Studio Task 2 Journal Pages list

Journal Pages

1. words - typed VS hand drawn
2. analogue waves VS digital code
3. aesthetic of digital perfect VS analogue line quality
4. hand drawn Vs hand drawn but edited digitally
5. representation of sound waves
6. analogue VS digital development technologically
7. Analogue images - reproduced in 4 different ways
8. digital code
9. Wacom analogue but digitally
10. Clock Wacom analogue/digital, edited analogue 2 ways
11. hand drawn same image 2ce (differences)
12. lino cut image printed multiple times

Study Task 3 - Revolver

Revolver- the Beatles

Descriptive Analysis

• Beautiful line drawings mixed with photographs collage
• simple outlines of the face - confidence
• hair has great line quality-tone
• eyes/face/ear collages from photographs adding depth
• very busy in the centre but space is left on the right
• black and white image
• faces express character - deferent angles McCartney "he knew us well enough to capture us rather beautifully in the drawings"
• focuses on the members of the band - shows their banta/friendship through the collaged imagery

Contextual Analysis

• Label- Parlophone
• August 5 1966 - 3 days later in US
• Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts 1967
• 7th Album
• Paul McCartney " we suddenly thought 'hey, what does a record do? it revolves" 
• Band loves a pun (not a gun)
• one of the earliest albums of the psychedelic era
• Klaus Voormann - spacey collage of drawings complemented songs that reflected their LSD experimentation during its production
• pen and black ink drawings
• collaged black and white photos taken by Bob Whitaker (to stand out in the muddle of colourful album covers) 'the artist chose black and white in an act of rebellion against the fashion for psychedelic covers'
• audience - Beatles fans - males and females interested in "classic" rock
• was payed £40- limit for cover art, didn't want to ask for more

Study Task 2 - Triangulation summary

Summary of Triangulation Research

Study Task 3 - Unknown Pleasures

Unknown Pleasures Information

Descriptive Analysis/ Contextual Analysis

https://adamcap.com/2011/05/19/history-of-joy-division-unknown-pleasures-album-art/

·      Inverted/super imposed image of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy

·      diagrams from the book

·     

·      black lines on white background (where Joy Division drummer Stephen Morris saw the design

·      artist Peter Saville

·      The image was computer generated at the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico

The radiation seems to come from local objects within the galaxy, and may be associated with oscillations of white dwarf or neutron stars.

·      Diagram first appeard with turquoise background in January 1971 issue of Scientific American, and is credited to Jerry Ostriker

·      made a second cameo in Graphis Diagrams in 1974

The pulsar itself was first discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/en_uk/blog/the-story-behind-joy-divisions-iconic-iunknown-pleasuresi-album-cover

Saville describes it as a “comparative path demonstration of frequency from a signal of a pulsar.”

Each horizontal line, reaching a series of peaks close to the middle of the graph, is observed data from a this pulsar, and there are several of them stacked together.

Saville goes on, “What you’re seeing is a comparative chart of the frequency and the accuracy of this signal.”

So this image, perceived as so simple, is not really simple at all but the result of astronomical readings that led in part to humanity’s understanding of this one component of the cosmos.

http://thescienceandentertainmentlab.com/pulsars-pills-and-post-punk-the-design-of-unknown-pleasures/

release on Manchester’s Factory Records in June 1979

has captured the imagination of a diverse audience, ranging from reclusive adolescents sulking in their bedroom to celebrity scientists socialising with friends

At the time Saville created the album cover, he had recently graduated from Manchester Polytechnic with a first class degree in graphic design and was art director and co-founder of Factory Records.

subtle combination of graphic techniques and typography to express sonic qualities of the album in addition to its enigmatic title, song lyrics, and stylistic choices made by members of Joy Division.

Saville’s elegantly understated design work and the emergence of post-punk aesthetics, it is worth taking a closer look at specific ways in which the album cover casts light (and shadow) on scientific culture and practice of radio astronomy.

based on a scientific diagram of an astrophysical object known as a pulsating star or ‘pulsar’.

the repetitive features of the pulsar diagram reminded him of Morris’ machine-like drumming style.

originally referred to as ‘CP 1919’ before being dubbed ‘pulsar’ by science journalist Anthony Michaelis, was reported in 1968 by the astronomer James Hewish and his colleagues in the scientific journal Nature.

the article in Nature visualized the regular pulsar radio emissions acquired with a radio telescope using diagrams that consisted of two or three jagged lines or pen traces of the pulses.

The composition and colour pallete (or lack of colour) created the impression of a black background that accentuates the ambivalent feature made up of recursive white lines. Again, the reverse cover is completely black except for minimal text printed in small white typeface.

