Semiotics is the study of cultural sign processes, analogy, metaphor, signification and communication through signs and symbols. Semiotics is related to the field of linguistics, which studies the structure and meaning of language more specifically. Connotation and denotation are described in terms of representation or levels of meaning. Denotation is linked to signification, a sign that consists of a signifier and a signified. Connotation uses signification as well in a different way. It uses the denotative sign as it's signifier and adds an additional signified. So a denotative meaning leads to a connotative meaning. The normative meaning or sign is the most basic structure of the form. All these perceptions are subject to change based on particular human or cultural perspectives.
Week 2 - Sydney Design 2011
Love lace
The Love Lace exhibition contained some very interesting and creative designs. It had everything from an old truck that had a lace pattern cut out of it to a female uterus made from human hair. The exhibition was a great example of how things can be interpreted and created through different meanings such as normative, denotative and connotative meanings. Even though the title of the exhibition may suggest lace would be the primary medium it wasn't. There was a lot of different materials used to create something that mimicked lace or an interpretation of lace. Some of these materials were human hair, horse hair, paper, metal, grass, copper wire, guitar strings. The artist created contemporary twists on the idea of lace.
Materials:
Abandoned truck, hand cut with a plasma cutter using a personally adapted tool with a fine cutting head.
Artist Statement:
‘Lorrie and I met on my birthday. She was in a paddock, “put out to grass”, her red rust bleeding into the ground. To me, she belonged to the Australian landscape, with her time-pocked body and work-etched honesty. I too yearned to be absorbed into the landscape and to have the dignity with which she represented her age.
She worked in the timber industry in Oberon, New South Wales, during the 1950s and 60s. Plantation forests have tracks around stands of trees, cut into the landscape, as if tracing “the tracks of my tears” on a weathered face. I reflected on those tears in making the lacework. Cutting the steel revealed negative spaces — a destructive process. Positive forms remained as “products” of this process.
Timber harvesting is tough, leaving its mark on the people and the land, an ambiguous relationship seeming to ask: “How and what do we destroy, in order to produce?”’
A Brief History of Time
Materials:
Installation: hand-cut archival paper, office paper.
Artist Statement:
'This installation uses the text of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species(with all its implications of evolutionary history, origin, variation and succession) as a platform from which to create an immense paper garden.
Cutting, folding and layering the paper evokes the wonder of the natural world in all its fragility and endurance. In conjunction, the deliberate use of light plays positive against negative, light against shadow and past against present.
Beneath the garden the uncompromising weight of paper, like a fossil history, sits as a record of all that has gone before. Into this history we are only able to look just so far as the garden reveals and withholds its secrets and like an elaborate piece of lace with its rhythmic interplay of light, space, shadow and repeated motifs, juxtaposes intricate detail against the void that conceals it.’
Week 3Lidewij Edelkoort
Lidewij has pioneered trend forecasting as a profession. She will announce the concepts, colours and materials which will be in fashion two or three years ahead of time. Claiming there is no creation without advanced knowledge, and without design, a product cannot exist. Lidewij and her team work with clients which are creative professionals in interpreting the evolution of society and the signs of consumer taste in the future without forgetting economic reality.
Cognitive Dissonance: The state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, esp. asrelating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.
Eye Magazine - Cognitive Dissonance
With so much publicity these days it is difficult to experience cultural events without preconceptions. For example if we see an exhibition or film we will at least have some idea what it will be about through reviews, interviews or promotional copy. This on one hand does save up time and money but we will never be caught unaware or surprised by something.
Advertising and design can be the source of cognitive dissonance, so they cause affect how people think and act. There is the idea that 'Globalisation can only work where tastes can be globalised, where we're ready to accept less difference, less variety." So we do have toe power to stop it but it is whether we choose to act or not determines if it continues.
Week 4
Product or objects are more than just forms or objects but are created to communicate something, they have meaning. If an object is meaningful to someone they will keep that product so design is about sustainability.
