Analysis

Analysing An Image/Object

- analysing an image using formalism and context based questions

my chosen image

Formalism

• Formal Elements
• curved lines to show 

                                    - contours => shapes of features

                                    - strands of hair 

                                    - feelings/expression => two of the lines seem to form a tear

• shading is used to create the shape of the face & features
• tones - highlights/shading - are used to create form
• there is actual texture from the bricks but there is also visual texture in the hair represented through lines and colour
• although most of the image is done in a grey scale colour is used to add highlights & shading - mainly primary colours => red, blue & yellow - but there are a couple of secondary colours used => orange & purple - but that could be from where the colours have been overlapped and mixed together

colour could be used to lighten the mood of the image because without it, it would feel quite cold and sad

• Name of Artist:- David Walker
• Genre:- Portrait Art
• 
  

Context

• subject matter is of a young girl's face

                             - seems to be upset 

                             - 'unknown subject' - even the artist doesn't know who he is painting

• image is for aesthetic reasons - but Walker says that because the fact that the 'subject' is unknown lets the audience make up their own narrative to the portraits

              - so it could be about letting people's minds 'run riot' - being free to think for themselves

• Walker's work would come under the Street Art movement
• it reflects a contemporary culture
• Walker says he is influenced by the sense of possibility & ''randomness' of cities
• his work is alternative/unconventional in the sense that he uses spray cans rather than conventional paints
• not sure how the public received the piece - many people are surprised at how well his work turns out in the end

To begin with the reason I chose this image is because it is the first actual painting that you see when you type 'art'' into Google

at first I thought that there must be a reason behind the use of the young girl's portrait but after finishing this analysis I know that there isn't and apart from that I don't think that it has changed how I think about it.

Formal Elements

Formal Elements

here is a breakdown of the formal elements 

- if you're anything like me you'll need this :)

http://hardleyart.wordpress.com/the-formal-elements-in-art/

Random Post

This isn't actually part of my course but I'm really proud of this:

Pencil drawing of Elena O'Neill

check out her blog here:

pdo-elenaoneill.blogspot.co.uk

Midnight Epiphany

MIDNIGHT EPIPHANY

So as I was drifting off to sleep I suddenly realised that Mary's talk on the practice of looking reminded me of an exhibit that I saw in the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham.

Beat Streuli - a photographer that takes photos of seemingly random things in a city.

At the gallery we were given a talk about the exhibit, and even the person talking us through it wasn't completely sure why Streuli took the photos he did. He did tell us though, that a lot of the images had been cropped down from the original, but then some of them had been re-cropped so each time there was a whole new view to the image.

When I first saw the exhibit I wasn't impressed so just walked straight out, but the next time I went in I stopped and actually paid attention to what the photos were showing. I described the images as 'something you see out of the corner of your eye' - you see it but don't quite process what it is, or 'something you pass everyday but you don't pay enough attention to the details to notice it' - because your daily route has become so automatic that you don't need to pay attention to all the small stuff, but if you did then you would see the small things that make a place beautiful.

http://www.beatstreuli.com/

http://ikon-gallery.org/event/new-street/

Thoughts and Reflections

my thoughts

-an image is given a meaning when it is created
-the meaning can change/develop when it is put in a certain environment
-people will read the meaning differently depending on their backgrounds and the context of the image

the point of putting meanings into things is to get people to respond/react to it

no point in putting meaning if no one understands or you can't tell if no one has reacted to it because there is no feedback

meaning based on shared agreement

meaning is learned - not natural

if meaning is learnt then surely it becomes natural to decode meanings and not everyone will agree on the meaning so does that mean that those few are wrong and the majority is right or is everyone right but the majority decision becomes what everyone immediately associates with the image/text but people are still right to argue with it?

