Essay hand in

I handed in my essay yesterday, what a relief to get it out of the way! As I have said before, essay writing is not my strongest subject, and although I have put a lot of hard work into writing it, I am a little worried about what grade I am going to get for it. 

I also got feedback and my grade for my presentation this week. I got 61%, which doesn't sound all that good if you think of it as only a little over 50%, but as Gill said, marking boundaries at degree level are a bit different to usual grades.  For example a pass is 40% upwards and anything between 40-49% is a 3rd is classed as 'satisfactory', between 50-59% is a 2:2 and is classed as 'good', between 60-69% is a 2:1 and classed as 'very good', and between 70-100% is a 1st and classed as 'excellent'. So 61% is very good, which I am happy with. But the overall grade for this module will depend on the mark for my essay too. The overall grade will be split 50/50 between the essay and presentation. Fingers crossed, the essay grade won't be too low! 

Critical and contextual presentation

Some of us gave our presentations today, including myself. I think is went quite well, but I am not expecting an amazing mark for it. I decided not to use notes, as Gill had recommended, instead I used the text and pictures on slide to prompt me, which hopefully made me interact with the audience more and made my presentation more engaging.

Next week there will be more presentation from the rest of the group, and then we have the Easter break, so we will have to wait until the following week until we get given feedback and our marks for the presentation. In the meantime I really now need to start writing my essay, as it is due to be handed in on 19th April. A month sounds like a long time, but my family and I are off to Corfu for a week during the holidays which will cut into it a bit, I hope I don't procrastinate too much! I am really not look forward to writing this essay, I think that essay writing is probably me weakest subject and I am worried that it will drag down my overall grade for the whole year.

Critical & contextual presentation preparation

Next wednesday we have to present to the class our findings from our research for our chosen essay question, focusing on one or two particular artists of designers to use as an example. My problem is that during my research on 'How is the role of the designer different to the role of the artist' I keep being directed towards ideas that would work better with another essay question that we have been offered to use: 'Is fashion an art? Why has it been increasingly viewed as such in the postmodern art world?'. So it was helpful to get some feedback from Gill today, she said that although I have already submitted my synopsis for the artist/designer question, I could still change the essay question at this point.

I now face the prospect of researching and creating a powerpoint presentation on the new essay in under a week (along with all the rest of my work!). Luckily, like I mentioned before my original research has turned up a number of articles that relate to the 'is fashion an art? question. I just need to relate it to the postmodern art world in some way. I have a number of designers in mind to base the presentation on, including Elsa Schiaparelli, Hussein Chayalan, Vivian Westwood and Alexander McQueen, but will narrow it down to one after some further research.

Art and aesthetics in fashion society

Fashion and art seem closer together than at anytime before. The arguments against fashion as an art is that the fashion industry is inseparable from commerce, and in contrast, art is a principle ruled by a non-commercial spirit.

Of course fashion is commercial, especially at the lower end of the scale. It is not about creating something beautiful, money no-object, but about sales and profits. But has the art world not become commercialised too? Art licensing has become a multi million pound industry, if you walk into a museum gift shop, how many products or gifts can you buy featuring a reproduction of your favourite piece from the latest exhibition?

Andy Warhol Mug

In contrast, what is the difference between one of Alexander McQueen's 2007 'Real Flower Dress' and Damien Hirst's use of live butterflies in his exhibition at the Tate Modern last year, titled: 'In and Out of Love'?

An English country garden-style dress, 

made entirely of fresh flowers, 

from the Alexander McQueen S/S '07 collection.

 Butterflies feasting on fruit 

as part of Damien Hirst's work 'In and Out of Love'. 

Fashion has increasingly become the focus of many museum exhibitions in recent years. In may 2012, the Met's exhibition 'Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations' even focused directly on the argument of 'Is fashion art?' between the two fashion designers.

