Phew!

I'm super excited for tomorrow!! I love presenting and although I'm not completely confident with my presentation, I am happy to talk about it!
I also am finally happy with my last checks on my essay and have been able to relax this past weekend because I planned ahead,
This is much better than last year when I left everything to the last minute and was stressed and upset with what I had produced.

NOW!
I'm going to have a cup of Lapsang Souchong and relax :D

Whoops! It's afternoon.... was about to say Good Morning!

So otday I got up to start my presentation for the hand in on the 17th :D I'm actually excited because i have finished my essay so now I just get to babble for 10 mins about something I'm interested in.
I think i'm going to talk about human sexuality and how it effects the way we dress.
I am particularly interested in sexuality in the fashion industry with people like Andrej Pajik, international supermodel, who identifies as a man but wears and models women's clothing and is, in my opinion, more beautiful than most supermodels he works alongside.
I will be using a male model for one of my A/W 2014/15 dresses which might cause confusion for my audience but I want them to question sexuality and what it means.

Interview with Andrej Pajic

Missed Session

So yesterday I missed the session and I'm gutted but I had a doctors appointment... one I'd rather not explain here... but one that couldn't be missed. I'm in a lot of pain atm but should be fine in a couple of days. So excited tho to get my essay feedback so I can get on with it!

An interesting video

This is a little insight into the public opinion of homosexual males in 1966

Oh nooooo!!!

So it's hand in day for draft 1 and I'm am up this early,why? Because last night I got a migrane that lasted me all evening! So I got 0% more done on the essay and have had to start TRYING to finalise this piece of writing before 1pm! It's gunna be tough but I'll try my best. I have about 700 words to write before I start the conclusion so thats fine and I'm pretty sure I can be 10% over OR under the word count so as long as I reach 1900 words I should be in the clear! I know this is just a draft but I want to do well, if I don't strive now then I wont be any better off in a month when the REAL thing has to be handed in.
Needless to say I am really enjoying the subject I'm writing about (Gay culture and the relation to certain identities due to fashion choices). It's really interesting and I keep reading about it.... it's just writing it down.... is killing me!!!
And don't even mention my presentation!!! I know it's gunna be a doddle and I'm great at talking (or rather I can just talk FOREVER!) but I can't help feeling that sense of dread when I remember that this is all going towards a grade and I don't want to fail!

RIGHT, enough of my displacement insecurities! Back to writing!

Finally!

I downloaded Blogger for my phone so it's going to be a lot easier to post from now on. I've really been cracking on with this essay and tonight I'm continuing. Writing it all out has really helped me cement my ideas and the question that I'm asking has become a lot clearer!
I've written 1,000 words now so only 1,000 more to go tomorrow night but it's a little harder to stay focused than I thought. As much as this subject interests me I just HATE essay writing. It's not me. I work with fabric at my finger tips and I draw and paint and talk. Writing things down and reading texts just isn't my bag.

I've actually started writing!

Okay so it's not much and I'm still panicking a bit about this draft hand-in but it isn't all that bad. I started with a quote and it really got the ball rolling!
I just hope I can fill the word count because I've only written like 200 words :( times that by ten and then we're talking!
Nevermind! I'm going to try and get soe more done tonight and then I'm going to work on it a little more before the hand in for the 1st draft on Wednesday.

Essay and Presentation Talk

We met up today in 1F4 at Bower Ashton to discuss blogs, the essay and the presentation. This was extremely helpful as I have been feeling a little stuck. I now have a little bit more courage to start this essay and to get a draft out by next Wednesday!

• It should be 2,000 words and come attached with a bibliography
• I have been using only book sources so should include some internet and AV sources as well
• I must post this blog to Blackboard
• I have to try and post more on this blog
• I need to make sure that I mention that I am using sources and not primary research

With the presentation (due 17/04/2013) I need to:-

• Choose a source or topic from my essay and research
• Look at it in a different way, from a different angle
• Present back ideas and comparisons
• this can be an avenue to explore things you haven't been able to in  your essay

So I turned up and no one was there!

I assume it's because I was late and they had filtered off to another room but there wasn't much of a way that I could find where they were.
I wasn't going to waste my time spent in Bower library though and started to look deeper into the books I had chosen. There is a lot on gay fashion history in these books but nothing about attitudes of the audience of this fashion. I really need to FOCUS on how the clothes construct identities. Like the fact that because gay men liked other men they were assumed to be women stuck in men's bodies and often adopted women's clothing and feminin characteristics. This might have been true for some but there were other gay men of that time who didn't feel feminin they just were attracted to men.
Maybe I need to look at how identities effect clothing, fashion and taste?

Stilllll got writers block...

So this writers block i seem to be having is really taking its toll. Every time I sit down at the computer I get like stage fright and then I can't write. I almost can't bear going new my computer to write and I am not being as good as I should at turning up to lectures.

I have had training for my Student Ambassador part time job and doctors appointments but still that shouldn't be stopping me from writing. 

I am starting to get a solid idea about what I want to explore in this essay. I want to look at clothing and how it effects how we view someone. I want to focus on the community because these days you can't judge someone to be straight or gay by their clothing because everyone is wearing every style of clothing, regardless of whether it is a specific style which gays have adopted in the past.

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.

So I missed out but never fear!

So I missed the last session but I was lucky enough to get my hands on the notes so I'm going to do my best to write them up!
So it seems to me that last weeks session was regarding Structuralism, Deconstruction, Modernism and Postmodernism.
Modernism was basically a movement  by designers to use only what was necessary to create something. For instance, in the war, it was illegal to use excess fabric or embellishments. This however was overrun eventually by post-modernism which valued art for the sake of art; things that didn't have a functional purpose or restriction. This is what I learned, in a nutshell, about Post-Modernism and Modernism last year.