I don't think that mas media is lacking in audience response because people will see something on the tv news or an article in a newspaper or a blog on the internet and then they will talk about it and how they feel - face-to-face communication, facebook posts, tweets, comments on the online article etc. - all of which can be lead to the original piece of media - you can '#' a tweet with the news channels name to include them in your post or show others where you read the article, most mass media outlets have a facebook page, twitter account, blog or their own website so there are plenty of ways that viewers can get their points across
- so there are plenty of ways that people can respond to mass media even if it is just recommending it to their friend, because the number of views something receives is one type of response - on youtube it lets viewers know that a video is popular so may be worth watching - for a company it can let them know what type of thing people like to see on their website - the number of newspapers or magazines sold is an indication that people are enjoying what they have to say so keep buying them 
yes there is a gap between sender and receiver but as time goes on there are an increasing amount of ways that they can communicate, so it is hardly a one way process

The Rise of Visual Culture

The Rise of Visual Culture

- culture - texts/artefacts embedded with meaning

- image/object encoded in its production

- further encoded when placed in a setting/context

- decoded by viewers depending on their set of cultural assumptions and viewing context

Sender    > Message > Receiver

Encodes > Medium   > Decodes

                         <

                  Feedback

medium - channel/means of communication

feedback - know the message is understood successfully 

mass media, e.g. newspapers, TV, film, radio, internet, enables transmission/sending/encoding + reception/'reading'/decoding or messages on a large scale

effective communication relies on the receiver understanding the message

- usually shared+ agreed meanings based on common /shared experiences

messages made of signs -

semiotics - art/science of studying signs

signs  built of signified + signifier

image/word - signifier =>

+                                         }sign

meaning - signified     =>           

diff signifiers refer to the same signified

same signifier refers to the diff signified

meaning based on shared agreement

meaning is learned - not natural

constantly interpreting signs + decoding them according to own experiences + values

representations are re-presentation of reality - not real

Barthes - all images have more than one meaning

 - one meaning leads to more being uncovered - chain of signifiers

polysemy - many meanings

culture of mediation

Marchall McLuhan - 'Understanding Media'

situation culture

situations/surroundings shape individual identities 

primarily an oral culture - word of mouth

communication; - usually a two-way process

- face-to-face

- direct

mass communication

mass media culture more a one way process

gap between the sender and receiver 

lacking in audience response 

mass media - become the facts of life - become more socially and culturally dependent on them

what effects do the media have on society?

mistrust of popular culture - debase/degrade cultural traditions + standards

John Fiske 

Thoughts and Reflections

my thoughts

In today's society most things are expressed through visual representations, people see them all the time - posters, photos, adverts, art work, even things that don't seem important to some like graffiti - but without people actually looking at these things they are meaningless.

Some images mean different things to different people - it can depend on how much they know about the image already, or their personal experiences. So they might relate to the image in a more personal way where as some might just glance at it and carry on past it.

Everything has meaning whether we realise it or not - sometimes it could be subliminal and other times it is very obvious - but it not until someone 'looks' at it and decodes what it is saying that the meaning becomes clear.

Visual Culture cont. - notes taken from:
"Practice of Looking, An Introduction to Visual Culture", Marita Sturken/Lisa Cartwright, Oxford University Press Inc, 2009

Images, Power, & Politics

• Practice of Looking

- to make sense of the world
- no less important for the blind/visually impaired
- social practice - a choice/compliance
- looking involves relationships of power
- to communicate, influence, be influenced

• Representations

- the use of language and images to create meaning in the world around us
- words to understand/describe/define the world as we see it - can use images in the same way
- process of understanding the meaning of things in context takes place in our use of written/gestural/spoken/drawn representations
- material world has meaning - it's "seen" using representations
- idea of reflection or mimesis
   - mimesis - defines representations as a process of mirroring/imitating the real

• Still life

- motivated by the desire to reflect or making meaning of material objects as they appear in the world
- 17th and 18th Century still life ranged from straight forwardly representational to deeply symbolic
Ceci n'eat pas une pipe, Magritte

• Photographic Truth

- associated with realism
- creation of an image through a lens involves choice through selection,  framing, and personalisation

• Images and Ideology

- ideolodies are systems of belief that exist within cultures
- images - important for production of ideologies and ideologies to be projected onto
- people think of ideologies in terms of propaganda
     - using false representations to lure people into holding beliefs that may compromise their own interests

