Picture available at: http://www.swanzun.com/blog/?p=206
accessed 22 April 2012
Paul Rand, the American graphic designer, was born in Brooklyn in 1914 to orthodox Jewish parents who named him Peretz Rosenbaum, a name which he would later change to simply Paul Rand. (Rand 2007)
Rand spent time as a painter and lecturer and taught design at New Haven’s Yale University, he is also remembered for his highly expressive cover art for Esquire and Direction magazines amongst others, but Rand is probably best known for designing a variety of corporate logos including those for UPS and IBM. (Swanzum, 2011)
It was actually his love of logos that lead to his name change which he saw as his own corporate logo. Paul Rand, two simple, four letter words which would become memorable to many of us and a symbol of who he was, his own personal brand name.
Picture available at: http://cilantroliving.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/stimulation-of-mind.html
accessed 22 April 2012
Rand continued to design logos right up until the 1990s and, just before his death in 1996, he designed the logo for the NeXT Computer corporation in collaboration with Steve Jobs who was later quoted in saying that Rand was “the greatest living graphic designer”. (Swanzum, 2011)
Rand’s ability to turn simplistic designs into easily recognisable household names is a talent which, even today, very few other designers have been able to match.
Rand, P. (2007) Paul Rand, a brief biography Available at:
Cindy Sherman, born in 1954 in New Jersey, has enjoyed a multi-faceted career as model, film maker and photographer, but it is probably her photography that has created the most impact on her fans. (Sherman, 2004)
picture available at: http://artistquoteoftheday.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/
accessed 22 April 2012
Provocative at the least and sexually explicit at most, but all undeniably intriguing, Sherman would often use herself as the model. Many of her later works, particularly those from the ‘sex series’ which feature rather disturbing images of dolls in explicit poses, often with prosthetic genitalia and other artificial body parts, were produced with the aim of shocking the audience . As Roberts (2006) says: "Her sexually explicit and partly abstract images mocked conventional conceptions of obscenity, defying those demanding censorship."
Picrure available at: http://www.jenbrayphotography.co.uk/2011/07/cindy-sherman/
accessed 22 April 2012
Her works continue to gain in both popularity and value as more and more are drawn to her unusual and often distasteful but thought provoking, individual style. Cindy is now probably one of the most influential contemporary female artists, worldwide. (Roberts, B. 2006)
Today Sherman continues her work as photographer in New York and her working style has taken on yet another facet as she recently completed a project celebrating women from California, again with herself as the model in a range of different guises. (Moma, 2012)
Fernand Khnopff: I lock my Door upon Myself (1891, München, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen) Available at: http://moniquespassions.com/art-nouveau/fernand-khnopff-i-lock-my-door/ (Accessed 20 April 2012)
There is always a secret behind a sign. If we want to find out the secret is better to go after. Fernand Knoppff`s Door is definitely one of the signs which makes the viewer curious. Even if the door is open in front of the viewer, we still remain curious . A door can be a symbol for different things. It can be closed or can open different worlds, different spaces. It also can separate spaces from each other. We can tell a door has a double function. Just like God Janus in ancient Rome was responsible to stay at the front gate of the city but also he was responsible for the past and the future. ( http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-jan1.htm, 1996-2012).
Available at:
http://www.balassikiado.hu/BB/netre/Net_szimbolum/szimbolumszotar.htm#Janus Accessed at 20 April 2012
The Door which is leading from the human world to the divine world, can represent the knowledge one might know or which remains a secret. The door also can represent the woman`s secret. If it is open it can mean the losing of virginity (http://www.balassikiado.hu/BB/netre/Net_szimbolum/szimbolumszotar.htm).
The secret behind the door can be the secret of "Fallen Woman" represented by John Henry Fuseli by his picture called "The Nightmare."
Available at:
http://irishgothichorrorjournal.homestead.com/maria.html Accessed 20 April 2012
The Fallen Woman in Victorian art and literature generally denotes the prostitute or the woman who has fallen prey to her sexual appetites. Her fall is frequently connected with horses. The critic Nina Auerbach refers to ‘the symbolic use of horses in novels about fallen women from three different countries’(44) referencing Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Émile Zola’s Nana and George Moore’sEsther Waters."(http://irishgothichorrorjournal.homestead.com/maria.html). I think "The fallen woman" can be the same with one who locked the door upon herself. She is the one who knows the secret, maybe has to stay behind the closed door as the society would never accept her but she is a wise woman.
Reference list:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-jan1.htm (1996-2012) Accessed 20 April 2012.
