OUGD401: Lecture Notes - Photograph as Document

Helen,clarke@leeds-art.ac.uk

• We associate photograph as document as a type of truth.
• There's always a balance of power between the photographer and the subject, one has more power than the other, usually, you'd expect it to be the photographer.

• William Edward Kilburn 'The Great Chartist Meeting At The Common' 1848.
• They're attempting to reform the laws, and the conditions of the work place. 
• Use of the camera to privilege certain moments in history.
• It gives us a window in the event, it acts as proof this happened.
• Photographer's presence isn't acknowledged in the image.

• "In many contexts the notion of a literal and objective record of history is a limited illusion. It ignores the entire cultural and sosicla background against which the image was taken." Grahame Clarke 
• "How the other half live" Jacob Riis, 1890.
• 'Bandit's Roost, 59 1/2 Mulberry"
• In Riis' images, as a guest as a middle class male, which access to the technology, his subjects do not have access to his tech'.
• They're being told what to think by the photographer.
• The way the figures stand in the street, we can see they're looking in interest towards Riis.
• "A Growler Gang in Session (Robbing a Lush" 1887
• They're nothing documentary about this image at all, it's purely constructed.
• "Russian Steel Workers, Homestead, Pa.," 1908, Lewis Hine
• Another group of people who feel have presence, there's eye contact, we're making a connection.
• "Duffer Boy", 1909, Hine
• He never exploits his subjects,
• Hine doesn't attempt to shock the viewer, he reports the condition.

• F.S.A Farm Security Administration
• "Sharecroppers Home" 1937 Margeret Bourke-White 
• This would have been in a magazine, where text would be with the image, to confirm the truth.
• "Interior Of a Black Farmers House" 1939, Russel Lee
• His image is more like a press photograph, less composition, new human presence in the image. 
• "Migrant Mother" 1936, Dorothea Lange
• She describes the woman as an object, not asking her questions, or even her name. 
• She saw the photo opportunity and took it.
• "Floyd Burroughs (George Gudger), Hale County, Alabama" 1963, Walker Evans
• The photo is a 4:5 photo, no cropping, with the original edge on. 
• Asthetic-sising poverty, almost making poverty look beautiful, the human spirt rising above the conditions. 
• "Graveyard, House & Steel Mill, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania", Walker Evans
• "Northumberland Miner at his evening Meal" 1937, Bill Brandt. 
• Making significant all the objects in the image, it's not a document, everything is symbolic, there's nothing usual about the objects featured around the subjects. 
• "Parade - Hoboken, New Jersey" 1958, Robert Frank 
• A privately funded project, externally. And he has a certain about of freedom as expression
• He begins to redefine document photography.
• He uses the caption to contradict the image.
• He isn't showing the parade, in the photo shows people standing at the window, watching the parade. 
• "St. Patricks's Day, Firth Avenue" 1954-55, William Klien
• In all of this photographs, someone is looking into the camera, acknowledging Klien's presence.
• This makes us feel less voyeur. 
• "Dance In Brooklyn" 1955, William Klien.
• There's a very dark connotation to the image, using grain and blur. 

• Magnum.
• Cartier-Bresson & Capa.
• The Decisive Moment - "photography achieves its highest distinction - reflecting the universality of the human condition in a never-to-be-retieved fraction of a second" - Cartier-Bresson.
• Surrealism

• Documentary in War
• "The Falling Soldier" 1936, Robert Capa.
• The image was originally recognised as the moment of the soldiers death being captured on film. 
• However, this is disputed, they say this was not real, it was taken 50km for the stated location.
• A debunking of the myths of a decisive moment in war.
• "Normandy, France" 1945, Robert Capa
• He uses blur to imply his presence in the water, the merge of the gun and the camera.
• "Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp" 1945, George Rodger
• The way he's photographed this bodies he's kept a respectful distance. I could use close ups, which would depict horror. 
• "Buchenwald" 1945, Lee Miller
• "Accidental Napalm Attack" 1972, Hung Cong Ut.
• Is it the photographer's role to document, or to intervene? 
• "People About to be shot" 1969, Robert Haeberle
• He shouted "Hold it" before he took the image, he halts the process, implicit within the shooting itself, other-rides any human response to the work.
• "Shell Shocked Soldier" 1968, Don McCullin
• The effect of war. We're seeing the trauma, and in a way, McCullin's own trauma. 
• Colour images, 'Realer than real'.

• Documentary Exhausted (Clarke 1997;163)
• Documentary Constructed: William Neidich (1989) constructs images which are missing from history, photographing things which would have been impossible to photograph. 
• For example taking pictures of native american woman having knives held to their face, which would have been impossible. Using 19th century processes. 
• "Native North Americans" Early C20th, Edward Curtis
• Documenting the tribal disappearance.
• "Nuba Tribesmen, Victor of a Wrestling Contest"
• "The Battle of Orgreave" 2001, Jeremy Deller - recreating a riot from the 1980s in 2001.