These are some notes I made from; Practice of Looking, An Introduction to Visual Culture. From what I understand of it, looking is a very powerful and important tool and is not reserved for those who can see. Although I'm still not quite sure how looking would be important to the blind. Obviously they cannot see, but could it refer to them being aware of what is around them both physically and socially. Despite their lack of sight they would still know what is going on around them and around the world.
Everyone takes part in the practice of looking whether they realise it or not and it can be used to gain power over people - to influence people's choices or communicate ideas/intentions. Advertisements could be an example of how images and text are used to give meaning and influence people. They involve images to represent a product, sometimes not always living up to reality, and brief piece of text/dialogue to describe what it is, what it is for and why you should buy it, or just simply the price of the product. But sometimes that is enough to push people into purchasing the product but with other times, people might think that something's are 'too good to be true' or fall for a scam, because not all of the information is given, or if it is it is in the 'small print'. Now if people were to actually read it they wouldn't fall into these traps and would probably save themselves a lot of time and money in the process.

scene for St Trinians 2007 film

'the desire to reflect or making meaning of material objects' - when someone says still life you nearly always imagine a bowl of fruit atop a plinth being painted on a large canvas.
But it is more than that; more often than not still lifes are paintings which have deep symbolic meanings. But as technology has progressed over time and society has become a digital one still life is too becoming digital, they could be photographs or computer generated images. Some example of digital still lifes can be found here:  http://www.noupe.com/inspiration/a-showcase-of-still-life-digital-paintings.html
But not all photographs are still lifes, most of the time photographs are used to capture a scene, to preserve a memory on film, not just to prove that something happened. 

Lord Kitchener - not actually a recruitment poster
- was made up by a graphic designer for a magazine

I think that ideologies need images to project onto, because it makes it easier for people to associate them with an image or video, probably because it is easier to recall pictures than words. Ideologies as propaganda is an interesting idea, whenever I hear the word propaganda I always think of war time posters and how they led many young men into war in the name of their country. Originally propaganda was used to encourage the public to report crimes or recommended health products, but are mainly associated with the negatives. Often using 'loaded messages' or selective facts to influence the public opinion or provoke an emotional over rational response - making people's hearts rule over their heads. 

I think that the practice of looking is quite interesting, especially when you realise that it could be used negatively in so many ways. I'm not saying that it's good that it can be used against people but it makes you wonder just how often it is used to provoke/influence  peoples choices/opinions in their day to day lives. 

When looking into Visual Culture I came across the term 'Social Practice' and wanted to know exactly what it meant. so I looked it up online and found this on Wikipedia;

Social Practice
- it is a theory within Psychology
  - it seeks to determine the link between practice and context within social situations
- its emphasised as a commitment to change - and it comes in 2 forms - activity & inquiry
- it is applied within the context of human development
- it involves knowledge production and the theorisation and analysis of both institutional and interventions practices

Sylvia Scribner
- sought to understand and create a decent life for all people regardless of  geographical position/race/gender/social class through research
Scribner tried to dig into human mental functioning and its creation through social practice in different societal and cultural settings using anthropological field research and psychological experimentation
Scribner aimed to enact social reform and community development through and ethical orientation tat accounts for the interaction of historical and societal conditions of different institutional settings with human social and mental functioning and development

Activity SP involves engagement with communities of interest by creating a practitioner-community relationship wherein there remains a focus on the skills, knowledge and understanding of people in their private, family, community and working lives Activity theory suggests the use of a system of participants that work toward an object or goal that bring about some form of change or transformation in the community

Inquiry in research SP aims to integrate the individual with his/her surrounding environment while assessing how context and culture relate to common actions and practices of the individual
inquiry focuses on how social activity occurs and identifies its main causes and outcomes.Its been argues that research be developed as specific theory of SP through which research purposes are defined not by philosophical paradigms but by researcher commitment to specific forms of social action.

