Context of Practice Lecture 1

I found my first lecture great and very interesting as I already have a love of history. I think its good that we can get a knowledge for other subjects within this module too, as it can only enhance our own work.

In this lecture I learnt about a small amount of context for each topic.

Photography

I learnt about the Worktown Project by Harrison, Jennings, Madge and Spender, which documented Bolton, specifically the Worktown people. The context behind this piece included the Wall Street Crash 1929, the Great Depression 1930+, Hilter coming into power 1933, and the British Union of Fascists formed 1932. These factors help to highlight the agenda of the photographer and the seeming neutrality of it.

Animation

I watched Jiri Trnka, The Hand 1965 animation. I thought this was a really effective animation especially in terms of symbolism and creating a heavy and serious atmosphere within an animation. In this sense it reminded me of Persepolis the animation based on the graphic novel, which portrays an Iranian girl growing up in Iran and France. 
The Hand was created in Czechoslovakia in the height of the Cold War, 20 years after the end of WWII. Czechoslovakia at the time had state censorship of the arts which meant many creatives felt repressed; this is a huge theme of the animation. It is a precursor to the Prague Spring of 1968. It is a radical animation and this type of animation is generally not shown in western culture, like Tony Kaye's Tested for the Unexpected 1993 which was shot in black and white and broke new ground in post modernism.
Illustration

We looked at Norman Rockwell, once known as 'Americas illustrator', his work was cringey, warm and realistic; it was what appealed to Americans at that time.

Type

We looked at the history of type within three cultures and how they represented the points of that culture. The Nazis used Fraktur, a font that the goths in the middle ages used, this portrayed a message of domination through force. The 30's British newspaper The Times used Times New Roman to try to equate the greatness of the British Empire with the Roman Empire and its national superiority. Modern Europeans used Bayer-Universal type which had no capital letters; this was used to portray unification.