and a machine now.

Birth of Consumer Culture

People had more time now that machines were making the products they had to usually make by hand themselves so leisure activities were born and leisure time. So people began to consume more. They didn't have to make a chair themselves because they could buy one from a factory that could make hundreds quicker. Eventually though, factories  companies started to make similar or the same products and this was the birth of packaging and advertising. This was to distinguish between two creators of the same product e.g. Two people making soap who have different packages to tell the consumer which brand of soap they are using.

This gave rise to the birth of the "designer" i.e. the distinction between those who operated the machines and those who determined/ designed what came out of those machines.

Capitalism

No more value was placed in skills but was instead based on how much money you had. Value of self was now based o amount of property and wealth NOT on your land and titles.

This gave rise to CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION. This meant people began shopping for items so that others would see them with those items e.g. buying a Gucci bag to make people think that you have a lot of money.

Flaneur - someone who shops to be seen shopping.

Modernity saw a persons identity beig defined bu what they consumed e.g. you are a girly girl if you buy anything pink.

NOW! Considering artwork, reflecting back on postmodernism and modernism, Walter Benjamin spoke about the 'Aura of Artwork' which was the meaning of the artwork and the value that was placed on it through time. An object would gain more 'life' depending on how much attention it accrued but also as it value increased (The Mona Lisa for example).

Andre Malraux spoke about "The Museum Without Walls" which was a comment on the reproduciton and distribution of images. We are constantly able to view famous paintings on the internet and yet we may never see the origonal in its physical state where it was origonally intneded to be viewed. This is artwork you recognise because you have seen a picture etc but that you have ever seen e.g. I have a poster of Vincent Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' but I have never been in the presense of the origonal painting.

He also talked about Decontextualisation which is found when taking art from its original setting and using it in a different form e.g. A painting of Jesus in a church is accepted as religious iconography that means a certain thing and it would be looked upon in reverence. If that painting was then put onto a dress in a country where Christianity was not practiced, it would to have the same meaning.