Context of Practice // Lecture notes - Celebrity Culture

Celebrity Culture

-Short history of the ideaa of the celebrity,
-development of digital media
-Why are celebs important? 
-How contermpary identity and celebrity have become intertwined.
-Contemporaneity icons as case studies.

Julia Margaret Cameron - celeb protraitist early 20th century

-photographs - poets, writers, actors of the day.
-cipia tonining, faded edges 
-soft focus highlight romanting themes that were fashion at the time.

- Mariana 'She said I am aweary, aweary"

=often a religious theme incorporated into her photos
-tradition of represesnting female celebs.

- English Poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. 
-Male celebs photographed in a very different way.
- the colours of photo were alot brighter and lighter, focused around gray.
- Female photos were takes more for aesthetics rather than pride and power.
-male photos looked more like what gods were perceived like.

Invention of the moving picture.

-Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince - born august 1841.

- Inventor of first moving film
-perfected the cinemograph.

The Artist 2011

- modern day silent movie.
- good portaitle of eary film era

Josephine Baker (1906 - 1975)

-Exotic dancer of the time.
- Danse Banane
- famous for her looks and dancing
-worked in ww2 as a spy 
-As she had a jewish husband
-helped people get visa and passport so they could escape from france in war
-totally different personality that people see and that they dont.

Influences

-Beyonce wearing dress modeled on Josephine Baker
-uses references of Josephine 

-could possibly be read as racism of the time.

Golden Age of Hollywood.


once getting to the 20's 30's and 40's started to see the popularity and development of film.

Clark Gable 

- Both famous hollywood actor as well as RAF officer in WW2
- Again shows the fact that he has a celeb life as well as a private life that are compared from his portraital on screen.

Bette Davis

-Known for playing un attractive unlikeable characters.
-'Mildred in of Human Bondage (1934)
-Married a man who claimed he had never heard of her

Marilyn Monroe

-Actress and singer
- acctress known for her beauty and looks
-Iconic sex symbol
-Have a sense of her private life coming through in her stage life, which ultimately ended her career and life.
- Recognised face throughout the world over decades, still even today.
- Andy Warhol - Pop Art
- The inhability to concieve a celebrity as anything else but a celebrity.
-Audredy Flack's 'Marilyn' (1977)

Symbolic meaning of painting
-again showing the 2 sides of celebrity with the mirror, highlighting the difference between there person and there celebrity.

Elvis Presley

-Warhol uses celebs as products of a consure culture.
- blurs vision to make sure the image is all we can see.
- The setting up of Elvis as 'The King' was eventually his own down fall.

Andy Warhol is the first person who thought to turn the lower class of society into stars, by photograph and filming them.

John F Kennedy

-Original fashion of politics
-he was young and had good looks
-beautiful and fashionable wife.

-again the fact that he was brought to the heights of fame was again his eventual downfall
-His death was filmed by a public by stander.

Advent of Television

-Kennedy was all over TV which obviously helped his celebrity status.
-the invention of TV removed the interest and popularity of cinema.
-Celebrities were starting to be witnessed in the home.


The Jacksons as a Brand

-Family that start a scripted comedy show on Tv in the 70's
-Michael emerges as the star of the show.
-became more and more populr.
-eventually the king of pop.

-The changes of Michaels appearence are interpredted as reaction to the abuse he and his family suffered at the hands of their farther.
-He looks less like his father by adjusting his own body as drastically as possible.

Madonna

-Changes image with each album / track.
-80's was the development of celebrity and wealth
- Madonna makes herfelf iconic by taking inspiration from Marilyn and other female icons.
- Re invents herself.

Madona - post modern icon

Lady Gaga - post post modern icon

- madonna uses celeb icons from 1930's
- Gaga uses madonna image but changes her image everytime she is ever seen.
- more about the spectical of it rather than music.

Politics in Celeb

- Obama - seen as politics pop.
- Young good looking etc.
- Using pop culture to appeal to the masses

Youtube - Feb 2005

-showcases self made celebrities

Celebrities in the Royal Family   

Princess Diana - 1981

-Represents innocence and beauty as the truth of her marriage to Charles.
-Starts to re invent herself as she separates from Charles
-Becomes more of a fashion icon

The Paparazzi

- the idea of mass mourning for celebrities
- seen as celebrities are products of the people and actually belong to the masses.
- Princess Diana 
-Michael Jackson
-Whitney Houston

- sales increase on death of these celebs.