The 'Schiaparelli And Prada: Impossible Conversations' 

at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

PDP and Critical & Contextual Research - Module review

So far I think I am managing to demonstrate my awareness of a wide range of social, political, environmental and aesthetic contexts within art and design in this blog, through my written and visual research, and my reflections on our weekly lectures.

Although I attend all of the lectures and studio sessions, unless I am ill of course, I do struggle to keep my blog up to date on a weekly basis. Which means I end up with a bit of a back log that I have to wade through all in one go. At this point in time, there are a few responses to my lectures that I haven't done yet, which I will aim to do over the semester break. My I tend to put off my journalling, especially when I have a hand in for another module coming up, as that take priority. I need to find a way to keep myself up to date, maybe I should allocate a couple of days a week that I must update my blog?

We also have to write a synopsis of our essay over the semester break. I have decided to opt for the essay question: "How is the role of the designer different to the role of the artist?". I have chose this question as it has been a talking point within our seminar sessions with Gill, and there have been some interesting points raised which I would like to explore.

Art must hang! Must art hang?

This lecture discussed the way that artists and curators display art, and how displaying art has changed over history from the first cave paintings on a vertical wall, to the walls of a museum gallery, to temporary works of art outside in the open air.

It was interesting to learn about the role of a curator. Funnily enough, the word curator was first used in english to describe people in charge of a lunatic asylum! Today we understand the word 'curator' describes the role of a person who decides how to display collections in museums and galleries. Actually, if you think about it, a curator is a kind of artist - how they decide to display work will give meaning.

I was reminded of the artist Peter Blake and an exhibition, featuring his collections of objects from childhood, I saw at the Holborne Museum in Bath in 2011, called 'A Museum for Myself'. He uses the method of curation in his work as an artist.

Elvis Shrine No.1, Peter Blake, 2001

It is also interesting to look at the role of curation in fashion. The way clothes are displayed for the consumer in high street shops are entirely different from the way that displayed in high end designer stores.

a customers photo of the inside of a Primark Store 

 the inside of the Prada store in Paris

Art and Politics

Modern art alined itself with socialism. at the time, socialism was thought to be a higher form of capitalism where an individual could better themselves, leaving behind our animal existance and freedom. Art and socialism lived together and shared the struggle. The revolutionary avant-gardes wanted to bring art and life together, but to Trotsky (a russian marxist) that would be to lose a political weapon. Art was not just about politics but art could transform the viewer from being passive to being a producer of meaning.

'Am I not a man and a brother' 

Josiah Wedgewood Medallion

Via here

This reminded me of something my dad told me about recently. In the eighteenth century Josiah Wedgewood designed and manufactured a ceramic medallion to spread the politic message to abolish slavery and to encourage people to share their ideals with others. It depicted a shackled slave on his knees, inscribed with "Am I not a man and a brother" and on the reverse " Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them".

The medallions were very popular during the period and they actually became a real fashion statement. Ladies would have the medallion mounted into a bracelet or wore them as hat pins and pendants. The image was also printed on plates and boxes and other pieces. It seems a little unexpected that something quite so frivolous as jewellery could carry such an important political message. But Wedgewood had the foresight to use fashion to promote the cause of abolishing slavery and creating equal rights for enslaved people, in the same way as art is used to highlight political messages. (source)

Photography and Painting

Yesterday we had a lecture titled 'An odd relationship: Photography, painting, the problem of originality and the life and death of mediums.' I found it quite difficult to follow, but I got some small bits of knowledge from it:

The invention of photography changed the purpose of paintings. Painters began to move away from recording in a realistic style, and became more self expressive. Then photography became not just a method of recording things, but an art form with focus on composition of the image. e.g. light and shade, shapes, conceptuality and artists style. So photography influence painters at the time, but painting also inspired the way photography was used.

Also, with the invention of photography came the problem of originality, because although an original painting can be reproduced as a print, it cannot be reproduced as an exact copy in its painted form. Whereas a photograph can be reproduced as an exact copy again and again from the original negative. 

