Context of Practice Lecture: Consumerism - Persuasion, Society, Brand, Culture

'A new elite is needed to manage the bewildered herd.'

                                                                                                      -Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self

Sigmund Freud, one of the most influential Psychologists in history, at the turn of the 20th Century coined the term Psychoanalysis, a new theory of human nature, highlighting hidden primitive sexual forces and animalistic instincts which need controlling. Freud stated in his various works published between 1899 and 1939 that society represses our natural urges unconsciously and our desires are buried deep in our subconscious, believing in a fundamental tension between civilisation and the needs of the individual. Living through the turn of the century at a time, with the rise of industrialisation and capitalism Freud interpreted the first world war as a social eruption, the result of centuries of repression of human desires.

Freud's nephew Edward Bernays, was a press agent and propaganda officer who after World War 2 set up 'The Council of Public Relations', the birth of PR, based off his uncle's ideas of the Pleasure Principle, which Freud argued is what makes us 'happy and content'. Bernays was employed by cigarette companies to encourage young women to smoke, a contrast to the social taboos of the time. To achieve this he hired women to walk in the 1929 Easter Day Parade as Debutantes and smoke cigarettes in from of press photographers. Berney;s wanted to paint the women walking in the parade as 'suffragettes' lighting up 'torches of freedom'. As a result, cigarette sales went up and today cigarettes are universally associated with desire and glamour, proving that by linking products to desires, you can make people behave against their interests. Bernays used Product Placement, Celebrity endorsements and Pseudo-Scientific reports to promote products.

All this was happening at a time of mass production, with the rate of production in the US rising exponentially. Mass production on this scale lead to mass commodification, which eventually lead to a crisis of overproduction and oversaturation of the market. To combat the arbitrary identity given to commodities in an oversaturated marketplace, individual brands emerged, giving an identity to commodities, making them more desirable to the consumer. Early consumerist branding focused on the merits of products, however over time the focus shifted to how a product can appeal to your individual desires. An early example of this would be Henry Ford's  "Ford Cars' which were marketed as a sort of  status symbol, beginning this sort of cultural myth of cars as a symbol of power and success which persists to this day.

From then on Advertisements focused more on the idea of the product rather than the action function, driven by the need to shift more products in a market oversaturated with different lifestyle brands. Freud's theories describe this as a shift from a 'needs culture' to a 'desires culture', a culture in which people associate different brands and products with success and power. Vance Packard broke the way in which advertisers do this in his book 'The Hidden Persuaders'.

Packard states that advertiser's push their products upon consumers by selling...

• Emotional Security
• Worth and reassurance of status
• Ego Gratification
• Creative Outlets
• Love Objects
• A sense of power
• A sense of roots
• Immortality

Consumerism is an ideological project that emerged in the early 20th century as a form of social control. Political commentator Walter Lippman wrote in the 1920s that politicians are incapable of managing society in the 20th century, and that it was the job of PR people to advise those in power how to persuade people to follow their ideological beliefs. In 1940, at the height of the Second World War, Bernays was put in charge of marketing America's technological and cultural dominance at the World's Fair, a centrepiece 'Democracity', a city of the future which would solidify America's superiority over other ideological superpowers such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. This 'city of the future' was nothing more than PR for Capitalist products, funded by big business manufacturers, in an attempt to market their consumerist ideology in response to the rise of socialist ideas in hopes to quash them.

On a personal note, I am more than familiar with the work of Adam Curtis, the documentarian behind 'The Century of the Self'. I find his work both inspiring and incredibly well informed. This sort of anti-consumerist ideology is something I would like to touch upon in my own work at some point in time as I agree quite strongly with people like Curtis on the subject. Freud's ideas as well, particularly regarding psychoanalysis, appeal to me creatively. Overall, I found this lecture to reaffirm a lot of the points made in Century of The Self, and found it to be very inspiring for my own work. Personally, I do not feel there is enough subversive, anti-consumerist animation out there, so it's definitely something I could see myself touching upon in the future. 

