Contextual Studies

 

 

Period Styles / Conventionalism

 

Classical Greece – 8th Century BCE – 393 CE

“Classical Greece” is an epoch of combat and rivalry between the Greeks and Persians, and later between Athens and Sparta. The wars brought about change in the shape of political reforms, these changes are Greece’s indissoluble additions to the world. These reforms were known as demokratia, or as we know it today democracy. (Editors, 2010) At the beginning of the fifth century, the Greek states of Athens and Sparta were at war with the Persian Empire. These wars were known as the Greco-Persian Wars and lasted for the better part of half a century. After many bloody battles, the Greeks finally defeated the Persians in the battle of Salamis, a naval battle that saw the Persian fleet being lured into a narrow strait where they became outmanoeuvred by the Greek navy. (Britannica, 2018)

The defeat of the Persian Empire saw a new era for Greece under the rule of an Athenian general named Pericles. Pericles used money from taxes to begin rebuilding Athens that the wars had destroyed. The construction of the Acropolis, a temple in honour of the goddess Athena, The Parthenon, The Odeion concert hall and the temple of Poseidon were amongst the new architectural structures that Pericles oversaw. (Classical Greece, 2018)

 

The Acropolis

Under the rule of Pericles, the rebuilding of the Acropolis began. With the help of the Greek architects Ictinus and Callicrates and the sculptor, Phidias helped Pericles realize his vision. The reconstruction took 50 years to complete, unfortunately, Pericles did not live to see the project through to completion. (Acrropolis, 2018)

 

The Parthenon

Redesigned by Pericles trusted architects Ictinus and Callicrates, the temple was built on top of the Old Parthenon which was destroyed during the wars. A portico of 46 outer columns and 19 inner columns makes this the biggest Doric temple in history. (Parthenon, 2018)

 

The Odeion Concert Hall

Although I cannot find any information for this, I have found information about a third Odeion. This is called The Odeion of Herodes Atticus and is located on the southern slope of the Acropolis. It was commissioned by Tiberius Claudius Herod Atticus in honour of his late wife Aspasia Regilla. (Odeon of Herodes Atticus, 2018)

 

The Temple of Poseidon

Another Doric style temple. However, this temple was of a peripteral design meaning that it only had a single row of columns unlike The Parthenon. (Sakoulas, 2018)

 

Greece also saw the development of arts and crafts, from the Archaic period moving into the Classical period. This period was also called the Golden Age of Greece, it saw sculptures of the human form being depicted with fluidity and movement unlike its stiff, rigid style of its predecessors from the Archaic period. The male torso was that of a muscular, healthy person while the female was portrayed with a fuller figure and small breasts. (Metmuseum.org, 2018)

Other notable changes were the shift from black figure techniques used in firing pottery to the use of red-figure techniques. The black figure technique would see the artist apply a slip that would be painted onto the surface of the red clay. The slip would then turn black during firing and the artist would incise the clay to show detail. The red Figure technique, however, saw the decorative parts of the clay such as the human figure left untouched and the background painted with the slip. The red figures could now be painted with glaze lines or washes. This meant that more detail could be applied easier and looked more natural. (Metmuseum.org, 2018)

 

Roman Period – 8th Century BCE – 393 CE

The Romans originated from Italy and were heavily influenced by the local Italian cultures, however, by the 5th century they came into contact with the Greeks. From here they began to embrace the Classical and Hellenistic art. The expansion of the Roman empire saw Graeco-Roman art introduced into parts of Europe, Africa and also Asia.

Roman architecture is characterised by the use of high podiums, prominent entrances at one end only and use of new materials such as brick and concrete. This is most notable in structures such as the great Thermae of Rome, the Pantheon in Rome and also Justinian’s church of Sancta Sophia in Constantinople.

