lecture 4 Identity

Identity!

This lecture was all about identity obviously, but also the lecture spot lighted various aspects of identity that could benefit our practice, such as how identity was approached historically. but also to look into the Foucault's 'Discourse' methodology to consider post modern theories and to consider identity today.

There are two main theories of identity: Essentialism and Anti-essentialism.

Essentialism

Essentialism is the traditional approach to identity and states various rules, that include but are not limited to the notions that our biological make-up makes us who we are and this is governed by an inner essence that makes us who we are. Post-Modernism disagrees with this theory.

Physiognomy is an essentialist theory that has various values that aren't necessarily agreed with, such as the fact that they believe the intelligence is derived from the angle of the face, if the face has a vertical line where the eye brow joins the chin then this person is considered to be more intelligent than that of someone who has an angled line. this is legitimising racism due to the nature of the human body, here is an example:

as you can see its quite a radical notion due to its heavy racial standing.

There are various stages of historical identity:

Pre modern identity

personal identity is stable, defined by long standing roles. where institutions determined your identity, such as: Marriage, The Church, monarchy, Government, the State and work.

Modern identity

modern societies begin to offer a wider range of social roles. Possibility to start ‘choosing’ your identity, rather than simply being born into it. People start to ‘worry’ about who they are. possibly from the rise of artists and media which is widely consumed, Baudelaire introduces concept of the ‘flaneur’ (gentleman-stroller).

Post-modern identity

accepts a ‘fragmented ‘self’. Identity is constructed.

this is where the analysis of discourse started:

what is a discourse?

‘… a set of recurring statements that define a particular cultural ‘object’ (e.g., madness, criminality, sexuality) and provide concepts and terms through which such an object can be studied and discussed.’ Cavallaro, (2001)

Here are a few examples of discourse:

Age

Class

Gender

Nationality

Race/ethnicity

Sexual orientation

Education

Income

here is a good quote surrounding the issue of identity: 

‘ “Identity” is a hopelessly ambiguous idea and a 

double-edged sword.  It may be a war-cry of 

individuals, or of the communities that wish to be 

imagined by them.  At one time the edge of identity 

is turned against “collective pressures” by 

individuals who resent conformity and hold dear 

their own ways of living (which “the group” would 

decry as prejudices) and their own ways of living 

(which “the group” would condemn as cases of 

“deviation” or “silliness”, but at any rate of 

abnormality, needing to be cured or punished’

Bauman (2004), Identity, page 76

This lecture benefits me because of the writing task I have to complete where I have to analyse and compare two animations which are solidly based on identity, so this lecture made the process alot easier as it let me understand identity from its historical origin.

Lecture 3 - Sub Cultures

Sub Cultures

A Sub Culture is a community of people who wish not to conform to society and stand alone on their own values. there is a very fine line between sub culture and mainstream (not to be misconstrued with a hyphen)

Lets take for example the sub culture of punk:

Wiki pedia describes 'Punk' as:

The punk subculture, which centres on punk rock music, includes a diverse array of ideologies, fashions and forms of expression, including visual art, dance, literature and film. The subculture is largely characterized by anti-establishment views and the promotion of individual freedom. The punk subculture emerged in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States in the mid-1970s. In the late 1970s, the subculture began to diversify, which led to the proliferation of factions such as new wave, 2 Tone, pop punk, hardcore punk, no wave, street punk and Oi!. Hardcore punk, street punk and Oi! sought to do away with the frivolities introduced in the later years of the original punk movement.

But when a sub culture gets well known, and involves numerous followers, then society has a fascinating ability to draw it back in to make money off of, they sell merchandise and accessories valued by the sub culture. and so the sub culture grows but slowly but surely gets embedded back into society as they can control the following of the culture which in turn defeats the object of it being a 'Sub' culture.