Fashion & Modernity

Charles Pierre Baudelaire is credited with coining the term "modernity" (modernité) to describe the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban setting, and the responsibility art has to capture that experience.  Fashion is therefore an excellent way to track the progress of modernity in our society - Modernity is a code and fashion is its emblem. Looking back at the fashion of a particular modern era, we can see the political and social values of the time.

For example, the 1920s was the age of modern travel. New inventions such as the automobile, motorcycles and the aeroplane influenced the fashion at the time. Elsa Schiaparelli designed flying clothes for women. We also associate the 1920s with the 'flapper' dress, a loose, drop waisted, short dress, named after the young liberated woman who wore the style. The constraints held over women in the Victorian era were disappearing, now they smoked and drank and wore their hair in a very short style, blurring the once strong line between femininity and masculinity.

1920s advertising poster

The question is which fashion designers would we think as 'modern' today? I think it would be designers that are using hi-tech, cutting edge technology. Mary Katrantzou is famous for using digital print in her designs, and Hussein Chayalan is always ahead of the game with his LED and convertible dresses.

Mary Katrantzou  S/S '13

Hussein Chayalan, LED Dress

The Avant Garde

The revolutionary avant-garde art movements of the early 20th Century were: Dadaism, Surrealism, Futurism and Constructivism. Although they celebrated different ideas, they all had similar ways of working and had the same political aim - to destroy autonomous art, so it could become part of everyday life again. Artists moved into design in order to bring art to the masses. They turned their hand to fashion & textile design, graphic design and product design. They also collaborated with designers of the period, for example, Salvador Dali worked in collaboration with the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli on many pieces. Sonia Delaunay, Stepanova and Popova were all female avant-garde artists-turned prolific print & fashion designers of the period.

  Beachwear,  Sonia Delaunay, 1927

      Textile Design, Stepanova, 1924        

                   

Dress, Popova, 1924

'Avant-garde' was originally a french military term meaning 'advanced guard', referring to a troupe of highly skilled and specialised soldiers, sent out to scout and survey a field before the whole army advanced. So the term was used to describe the above art movements, owing to their forward thinking, experimental and extreme ways of exploring art.

Some fashion designers that I might describe as avant-garde today would be: Alexander McQueen, Gareth Pugh, Jean Paul Gaultier, Viktor & Rolf and Thiery Mugler. For me, their iconic 'avante-garde' pieces are something that the average woman of today would generally not wear. Mainly due to their impractical shapes and revealing parts of the body that is normally perceived and inappropriate even in  today's western society. Although the work of the original avant-garde designers look quite wearable by today' standards, during the period that they were designed, they must have been exciting, daring and revolutionary. The loose fitting, drop waisted dresses in bright geometric prints would have been a shocking contrast to the tight waisted corsets and full skirts of the Victorian era, and the new beachwear showed a lot more flesh than Victorian fashion ever permitted. Which begs the question - will we find today's avant-garde fashions wearable in 80 years time?

Gareth Pugh, A/W, '11-'12

  Thiery Mugler, 1995

The Skill of the Maker

Before the age of the machine, everything had to be made by hand. From the woman at home weaving yarn to clothe her family, to the artisans making furniture to sell for their livelihood. The Victorians changed all this with the rise of the industrial revelation and mass production. In a reaction against the industrialisation, William Morris founded the Arts and Crafts movement, his aim: to return to the pre-industrial crafts. He wanted the public to re-embrace the importance of simple, but well made things; produced by small guilds.

During and after WW2, most things where handmade, as it was more economical for clothes and soft furnishings to be made at home, than bought in the shops. In contrast, today it is more expensive and time consuming to buy fabric and yarn and make our own clothes, than it is to purchase it in shops. So the skills that women and girls learnt in the past, have slowly been lost for todays generation. 