One aspect of Roman art was the commemoration of important individuals. Portrait busts of ancestors, as well as powerful emperors, could be seen in buildings both public and private. Copies of Greek sculptures were also seen in houses, temples, baths and theatres. Commemorative arches and columns such as the Arch of Titus and Trajan’s Column were decorated with reliefs depicting the achievements of the emperors.

 

 

Gothic Period Style 1120 – 1400

The gothic period was an architectural style in Europe that emerged in the mid 12th century all the way to the 16th century. This style of architecture was defined by huge structures with vast spaces. Walls would be decorated with bars or ribs and other complex and sophisticated patterns. These decorative features were known as blind tracery, this was also applied to windows and other openings and known simply as tracery.

 

 

Flying buttress’ and rib vaults were both used to build extremely tall structures while gothic arches were utilised to create huge expanses of space in windows and doors. The windows would be filled with stained glass creating breathtaking lighting effects within the structure.

 

Baroque Period 1685 – 1725

The baroque style originated in Italy and quickly spread across the entire continent. Ornate flourishes of leaves and plant life where the main characteristics of this style, pictures of cherubs called “putti” were entwined within.

Monograms and crests were also incorporated into this style to symbolize the status and influence of the more prestigious hierarchy. Interiors were opulent and sumptuous. Walls would often be covered with tapestries while furniture was upholstered in rich damask or leather. This would be offset with giltwood that imitated gold or silver.

English designers found inspiration from printed books of continental ornament and foreign craftspeople who immigrated to England had a huge influence on this style.

 

Rococo Period Style 1730 – 1770

This period style emerged in France in the late 1720s and 1730s. In Britain, it was known as the “modern style” and broke away from the classical idiom which was bound by architectural rules. Rococo was a much richer style than baroque and its main features that set it apart were its use of C and S scrolls, naturalistic motifs and asymmetric patterns. The Rococo style was widely used on furniture and interior design and made use of pastel colours.

 

 

Neo-Classical 1760 -1790 

The Neo-Classical period came full circle and returned to the style of classical Greek and Rome. Fresh archaeological discoveries from new sites inspired the craftspeople of this period to try and create a “true style.”  Cameo icons were becoming popular along with animals from Greek mythology. Beads, swags and festoons decorated vases that were also becoming popular again inspired by the classic Greek and Roman period.

 

 

Arts and Crafts 1880 – 1910

The most important person from this era was a man called William Morris. Born to a wealthy family in 1834, Morris attended Exeter College at Oxford. It was here that Morris found an interest in Medieval architecture and his own artistic style began to flourish. Morris was best known for his textile design, wallpaper and furniture. He did, however, collaborate with an architect named Phillip Webb and together they designed The Red house. It was this project that would see the beginning of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The Red House began construction in 1859 and took one year to complete. The house is L-shaped and makes no attempt to be symmetrical. It also looks as if it was built over the space of many decades and not over a year. Its windows were functional according to the rooms, rather than following any symmetrical pattern. The house uses its features to show off the skills of the craftsmen that helped build it. Morris would entertain artists and artisans here and these people would then spread his ideas around England, Europe and even America.

 

The Gamble House below is an American Arts and Crafts style home located in Pasadena, CA. It is commonly thought of as the finest American example of the style. Designed for David Gamble of the Procter & Gamble Company by Greene & Greene, the home was built in 1908.

Many types of fine wood were skillfully crafted to create this custom home. A central hall unifies the interior space of this asymmetrical house. Art glass windows allow light to flood into its low horizontal structure and blurs the ideas of inside and outside. The second floor has three covered porches off of the bedrooms. The American style of the Arts and Crafts movement has some gothic tendencies, as seen in the fireplace, but it also takes qualities from Japanese architecture as seen in the horizontality and inside and outside relationship.

