Subculture: the meaning of style

During the lecture we watched a documentary based on subcultures and their styles through time in relation to Fred perry's clothing, Don Letts was the presenter of this documentary.

This documentary was very interesting because it covered a subject I worked on previously relating to my graphic project working in college. I have looked through Hebdige's "Subculture: The meaning of style" I was very familiar with the movements through the 60's till 70's because I had done my research previously and have family members that grew up around those times that to tell me about the subcultures and what happened.

Subcultures is a cultural youth styles that have expanded through time expressing symbolic changes towards society. Some of these subcultures were ; Teddy Boys, Rude Boys, Mods, Rockers, New Romantics, Skin Heads, Hippies. Each and every Subculture was a movement in its form, some like Punks, rockers and mods were a rebellion to society and where the youths ways of expressing the sleeves through a symbolic dress sense, each look was unique in its own way. People followed styles based on people they idolised e.g. Mick Jagger, John Lennon and David Bowe and many more musicians from the 60's to 70's period.

Subculture was regarded as a modernisation  and a lot of the looks/dress senses were defined by the boys. skin heads were said to be the refusing subculture because they dress how how ever they liked and did not take any notice of any other subcultures. The sales originally derived from the caribbean settlers during the 60's because britain didn't really have a style until they noticed the different between dress sense between them and the west Indians which is where the the subculture Rude Boys was established. These subcultures later on merged over time the more equality took place in Britain when whites began to except blacks crossing both subcultures and cultures together which is what created the the Two Tone subculture which was a mixed race group of people both blacks and whites that dressed differently but united together.

Music is what started to develop more subcultures like the girl Band "The Slits" which at this point a lot of previous subcultures like e.g. the Mods and Rockers had died out over time. Now there are still subcultures but not as open because time and technology are said to have changes society where people now stay in and communicate over line where as before subcultures would have been their public social group back in the past where they would communicate.

Punks

Rude Boys

Rockers

    

The Slits 

Northern Soul

Animation can be compared to subcultures because they all possess different styles, based on the artist and animators that create them because they are also animated differently. Like the Japanese created their own style of cartoon and comic which are called manga and anime. Anime follows a different style to west cartoons their characters features are always the same and never change that much where as west cartoons are different all around because it all depends on who is developing the characters and the style they tend to work with.

Mods and Rockers were fierce rivals mainly because they did not like each other for who they were as people and how they dressed but bother were types of people with own styles, a given name as a form of identification and way of doing things which is also the same with in the animation industry everyone has their own style and works with different types of animation placed in category e.g. 2D, 3D, Stop-motion which are known for their different traits and the way they work.

In other words subcultures and animations can be compared to each other because they both present styles and features which are symbolic to them and can be identified as a sense of style or a type of practice.  

Censorship and truth

This lecture was talking about the revealing of truth through history and time. How we generally believed points provided by sources regarded as truthful e.g. Newspapers, Articles, which are always seen to be reliable with telling the truth. We looked at quotes relating to peoples reception of truth and how they saw thing themselves,

 Elliot Aronson in Pratkanis and Aronson, (1992), Age of Propaganda, p. xii talks about how he believed that world war based on school education involved the Germans were evil and the Japanese had been depicted as sneaky and treacherous, while the white americans were regarded as the clean and honest, fair minded and trusting heroes that came to the rescue.

This subject is similar to the one of slavery and orientalism, white Americans create a heroic and positive images of themselves and depict others races as low and interior to whites. In the orientalism book written by Edward W. said he talks about how the west depict both East asian and Africa as exotic and use other demeaning terms to classify anyone outside of Europe or the USA. These teachings are passed down through generation so that more people can go on through life believing that this information is truthful and factual.

The main focus in this was not about just what information is provided, but the photograph used to make these pictures seem true, sometimes being taken during the time of a tragic incident or the worst period of time an image can be captured which could be used to paint image of a person or place negatively when this is not the case. Words are also used to sometimes describe a situation like it is in an image.

Simulacrum - An image or representation of someone or something.

This is basically a word to describe what I have been talking about previously to do with pictures and the representation.

