Month: October 2020 (Page 2 of 5)

Human beings create things with an end goal in mind, but that creation doesn’t just fulfill that goal; it goes beyond it. When we create something, we do it to appease one problem, but that creation then becomes a medium itself for other things. Marshall McLuhan uses the example of the creation of the railway to explain this. He states, “The railway did not introduce movement or transportation or wheel or road into human society, but it accelerated and enlarged the scale of previous human functions, creating totally new kinds of cities and new kinds of work and leisure”. Media extends human beings because the creation of one thing becomes the solution to other problems, or it creates new ways to do things. Just like the railway; a network of tracks, also brought about the innovation of cities and new jobs. As we advance and create these mediums, they become extensions for us and extend our society.  There is only one problem with these extensions, and that’s that they bring in the loss of jobs for individuals. The reason for this is automation, which is the use of machines to do human processes. These machines are human creations, medias.

Being that the medium is the message, artists and designers can hold a lot of power in creating new ideas but have no power over the message that that idea will send out. “Many people would be disposed to say that it was not the machine, but what one did with the machine, that was its meaning or message” (1). McLuhan uses this line to explain that that it is not the designer’s creation that sent a message, but what people used that creation for. The creation of electric light is a very good example of this. “Whether the light is being used for brain surgery or night baseball is a matter of indifference. It could be argued that these activities are in some way the “content” of the electric light, since they could not exist without the electric light. This fact merely underlines the point that “the medium is the message” because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action” (2). Light was created just for the purpose of seeing better, but from it came things that couldn’t exist without it, and that wasn’t something the creator of electric light came up with it, that’s just how the people used it.          

It’s very simple to explain why the work of a designer is subordinate to the media they use to create and distribute information. After a designer creates something, that thing takes control of itself. It’s not up to the designer what it can do or what it can be used for. It is no longer up to him what society will decide to use to for and what else it can make out of it. The extensions that come from that designer’s creation is no longer in their hand, that is why the designer is subordinate to their own creation. Better said by McLuhan, “In terms of the ways in which the machine altered our relations to one another and to ourselves, it mattered not in the least whether it turned out corn- flakes or Cadillacs” (1). The machine alters humans, humans do not alter the machine.

The transmission of thoughts and ideas has evolved over time and society has to adapt to new means for sharing information. We communicate through various mediums, making our interactions much more efficient. McCluhan has the value of the message being more than just the element transported through different mediums. As the media became more accessible, it became very easy for people to gain access to new information and make learning much easier than it used to be. The easy access to new knowledge or belief may not always be in the greater interest. Media has challenged our beliefs and core values, pushed people to question their morals and stances.

Whether we are aware of it or not, we have to adapt to changes consistently occurring in our surroundings. New trends emerge every day and old skeptics become new believers every single day. The power of innovation cannot be halted nor paused. Every new technology or trend was born out of risk. The will to affect a change that fits our current way of life, fixing a problem that perhaps not many has foreseen. Every creator, artist needs the gut to create something new even if they will be faced with backlash, as it is a right of passage.

The more we extend the reach of the media, the less grasp we have on our free will. Not that we feel forced to change or to adapt to new ways but rather carried into the masses. We start to lose grip on what we believe to be true and what we are told to be a certain way. From the way we educate ourselves, inform ourselves, and navigate our everyday social life, we have become part of a giant spinning machine that we created rather consciously or not.

Technology is everywhere now in 2020, back in the day people did not have as advanced things as we did now but as times passed media is always part of our lives. Media extends humans, we use media everyday to keep us up to date with news that is happening around us. There are many types of media and many different content coming from each. For example, “The content or uses of such media are as diverse as they are ineffectual in shaping the form of human association.”  Media changes the way we see things, and the way we interact with others.  For Example, “It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of modern society and the stability of its inner life depend in large part on the maintenance of an equilibrium between the strength of the techniques of communication and the capacity of the individual’s own reaction.”

A hazard technological progress can bring for individuals and society is the loss of jobs and the change of people. For example,“ Thus, with automation, for example, the new patterns of human association tend to eliminate jobs, it is true.” McLuhan also describes that technology has shaped the way people worked. “The restructuring of human work and association was shaped by the technique of fragmentation that is the essence of machine technology.”