 

Art Nouveau 1890 – 1905

The Art Nouveau movement tried to modernise design and break free from the old historical styles. It appeared in a wide variety of ways and is known by various names such as the Glasgow style, or Jugendstil which is the German version of this style. Inspiration for this style came from organic, geometric and natural forms that resembled plant life. This organic appearance took precedence over colour which was often muted

The movement wanted to abolish any traditional hierarchy of the other art movements that saw painting and sculpture as superior. The Art Nouveau style was short lived and went out of fashion.  This paved the way for Art Deco, however, it saw a revival later in the 1960s and is now seen as an important part of modernism.

 

 

Art Deco.

Art Deco is the name given to an art and design style popular in Europe and America from the mid-1920s until before World War II. It traced its beginnings to the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes, an international design show held in Paris in 1925. The artists, designers and architects who worked in Art Deco wanted to create a modern style for a modern age and they purposely avoided echoes of past styles. The name ‘Art Deco’, by the way, comes from the title of that international show.

Art Deco celebrated the modern world and industry and developed from what people saw as the promise of the machine age. It was sleek and sophisticated, featuring smooth surfaces and bold colours in high contrasts like black and white. It was influenced by several modern art movements, including Cubism, where shapes were portrayed as fragmented with multiple perspectives viewable at once. There’s an angularity to Art Deco. Architecture done in this style is hard-edged and geometric, often with a stepped outline.

Art Deco elements became noticeable in Paris in the early 1920s. But for architecture, the first real signal of a new style came in Chicago in 1922. There, a Finnish architect named Eliel Saarinen entered architectural drawings in a contest to design the new headquarters building of the Chicago Tribune. He didn’t win the contest, but his design received a lot of publicity and inspired other architects to explore the new, bold style.

In 1924, one of those other architects, Raymond Hood (he’d won the Chicago contest), designed the American Radiator Building in New York City, the structure usually regarded as the first Art Deco building in the United States.

Soon Art Deco became a popular choice in major American cities, which at the time were experiencing a tremendous building boom. Through the 1930s, Art Deco was used on structures that became landmarks. In New York alone, famous skyscrapers like the Empire State Building (1931)

 

the Chrysler Building (1930)

and Rockefeller Center (1935)

are all examples of Art Deco architecture.

While such American skyscrapers were the grandest structures of Art Deco, places in Europe also reflected the style. Examples of Art Deco architecture can be found in major urban centres like London, Berlin, and Lisbon, Portugal, as well as more unexpected places like Kaunas, Lithuania.

Art Deco architecture is very striking and looks different from earlier styles. You’ll definitely notice it when you see it. Builders used new industrial materials like stucco, concrete and stainless steel. You can also find structures decorated with aluminium, chrome, opaque plate glass, and glass block.

Modernism.

Modernism tries to break from the past constraints of style and adopted a period of experimentation. It rejected the more ornamental styles like Baroque and Rococo to embrace minimalistic design. Modernism was more about the functionality of a building rather than its aesthetic appearance. New materials were being used and architects like Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier were the pioneers of the movement.

Le Corbusier had a profound impact on many of the British housing schemes as brutalist architecture was a quick and cheap way to construct new buildings.

The Parkhill Estate was modelled on Corbusier’s  Unité d’habitation which was built in 1945 in Marseille, France.

 

Post Modernism.

The late 20th century saw a return to using traditional materials as a revolt against Modernism took place. the key features of this style are complexity and contradiction. Theatrics, vivid colours and overly exaggerating were all part of this odd movement. The most notable architects of this movement were Robert Venturi, Michael Graves, Charles Moore, Philip Johnson and Frank Gehry.

Robert Venturi

 

Michael Graves

 

Charles Moore

 

Philip Johnson

 

Frank Gehry

 

 

Semiotics

Semiotics is the analysis of signs and symbols and how meaning is created, interpreted and communicated by these signs. Semiotics was defined as the study of “the life of signs within society.” By the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. (Britannica, 2018)

Saussure proposed that a sign consists of two elements, 1. The Signifier and 2. The Signified. The signifier is basically what the sign says, for example, “Toxic” or “Poison” while the signifier is the idea that is associated with it.