In the past animations have been used to tell both lies and truthful stories sometimes obvious or hidden. With animation lies are often told using the characters and the ideas the people have who make them. For instance the west, mostly america used to make up a lot of lies about African Americans being lustful, dumb, sexual and dim-witty, they were often made to look like this with in animation around the 1950's with america. These lies and tales told about black people have been past through generations and where also placed into animation to laugh at the issue of racism towards African Americans.

Phrenology was something which was used to distinguish black people from white Americans. This was an biological analysis of human body based on characteristics like race, body shape, looks and many more features. A lot things were often said about black peoples features being monkey like could be the reason why they were often unintelligent and their brains always being driven towards crime, which is ludicrous and untruthful, but people believed that this was factual information, these same facts were eventually animated and were depicted worse especially when the characters looked like monkeys, these lies were animated like the video below.

"Africans were thought to be sub-human, uncivilised, and inferior to Europeans in every way. And as they were ‘not one of us’, they could be bought and sold. The development of racism is linked to the slave trade."

Racist ideas (no date) Available at: http://discoveringbristol.org.uk/slavery/after-slavery/wider-world/black-white-in-britain/racist-ideas/ (Accessed: 22 April 2016).

 

Desire

This lecture was based on desire as a concept and it filters into life in aspects, we looked at both Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan who both shared the same ideas for Desire but Freud was the writer who later died, when he passed, Jacques Lacan continued his work though his very own interpretation, in other words he re-wrote every concept Freud ever came up with his own view on desire as a concept. We have talked about how the desire and need towards something is different. I have experienced desire and needs for items, when money is involved I ask my self the question, "do I need this or am I just buying this for the idea of wanting?" The oedipus complex was a main factor we looked at relating to metal desire for someone to have a sexual relationship with a family member as we looked at the story of Little Hans. Hans was a child who was scared of horses psychologically because he was afraid of the horse in general and also he was scared they would have a large penis like his dad did for some strange reason relating to his dad being scary.

The talk on dire was more relating to mens desires and what makes a mans desire a mans alone.

Desire - a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.

Need - require (something) because it is essential or very important rather than just desirable.

Sigmund Freud quote

There is a sense of desire with in animation a lot of it is experienced by the characters an creator and story writter creates, almost as if the creator has a desire themselves in the sense that they want to create a character who has a goal and wants to achieve this task of reaching their destination of success. We all have the goals and desires, an animators desire when creating a project is to that he or she wants it to do well and wants the animations motion to look flawless in its appearance.

 e.g. Naruto is a primary example of a character wanting to achieve goals of his own, he looks to become the hokage/protector of his village and never stops believing through out the whole anime/cartoon because he is built with the desire, passion and the will to succeed in making his dreams come true.

    

Plan structure for essay

To day we had to plan the structure of our essays in order of paragraphs, I already started my essay, so the planning system was not need because I had already developed my own plan. I have already started looking in to many articles, books, webpages and videos sources in relation to my chosen topic and have a strong base of work relating to the subject racism and orientalism at home which I can talk about.

Panoptisim Institutions

I learn't about an interesting subject to do with the control of people in todays society called and how it has taken place through history. The name of the this is called panopticon which is "a circular prison with cells arranged around a central well, from which prisoners could at all times be observed.", we talked about about how has been turned into a symbolic meaning of control, we currently in modern day life style come across this in life it relates to working jobs e.g. office jobs mainly because the staff/workers are always on watch by the boss giving them no freedom to do as they choose because they are in open sight of the boss. This is relative to the circular prison because it relates to the fact of always being watched under control even though you don't know it is happening.

Everyone in the lecture was told that this factor plays a part in all of our lives and there is no escape from it highlight the whole issue of being watched by big brother a higher being compared to us as up and coming working class people, similar to that of George Orwell's 1984 all to do with the monitoring of everyone in society through surveillance cameras and technological screens. This concept of panopticon is not just about about being watch fiscally but it can be filed and sorted information on.

Panopticon was regarded as a prison, where the prisoners were watched behind walls through small gap holes to the point where they thought they were always being watch even though they were not, especially when they wanted to escape but felt they could not because the thought of being caught and the punishment that followed would bare too much for them.

