Study Task 4: Triangulating and Harvard Referencing

1)
 The manifestos I have been asked to analyse, 'First things first' by Ken Garland (1964), the reprinted version by Adbusters (2000) and 'Fuck Committees' by Tibor Kalman (1998) all share the same message advocating a repositioning of priorities regarding the ethics of their work for people working in the creative industries, though to different extents. The original Ken Garland essay argues the basic point that a creator's skill set is better served elsewhere than to advertisers and corporate interests, advocating a 'reversal in priorities' in order to contribute more 'useful and lasting forms of communication', explicitly stating they do not advocate the 'abolition of high pressure consumer advertising.' Adbusters (2000) reprieve of this essay has no pretensions of being an anti-capitalist statement, explicitly attributing environmental, social and cultural crises to the capitalist system, calling it 'reductive and immeasurably harmful' to the public discourse. The manifesto goes so far as to state 'designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting and implicitly endorsing a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact', painting those who contribute to this system, no matter how well meaning as part of the problem. Adbusters' manifesto as a result is a much more radical view of the issue calling for extensive social change. Tibor Kalman's (1998) manifesto more indirectly supports Adbusters' thesis, painting a bleak picture of the culture, calling the culture of the late 20th century an extension of the corporate culture. Kalman (1998) questions the corporate world's influence on culture, stating 'culture used to be the opposite of commerce' and calling into question what billionaires such as Bill Gates have contributed to the culture when compared to Rockefeller and Ford.

2)

Animation Analysis: 

David Firth's 'Ready err not' music video for Flying Lotus is about as anti-corporate as music videos in the 21st Century can get. Due to the nature of how music videos are mostly shown and seen on the internet, David Firth uses this as an opportunity to explore imagery which would not pass on corporate network television in the heyday of MTV. Kalman, in his 'Fuck Committees' manifesto, talks of 'lunatic entrepreneurs', people who 'understand that culture and design are not about fatter wallets' and Firth certainly fits this description. The animated music video contains a plethora of uncompromisingly surrealist and gory imagery, a stark contrast to the usual for music videos of this kind. With it's images of disembowelments and a sea of disfigured infants, 'Ready err not' is a prime example of anti-corporate content creation for the sole purpose of contributing something to the culture, a position Kalman argues in favour of in his essay.

3)
Adbusters' (2000) reprint of Ken Garland's 'First Things First' manifesto deliver's a similarly welcome message as the original 1964 writing, however with more urgency following the decades of rampant  consumer capitalism and Thatcherism which has wrecked havoc in the western world. Most of the main argumentative points made in Garland's (1964) essay remain intact, but with more relevant, updated details and specifics which lend greater urgency to the piece and while the original essay states that the 'abolition of high pressure consumer advertising' is 'not feasible', Adbusters' updated version stands in opposition to the consumer capitalist ideology, which it argues is 'running uncontested', speaking to the more destructive side of the capitalist system. While both texts share the same basic message, Adbusters' version stands in stark opposition to the consumerist ideology, while Ken Garland's simply suggests 'a reversal of priorities'.

4)

Summary of Tibor Kalman's 'Fuck Committees' essay (1998)

Kalman argues in his essay that culture has been relegated to the role of corporate servitude. Corporations, in America at least, have become the sole arbiters of cultural ideas and taste, and the line between culture and commerce has been blurred. Kalman supports this theory by pointing out how TV scripts are vetted by producers, advertisers and lawyers, to determine whether they are 'dumb enough to amuse' and how film studios screen focus groups to determine whether the ending of a film will please target audiences, arguing how culture has become commodified to the point of being homogenised and neutered.

Study task 3: Planning and Structuring an Essay

Which Academic Sources will you reference?

Collins, Jim (1989) ‘Uncommon Cultures: Popular Culture and Postmodernism’, Routledge, Abingdon-on-Thames 

Connor, Steven. (1997) ‘Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to Theories of the Contemporary: Second Edition’, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers Inc

Jameson, Fredric (1991) ‘Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’ , Durham, NC, Duke University Press

Kaplan, E. Ann. (1987) ‘Rocking Around The Clock: Music Television, Postmodernism and Consumer Culture’ London and New York, Methuen

Wyver, John. (1986) ‘Television and Postmodernism’. London, Institute for Contemporary Arts: London p.52-4

What Animation will you analyse?

The Simpsons: Popularised postmodernity on mainstream animated television.

South Park: Embodies a postmodern attitude towards intertextuality.