 

Saussure believed that the relationship between the Signifier and the Signified were arbitrary, meaning that its quality is determined by personal whim or impulse and not by reason or principal. (Cambridge Dictionary, 2018) for example when we hear the word “Cat” we automatically associate the image of a cat to the word.

Charles Sanders Peirce however, was a pragmatist and his work was centred around logic. Pierce believed that a sign was something that stands for something to someone and that signs had three main types. These types were, 1. an icon (an image that resembles its referent) e.g. a road sign for men working. 2. An index, which is associated with its referent e.g. a skull is an index of death. 3. A symbol, these are the opposite of icons. The connection between signifier and signified is arbitrary and must be culturally learned. E.g. The shape of a letter and the sound it represents bear no physical connection to one another. (Bradley, 2016)

I believe that both Saussure and Peirce were correct and that both theories can be applied to different images. For example, if I see a sign showing a cow then I expect to encounter a cow.

however, If I see a real cow or an image of a real cow I think of a number of different things. For example,

I think Animal, Farmer, Livestock, Breed, Beef, Food, etc.

Further to the work of Saussure and Peirce is the addition of a fourth category by professor Yvonne Rogers. However, Rogers choice of names conflict with the different types of signifier defined by Peirce. (Bradley, 2016) These categories are as follows.

 

Resemblance Icons – these have a direct likeness of the objects they represent. E.g. Calculator icon, Map icon. They work best when the representation is simple.

 

Exemplar Icons – these depict a common example of the class of objects they represent. E.g. Hammer or Saw represent carpentry. These work best for more complex representations.

 

Symbolic Icons – these icons convey a concept at a higher level of abstraction than the object depicted. E.g. A Lock indicating an object is secure. These are similar to exemplar icons, however, they work best at a higher level of abstraction

 

Arbitrary Icons – these icons bare no relationship to an object or concept and their association must be learned. E.g. on/off power button. These are better for use when people have time to learn the connection between signifier and signified.

 

In comparison to Peirce’s three types of signifier, you will begin to realise that Rogers’ resemblance icons are the equivalent to Peirce’s’ icons because they resemble what they represent. Further to this, it is clear that arbitrary icons are the equivalent to Peirce’s symbols because the connection between signifier and signified is that of an arbitrary one. The exemplar and symbolic icons are both in essence Peirce’s index signifier, Rogers simply widened the definition of this index dividing it into two distinct types based on the levels of abstraction. (Bradley, 2016)

 

Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle / Propaganda

 

Colour Psychology / Formalism

 

Shapes / Formalism

We were asked to look at four shapes and were then given four names. we had to place each name with a shape.

The names were Scary, Sporty, Baby and Posh. We all matched the same names with the same shapes, but why? Well, this is similar to semiotics and giving pictures tags, we do the same with shapes. we can also incorporate colour theory into this to bolster the idea. Sharply jagged shapes are seen as masculine and signify danger while arrows indicate speed, motion, movement. Circular shapes are seen as feminine while tall thin columns are seen to represent elegance and sophistication.

Triangles that are pointing upwards represent stability and balance while one pointing downward gives the sense of danger as it looks unstable. Squares and rectangles give the viewer the sense of strength and security and have already been mentioned a rectangle stood upright communicates elegance and sophistication.

We see shapes all the time in our everyday surroundings and barely give them a second thought but if you were to stop and look more closely for a moment you can see how the shapes are working and the message they send to the viewer.

Here we see rectangles laying down giving the feeling of security while the columns speak of sophistication, this is then topped with a triangle that tells the viewer this is a place of safety and stability.

here we can see that the shape is all made of squares and rectangles giving the sense of strength and security.