Open office that follows the same panopticon plan

Panopticon prison

Panopticon prison in modern day

The idea of this concept is also seen with in the animation industry because people that work for animation companies are always under constant surveillance based on the work they produce all members of a animation team have important things to do when working on one animated piece so the need to get these things right. Animators are not watched as hard as the prisoners would have been in the panopticon prison, but they are watched to see how well they are getting on with their work.

Identity

For  this lecture we talked about representation and stereotyping through identity. The main topics we covered were Race/ethnicity, Sexual Orientation, Class, nationality, covering the main issues in the representation of these areas and how artists have represented these words through their use and style of art and the reasons why. This gained by interest mainly for the reasons of stereotyping, which I am looking to cover in my current essay directed at similar issues in racism and orientalism, the main topic that caught my attention was the talk about the representation to the black race in relation to intelligence levelly also similar to Edward W.Said in that his book Orientalism highlights the West have on other countries outside of Europe and America, main them thinking that they are higher than any other race or nation to feel that they have the authority to dictate.

I will be highlighting some of these issues in my essay because I feel that there is strong understanding of these subjects in my mind and I will have have the knowledge to get down a lot of knowledgeable information in regards to this subject.

Phrenology-(State of mind)

Physiognomy-(Perception of look) 

          
Animation plays on the idea of creating an identification for both characters and the company that produce the animations the reason why this relates to phrenology because the characters with an animation say a lot about the animation it self and the people who make it. many pieces of an nation play of stereotypes to do with the make up e.g. how black character are made to look monkey like and stupid play of the idea to do with phrenology and the idea of the west considering the making of black people to be animal like. people say that art work says a lot about the people who produce it and their perception, there are intentions behind the ideas of certain animations and why people make them the way they are.

Boondocks is  black animation which uses the issue of racism as a laughing point for all audience but makes the issue apply to every race so that it is levelled equally and does not attack specific individuals. It was made to be a black comedy but highlights all the problems we all deal with in todays modern society.

Reading text and writing - About that reading...

This lecture focused on our up coming essay work and the topics we may want to consider as an option to write about, looked at few authors and books that are regarded as go material for writing and studying an essay. Highlighted the requirements of writing our essays from the amount of words at 3000 to making sure that the Harvard referencing we do is in the correct order and turning our in for check up on progress with essay work.

I have already considered all what we talked about and have chosen by question and the books that will be looked at, my main focus for my question my main focus is Orientalism and Stereotyping in animation and the link between this subject in real life and animated on screen. I have a rough idea of Harvard referencing  and the order its arranged in, I will look into this more as I work on my essay and progress deeper into my idea.    
    

Establishing a research question

 In this seminar we talked about formulating a question for our up and coming 3000 word essay this could be anything and must be able to link or compare to animation.

Form my question I have chosen the subject of stereotyping people in relation to real life, my following question is :

Why are stereotypes featured in animations and how are they perceived ?

I chose this subject because I strongly feel over the years that stereotyping has played a big part in TV and broadcasting, I would like to highlight the facts and my understanding of stereotypes and how people are generally perceived through animation as a media and the links draw through previous history, where it has steamed from and why, what are peoples perceptions of this issue.

I will be using the following books and article sources:

 Articles:

- Berger, J. (1972) 'Ways of Seeing', Harmondsworth: Penguin.

- Marx, K. (1970 [1846]) 'The German Ideology', London: Lawrence and Wishart.

- Rancière, J. (1991) 'The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation', Stanford: Stanford UP

Books:

- Peter, R. (1996) Racism and the end for Anthropology African Images:Oxford: Berg

- Mark, C. (2002) Black identity in the 20th century:London: Hansib publications limited (1978, [1985]-[2003])

- Edward,W. (1978, [1985]-[2003]) Orientalism:London:penguin: Penguin Group

- Gen, D. (2000) Black visual culture:London: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

- James, D. and Ali, R. (1992, [2003]-[2005]) Race, Culture & Different:London: The open university

  

The flipped classroom

This talk was about educating and understanding how learning generally has an impact on people especially and the reason for the break down. We talked about how a french scientist called Jacques Ranciere talked about methods of teaching and how a writter called Louis Althussers who stated that people need people like him as a scinetist in society because the society is the only people who the general public can trust. We learn't about how the government in france changed society at the time and why there was a revolution, the students rose up against society because of the same factor to do with to day's in that students are always effect to the point of the changes in our education and we have no control over it. We talked about generally we have gotten to understand society of being broken down in classes and indivuality. 