During his studies as an undergraduate design student, Saville developed a keen interest in typography, particularly the work of European typographers

The front cover is completely devoid of text, adding to the anonymity of the pulsar image, and minimal text is featured on the reverse side of the cover, inside cover, and record labels.

Interestingly, the Helvetica typeface on the Unknown Pleasures album was introduced in the 1950s. Helvetica has been used by designers to because it lacks ornamentation or overt reference to other fonts. Swiss

It is ironic that Ian Curtis experienced episodes of depression and the typeface used on the cover of Unknown Pleasures was the same as packaging used for the drugs widely used to treat depression. Minimalist graphic design and typography used by Saville on Unknown Pleasures are consistent with the clinical precision and functionality of packaging designed to convey information without ornamentation or overt reference to other graphical styles. In many ways the typeface is an ideal choice for the sombre and introspective post-punk era, worlds apart from the furious annihilation of mainstream culture and commercial packaging unleashed by designers such as Jamie Reid with his album cover design for the 1977 Sex Pistols single God Save the Queen.

en.oxforddictionaries.com

Pulsar " A celestial object, thought to be rapidly rotating neutron star, that emits regular pulses of radio waves and other electro-magnetic radiating at time of up to one thousand pulses per sencond'

Study Task 4 - important words

Read through my essay and my notes and concatonated words which I felt were important:

1. aura
2. reproduced
3. accessible
4. photograph
5. women-objects
6. experiences/location
7. digital-no quality lost
8. original - see first time
9. clever replicas
10. editing
11. analogue, scanned, enhanced
12. digital, fast
13. unpredictable
14. alchemy
15. alluring
16. craft
17. versions
18. quality

Elektronische Musik

Elektronische Musik

• The title comes from a 1949 thesis by Werner Meyer-Eppler called Elektronische Klangerzeugung: Elektronische Musik und Synthetische Sprache. (Electronic sound generation: electronic music and synthetic speech).
• Karlheinz Stockhausen collaborated to become pioneers of it in Cologne
• There was a CD called Elektronische Musik 1952-1960 by Stockhausen (by this time quite a famous avante-garde composer)
• 2 CD collection called Deutsche Elektronsiche Musik which is a compilation of German electronic music between the 1970s and 1980s which has become a collectors item
• Band sunder that went on the loose banner of Kraut Rock (Can, Faust, Neu)

Study Task 2 - Triangulation Start

2. Read them
3. Makes notes
4. Identify common themes
5. Summarise
6. Context
What are they saying about the overarching theme?
7. Link to this title

• Analogue is coming back into fashion
• Analogue has certain qualities that can’t be got elsewhere
• The past is starting to repeat itself
• People have seen them as radically different
• Machine and handmade are radically different
• This is much more complex than the title suggest
• Analogue is the soul

Walter Benjamin research

https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/walter-benjamin- art-aura- authenticity/

Marxist fashion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin

5 July 1892 – 26 September 1940

Combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mysticism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_Mechanical_Reproduction

• Written at a time when Adolf Hitler was already Chancellor of Germany, it was produced, Benjamin wrote, in the effort to describe a theory of art that would be useful for the formulation of revolutionary demands in the politics of art.
• He argued that, in the absence of any traditional, ritualistic value, art in the age of mechanical reproduction would inherently be based on the practice of politics
• One of a key group of European intellectuals of the time
• He looks at the changes in societies values over time, the manner in which human sense perception is organised, the medium in which it is accomplished, is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well

• Benjamin’s main points were that art had a uniqueness, an aura that can never be reproduced.
• He believed there were some advantages to reproduction but mainly that the original was the key, the source, the most important thing. So digital would have been awful for him!
• John Berger drew on ideas from the essay for Ways of Seeing. Bergers point, which he made far more explicitly than did Benjamin, was that the modern means of production have destroyed the authority of art: For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free.
• Benjamin was concerned by the mechanisation of art but Berger went one step further and said that photography changed the nature of art altogether. It’s to do with time manner and place. You don’t need to go to see art. Art is everywhere. And it is uncontrolled, varied. If it comes through certain media like TV or film then the addition of sound can also manipulate how you feel about things.
• Ironically we are suing reproductions- photos- 0f the original to try to get people to come and see the originals.

