Popular Culture 1950s to 1990s Music – war – fashion politics – art – ideas technology - style Part II The Story from the 70s to the 90s Reflections on ourselves
Popular Culture 1950s to 1990s
Music – war – fashion politics – art – ideas technology - style
Part II
The Story from the 70s to the 90s
Reflections on ourselves
Points to Remember
‘Media’ is the plural form of the word ‘Medium’
A Medium is a communication channelIt is a means of expression
It is a vehicle for transmitting ideasIt is the pipeline through which ideas travelIt is the means of exchange between people
It is a BRIDGE between MINDS
Types of Media (1)
Speech - Writing - Mathematics - Painting - Drawing -Newspapers –
Television - Magazines - Music – Singing - Sculpture – Dancing - Movies – Fashion - Theatre……. and More
These and many other kinds of media allow the transmission of ideas between the minds of human
beings.The marks & drawings on the wall of the cave
are ancient media
Types of Media (2)A Spiritual MEDIUM
Supposedly a person who can communicate messages from the dead to the living
An Academic Medium
A teacher – who transmits the accumulated knowledge of society to young minds
A crumpled piece of paper
The note scribbled between two pupils in a classroom
“what are you doing tonight?”
Types of Media (3)
Emotional MediumThe wind that brings her perfume through the air
Musical Medium
The electric guitar played by Eric Clapton singing ‘Tears in Heaven’
Print Medium
Books through which you can access the ideas of many other people
Tall - Medium – Small
Three people stand in line
One is tall - One is ‘medium’- One is small
The medium is always the mid-point between two poles
The medium acts as the bridge
between two minds
Between Minds and Things
The Medium – whatever it is – is always BETWEEN things
Connecting them together
It has no purpose in itself other than to link different entities
There is always the MEDIUM and the MESSAGE
1970s – 1980s Movies
Blade Runner Star Wars Alien
1970s – 1980s Movies
E.T. Indiana Jones Jaws
All by Steven Spielberg
The 1980s – The New Wave Romantic Style
In the 80s style is everything if its clean and looks expensive:
David Bowie Meta punks Yuppie
The Postmodern Era 1970s-1980s
Elements of shock, retro, Pop art, clashes of colour and of normal design associations
The armchair joke An ‘historicist’ office building Portland Building, Michael Graves
Postmodernism – what it is (1)Postmodernism is…..
Since the 1970s an intellectual shift of attitude
Towards diversity of opinion, explanations and ideas
Towards different ways of doing the same thing
Towards identity, ethnicity, feminism, anti-science, individuality
Towards the validity of PERSONAL experience
There is no one single, right or dominant way of doing or thinking
Fragmentation of the social consensus
Postmodernism – what it is (2)CONTRAST WITH MODERNISM WHICH PROVIDES:
A single theory or explanation for many different events
The Meta-Narrative (the big story)
Darwinism, Marxism, Freudianism, Functionalism, Fascism, Science, Rationalism, Authority,Truth
Dominance of a priesthood, an elite and
‘Those who are supposed to Know’
Rejection of the validity of personal and individual
experience in the face of collective authority
The 1980s – Technology
Live Global Broadcasting possibilities thru
satellite communications and computer Control.
Top: ground station & shuttle satellite Delivery.
Right: Bill Gates of Microsoft
Space Exploration
Right: U.S. Space Shuttle
services a Russian MIR
space station.
Increased cooperation
between these countries
leads to the building of
the International Space
Station
The 1980s – Style Consciousness
Sub-rock music, sub-punk styles, smooth fashion all make the
1980s a matter of clean and inoffensive imagery.
No Threat to anyone here.
Above: Adam Ant ‘rock’ singer plus
80s fashions
The Movies 1970s-1980s
Raging Bull 1980 Apocalypse Now 1979 Cabaret 1972
Dir: Martin Scorsese Dir: Francis Coppola Dir: Bob Fosse
From Medium to Medium to MediumAn IDEA – a MESSAGE - can travel from medium
to medium
It can start as a book
It can then be translated into a play
It can then be translated into a film
The film can then be translated into a musical score
The musical score can then be translated into a stage musical
(And finally all of this can be translated into a lot of money at the bank for the guy with the original idea!!)
The Language of Media (1)
A medium is a kind of language
The Message, Idea, Plot is written out in the form of the language.
This can be sounds, writing, body language, mathematical symbols, film, etc.etc.etc……..
The language/medium has its own vocabulary of forms and a grammar for putting them
together sensibly
The language of Media (2)
When you buy birthday flowers for a family member
The flowers REPRESENT your affection for thatperson
The flowers themselves ARE NOT the affectionThey are just SYMBOLS of it
A medium for its expression……SO
The map is not the territoryThe map is just a symbol – a medium - for
representing the territory
The Language of Media (3)
Do you really think Media are just about
Words and Numbers?
When you are watching a powerful Movie
What do you think then??
When you look at a photograph of someone you love
What do you think then??