         
Animation used to be just hand drawn frame by frame traditionally but has now developed into something which requires even more work and has developed newer areas have created as types of animation e.g. 3D, stop motion. More rules begin to take place the more time beings to move on animation is change more and more every day, people have broken down animation into types e.g. Anime, Cartoon there are even general which distinguish animations from one another. ratings and classification are now fully placed on animation, they used to be unrated time going by because they were not as graphic and violent as they are now but that is said to do with time, times are changing and so is animation every day

Styles have developed a lot anime over a period of time has developed different types of anime categorised in genres e.g. shojo-(Romance), shonin-(action) which would be significant to generals western genres scubas; action, comedy,thriller etc.

Animation has to be classed because people would be lost with out Genres there is no form of identification of what type of animated film be would watch or even the idea of what it might be be like. The categories allow the artist to experiment with styles and give them a variety of ideas to work with and make the animation much more exciting because there is a range to choose from.

Seminar One - Animation and Authorship

The subject of todays seminar was authorship, have been working on developing an understanding of how it authorsip relates to animation. Five words intrudced during this seminar were; Formal, Deconstructive, Abstract, Re-narration, Paradigmatic, Primal, this session was about find ways of linking these words to authership and animation. After examining a Daffy Duck cartoon called "Duck Amuck" there was a talk about what makes the animation link to authorship and what features of being an author feed into this animation and the thought of it.

The general understanding of this topic is that (Barthes) agures for general readers and against the authors over the the understanding of written text by certain authors, Barthes highlights how Authors write based on their own interpritation or understanding, not considering the reader leaving them to question aspects of the Authors written work "who is speaking thus? is it the hero of the story bent on remaining ignorant" (Barthes, 1986). Barthes talks about the importance of understanding writting but how the writter does not allow the reader to do so, this relates to animation in some aspects because  the writter and animator sahe the same roles as creators, the only differece between the two types of practicioners is that aniamtors work to communicate through moving imagery where as the writter communicates through text and characterises through description. The previous quote relates also to the animator because they area creators who work to express motion through fully functional characters and use these charatcers as a device for telling stories that the viewer should understand through watching, though the animators can prsent the viewers with non-sensical imagery sometimes which leaves the viewers to work out what they have previously watched instead of making them understand whilst they are watching.

Author is not really a import for the creation, the writting is what relates to the audience of readers,  so there is no longer a focus on the writter but the impact the text leaves on the readers. The writter is a modern figure that creates a story to communicate through writting from their own prespective at the time relating to what was happening there and then "The author is a modern figure, it product of our society" (Barthes, 1986) this more or less states that the creation of a writter at the time that it is created can not have any serious affect depending on the secomstances at the time e.g. snow white and the seven dwaves relates to this statement because it involves animators creating a fictional female character that is presented as a female stereotype at the time of its creation in the past but to day would be regareded as a stereotype to general viewing public world wide because it has been notice and highlighted over time, people in the 1960's were not aware of the negatives presented based on women, where as in modern day society these points have been evaluated, studied and identified.

As mention in this previous paragraph the writter on a  whole is responsible for the writting but is regarded as invisible by (Barthes) because he belives that Authors should not be th center of attention and people should focus more on the writting its self "For him, for us too, it is language which speaks, not the author" (Barthes, 1986). Animators are also responsible for the work they do but people don't pay any atention to them, the viewers are only interested in the animation and not the person who made it.