Adult Swim: (Space Ghost: Coast to Coast/ Sealab 2021): Characterised by multiplicity of styles/ repurposing of animation cells.

Waltz with Bashir: Example of dissent in a Postmodern world.

Essay Map:

The basic thesis of my essay is that aesthetically, contemporary animation bears many of the trappings of works produced in the postmodern era and are thus inherently postmodern. In order to explain this in my essay first I will have to explain the history of Postmodernity in relation to arts and entertainment, pinpointing the moment in which it penetrated the mainstream of the popular culture, influencing works that came after this. 

One of the key animations in explaining all of this is The Simpsons, a quintessential case study in the postmodern era, as it paved the way and influenced many animations in it's wake that came to define the era. From here I will discuss the television network Adult Swim where I will be comparing it to MTV in the 1980s, drawing upon E Ann Kaplan's theories of 'the postmodern mode of TV'.

The conclusion I am hoping to reach is that Postmodernity has been absorbed by the mainstream as an aesthetic, commodified and homogenised to the point it doesn't have the transgressive potential it used to have in its inception, a point from Fredric Jameson's essay.

Context of Practice Lecture: Modernity and Modernism

John Ruskin (1819-1900) was one of the first writers to use the term 'Modern' in a  more positive light than had been used up until that point. Up until that point, the term was synonymous with deviation from tradition, and often used as a pejorative. Ruskin had a different view. He saw the contemporary artists of the time, such as William Holman Hunt, as a fresh alternative to more classical forms of art, and had a place alongside of it in terms of value and merit. This kicked off a debate as to whether the modern world could ever live up to classical culture, which to many in the upper echelon of society was seen as the peak of civilisation.

The idea of the 'modern being better than what came before took root in the cultural consciousness with an explosion of new technologies at the turn of the 20th century. Urbanisation and mass industrialization in the western world led to a sort of perceived compression of the world, with the expansion of the railways travel became more widely available to the masses, proliferation of communication technologies the world becomes more negotiable and with the aid of new technologies, people's perceptions of time changed form the rising and setting of the sun to the ticking of the factory clock.  Time becomes standardised and in the modern world people are the dominant element on the planet. This coupled with the leaps in philosophy and scientific thinking of the time has led to historians catergorising this period in history as an enlightenment, marking the transition from a society at the behest of god to a secular world run by people and technology.

The city was where people lived out their newfound modernist fantasies, with mass migration from rural areas to the inner cities. In developed nation, gothic architecture is dwarfed by mechanical monuments, symbols of the triumph of the enlightenment. Out of this the term 'modern' carried almost universally positive connotations. Artists began to create art depicting these new modern cities, famously Caillebotte, with 'Paris on a rainy day' (1877) which showcased the positive impact of modern living. City architects, such as Hausman ripped out the narrow streets and run down housing in favour of larger boulevards, partially to make the cities easier to police, one of the ways in which modernists employed social control.

Not everyone was convinced however of the universal positivity of modernism. Max Nordan in his book 'Degeneration' published in 1892 was decidedly anti-modernist...

'The end of the 20th Century will probably see a generation to whom it will not be injurious to read a dozen square yards of newspaper daily'.
                                                                                                                     -Max Nordan, Degeneration

Modernism had a profound effect on classical art forms. Photography overtook Painting as the primary way of depicting the world. In response,  some traditional painters opted to become more abstracted and focused on the material of the paint, while others attempt to emulate photography, with more radical compositions, such as for example Caillebotte's 'The Boulevard viewed from above' (1880). New urban spaces gave artists new views of the world both figuratively and literally, and new technologies gave them new ways to perceive and interpret.

Modernist design philosophy can be described as Anti-Historicism ('Ornament is Crime', Adolf Loos, 1908), while true to materials, focusing more on geometric forms appropriate for the materials, with function taking precedence over form. While western centric, most modernist design has a focus on Internationalism, or rather a neutral, utopian, but also western view of the world. Swiss Type and Modernist Architecture influenced design worldwide, reflective of the rise of globalism and global capitalism following the end of WWII.

Miles Van Der Rohe's Seagram Building in New York, built in 1958, served as a template for hundreds of similar monuments to modernism throughout the world.

As my essay for Context of Practice is on the subject of Postmodernism in relation to Animation, an understanding of Modernism as a utopian concept is required to make any substantial points. In that sense, today's lecture was useful in informing the content of my essay. Modernist design ideas, I feel have their merit, particularly in the realm of Typography and Graphic Design.