Expressionism

Expressionism is a style of painting, music, or drama in which the artist or writer seeks to express the inner world of emotion rather than external reality. It originated in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. It typically distorts the world from a subjective perspective so as to evoke moods and ideas. Probably the most famous painting of this movement is titled “The Scream” by Edvard Munch 1893

The roots of the German Expressionists lay in such works as Munch, Van Gough and James Ensor. Each artist quickly developed their own unique style of painting experimenting with line and colour to explore themes of fear, horror and disgust.

A secondary wave of German Expressionism came in the 1900s  when a small group of artists formed a group called the bridge “Die Brücke” led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

Above is a self-portrait of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Very pronounced features of the face and body and the use of bright colours are reminiscent of African art. These new expressionists were influenced by their predecessors and also by African wood carvings as is evident in the above painting.

Expressionist Architecture.

The Einstein Tower, designed by architect Erich Mendelsohn, was built between 1919 and 1921. Located in Potsdam, Germany in a science park, it’s surrounded by grassy lawn and trees.

The building, a solar observatory, is made of brick covered with cement. It’s all curving edges and undulating forms and seems almost to emerge from the ground below it like some kind of organic or scientific organism. And that’s not an accident because it was made to reflect Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which changed the way people thought about time and space. The Einstein Tower looks strikingly modern for a building that’s almost one hundred years old.

With the intention of creating an emblematic building in Prague, the Dutch bank, Nationale-Netherlanden (previously ING), commissioned the architects, Frank Gehryand V. Milunic, to accomplish an innovative architectural project, entrusting them with an almost unlimited budget and complete artistic freedom.

The bank got in touch with the architect, V. Milunic, to ask him to invite a world-famous architect to participate in the project. Milunic first contacted the French architect, Jean Nouvel, who turned down the project due to its small surface area (491m²). The second contact he made was with the architect, Frank Gehry, who accepted the commission. The result was a building surrounded by elements of great plasticity, which in spite of its de-constructed style, harmonises with the environ. It is one of few buildings in the city which inhabits its space in the street in such a dynamic way.

Construction of the Dancing House, whose official name is the Nationale-Nederlanden Building, began in 1994 and finished in 1996. Although it received the design category award from the prestigious American Time magazine in the same year it was completed, the building was very controversial from its beginnings. Not only did it stand out stylistically, it was also asymmetrical and, for many, clearly out of place in a more traditional environment. Amongst its detractors, it was known as the Drunk House. Even many years down the line, it continues to be contentious between the citizens disgusted by the building, considering it out of place in a conservative context, and those who see it as a symbol of freedom, liberation and democratic beliefs after the fall of communism.

The principles adopted in the design included the contrast between static and dynamic figures (Yin and Yang). In the first sketches, Gehry envisaged the building as a panel with square shapes similar to pillows, to which Milunic added a tower in the form of a geyser.

Turning on the corner where the building would be constructed, a pivoted tower was a logical starting point. But Gehry considered a single concrete building to be too “masculine” and was motivated to develop the idea of a feminine counterpoint: a feminine Yin balancing the masculine Yang. This gave rise to the analogy of the dancing couple, whimsically described as “Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire”, the legendary film couple who rallied the entertainment industry in the 1930s with their dance steps in musical comedies. The masculine part of the dancing couple is represented by the more solid tower, supported on three sturdy pillars and with an imaginary mat of hair made of steel and wire mesh which swings with the breeze atop his head. The feminine half is the glass tower with eight columns at its base, inclined toward her partner with a dress of steel and glass.

With its clear-cut deconstructivism and unusual form, the style of the headquarters of the Nationale-Nederlanden is considered by the designers of architecture to be “new-baroque”.

The design tools and technique used on this building served as a test for future processes that Gehry would use in all his projects, including the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The use of curves in the building imitates the aerodynamic form of planes and sports cars. The software which his company developed was later used to design French aircraft.

 

 

Realism.

Realism is split into many different subcategories that often overlap with other theories such as propaganda and expressionism.

Social Realism. 

