The work Anne Faith Nicholls really inspires me. This is a selection from her most recent exhibition entitled NeoFolk. I find the very nostalgic sentimental side of her work very appealing. This perhaps comes from her largely autobiographical referencing in her work. Her work makes up a kind of visual diary of her life. She uses oils, acrylics on distressed wood to create a style that is reminiscent of early colonial settlers.
I also like the way she mixes several scenes or narratives together, and lots of different visual imagery juxtaposed against one another to create a busy and diverse narrative. They are very surreal and almost haunting.
Neofolk, which opened at La Luz de Jesus Gallery, LA on September 5th, is her first solo exhibition.
Not many people are aware of the mumblecore movement in America, despite it being around for almost 8 years now. This is perhaps as it often overlooked as amateurish and poor quality. No doubt this is true about the films they are amateur films and the quality of the film, with regards to technical ability and hollywood polish is poor. But what mumblecore movies seek to do is open up the field of film again. It explores our expectations of what a film should do and without a doubt these films deal with the very undefinable area of 'willing suspension of disbelief' within our psyches.
Now mumblecore can be described as low budget films that typically look at the realtionships and dynamics of a group of 20-30 year olds. Actors are usually amateurs and scripts are highly improvised.
Benten films is a company the specialises in mumblecorps films and is great to look at for critical reviews and for information on new releases. Most titles are available through Amazon if you know what you are looking for. I would particularly suggest looking at the works of the Duplass brothers who have had much success at the sundance film festival with their works. Check them out at www.thepuffychairmovie.com to look at information about there "The puffy Chair" movie. And watch the trailer below. Their work smacks of an initial irony that we gradually lose throughout the film as we beginning to believe and root for the characters.
Exyzt is a revolutionary architectural group that seeks to challenge the constraints of modern ideology surrounding our world and specifically design. They wan to renew social behaviours. They believe that through the creation of interactive environments, people become their own architects, and through the dynamics of exchange new menaing can be found. Check them out at www.exyzt.net
The Sekenssor is an interactive architectural space. Interactive spaces are at the forfront of modern architectural, and design concerns at the moment.
What this space seeks to do is unite the canonised forces of art and technology to create an intelligent space which reacts to the dynamics of a living body. The Sekenssor is integrated in its environment from the outside, however, inside the Sekenssor becomes a narrow tunnel out of the real world, covered by a three-dimensional grid, an optical illusion projected or mirrored reminiscent of ancient perspective works. When left alone the Sekenssor goes to sleep only to be awakened by someone entering it. When you enter the body of the Sekenssor, through the use of vibration sensors, you have the ability to manipulate your surroundings, either through passing over the floor sound captors or playing with the way in which the inside 3D grid warps to your movement. On the outside flickering lights track any internal movement.
This strange sci-fi space talks a about the way in which science and art can unify to create real relevant meaning. I think this is a really exciting and important project to look at.
Tim Walker has a display on at the London Design Museum at the moment for his outstanding fashion photographs. I really like his work and how he manages to capture really beautiful and awesome pictures that mix fun frivolity with a quirky strangness. I especially like his picture of Lily Cole on this spiral staircase, its like something out of a fairytale but the setting stops it from becoming too cliche. I like how he manages to tackle popular topics, like the bunny girl picture that features on the front of his book above, but puts his own twist on them. Very surreal and dreamlike. Worth a trip!
Another Great mini-animation from Post Modern Times. This deals with the concept of Neo-tribalism.
Neo-tribalism is the ideology that people will only be happy when they satisfy their natural social needs by living in smaller communities that are not dynamically opposed to nature. This video goes someway to explaining the concepts of Dr Neil Goldsmith.
What I believe the director, Nikos Katsaounis, has done is, again like all Post Modern Times productions, stop the narrative from become boring or too overwhelming by allowing us visuals to help follow the theories. They keep it upbeat, fun and the style is current and modern. I especially love the depiction of growth pains, and when the little cave man urinates the words spirituality to depict the fact that spirituality is natural. It ultimately stops Dr Goldsmith dialogue from becoming boring and stuffy.
I enjoy the interplay between what is considered spiritual imagery and scientific imagery.
This website is brilliant and has been heralded as changing the state of current politics.
