Defining the brief

1. Research Question -  To what extent does graphic design have an active role in influencing change in society.

1b. Is it viable? What is there to research? How can we know about it? How do we study it?

- How effective environmental posters/other creative is at influencing our behaviours towards the environment in a positive way

- Surveys/questionnaires to determine the impact of the creative 

- Explore theorists who have explored this area and the effectiveness of design

- Identify existing research that has been carried out in this area

2. Defining the design problem

- Identify the techniques and methods used to produce an effective piece of graphic design 

- How have these methods changed over time

- The responsibility of the designer and whether this is taken into consideration when producing work

3. “Client” needs or requirements

- If a poster/piece of creative were to be designed for a charity then this would be a very focused outcome that outlined clear and truthful facts. This would also require and follow the charities guidelines/ethics/tone of voice

- Consideration to the audience's existing knowledge

Requirements to guide project

- Thorough research completed under chosen subject (recycling, climate change, pollution, etc)

4. Audience (Could be)

- Students

- Children under age of 16

- General public

- Households

5. Mandatory Requirements

- Effective and appropriate imagery

- Effective and appropriate use of typography

- Must include charity logo or recognition to charity (if produced for an organisation)

- Motivational yet informative language

Parody and Pastiche

Fredric Jameson 

Postmodernism ( a departure from modernism and is characterized by the self- conscious use of earlier styles and conventions)

- a desperate attempt to make sense of an age

- 'an immense dilation of [culture's] sphere, an immense & historically original accumulation of the real' 

- 'postmodernity has transformed the historical past into a series of emptied-out stylizations that can be commodified and consumed'

- recycled dead style

- technology; 'concerned with the reproduction rather than the industrial production of material goods'. Technology is removing the need for artists 
  


Pastiche (an artistic style that imitates that of another work, artist or period)

- 'parody, in the past-modern age, has been replaced with pastiche'

- 'the imitation of a peculiar or unique idiosyncratic style, speech is a dead language'

-  'the disappearance of the individual subject, along with its formal consequence the increasing unavailability of the personal style' - no one is original anymore, we all steel design and ideas from each other 

- 'pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of linguistic mask, speech is a dead language.' 


Parody (Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism: Parody and History)

- ' I want to argue that postmodernism is a fundamentally, contradictory enterprise: its art form and theory use and abuse, install and then subvert convention in parodic ways, self-consciously pointing both to their own inherent paradoxes and provisionality and, of course, to their critical and ironic re-reading of the art of the past.'

- 'postmodernist art offers a new model for mapping the borderline between art and the world' 

- 'postmodernist forms want to work toward a public discourse that would overtly eschew modernist aestheticism and hermeticism and their attendant political self marginalization.' 

- ' The past as referent is not bracketed or effaced, as Jameson would like to believe: it is incorporated and modified, giving new and different life and meaning.'


Postmodernism - a departure from modernism is characterized by the self- conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, is described by Jameson (1991) as a 'desperate attempt to make sense of an age'. He states that postmodernity has 'transformed the historical past into a series of emptied out stylizations that can be commodified and consumed'. This is contradicted by L Hutcheon (1986) who wrote that 'modernist art offers a new model for mapping the borderline between art and the world'. (L, Hutcheon 1986) Breaking this down, Jameson sees the change as a negative, the increasing use and idealisation of technology is seen as removing the need for artists and designers as well as postmodernism being a 'desperate attempt to understand the age'. On the other hand Hutcheon argues that 'the past' is 'incorporated and modified, giving new and different life and meaning' as well as postmodernism being a 'fundamentally, contradictory enterprise'. This gives a positive to Jamesons negative view on postmodernism.

Jameson also introduces the idea of Pastiche, 'pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of linguistic mask, speech is a dead language.' An example of this is the 80's film poster for Blade Runner. This is a typical poster designed in the current style of the 80's which has gone on to influence the modern day series poster for the netflix series 'Stranger Things'. Although Jameson would disagree with this level of pastiche as he describes pastiche as being 'the imitation of a peculiar or unique idiosyncratic style, speech is a dead language', Hutcheon argues that ' The past as referent is not bracketed or effaced, as Jameson would like to believe: it is incorporated and modified, giving new and different life and meaning.' This therefore supports the link between the posters. 

