Final
CHEON YOUNG PARK
Introduction to the Module & Modernity 1: Industrialisation
This week we will introduce what Critical and Historical Study is, and why it is important and relevant to today’s practitioners. We will go through the module aims, learning outcomes and assessment requirements in detail, outlining what to expect and highlighting key resources.
To introduce how this module will connect practices of image making to broader historical and social contexts, and keyword concepts, we will also look at the topic of:
Modernity 1. Industrialisation: the useful and the beautiful
We will explore the social impact of industrialisation - the rise of the machine and factory. In particular we will consider how it impacted print culture, specifically periodical and book illustration, and ushered in the Victorian ‘Golden Age of Illustration’. We will spotlight the work of Walter Crane, a member of the Arts & Crafts Movement led by the ideas of William Morris. How did his work respond to industrial modernity, and how did these ideas of the social value of applied arts like illustration prefigure the modernist design to follow?
Follow up with Film:
The Lumiere Brothers (1895) Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon .
Fritz Lang (1927) Metropolis .
Charlie Chaplin (1936) Modern Times .
Rahul Jain (2016) Machines .
BBC (2010) The Genius of Design: Ghosts in the Machine
Research Study Journal (RSJ)
My RSJ is the repository collecting your research and critical reflection in both CHS and My studio practice.
I should carry my RSJ notebook with me at all times. It is my capturing device for writing and visualising key information and ideas. It should include
- notes from CHS sessions
- notes from readings and for set tasks
- notes from studio lectures and guest talks
- notes from project briefings, tutorials and crits
- notes from exhibitions, events and field trips
- ideas, thoughts, independent reflection
- research and planning
RSJ
industrialization
/ɪndʌstrɪəlʌɪˈzeɪʃ(ə)n/
noun: industrialisation
-
the development of industries in a country or region on a wide scale.
The specific period in which the expression Modern can be applied in art history is around 1860s and 1970s, and the art style and ideology of the 20th century avant-garde, which was active during this period, are considered modernism or modern art.Modernists tend to make today's novelty an absolute thing, and modernism has a negative connotation towards something new unconditionally. If we emphasize today's novelty, the deliberate destruction of the old art tradition will replace the creation of new art. In the process, they emphasize sensibility, style, style, technique, and style that are fundamentally different from the past.
'No touch or conception of life but is made more emphatic and comprehensible by being cast into to concrete image’
-Walter Crane-
Modernity 2:
Urbanization, the city as spectacle,
dream and nightmare
This week we will look at the impact of urbanization and explore how the city became a space of both utopian dreaming and dystopian nightmare for modern artists, designers and thinkers. We will look at how illustration and animation reflected the new forms of looking and display enabled by the modern city - how they were part of its visual spectacle of new technologies, spaces, mass media and entertainments, with a focus on the illustrated poster. In particular we will consider women as both consumers of visual design and objects of visual consumption - in relation to the city as both a place of emancipation and social transformation, alongside alienation and exploitation.
Follow up with Film:
Alberto Cavalcanti (1926) Rien que les heures ,
Walter Ruttman (1927) Berlin: Symphony of a City ,
Dziga Vertov (1929) Man with a Movie Camera ,
Ted Wilde (1928) Speedy ,
Stéphanie Di Giusto (2016) La Danseuse
urbanization
/əːb(ə)nʌɪˈzeɪʃ(ə)n/
noun
-
the process of making an area more urban.
Modernism depicts a world that is reflected in the artist's point of view, and, by extension, reinterpreted by the artist's idea, by destroying existing paintings and sculptures. The artist says that if the art of classicalism represents an external object, modernism represents the interior. And this is called pure art. The artists focused on trying new paintings and shedding the old conventional ones. By the end of the 19th century and the 20th century, the movement to try this newness has continued to be magnified and developed by various artists such as Picasso and Duchamp, resulting in the heyday of European modernist painting.
‘Truth meant the avoidance of ... illusion or false impression ... the way an object was made had to be apparent and its visual attractiveness had to come directly out of those processes of construction ... decoration could only mask the structural and spatial honesty of an object’
-Greenhalgh 1990-
Modernism 1:
Avant-Garde, manifestos of the
radically new
This week we will look at how different avant-garde modernist groups aimed to create a new visual and material culture that rejected the past and envisioned the future, often by embracing the radically new visual language of abstraction. In particular, we will explore how these groups presented their political ideas about how design could change the world through not only their work in still and moving image, but writing, exhibition and performances.
