Area of Specialisation: Surrealism

Surrealism is a modern art movement which is about the unconscious mind, the dream, the surreal world which the Surrealist saw as being the real behind the real, meaning that it is something which is real but we cannot realize it for we are spending too much of our attention on the real that we unlikely consider the real behind what we see as real, for example in our dreams we can see touch, feel, and hear, yet the things we dream are not really happening at the moment. We have an ability of dreaming of someone we never seen for years yet their voice and body movement is still the same as it was used to, therefore our brains have the power to bringing to life what we thought is no longer there, something which was real and now it moved behind the real that is real yet still it is hard to figure it out. Without this Surrealism movement the world would be boring today because we would be able to predict everything as we already know the function of the human body and nature, it would really be hard to impress people. Therefore the addition of Surrealism to the world has brought curiousity of how the real behind the real works, meaning that I may not have the ability to understand my own dreams but would be interested and may understand someone else's when they tell me about them.

Surrealism (art):

 

Surrealism (gaming):

Without Surrealism we wouldn't have had a special childhood where we enjoy playing as a character of Super Mario, a Italian plumber who looks Mexican and eats mushrooms in order to grow up, can spit fireballs and jumps on tittles for a living, he can break brick with his head but he dies when he touches a turtle, but its okay because "what doesn't kill you only makes you smaller"- Super Mario. All this makes sense when one has the controller and is playing the game.

Surrealism (design):

Surrealism (cinema):

If human being were not as clever to posses surrealist thought we would never ever though of a possibility of a human being flying, and even go to the extreme that the being is so strong that they cannot have scratches, wounds or dirt anywhere near them when they fight villains, we would not have the movie of the strongest hero in the world, but just to balance everything, make him be the weakest person on earth if a crystal is in his radius.

Surrealist (fashion):

Surrealism (literature):

Dada Collage

Dadaism is an art movement of the 20th century and was all about moving away from everything, one would say that this was a type of art which mocks art itself, the Dadaists wanted art to stand alone without representing anything, Dada had to be like nothing else. There the Dadaists were amongst the first to introduce new tools to the art industry such as collages, mass produced objects and their own literature with poem consisting of just sounds and no intended meaning to them, see the Dadaists were all about chance. As graphic design students we ourselves had to enjoy  a moment of the 1916's and create art using their style, the following is a Dada collage titled "Life is Exciting" by Laone K Kwati where he uses all which we value in the modern world although it is stressful, doesn't has to have meaning, remember that.

 

World War II - the atomic bomb

The atomic bomb is a nuclear weapon which was made by the United States during the time of the World War II and was dropped on Japan Hiroshima, three days later another one was dropped on Nagasaki. The bomb had a uranium-235 filling and weighed 4 400 kg and 10 feet in length, this atomic bomb below was named "the Little Boy", way too ironic for how much damage a little boy can do, the Little Boy is the nuclear weapon which was dropped at Hiroshima.

The Little Boy:

An atomic boy is a weapon of mass destruction which causes a cloud of smoke in a mushroom form that it is called a mushroom cloud. 

Mushroom:

 

Mushroom cloud:

 

A nuclear weapon can cause radiation to those exposed to it and even from interaction with those exposed to its chemicals, These are some of the survivors and those who had been too close to the survivors:

With so much damage being done after the dropping of the bombs, the people had to try to limit this threat by creating anti-nuke or anti-nuclear movements so that such does not happen again with masses of people protesting against nuclear power plants.

Utopias and Manifestos

First of all we've already dealt with the term Utopia earlier this year, which we defined as what one would see as a perfect dream world where everything is all purely good and everyone is happy to live during that time period. Now a manifesto is a public declaration of one's (or even belonging to a group) policy of aims, this is usually a written piece of announcement of some goals which had never been thought of before. People had been writing manifestos for years in which they identify their utopian ideals and what they see as to be the recipe for a "perfect world", one of these people which wrote a manifesto was Philippo Marinetti and he wrote a manifesto to accompany an art movement which he was the founder of, the Futurist movement. In the manifesto he introduces the new art as something which consists of speed, movement and simultaneity. Another art movement which was accompanied by a manifesto was the Dada movement and the De Stijl movement in which the authors of these manifestos also describe the art of that specific movement as something which had never been done before that is the primary reason these people were labelled the avante garde (people way ahead of their time). The following is a copy of a manifesto by the two MGI (Midrand Graduate Institute) in Bloemfontein in which they describe and give an idea of how today's youth would describe someone with an utopian ideal:

As things are in the modern day, it is very hard as an artist to come up with a different style of art that has not yet been created. The reason I say that is because everything has been done! Even mixing different styles to try and form your own has been redone many times. Although we have different styles of art, artists today sort of like plagiarize past artists like Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh and many others. Today it is very hard to be a successful artist because your art will be constantly compared to paintings like the three women by Otto, and even crazy works like the fountain by mutt.

The only way for an artist to stay relevant in today’s world is to tell himself that although whatever it is he dreams of doing has been done, he will just do it either way so he gets it out of the way. It is true that many art styles has been accomplished but no two people can experience or present something in the same way although it is one theme or concept.Therefore the artist should stay true to himself, follow his heart and make peace with the fact he won’t come with anything that might be that new to the world but can present something new using the old ways of doing it.

Art in today’s world is being used mainly as a political tool, either for or against certain political values or in short we should say is being used as political satire or metaphors to ridicule stupidity within the political system. Although some artists express themselves in an explicit and controversial way when painting political images they bring in other elements that have the power to influence a country in a negative way. A perfect example of the above mentioned situation would be the picture dubbed “The spear” because it took us a step backward in terms of fighting racism, although the person depicted does act in the manner that the image suggest.

As the Futurists suggested that with technology making everything easier and mass productions causes things to be made faster, today manifesto is simply seen as an article or a facebook post or note judging by people's reaction to it. The current generation is mostly interested in the future and seem to be bored with everything of the past as time changes they do not expect to live as their parents and grandparents lived because of the way technology has an influence on everyone's lives and causing them to desire urbanisation more. We cannot exercise our cultural traditions anymore because of how the Western  lifestyles had an influence on our lifestyles and values, the transition of our lifestyles from the villages to the urban modern world happened too quickly and with the simultaneity of too many things happening at the same time that all we want is a break from everything else including, school, studying, work, relationships, people and everything. It is hard to be recognized in anything these days as there is way too much competition and people who works harder than you with some even doing better than you would ever do without giving yourself any sleep and they doing it without even trying their best.

Illustration: Japanese Influence of Western Design

Information has its way of spreading throughout the world, just as through language, writing, printing, electronic mass media (which includes radio, film and television ), and electronic-information (which includes the internet, electronic mail, world wide web, newsgroups, chat rooms, teleconferencing and telecommuting), art is also a way of distributing information. Given that the form of transportation changed with time and the distribution of information, trade between countries also increased and different countries started to adopt certain parts of their cultures. Part of these cultures include art, the Japanese has influenced other countries at the Western with its use of space, drawing conventions, subject and colour in art. This influence of the Japanese art is known as Japonisme.

Anime:

(Japanese)

(Western)

Japanese anime dates back from 1917, anime is animation in short and it is basically that which has been hand-drawn or designed in a computer. These designed moving images include television series', short films and full-length films. Looking at the image above of the Japanese style anime, one would realize that it consists of vibrant characters, colourful graphics, and fantastic themes. Western style of anime dating back to the 1960's was never actually seen as anime at fisrt by referencing 'Astro Boy', in the 1970's and 80's production companies then outsourced the Japanese studios in helping production of many original animated series' including Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. By looking at the Western design of the anime culture, it can be seen that the colours are rather dark than that of Japanese and the characters do not seem to be 'innocent' but in a pose that shows that they are ready for anything that comes their way.