That said, in times of crisis, people turn to nostalgia, and since the credit crunch of 2008 the popularity for buying hand-made and 'making your own' has soared. Like William Morris rebelled against the mass production of the Victorian era, many people today are putting more value on hand-made products, than mass produced goods. Today the term 'Hand-made' or 'Artisan' can be used as a marketing tool, it has connotations of integrity, uniqueness, and quality. Buying hand-made is not a necessity anymore, in fact sometimes it is a luxury; and making your own is not a necessarily a cheaper way to live, it is more a lifestyle choice for people who want to opt out of buying mass produced goods.

Making by hand may seem out of date in today's digital age of CAD CAM and 3D printing - I do understand the importance of embracing new technologies and methods of manufacture - but as someone who feels compelled to make things all the time, I feel that the art of hand-making things is skill that should be passed on through each generation. There may be a time in the not so distance future when we can no longer rely on mass production to feed and clothe us, and so it is important to nurture those skills that help us to remain self-sufficent, should we, our children or our grandchildren need to be.  Not long ago, I read a really inspiring book that explores this subject by, the journalist, John Paul Flintoff called Sew Your Own which is definitely worth a read if this subject is something you are interested in.

Post-war Britain

The last lecture we had explored the links between art, science, natural and machine. It focused on Designers who's aim was to make art and design accessible to the people. Christopher Dresser, William Morris, Bauhaus, Joseph Paxton (Crystal Palace) and Le Courbusier all featured.

We were asked to research the Festival of Britain to further our learning, which reminded me of a   channel 4 programme The House the 50s Built , that I watched while back. Unfortunately the programme is no longer available to watch on 4OD, so I can't watch it again, but luckily there is an outline of each episode on the website to remind me. The series celebrated the science behind the inventions and innovations that transformed the way we lived and catapulted an exhausted post-war country into the modernity of 1950s Britain.

During the WWII, design and technology stood still in Britain's homes, because all the countries efforts were focused on winning the war. It was only after the war ended that we could begin to apply new scientific and technologic advances (some of which were developed for the war effort) to make the lives of the people of 1950s Britain easier, brighter and more fun.

The new developments of the science world had a direct effect on design in everyday peoples homes. Sciencists invented many different forms of plastics from the polymers found in oil including:

Formica 

image from here

Created by impregnating paper with phenolic resin and building up lots of layers and heat pressing together until set into a laminate. Formica was a colourful and hygienic worksurface for the new fitted kitchens of the '50s

Polyurethene Foam 

 image from here

The unhygienic horsehair and straw used in pre-war sofas was replaced by this clean and cheap synthetic foam. This made the stuffing for upholstery lighter, less bulky and designers could mould it into any number of shapes.

PVA  

 image from here

Pre-war furniture was carved from separate pieces of carved solid wood and joined together by experts furniture makers. But with the invention of PVA glue and a WWII technique used to develop the Mosquito fighter bomber, it was possible to glue thin sheets of wood together and mould them with press into different shapes to create iconic furniture that is still considered fashionable today.

Vinyl Paint

 image from here

PVA glue was also used to make vinyl paint, replacing the dangerously combustable linseed oil paint and toxic lead paint, that had to be mixed by hand by a professional. The new vinyl paints adhered well to walls and created a smooth wipe clean surface. Home decorating became popular as paint companies marketed this new ready mixed paint at the DIY market.

Wallpaper Paste

 image from here

Pre-war, wallpaper paste was made from flour and water, making wallpapering messy and unpredictable. But in 1953 a new synthetic wallpaper paste, marketed under the name of Polycell, was launched. Its mass production lead the rise of the 'feature wall' as people bought the new abstract wallpaper designs first showcased at the Festival of Britain in 1951.

Nylon and Polyester

image from here

Nylon was developed as a replacement for silk used in parachutes in during WWII. But come 1950, it first hit the UK shelves in the form of nylon stockings. Nylon was cheaper than the pricey and hard to come by silk, and had elastic properties that made underwear and stockings supportive yet comfortable.

In 1952 Polyester was made into a thread and used as a replacement for wool. Suit salesmen would jump into swimming pools, fully clothed, to demonstrate the amazing drip dry properties of this new wonder fibre.