Social Realism is one person’s view of life that may be shared by many people in a similar situation. For example, The Battle of Orgreave The miners’ strike of 1984 saw miners from all across the country stand together to prevent the closure of pits. For people in that era living and working in and around pit communities, this was their reality. Another example in the same decade two years later in 1986 On April 26, the world’s worst nuclear power plant accident occurs at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet Union. Engineers lose control of the reactors and a meltdown occurs that kills 32 people and leaves hundreds more with radiation burns. As terrible as this is, it is not the reality of the Orgreave miners. Therefore social realism is subjective to many factors such as time, location, emotions, viewpoint, opinions, class, culture etc.

Documentary.

A documentary is a short film that documents events according to the people who actually witnessed it. Similar to Social Realism, this is one person’s perspective of events. Each persons’ perspective at an event can be cross-examined and a detailed picture built that portrays such an event as accurately as possible according to the data gathered.

Propaganda.

Propaganda is simply information that is used to further a cause by presenting facts that are selective. The information is often of a biased nature to induce the emotional response of a group in order for them to act a certain way. In many cases, propaganda leaves out certain facts so as to steer itself in a certain direction. An example of this can be seen in advertising. Health food that tells of its benefits over its competitors but fails to tell the consumer of any side effects to consuming the said product is propaganda.

Truth Claim Photography.

Truth Claim is the belief that a photograph is the most truthful image known to us because it is a picture of reality that is frozen in time. This could have been true (no pun intended) before the age of digital cameras and software packages that can manipulate images but in today’s era of the digital image and information overload, this couldn’t’ (in my opinion) be further from the truth (again, no pun intended.) With that said it is still a matter of perspective, so what one person sees as truth, another person may not.

Here is an example of such an image.

 

Photo Realism.

This is an art technique that began life in the 1960s in Europe and the USA. It involves taking a subject and recreating it using any medium so that it appears real as if it was a photograph. It can also be a photograph that has been painted to look like a photograph but I think that is a pretty pointless exercise. Here are some examples of photorealism. Full credit here.

 

Scientific Images.

Scientific images are images that have been taken by microscope, telescope, x-ray, scans such as a brain scan or pregnancy scan etc. These images are typically black and white, it is then up to a person such as a graphic designer to add colour to these images so we can begin to make more sense of them. For example, a brain scan image or MRI scan (Magnetic resonance imaging.) In this image, researchers found a significant reduction in visual-evoked potential latency delay (a measure that is sometimes used to confirm a diagnosis of MS) after patients with relapsing MS were treated with clemastine fumarate.

Whoever decided to show this in red and orange could have quite easily decided to use different colours like the image below that shows scientists exactly how old we are.

Images from telescopes become even more complex as they are multiple images that are patched together. Photographs are basically light falling onto a photosensitive surface. A telescope acts no different except that it detects different light using a variety of filters, including UV light and infrared. these images are then assembled assigning the colours to the filters they were taken from eventually building a comprehensive image of what it must look like to our naked eye.

 

Data Visualisation.

Data visualisation is a general term that describes an effort to help people understand the significance of data by placing it in a visual context. Patterns, trends and correlations that might go undetected in text-based data can be exposed and recognised easier by visualising this data using a graphic representation. There are many different forms of data visualisation here are just a few. Infographics, Sparklines, Heatmaps, Fever chart. images may include interactive capabilities, enabling users to manipulate them or drill into the data for querying and analysis.

Information is Beautiful is a website founded by David McCandless, author of two bestselling infographics books, Information is Beautiful is dedicated to helping you make clearer, more informed decisions about the world. All the visualisations are based on facts & data: constantly updated, revised & revisioned.