OUGD401: Lecture Notes - Advante-Garde Cinema

• Richard Miles - richard.miles@leeds-art.ac.uk

• In opposition to mainstream cinema.
• A critical attack on Hollywood cinema, being different in everyday.
• Non Linear/Non Figurative/Non narrative.
• Open audience, rather than closed.
• Requires a different kind of spectatorship.
• Create your own meaning to the film.

• 'Un Chien Andalou' (1929) Luis Bunuel.
• Plot was constructed with Salvador Dali.
• Surrealist feeling to the film.
• Can be seen as a metaphor for the weight of the world, social and sexual oppression. 

• Cremaster 3 (2002) Matthew Barney.
• Starring himself,
• He was going on a quest to climb the gugamhimeh, being stopped by show girls, and two american hardcore rock bands.

• Spirals (1926) Oskar Fischinger
• Playing with optics
• Showed at the Bauhaus.

• Lapis (1966) James Whitney
• Bohemian
• Synthetic sounds, creating by new electronic instruments which became popular in the 60s, as the 'new sound'.
• People write about it as a form of poetry

• Black Ice (1994) Stan Brakhage
• physically modified the film stripes, scratching, painting, drawing.
• Mothlight (1963)
• made using the same process as Black ice.
• Window Water Baby Moving
• Attempts to make a hypnogogic feeling, the state between waking and sleeping. 
• Nothing makes sense, but your brain is half conscious, feeling. 

• Empire (-) Andy Warhol 
• Static camera filming the empire state building for 10 hours.

• All these films take the idea of cinema and remove it, and look at cinema from a new point of view. 
• They're not made for money, so there's a feeling of honesty from them, however, since they're not made to make money, they're never shown.

OUGD401: Lecture - Creative Advertising & New Media

Janine Sykes - Year Tutor - Creative Advertising

• Understand distinctions between mass and new media
• Consider shifts in aspects of advertising strategy
• Speculate the implication of NM on creativity

What is new Media

• 'media that work not through persuasion or impressions but through engagement and involvement'. (Sutherland, 2009)
• Need to break with a past media 'model'

Advertising Strategy

• Required speaking to the masses
• Global print campaigns
• Imagery of Britannia & Royalty suited all domestic and imperial markets
• High-feeling strategy (signs = patriotism & empire)

High Feeling Strategy Today

• Remember Reach Campaign (2010) AgencyTwoFifteen and AKQA
• Launch Film Birth of a Spartan - announce Reach Beta.
• 3 x Films prior and 4th film released after website debut
• doom planet films, 700 millii Spartans fight to end
• High-feeling strategy: loos, hope and remembrance
• audience involved emotionally, through website campaign. 
• http://rememberreach.com
• Each person becomes a dot of light, moulding the shapes of the spartans, becoming part of the sculpture.
• (creativity online)

Old and New communication Models

• Old transmission
• Transmit ideas to an audience
• New cybernetic
• Engage with an audience
• Via computer (mediated communication cmc)
• new mdi a based on… (ICTs) such as the internet and cell phones, invite us to think in exciting new ways about advertising, as an industry and communication process (Spurgeon, 2008)

Illustration

• The Kaiser Chefs' Bespoke Album Creation Experience (YouTube)
• In collaboration with Universal Music Group.
• Listen to 20 songs, choose 10 - make your own album.
• Marketed at £7.50, which you can advertise, and make £1 back when someone else buys your version of the album.
• Design your own cover.
• You get your own webpage.
• Designed to emotionally engage the audience

New Media Model

• Advertising & New Media (Spurgeon, 2008)
• Shift from Mass to My Media
• More targeted (mobile)
• Audience involvement:
• a) voluntarily passing viewing ads (virals)
• b) creating spoofs or filming events
• More personalised - sharing with your friends

Viral; unpaid Advertising

• Unpaid sponsor using the internet to persuade others to view content.

New Way of Communicating

• Virals (ads) becoming part of our conversations
• BMB after labour account
• May elections 2010
• Sent to Friend (Anti-Tory campaign YouTube)
• From talk about to walk with
• Trevor Beattie (BMB) Hello Boys & FCUK

Two Conversations

• Thee Little Pigs Viral 992
• Recession & Riots
• BBH
• Client is The Guardian
• TV & Print
• Celebration of NM itself; citizen journalism, open platform collaboration.
• Idea transform brand from newspaper to; global news hub.
• 'modern news is dynamic, participative' (Gonsalves, 2012) Head of Strategy, BBH London

Conversation three Invisible Children Campaign

• R4 ICC Congo WarLod Lubanga guilty 30 years
• March th released
• 3 days 26million views. 5th day, 63 million views
• Kony 2012 Campagin

Beattie The Big Creative Idea

• Internet biggest idea since the wheel
• Enables lots of small ideas to circulate
• 'the combination of a trillion littles ideas to form one big idea.

