Identity lecture & Thoughts of future investigation

Identity lecture & Thoughts of future investigation 

Pre modern era, modern era, post modern era focus within the lecture. 

Essentialism

Biological make up makes us who we are.

Different ways of thinking.

Phrenology is the different thought process's of the brain. Categorization of your personality. 

Physiognomy 

Study of physical features. 

Judge there personality and intelligence from facial and body features. 

Suggestion of angles of face, the more horizontal the angle the more intelligent you are, hints of racism through the suggestion on the picture where the angle is quite obtuse on black people. 

Hieronymous Bosh (1450-1516) Christ carrying the cross, Oil on panel c 1515

Typical presentation of religion influenced art within its aesthetics and message. 

Portraying anti semanism by presenting the jews as inbred monstrous people involved in the death of jesus. 

Chris Ofili, Holy Virgin Mary 1996

Black painter portraying his suggestion of Virgin Mary been black, rebelling against the suggestion of racism. Arguing why does the Virgin Mary have to be black?

Pre modern Identity 

Secure identities present pre conceived identities and your roles in society. 

Through obvious elements of sexism and racism. 

Modern Identity 

Flaneur (Gentlemen stroller) "eur" is male ending to the word Flan, "eus" is female. But the latter is never used suggesting obvious anti feminine outputs from the artist. 

Simmel suggests upperclass identities through there appearance, the way they present themselves suggest they don't work due to there absolute wealth suggesting conspicuous consumption. 

Suggests lower class start to emulate cheaper fashion styles of the upperclass to rise there appeal and recognition within society, to stop them been negatively stereotyped over there appearance. 

Simmel also suggests isolation in Edvard Munch's Evening on Karl Johan. 

Post modern Identity

Construct your identity based around who you want to be, like the interaction with social media allowing an invention of your self portraying a different personality through online presence. 

Michel Foucault presents discourse analysis suggesting that they inform cliche's and stereotyping.

Possible Discourses to present these cliche's and stereotypes.

I shop there for I am by Barbara Kruger, is it an advertisement of clothing or a manipulation within aspects of consumerism. Making people think they need things when really there just been subconsciously sold an item that they don't actually need.

Further considered discourse that commonly present cliches & stereotypes represented commonly in todays society. 

Class:

Worktown Project 1937 presents life in Bolton in the 1930's.

Upperclass London characters documenting middle and lower class live, almost mocking them. Seeing what these class's get up to compared to there daily activities while they don't have to work a day in there lives. 

They present there lifestyles as dull and boring through documentary photography.

The kids are playing with chickens feet presenting that they had to make do with everyday objects to entertain themselves. 

Martin Parr, New Brighton

Condescending mocking documentary photography of the british holiday maker.

Ascot 2003 presents a modern day emulation of lower class dressing up to appear more upperclass by going to these type of events. 

Connotes un-classy aspects through the composition of the photo and the focus on the woman spilling her drink down her. 

Nationality
Think of England & Germany by Martin Parr presents connotations of heritage through a mocking and stereotypical way.

Alexander McQueen plays with nationality and history to create a strong contravosial reaction through the concept of "rape been presented" from the way the models were dressed and walked around like they were drugged and abused. But in fact was presenting historic clash between England and Scotland. 

Race/ethnicity:

Chris Ofili first black artist to achieve success by drawing attention to stereotypes of white people against black people.

Stephen Lawrence presented through No Woman No cry, using Jamaican national colors and photographs of Stephen within the tears. An emotional and powerful painting. 

Alexander Mcqueen provoking social opinions on racism through his controversial aesthetics within the "its a jungle out there", the materials used in the clothing emulate racist connotations of black society. A disgusting campaign in my eyes. 

Gender & sexuality:

How gender is perceived and presented in the fashion industry is presented in Wilson E's Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity.

Paradox of a man modeling woman's clothing.  

Highlighting how men design for woman, focuses on what they perceive to be suitable for woman, could be perceived as quite sexist. 

Stereotyping of sexual activities and playing on woman's been stereotyped as a sexual object through Tracey Emin's mocking tent installation presenting everyone she's slept with, but look closer it includes innocent sleeping with parents, grandparents when young and sleep overs with friends in there younger years. 

Thoughts to take forward from this lecture

I enjoyed the lecture but my initial thought on a lecture about identity made me think that it was going to help influence my PPP and my COP essay on finding yourself, your specialism's and what kind of designer you are. 

But it didn't really do that, it made me think how other peoples identities are portrayed and how stereotyping is a common thing within the creative industry and advertising so what I can take from this is the methods they use to portray controversial stereotyping, cliches, racisms, sexisms, consumerisms etc to influence how to provoke reaction within my work.

I obviously wouldn't be trying to provoke negative reaction but creating bold statements like some of these artists is a way in which your work can be perceived as successful. 

A subject I found interesting and will defiantly influence further investigations is the idea of essentialism.

"Essentialism is the view that, for any specific entity (such as an animal, a group of people, a physical object, a concept), there is a set of attributes which are necessary to its identity and function. In Western thought the concept is found in the work of Plato and Aristotle."

I take from this the idea of a make up of a person and there personality, these attributes that all add up to create a personality/person. When doing branding work this idea of essentialism could be considered when producing a branding project, what attributes make up the companies main service (background, ethics, innovation, history, heritage)  take all these attributes and present them within a physical and conceptual outputs placed across brand collateral/products. All these attributes add up to create a unique outcome much like someone personality so considering every attribute and creating a visual or conceptual representation in some sort of design/branding output would create a fully developed brand. 

Again coming from essentialism, everyone has different ways of thinking. Taking these alternative thoughts and considering them when analyzing a target market will help produce design work that is specifically focused on the intended target audience. 

Taking note from Chris Ofoli's rebellion against white supremacy presented in modern and pre modern art I feel like rebelling against common themes in art & design will make for more recognizable and high impact work. Don't follow the trends, create a new understanding of something, a new style, a new movement. Although this is aiming quite high I feel at least creating unique and out of the box concepts rather than following "design trends" will give me better opportunity to begin developing my own specialism and style.

Chris Ofoli's painting influenced by Stephen Laurence shows how art can present political messages, Im not a very political person and presenting this kind of work isn't really my strength but the emotion this portrays makes me at least consider trying to give my work emotional meaning through past and present political or news events portrayed in the media. This could create questionable work but thats what gets you noticed right?