David Beckham

- Represents crossing of the ordinary (council estate) boy to almost super hero character.
- Cross worlds of sport , fasion.

Imitation of celebrity

ASOS - as seen on stars
-website focused around people wanting to look and dress like celebs.

John Stezaker from the Marriage

- uses old time celebs in photographs like a collage / cubist style.
-takes both a male and female celeb and collages there faces together.

Twitter

- The modern way of contacting celebs
- Brings celebs into more of a normal status
- Details of private life.

Responsive // Bicardi Cuban Cigar visual research

Cuban Cigars

As Bacardi want to get back to their Cuban Heritage, I thought there wasn't anything more Cuban than a cigar, obviously, I would not be able to promote smoking to create this products but I think I could come up with some unique and interesting ideas while also attracting a younger male audience.

 

 

There are quite a lot of options for designs when it comes to Cuban Cigars, I firstly expected the designs to be quite decorative and old fashioned, but there are many modern unexpected designs that have been linked with Cuban Cigars.

The box itself will also be one of the main aspects of this project, there are many different options that I will have to study. I think at the minute for the sake of a proposal I will keep the box simple in mechanism while focusing mainly on design.

I still need to maintain a high level of finish to ensure I meet the brief and make the sure that Bacardi is seen as a higher class of beverage.

I really like the simplicity and design of the box above, I think a slide top box would suit the rustic feel that comes with Cuba while still keeping the expensive quality feel.

The containers above represent a similar outcome of what I would want to produce, obviously there wouldn't be a cigar in the containers, but instead replace the cigar with Bacardi based beverages. the cigar shaped containers will be as part of a set, packaged within a box / container which would be sold as a gift set / drink option for men.

the idea behind the concept would bring Bacardi forward as an option for 18 - 24 males when considering what they want to drink. i think the main issue at the minute is that many men don't even consider Bacardi as an option, it is not that they don't like the drink it is purely the fact that they have never thought of sampling it.

So this would create a clear message forcing the drink directly at a male target audience. By doing this they will be introduced to the drink in a manly way, therefore Bacardi will always be in there mind when ever they are buying alcohol in a commercial environment, whether that be a bar / club or just a bottle shop.

Context of Practice // Lecture Notes 4

Critical Positions on Popular culture. 

-Critically define 'Pupular Culture'
-Contrast ideas of culture with 'popular culture' and 'mass culture'
-Introduce culture as ideology

What is culture?
- Always complex

Raymond Williams pioneer writer of defining culture

Marx's Concept of Base/ Superstucture

Bases - What is the gritty material that makes up a society

Marx argues everything else falls under the superstructure 

How culture can be seen as a direct product of our capitalist culture

The base conditions the superstructure, 

The Proletariat - Bottom 2 levels are formed of the workers and the base of society
above that, systems of law, army, Government

Roymond Williams (1983) -'Keyworks' book

Popular culture 

- Any culture that is liked my a large mass of people
- Culture made for the masses by the masses 

                         

Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane  - Why arn't all things that are popular classed as popular culture?

E.P. Thompson (1963)

massive class divide between 'pupular culture' and 'Culture'
- Between working class and the rich
- There was physically a class divide, with different areas of society being built for individual classes.

-Prior to this time, there was an idea that there was a consistant shared culture in society
- Development Heavy industry
- Process of urbanisation
- Growth of the city

Culture then started to be directed by the working classes as they made up the majority of population.

Matthew Arnold (1867)

-First man to write about culture

- Culture is a beautiful thing, and if everyone in the higher classes went back to enjoying the cultures of the past, (opera, theatre, philosophy, poetry etc...) then it would cause the lower classes to give up what is classed as the popular culture of the time.

-His way of thinking about culture is his way of maintaining status quo. 
-Saw pop culture at the time, as dirty and low class.

Leavisism  Mid 20 cent (1930's)

- Throughout 20th century culture has been declining into rubbish. 
- As culture became more developed and mass produced it has negatively had an effect on the culture of society. 
-wanted to appoint people who are in fact cultured should be the ones who decide what the mass popular culture should focus around.
- An attack on popular culture.

