Task 1 - Panopticism

Choose an example of one aspect of contemporary culture that is, in your opinion, panoptic. Write an explanation of this, in approximately 200-300 words, employing key Foucauldian language, such as 'Docile Bodies' or 'self-regulation, and using not less than 5 quotes from the text 'Panopticism' in Thomas, J. (2000) 'Reading Images', NY, Palgrave McMillan.

Panopticism is a social theory developed by French philosopher Michel Foucault in his book ‘Discipline and Punish’ and is base on the idea of the Panopticon - a circular prison with an observation tower in the centre surrounded by an outer wall made up of cells for the incarceration of mental patients or convicts. Panoptic means something that can always be seen, that controls you. In modern day society an example of something that is panoptic is Internet Shopping and the way companies can monitor customer spending. Through a “system of permanent registration” documenting everything you buy websites like Amazon, Tesco and M&S manipulate and control your spending by sending you emails, texts, vouchers relating to the products you have bought or been browsing online. To control your spend you are lured by money off these products which you should purchase before a ‘cut-off’ date if you are to enjoy the benefit of a reduced rate these or use vouchers for other products you may be interested in and have been browsing online. Websites like Facebook also do this by showing adverts 'spam' that you will probably be interested in and which is related to your age, gender, interests or religion for instance through “The penetration of regulation into even the smallest details of everyday life”(Foucault in Thomas, 2000, p12). The shopping websites have “complete control over” what is presented to the customer. Like the panopticon the customer “is totally seen without ever seeing; in the tower, (the manufacturer or company) sees everything without being seen”. I have found it interesting to see how the Internet experiments with advertising relating to what a customer buys. “The panopticon was also a laboratory; it could be used as a machine to carry out experiments, to alter behavior, to train or correct individuals” meaning that by presenting to or conditioning the customer through various subconscious means the customer is unknowingly influence in an effort to be encouraged to ‘give in’ and buy.

Lecture Notes: Modernity/Modernism & Mass Media

The Modernist period was between 1760-1966, which was a time of social and cultural experience. Today it is believed that we are living in a post-modern world.

Modern means ‘to make something new or improved’ and is created from the responses of artists/designers to Modernity.

In the 1900, Paris became the first ‘modern’ City. Formerly Paris had been like other cities in Europe with its over populated streets, fast pace of life and unhygienic conditions. But now a grand development was welcomed to Urbanization, which brought new buildings, swapping farming for factories and creating new transport systems, including wide roads and railways. In 1850’s Paris the ‘Haussmann Plan’ was underway: the city architect, Haussman, redesigned the city, replacing the old with the new. Where previously the poor would live in the city they moved to the outskirts and the upper class moved into the centre of the new ‘Modern’ capital of large boulevards and public parks.

The next City to develop was New York, creating plans for skyscrapers and vast urbanization; it soon became the most advanced city in the world.

In the modernist world form follows function; new materials were used including concrete, new technologies, plastics, aluminium, reinforced glass and more products were mass-produced making them cheaper and more accessible.

Lecture Notes: Mass Media and Society

“Mass media is the modern systems of communications and distribution supplied by small groups of cultural producers, but directed towards a large number of consumers.

The ‘Late age of print’ began around 1450 and originated from the theorist Marshall McLuhan with Gutenberg’s innovation of the printing press, which was used to mass-produce the bible.

Companies allowing the reader to choose what they want to read and how they want to read it have developed the recent invention of the e-book.

Computer media lets us search quickly and easily for anything we choose, including videos, information and photographs.

Hypermedia allows us to search through knowledge. Hypertext allows us to skip through it to find what we want.