Manga:

(Japanese)

(Western)

 Manga are comics which were created in Japan by the Japanese, these are not created for a specific age group as different people of different ages may found them fascinating, knowing that most animation is for children's interests, by looking at the images above, the one which is Japanese shows a woman on her underwear and that is not something one would introduce to a child. Manga has a broad range of genres which includes: action, adventure, horror, romance, sexuality, comedy, drama, business/ commerce etc. When the Western adopted the art style it was known as the Amerimanga, and today that different cultures merge and that manga evolved, the term that replaced Amerimanga as a non-Japanese manga is Global Manga. The 2 images above show the difference between the Western style and the Japanese style, the Western show suspicious looking characters with weapons portrayed in darker colours whereas the Japanese show bright colours and calm characters.

Otaku:
(Japanese)

(Western)

Japanese used this "okatu" term to refer to people with obsessive interests such as anime and manga. Okatu can be related to being a fan of something, with so many things that capture our interests in the world we therefore try to imitate those things we see as to be "cool". Most girls used to own barbies from a young age and even when grown up they still find teddy bears cute, and some even own "Spongebob" teddies which they so much adore.The images above show how this can be explained, first image of Japanese Okatu is of an anime character holding a toy, the second is of another character playing a video game, which may be normal unless one is obsessed of it or tries to imitate it. The third and forth picture is of how this culture influenced the west, where the third image is of an animated bear called the "Dropout Bear" which was just a college mascot at first but then an American rapper going by the name of Kanye West in the fourth image, used it to represent himself on his album covers and it is now known as his trademark.

Kawaii:

(Japanese)

(Western)

Kawaii is what the Japanese refers to as the quality of cuteness. This cultural context has become a prominent aspect of the entertainment, clothing, food and toys. This art style was used by the Japanese to enhance the appearance of different things, the first image above show designs of sweets, and the second image show clothing, The third image shows how the Western people implemented the designs on their own clothes, wrists and and even nail colour to go with, the fourth image shows how kid's meals' containers are made attractive to the with these designs.

The collapse of the Space and Time Contunuum

The railway developed and used worldwide was the urban underground. This was followed by the first passenger-carrying underground railway that was opened in London between Paddington and Farringdon on 10 January 1863.Steam-hauled and built on the cut-and-cover principle beneath the streets, this was the start of a rapidly expanding network which, by the 1880s, served much of central London and its financial heartland in the City, connected most of the major railway termini and was increasingly serving the expanding suburbs via conventional overground connections.

The cut and cover technique was fast becoming a main use trend by other underground networks cities such as Paris and New York. The deep-bored tunnel railways was becoming a much more demanding technically, following the examples of which were the steam-powered Mersey Railway of 1886 and the cable-hauled Glasgow Subway of 1896. However, the most revolutionary was the City and South London Railway, now part of London Underground's Northern Line, whose first section was opened in 1890. From the start this was wholly electric, with hydraulic lifts linking the surface stations to the platforms, a pattern rapidly followed by other early tube lines, for example the Waterloo and City Railway of 1898 and the Central London Railway of 1900.

Although the public railway and the application of steam power to transport were pre-Victorian concepts, the widespread development of local, national and international railway networks was a Victorian phenomenon. The combination of great public enthusiasm, massive investment, highly skilled engineering and the application of modern technology ensured the rapid growth of railways in Britain and abroad. By 1850, 6000 miles of railway were in use, and throughout Victoria's reign British engineers were involved in railway construction and operation in many parts of the world, which in turn created new export markets for British locomotive and vehicle builders.

Nowadays, many forms of transportations, such as airplanes, bicycles and automobiles, have been introduced into the society. Though people’s views vary from each other, I believe that it is the
automobiles that changed people’s lives. Because automobiles could give people more convenience, save everyone’s time, improved communication and increase the efficiency of the world. Automobiles have given many freedoms to ordinary people. For the working people, the car enabled them to work in the city and live in suburban areas many miles away. The more transport was developed more people could travel at the same time. They used to travel per horsesand baggage was limited

Contemporary Cultural influence

Imagine waking up in the 17^th century with no cell phone, computer or a car to transport you around, for us people living in the 21^st century it would be difficult to cope with the surroundings of that era. The reason I say that is because somehow our lives are dependent on those three objects and we see them as necessities for communication. Nowadays I doubt there is someone who would want to write a letter, send it to another town and wait for days to get a reply whereby he or she could send an E-mail or phone the person and get an instant reply.