Sub Culture in Animation

There are two ways in which we can approach sub culture in animation, 

Are we talking about a sub culture in the 'content' or the 'animation'

 Firstly:

If the animator adopted a certain style in order to reach a certain sub culture then that would reflect on the animator, for example:

Tim Burton

Who adopts a very 'Gothic' theme, does this mean that he is reaching out to the sub culture of 'Goth' but if this is the case would it be very restricting for him to explore different styles of animation as it might not adhere to the Gothic values.

if we were to take the content into account, there are a few animations that involve sub cultures, for example there is the group of Goths in South Park:

So how (in animation) does one represent what is underneath the surface of a subculture, and how do you contextualize subculture to animation. 

In my opinion its down to the style of the animation, as restricting as it is to create a demographic of a subculture if that is the intention, its not strictly speaking the content of the animation, which could be perceived as just being introduced for comic value, and could offend the followers of those sub cultures.

Lecture 2 - Gaze and the Media

"According to usage and commercialism which are at last being questioned but by no means have been overcome - Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at"

(Berger 1972)

This very accurate quote by John Berger is one of the first of its kind which started to question how women are portrayed in the arts and media, and this lecture was to determine what was a passive photo/painting to one which challenges the 'Gaze' of the human nature.

John Berger started by looking at paintings to explore his statement (Above). The first painting studied was Hanz Memling's 'Vanity' :

John goes on to explain that the use of a mirror in the painting represents a false permission to look at the subjects body, in other words he says "you put a mirror in her hand so YOU could look at her" this is because the mirror represents vanity, and so if the subject is being vain then its okay to look at her nude. also notice that the subject isnt looking back at the viewer, this is another tool that gives the viewer permission to view her nude, it was said that Gaze means 'our permission to look is given when the model doesnt look back'. this is an example of a passive piece.

To present an example of a piece where the 'Gaze' is challenged we must compare two very similar pieces (one being passive to show the comparison).

Firstly we will see the passive piece, Titan's Venus of Urbino (1538)

Although she is looking at the camera her body is very relaxed, a soft expression, and a laid back pose.

Compare this to Manet's 'Olympia' (1863)

Although it is a very similar to Titan's work, there are a few subtle differences that changed it from a passive painting to one that challenged the 'Gaze'. The facial expression is more stern and you can tell she is thinking 'why are you looking at me?' but also the hand resting on the leg is very much more of a 'covering of her genitalia' rather than just part of the pose.

The world was very aware of the way women were represented in the arts and media after the awareness was raised by John Berger and many others like him, another example being a group called the 'Gorilla Girls' who campaigned to raise awareness, one of their quotes is:

"5% of artists are female but 85% of the nudes are female"

So now we are aware of determining a passive piece of work and a challenger to the gaze we can start contextualizing this thoery.

we will compare two animations, one being passive and one being a challenger.

the first is the passive one.

in the animation 'Who Killed Roger Rabbit' the main female animated character is a prime example of how women are represented in media, a very exaggerated figure with an attitude to that of a flirty sexualised female.

the character knows that she is being watched and 'Gazed' at but just accepts it, at around the time of this film there was an ethos that many women did stick to, which was that it was unfashionable to not want to be described as a sexual icon/object.

Next we move onto Wendoline from 'Wallace and Gromit'

in this animation, Wendoline is the complete opposite to how most female characters in animations, she doesn't necessarily challenge the gaze because she is not represented in that way, but the fact she is a love interest in the film shows a different representation of how women act than most animations.

But sadly to say Coward.R is very true in what she says, that men are the active characters in the media and females are the passive ones who don't add the the progression of the story.

I will continue to spot these aspects of how women are being represented in animation/the media to expand my knowledge of the concerns of the modern media. and to raise awareness of other animators of this situation.

COP 2 Lecture 1

Introduction to Level 5 Context of Practice!

In this first lecture of the year we were introduced to some of the things we would be questioning, answering and discussing through the year.

the main concept of the lecture program in level 5 is to research into historical philosophies and theories in the various disciplines involved in the programme (which are all connected by a similar language that each discipline values from each other).

I will be questioning more aspects of historical and contemporary theories this year as we progress into second year, asking why and interpreting my own educated responses with help from the lectures and the class sessions.