On accessing the site you are instantly directed to a page that asks you to sign up and donate money if you a supporter, if not you can easily navigate away from the page and enter the website without becoming a member. The layout is well thought out, easy to use and ultimately keeps his supporters informed. You can sign up to volunteer, then start a My.BarackObama.com page and then go on to host local events. There is Obama tv, Obama mobile (text 'hope' to 66262) he even has links to myspace.com and other social networking sites. His manifesto is clear to read and each issue has a heading so you can easily find Barack's opinion's on matters. There is even a 'fight the smears' section that seeks to reconcile any rumours or gossip about Obama.
Its a sleek conservative design that instills us with a sense of proffesional cabability. It's easy to navigate and everything is easy to find. There's no ambiguity. The colours of the american flag are used as the colour scheme and the american eagle features in the centre of most pages. Barack's 'logo' is again in red, white and blue, and looks like a mix between a rising sun, and a rainbow, couple this with his message of hope, it sends a strong message. At the top of your internet browser it reads 'Barack Obama: Change we Can Believ In'! Highly branded in a possitive and patriotic manner, this website shouts confidence.
What this website ultimately does is to allow a member of the public not only to instantly donate but to become an active member in rallying support for Obama. Obama and his campaign understand that this is the information age and the power the internet has to be a tool in this American president election.
Last Christams I visited the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia to see their Andy Warhol exhibition. It was truly magical to see so many of Warhol's work 'in the flesh' but also to see the variety of his work, and to see some of his lesser known pieces that get overshadowed by the mass circulation of his more famous pieces. As a design student dealing with mass communication, I believe, it is important to study Warhol's work because he does something very important in a an art historical sense.
Warhol's work attacked high modernism, representing the mundane of peoples' lives as something to be valued no less than the academic ideologies of avant-garde. It questions what is worthy of art and whether or not his type of art was more real and more relevant to culture than what had gone before. He also realises the effects mass communication is having on the society, and seeks through stark representations to elicit strong responses from people, as expressionist portrayals only further overloaded people with information. He is highly aware of the power of social icons and their ability through collective social associated ideas these icons can transfer meaning into his work, something so important when dealing with mass communication.
I believe we must understand historically how people have reacted to images before us, to enable us to understand society and therfore how our design work will be understood and interpreted.
This is a website designed by channel four to get people involved in foreign cultures and show the value of being able to understand another language in order to broadern our culture awarness. It shows us the value and excitement in finding out about new things abroad. I think what they are trying to is really socially important in Britain that can sometimes be a little ethnocentric and narrow minded. But what I really want to discuss is the cleverness opf the TV advertisement. There are currently 5 tv ads, that are all different. They give an interesting glimpse into foreign life, atmosphere attitude, that nmaintains a funky, upbeat attitude that excites. They are not spoon feeding us an idea instead allowing us to see the excitment of another culture, and then leaving with the website name that also is the tag line.
The Shadow girl advertisement feature Spanish singer Nubla. Beautiful, quiet reflective, it draws us in without an obvious hint to where the advertisement is going. Key foreign words are projected onto her face tantilisingly as she sings them, intriguing us. The typeface and imagery are in an exotic twirling style that works well in the foreign context. Ultimately mysterious, excitingly exotic and leaves wanting to know more.
I love this advertisement by Disiz la Peste, the french hip-hop artist. I love the upbeat quick moving, animation mixed in wioth the real video, it has a real anarchic, revolutionary, rebellious feel, echoing his style of music, that ultimately connects with a youth vibe.
I think this aswell as the Football advertisment are great as they really connect with young men, who are perhaps harder to inspire to learn another language if not already intersted, (I know cliche comment, I do realise all girls are not neccessarily romantics!)
Melbourne's Council House 2, built in 2006, is the first building that has been given a 6 star rating by the Green Building Council of Austrailia. Designed by DesignInc, this 10 storey office block is predicted to have paid for itself, in savings, the $51 million it cost to build it. Its even stated by the Victoria council that the fresh air circulating the building has increased staff productivity so much that it has saved them $2 million a year.