 Communication is in our everyday lives and due to our lifestyle it puts us in different situations that people in the 17^th century never got to experience, situations such as exchanging money for petrol and complaining to the petrol attended about the petrol price. The way communication is so advance these days. We can know what is happening in other countries or continents in a matter of minutes or hours whereby back in the other passed centuries they had to send sailors for months on end to find out what is happening in other countries and only then the rest of the community would know the news.

The historical form of communication took place rather slow, for there was no necessary tools that could help the inventions to take place faster, for example; what is known today as printed books, was written with hand at first, therefore the process of producing information took place slow because paper also took long to produce. As time went by, printing was invented, it made it easier for more information to be distributed, but the information was still limited for the printing was made of carving out characters on the woodblock and pressing them on paper after inking the carved out part.

Gutenburg then invented a printing machine with movable/replaceable letters, and this made it easier for information to be distributed to rather more people than what was used at first. This shows that everything that is invented will keep on being improved and made better to accommodate and be user friendly to even more people. 

Nowadays, many forms of transportations, such as airplanes, bicycles and automobiles, have been introduced into the society. Though people’s views vary from each other, I believe that it is the
automobiles that changed people’s lives. Because automobiles could give people more convenience, save everyone’s time, improved communication and increase the efficiency of the world.
Automobiles have given many freedoms to ordinary people. For the working people, the car enabled them to work in the city and live in suburban areas many miles away. The more transport was developed more people could travel at the same time. They used to travel per horses and baggage was limited.

Photography

In the beginning all that could ever be done to document reality was to memorize, then somewhere along the way a cultural group invented cave paintings and rock paintings. These photographs was used to record and document reality though them, the paintings themselves were never that accurate. These paintings evolved and for some gave the idea to invent ideographs but ended up leading to the invention of alphabets instead of something that visualizes reality. Therefore, using alphabets to form words, one can give the idea of how something looks and feels but cannot actually show the object but just describe it. A while later after civilization was a little better and innovation was at its peek, photography was invented. During the early stages of photography, it did not have genres as people rather used it just to document a specific moment in time, just as type was only used to be read instead of being used as a design element. As photography grew it started breaking in to different genres and was now able to be used for different purposes instead of only documenting a specific moment in time.

Documentary Photography :

Documentary photography is about reality, it is about documenting the things that are happening in the world and in most cases those that most humans do not see in their everyday lives or that which they may see but do not know of how they occured. This is based on a moment, and what happens during that certain moment. One would realize that most of these photos will be in black and white instead of colour, reason being that some of them do not give an impression when in colour.

Art Photography:

Art photography is mostly based on beauty, and the aesthetic of a scene or a set, lighting can be altered and unrealistic objects may be shown in this type of photography. These are the type of images that should tell a story from about anyone's point of view, unlike documentary photography is only based on a certain story that connects to reality, art can be unreal and it depends on how an individual connects to it.

Science Photography:

This, like the documentary photography, is based on reality, but as the documentary photography focuses more on the occurance of the living, science rather expands and focuses on almost all that happens in the world that we do not have knowledge of and one individual cannot take photos of. Science is known as the study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural.

Paparazzi Photography:

Paparazzi photography is the type where photographers follow celebrities around take pictures of their lifestyles an the things that aren't morally right just in order to put stories in newspapers and magazines. One would see that there is no set for these types of photos and celebrities are rather in a distance instead of closer to the camera. The reason for these photos is exposure.

Fashion Photography:

Fashion Photography is the most coulourful of all, this is based on how people express themselves and how do the bright colours reflect on their lifestyle and personalities, most would be to advertise the trending clothing that is out there which everyone would consider as "swag" or the new "cool".

The effect of photography on public consciousness is that photography is used to raise public awareness and as there are different people in the world, not all will look at a photo the same as the other person as everyone connects what they are seeing to their lives, for example; art photography mostly portrays naked women, someone who is against sexism.