Contextualising Design. Reflective Journal.

Well, Back to Glyndwr University for another year. This is level five now (year 2) and starting to feel considerably more important than the first year. Its a scary feeling to think that what I produce from now on will count towards my final grades. 
As part of this years work we have been asked to produce a blog on the lectures that we receive on a Thursday morning. These lectures are from 11am and last for only one hour. We will have to produce a 2000 word critically reflective piece in the form of a blog, and yes you guessed right, you're reading it now.

6th October 2011 - Beautiful Losers 

The first lecture I attended was held in the Nick Whitehead Theatre just the same as the previous year, and I was happy to find that we were going to watch a film over the next two weeks. The film was entitled Beautiful Losers and I will admit I'd never heard of it before. The film was a documentary style film which follows the lives and careers of a group of artists and designers from America in the 1990's.


Beautiful Losers was directed by Aaron Rose and has won a number of awards including the Cinevegas International Film Festival in 2008.
I found Beautiful Losers to be quite inspirational and heart warming, with such quotes as "You don't have to be smart, just have a heart" and " If you want to see something, make it".
Beautiful Losers was filmed in a kind of 'vox pops' style which I found gave the film a more raw and artistic feel, also the depth of the artists or 'characters' used in the film added very different dimensions which enabled the viewer to retain interest and to keep watching. The film emphasises the need for artists all around the world to keep on creating art in all forms as a state of release. 
The film Beautiful Losers shows the lives of many artists including Barry McGee, Aaron Rose, who also directed the film and Mike Mills. It was Mike Mills who stood out for me because he was always wearing a suit when he was on screen, that is not to say that all creative people are scruffy in any way. But most of them are. 


Also featured heavily in the film was Margaret Kilgallen, an artist from Maryland and married to Barry McGee who also features in the film. 
Below is a picture of Margaret Kilgallen and some of her artwork. 

Margaret Kilgallen

Towards the end Margaret is diagnosed with breast cancer but opted to forgo chemotherapy because she was also pregnant and wanted to carry to full term. Unfortunately she died 3 weeks after giving birth.
Beautiful Losers is a film about artist struggling in the world but is also a piece of art in its own self. I really enjoyed Beautiful Losers.




                                    

 20th October 2011 - What is design

Another cold and dreary Thursday morning in Wales as I made my way to the lecture theatre wondering who would be presenting this weeks instalment. As I entered the Nick Whitehead theatre I was pleased to see that it would be Marisse Mari (Maurice) who would be holding this weeks lecture.
"Oh no death by powerpoint" was my first impression, but as the slides progressed I found myself more and more interested in the subject matter in front of me. The lecture was based on Design and featured a man called Victor Papanek. 

Victor Papanek

Victor Papanek was born in Vienna in 1927 and studied Design and Architecture and is one of the more well known designers who believed in a design ethic. One of Victor Papanek's quotes reads "We are all designers, all that we do, almost all of the time is design, for design is basic to all human activity". This shows to me that Papanek was a strong advocate of socially responsible design, thinking about the environment while fulfilling the needs of people more than what people think they need.
Victor Papanek's revolutionary book on design called Design for the real world, Human ecology and social change and is a bench mark in design.







As the lecture progressed Marisse moved on to other designers including Sir George Cox who said
"Design is what links creativity and innovation. It shapes ideas to become practical and attractive propositions for users or customers. Design may be described as creativity deployed to a specific end'. This says to me that we rely on creative people for new innovative ideas that will progress us to the future and that without creative designers not much in the world would change, at least not for the better anyway.

At the end Marisse showed us her 'design tree' that she created, showing all the aspects a responsible design. 

Marisse Mari Design tree

                  

10th November 2011 - Designers and Ethics

Yes you guessed it, thursday morning again. I can see the start of a pattern emerging here now. In the Nick Whitehead theatre, at the front stood Dave Gill. The lecture today was about designers and ethics and the information received that day was from the Designers and Ethics paper, First things first 2000, a design manifesto. This manifesto is an updated version of a 1964 paper that was written by Ken Garland.

The aim of this manifesto was to raise awareness and to kick start the debate that was started by Ken Garland almost fifty years earlier. The manifesto has been originally signed by 33 high profile designers and hundreds more since.