The full summary of the whole article along with the previous points is that all writting needs to be understood by the reader but in certain aspects the reader is not regarded or thought when the Author is creating a piece of text, book or article because the writer is creating based on there on vision and has not considered anyone outside of themselves. "There are no painters but most people who engage in painting among other activities" (Marx, K 1970) many people engage in watching an animtion or reading even though they are not animatiors or writers, general people might not be too interesting in reading or animating but still get into a habit of doing so in there spare time. This previous quote by Marx states that anyone can get involved in something easy even though they are not remotely interested or work relitively to the subject personally that they have decided to engage in.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

  

Research & Epistemology-part 1

To day we talked about about the importance of Context of practice, the main focus was the aspect of research and why it is very important for me as an art practitioner to focus mainly on research before producing my own finalised project out come. The talk was very in depth about the cycle of researching and the different ways information could be presented, from this lecture I have learnt that research is an informative source that I am able to learn from by failing to gather correct information, this is said to help us as designers to learn the right and wrong way of how to research. It is said that is's better for art practitioners to fail now so that we learn quickly from our mistakes, There are cycles relating to research as a professional skill demonstrating stage by stage on how research must be done . Planning is an important factor that builds research it give me a set layout to work out what relates to my brief and helps me identify what needs to be researched. Research must be relative, if not the source of information could be non useful to chosen specialism, I understood clearly what was talked about and the seriousness of making sure I understood the difference between primary and secondary research. Few examples of methodical ways of researching were mentioned, primary is your own personal provided information based on highlighted subject area chosen and developed by you and secondary research is information collected and represented through analysis as a problem solver.

I feel the point of this lecture was to get me to understand the right way of researching and to explain the usefulness of planning and how it can help young artist like me achieve more knowledge and understanding, research is important and demonstrates awareness of my own practice, helps generate ideas and inspires. Research is useful for finding out factual information to help build your personal knowledge and understanding, I personally think this information has opened my eyes more to researching and has help me understand that it takes more than just taking any source to find information and that I always need to take research step by step if I am to gain knowledge of my chosen profession because rushing to gather information means I am not focused on the right and relative sources for research.

Diagram of Planning research

      
This diagram is showing that research takes a lot of observation, analysis, reflecting and planning before anyone can gather information because research is all about understanding and If you personally don't have any understanding you don't develop any knowledge on you practice or research.

Seminar on the animation and commercial realm

Animation is used for commercial reason in relation to advertisement, animation in used commercial are used to highlight positive reasons but generally are created with negative purposes in promoting consumerism and  they do this as a commanding  role which his highly seen as controlling. The main reason for commercials is that they illustrate a point of consumers having to respond to an advertisement and take action immediately, commercial use deceiving tactics so that their target audiences feel that the truth is being displayed up on screen a believe the people selling them the ideas based on their perception of the image and truth.

500 words of extra reading (Genre)

The Genre focusses on talking about what makes a genre type for something. when people make a statement of a horror film, but what makes a film horror related e.g. " what does it mean to say a film is a musical, western or horror film ?" Genre was originally classed as identity for films. Over time the issue of genre has been debated on its meaning and use.

Genre has been talked mainly for its use in films and how one genre is not used on its own and can be crossed over and fused to create both mixed and appealing genre. genres stories drawn experience and style from others and use this to help developed there own film the in relation to the previous genre created by someone else. Films the horror genre have have mainly focuses on the role of working on the making there films similar in aspects of target audience in relation to teens and their concepts.

animation is said to be governed by the use of metamorphosis and leans towards specific genres, mainly action or farce  and interacts with different genres.

Generally animation is a form of propaganda that is made to make people think, animation is more use for making people feel they want something and sometimes uses genre to do so some times. filmmakers Specific effects to make their movies relate to the genre through  appearance and effects e.g. "Featuring thats nothing (1990), which uses bold, brutalist black graphics to depict cowboys"
The features of the film in content of e.g. violence classes it in relation to a specific genre and changes how people see a certain film and makes the film maker have to either fuses two genres or change depending on the content or style as the style is a form of illustration that gives the animation its sense of feeling, genre and emotion.