The building has many special and innovative design features. Particularly visually impressive are the recycled timber shutters that are sensitive to the strength of light on them dictating their angle of shade from the strong Australian sun without restricting natural light. So many of the features that make this building work are simple but so often in this world under used, such as the maximising of natural light to reduce the need for artificial. Or the use of thermal mass (large exposed concrete areas on the outside) to regulate internal heat instead of air conditioning. The five shower towers manage to cool air and water purely through the lost energy utilised by the water falling through it turning into vapour. Or simply vaulted ceilings that help with air flow within the building.
Troppo Architects are a group of architects based in Darwin Australia. They call themselves 'environmentally sustainable, responsible architects'.
They are organic designers in the sense that they start at the site of the building, and work on from there in a rationally minded way. I think what I like most about these designers is their common sense and ability to meld all aspects of creating a 'Green' home. They do not only think about the initial affect a new build will have on a site, on the places materials are sourced but also on the way they building will be utilised for years into the future. Their buildings have 'adjustable skins', meaning that they respond to the outside conditions, day to night, summer to winter. They holistically consider every part of their design process from self cooling spaces to considering the ultimate production cost to the environment of materials and energy used in the building process. I admire that they looked into the past to source design solutions for their buildings instead of looking to new technology. Trying to work with nature instead of resisting it.
They believe that 'the act of building, when mindful of its human purpose and process, can also help sustain a community's social and cultural fabric.' Check out there beautifully designed website at www.troppoarchitects.com.au
We hear so much about Global Warming that perhaps the flood of information and the enormity of the consequences, creates an immobilising feeling within society. So how to create an affective advertisment that calls people to action? Well www.conservation.org.co commisioned this piece of clever ambient advertisment. Ice sculptures of Polar animals where placed in 7 of Botago's main public spaces along with a puddle shaped sticker with the organisation's website address. When a topic as important and with as much information as Global warming is addressed perhaps it is important to get straight to the point. This piece of ambient media does it brilliantly, combining a a direct visual of ice melting and the destruction of animals. Its powerful, simple and above all incredibly affective as over 8000 people saw it, and apparently there was a massive increase in visitors to its website.
William Kentridge is one of South Africa's most famous artist and with good reason. He studied Politics and African Studies at university, but he had a background in film and theatre, which led to him directing Mozart's Opera 'The Magic Flute' in South Africa, 2007.
This Opera departs from the usual format, and utilising stunning visuals to strengthen the performance. Kentridges smdugy white images are projected onto and behind the performers. His visuals play out ideas and theories that Kentridge has been formulating for years. I find it Impressive how he has used the two strong opposing forces in the Opera, night and day, and all the corresponding notions that accompany these two opposites and through the use of black on white mark making and its subsequent inversion these opposing forces play out through the dynamics of the creation process of the visuals.
Kentridge believes that the brain wants to see patterns in his work, wants to predict what the space will do next. He believes that the most minimal of visual hints are needed for reading sense into a space. He’s interested in utilising our ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ that one enters into when engaging with a piece of art and the fact that the brain cannot stop this function when it comes to looking at abstract shapes. If McLuhan says the medium is the message then Kentridge does something interesting by revealing how his processes of movement are created. He renders these processes visible, in allowing us to understand the way in which the medium is utilised we see through the medium. We therefore question its neutral status for creating meaning and in doing this we see how it is selective, subjective memories that are crafted into the grand narratives of history.
He sees his political art as ‘an art of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures and uncertain endings’.
One of my favourite quotes of his is when he’s referring to Plato’s allegory of the cave ‘Plato’s text is an extraordinary prescient description of what it is like to sit in a cinema - of what it means to have images on a screen ahead of you, a projector behind, and light streaming forward’.