The Bauhaus strove to create things that did not have meaning, this was a failure as this is not possible.
The meaning of something is constantly changing. Postmodernism is about poking fun at modernism. These objects have meaning in context.
Bauhaus is still considered the driving force of modern design.
Kenya Hara "Designing design".
Barbra Cruger, graphic designer. Making artworks about consumerism.
Jenny holzer, couldn’t draw or paint and had all these ideas but didn’t know how to portray these ideas. Lukily was living in a period where multimedia was acceptable so she was able to create works using ideas.
Big bang theory, surprising that we are now having tv shows about nerds, ‘technology will make or break us.’ Nerds are taking over and we are at the hand of technology, if we are not connected to technology then we will not survive. Technology is power now.
Marshel Mcluhan ‘The medium is the message’.
Design Writing
Misfit by Hella Jongerius
Jongerius revives the idealism of the arts and crafts movement, which followed the industrial revolution. She believes in the dignity of the craftsperson and tries to introduce a personal element to the industrially manufactured project. Her strong opinions (like Li Edelkoort) influence designers today. She likes to work with firms who have handcrafted elements to their production process. (This is her reaction to the current perception of “commodity fetishism”. “The value of handicrafts lies primarily in the impossibility of producing perfect products. The function of design for Jongerius is not just about use. The function of design lies mainly in it’s communicative strength in the story that goes beyond basic functionality and is at times at odds with it.
Week 5 - Communication Theories & Social Theories
Proposition: We construct our reality in our communicating
The simplest communication model is the ‘Transition Model’ based on early telegraph technology, ie the sending and receiving messages or transferring information from one mind to another.
Narrative theory
Humans are storytelling people; storytelling is the most basic of human activities. The narrative is a paradigm for human communication. It is an organising framework for communication and analysis. It works as a way of explaining how people symbolically transact who they are.
Stories construct our ideas of reality, children’s stories create this idea that to be happy you need to find your true love, for that person to love you have to be ‘good’. Good vs evil is part of these stories, in these stories good will overcome evil. They create this unrealistic reality. Victims are people who exude this characteristic of naivety. Children are very impressionable and if they do not have someone who is protecting them, they will be easily taken advantage of because they only have the fairy-tale view of the world.
Photography during the war brought the terrors of war back home. It helped civilians who have no idea get an understanding that words could not express. Volunteers world enlist to go over to war to be part of ‘an adventure of a lifetime’. The photographers during the war were part of the war, they would go in with the soldiers to get an inside view of what was going on. Giving great detail of what war was all about. Charles Beaton, a war photographer, would become invisible so that he could capture the moments. Australian soldiers were natural soldiers. The first world war forced Australia to grow up, maybe too fast.
World war two.
Cold war, fighting against the communists.
Stuart mMcgatzy, Vietnam. He would be on the choppers be the first off so he could capture the men. He had to be in the action. After the photographs, went into the action. Had a bullet proof feeling that nothing would happen to him.
Kate Gerit, had never been to a war zone before. Terrible conditions, no running water, no sanitation. Went into horrible places, torture chambers, prisons. Believes people back home need to see what they are seeing in the war zones.
In the 50’s and 60’s a perfect world was portrayed through images and politions.
Mid 60’s cusp of change, conscription, aboriginal rights. Mixing everything up disregarding rules.
A single photo, Rick Stevens, captured the adulation people had towards going with them. People looked up to him, he promised change.
Russel Mcgothem, capture the scandal.
Jack Mundy, fought against the idea of developing Sydney so much that there is no more nature or history.
Photographers capture the moments such as natural disasters. Disasters such as drought in farming regions is brought back to the city through photographs. Natural desasters such as cyclone tracy was able to be shown to people living in other parts of Australia.
Dingo took my baby, the narrative was taken by the media, the mystery was taken as being very important and interesting. The public would create their own conclutions. Rumors circulated. The story was taken by the public and media and opinons were swayed.