The medium is the message, The role artists and designers can play in “the medium is the message” is by showing the messages behind each of the artwork/designs. Instead of just straight up writing the information, artists can come up with ideas and show by using art. Throughout the years with technology evolving it has also impacted artists. For example, “The percussed victims of the new technology have invariably muttered clichés about the impracticality of artists and their fanciful preferences.” Artists must keep up with technology and work along with it.

Media has become a major role in human society ever since the invention of the first light bulb. No matter where you go or even if you stay at home. Media will always be around you somehow. The media has been so engraved in the human life that it is capable of changing how one lives out their lives. Thats how much of a extension to the human race technology advancement along with the media has become apart of us. It has become in a way both a blessing and a curse to how its used, seen and how we react to them.

One of the many positive examples to media and technological progression is the computer, and cell phones of today. Each one has been given access to the internet and it allows many people around the world to connect and have access to vast amount of information but it also gives companies a chance to connect with us as well and attempt at selling their products. As this can work for good reasons, there are big hazards for such advancements like this and that is how much it can effect and change someone without a second thought. When new technology rolls out people must have it, people talk, walk and drive everywhere with phones in their hands. We are so focused on these things that life outside of it can just fly by us and we wouldn’t know. Humans have become nearly reliant to technology for everything and nearly anything in life without knowing. As well as people believing in a vast amount of false information that the media shares though these advancements. This is one of the many risks that come with it.

The roles designers play in this is almost second place more than anything. When new ideas come into view designers are to introduce the idea to the world somehow. Introduce them to grab their attention and give people a reason to want these new things in their lives. What good is a TV if it has nothing to show? What good is a radio if theres nothing to listen to? What good is a video game console if theres nothing to play on it? With every new invention there has to come an artist or designer to show “Why you must have it”. They have to put the consumer in mind but with these new ideas, designers have to get the information out there. That is when the designers creations and information that they want to distribute becomes secondary. The media a designer uses is primary all because without said media, the information they want to show and distribute wouldn’t get out to the world. We provide the info but it’s how we get it out what matters.

Marshall McLuhan discusses how the message can be the medium itself, not just the purpose it was created for. Media has become an extension for human beings, what we see and hear affects how we plan and think; how we talk and interact with others. Media becoming more accessible to people has given everyone the opportunity to view the media of others and may change how we perceive someone, or how we perceive ourselves.  There has also been a change to how we absorb things and how we react to it, this can be shown by how trends and critiques have changed.

The progress of technology can be a hazard though due to how fast we all adjust without putting much thought into how we change, McLucan states; ‘In the history of human culture there is no example of a conscious adjustment of the various factors of personal and social life to new extensions except in the puny and peripheral efforts of artists’. This statement might be  turning false now due to the developments occurring, social life, education, careers have become more involved with media, there is a need to catch up and adjust due to how fast new media gets introduced and how it changes the people around you. Although there have been discussions on how we’ve become dependent to media and how it changes the manner in which we consume it, there still seems to be no attempts to change it; instead we may continue like this or focus on a ‘niche’. Although McLucan’s statement is still correct as we do still find ourselves aware of media and adjust ourselves unknowingly.

Media changes and adjusts people, designers have to keep in mind that although there can be changes to media there has to be an introduction to it.  “Nobody wants a motorcar till there are motorcars, and nobody is interested in TV until there are TV programs. This power of technology to create its own world of demand is not independent of technology being first an extension of our own bodies and senses”. When creating new ideas artists and designers play the role of introducing ideas and may have to risk the fallout of the risk when trying a new idea, they must have the audience in mind the majority of the time, and it’s their role to decide who they want to introduce this idea to. That’s around the time when you decide the media you use, the work you create is second to the media you use because it’s how we interact with the work, how we decide whether it’s worth the effort to interact with the work.

