Jean Baudrillard and Hyperreality

Plato's allegory of the cave- metaphor for society.

Plato (classical Greek philosopher)

Prisoners- bottom of the cave. Children born into to same life. The cave is really dark, only shadows can be seen that are cast by sunlight seeping through and fire that keeps the cave warm. Prisoners take the shadows (are cast by the cave masters, accidentally or on purpose) to be the real world, that is what the real world is like because they don't know any different.

This reflects the media. Theres the real world, and the image world- what we take as reality.

How commodity culture and the mechanisms that surround it and capitalism create alternative realities, which make reality impossible to access. They disguise the true meaning of the world and distort our understanding of it.

Coca Cola, 1930s campaign. -turned father christmas into red and white, and western. Coca Colas copy of one of the stories of santa claus has become reality. Their is such a long line of copies and repetitions that it is hard to find the original. Baudrillard tries to get back to the origin or the real of the copy.

Study of soft drinks- Samuel McClure and Read Montague.

The unreal having an effect on the real- the image world changing the real world, even tastes and smells.
Emeerged during post-structuralism. Alongside Gilles Deleuze Roland Barthes, and more writers...

Guy Debord- theory of the spectacle. Similar to theory of hyperreality.
A society that lives around a spectacular image of life rather than a real image of life.

Karl Marx argued that commodity has a use value and an exchange value. Baudrillard argued that commodity has a use value and an exchange value, but also between the two has a sign value.

Sign value- all the various things that something connotes. How commodities make us look.

Increasingly in consumerist society advertisers try and ad sign value to objects. Sign value isn't real. A society that is more reliant on the image of things rather than the reality of things.

Simulacra and simulation (1981)

Simulacra- a copy of something that is meant to stand in or replace something. Coca cola stands in for the father christmas myth, replaces it. The simulacra makes it difficult to differentiate from the copy and the original.

When simulacra is copied to simulacra, to simulacra it is hyperreal. The copy is not produced from something real anymore. Copies are copied from copies. Reality is produced from simulacra.

Walt Disney, when doing the drawings for sleeping beauty's castle (logo) from a castle in Prague. I real place, made drawings of this (simulacra). In Disneyland, an actual built version (hyperreal). People visit the castle because it was the inspiration for Disney. The copy is influencing the real world, something that is thousands of years old is visited due to a copy that is much younger.

German christmas markets in England. Light hearted version of Frankfurt, a bit sillier, cliches- a simulacra of the original. They get more popular and spread, copies are made. Birmingham market is three times the size of the one in Frankfurt. The original is lost, turns into an English Christmas tradition. We think we know what a German market is like, but in fact the reality is lost. It is impossible to access the origin and reality of things.

New York city. Is the Manhattan skyline only romantic because we see that it is in films? The feeling of romance is hyperreality. All films are simulacra- copies of what is real.

Ribena. Artificial flavour that we have excepted as blackcurrant when in fact it tastes nothing like it.

We'd rather stare at the wall of Plato's cave rather than face reality. It's depressing.

The Gaze


'Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at' (Berger 1972)

Our society is one giant panopticon around women. Women are there for aesthetic value and men cause change in the world.

Hans Memling- 'Vanity' (1485)

Our gaze is never challenged, so we are allowed to look without anyone ever knowing that you are looking.
When the gaze is not returned it allows the person to be objectified.
All art at this time was made by men. Men also only bought art. Art and visual culture is and always has been dominated by men.

The gaze is about power- a male fantasy of domination over women. A reminder to men that they should be dominating. A fiction, a fantasy- not fact.

Alexandre Cabanel 'Birth of Venus' 1863

Manet 'Olympia' 1863

Birth of Venus doesnt return the gaze, but in a flirty way. Olympia returns the gaze, but in a challenging way. In a dominant position, more guarded body language.
Olympia is reality, she is a prostitute. Birth of Venus is considered art. Being forced to confront that the Birth of Venus image of a woman doesn't exist, you have to pay for it and you will always be challenged. Being confronted with the reality of sexual relationships.

Pornography is not just about sex, its about male dominance. Women are always submissive. The viewer being in control.

Marxist analysis- Men run society and superstructural forms will reflect that and legitimise it.

These images allow more images to be created- they lead to things like wonderbra, women in modern advertising.

Society is a giant panopticon- constant reminders that you have to dress, act, look a certain way- the gaze of an entire culture onto you as an individual woman.

Essay Proposal

How are race and identity constructed and perceived in Benetton advertisements?

• In this essay I am going to address how race and identity are communicated in the media, using Benetton advertisements in particular as a case study
• I will address particular advertisements made by Benetton and talk about how the viewer receives the image and what Benetton meant to achieve by displaying ethic diversity in their ads.
• I am going to address how using race as a focal point in their advertisements arises the issues of commodity culture, using race to sell mundane products.
• I am going to discuss different opinions on the add, whether they should be seen in a positive or negative light.
• I will briefly touch on race and ethnicity in the media in a broader sense and how it reflects on Benetton.
• I am going to research into various different theorists that discuss race and ethnicity used in the media and compare their views to come to a conclusion.

Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2001) Practices of Looking, New York, Oxford University press

Osborne, P. and Sandford, S. (eds) (2002) Philosophies of Race and Ethnicity,London, Continuum

Donald, J. and Rattansi, A. (eds) (2005) ‘Race’, Culture & Difference, London, Sage publications

Salvemini, L. (2002) United Colours, The Benetton Campaigns, London, Scriptum Editions

Alcoff, L. (1996)’Philosophy and Racial Identity’ in Osborne, P. and Sandford, S. (eds)Philosophies of Race and Ethnicity, London, Continuum

Jean Baudrillard and Postmodernism

Jean Baudrillard's theory of hyperreality.

