Taste, Value, Judgement

Taste
Sociology - personal/cultural choice
Beautiful Aesthetics

Greek philosophers
Plato
  order symmetry definetness

Art was supposed to be beautiful
  - German and British thinkers

aesthetics - younger sister of logic
            - can understand not just see

German philosophers
  Banmgarten, Kant, Schiller, Hegel, Schopenhauer
- being moved to action - children in need

nothing to do with you but you can experience it - makes it pure

Wittgenstein

Oscar Wilde
beautify the outward aspects of life, beautifies the inner ones

Hagarth + Burk

Aesthetics
 Beauty as a platonic ideal
- on one side
Beauty is culturally determined
- on the other

Anthony Ashley-Cooper
- beauty the sensory version of moral goodness
- things that are good are beautiful

The Picture of Dorian Gray
  - Oscar Wilde
- bad things will show in your face

Mean Girls
Jeremy Irons

Proper             differences + changes in historical view as important
Kant  "class taste"   not everyone in the same class will agree

"Proper" = taste
taste + consumption lined
- Punk purposely went for bad taste
economical context
- "supply creates its own demand"

taste creates demand
demand creates supply

14th century - consumption had a big political element
- made materials + colours for certain classes so lower classes couldn't wear it - cost and status
- segregate and subdugate

5 whys

War of Roses
- arguments about who should be king
- keep them busy with the clothes then they wont think too much bout it and try to overthrow the king

Aristocratic consumption
industrialisation coming around to even middle classes could keep up with fashion

Hogarth "Gin Lane" + "Beer Alley"

show taste through everyday actions
- people reveal information about their positions + hierarchies

U and non-U  English Usage
|              |  
|          the aspiring middle class
upper class

working classes are not mentioned
 - W class used the same words as the upper class

U class use traditional language the don't need to make themselves sound posh
M class use posh words to big themselves up
W class use plain traditional language

Class System (1956)
 Geory Simmel
fashion a vehicle for strengthening a unity of social classes + making them distinct

Thorsten Veblen
 high social status comes from physically not working not doing hard labour

Criticisms
mass consumption
18th century
- not just about social status
people get new goods because they can - consumption

Taste + Class
Pierre Bourdiew
tastes of social classes based on possibilities + constraints of social action

constraints not just because of different classes having more/less money
- education + social origin

social capital    cultural capital     political capital      natural capital
            \                     |                 |                           /
       can \              can |                | can                    / way
        turn \          affect |               | determine         / to  
          into \                  |              |                       / make
                  \                 |             |                      /
                        MONEY
1950's
U class tatse
  refined + subtle definitions
  aesthetic value

M class
   no taste - copying upper

W class
  choose the necessary

not reasonable to trace all social action back to status competition

association between social class + taste isn't as strong as it used to be
- declassifying affects of post modern culture
free floating signifiers
- if you like it go ahead and like it

value theory

Baudrillard - French philosopher

Marx - all objects have a "use value" - what it is useful for + an "exchange value" - what it costs

BMW "symbolic value"

your practice
what you are making
- use value
- sign exchange value
- social distinction
- symbolic exchange

Ted Notten
Evening Butterfly ring
- pure gold
so price changes with the price of gold

Judgement
some people make a decision to go against taste

John Martiss + Divine } idea of taste in film
  |
1st hairspray

Harvey Nichols
- introduced elements of bad taste

re-appropriation in class
 - stuffed cat rug

Jake + Dinos Chapman

shouldn't force bad taste on people who have no choice
   - animals and children

taste - age determined
   taboo around "fat"
               
taste/bad taste can be used to shut down debate

understanding of taste expressed in actions between people

different socio-economic groups likely to have different tastes

what part (if any) does a desire or need for good/bad taste play in your work?

does "good taste" = safety

"Good taste is the enemy of creativity"
Pablo Picasso