New Media

•                Pre-internet McLuhan said the world is similar to a village, connected by communication.

•                When we moved away from printing with woodblocks (1450 onwards) printing is more available to the masses.

•                Newspapers and books become a media for info and knowledge.

•                Computers have changed the way we exist and take in info.

•                You can now read newspapers online, this creates a whole new type of experience as forums allow the reader to discuss and comment on his/her thoughts on the story.

•                Democratic technology allows us to change the information we receive.

•                New technology gives one a false sense of freedom and control.

•                Hypermedia can stimulate many senses at once, however some pages can be too busy and ‘dizzying.’

•                With books you engage on every piece of information recorded, however hyperlinks on the net allow the reader to skip through and find exactly what they are looking for.

•                Only a small group are actually in control of what is released to the public on the web.

•                New technology allows for superficial reality tv programs such as the x-factor to be produced.

•                Voting on the TV gives the audience a sense of control.  

•                Radio’s where the viewer calls in allows the caller to put  their views across, but the producer can cut these calls off at any point.

•                However with technology advances, it allows more information to reached by the masses.

•                It means art is no longer elitist.

•                The Benetton campaign is more about politics than advertising. (Dead soldiers uniform.)

•                Leeds 13 Scam - A group of art students pretended that they used their university grant for a drinking holiday and leaked the story to a newspaper. They used mass media to gain status.

•                Pollock's art is supposed to have no agenda or politics surrounding it. However there is a theory that the CIA payed Pollock off to create this Art to promote Americas superiority over Russia.

•                Picasso used mass media to his advantage.

•                Warhol highlights Monroe being a product of society more than her being a person. Marilyn’s face is printed in the same was a Coca-Cola bottles another commodity.

An example of viral advertising...

Mentos & Diet Coke

Modernism

MODERNISM - MODERNITY

• Progression of modern life becomes accepted, mainly due to the Pre-Raphaelites
• Urbanisation of the city began to take place
• Paris was one of the most modern cities in the world
• Science and philosophical thinking highly developed
• Looking at the term "post modern"
• "Paris on a rainy day' - Gustave Caillebotte

• ^^^^The new cinematic artwork coming from the modern artists
• Its new, its exciting. & it represents the excitement of the world around them
• Its not a painting about these people in the frame but more about the changes of the modern world around them.

• A noticable increase in the division of the classes
• With the new invention of photography, paintings naturally become more cinematic, representing new changes.
• 
  

MODERNISM IN DESIGN

• The modern materials - truth to materials
• Form follows function
• Almost speaking the new modern language
• Moved away from ornamental design
• The Bauhaus
• Looking at mass production
• Harry Beck designed the london underground, looking at a new international form of communication.
• A new visual language
• San serif fontSimplicity
• Purity
• The new excitement of the modern life characterised through design
• Creating this new modern world which they want to live in
• Common language
• Anti historicism
• New materials
• Le Corbusier design of the 'ideal city', 1922
• Social & culture experience
• Looking at an improved way of living

Modernist Design

Herbert Baye

"László Moholy-Nagy, Title page of: "Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar 1919-1923", 1923, Letterpress print"

Walter Allner, the Bauhaus-trained graphic designer and art director of Fortune magazine from 1962 to 1974...

(Untitled)

TASK 1: Image analysis exercise

"The Uncle Sam Range", Schumacher & Ettlinger, 1876.

."Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War", Savile Lumley, 1915.

The aim of these posters would be to persuade a specific audience by selling an idea. The ideas themselves, however, are very different. Schumacher and Ettlinger clearly designed this poster in order to sell the Amercian lifestyle and persuade the audience to buy into a dream. Savile Lumley, on the other hand, although targetting the same audience, set out to convince and pressure men into doing their national duty. Due to the use of font and illustration, the two posters portray their messages clearly. 

The Uncle Sam Range evidently shows the celebration of a nation. Immediately, just by looking at the traditional piece of american typography, coloured gold, you become aware of the fact that it is an american based image. With the use of italics to depict speech, and the word "YOU" in uppercase and underlined, the second poster becomes very direct. This is also shown with the use of straight eye contact with the viewer. This way, you are immediately confronted by the message of the poster, rather then the first poster in which you become confronted with a theme. The use of the word 'Great' is used in order to convince. The purpose of type in both posters is appropriate to the function, with creating an awareness and then using type to pressure.

With the dramatic vanishing point of the type, the strong use of the nations colours red and blue and the patriotic star in the curtains, floor and clothing, you can tell we're being invited into a specific lifestyle. The other poster is alot more subtle. By looking at the image it becomes apparent that Britain is the country of topic with the use of the Flur de lis and the traditional english soldier figures. This discrete use seems to be used as a reminder of the national duty, in order to get men to sign up for the great war. Schumacher and Ettlinger, however, were selling specifically the american lifestyle and this is made obvious. By looking further into it, a sense of inequality becomes clear, with a humanised world holding a list of the other countries' food situations. It's as if America is doing the world a favour, displaying a powerful nation, and therefore portraying the lifestyle that the man of the house could buy into, by purchasing the Uncle Sam Range. 

By trying to fill the poster with american symbolism, the scene almost becomes slightly busy for the eyes. With cooking in the foreground, dining, the Centerial Hall in the background and the reminder of Independance day on the clock, you get a sense of dramatic imagery. However, Savile Lumley chose a simple household scene of a father and his children. By keeping it clear and simple, it becomes more effective. It's also, in comparison to the first poster, a realistic scene that allows the target audience of the father figure, to relate to the man in the image. This creates a high impact poster, which at the time was needed, due to the lack of soldiers during the war. 

In my opinion, although the message in The Uncle Sam Range is aparent, it's not as clearly displayed as the message in Savile Lumley's poster, and as a result, Schumacher and Ettlinger's poster has less impact. However, it wasn't necessasrily intended to have high impact, as the message itself is simply persuasion to buy a product. The second poster was produced due to the needs of the army during war, and so a high impact poster was exactly what was needed. 

Visual Thinking: Fun with words!

Riddle me this...!!

What stays where it is when it goes off?

Ans: an alarm clock

If you have it, you want to share it. If you share it, you don't have it...

Ans: a secret

The more you have of me, the less you see me, what am I..?! 

Ans: darkness.

There's a train crash on the border of Scotland and England, where do you bury the survivors?

Ans: they're alive..

What can you catch, but not throw?

Ans: a cold

Visual Thinking - 22/10/10

In order to improve our communication skills, the session focused on the application of words when constructing sentences:

Noun - A thing, person or idea.
Pronoun - A word that stands instead of a noun.
Verb - An action or event.
Adverb - Modifies a verb.
Subjecive personal pronoun - The subject is acting as the subject