To foreground Baudrillard's position, by how it develops out of a Marxist critique of Capitalism;
To examine how Baudrillard's analysis of advertising led him to argue that consumer's engagements with commodities had begun to function with language.

Identity

Historical concepts of identity
Foucault's 'discourse' methodology
Zygmunt Bauman
Identity today in the digital domain

Theories of identity


ESSENTIALISM- our biological make-up, what makes us who we are. We all have an inner essence that makes us what we are.
POST MODERN THEORISTS DISAGREE

Physiognomy
Phrenology
Cesare Lombroso (1835- 1909)- founder of positivist criminology.
Different parts of the brain formulate the way you are- if you have a large part of the brain the other part will be lacking, giving you an unbalanced personality
Criminal tendencies are inherited.
Legitimises racism?

DOMESTIC
ASPIRING
SELF PERFECTING
MORAL
REFLECTIVE
PERCEPTIVES
ANIMAL

Physiognomy legitimising racism


Suggests English, German are superior. Nazism.

Hieronymous Bosch- Christ carrying the cross. 1515


Chris Ofili- Holy Virgin Mary. 1996
As a black woman, exaggerates African features. Caused an uproar at the thought that the virgin Mary was black.

Historical phases of identity


Pre modern identity- Personal identity is stable, defined by long standing roles- what your father did?
Modern identity- Modern societies begin to offer a wider range of social roles. Possible to start choosing your identity- people start worrying abot self identity
Post-modern identity- Accepts a fragmented self.

Pre-Modern Identity


Institutions determined identity. Patriarchal, marriage, the church, monarchy, government.

'secure identities'

Farm-worker
soldier
factory worker
housewife
gentlemen
wife-husband

19th and early 20th centuries

Charles Baudelaire- The painter of modern life
Thorstein Veblen- Theory of the leisure class
Georg Simmel- The metropolis and mental life

Baudelaire introduces the concept of the flaneur-gentleman stroller- leaves no room for women, only men.
Veblen 'conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentlemen of leisure.
Simmel- 'trickle down theory' What the fashion system today is based around. Walking around Paris looking good- showing something to aspire to, what differentiates them from the rest of society. The lower classes try to emulate what the higher classes are wearing.
Fashion cycle of new seasons- working class try to copy, higher class don't want to be related to lower classes.

Edvard Munch, Evening on Karl Johan, 1892

Simmel suggests that because how quickly things change people become less concerned about whats going on around them and more concerned with themselves.

Discourse analysis

Class
Nationality
Race/ ethnicity, gender and sexuality- otherness

Class, people move to cities and start working in factories, emergence of working class. You have to be aware of other classes to realise your own. If you are in the upper class, you want to maintain it.

Humphrey Spender/ Mass Observation, Worktown project, 1937

Idea of social inequalities at work.
Image of people at the theatre, suggests working class are uncultured- only five people of the industrial north go to the theatre.

Martin Parr, New Brighton, Merseyside, from the last resort. 1983-86

Documents lives as he sees it. Romanticises life. Looking down on other peoples lives?  Condescending nature.

Martin Parr, Ascot, 2003

Trying to fit into a class you don't belong. People wearing things they think are glamorous. Roles they don't belong to.

Martin Parr, Sedlescomebe, Think of Ebgland, 2000-2003
Martin PArr, Think of Germany

Notions of nationality- alexander McQueen- Highland Rape collection. autumn/ winter 1995/-6

Rape of Scotland by the English. Is this is an odd way to make a statement about national identity.

Vivienne Westwood. Anglomania collection, autumn/ winter 1993- 4
About Englishness- using tartan- taunt at the Scottish. Insulting to use it as a symbol of Englishness.

Las Vegas- New York, Paris, Egypt- all these identities in one place. Why would you need to go anywhere if all these identities have been contained in one place?

Race/Ethnicity

Chris Ofili, No woman no cry 1998

Black teenager- Steven Lawrence killed, got off on a loop hole in the law. Victims face in the tears.

Captain Shit and the legend of the Black Stars, 1994

No black superheroes. What would they be called, how would they be perceived by a largely white audience.

'Shithead'

Is he devaluating his own identity instead of making a statement?

Gillian Wearing, Signs that say what you want the to say and not say what someone else wants you to say 1992- 3

Alexander McQueen, its a jungle out there, autumn/ winter 1997-8
Commenting that there isn't much room for black models in fashion.

Gender/ Sexuality


The fashion industry is not the work of women, but of men.
Secret hatred of women by forcing them into exaggerated, ridiculous, hideous clothes.
Mass assumption that male fashion designers are homosexuals and have a secret hatred for women.

Masquerade and the mask of femininity.
Cindy Sherman, untitled film stills, 1977-80
Scenarios that women get put in in film. Women are in film just to look beautiful and be objectified by men.

Women have to differentiate themselves as female artists and create art that comments on gender.
If your a female artist and your photographing a woman are you objectifying women just like men? Most female artists photograph themselves.

Is it more acceptable because a woman has created it?

Wonderbra- domeaning to women or empowering to women? Societies view of what a beautiful woman is.

The postmodern condition: Liquid modernity and liquid lov.

Identity is constructed through your social experience.
Erving Goffman- saw life as 'theatre'.

Zygmunt Bauman Identity is revealed to us identity is something to be inverted not changed.

Introspection, people scan their phones to check that they still exist, that someone cares.

Postmodern identity: I think therefore I am.

Barbara Kruger, I shop therefore I am, 1987- defining yourself by what buy or own.

Online adultery and cyberspace sex: BBC 2 documentary.

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.