Lecture 7: Digital culture

"We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us" 
-Marshall McLuhan 1911-1980

We have started to create more and more tools that are helping us with our daily lives, but they are beginning to shape us as humans. It is thought that we are creating a global village, due to connectivity across the globe. McLuhan argued that we need to research more into the media and its historical context so that the relationship between politics, society and culture continues to work. The messages in media and their impact on society need to be used correctly to make positive difference, taking into consideration what would happen when the limits are broken/pushed. 

The new aesthetic
Touchscreen technology has changed the classroom environment and allows everyone to work in a way that best suits them. It enhances the interactive learning environment which enhances the students' engagement as they can learn the same content in the best way that suits them. The digital aesthetic is the unique look that is linked to the digital platform. The numbers are formed on the grid in a neon blue/green colour, making it impossible to be used in traditional printing methods. This has lead to the experimental combination of digital animation with the real world e.g. Paddington Bear. The use of this digital animation in a lot of media related outputs has lead to the argument of nostalgia vs. innovation and how the user often prefers the physical things rather than the digitalised version of something. The fact that traditional methods are more engaging is shown to be evident when looking at clocks. It is thought that we find it easier to manage our timings when using an analogue clock rather than  digital one as we have to cognitively process the passing of time.

New technologies 
I found it interesting to think about how things that we dreamt of using 30 years ago are now part of our everyday lives such as the bluetooth earpiece. The majority of the younger generation now did not experience the digital revolution as they were born into a world of advanced technology. It has been found that a feeling of distantiation has started to occur as people feel an emotional distance from the digital content such as a webpage, compared to something that is physically printed such as a book. I think it is important for those designing all of this technology to step back and think about the negative effects it is having on society by connecting people, but leaving them to feel socially isolated. 

Lecture 6: Print culture 2

We live in the late age of print now where there has been a noticeable return to handmade and mechanical production. This may be because they are of high quality, but there are more reliable, quicker and easier methods that could be used; so why?

Slow movement

Carl Honoré (2004) believes that our obsession with speed means that we struggle to relax, enjoy the moment, get a decent night’s sleep, relationships suffer etc. So the discovery of the slow philosophy is based upon life being less about speed and more about the investment into a problem, so it can be solved.

The movement emphasises the fact that we need to clear space in our busy schedules for sleep, daydreaming and serendipity because being over worked and tired can have a negative impact on the quality of work that is actually produced.

Slow food movement

The monotony of fast food and the idea of converting back to ‘slow food’ which is locally sourced, small scale, home cooked and generally more environmentally conscious.

Fast fashion

The ‘unbeatable cheap top’ designed to be traded in large volumes as new styles come and go each season. Fast fashion is copied from high end labels and catwalks and exploits consumer demand for novelty. The economies of scale maximise profit and minimise costs and the ideology is that economic growth is the most important goal in the world.

Post-print culture

The infinite sharing of knowledge by going back to the traditional methods is important in making art with more worth. The aura was being trashed by technology, but the art work is made special again when it has an aura, so traditional methods are more admired because of this.


Artist examples relating to the lecture:

Mongrel – hack of the Tate’s website

This hack into the Tate’s website was a clever way to remove the aura of art in galleries portrays, by taking the art out of galleries and allowing us to access the artwork on laptops etc. 

Once it is out of its comfort zone, it can be manipulated and all of the images on the Tate website were replaced with horrible creatures in an attempt to fight back to the elitist structure and reveal the class basis. The Tate family made all of their wealth through sugar and slavery, so these fights back remind us that although these institutions are promoting beauty etc. the money has come from the suffering of others.

JR - Inside out project

The project is called INSIDE OUT and it is a global participatory art project with the potential to change the world. The project sets ups relational and collaborative projects all over the world, getting large amounts of people involved. 
This particular project took 300 faces and pasted them up onto the Ourcq's canal walls. The faces are all of people who have worked within the building at some point, visually telling the story of the evolution of Ourcq's canal and its face.

Lecture 5: Print culture 1

The term ‘late age of print’ comes from the media theorist Marshall McLuhan which began around 1450.

Art schools during this time taught painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry all as separate disciplines as there was a very obvious divide between the ‘high’ arts and all of the other disciplines.

Between 1760 and 1840 there was the industrial revolution which evolved a more divided class system and the working class was formed. The working class expanded from the countryside and into the city so that they could be closer to the factories that were providing their income. The majority of products produced during this time now came from mechanised machines and were produced in mass.

The working classes communed together and created new forms of popular entertainment such music forms, new forms of art; of which the upper classes looked down on it and considered it to be ‘low’ art.

John Martin (1820) was one of the first artists who decided not to work for one paying client and instead put his work in a commercial exhibition and charged a large number of people an entrance fee to see his work.

Mass image culture

The mechanised machines allowed for the mass production of images, allowing a large number of people to have copies of the artworks and not just the privileged few. This began to annoy the upper classes as they believed that the importance of art had been lowered. Matthew Arnold (1867) said that culture is the best that has been thought and said in the world. It is the study of perfection and can be attained through disinterested reading, writing thinking.

Culture vs popular culture

Leavisism says that culture has always been in minority keeping and now the working class have begun to ruin the status of culture by mass producing artwork. The art/prints/comics created have sparked an addiction and created conversation, whereas art makes you think about your surroundings and the current problem/events in the world. The working classes approach to art as an entertainment is more appealing as it is a lot more positive and leads to socialisation.

‘AURA’ + the politics of print

Walter Benjamin explores ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ (1936) and questions how art responds to the popular culture of design and how it preserves itself? Fine art is thought to keep the creativity, eternal value, tradition, authority, authenticity and mystery that technological reproduction of art cannot provide, known as the aura. Writers and philosophers make art seem more important than it is, telling you how to feel about the art/artist, focusing on the sublime which is seen to be greater than humanity

Contemporary print culture

Artwork outside of the gallery (cultic place where you worship the talent) is adapted and almost made a mockery of as the increased use of new technology is allowing us to attack the traditional culture.

Philip James de Loutherbourg introduced a new form of art based on perspective as it is framed, but there are actors and moving objects in the gap etc.

The panorama, made famous by Thomas Hornor (1829), is a photographic mapping of the world as if you are a God. These became more popular than pieces of art as they allowed for an immersive experience.

Photography meant that there was no need for portrait painting now as it was much cheaper, quicker and accurate than hiring a painter.

Print capitalism

This is the idea that images are made for the purpose of profit and the system evolved from the industrial revolution, with its own rules which replace culture with popular culture. Popular culture is not answering to an elite force, is responsive, new and original, dynamic and exciting, and affordable.

William Morris (1877) said that decorative arts are sick because of a division of labour. He noticed the mechanical vs. intellectual approach to artwork and printmaking and highlighted that the craft worker was reduced to a mere labourer.