There are many communication theories some of these are:
1. cognitive dissonance theory, we don’t willingly ‘read’ a message that contradicts our strongly held beleifs.
2. Attribution theory, do we attribute the cause of certain events to internal or external influences.
3. Rhetoric, a theory that supports the idea that we construct our reality with communication, “this is how it is”
4. Social cognitive theory, social learning, narratives indented to teach eg. Discouraging teen smoking.
Social theory
Karl Marx
(William Morris)
Socialist. Created by Industrial revolution. Society was divided by bourgeoisie and proletariat.
Bourgeoisie controls the means of production.
Proletariat are engaged in production for wages.
Society has a substructure (economic/ modes of production) economic conditions underpin the society such as capitalism or communism. It is also underpinned by the class structure.
The superstructure includes non-economic factors such as religion, politics, art and literature.
The idea that you could be easily replaced is alienating. We need critical thinking about society, how it is controlled, developed. Relentless criticism.
Institute for social research, critical theory was creating, critical analysis to society,
The Frankfurt School
1923 – grew out of Marxist ideology. Committed to the critical analysis of societies current state as well as to the development of alternatives, which might enable humans to transcend their unhappy situation through critical thought and action. The opposite to critical thinking is to think that there is nothing you can do or nothing can be done to change something.
Political theory should be protected from the contaminations of commercial culture. More a morel force working towards human emancipation.
Meta theory- the big theory, the underling idea about reality that structure and drive theories , structure and guide scholarship.
Week 6
Meta Design
Overarching theme in design discourse today is what is design?
New definitions.
Paolo Antonelli says designers will be the intellectuals of future.
OBJECTIFIED
When you see an object you make an assumption straight away. Every object whether intentional or not communicates and says something.
Industrial design is about mass production.
Best examples of industrial design is things people do not think are designed, ie the postet note. Every decision was make about an object and how it is made looks, how it works at some point.
Every object tells a story if you know how to read it.
Understand people and what there needs are is what designers think. They will take care of the extremes ie people with arthritis, disabled design product they can use and middle average people will be taken care of.
Lots of thought has been put into the design of everyday objects to make them easier to use and work better.
Desiner thinks to many things are being designed without thought and uninspiring designs are being brought into the market. Not only consumer design but architecture and advertising.
Apple had a significant design they have a signature look. Being a designer you look at something and say why does that look like that why is it like that?
You look at products now once they are designed you say how can it be done anyother way? The design solution seems so obviouse after.
With Apple designing there product often means designing a process. They have to think what is needed and only what needs to be included and essential.
The forms don't relate to the form of the object, form follows function.
Dyson, created in a functional way, function is the highest objective.
Design is a search for form.
Designers understand what people want even more than they do.
The hardest part of designing is getting that first model and removing everything that is unessisary, anything that is not needed and create something with max quality.
Mark Newson
A very successful Australian designer.
Designers are all about the future. Not to use things that already exist but to look forward and create new ways of doing things. Products that will test the test of time.
Something that is well designed shouldn’t be more expensive. In the future things will be marketed in terms of design.
Elitism and design are merged.
Target started off the pop cultural thinking of design. Everyone wants good design and good taste, target brought this to people in an easy way for people to get. They want more stuff and they want people to buy it so they had to design prduct with great design. We always want fresh design something looking new.
Design things that get better with use.
Bill moggerive
First person to create the laptop.
He found when creating his first laptop he found that when he first used it he forgot about the physical design and was more interested with the digital design and the relation ship between him and the software. So to create this latop properly he had to understand the software and how to create the perfect experience.
Sustainability is very important right now in design.
Designers are designing for the 10% that already have an overload of stuff and don’t need more stuff. And not designing for the 90% that don’t have enough.
Most design will eventually end up on the edge of the road in the trash.
Why do things have to be built to be permanent?