Fernand Khnopff: I lock my Door upon Myself (1891, München, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen) Available at http://moniquespassions.com/art-nouveau/fernand-khnopff-i-lock-my-door/ (Accessed 20 April 2012)
http://www.balassikiado.hu/BB/netre/Net_szimbolum/szimbolumszotar.htm#Janus Accessed at 20 April 2012
http://irishgothichorrorjournal.homestead.com/maria.html Accessed 20 April 2012
(Evans, W. 1936) Charles and his father Floyd Burroughs, Alabama cotton sharecropper Available at: http://www.k-state.edu/english/nelp/childlit/1930s/evans_burroughs_fc.html (Accessed: 20th of April, 2012)
Walker Evans (1903-1975) was an American photographer whose work is prominent, symbolic and most quoted even in the present-day. His work portrayed the challenges of rural poverty and social isolation which affected the local everyday life of people who were considered victims of the Great Depression in America. (Ludwig Muzeum, 2009)
"Walker Evans` practice began as an abstractionist, exploring the new aesthetic possibilities of modernist society. His early subjects were architectural and focussed particularly on New York City. However, he soon became obsessed with recording the rawness of life lived by the poor and dispossessed." (http://www.a-website.org/design/photo/walker_evans.html, 1948).
Evans, W. 1936 Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife
Available at:
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/evan/hd_evan.htm
(Accessed 20 April 2012)
Looking at Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife`s picture, in her face we can see an irreversible sorrow, immersing on her face we feel that many bad things happened, no one can make her life better again.
Evans, W. 1936 Alabama Tenant Farmer Available at: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/evan/hd_evan.htm (Accessed 20 April 2012)
Even if Evans depicts the most dramatic moments of a family, of the society in his photos there is always present the beauty, the essence of being human. His compositions are esthetic, well selected, inspiring the viewer to think about or do something. The great photographer puts in the viewer`s mind the problem, to face it and learn from it by the effects given.
Ludwig Museum (2009) Válságjelek - Luis Buñuel, Walker Evans, Theo Frey, a hollandiai arbeidersfotografen, Kálmán Kata és mások. Available at: http://www.ludwigmuseum.hu/site.php?inc=kiallitas&kiallitasId=471&menuId=45 (Accessed 19 April 2012).
http://www.a-website.org/design/photo/walker_evans.html, (1948) (Accessed: 20 April 2012).
“You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile. Our culture has made us all the same… We all want the same. Individually, we are nothing” (thurstjm, 2009)
"Tyler says the things you own, end up owning you. It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything. Fight Club represents that kind of freedom." Fight Club Analisys (Freeonlineresearchpapers, 2012)
The resurrection story of Fight Club indicates that the identity is something which can be changed as many times as something happens in ones life. It suggests that there is no such as individuality.
Is it possible to give up one`s identity, acting similar with someone else, preferably with a leader of a community, then the community identifies that person with the leader? Can someone`s identity be determined by an other person? e.g. worshipping Tyler Duran?
Fight Club is a small group of people who try to achieve to be the same with their master, I think. Nowdays every community leader is coming with strong personal features and ideas which are unwanted by most of the people. But we have got a leader without personality and this is the media, which dictates the trends in everything. A new culture for humanity. A new leader who is not personalized, as fluid as our identity. Step by step manipulating people in term of "education", to which Kellner (1995) mentions that media is already teaching us how to be a man, a woman, what to wear, how to consume etc.
People threw out their cultural tradition, we often hear people saying, that their original language is a useless language. This was a process to get in this stage where we are now. The national identity is not regarded as a value. People think this old tradition gives us a limited mode of thinking (Gauntlett, 2011) which is somehow true if we don`t look deep enough in our history. If we just look back to the tradition and beliefs of our grandparents, that might not be enough to appreciate one`s traditional values. But if we look back in the history we can find out a complete guidance how to live, what to wear, how to dance, what to read and the most important, how to live in harmony with Nature, what kind of house to build, how to grow your own vegetables etc.
Why di we exchange all this with the media, allowing such an invention to flood us with all sorts of well selected and global interest-oriented environment-polluting rubbish?
On the other hand we have a big freedom, we don`t want to be told what kind of persons we are but with this fluid identity we can feel vulnerable and defenseless to follow the mass of people who has no idea what to do.
Identity must be something original, unique, which is not a copy, which is just me. If we look at drawing, everyone has their own style, as many lines we see they are all differently drawn. Also we have all different faces. All human faces but having different feature. Handwriting, signature are all different. Our voice is different as well. Through these qualities we can get closer to answer a question: who am I?
Identity is uniqueness.
Thurstim, (2009) Fight Club and the Illusion of the Self Available at: http://thurstjm.hubpages.com/hub/Fight-Club-and-the-Illusion-of-the-Self
(Accessed: 21 April 2012)
Freeonlineresearchpapers, 2012 Fight Club Analisys Available at: http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/analysis-of-fight-club (accessed at: 21 April 2012)
GauntleY, D. (2011) Media, Gender, Iden6ty extract. [Online] Available at
http://www.theoryhead.com/gender/extract.htm (accessed 21 April 2012)
Kellner, D. (1995) ‘Cultural Studies, Mul=culturalism and Media Culture’
in Gender, race and class in media. Thousand Oaks; London; New Delhi:
Sage.
http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/papers/SAGEcs.htm (accessed: 21 April 2012)
.jpg)
