Author: Keon Johnson

Finals COMD THEORY

Keon’s Cited Sources

Impact of the “Dad” shoes rejection and then its acceptance

Sketch:

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_de_Saussure

https://www.linkfluence.com/blog/fashion-trend-analysis-dad-shoes

Saussure_GeneralLinguistics_exc.pdf

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/dad-trainer-trend-2018-fashionable-how-runway-kendall-jenner-bella-hadid-kim-kardashian-a8357231.html

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/semiology

https://www.hcde.washington.edu/files/people/docs/Isakson_Spyridakis_Sem_Syn.pdf

 

 

Steven Heller believes that mainstream art is stolen from visionaires, slightlty altered and then mass produced as a “new” product. For example he uses avante garde art as an example. It is bashed or looked at in confusion as it fades into infamy and obscurity only until something or someone mainstream accepts it, steals it and profits off of it does it get its recognition. I aimed to summarize some of Heller’s ideas via reasearching and comparing my own ideas of contemporary art in the sources I’ve cited below.

According to Heller, Mainstream vs. underground is relevant in contemporary design. One example he gives is where he points out the fact that “Outsiders are, after all, invariably marginalized until the mainstream celebrates them as unsung geniuses.” He also points out that underground art has been folded into the mainstream and is called cool now. All of this ties into the present day situation however. There is a sort of cold war between the two seemingly divided sets of “artists”..

Contemporary design is always changing, mainstream artists seeking ideas can take from the underground artist and pass it off as theirs. This dilemma ranges from clothing to art to music the entire gamut of creative execution deals with this age old problem and it will likely be around forever.

cited

SÁNCHEZ, ALBERTO RUY, et al. “Snakes in Contemporary Art.” Artes De México, no. 71, 2004, pp. 73–92. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24316122. Accessed 28 Apr. 2020.

Mugno, Charles V., and Steven Heller. “The Design of American Heraldry: An Interview with Charles V. Mugno.” Defense Transportation Journal, vol. 64, no. 2, 2008, pp. 17–19. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44118360. Accessed 28 Apr. 2020.

“Contemporary Art.” The Museum Year: Annual Report of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, vol. 101, 1976, pp. 26–27. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43481740. Accessed 28 Apr. 2020.

Essay 2

Regarding the reading, McLuhan states the “content” of any medium is always another medium, when referring to an electric light and its varying forms of usage. There is a conspicuous duty but a number of entailed usages with the electric light. McLuhan points out “The content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph.” and “it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.” No matter what its use is, the medium is the message. Using the electric light as an example, whether its used for lighting the street or to light a sign, the ‘use’ is the purpose of seeing much more clearly.

Technological progress most certainly has its strong points, but it is not without its faults and entailed hazards to those individuals in the “electric age” or even the current age.  McLuhan points out a quote made by Sarnoff, and refutes it heavily, with the fact that it bears hypocrisy.”General David Sarnoff made this statement: “We are too prone to make technological instruments the scapegoats for the sins of those who wield them. The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used to determine their value.”” McLuhan refuted this by bringing up disease and gun laws in the format of Sarnoff’s bombastic quote, showing it’s degree of untruth. It doesn’t matter how it’s used, if it’s harmful it’s just harmful. A hazard of today’s society would be to remain ignorant to the aforementioned point. 

“The medium is the message” is an enduring phrase nonetheless, more specifically in how it pertains to artists and designers alike. McLuhan sees Cubism as an art movement that conforms to the idea of the medium being the message. Additionally to address the point of missing the actual media at hand, McLuhan scrutinized the issue heavily stating “Is it not evident that the moment that sequence yields to the simultaneous, one is in the world of the structure and configuration?” Essentially suggesting one perspective of a design is the physical appearance, while the other lies in the idea behind it. However, as addressed throughout the reading, many people ignore the multiple aspects, only taking something for what it appears as.

In comparison to the art forms of the present day, there is a conspicuous lack of “key elements” in art of the past. With the advancement of technology, as time ushered in a myriad of new expression styles and techniques, this stark contrast between ‘past’ and ‘present’ was inevitable. Architects/designers/artists, László Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer and Walter Gropius are all Bauhaus affiliates with a perspective on the effect of time and preserving ideas for the future of design.

Herbert Bayer for instance, had an outlook on typography suggesting it to be a service art and not a fine art. However pure and elemental that discipline may have been, it was a service art. Bayer also goes on to address the notion that, the present day designer feels as though the typographic means as of late, have been exhausted. An idea of Bayer’s that holds impact to this day is “universal communication”.

Linguistics is the scientific study of language and its structure. a common fallacy holds that language is above all else for everyone including the linguist but the task of a linguist is to dispel absurd notions, mirages, prejudice, mirage and fictions that arise. Both Semiology and Linguistics have a variance in qualities, which permits for an observable contrast between the two.

Semiology is a science that studies the life of signs within society. It is a part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology. Deemed “The most important of all these systems”. Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them. Linguistics is only a part of the general science of semiology. To determine the exact place of semiology is the task of the psychologist. The task of the linguist is to find out what makes language a special system within the mass of semiological data. This is the distinction between the two studies. We use signs in everyday life to understand directions, and communicate without words via colors, arrows etc.

There are both related aspects and distinct qualities between language, graphic communication and visual arts. To start, graphic communication and visual arts are very much alike being that, both fields would entail the creative at task to convey a sort of message through their ideas. Which is in itself, a form of language.

Their distinct qualities lie in the understanding of interpretation. Language is founded on the assumed abstract of words and their meaning, whereas one sentence in one language may mean something else. Visual arts are showing you what the artist is intending for the viewer to see. Graphic communication is more refined and tailored to be specifically what someone or the artist is wanting to show.