Transcript File

Project 3. Diversity
Adaptability, Taboos and Dependency
Description
 Excessive simplicity can result in boredom. Human brains
have been known to defend against this state by conjuring
hallucinations. Like brains, functional ecosystems thrive on
diversity. Biodiversity entails many species interacting in
multiple and complex ways.
 How can you, as an artist, engage with the issue of diversity,
it’s role in your life, or your world, in your artwork?
Requirement
• Create a poster that addresses the idea of Diversity through
choosing from one idea: Adaptability, Taboos and
Dependency.
• Visual Method: Create a poster ( 11"x14", CMYK, 300dpi )
Using a digital camera, adjust images in Photoshop and
import into Adobe Illustrator. Using images and text create
an 11’ X 14” composition, 300 dpi, exploring the concept of
diversity. High quality print is required.
• Argumentative essay ( minimum 500 words) about your
theme related with your poster.
Approach 1: Adaptability with new
environment
• Transferring members of a species from one locale to
another will decrease diversity if the new comers outcompete indigenous life forms and increase diversity if they
coexist with indigenous life.
• Create an artwork that documents a change in diversity or a
potential change in diversity due to the introduction of
something new, such as people, plants or animals.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciu9xFTvELQ
Approach 2: Dependency
• The benefits of biodiversity apply to resources as well as
genetics.
• For example, depending on a narrow range of resources
jeopardizes a species ability to adapt to environmental
change. The bison’s dependency on a tall prairie grass, and
the red-cockaded woodpecker dependency on an old growth
pine in Florida for its’ nesting habitat are examples of
dependency on a narrow range of resources.
Bio-diversity
 Biodiversity is about the variation of life forms within a given
ecosystem, and it is used as a key measure of health. History
shows that monoculture (the lack of biodiversity) is a key
factor behind illness and system instability.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKIjmUIoZ84&feature=related
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxG43tuDRZ4&feature=related
 For example, The Irish potato blight of 1846, a major factor in the
deaths of a million people and migration of another million, was the
result of planting only two potato varieties, both of which were
vulnerable to disease. Biodiversity means health and resilience,
whereas monoculture means extinction.
Approach 3: Taboo
 A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of
human activity or social custom that is sacred and or
forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and/or
scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered
objectionable or abhorrent by society.
Making art from taboo
 Create a concept map to explore the breadth of the taboo as
well as the origins or reasons for such a taboo. Use your
concept map as a starting point and create a work of art
about a cultural taboo that either increases or decreases
diversity.
Religious taboo: Food
 In Hinduism, the cow is a symbol of wealth, strength,
abundance, selfless giving and a full earthly life. Consumption
of beef is taboo out of respect for the cow.
Religious taboo: Clothing
 The veil is a tool of oppression used to alienate and control
women under the guise of religious freedom.
Taboo
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
sex: restrictions on sexual activities and relationships (sex outside of
marriage, adultery, intermarriage, interracial relationships, incest, animalhuman sex, adult-child sex, sex with the dead), sexual fetishes, restrictions on
state of genitalia such as (transsexual gender identity, circumcision or sex
reassignment)
body: restrictions of bodily functions (burping, flatulence, defecation and
urination), exposure of body parts (ankles in the Victorian British Empire,
women's hair in parts of the Middle East, nudity in the US)
religion: death, dietary restrictions (halal and kosher diets, religious
vegetarianism, and the prohibition of cannibalism)
addiction: restrictions on the use of psychoactive drugs, alcoholism
language: restrictions on the use of offensive language
Taboo videos
National Geographic Taboo Beauty
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/taboo/videos/beauty/
National Geographic Taboo Outsiders
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/taboo/videos/one-manstrash/
National Geographic Taboo Signs of Identity
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/taboo/videos/signs-ofidentity/
National Geographic Taboo Strange Love
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/taboo/videos/strange-love/
ACTIVITY 3-1 “Make 3 idea boards”
1) Choose one approach (taboo, adaptability, dependency)
2) Make 3 idea boards using Illustrator (3 of 8.5"x11” JPEG or
PDF)
3) Idea boards: your concept + visual direction (color, font,
text, form) for making poster.
Bring a specific example or case which you consider an
important and urgent matter to talk about in contemporary
society.
Group Activity 2 "Posters for Study"
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Choose 5 posters from one period (choose one website)
Analyze political concept, message and historical background.
Analyze visual strategy and style (how many colors are used,
lines or forms, images, collages, font, typography.) What is
purpose/goal of the poster? How does the poster convey the
message strongly and effectively?
Make presentation (30 minutes)
Present it in the class (10 minutes)
Upload your presentation as PDF in wiki (save as PDF)
You will use style/visual strategy of the posters.
What is a poster?
At the present time, poster art is in a period of
renaissance. Posters have come to be regarded as
mysterious cultural objects, whose flatness and
literalness only deepen their resonance, as well as
inexhaustibly rich emblems of the society. Posters
have become one of the most ubiquitous kinds of
cultural objects—prized partly because they are
cheap, unpretentious, "popular" art.
By Susan Sontag
1. Posters as Propaganda (WWI)
 What: Spread ideas, arguments or allegations and to
promote causes.