 

 

Anarchy and Agency. (Instrumentalism)

I want to begin my introduction into agency by talking first about Structure and Agency. In the social sciences, there is an age-old debate about the primacy of structure and agency and how this defines our human behaviour. Social scientist Emile Durkheim argues that society is shaped by structure, society is made of different structures and these structures all have a different function. Within these structures are social institutions that guide our lives, these institutions are the police, the government, the media, schools and colleges. These are the frameworks that power is exercised and when we follow these institutions we give up our agency.  Within the framework of institutions are social facts, these are things such as laws, rules and religion. Structures work together to maintain equilibrium within our society and these are known as manifest functions, for example, schools and colleges educate its students, students leave and find employment, jobs create capital which is then redistributed into the community which in turn supports the economy.  There are also other functions that are not always as obvious that work concurrent with the manifest functions, these are known as latent functions. So while our schools are educating people they are also teaching us how to socialize while at the same time they are allowing the parents to go to work which means that this structure is supporting another structure within our society. This method of viewing our world is known as macro, meaning on a large scale.

Agency, however, is the act of free will and individual choice. This, unfortunately, is still heavily influenced by structure and some theorists believe that one cannot exist without the other and that agents create structure. For example, in the French revolution, the structure of the feudal lord and peasant was replaced with the structure of modern national state and citizenship, so revolutionary agents created their own structures.

 

Fluxus Movement.

The fluxus movement was a group of artists from across the globe that were against the notion that only the authority of museums could determine the value of art. They also believed that you did not need to be educated to understand art. The movement wanted art to be available to everyone and for everyone to be able to produce art.

 

The Futurists.

The futurist movement was invented and based in Italy by the poet Marinetti. The futurist movement celebrated the mechanical age and incorporated new technologies such as trains, cars, and air-planes into their art-forms. Architecture, sculpture, literature, theatre, music, and even food were amongst their choice of medium and speed and violence were glorified along with the working class of its time. The ideas of this movement were soon utilised by artists in Britain, Japan and the U.S. and influenced Dada and German Expressionism.  Futurist_Manifesto

 

Dada  (Dadaism.)

Arising as a reaction to the first world war, Dada was an artistic and literary movement that began in Zürich, Switzerland. Influenced by the movements before it, its output was ranged and diverse, from performance art and poetry to photography, sculpture, painting and collage.

 

Anarchy.


/ˈanəki/
noun
1.
a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems.
“he must ensure public order in a country threatened with anarchy”
synonyms: lawlessness, absence of government, nihilism, mobocracy, revolution, insurrection, riot, rebellion, mutiny, disorder, disorganisation, misrule, chaos, tumult, turmoil, mayhem, pandemonium
“the country is threatened with anarchy”
2.
absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.

 

punk approach to change. instrumentalist – agency – manifesto

to be instrumental, you are an instrument of change.

the thing that causes something.

dadaism. political collages, attack societal norms. experimental, punk graphics. jamie reed. deliberately crude. steffan sagmeister. Lou reed. man ray,  picasso gurnika. far left links. protest posters. manifest a list. does it make things change. fluxists yoko ono. the futurists manifesto. linked to polotics. Joseph Beuys, conceptual artist, responsible to doing woodstock. burning man festival. performance art. vivienne westwood.  Banksy. rebel clown army, art lecturer from hallam. jeremy della,

vivienne westwood – avante garde.

 

 

Personal Interests.

I have always been interested in art and design from a young age and also a fan of movies especially the horror and zombie genre of film. I also like to read horror novels and my favourite authors are Clive Barker and Stephen King. I like the surrealist and dadaist movement of art and I am a fan of Salvador Dali. I like that there are really no rules when it comes to surrealism and the weirder and stranger something is the better it becomes. combine this with horror and you can venture into some of the darkest places of the human subconscious. Some of my favourite artwork is by people who are not in any way particularly famous but to me have the most vivid imaginations.

I also like to look at photo composites, and again I especially like the ones that are on a surreal level. I began making my own photo compositions and sometimes I bring in a dark fantasy/horror element into my work. What I like the most about this type of compositing is that you can make something that has a surreal look, feel real.

Here is some of my work so far.