LECTURE 4// Cities and Film

Cities and Film
The city in modernity
Urban sociology
As both a public and private space
City in postmodernism

Simmel (1858-1918)
-German Sociologist
-Writes about the effect of the city on the individual, how to negotiate your environment. 

Lewis Hine (1932)
-The vulnerability of the human amongst the city. 

Louis Sullivan 
-Creation of modern sky scraper
-Fire damaged buildings from the war allowed urban regeneration. 

Scheeler
-Celebrates the shape of industry

Fordism
-Mass production, the cycle of production and consumption.

Charlie Chaplin
-Comedy sequences where a man struggles with machines and is eventually swallowed by the machine. 

A Flaneur:
-Rather than being swallowed by the city like the working classes, the flaneur could stroll the streets looking for experiences. The higher classes had more time. 

Walter Benjamin
-Urban arcade or mall, is an experience of the city in an enclosed environment.

Janet Wolf
-Figure of a woman on the street is as a prostitute or a crazy bag lady. She thinks that a female is alone in the city.

WeeGee
-Took photos of murder victims in the streets, had a police radio to achieve this. 
-Wrote a book called the Naked City.

LA Noire
-Uses the cities style, set in 1940's. 

Ridley Scott
-Future dystopian cities are depicted in most films.

Despite being amongst millions in the city you are still alone. 

Meyerowitz
-City bombards us with information
-There is a confusion of imagery and no subject in her work. 
  

LECTURE 3// Panopticism

Panopticism
Institutions and Institutional Power.

-A study into the way we are raised and how it affects our thought and actions.
-How institutions affect our thoughts and actions.
-Social Control

-Berfore the 1600's madmen were tollerate, the village idiot was common but there was no division between the sane or insane. The disabled were often given jobs that they would not be considered for even today. 
-After the 1600's a new attitude of work emerged. Anxiety emerged towards the socially useless, those who could not perform tasks as efficiently began to be cast out. 

-'Houses of correction' are created for the Diseased, Mad, Criminals and Single Mothers.
-In the houses labour was used as a form of moral reform. 
-Im the 18th century the houses of correction were seen as a huge mistake. It was a melting pot of the unwanted which caused massive social problems. 
-The houses of correction were broken up into Hospitals, Prisons and Mental Institutions. 

-In the Asylums inmates were no longer beaten, they were treated like children; good behaviour was rewarded whilst bad behaviour was punished. They were being re-educated. 

-Control switched from physical control to mental control, this lead to the emergence of this form of control on all people in society. 
-Social experts emerge in each field, like phycologists, doctors. This sub-validates the new system. 

-In this modern form of discipline we take responsibility for our own actions, consequences, punishments and rewards. 

-Foucault was interested in this new form of power. "Modern discipline is a technology." aimed to control the conduct and improve the performance of the individual. 
-Foucault based his new theories on the Panopticon, a multifunctional building laid out in a circular fashion, with cells around the peripheral wall facing into one control tower. Every Cell could have a full view of the control tower but not of any other cells, giving the impression of always being watched. Each cell had a full open front (with bars) facing the control tower and a small window at the back looking outside. 
-Most Panopticons became prisons.
-The design had a fiendish mental effect on the inmates.
-Everything inside is light, visible and on display, the inmates are under constant scrutiny. 

-In the panopticon you are constantly reminded of supervision, you never behave independently. You are isolated but never alone, it is a form of phycological torture. 

-We are always being watched in the panopticon, once this panoptic effect has taken place the inmate begins to self-regulate. Because the guards may or may not be present at any time but the inmate is unsure they begin to behave automatically. This is an allegory for social control. 

-When people believe that they are permanently visible they tow the line.
-For example the open pan office is built, the myth that it is designed to make sure everyone gets along is told as the truth. In reality the knowledge of scrutiny the workers are under makes them work much harder. They are more efficient as a tool. 
-The open plan bar is another example. Bouncers and bar staff can see all that is going on, this changes the behaviour of the customers, whereas cosy pubs offer shelter from scrutiny. 

-In this respect we live our lives to conform to the wishes of others. 
-CCTV
-PC monitoring on networked machines
-Sign in sheets
are examples from college, we turn up even if we dont have to. 

-The relationship between Power, Knowledge and the Body. "Power relations are an immediate control of the body." Creating DOCILE BODIES, which are self-monitoring, self-correcting and obedient. 

-Power is a relationship: Power is not something that one person has over another, it is a relationship, there has to be a degree of acceptance of the power exercised. For example:
-Facebook
-The Police
-Family
-god
-Mass Culture

STUDY TASK 2// The Gaze In Advertising. COSMO

For this task I am analysing the front and back cover of Cosmo On Campus, which features two great examples of 'The Gaze' or 'The Look' as Rosalind Coward puts it in her post-feminist essay on the subject.
"In this Culture, the look is largely controlled by men. Privileged in general in this society, men also control the visual media. The film and television industries are dominated by men, as is the advertising industry." pg33.
So firstly and most importantly Cosmo On Campus (Cosmopolitan) is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which controls a massive media empire spanning television, news, magazines, newspapers and several websites. A company run exclusively by men, the only women with any say in the corporation happen to be the grandchildren of William Hearst, as they were left shares in his will. The lead editor of Cosmo on Campus however is a woman, as are most of her peers, so it appears that Cosmo is written almost entirely by women, who cover topics with an editorial style which is controlled by men. As Coward puts it Cosmo is a "Masculine investigation of women", or a masculine idea of how women should look and act. This is an undeniable truth when you see an article labelled 'Look Hot From £1' on the front cover, or the inevitable 'top 10 great sex positions' on the inside.