Working in groups you will research a specific avant-garde collective and interpret a range of primary and secondary materials related to them, writing your own manifestos based on their ideas which you will present to the class by performing them.
Watch: Julian Rosefeldt (2015) Manifesto
Read: Julian Hanna (2014) 'Manifestos: A Manifesto.The 10 traits of effective public declarations, an Object Lesson'. The Atlantic
avant-garde
/ˌavɒ̃ˈɡɑːd/
noun
-
new and experimental ideas and methods in art, music, or literature.
adjective
1.favouring or introducing new and experimental ideas and methods.
Avant-Garde arose in protest of such a fine art's neglect of reality and its dedication to the world of works that have been neglected. Avant-Garde began in Switzerland at the time of World War I, in opposition to human reason and universality. The representative piece of the performance was the performance of the Hugo Ball, and he tried to express the tragedy of war through his nonverbal voice.
Modernism 2: Study Trip to Tate Modern
This week you will be divided into groups for a research field trip to Tate Modern (Links to an external site.) to explore examples of modernist art and design. This will help you develop your ideas for Image in Context assignment, by looking carefully at images and objects up close and analysing how they have been put together. We will also consider how curators use exhibition design to communicate to audiences the different ways that images relate to wider social and conceptual contexts.
worksheet
Today we’re going to focus on works in Tate Modern’s permanent collection in the Natalie Bell building levels 2 & 4, which date from 1900 onwards and include many works from modernist artists. We will be using this visit to practice analysing images and objects by looking closely. We will also be thinking about how curators connect images to contexts through exhibition design.
I visited Tate Modern. It was [The Sick Child] by Edvard Munch. This work reveals deep feelings of a mother taking care of a sick girl. In terms of the explanation, this girl is Munch's sister. Munch seems to have tried to paint these sorry scenes. I was moved and had to stay in front of the painting for a long time.
Level 2
In the Studio
This section explores the relationships between maker, viewer and work:
how do images communicate visually?
The Sick Child touches on the fragility of life. It draws upon Munch’s personal memories, including the trauma of his sister’s death, and visits to dying patients with his doctor father. He described the 1885 painting as ‘a breakthrough in my art’ and made several subsequent versions, of which this is the fourth.
Acquired by the city of Dresden in 1928, it was displayed in the Gemäldegalerie. A decade later, the Nazis declared that Munch’s art was ‘degenerate’ and, in November 1938, all his works in German public collections were collected in Berlin for auction. The Norwegian dealer Harald Holst Halvorsen secured as many as possible, including The Sick Child, and returned them safely to Oslo. Thomas Olsen bought the painting in 1939 and gave it to the Tate. Norway fell to the Germans in 1940. Looking back, Olsen explained that his gift was stimulated by ‘my knowledge, from talks with Munch, that he felt the need of recognition in Western Europe, especially so after the advent of Hitler.’
Gallery label, April 2005
By TATE MODERN
Postmodernity 1. youth-, counter-, sub-culture : post-war style wars
This week we will look at how ideas of a universal international design style or a unified national ‘culture’ were challenged in the post-war period by the rise of youth cultures, countercultures, and subcultures. We will look at how style and individual expression became a battleground in wider political conflicts and symbolised social and generational tensions. We will consider whether this fracturing of culture represented the demise of the modernist project, and if such cultural fractures prefigured or represented the emergence of postmodernity
Follow up with Film:
George Dunning (1968) Yellow Submarine ,
Frank Roddam (1979) Quadrophenia ,
Julian Templesmith (1980) The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle ,
Tony Silver (1983) Style Wars ,
Shane Meadows (2006) This is England ,
Sini Anderson (2013) The Punk Singer ,
George Amponsah (2004) The Importance of Being Elegant ,
Louis Ellison and Jacob Hodgkinson (2017) Chicano .
postmodernity
/ˌpəʊs(t)mɒˈdəːnɪti/
noun: postmodernity; noun: post-modernity
-
the quality or condition of being postmodern.
Postmodernism started with the reaction of modernism.
Modernism is a new artistic trend that deviates from realism and naturalism in the 19th century. Modernism has become more and more abstract over time, taking geometric forms, and becoming a difficult art that the public cannot understand. On the other hand, a realistic drawing of things was considered backward and inferior. Postmodernism began in protest of the division of art into fine art and low art.
