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Media, Branding

Objects fill our spaces and shape the ergonomics of day-to-day living; we design, manufacture, purchase and use them in response to needs, wants and functions. Far more than tools or decorations, they’re extensions of our relationship to the surrounding world; every object reveals something about the person using it.

With 100 short films by 30 Canadian and European directors, this interactive documentary for the National Film Board of Canada explores society’s relationship with objects and, with new perspectives, shakes up our habitual ways of seeing them. Through the web and iPhones it extends the concept of interactivity by diverting user attention away from screens and back to the real world.

Exploration begins through a simplified nav that gives visitors the fewest choices possible: Search, Scan, Share. By scanning the universal symbols of consumerism (bar codes), the site drives an experience through the objects surrounding each user and brings them to life through documentary content that promotes interaction between online and offline, encouraging people to use objects as gateways to discovery.

Visit the interactive site here.

Mod: Cultural History

The Mods, dressed in dapper attire and riding Vespas, believed they were truly modern—that they alone personified “the future” and “change.” Originally they were mostly working-class youths who wanted out of their social “caste.” They also thought the Rockers—dressed in leather and riding motorcycles—symbolized the past. Rockers embodied the uncouth ignorance and urban grit of working-class life that Mods wanted to escape. However, this story of identity moves well beyond southern British beaches and the stereotypical Mods depicted in Quadrophenia.

The Mod youth culture of the mid-1960s emerged from what British historian Arthur Marwick describes as a “unique era.” The decade’s significance is bound to distinct and rapid cultural transformations. Key changes included more ubiquitous use of technology such as color television and affordable jet travel, new concepts of identity formation via fashion, and, most importantly, the growing cultural influence of young people. More so than youth of previous decades, Mods consciously and deftly galvanized the quickly accelerating communication technologies to transmit their style around the world. Between 1964 and 1967 a transnational flow of youth- oriented television shows, films, print media, and commodities such as records and clothes globally united young people. Mod’s innovative and androgynous fashion sense raised questions about gender aesthetics and sexuality, while the style’s global reach expressed a desire for international openness among youths. Fueled by the marriage of expansive media technologies and utopian, generation-specific impulses, Mod’s international impact on youth during the mid-60s was unprecedented and foreshadowed the international sweep of the late 60s counterculture. While the original wave of Mod peaked for just a few years (early 1964 to mid-1967), its adoption by youth in succeeding generations suggests an enduring cultural journey.

Read more here.

Who on Earth are we?

Who on Earth are we? is a BBC series about culture and how it affects us. It explores some of the major differences between cultures and looks at what happens when people from different cultures meet and communicate. The series is presented by Marc Beeby.

This 12 part series is well worth discovering in audio or written formats. It will provide useful examples for the exam and coursework assignments, it will also deepen your understanding of the key issues and debates.

Access the series below:

Part 1

In this first episode of Who on Earth are we? Marc Beeby introduces the topic of culture and inter-cultural communication. We hear some anecdotes relating to cross-cultural surprises and discover that the more we learn about other cultures, the more we learn about ourselves.

Part 2

What is culture? In this programme Marc Beeby tries to answer this question and discover just why culture is so difficult to define and talk about.

Communication and Culture Modules

AQA Communication and Culture : Modules

COMM1 : Understanding Communication and Culture

COMM2 : The Individual and Contemporary Culture: Portfolio

Simon Armitage: 'poetry is a form of dissent'

Poet and novelist Simon Armitage has been writing about Britain for decades now. In the latest in The Guardians National Conversations series of interviews, Armitage talks to John Harris about the obstinate nature of poetry and the culture of violence in Britain that he believes precipitated the UK riots.

Art for art's sake

Is an unmade bed art? How about a saucy seaside postcard - or even a slogan T-shirt? It's art to the person who thinks it expresses their life, says Katharine Whitehorn.

Here is an excellent article from BBC News online magazine that discusses issues of taste within the High Culture/Popular Culture debate.