Areas of Interest

• Education - SP 

refers to adult-child interaction for observation in order to propose intentions and gauge the reaction of others
literacy is seen as a key dimension of community regeneration and a p art of the wider lifelong learning agenda
it is also considered to be an area of instruction for the introduction a of social practice through social language and social identity
literacy and numeracy are complex capabilities rather than a simple set of basic skills
Adult learners are more likely to develop and retain knowledge skills and understanding if they see them as relevant to their own problems and challenges
SP perspectives focus on local literacies and how literacy practices are affected by settings and groups interacting around print

• Literature - SP

repeatedly studied in education and critiqued in discourse many believe that it should be a field of social practice as it evokes emotion and discussion of social interactions and conditions people who believe that literature may be constructed as a form of social practice also believe that literature and society are essentially related to each other. These people attempt to define specific sociological practices of literature and share expressions of literature as works comprising text, institution, and individual. Overall, literature becomes a realm of social exchange through fiction, poetry, politics, and history

• Art and Social Practice - SP

 is also considered a medium for making art. SPA - Social Practice Art - was a response to the increasing amount of pressure within art education to work through both social and participatory formats
SPA is a term used to describe artwork which uses social engagement as a primary medium
SPA is also known as - socially engaged art, community art, new-genre public art, participatory are, interventionist art and collaborative art. Artists which work with SP develop projects by inviting collaboration with individuals/communities/institutions or a combo of all three - creating participatory art that exists in/outside of the traditional museum/gallery system
Artists working in SPA co-create their work with a specific audience or propose critical interventions within existing social systems hat inspire debate or catalyse social exchange
SPA focuses on the interaction between the audience, social systems and the artist through topics such as aesthetics, ethics, collaboration, persona, media strategies and social activism
Social interaction component inspires, drives, or, in some instances, completes the project. But projects may incorporate traditional studio media they are realised in a variety of visual or social forms (depending on variable contexts and participant demographics) such as performance, social activism or mobilising communities towards a common goal

• History

Before 2005 the term 'social practice' was used in a branch of social theory that considered human relationships to each other and to the larger society and 'practices'. The term 'Art and Social Practice' was institutionalised in 2005 with the creation of social practice  MFA concentration at the California College of Arts.

Visual Culture => all aspects that communicate through visual means
visual culture can have the power to conjure up an absent person form photos etc. it can also incite people to action or persuade them to do something
within visual culture images have different meanings when they are read by different people. so a photo of a dog can make one person smile, whilst making another sad depending on what they personally associate with the dog or just dogs in general.
some images can be read differently depending on how much a person actually knows about it eg the history, context of when it was taken, why it was taken etc.
so a picture of a sheep to some would just be a picture of a sheep , but others straight away would be able to tell you that that is Dolly the the sheep, the first cloned sheep, and maybe when and why she was cloned.

People are constantly reading images - a lot of the time without even realising that are doing it, using the practice of looking
the practice of looking is a way of making sense of the world. it is very important to everyone including those who are blind or visually impaired. it is classes as a Social Practice because whether it is a choice or just a compliance everyone does it often within a group or even 'reading' the same image as others just separately - eg newspapers/TV/Internet

SOCIAL PRACTICE AS A THEORY
looking involves relationships of power to communicate influence be influenced
representations refer to the use f language and images to create meaning in the world around us. text/words are used to understand/describe/define/ the world as people see it images can be used in the same way
a photograph is a way of capturing a scene/a moment in time - would this be classed as a representation? in a way I think it is, because it is a way of showing people the world.
the process of understanding the meaning of different things takes place in our used of written/gestural/spoken/drawn representations of them

Material World - has meaning - its 'seen' using representations

mimesis of the idea of reflection defines representations as a process of mirroring or imitating the real. still life could be an example of this
still life is motivated by the desire to reflect or make meaning of material objects as they appear in the world C17th and C18th still life arranged from straight forwardly representational to deeply symbolic. An example of till life as a representation is Magritte's Ceci N'est Pas Une Pipe
 - this is not a pipe
- so called because it is just a painting of a pipe

Images and Ideologies are a part of visual culture
ideologies are systems of belief that exist within cultures
images are important for the production on ideologies and fro ideologies to be projected onto people think of ideologies in terms of propaganda where false representations lure people into holding beliefs that may compromise their own interests
- propaganda potters in the war
- "you're country needs you'

Visual Culture

Visual Culture

Harvard Referencing

example: 

            Authors           Year      Page no.