Triangulation Exercise Content

Mulvey, L (2009 [1975] Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema in Visual and Other Pleasures, Basingstoke, Palgrave

'quote' (Mulvey 2009 [1976] :pageno)


Contextual facts about L Mulvey:

- British feminist theorist

- Her early critical work investigated questions of spectatorial identification and its relationship to the male gaze

- Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, helped establish feminist film theory as a legitimate field of study

- Mulvey was prominent as an avant-garde filmmaker in the 1970s and 1980s. 

- She co-wrote and co-directed 6 films with her husband

- Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema was originally written in 1975 which she is famously known for - movement towards sexual equality, higher screening of men in films than women at this time 

- Her work is influenced by Freud and Lacan (psychoanalysis)

What is psychoanalysis?

1. a person's development is determined by often forgotten events in early childhood rather than by inherited traits alone
2. human attitude, mannerism, experience, and thought is largely influenced by irrational drives that are rooted in the unconscious
3. it is necessary to bypass psychological resistance in the form of defense mechanisms when bringing drives into awareness
4. conflicts between the conscious and the unconscious, or with repressed material can materialize in the form of mental or emotional disturbances, for example: neurosis, neurotic traits, anxiety, depression etc.
5. liberating the elements of the unconscious is achieved through bringing this material into the conscious mind (via e.g. skilled guidance, i.e. therapeutic intervention).

Key points from the text:

- Scopophilia - pleasure gained from the act of looking. The essay looks at this in relation to film and its audiences

- How culture reflects society and its inequalities

- Women are made to appear as sexual objects in the film rather than a part of the film itself

- Patriarchy

- To be looked at ness

- The text talks about the the objectification of women, how has this changed now? do we objectify men?


Quotes from the text:

- 'What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance.' (Boetticher in Mulvey 2009 [1975] :20)

- 'In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.' (Mulvey 2009[1875] :19)

- 'Woman displayed as sexual objects is the leitmotif of erotic spectacle' (Mulvey 2009[1875] :19)



J Storey, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture

Key points from the text:

- regurgitating Mulveys points made in her written work with supporting quotes from the text

- Outlining the argument made by Mulvey about; the 'male gaze', scopophilia, narcism 


D Ryer, Stars 

Key points from the text:

- contradictory arguments against Mulvey

- Critique of Mulvey's argument of the 'classic narrative cinema continually organises looks which centre on the woman as spectacle'. Ryer argues that 'narrative film continually includes looks directed at the male body and also between male characters'

- 'Steve Neale argues that looks between male characters on film are ade obviously threatening and aggressive in order to divert their erotic potential.'

'Laura Mulvey's use of Freudian/lacanian thinking leads her to conclude that the male gaze produces a sadistically voyeuristic pleasure. Gaylyn Studlar argues that the fetishisation of the female body has the potential for producing the alternative pleasure of a masochistic relationship between male moviegoer and female star' 

Write a 300 word summary triangulating the three texts discussing what is argued and how they relate to each other.

Laura Mulvey, a British feminist theorist whose work is mainly influenced by Freud and Lacan, argues that women are made to appear as sexual objects in film rather than a part of the film itself, 'Woman displayed as sexual objects is the leitmotif of erotic spectacle' (Mulvey 2009[1875] :19). She also expresses that the ‘cinema offers a number of possible pleasures’ on of these being ‘scopophilia (pleasure in looking)’. Her views on this topic were expressed in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative cinema (1975). At the time of the essay, film involved the appearance of more men than women that supports but also contradicts Mulveys theory.

The view of Scopophilia (the pleasure gained from the act of looking) is said to be structured by ‘sexual imbalance’ (J Story :82) who concludes that ‘women are crucial to the pleasure of the (male) gaze.’ (J Story  :82)  This reinforces Mulveys theory that 'In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.' (Mulvey 2009[1875] :19). A contradiction to this has been written by R Dyer who suggests that ‘narrative film continually includes look directed at the male body and also looks between male characters’. (R Dyer, 1986:188) This is further argued by Steve Neale who suggests that ‘looks between male characters on film are made obviously threatening and aggressive in order to divert their erotic potential’. (R Dyer, 1986 :188). These views contradict each other in a way that Mulvey and Story argue that women are used as ‘erotic objects for the characters within the screen story and as erotic objects for the spectator within the auditorium’. (Mulvey 2009[1875] :20) however, Dyer looks into more depth of the ‘objectified male body’. ( D Ryer, 1986 :188) Although these views may be suitable for the time in which the essays were written, male and female actors are seen to be more of an equal status in modern film, with an attraction on both sexes being drawn upon.