The paper reads "We propose a reversal of priorities in favour of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication - a mind shift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning". What this says to me is that designers should consider designing not just for financial gain, making products that no one really wants or designing something that they are ethically against e.g cigarette packets, alcoholic drinks and even packaging for birth control or the morning after pill. The message of the manifesto is a shift towards designing for the better, with so many problems in the world today do we really need more unwanted consumer greedy product's shoved in our faces. 

I have read the 2000 manifesto a number of times, and upon reflection, I am struggling to fully agree with the points that are raised. Firstly my stand point on the ethical reasons for the changes away from consumerism and financial gain are that people have to earn money to live, and to say that we should design for the greater good and not financial reasons seem far from what I am looking for in a creative roll in future employment. I don't know where I stand at the moment and unfortunately I appear to have a low ethical viewpoint. We all need to earn to pay our way, to be good citizens and fulfil a roll that we have gained. 
To say that I wouldn't design a packet of cigarettes because I didn't like the thought of smoking to me seems absurd when I have been asked to do so by a future employer. Would I jeopardise my chances of employment because of my ethical standings? No is the answer. Maybe in the future when I have earned enough and feel financially comfortable or that when I am no longer in the industry then that might give me reason to debate the argument, but at the moment I am swaying away from ethical design in the sense.
At the end of the day I still have to pay back my student loans (which will be massive by the time I have ended my degree) and I have come to University to better my chances of more beneficial future employment. Unfortunately a lot of people can't afford the luxury of taking the moral high ground.
So, to sum it all up lets say at the moment I think I'll just "sit on the fence" until my ethical and moral viewpoint catches up with me.

17th November 2011 - Norman McLaren

Its the middle of November now and this term is quickly drawing to an end. The lecture that we are going to receive today is mainly made up of short films, which makes a nice change from the last lecture we had. At the end of the day I'm a film and photography student, so it is always nice to be able to relate and to fully engage with one of the Thursday lectures we attend. 

The first film started and it was by a man called Norman McLaren,  a Scottish born film maker and animator. The film that we were to watch was called 'Neighbours', a 1952 production from the National Film Board of Canada. At the start of the film I felt initially put off by the music, however when the visuals started they brought all aspects of the film into context. 

The visual side of the film consisted of two men fighting over a piece of land, but instead of being shot normally, the director, Norman McLaren had shot it with the stop motion technique. I found this gave the film a very unique look and feel, being something that just isn't seen all that often. Even though the film is eight minutes long it felt much shorter than that while watching, which proves to myself that I must of been enjoying it. It was Einstein that said that "Time is only relevant to the observer", and in this case proves to be very true. Below is the full eight minutes of Norman McLaren's short film 'Neighbours'.

Norman McLaren's earlier films through the 1930's is where he really perfected his technique. with some great titles such as "Camera makes whoopee" filmed in 1935 and "Hell Unltd" filmed the next year in 1936 shows the progression he was making with his film and animation.

The film 'Camera Makes Whoopee' shows his techniques in film making, having bought a Cin'e Kodak Camera, McLaren was able to execute a number of special effects including superimpositions, animation and pixillation effects.
I found Norman McLaren's work to be really interesting and I feel like I have learned that you should always experiment with different techniques and not be so shut off to influences outside of your own interests.

Thomas Wilfred

The next person we were to investigate was Thomas Wilfred, a Danish - American, born in 1889 and the pioneer in developing what he named as the art form Lumia, colour - music projections or the art of light. 
Below is a picture of Thomas Wilfred at his colour organ, also known as the Clavilux.

Thomas Wilfred at the Clavilux

This part really interested me, being a musician myself I found his work with music and light compelling. One of Thomas Wilfred's quotes reads "Light is the artists sole medium of expression. He must mould it by optical means, almost as a sculpture moulds clay. He must add colour, and finally motion to his creation. Motion, the time dimension, demands that he must be a choreographer in space".
Below is a short example of his work.

I have always thought that without light there is no form, and without music there is no colour in the world. It is this thinking that helped me create a music video for one of my assignments in the first year at University. Set to a song that my friend Ashley best and I recorded and produced together I created the following music video, just as Thomas Wilfred used light with music to create visual stimulus.
Below is the music video for one of my first year assignments.

I have enjoyed some of the lectures from the first semester of my second year at Glyndwr University. I feel I have learned a lot about design and design ethics which I will try to implement in the future.