Visual Analysis: Meaning In Composition

To reduce the concept to a crude rule of thumb in the composition of a shot in a movie: A person located somewhat to the right of centre will seem ideally placed. A person to the right of that position will seem more positive; to the left, more negative. A centered person will seem objectified, like a mug shot.

Now what do I mean by "positive" or "negative?" I mean that these are tendencies within the composition. They are not absolutes. But in general terms, in a two-shot, the person on the right will "seem" dominant over the person on the left.

In simplistic terms: Right is more positive, left more negative. Movement to the right seems more favorable; to the left, less so. The future seems to live on the right, the past on the left. The top is dominant over the bottom. The foreground is stronger than the background. Symmetrical compositions seem at rest. Diagonals in a composition seem to "move" in the direction of the sharpest angle they form, even though of course they may not move at all. Therefore, a composition could lead us into a background that becomes dominant over a foreground.

Tilt shots of course put everything on a diagonal, implying the world is out of balance. I have the impression that more tilts are down to the right than to the left, perhaps suggesting the characters are sliding perilously into their futures. Left tilts to me suggest helplessness, sadness, resignation. Few tilts feel positive. Movement is dominant over things that are still. A POV above a character's eyeline reduces him; below the eyeline, enhances him. Extreme high angle shots make characters into pawns; low angles make them into gods. Brighter areas tend to be dominant over darker areas, but far from always: Within the context, you can seek the "dominant contrast," which is the area we are drawn toward. Sometimes it will be darker, further back, lower, and so on. It can be as effective to go against intrinsic weightings as to follow them.

Taken from:

How to read a movie

By Roger Ebert

Visual Analysis: The Taxonomy of Film Posters

This blog has distilled movie poster design into 13 categories. Despite the lighthearted approach and overwhelming generalisations of the critique, the visual analysis is spot-on. Composition, colour, perspective and typefaces are all considered.

Overzealous cleaner ruins £690,000 artwork that she thought was dirty

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 November 2011

An overzealous cleaner in Germany has ruined a piece of modern art worth £690,000 after mistaking it for an eyesore that needed a good scrub.

The sculpture by the German artist Martin Kippenberger, widely regarded as one of the most talented artists of his generation until his death in 1997, had been on loan to the Ostwall Museum in Dortmund when it fell prey to the cleaner's scouring pad.

The work, called When It Starts Dripping From the Ceiling (Wenn's anfängt durch die Decke zu tropfen), comprised a rubber trough placed underneath a rickety wooden tower made from slats. Inside the trough, Kippenberger had spread a layer of paint representing dried rainwater. He thought it was art: the cleaner saw it as a challenge, and set about making the bucket look like new.

A spokeswoman for the museum told German media that the female cleaner "removed the patina from the four walls of the trough".

"It is now impossible to return it to its original state," she said, adding that it had been on loan to the museum from a private collector and was valued by insurers at €800,000 (£690,000).

She said that cleaning crews had been told to keep 20cm (8in) away from artworks, but it was unclear if the woman – who worked for a company to which cleaning had been outsourced – had received the memo.

If Kippenberger is now turning in his grave, he may find solace in the fact that he is not the only artist to have his works ruined by cleaners. In 1986, a "grease stain" by Joseph Beuys valued at about €400,000 was mopped away at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf.

At least the artwork didn't end up in a skip. In 2004, a cleaner at Tate Britain in London threw away part of a work by another German artist, Gustav Metzger, after mistaking it for rubbish. The cleaner failed to realise that a plastic bag containing discarded paper and cardboard was an integral part of Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art, and not just some litter. The bag was later recovered, but it was too damaged to display, so Metzger replaced it with another bag.

Germans are not the only victims. In 2001, Damien Hirst lost a pile of beer bottles, ashtrays and coffee cups, meant to represent the life of an artist, when a caretaker at the Eyestorm Gallery in London cleared it away.