Now considering the notes I have now it seems that Structuralism is based on binary oppositions e.g. Male/ Female, inside/outside, day/night etc. It was highly influential in the 1960s and 1970s and "in the mid-20th century, two major European academic thinkers, Claude Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes, had the important insight that the way we understand certain words depends not so much on any meaning they themselves directly contain, but much more by our understanding of the difference between the word and its 'opposite' or, as they called it 'binary opposite'."
"For example, our understanding of the word 'coward' surely depends on the difference between that word and its opposing idea, that of a 'hero' (and to complicate matters further, a moment's thought should alert you to the fact that interpreting words such as 'hero' and 'coward' is itself much more to do with what our society or culture attributes to such words than any meaning the words themselves might actually contain)." (http://www.englishbiz.co.uk/popups/opposition.htm)

I can't think of any difficulties that I might have taking a Structuralist approach to my work. I think that when I do something is considered controversial in fashion, it is only considered controversial against the backdrop of what is considered conventional usually in fashion.

Deconstruction seems to be the opposite of Structuralism (the key being in the name). In the notes that I have it seems to describe work that have no fixed meaning (death of the author). Established modes of thought and binaries are questioned and there is special attention paid to written language and its graphic characteristics (so a favourite of graphic designers) such as typography, page layout, spacing, punctuations etc.
It seems to be something that I would enjoy because it focuses on taking things apart to understand them better.

According to my notes, 'Mr Woggle' is a practitioner of deconstruction who I need to pay attention to and that his work is available on SoundCloud (http://soundcloud.com/woggle/sets/mr-woggle).

It was interesting to see there had been discussion about Physical Context because, as a fashion designer, my work is based around its physical appearance and what people take from that can be vastly different to what I set out to do. Because it is a utilitarian object people focus on the physicality of my work rather than any message that I might be trying to convey.

I would have to say that my work is purely Post-modern. It will always have that element of practicality as it is a garment to be worn on the body but the more outrageous my designs become, the more it becomes about fashionable art for fashionable art's sake. For that reason I'd have to say that I'm a post-modern practitioner  As well as that, I am much more into deconstruction that I am into structuralism because the whole point of modern pattern cutting (2005, Pattern Magic, Tomoko Nakamichi) is to experiment with constructing a typical shape and then adding, drawing onto, cutting into a flat pattern and then making it back into a garment. At the moment we are doing a shirt project and we have to design a fair trade white cotton shirt by pushing the boundaries of modern and classic shirt construction without taking away from what a shirt is by definition. You could say this is a very post-modern project and as we have to take apart a number of shirts to understand their construction, it could also be counted as a deconstruction method.

Wow, I was really on roll there! I think I really understand this now and hopefully I will get a little more knowledge as I read around the subject and continue the lectures :D

Mr Woggle - Apocalypse Boneyard

Mr Woggle

Here are some samples of his work and its amazing! I particularly like Apocalypse Boneyard!
Take a listen, it really is deconstruction in sound!

A new dawn, a new day!

And a new year foooooor me!
So I started my second year of my Fda in Creative Practices at UWE :D So that means I'm going to be using this blog for my Creative Culture lecture notes and exploration again!

So in this session we were just introduced to the new aspects of this module and were given a list of our deadlines and what was expected of us. So you might be wondering what Creative Cultures is?! It's a subject that looks at the context of visual culture, at art as a text, at brand and identity, at symbolism.
We are going to be exploring new types of analysis and also what relationships we can create between our practices and other disciplines.
We will also be looking at subcultures and completely questioning what we think we know.
We looked at Content, Form and Style Analysis.

Content Analysis
This is looking at the content or meaning of the object/ text you are analysing.

Fact - real scenes of people
Fiction - imagination
Manifest - literal content/ function
Latent - content beyond original intent

Denotation - Literal meaning
Connotation - meaning beyond intended meaning/ use
Iconography - writing about images. It is descriptive using the meaning of the art/ design works to classify the works.
Iconology - Interpretative. Taking into account the time it took to create artwork, who created it etc.

Now I'm going to list some genre's or types in my disciplin (which, as you know, is Fashion).

• Haute Couture
• Pret et Porter
• Luxury
• Affordable Luxury
• Mainstream (highstreet)
• Discount (highstreet) 

Form Analysis

Materials - What is the art made of? The techniques used, what kind of lighting, texture etc

Form - How is it put together (I need to refresh my mind about what this means again because my notes weren't thorough enough)

Style Analysis

Styles - Historical phenomena/ occurrences  ways of working/ fashion that have limited lifespans. Ofte related to subcultures and trends.

Now I'm going to list some styles from a fashion standpoint, although this can be hard because a lot of fashion is recycled long after it is considered fashionable.

• Punk
• 80s Power dressing
• Boho/ gypsy
• Heroine chic
• 20's flapper
• Scene
• Emo

"The Art of Happiness"

In the second half of the session we were asked so select an object and analyse it's form and content.

I picked a book I had written but the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler.

Content

Manifest - It's a book for reading.

Latent - It's a stand to stop your computer over-heating, it's a tray for a hot food bowl, it's a door wedge. 

Connotation - It's a book that will help you.

Form/ Materials

A book made form paper and ink with a glossy front. Put together in A5 so it can be easily held, read and carried. Put together using the writing techniques of Howard C. Cutler.