 Propaganda in war: Patriotism or darker emotions of
anger at the human cost of war.
 The goal of the poster: communicate message
strongly and effectively.
 How to present effectively: a simple/complex layers
of words, symbols, systems and design.
I want you for U.S. Army, 1917
by James Montgomery Flagg
2. Produce for Victory (WWII)
 World War II posters helped to mobilize a nation.
 Inexpensive, accessible, and ever-present, the poster
was an ideal agent for making war aims the personal
mission of every citizen.
 Government agencies, businesses, and private
organizations issued an array of poster images linking
the military front with the home front--calling upon
every American to boost production at work and at
home.
"Don't Let Anything Happen to Them!” 1942
3. Confusion Era
 Art and Culture of Japan During the Allied
Occupation, 1945-1952
 Japan’s poster designers and printers’ resilience
 Topic: Emergency, survival notices, food, health
announcements, shortages, entertainment posters
for theaters and movies
 Quality: poor, small, lithographic process
Occupation in Japan
 In the beginning of the Occupation, the domestic press: a
wide variety of pulp magazines, sewing monthlies,
children’s and young people’s periodicals, photo new
magazines, and even design and art journals.
 Color of the poster as a mean of mass communication
 By the end of the Occupation, consumer goods, services,
advertisement, and poster design flourished as the flush
of postwar expansion.
"Don't Sell Salt Illegally. Make an Effort to Deliver All
Your Production to the Government," 1949.
4.Propaganda Posters of Soviet Era
 The first truly modern propaganda machine, from
postage stamps and Mayday parades to monumental
sculptures.
 The Propaganda posters of the Soviets: colorful,
dramatic and original form
 Through it, the greatest artists of the time
proclaimed government policies, asked for support,
and demanded greater efforts - all with the goal of
building Soviet power.
The Soviet art of propaganda:
six main periods
1. The Bolshevik Era (1917-1921) was a life and death
struggle for the Bolsheviks and their ideology. Helping to
fight enemies within and without, the early Soviet poster
was remarkable for its revolutionary fervor and powerful
symbolism.
2. The New Economic Policy (1921-1927) was a period of
recovery and relative freedom for a country ravaged by
war, famine and bitter discontent. The commercial and
film posters of the "Roaring Twenties" were remarkable
for their avant-garde constructivist style.
3-4. The First and Second Five Year Plans (1928-1937) were Stalin's
draconian push to convert Russia into a fully communist
industrialized power. The great photomontage posters of the First
Five Year plan echoed the heroic side of this effort, only to be
followed by the purges of the late '30s and the retreat from avantgarde art in the Second Plan period.
5. The Great Patriotic War (1939-1945) brought a revival of the great
age of the Bolshevik poster. The Soviet struggle for survival forced a
return to symbolism that fanned the patriotic fires of the heartland.
6. The Cold War (1946-1984) brought a return to "Social Realism,"
with utopian views of Russia and Joseph Stalin predominating. In its
middle years, the best images featured Vietnam and the space race.
As Perestroika (1984 - Present) dawned, the most powerful images
were protest posters created and posted at great personal risk.
Dudonov
The North Caucasus has joined the relay cult, 1930 ca.
The First and Second Five Year Plans (1928-1937)
5. Decade of Protest: Political Posters
from the United States, Cuba and Viet Nam1965-1975
 An age of conflicting ideologies and social upheavals on a
grand scale, utilizing the power of visual imagery to
concretely render one of the defining events of that era: the
Vietnam War.
 Even in the most desperate situations, people express
themselves in creative languages that both reveal and surpass
the meanings of the conflict (and consensus) they were
devised to reflect.
 The social, political, and aesthetic concerns of the diverse
cultures in these posters.
The United States 1965-1975
 The antiwar movement in the U.S.(not propaganda)
 Contextualizing the posters: the medium’s potential for
provocation and its contributions to the sixties atmosphere of
rebellion, liberation and dissent
 The Vietnam War was a lighting rod for the social disaffection
mirrored in the struggle of black Americans for equality and
justice.
 Decade of Protest frames an age of idealism and rage, of
energy and optimism, activism and dissent.
Amerika Is Devouring Its Children, 1970
Jay Belloli (Berkeley, CA); silkscreen on paper
Help End Demonstrations, 1968
(New York); offset; 22 1/16 x 15 3/4 inches
Activity 3
Making final poster
1. How to make connection with diversity and your poster
2. Choose one of your historical posters, which adopt historical
poster strategy.
3. Consider: 11”x14”, CMYK, created in illustrator.
If you use an image, especially if downloaded from the internet,
make sure that the image has a high quality.
If you use image you took, you need to use your creativity.
Activity 4: Research for argumentative essay
for project 3
 1) WIKI/ PROJECT 3/ RESEARCH find and post 10
posters, which are related with your idea/ theme. 2) Write
Argumentative Essay to support your argument. ( one page/
minimum 500 words) ( ex. if you work on gender
discrimination, find some posters which talk about the
gender issues.) ( ex. If you work on beauty about plastic
surgery, find some posters which talk about obsession of
beauty, plastic surgery, trends.)