Not only did the science provide materials for designers to use in their work, but they also provide new inspiration for abstract print designers such as Lucienne Day. This iconic woven jacquard from the Warner Textile Archive in Braintree is called Hemsley and was designed by Marianne Straub for the Festival of Britain (1951). The design was inspired from the atomic structure of nylon. The Warner Textile Archive have used this design as part of their new wallpaper range, which was actually used the  channel 4 programme 'The House the 1950s Built'.

image from here

Finally, with these new scientific and technological innovations, William Morris' dream of "art for the people" was now achievable. Many of Lucienne Day's fabric designs were made in long production runs, which kept the price affordable. It pleased her to think that people who could not afford to buy a painting for their living room could at least own a pair of abtract patterned curtains. She, along with many more designers of the 1950s, had made the link between mass production and fine art. 

Expectations of an Art School

What is an Art School? On a basic level, a school is obviously an establishment that provides learning and you would believe from the prefix 'art' that it would provide facilities that relate to that subject. But over the years, the methods of teaching art has changed and evolved. From the restrictive Art Academies, all the way through to the relaxed teaching environment of the 1970s.

In the 1970s, the departmental structure of Goldsmiths was abolished, meaning that students were free to attend any art class being held, and they were no longer restricted to a particular subject. My mother started her Art degree in ’74. She said that the classes had no structure to speak of other than half-termly tutorials with a lecturer. They were given set projects but their was no formal teaching as such, so although this created a relaxed atmosphere, for students to find their own creative style, none of the students really knew how well they were doing until they received their final grades. So although my mother achieved a 1st, she believes that was because she was more self-motivated than some of the other students. She also believes that grading was pretty subjective, with no strict guidelines on assessment across the board. The boundaries between student and lecturers was also less formal than they are today. Students and lecturers often socialised with each other in the pub and at parties, where they often continued to discuss art and ideas on art. I all sounds very bohemian and almost more of a sub-culture than being an art student today.

Since then, the departmental structure has been put back into place (although we do have the opportunity to attend the occasional workshops in art areas different to our own) meaning you have to commit to what area of art or design you want to study, I suppose that’s one of the reasons that you can study an Art Foundation course before you start your degree. Also lecturers today have to be much more professional than in the ‘70s. Not only is there strict assessment programmes to work to, for both students and lecturers, (to make grading fair across the board) the divide between student and teacher is very clear, probably owing to college and university safeguarding policies. Perhaps this divide is particularly defined on our course, as we are studying with FE students on our campus, and do not have a Bar on campus (which most Universities have) for HE students and lecturers to socialise in.

I understand the need for clear guidelines on assessment and I think that my course offers me more or less the right balance of structure and creative freedom. But as the only mature student in my year I do feel like I have more in common with my lecturers, and I think it would be beneficial to my 'unconscious' learning to be able to socialise with people that have the same interests in the subject that I am studying.

First Lecture

My wednesdays will now consist of a series of lectures that will eventually lead to presentations and a 2000 word essay. We will also be completing a personal planning module which aims to help us to organise our study time effectively, encourage reflective learning and to aid us in planning for our future.

Personally,  I struggle with auditory learning. So although I find lectures interesting, I find it difficult to take in and remember everything being said. But after each lecture I understand that we will be able to discuss what was said, as a group, which will hopefully help things sink in and clarify anything I am unsure of.

Our first lecture focused on how we can use a critical approach to interpreting visual images. I think the main gist of it is that an image and its meaning can be affected by three main points:

• The method/material used to produce the image 
• The composition of the image itself
• The intended audience of the image

This blog will make up 60% of my mark for our personal planning module. It should document my personal response to all aspects of my learning throughout this year, be it lectures, studio practise, workshops, presentations or independent learning.

One of the first projects we have been asked to complete is a group report/presentation on one of the four main Fashion Weeks. My group have been allocated London Fashion Week. I think it will be good to start a group project at the beginning of the course, as it will encourage us all (there is 34 in our class) to integrate with each other more than we might if we were left to our own devices.