Sturken and Cartwright, 2001, Pg 1 + Pg 10

Visual Culture - all aspects that communicate trough visual means - everything we see, have seen, or may visualize

practice of looking - we see things every day but that doesn't mean that we actually look at them

Idea of being watched "Big Brother"

- originally from George Orwell's '1984' but more recently and probably more commonly known to a more modern audience as a reality TV show

power to conjure up an absent person e.g. photos

power to calm

incite into action

power to persuade/mystify

images provoke emotional responses

images have different meanings when read by different people - read differently depending on how much you know about the history of it

negotiation 

negotiate social relationships + meanings through looking

looking like speaking/writing is a practice

looking involves relationships to power, learning to interpret

looking/ not looking is a choice and influencial

mydavidcameron.com

pic 1 - power over you - original message

pic 2 - taking back power - public 'taking the mick'

polysemic - multiple meanings

paintings, photos and electronic images rely on each other for their meanings - intertextuality

quote (Mirtzeoff, 1999)

how we see things is affected by knowledge and beliefs

we see what we look at - looking is an act of choice

we never look at one thing - always looking at relationships between things and ourselves

quote - worth a read - Berger, 1972, pg. 8

Roland Barthes - 'The Death of the Author'

two levels of meaning - denotative + conotative meaning

denotate - apparent truths - what is

connote - culturally specific meanings - what is suggested

myth - refer to the cultural values and beliefs that are expressed through connotation

an image's meaning doesn't just come from the image

meanings appear when the image is viewed and interpreted

images have multiple meanings - polysemic

encoding + decoding 

interpreting images means examining the assumptions that people bring to them and decode the visual language that they 'speak'

images contain layers of meaning - context, concept and form

viewers engage in the production and consumption of meaning when they 'look'

Claire Twomey

Victoria + Albert 
2000 birds around the V + A

some ways of interpreting the visual:

compositional interpretation

context analysis

semiotic meaning

psychoanalysis

a sign is a thing - object, word or thing - with a particular meaning to a person/group of people 

sign made up of the signifier - material object +  the signified 

producer encodes

viewer decodes

meaning depends on shared cultural meanings

The Male Gaze

Timeline of Me

My Timeline

I decided to make mine into a book rather than have it as a flat piece.Each page relates to different stages in my life, I based mine on various school years and the things that stood out to me the most.

I used a few words, but it doesn't mean that they 
explain the image that they go with. I tried to keep 
it vague so that I understand it although other's won't. 

Defining Craft

Define Craft

Here are some definitions I found from various sources:

Google says:
noun: an activity involving skill in making things by hand
verb: use skill in making
synonyms: art - skill - trade - artifice - handicraft - vessel

Wikipedia says:
a pastime or profession that requires some particular kind of skilled work

The Free Dictionary says:1) skill in doing or making something, as in the arts; proficiency
3a) an occupation/trade requiring manual dexterity or skilled artistry
3b) the membership of such an occupation or trade, guild
noun: An art, trade or occupation requiring special skill, esp. manual skill


Oxford Dictionaries says:
origin: Old English cræft - ''strength, skill' Germanic origin

"craft is remembering that art is seen, felt and heard as well as understood, knowing that not all ideas start with words, thinking with our hands as well as our heads"- Mark Jones, Director at Victoria and Albert Museum

my thoughts:

I noticed that many definitions of craft involve the word 'skill', which I think is wrong, because there are many amateur crafts people that do very well in the crafts world.
I agree with the definition in bold, because it is none specific, although I don't necessarily agree with the word skill.

A Couple of Questions

my thoughts:

can something be what it isn't? does everything need to be defined? can everything be defined?

craft is something that people have different opinions of, not everyone will agree with one persons definition 

1st Lecture of the Year

First lecture of the year!! 

- had a talk through the assignment brief - lots to do if I want to do well :)
two types of assessment - formative and summertive tasks - formative task isn't marked - summertive task is - both have to be completed as evidence to pass the assessment 

F - task is a group presentation
S - task is a Crafts in Context journal

which is where this blog comes in, this is my journal :) now I'm not sure how well it's going to turn out but I'm hopeful :)

my notes:

What is Craft?

Is craft defined by what it isn't?

- not art

- not design

- is this a beard???

beards are usually defined as facial hair, but this is a neck beard so is it actually a beard? 

Garth Clark thinks craft has to link with something else

recommended - Richard Sennett - 'The Craftsman' and 'Together'