John Berger research

Ways of seeing 1972

https://demeliou.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/a-quick- analysis-of- john-bergers- ways-

of-seeing/

• Between 1500-1900 the oil painting was main medium of visual art, from 1900 onwards the photograph became the main medium of visual art.
• In parts of the book Berger addresses the way the portrayal of a women’s body in art (painting and photographs) has changed over time from the Renaissance onwards.
•  Men look at women, while women watch themselves being looked at.
• Pretty much what Berger is getting at is the historical objectification of women by men.

http://culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/john-berger- ways-of- seeing-summary- 3.html

• Analyses the manner in which men and women are culturally represented, and the subsequent results these representations have on their conduct and self as well and mutual perception.

1. Historical representation of women by men allows for the objectification of women.
Men make images of women. Women are to be looked at.

2. Also Berger was really interested in how photography changed the meaning of
art…..(this is important for you cos it links into the analogue, digital argument)



David Douglas

• He says analogue has become very versatile due to digital. Replicas are very clever and there are so many ways of editing things. It’s difficult to make a distinction now as to whether something is analogue or not analogue. He goes on to say that if something is repeated it’s repeated but he compares this to a wave so even if waves are breaking they break slightly differently each time. Douglas questions Benjamin’s whole idea of aura. 
• He asks the question is aura only attained in the original or do we feel it each time we personally see something new ‘here is where the aura resides not in the things itself….revise’
• Referring to digital he talks about quality. You can make as many different versions as you want but you don’t lose quality. Douglas payed on Benjamin’s title- he clearly wanted to converse with Benjamin. He was triangulating himself…he was questioning himself through Benjamin

Phil Taylor

• Believes everyone can be an artist. Nowadays you can create good quality things at home. We are all impatient and digital is fast so that’s why people like it
• arts really easy to access, to find cos of technology and doesn’t need to be an event, a visit anymore. This links closely to Berger’s view .For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free

Common themes from all 4

Authenticity and aura All 4 concerned with this in their different ways
and are all concerned about the easiness of mechanization and digital- they seem to appreciate this less than the qualities of the original- whatever the original is. They don’t all agree on the meaning of original. E.g. Douglas says original is the first time you come across something. So for Douglas the first time you see something might be a time when you see its aura. The aura is present because it’s your first time. He argues against Benjamin and says ‘what begins to emerge in the 1st digital decade is a fine grained sensitivity to the unique qualities of every copy’. This is directly in opposition to Benjamin. 
Benjamin believes the location of a piece of arts original use value makes it authentic and
when it’s separated it has a different function. Berger says that digital can distort the
original. It can have had so much done to it that it changes the way you think about it. It is
different to when you see its analogue in its original ‘home’. Taylor says that digital is fast
and that it is easier to find art digitally and that this might discourage us from seeing the
originals in ‘their home’, or as Berger might call it their location. Berger believes ‘the days of
pilgrimage’ to art venues are over. Taylor is arguing however that it’s a good thing that art
is everywhere and can be seen and accessed by everyone whereas Berger argues this has
changed the way we see art and that somehow we have lost something.



Analogue has become popular again because of vintage authentic desire, especially with

young people,

‘there is undoubtedly a draw toward the more intimate and perhaps authentic relationship

an artist can have with….

The alchemy of analogue is more unpredictable and therefore more

alluring

context date, time of writing, summary of text

x 4

then a paragraph that summarises main points and refers one of these people to another

x4

then another joining section where they are all talking to each other

then link to title

Study Task 2 - Davis Douglas quotes

The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction 

http://classes.dma.ucla.edu/Winter09/9-1/_pdf/3-Davis_Work_of_Art.pdf

'The work of art in the age of digital reproduction is physically and formally chameleon' (art its very versatile due to digital)

'There is not longer a clear conceptual distinction between original and reproduction in virtually any medium'. ( replicas are so clever)

"In one sense, Walter Benjamin's proclamation of doom for the aura of originality, authored early in this century, is finally confirmed by these events'

'You'll have to look hard in this col- lage of images, sounds, and words at any time, now or in the next century, to find a single universality'

'Analog signals may be compared to a wave breaking on a beach, breaking over and over but never precisely in the same form. That is why copying an au&o signal or video signal in the past always involved a loss in clarity'

'any video, au&o, or photographic work of art can be endlessly reproduced without degradation, always the same, always perfect.'

'The same is true for handmade images or words that can be scanned- that is, converted to digital bits.' 

'The moment a painting can be scanned, the original landscape, portrait, or color field can be altered or cloned in the manner of a vintage film.'

'Urszula Dudziak's wonderful layered singing, using a digital tape recorder that allows every line of a song to invade the next line, pointed in this direction years ago.' 

'We can walk, think, and feel the manmade world in virtually the same way we experience the "real" world'

'Yet more is at the issue here than simply reproducing or mimicking the art of the hand'

'By finding the means to transfer my early video works from analog to digital media, I can contemplate revisions on my computer that will allow me to change my mind, two decades later, about points where I erred long ago. This allows me to produce a "post-original original."' 