What are the characteristics of postmodernism?
Postmodernism has been recognized as art anything that can communicate with the public. First of all, the characteristic of postmodernism was that the artist's autonomy was guaranteed and that his individual works were important. Postmodernist artists have produced unique works with themes and expressions that they had never thought of before. Postmodernist artists have used that technique to make their work, such as borrowing images from other people's work as needed.
Second, there are many different types of works and imaginative works that are familiar to the public. From trivial personal details to political and social issues such as violence and racism, it became the theme of the work. It also uses existing underrated advertising, cartoons, and magazines, and has newly emerged the art of minority groups such as the Third World, black and female. And they think communication with the public is important, so they have a lot of imaginative works that the public can easily recognize.
Third, the exhibition has diversified. Not only paintings and sculptures, but also various styles of installation are on display. There was even an exhibition where visitors participated in the production. In short, there was no form or content of the work.
Culture
'particular way of life which expressed certain meanings and values, not only in art and learning, but also in institutions and ordinary behaviour. The analysis of culture from such a definition, is the clarification of the meanings and values implicit and explicit in a particular way of life, a particular culture.‘
Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (1965)
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Common Programme
The CHS Common Programme is an opportunity for you to attend lectures and workshops on subjects that might sit outside of your own specialisms, but which can play a role in helping you to think differently about your own discipline and its relationship to others.
The sessions offered under the CHS Common Programme are also an opportunity to hear about ideas inspired by the research activities of staff in the Department of Critical and Historical Studies.
Stephen Knott - Choose your own art history lecture
The format of this lecture is based on the 'Choose your own adventure' developed and largely written by American, Edward Packard for teen audiences in the 1980s and 90s. Looking at the subject, broadly, of the history of participatory art I will present the audience with choices as to which direction the lecture should take. Equipped with placards the audience will be given a chance to genuinely shape the content of the talk
I learned about the history of art at the Nights Park Campus. Art has existed longer than I thought. It has been used to convey information or express ideas. The class was done in a two-way way. My teacher gave me a deeper explanation for the more votes I received and this way made me concentrate on my class.
Postmodernity 2. Low-brow hi-fi: pop, pastiche and postmodernism
This week we chart the shift from modernist to postmodern design through album cover art. What social, technological, and economic changes led this shift? How did postmodern design reflect altered ideas about identity, progress, universality, truth and reality? We will consider how postmodern illustration emerged from the conceptual illustration of the post-war period which contested modernist graphics, and explore postmodern movements like Lowbrow, Superflat and Pop Surrealism which challenged the boundaries between high art and pop culture using methods of pastiche. We will also look at the emergence of the music video in this context, and finally consider whether we still live in a postmodern cultural condition in the 21st century.
Follow up with Film:
Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones (1975) Monty Python and the Holy Grail,
Ridley Scott (1982) Blade Runner ,
Katsuhiro Otomo (1988) Akira ,
Mike Judge (1996) Beavis and Butt-Head Do America ,
Michael Winterbottom (2002) 24 Hour Party People,
postmodernism
/pəʊstˈmɒdəˌnɪz(ə)m/
noun: postmodernism; noun: post-modernism
-
a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism, which represents a departure from modernism and is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, a mixing of different artistic styles and media, and a general distrust of theories.
Modernism begins to develop into a pop art form that combines the genre of art and objects, and magazines and print media such as symbols of modern culture. Pop art has a more popular feeling compared to previous art. In addition, ordinary and common images have been painted by pop artists, uniquely combined, modified, and expressed into new works. Depending on the method of production, these pop art artists' works can be categorized as how they are filmed using a printing technique called silk screen, how they can zoom in on scenes from cartoons, and how they can expand everyday objects or install them on the streets. I realized that these different ways of making art deepened it. From now on, I should use this method for my works.
‘the erosion of the older distinction between high culture and so-called mass or popular culture... postmodernisms have been fascinated... by that whole landscape of advertising and motels, of the Las Vegas strip, of the late show and Grade-B Hollywood film, of so-called paraliterature with its airport paperback categories of the gothic and the romance, the popular biography, the murder mystery and the science-fiction or fantasy novel... they incorporate them, to the point where the line between high art and commercial forms is increasingly hard to draw’
(Jameson 1984, p. 115-116)
Moving Stories: Animation Film Festival
This week we will end the term with a festival of films selected and curated by you the students, as part of your IA4003 research into Storytelling.