Grizzly tales for gruesome kids is a primary example that uses a clash of genre and sense of style to communicate  what it is about, it also fuses horror with comedy because the content and animated characters are very soft, speak using funny voices and their actions are very comedy like but the fusion of genres are not the same and the Horror is very soft in relating adult themed horror, the horror genre has been adjusted to make it link to the audience in relation to their behaviour and personalities. On the other hand their are other cartoon e.g. Japanese anime monster city which is a cartoon made more for adults the genre is Horror and demonstrates this through a use of dark backgrounds and the basis of the story being about dark monsters and demons followed by its explicitly content with sexual, blood, violence and abusive scenery.

Dramatic genre is used to give animation strength, genre is made to give meaning to any piece of script writing and its film or animation. Genre gives films meaning through its classification which allow the writer to broaden his mind e.g. Sci fi- alien, space , astronauts. Genre is what allows the filmmakers and animators  to brain storm and be imaginative.            

        

            

Gender response 3

Gender response 2

Gender response 1

Research for essay response

I have created a response based on the message and layout of this animation to help me with the appearance and for of my character and setting. I like this animation for its skill of informing people on the drastic changes that women make to themselves and the effects of this. The animation communicates the negativity of change through the use of over enlargement of body parts and the effects it can lead through over exaggeration e.g. unpleasant rotting of specific features. The hands that come in to adjust the body work very well because of their appearance and quick movement and the approach to removing vital parts from the woman's body.





This animation contains a more soft but still gruesome approach to communicating the message of female sexualisation through the use of a young girls tool kit demonstrating the irony of making the subject of cosmetic surgery look good through the use of a child opening the kit in amaze but still communicates a gruesome factors thought steps of the surgery details. The animation style is very detailed but simple in how the features move, almost feels like the steps are an animated comic, the use of detail is visual and effective to the eye because it illustrates step by step the drastic changes a woman make through simplistic imagery with clear indiction through colour e.g. nipples, arrows and implants.

Ideas for animation

My first idea was to create an animation for racial representation and how people of a certain ethnic background have their features changed to appeal to a specific audience. The animation was supposed to have hands drawing a black female character with her original features, with a late need to change her based on her looks into a desirable image.

This idea is based on the sexualisation of women and the figures being changed to suit an mans view on a woman. Similar idea to the one above based on modified female character who is changed to the point where she is no longer in proportion.

This the storyboard for my original idea and the steps to how women are changed in animation based on changing the looks of of women with in animation e.g. enlargement of eyes, hair colour, lip enlargement and deconstruction of the face.

After

I decided that the above ideas would be too long to develop and did not communicate what I wanted it to so I decided to create a figure like woman that would be adjusted and enlarged in parts of her body to make her look, the character is made to look like she wants these major changes made and her body at the end is no longer in proportion according to the female human figure.

Before

Theory Reflection action praxis

Brief talk about the development of my essay and how it could be improved along with additions that need to be considered in order to achieve a higher grade. We were talked through a brief history that we should brush over to help develop a body for our essays and methods of planning.

Post modernism

This post modernism lecture was about how society in the past was developed with technology that is seen into todays society and could be linked in certain aspects closely todays modern vast development.  

Marcel Duchamp?s Fountain, urinal, 1917, as photographed by Alfred Stieglitz

Modernity

We looked at modernism/modernity and how this as resulted to change in art and culture overtime. Heres and example from the power point e.g. "Haussman, (city architect) redesigns Paris Large Boulevards in favour of narrow streets - this made the streets easier to police = a form of social Control also the 'dangerous' elements of the W.C. are moved outside the city centre - the centre becomes an expensive M.C. and Upper class zone"

We mainly focussed on the changes in art over time and the messages the were creating and the purpose behind them as art pieces.

Caillebotte - A balcony

Caillebotte - jeune homme à sa fenêtre

History of Animation

Magic Lantern

Astro Boy- Osamu Tezuka 

We explored the history of animation and the devices used to create them the talk was mainly about the first animation to be created in Animated history, where they came from, how they came about and why they were created. Animation has improved over the years and has grown vastly from the creation of the individual animation devices used to project the visual moving artwork that has changed for and style since the first creation 2D, 3D, which now explored and experimented with. This is a fact and is seen in e.g. ghost in the shell 2.0 that is originally know to be 2D but has been remastered with both 3D and 2D aspects.
e.g.