Context of Practice Lecture: Print Culture and Distribution

According to media theorist Marshall Mcluhan, we are living in the 'late age of print', an age which began around 1450 with the invention of Guttenberg's printing press. Guttenberg's printing press paved the way for a more enlightened society, allowing for new ways to easily share and distribute information through the printed word. Before the invention of the printing press, books had to be hand written, often the luxury of the bourgeious elite. This democratisation of information and the ability to reproduce great works en mass, changed the art world forever, bringing art to the masses.

Up until this democratisation of print, art was seen as property of the elite, commissioned by the elites and aristocracy of society, often depicting them in a positive light as a way of consolidating their power. Industrialisation brought on by the industrial revolution gave disillusioned members of the working class a means of producing art and print. Thousands moved from rural areas to the inner cities where the industry was, and this condensation of population lead to a condensation of culture. Disillusionment with bourgeouis institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts leads to the working classes developing their own culture, much to the dismay of the upper classes and a popular culture of people's art, political satire, chartism and various social movements begins to emerge.

One of the early examples of  a middle class, mini entrepreneur was John Martin (1820) with his painting Belshazzar's Feast. Martin did not attend any elitist art academies and was seen as an outsider in the art world at the time. He produced and sold copies and prints of his paintings using the new technologies available at the time and proved more money could be made through the mass production of art. This market allowed the everyman to own copies of art, made possible by urbanisation, though works chosen for reproduction were often simple and easy to reproduce.

Real change came with the establishment of the School of Design- Somerset House in 1836, a school of 'design' rather than art, that taught art in the context of mass popular culture rather than in the culture of the traditional elite. This development can be seen as a part of a wider cultural shift at a time where entrepreneurial middle class capitalists were at the centre of government rather than the traditional royal elites.

The ruling class at this time felt threatened by these developments, as they saw themselves as the guardians of culture. To elitists like poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold, working class culture was a threat to traditional hierarchies. Arnold saw art as 'the study of perfection', while working class culture was seen as 'anarchic'. Many in the elite of society wanted culture to be disinterested, unquestioning of the status quo, for example through the study of abstract concepts such as beauty. At this time for the elites, culture is about pacifying and policing the working class masses, an ideological weapon of the ruling class. Working class culture in the 19th century, while often dismissed by the ruling class, was seen as culturally relevant to the masses and could also be used as a weapon by the working class to challenge the status quo.

This elitism carried on through to the 20th Century, with literary critics such as F.R Leavis who saw the time as a period of cultural decline due to the proliferation of mass culture vs 'proper culture'. Marxist philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin wrote about 'The Work if Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' (1936). Benjamin saw art as a weapon to challenge concepts associated with Fascism and states that Technological Reproduction of art removes...

Creativity
Genius
Eternal Value
Tradition
Authority
Authenticity
Autonomy
Distance Mystery

All of these disparate elements make up the aura of a work. Benjamin argues that this sort of way of thinking is what makes fascism possible, as it makes the downtrodden accept their circumstances and be subservient to an elite. By removing the aura form art, by reprinting it, disseminating and proliferating it, it rejects this authoritarian culture. Print culture is the culture of the people, as it allows them to challenge authority and to rewrite the world. Ultimately, as cultures aura diminished, hierarchical power in culture also diminished.

In 1962, Andy Warhol showed how meaningless reproduced images in the popular culture were with his exhibition 'Marilyns', which challenged the pretensions of art and the culture around it. Warhols work could be seen as art designed for reproduction to challenge auratic notions of art.

Print is not usually something I as an animator would usually concern myself with. I prefer to work digitally, as more often than not, animation is produced and distributed primarily on screens. I do however have more than a passing interest in illustrative work and found this lecture to be informative in explaining the history of printed culture. I feel like my animation can learn a lot from Print culture, both aesthetically and culturally. The printed aesthetic is something I do wish to emulate, as there is a distinctly handmade charm to art that is produced using traditional, but more importantly physical techniques and media. I do feel that a lot of animation loses an element of charm and authenticity when it is produced digitally, so maybe by studying print culture and the printed aesthetic, I can seek to rectify that, at least in my own work.