Katy Crebbin is a fellow Manx graphic artist. I recently found some cards by her in a local shop and was impressed by her style. I really enjoy her colourful montages that feature a delightful mix of nostalgia, retro funk and modern influences. She successfully mixes a wide range of different photographed materials and textures, found images, cutouts and photographs, details of which are then painstakingly cut-out. Crebbin is a graduate of Central St. Martins where she studied Fine Art. She now lives in the North East of England and successfully exhibits her work in galleries. I admire the fact that despite being an exhibiting graphic artist Crebbin has utilised the craft aspect of her work to sell and ultimately further market her work. To see more visit www.katycrebbin.com
Please do not be put off by the slightly obscure references to the end of the world in this short film/animation. This is a Post Modern Times presentation. Post Modern Times is a group that focuses on creating short animations mixed with video interviews with people on progressive modern social threory. This particular short clip shows Daniel Pinchback talking on his thesis that on 2012 the world will undergo an apocolypse. However it is not his ideas that particularly interseted me but rather the interesting mix of animation and real video. I enjoyed the way the 3D mixed well with 2D. I also liked the speeded up old footage. The bombs and smoke images although a little cliche were still affective. I especially liked the moving of the cogs and how this became a flowing motif throughout the clip. Any other Leeds designers reading this will like the use of the Golden Ratio or Phi I am sure. I think I find this clip so inspirational because its an informative clip, that keeps the viewer visually engaged in a unique, upbeat and interesting way while exploring some quite deep and complex ideas.
I find this print advertisement very interesting. I' am not sure how this advert really relates to chewing gum, or why exactly the designers decided that a 1940's pin-up style illustration conveyed the right feeling for Trident. The advert bares no correlation to the style or even mode of the gum packaging. Indeed I feel the whole advertisment goes against the brand identity that Trident has built up for itself.
However, perhaps this in itself is the very essence of the advert? The copy claims that the gum will 'mess with your head'. The advert certainly disturbs me from the aspect that it departs from my expectations. This may be because I analyse such texts more than the average person... but it is important to remember that everyone sees the world with sets of preconceived notions and perhaps showing the unexpected gathers more notice than the obvious. Of course the licking mouth that has been placed instead of a right eye also utilises the fact that we are experiencing an oddity. An open mouth , especially this one, which features a tongue running across the teeth, creates an oral fixation in the human psyche, and a solution to this fixation is offered by the gum. The background is in a mint green colour alluding to the flavour, which is chocolate and mint, a perfectly acceptible combination of flavours but not usually associated with chewing gum. This is where the whole advert comes together in the fact that the flavour will 'mess with your head' but is ultimately incredibly tempting. Sex appeal is used to stress the fact that the flavour is so tempting.
A very interesting advertisement, well thought out despite its unusual take on selling Trident. Personally though I couldn't think of anything worse than mint and chocolate flavoured gum!
Well heres another must read in the semiotics list, but again I believe its very interesting reading! Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation (1994), which is translated by Sheila Faria Glaser, uses the semiotic thoeries of Pierce and Saussure but develps them further. He is especially interested in the way signs in our society now no longer relate to an actual reality but relate instead to themselves. He argues that this operation in our society leads to a hyper-reality. When looking at adverts or any communicating images its possible to see how these theories take shape within them. Especially in big corporate adverts... for instance the Halifax advert that features the company's employees singing 'we are sailing' and then the actual building takes sail out to sea with a lit X on the roof. Deconstructing such advertisments through semiotic analysis allows for a deeper under standing of the way in which meaning is communicated through design.
Alex Ryan's film at first glance seems like 'just a bit of fun'. The plot follows a group of boys playing with guns that then turn into real adult heroes and villains who use the same plastic water guns and water bombs but to dramatic affect. I actually find this a very engaging piece of work despite the lack of polish in the actual production. It has a charm in the way it draws you into the boys imaginations, and creates a fun tension which is thoroughly enjoyable. However, I believe the piece also subtly comments on media determinism and the way in which we are influenced by what we see in the media, how we digest what the media shows us and how we regurgitate it socially. Produced for this years itsallelectric.com £50 competition, Bang Bang was one of the finalists and went on to win at the Short Cutters film festival. You can check out Alex Ryan's video on www.grumpychap.com
I would advice everyone also to have a look at McLuhans book Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, which he published in 1964. Even if your not a big fan of philosophical texts I think his beginning chapter The Medium Is The Message, is vitally relevant to todays market, especially when considering the range of ambient marketing. Its sound knowledge to have when dealing with the realm of Media.
Well hopefully its obvious guys that I am interested in Graphic design, I would also say that I am highly interested in communication with reference to Semiotics and the way media in this post-modern era interacts with individuals and the whole to create meaning within our society I am incredibly interested in the social conscience and social responsibility. In particular climate change, Neo-tribalism and Christianity are important aspects in my life.