There are some criticisms of mass media, which include:

-Superficial, uncritical, trivial

-Viewing figures measure success

-Audience is dispersed

-Audience is disempowered

-Encourages status quo

Advantages of the Mass Media include:

-Encourages empathy

-Power by the few motivated by profit/control

-Bland, Escapist

-Encourages Escapism

Lecture Notes: Advertising and the Media

Karl Marx: Communist Manifesto 1818-1883

-Communist Manifesto

-Das Kapital

Commodity culture perpetuates false needs through the use of aesthetic innovation, planned obsolescence and novelty. ‘Aesthetic innovation’ is a change in the way a commodity looks. An example of this would be a stainless steel toaster, which is modern and more attractive than a plastic toaster. ‘Novelty’ is when a product is developed and improved, making the consumer want the next best thing. An example of this could be a computer, which is developed, improved or upgraded every few months. ‘Planned Obsolescence’ is when commodities have a planned life expectancy: meaning after a certain amount of time the consumer will have to replace the product.

Commodity Fetishism was introduced in the opening chapter of Karl Marx's main work of political economy, Capital, of 1867. It is the idea that we are who we are not because of what we do but because of the commodities we have.

‘Ways of Seeing’ written by John Berger (1972) gives a good indication of how advertising can sell things and looks at how “Publicity persuades us by showing people whose lives have been transformed” but he goes on to state that: “Art showed what the owner of objects already had, whereas advertising shows what we ought to have.”

Reification is when people are given an association with a product through which they perceive themselves to be glamorous, cool, sophisticated. Many people have come to believe that concept helps them to define who they are.

Lecture Notes: Graphic Design a Medium for the Masses

Herbert Spencer - ‘Mechanized art’

Max Bill & Josef Muller - ‘Visual Communication’

Richard Hollins - ’ The business of making or choosing marks and arranging them on a surface to convey an idea.

Paul Rand – Graphic design

It is believed Graphic design, as we know started in the 19^th century is an advertising tool, however it has been argued that cave paintings were the first form of graphic design.

Bauhaus

- Huge influence on the development of graphic design

- The first place to teach graphics

- Nazis shut down the Bauhaus in 1933

- Tutor moved to work in America

- Wassiy Kandinsky was taught at the bauhas and was one of the founders of the straight-edge style.

Lecture Notes: The Document

“Photography achieves its highest distinction – reflecting the universality of the human condition in a never-to-be-retrieved fraction of a second`’- Cartier Bresson.

Documentary photography offers a compassionate perspective, which aims to show social and political circumstance.

They claim to be the truth of events with no manipulation and people are normally used as the subject matter.

Documentary photographers think about how their image will look, making sure that the angles and lighting are right; however this does not invalidate the documentary photographs they take. Other photographers however focus on the setting of the photo they are taking.

Examples: Dorothea Lange (1936) ‘Migrant Mother, Robert Frank ‘Parade-Hoboken, New Jersey’ 1958, Nick Ut (1972) ‘Accidental Napalm Attack’

Lecture Notes: Post Modernity & The Mass Media

Modernism involves- Experimentation, innovation, Individuality, development and the expression of new material, technology and a new modern life.

Postmodern is characterised by – Exhaustion, pluralism, pessimism, Disillusionment with the idea of the absolute knowledge where as Modernism is an expression of the modern life postmodernism is a reaction to this.

Post modernism began in the 1960’s and as a recognisable style in 1980

-Space for ‘new voices’

-Freedom

-Question of limitations

-Women, sexual diversity

Examples: Park Hill Flats – Sheffield

Frank Gehry, Guggenheim museum

Roy Lichtenstein

Jackson Pollock

Andy Warhole

Preliminary Bibliography

Berger, J. (1972) ‘Ways of Seeing’, Penguin Books Ltd. pp123-148

Marcuse, H. (1964) ‘One dimensional man’, Ark paperbacks. Pp

Williamson, J. (1994) ‘Decoding Advertisements’, Marion Boyars Publishers pp60-70

Marx, K (1992) ‘Capital: Volume 1’, Penguin Classics

Clark, E (1988) ‘The Want Makers: Inside the World of Advertising’, Penguin Publishers