Viewer Generated Content

• Case-Study Coke-Mentos
• Viewer-generated advertising worth US $10 millions to Mentos 'more than half it's annual advertising budget.
• New Media threatens the top-down communication model
• Audiences are actively managing media culture.

Creating a Dialog

• Paul Burns (TBWA) 'talking with audience'
• 40 million Old Spice (Advert)
• Responding to a Tweet
• The making of Old Spice: copywriter & Art Director Craig Allen & Erik Kallman W & K.
• Released adjacent to the American Superbowl.
• Actor X-Footballer/superbowl player ran opine then TV.
• SEM (Search Engine Marketing) Keywords Superbowl

10 Reasons why this is the best time to be in advertising 

• An audience with Sir John Hegarty, 25.3.10
• No. 1 Agencies can innovate e.g NYC tourism campaign
• The idea NYC = street culture = street musicians
• Linked 2 campaigns "Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul" Getting Street Performers to play songs front their up-and-coming unreleased Album, Global distributions.
• Announcements made websites with Google Maps

The Third Screen

• Mobile phones will soon become the greatest tool for persuasion, more so than any other medium.

The Kairos Factor

• Fogg (2003) primarily due to their kairos fact:
• The principle of printing the desired message at the opportune moment
• Location
• Routine
• Task
• etc.

What is the impact of new media?

• On the advertising agency
• Industry debate
• Mashup 09
• "Structure the company to be social from the inside is necessary' Patrick (2009)
• Digital Creatives (third role)

Putting Brands In People's Hands

• No medium is dying eg.g Prit
• Media different role in a narrative
• Traditional announcements
• Levis Go forth beautifully crafted photography
• Wrangler jeans interactive site, like Remember Reach
• NM up-close and tactile

Levi's Go Forth Campaign

• Highly crafter film & photography
• Walk Whitman poetry
• Website
• Global Go Forth Campaign
• Wieden and Kennedy
• Launch film Facebook
• Cinema, then TV.

Future

• Illustrating the future Nike
• Give people tools - life enhancing
• Google and Facebook model
• Nike plus - how run record
• Nike Grid - training aid into 'game'
• London transformed game board position recorded & compared against others.
• Overlay of experiences

OUGD405: Design Process - Collect, Catagorise, Communicate - Stamp Collector's Packs

Design Practice Post

I've decided to create a stamp booket, similar to one you would get if you were to join a stamp collectors' club. They usually contain the stamps in the collection, and information about them. I'm trying to find a already existing format to base my designs from. So, I've collected some stamp collection-booklets below. 

The first, above, is a diamond jubilee stamp booklet, containing two stamps and information about the subject, queen Elizabeth. This booket is presented in a triple spread format, similar to a brochure. It also uses the royal violet throughout, and monochrome images, being in a tint of purple and greyscale, limiting the colour scheme to sleek purples, blacks and whites. 

The second a double-page-spread style stamp booklet for The Australian Army, displaying 7 stamps and information about them, and what they relate to, presumably, The Australian Army. This like the Diamond Jubilee. 

OUGD405: Design Process - Research, Collect, Communicate: PRODUCT

Design Practice Post

For this section of the brief, I was looking to, possibly, incorporate Frank Lloyd Wright's works into stamps, showcasing his most famous works, with their name and date on them. Sadly, with these I wouldn't be able to incorporate many facts on them, other than the date of construction, or rendering, for those which were never built. 

If I were to choose this idea, I would want to modernise the style of Frank Lloyd Wright's work, rather than using his hand rendered sketches, or photographs of his work, I would much rather use vector shapes, put together to create a interpretation of his work. Below, you can see an image taken from DeviantART user shoelesspeacock, who, focuses on this unique style of creating objects, machinery and  animals using vector shapes and lines.

Alternate image

I managed to find a selection of C19/20th inventions which shoelesspeacock created using is fantastic style, which conveniently, are on stamps. I really admire the simplicity of this designs, how the shapes and lines take the form of something intact and unique, for example; above you can see The Rocket, dubbed 'locomotive', which usually looks something like this: The Stephenson's Rocket (Photographed by me.) However, shoelesspeacock uses lines to simulate parts of the locomotives which would usually be solid, for example, across the middle of the rocket there is a large yellow drum/barrel which houses all the mechanics, in the vector drawing he uses lines to simulate the curvature of the drum. He also uses this on the funnel, which, sadly in the photograph I've taken is folded down, but you can see it's a cylinder shape, which he replicated with vertical lines. Essentially, you could say he's drawing in a schematic style, similar to that of an Architect.

I plan to test this style on one of Lloyd Wright's works, I've decided to use his well renown Falling Water. Using the book, Frank Lloyd Wright Sketches, Plans and Drawings (2011), I have access to all the sketches, schematics and renders of Falling Water.

Early perspective drawing.

Early perspective drawing.

Final plan schematic.

Preliminary elevation.

Preliminary plan.

OUGD401: Lecture Notes - Fashion as Photograph