'Compressing the video signal before transmission currently allows an even purer and cleaner signal to be sent over a dedicated phone line than can be sent via satellite or analog relay.'

'What begins to emerge in the first digital decade is a fine-grained sensitivity to the unique qualities of every copy.'

'Here is is where the aura resides-not in the thing itself but in the originality of the moment when we see, hear, read, repeat, revise'.

Study Task 2 - John Berger quotes

John Berger/Ways of seeing 1972

  The process of seeing 'is less spontaneous and natural then we tend to believe. A large part of seeing depends upon habit and convention'.

'The invention of the camera has changed not only what we see, but how we see it'.

'Once all these paintings belonged to their own place'
'The images come to you. You do not go to them. The days of pilgrimage are over'.

'Everything around the image is part of its meaning. Its uniqueness is part of the uniqueness of the single place where it is. Everything's round it confirms and consolidates its meaning'.

'Its meaning, or a large part of it, has become transmittable'.

'Pieces of information to be used, even used to persuade us to help purchase more originals which these very reproductions have in many ways replaced. '

'Original paintings are still unique. They look different from how they look on the television or on postcards. Reproductions distort.'

"survived." "genuinely." "absurdly valuable."

Cash value 'what paintings lost when the camera made them reproducible'. Meanings different

'has multiplied its possible meanings and destroyed its unique original meaning'

'Occasionally, this uninterrupted silence and the stillness of a painting can be very striking' 'I can't demonstrate this stillness, for the lines on your screen are never still.'

'the most obvious way of manipulating them is by using movement and sound' 'no longer a constant'.

'become a form of information which is constantly transmitted'

'The meaning of an image can be changed according to what you see beside it or what comes after it.'

'the ways in which reproduction makes the meaning of words of art ambiguous'

Study Task 2 - Phil Taylor quotes

Phil Taylor Lo Fi Phenomena - Analogue Versus Digital in the Creative Process

'DIY approach using the tools of creativity seems to resonate with our young, eclectic creative individuals today (who can all self-publish with ease)' (everyone can be an artist)

'There are no barriers to reaching a wider audience, the mass reproduction of art works and self-expressions through digital technologies means that for the 'iPod' generation, the magic of the digital does not matter.' ( is there for everyone)

'The same can perhaps be said of music and self publishing. An iPhone App can become a self-contained digital recording studio' ( no need for analogue-possible at home)

'The is undoubtedly a draw towards the more intimate, and perhaps authentic, relationship an artist can have with his or her music making equipment that is located within the analogue realm.' (beauty of analogue)

'This is echoes in the creative professional world with a noticeable trend for young illustrators and filmmakers to increasingly explore analogue animation techniques that are less polished in their aesthetic qualities than CGI'. (popular with the younger generation-re-exploring)

"Impatience' is a topical term in our digital age' -'relentless "upgrade me' approach' 'invariably, it will disappoint to some degree' (impatience and ease)

'today there is a collectable status for vintage Polaroid equipment, although it is hard to use with inconsistent results the desire for the "authentic" in medium is driving the resurgence in interest' (people interested in vintage things)

Study Task 2 - Walter Benjamin quotes

Walter Benjamin

The Work Of Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction

'In principle a work of art has always been reproducible'

'Mechanical reproduction of a work of art, however, represents something new'

'Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.'

'The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity'

'One might subsume the eliminated element in the term “aura” and go on to say: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.' 

'One might generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. '

'Namely, the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction.'

'The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition. This tradition itself is thoroughly alive and extremely changeable. '

'It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function. In other words, the unique value of the “authentic” work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value. This ritualistic basis, however remote, is still recognizable as secularized ritual even in the most profane forms of the cult of beauty.'

'From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the “authentic” print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics.'

'Works of art are received and valued on different planes. Two polar types stand out; with one, the accent is on the cult value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work. '

'With the different methods of technical reproduction of a work of art, its fitness for exhibition increased to such an extent that the quantitative shift between its two poles turned into a qualitative transformation of its nature. '

'Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art. '

'Such fusion is of great social significance. The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion. With regard to the screen, the critical and the receptive attitudes of the public coincide.'

'A painting has always had an excellent chance to be viewed by one person or by a few. The simultaneous contemplation of paintings by a large public, such as developed in the nineteenth century, is an early symptom of the crisis of painting, a crisis which was by no means occasioned exclusively by photography but rather in a relatively independent manner by the appeal of art works to the masses.'