-The idea that the current pop culture at the time was just creating laziness in society

Frankfurt School

- first people to study in radical culture in the 30's especially when moved to NewYork
- Argued the opposite to Leavis and Arnold, saying that pop culture isn;t a threat at all.
- Culture is produced in the same way under capitalism as a car would be on a production line. 
- Culture making profits by sucking everyone in and making people think what they have created is unique to what has come before.

Quote by Herbert Marcuse

- an affirmative culture - which has allowed the world to continue developing 
- 'Culture affirms and conceals the new conditions of social life.'
- Culture stops us revolting or rebelling which again allows society to continue.

- Xfactor is an affirmative culture 
- exploiting the masses and the normal people of society, and benefits the people at the top where they make huge profits.
- Teaches people that if they are in trouble financially should rely on 'making it big' by being judged by middle class people who decide whether they have the right to earn money from the masses.
- Instead of turning to politics or revolution to solve people problems.

Adorno ' On Popular Music'

- Hates all culture
- When it comes to popular music - she writes that each band being produced is the same as the one before, being promoted in a different way but basically the same product. which feeds people the same mundane products over and over again.
- Somebody decided what we should like and forces it.
- 'Popular culture will cause society to be MIND-LESS'

-He says we can pick our own way through popular culture.
- He also talks about the fact that people can purchase or enjoy culture for different reasons. which results in people forming their own personal culture.
- We can re define / Manipulate existing culture.  

Responsive // Bacardi - Yank Tank visual research

Yank Tank

Having looked at unique personalities of Cuba that would clearly represent the company 2 jumped out at me the most, the first was Cuban Cigars and the second is what you can see here called Yank Tanks.

Yank Tanks are basically vintage American cars that were brought to Cuba before the revolution when America did business with Cuba, after the revolution the business between Cuba and the states stopped, so therefore no new cars / car parts could be imported. So since this point the same vintage cars have remained throughout Cuba and are being kept running by Do It Yourself Cuban mechanics who have ingenious ways of maintaining these old cars.

Visually all these cars look incredible, my actual idea was to try to and create a unique set / series of Bacardi bottles that are the shape of various different yank tanks that are commonly found around Cuba, This would be quite a tricky product to produce mock ups and individually create what the final product would be, but instead would be more of a proposal as it would need specialist production, as i don't at this point even know if it would be possible to produce car shaped glass bottles.

Design for Web // 10 Websites I like / Dont like

WebKnit

Simple colour scheme and layout, no confusion about what to do or where to go. keeping the layout constant throughout the pages both works well and I guess makes design it much easier.

Joachim Vu 

Awesome looking website. I love the simplicity of the layout, the signature looks fanstastic as the main focus of the site, It brings both the digital and printed imagery together.

Cropp 

This style of website is in fashion at the minute, especially when looking at retail websites. i do like the use of photography as the background, It is an aesthetic I think works well on websites.

Henrici Cafe 

I think this site is a bit over complicated, but i think that is mostly down to the busy photo used for BG and the annoying scroll box in the middle, I originally thought this would be a cool aspect to a website, but now I think it just gets in the way, it annoys me a bit if i can't scroll the whole page.

Caravan Cafe / Restaurant  

 

I really like the navigation bar, and the fact that there are basically 2 websites put together, which shows both sides to the same company, it is a clever concept.

Grey House Coffee

A bit of a dull website, but I like the nav bar, i do agree it is a little confusing but the fact that certin elements of the website are highlighted when you move over a certain area means that you can always highlight the areas which are linked.

The Bunker 

Nice idea with the constant background and the moving slide show style nave bar at the bottom, i also like the fact they have linked the visuals to that of what you woul see in a coffee shop promotion / menu board.

The Worlds Worst Website 

I don't really need to explain myself about why this one is bad. use  as an example of everything done wrong on websites.

White Dog Press

Again this isn't a very attractive website, not only is it just poorly designed, it also has tacky random elements to it which I don't understand why they would have incorporated, such as the little clip art dog that just slowly moves up the middle of the screen. Random, pointless and ugly (especially for a print company).

Screen Printed Products 

Just a dull web site, nothing interesting about it, over use of colour, there is nothing wrong with the navigation and interaction with the website but it's just boring.