"The ability to scrutinise is premised on power... Women's inability to return such a critical and agressive look is a sign of subordination" pg33.
In the image of the magazine cover above we see two people meeting our gaze. Firstly, on the front cover is the female. She is smiling at the viewer in full makeup with airbrushed skin, in other words a mans vision of the perfect woman, but more importantly, not a reality. Her pose is important too, she is hiding her hands, a sign of non-agression, it is trusting and permissive, it leaves the whole front of her body unguarded and she stands at ease. She is submissive to the viewer, allowing them to 'Gaze'.
"Those women on the billboards, though; they look back. Those fantasy women stare off the walls with a look of urgent availability."
In contrast, on the back cover, the male character meets your gaze with a much more agressive gaze right back. His skin is probably airbrushed too, but only to accentuate muscle tone, a signal of power and agression. The male character is also covered in tattoos, which furthers the agressive image and where the female hid her hands behind her back the male curls his into fists and displays them prominently, almost raising them for a fight.
So in summary we have a submissive female, portrayed as a male fantasy, weak and innocent. On the reverse a powerful dominant male looking back at you critically.
At this point I began to wonder why a female and a male would be portrayed in this way when the magazine is aimed at women aged 18-25 (students). Both images are a fantasy, based on a masculine doctrine, where the male is a "sort of cross between a rutting stag and David Bailey" and the female is kept as submissive, distant and separate to the male, not because she is particularly aesthetically pleasing but because it it important for the male dominance of society that companies like Hearst rely on   to show women in this way. "The aesthetic appeal of women disguises a preference for looking at women's bodies, for keeping women separate, at a distance, and the ability to do this. ...This is a form of voyeurism ... and [voyeurs] are always in control."
So by portraying women as submissive and the male as dominant the female reader feels like she must chase the males fantasy desire to achieve the look that the front cover portrays, or else the rear cover man will judge you. This derogatory image of women, which seems counter to the interest of the magazine actually forces the female to search for the answer to these questions in magazines like Cosmo and Elle (which is also owned by Hearst). So by portraying women as submissive to men in all aspects of the mass media, the corporate machine that Hearst is part of can continue selling products.

LECTURE 2//

LECTURE 1//

DESIGN FOR WEB// Software Workshop 1

ollymoss.com
- Black
- Dull
- Incomplete
- Space
- Empty

malikafavre.com
- Busy
- Gifs
- Bright
- Stop moving

360landstrasse.sf.tv
- Photo
- Streetview
- German

mercertavern.com
- Hipster
- Clean
- Lost type
- Vontage
- Monotone
- Boxes

noble-design.co.uk
- Girly
- Red

caavadesign.com
- CD
- Space
- Circle



Questions for my own site:

What is the purpose of this website?
- To inform
- To entertain

Who is the target audience?
- Gamers
- Historians
- Designers
- Anyone with and interest in Computer Gaming or the history of the technology involved

What do the target audience need?
- Simple layout
- Side-scrolling timeline
- Facts
- Clean colours
- Visual clues hinting at computer gaming


Limitations of Web

Fonts- You have to pay and annual fee for specific fonts, if you run a commercial site. To get around paying, use standard fonts. Specify a font family, use 'if' quotations. 'IF' user doesn't have Helvetica, use Ariel, ect.

You can also use 'WebScript' to install a font onto a website. People can download these fonts so you need a licence.

WWW.fontsquirrel.COM is a website for free web fonts.

Work in RGB only. Work with 'websafe colours' only.

On a retina display iphone the dpi is 227. However if this was transfered to an old screen the screen would be massive.



HTML and CSS can build websites.
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.
URL - Uniform Resource Locator
CSS- An add-on to HTML, which is limited, Adds in more graphic based websites. Cascading Style Sheets
FTP- File Transfer protocol
CMS- Content Management System
WYSIWYG- What you see is what you get system, like Dreamweaver.



Dimensions: 1024x768  (look in diary for specifics)
Font: Arial, Helvetica, Sans Serif
Alignment:  Left
Menu: Home, About, Contact, Work, Play
Background: White
Text: Balck

DESIGN FOR WEB// The Bad Ones

1. GlitterMaker- Use of bright pink, glitter and gifs.

2. George R.R. 'That' purple colour, purple text and 'that' green. Full of gifs.

3. Sip Hawii. Text too large have to scroll constantly.

4. Yale School Of Art. Background image is a repeat gif.

5. The Worlds Worst website. Set up to be terrible, so that everyone knew what terrible looks like.

6. The Worlds Worst Website Ever. Same as above.

7.Videosonic. Black website, gradients and yellow blocks of text.

8. Ron Oslunds Home Page. Space image, super nova, full gradient and flashing text.

9.ACCEPT JESUS! Background is a fast moving gradient. Text is black.

10. Bieber FanSite, glitter, bad textures and use of pink on pink.