Task 2... Benjamin and Mechanical Reproduction

Read the Walter Benjamin's essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'. Write a 300 word analysis of one work of Graphic Design, that you think relates to the themes of the text, and employing quotes, concepts and terminology from the text.



Walter Benjamin's essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' discusses the change that is impacted by the progression of technology and how it enables us to reproduce art. New technologies allow for mass production and widespread distribution of artworks, changing the traditional values that art once held. As technology progresses the copy gets more and more power over the original, causing it to lose value. The copy doesn't physically touch the original, but it makes it less special and depreciates it. 
The elite society once drove the interpretation of artworks produced, but as technology progressed and allowed these artworks to be cheaply reproduced, they became readily available to people of other classes, allowing members of the public to draw their own interpretations. 
The fact that we can all have the technology to reproduce works of art means that we can all have our own, redefining the meaning of it. Mass production allows us to redefine culture against how taste makers say it should be, allowing normal members of the public, of all classes to define their own meaning of the piece. What you do with art also changes the meaning, which challenges authority and the idea of one work having one meaning. 'In permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced'.

An example of graphic design thats meaning is changed by mechanical reproduction is the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' poster. The poster design was originally produced by the minority to control the majority, however they are now reproduced by the minority. People of all classes reproduce this poster and the original meaning gets lost. The mocking nature of these reproductions devalue the original and takes away the authority it once held. Most people that own or have seen the copies of the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' posters will not even know the true meaning of the original, having it only for aesthetic or commodity value, thus completely changing its meaning from the original. The reproduction and modification of this piece of graphic design makes it readily available to the masses in present day, thus taking away its 'it's presence in time and space' and in turn makes it lose all meaning.

Task 1... Panopticism

Choose an example of one aspect of contemporary culture that is, in your opinion, panoptic. Write an explanation of this, in approximately 200-300 words, employing key Foucauldian language, such as 'Docile Bodies' or 'self-regulation, and using not less than 5 quotes from the text 'Panopticism' in Thomas, J. (2000) 'Reading Images', NY, Palgrave McMillan.

An example of panopticism in contemporary culture could be reality television; a good example of this is Big Brother. Cameras constantly monitor the subjects inside the Big Brother house, and they have the knowledge that they have the entire nation watching their every move. This is of course going to effect the way they act. The cameras are placed, and visible all over the Big Brother house, an ‘omnipresent and omniscient power’, and serving as a reminder that the contestants are always being watched. The fact that they are being surveyed is not hidden, and even the Big Brother voice serves as a reminder that there is an upper power and governing body, controlling what they do and watching their every move. Both this voice and the cameras are 'representatives of power'.
The power that is imposed by the Big Brother body makes the housemates change how they behave and make them become 'docile bodies' who are 'self monitoring' and 'self correcting' their very actions and behaviour. The housemates are not necessarily aware that they altar their behaviour for the audience viewing, but do it on a subconscious level, acting in a way that they want to be perceived by other people. The knowledge that they are being monitored by cameras, and that there is an audience act as an ‘automatic functioning of power’. They feel that they are always on show and exposed to the outside world, creating a 'state of constant and permanent visibility', which will inevitably change their behaviour patterns and feel the effects of the Panopticon.

Cities and Film

• The city  Modernism
• The possibility of an urban sociology
• The city as a private space 
• The city in post modernism

Georg Simmel

German sociologist- Told to lecture on the role of the social life in the city, but instead reverses idea and comments on the impact the city has on the individual.

Urban sociology. How the individual can exist in a space that is built on a group contribution. 

Engulfing the human figure, being swallowed up.

Architect Louis Sullivan- Creator of the modern sky scraper, form follows function. 

Guaranty building. Influenced by the arts and crafts movement- outside very ornate. The inside is very tightly organised. Basement mechanical zone, ground floor public zone, third zone office and fourth elevator equipment and small offices.

Skyscrapers represent the upward movement of business opportunity in New York.

Manhatta  Paul Strand an Charles Scheeler (1921)

Explore the relationship between camera movement and film. The figurine city, a small cog in a larger machine. 

Charles Scheeler photography- The city being a tall mechanical presence. Industrial landscape.

Fordism: mechanised labour relations. Maximum productivity in a minimal effort. Spew out standardised low cost goods. 

Modern times Charlie Chaplin (1936)

The body being consumed by the factory environment.

Stock market crash of 1929. Factories close and unemployment goes up dramatically. Those in factories mostly effected. 

Man with a movie camera (1929)

Silent movie. Famous for its range of cinematic techniques, split screens, close ups, stills, double exposure etc. Was invented within this film. 

Flaneur

Means a stroller, longer, saunter or loafer. Charles Baudelaire describes the role of the body in the city. A person who walks the city to experience it. He is just there to observe other people actions and interactions. Walter Benjamin adopts the concept of the urban observer as an analytical tool and as a lifestyle as seen in his writings. 

Photographer as flaneur. The flaneur finds the world picturesque. The female version- flaneuse. In the time that the idea of the flaneur was emerging women were not seen alone on the street. What we think of women on the street- either a bad woman or a prostitute.

Arbus/Hopper

A woman sitting alone in a cafe. A threat? The darkness that surrounds it has a depth to it, almost like the night is clinging to her. 

Sophie Calle (1980)

Creates a photographic piece of work about the flaneurs relationship with the city (Venice). Follows people without them knowing, documenting their journey. Somewhere between stalking and a love affair.

Venice- city of a labyrinth of narrow streets- you always end up where you began. 

The detective (1980) 

She gets her mother to hire a detective to follow her. Photographic document of her existence. Set in Paris. Ultimately controlled by her- she leads him around the city.

Cindy Sherman untitled film stills (1977-80)

Stereotypical view of the woman in the city. Low angle film points, skyscrapers behind characters- being swallowed up and overshadowed by the city.

Weegee (Arthur Felig)

See the dark side of New York. Follows around the emergency services, documenting them. Instantaneous reporting- kept  a portable dark room in his car s he could develop them quickly and go straight to the press.

The Naked City (1948)

LA Noir (2011)- video game. Challenges the player to control the LA police department. The city as simultaneously in the past and the present.

Bladerunner- made in 1982 depicting the city in 2019.

Walker Evans Many are called (1938)

Uses a hidden a camera, takes unobserved photographs. Intensely private moments. The idea of people being alone and separate in the city, despite being surrounded.

Post modern city on photography. Joel Meyerowitz.

9/11 citizen journalism. The end of the flaneur? Impossible to be a detached observer. The destruction of hte twin towers is the destruction of the American dream.

Adam Beezer 2001. Mobile phone images, replaces the idea of a journalist being sent to the scene- citizen journalism.

Surveillance city. Coming together of photography, film and the street.

Critical positions on the media and popular culture

Marxism and Design Activism

Panopticism. Summed up.

Technology will liberate us