The Futurist Manifesto

In the Futurist Manifesto, Marinetti defines the future as a culmination of aggression, suppression, and the eternal. Marinetti remarks on the stagnancy of the past; how all things came to a slow-paced end. Beneath the word-vomit of constant simile and metaphor (Sorry professor, I just really disliked his pretentious tone! ), there is this inherent irony when referring to new age technology as gothic/bygone terminology such as centaurs, angels, and kings. It directly contrasts with the very concept of technology, which evokes ideas of “new” and “modern”. It is these disparities that further highlights the lack of energy exhibited by past literature and invention. When speaking in over-saturated similes, the car is brought down from “the pinnacle of human invention” to that of a “centaur”. Marinetti sees this and demands explosive energy instead. He speaks toward a future full of excitement and danger that is constantly living in the present. However, he takes this idea to the extreme when declaring his desire to, “-demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.” While there is defiantly an emphasis on constant advancements in the present age, there is also a vast appreciation for the past. More so now, we are constantly being told to look towards the past, to appreciate history, and to learn from it. It can be said, that only through this history we can advance at all, be it through morality, invention, or general understanding. Marinetti also has the problematic yet, the ironic idea of glorifying war and fighting feminism. In his exceedingly unhinged and deranged set of demands there is this overarching theme of “liberty”, yet, Marinetti seems to be the most oppressive figure of them all. 

Who We Are Manifesto of the Constructivist Group Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, and Aleksei Gan

Similar to Marinetti, the Manifesto of the Constructivist speaks on the “new”; not an outright disregard for the past, yet, a commentary of what has come to be. When considering the present, It’s often that we take what we have for granted. Our home, Our education, even the plate we eat of off was once just a concept, an idea someone brought into fruition that became so prevalent we often forget its value. The manifesto if the constructivist echos that sentiment, noting the mission of creators. There is no outright creation, but reconstruction, developing advancing, and repeat. A cycle seemingly mundane, but what a luxury it is to be Mundane. By stoping at “just words”, or “just a picture” we lose out on what could’ve been. There is a definite correlation with how creators work today. We take what always has been a look past “just a -“, to discover what can be. While Marinetti looks to destroy any traces of the past, The constructivist own up to it, they recognize the foundation and wish to expand on it.

Our Book El Lissitzky 

 Lissitzky takes a more solemn approach to the principles of the Constructivist group. While the constructivist say nothing is new yet can still be built upon, Lissitzky states outright that art has no evolution. That we invent until burden than event again to release the burden, and it repeats. He states that the root of this is language, communication, and what better way to convey that than the book. And as time goes on “the book” is the pinnacle of art, and how we develop new relationships with said “book” is how we can move forward. Some of this holds today, as designers still attempt to push typography as well as different forms of communication to relay their message. However, it does not always have to be a book. Begot pictures, dance, clothes, etc. There is more evolution with an emphasis on liberation and communication than there is the single medium of a “book”. I feel as though boiling everything down to a single concept is what limits the artistic freedom of what their groups strived for. By labeling themselves, creating “rules”, set goals, and manifestos, it became more about the individual’s desires, rather than the liberation of a group as a whole. 

According to Walter Gropius, what was lacking in the art of the past was the creativity and connection an artist had with his work. Many artists were misled to believe that art is a profession which can be mastered by study but that isnt the case at all.  School can only provide an understanding and thorough knowledge in art so it can help generate new ideas but it can not teach students how to produce art because that depends on the talent of the individual who creates it. Gropius also emphasized on the idea of being one with everything because it produces creative art with a deeper meaning instead of a creation that is mechanalized. Mechanized work is meaningless because you’re just creating something with no form and when we’re surrounded by meaningless art, society becomes disordered. Because society will continue to believe they are isolated from everything and everyone. Everywhere they look at will not have purpose, it will not allow them to connect with something and what that does is make people enslaved to the idea that they just have to follow along with what is when there’s more to life. Everything and everyone around us has a purpose but that doesn’t mean we should be isolated with them. László Moholy-Nagy has brought an enormous expansion on typography, the film, and the radio. The importance of typography is the communication it has with the person viewing it. Typographers called for clarity, conciseness, precision; for more articulation, contrast, tension in the color and black-and-white values of a typographic page. It’s important for type and photo to work together to communicate to the viewer its meaning. Nowadays we see type displayed in many ways, some even have images inside the letters. I think it’s important as artists, to keep in mind that we should always create with meaning. To create something where others can relate to what you’re trying to convey instead of creating without meaning or because of the money.