Working in groups of 8, select a short film or film clip that uses animation that tells stories in a distinctive way. This might be through the materials, techniques and media used / through character design and world-building / through the way the story is structured and the order or way in which it is told to the viewer / through sound (voice, effects, music) / through camerawork and the way it is shot or edited / through the use of line, colour, shape, light etc. / or a combination of these factors. Research your example and select a clip to show the class (5 minutes or under).
Inspiration List:
Fleischer Brothers, Wan Brothers, Len Lye, Oskar Fischinger, Mary Bute, Norman McLaren, Jiří Trnka, John Hubley, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Jan Lenica, Zagreb Studio, Hanna-Barbera, Joy Batchelor & Jon Halas, Osamu Tezuka, Terry Gilliam, Sally Cruikshank, Bob Godfrey, Marv Newland, Ralph Bakshi, Carol Leaf, Bruno Bozzetto, Dadasaheb Phalke, Michèle Cournoyer, Alison de Vere, Noureddin Zarrinkelk, Moustapha Alassane, Joanna Quinn, Candy Guard, Dong-heon Shin, Aardman Animations, John Kricafulsi, Satoshi Kon, Isao Takahata, Mamoru Oshii
postmodernism
/anɪˈmeɪʃ(ə)n/
noun: animation; plural noun: animations
-
the state of being full of life or vigour; liveliness.
-
the state of being alive.
"the body began to show tiny signs of animation"
-
-
the technique of photographing successive drawings or positions of puppets or models to create an illusion of movement when the film is shown as a sequence.
-
the manipulation of electronic images by means of a computer in order to create moving images.
-
The professor showed various animations. Among them, Tsunami was the most impressive animation, and it was a sensuous feeling and a unique line expression. Also, one of the technologies that I am interested in these days is the technology that combines 3d and 2d. This technology uses a 3D method that complements the 2d limit, allowing the audience to feel inside the story. An animation using these technologies is called 'Tsunami'. The second best movie is Rhapsody in blue. The characteristic of this image is that the animated characters work according to the background music. It was so good that the combination of music and video entertained our eyes and ears.
‘the erosion of the older distinction between high culture and so-called mass or popular culture... postmodernisms have been fascinated... by that whole landscape of advertising and motels, of the Las Vegas strip, of the late show and Grade-B Hollywood film, of so-called paraliterature with its airport paperback categories of the gothic and the romance, the popular biography, the murder mystery and the science-fiction or fantasy novel... they incorporate them, to the point where the line between high art and commercial forms is increasingly hard to draw’
(Jameson 1984, p. 115-116)
The animation we have chosen is ‘Tsunami’, created by Sofie Kampmark. The film tells the story of Haru, a man returning to his village after the tidal wave that devastated parts of Japan in 2011. Upon entering his house, he discovers a Sea Spirit trapped inside. After initially ignor-ing it, he soon realises that the creature is drying out and dying. The film asks; should he forgive the creature that took everything away from him? The pace is slow, reflecting his process of grieving and melancholy. Kampmark herself was living in Tokyo in 2011, witnessing 1st hand the horrors of the tsunami, but also the impressive and beautiful way the Japanese coped with the disaster. We chose this animation because of its authenticity; the story of such an unimaginable horror is shown to us through the eyes of one person, thus allowing us to comprehend the true feelings of those effected. We also enjoyed the poetic use of sound, as well as the magical and surreal elements woven through the narrative that successfully em-body and quantify the disaster. Although beautiful, the animation documents a reality for many. As viewers, our emotional reaction was important to the animation’s success
and left us with a lasting impression.
Rhapsody in Blue is an animation created for Fantasia 2000, a film comprised of short animations to well-known pieces of music. The mu-sic for the film was originally composed in 1924 by George Gershwin; however, stylistically the film draws its inspiration from the ‘classic’ Dis-ney films of the fifties. The clip follows four restless individuals through Depression era New York in their respective pursuits for happiness. Collectively, we chose this clip because of its emphatic use of colour, character and expression to create an authentic representation of New York City. The exaggeration of character together with Gershwin’s score elim-inates the need for dialogue, compelling and engaging the viewer throughout the 12 minutes. We particularly enjoyed the use of colour as an emotional value through the film and how the characters and city develop simultaneously, moving through mundane greys and blues of the inner city to the vibrancy of New York nightlife.