Japanese Design 1980s +++The hi-tech alternative
New Architecture The Sony Walkman Matrix in Japan
Postmodern Style 1990s-2000
• Left: M-M• Invitation Card• 2002
• • • • Rings by Azagury-Patridge ‘Muff Daddy’lounger 2002• by Seymour
Postmodern Style The 1980s
1980s
Yuppie symbols of wealth and confidence
Wars 1970- 2002
Afghanistan, Burkina Faso,
Comoros, Fiji, India, Liberia,
Libya, Myanmar, Nicaragua, China,
Iran, Ghana, Chile, Albania,
Azerbaijan, Bougainville, Haiti,
Macedonia, Yugoslavia, Panama,
Argentina,Grenada,
Israel, Iraq, Russia, Bosnia,
Palestine, Ireland (Britain), Iran,
Iraq, Serbia, Morocco, Congo,
Angola, Bali, New York, Chechnya
East Timor, Somalia, Guatamala,
Wars 1970s-2002
• • Chechnya, Georgia
Palestine
Bali, Indonesia
TV News Media
Channel News Asia; BBC; CNN; Fox News; CBS; Al-Jazeera; Sky News……………
Every country has its own news serviceWhere do they get their information?
1. If they are rich, they have reporters on the spot.2. They buy reports from news agencies who have
reporters on the spot
News Agencies:
AP, UP, Agence France, Reuters, Novosty, China News Agency……….
The Medium of Art (1)
Magritte
It is a painting of a pipe. Title:‘This is not a pipe’ 1928
Art as Representation – As a medium of ExpressionPlaying games with ideas
The Medium of Art (2)
Making things much bigger than expected, changes their meaning, and also changing the context in which you expect to see them. They remain familiar BUT also strange. Claes Oldenburg:
‘Clothespin’, Philadelphia’
Its all about changing expectations
The Medium of Art (3)
Size matters!Do we expect this kind of scale of Ordinary things?A giant matchstick in an art gallery.
Claes Oldenburg 1970s
Manipulating the medium to provoke thought
The 1980s – Graphics Imagery
Below Left: Giger Extreme Graphics
Right: Grace Jones
album cover
Below right: Garry
Glitter
posing
on the
Glitter
Glam
Rock
Show
Top 100 Albums of 80s90s
Top 100 albums of 80s90s
The Postmodern Era1980s-1990s
Above: Lou Reed album cover
by Stefan Sagmeister, 1996
‘Mona leo’ by Schwartz
1998
The Berlin Wall The Fall
Built in 1960/61 – to keep
East Germans inside the
Soviet Empire
November 1989 it is opened
And demolished soon after
Top: The Demolition
Conceptual Art Ideas• Pure Form, no ‘art’
to be seen. Art is no longer regarded as a precious commodity, but simply as an EVENT, as an EXPERIENCE. So..
• Carl Andre:
• ‘Equivalent VIII’
• (The ‘bricks’) 1978
Installation Art (2)
• A temporary event• In Conceptual and
Installation art it is the idea which is supposed to be significant – NOT the physical object.
• Installation Art:
1980s
Flash Cars of the 80s and 90s
Above:Lamborghini Countach Above : Ferrari
Below: Lamborghini Diablo
If you have to ask –
You Can’t afford it!
1980s 1990s – Sport
The World Cup
Argentina winners: 1978 & 1986
Brazil winners: 1970 & 1994 Italy winners: 1982 Germany winners: 1974 & 1990
1990s – The News (1)The Gulf War 1991 U.S. and
Allies force Iraq out of Kuwait
U.S. Soldiers in the Iraqi desert President George Bush
with Margaret Thatcher
1990s – The World News (2)
Princess Diana Bill Clinton elected Mother Theresa
Dies in 1997 President in 1992 & 1996 dies in 1997
Japan Fashion
From Streetwalk to CatwalkJapanese fashion can be VERY
Radical and fun
Icons & Ideas (1)Popular icons
Ironic statements about familiar figures
Cute but strange
‘Bubbles’ 1970s
Icons focus the values and desires of many people onto a single object or person
Icons are media for belief and devotion
Icons & Ideas (2)The Medium is one thingThe Message is another
The message is an organized set of ideas transmitted through a particular medium and intended to persuade, provoke or trick you into
Doing something
Sometimes people are out to trick you with illusions
1980s - 1990s Movies
Platoon 1986 Unforgiven 1992 Braveheart 1995
Dir: Oliver Stone Dir: Clint Eastwood Dir: Mel Gibson
1990s – Movies
Gladiator: 2000 American Beauty 1999 Pulp Fiction 1994
Dir: Ridley Scott Dir: Sam Mendes Dir: Q. Tarantino
2000+ Movies
8 Mile Matrix Reloaded Chicago
Terrorism Sept.2001
Terrorists attack the
World Trade Center New York killing over 3000 people
The Iraq War 2003
The bombing of Bagdad
Child & Saddam poster Iraqis taken Prisoner
The Iraq War 2003
Pain & suffering at the
loss of family
The Goodbye Wave
The Wave by Hokusai, 19th Century Japan
The End• Thank you for your
attention.
• I hope you have found it interesting
and maybe have learned something.
Vroom! Vroom!