Previously peole didn’t worry about what happened with their designs they didn’t consider the cradle to grave concept. Now we think about what will happen to this once it is no longer needed or when it is replced?
Toothbrushes create a giant amount of land fill, do we need to throw them out constantly or can we design they so that there is minimal wastage.
Design thinking is about being innovative. It’s about creating mind maps and reaching a point you didn’t think you cold get to create new ideas.
Design is about improving products we have today. Improving lives through their designs.
When you walk into a show room ie ikea you imagine the product in your home. So these guys create prototypes that you can imagine using and make you think about how you are using products. Questioning the identity of products. Designing to inspire ideas. Interested in mass communication rather than mass production.
Sustainability – cradle to cradle, what does this mean? What can it mean for the future?
Good design is making things understandable. (Dieter Rams)
“Good design feels undesigned” so intuitive we are not aware of it. (apple designs)
Digital products have become so ubicquitous we now refer to a chair as analogue.
Dysons vacuum cleaner is designed to be self explanatory, the design/ effectiveness influences behaviour.
The means of production will increasingly be in the hands of everyone and we are already familiar with the idea of “hacking” which has extended it’s meaning from hacking “code” to altering the objects in our lives
The increasing democratisation of design. Why does ‘designer object’ mean out of reach of all people.
Cultural difference, Italy has a tradition of good design in everyday products
Week 7
Meta theory: the underlying beliefs about reality, knowledge and values that structure and guide scholarship.
Cultural Studies: multifaceted intellectual area that explores the ideological interconnections among media, politics, economy and practices of individuals in a cultural system.
It attempts to think about the mass media as elements in a whole way of life, a complex unity held together by culture, by the production and reproduction of systems and symbols and messages.
Culture is the weaving of values and beliefs that undergird and particular society and group.
Week 8
Joseph Campbell
A hero with a thousand faces.
With in all cultures stories and books all contain this hero or heroin. This is someone who is doing something bigger than themselves or something not for themselves.
What has happened to roles models in contemporary films? Is the model the same or just slightly modified?
I think the part of the role model in films has only slightly changed. The hero is changing as culture changes the priorities of the hero are changing. The basic nature that they go through adversity and them come out with a lesson learnt is the same. The characters evolve with time.
The Challenger disaster was a communication disaster. The engineers could not communicate to the management.
What is cultural literacy?
Cultural literacy is all about different stories we have in cultures. We build on the past. So the culture of a community and being able to read a culture and function with in a culture.
A The narrative in the form of myth is interpreted through symbols and themes. (Department, fulfilment and return) the themes include:
1 Facing the dragon.
2 Destroying the dragon.
3 Conquering temptation.
4 Denying the dark side.
5 Discovering him through the heroin journey.
These are role models.
B Rhetoric a three part structure. A picture, a headline and text organised on a central axis. Designed to sell an agenda, an idea or product.
C Will your storyboard be a combination of both? Or one or the other?
Week 9
Adbusters
Based in Vancouver, Canada. Adbusters is a non-for-profit magazine, supported by the readers. It is a magazine that is concerned about the erosion of our physical and cultural environment by commercial forces. Abusters offers philosophical articles as well as commentary by activists from all over the world commenting on issues like genetically modified food to media concentration. They try to motivate people to change from spectators to participators.
Week 12
Week 12
A new meme for the Zietgiest. Meme – a self-replicating idea, comes from the word gene.
Occupy wall street, a struggle against an aleatest power. Global financial crisis caused by people taking huge risks. Social media is helping bringing these issues to light and become public knowledge. People can studying 5 years as a lawyer but no ethics class. Living in a world of their own and do not care of people as a whole only caring for themselves and focused on money.
This last image is a fantastic visual metaphor of this campaign. The precession and delicateness of the dancer is illustrated as over powering the famous wall street bull. The bull has raw power, strength and uncontrolled anger. Where as the dancer has strength, power and control which is stunning.
