Graphic Design & Design Activism

Lecture Notes
What is design activism?

Design activism has emerged in recent years as a term to denote creative practices that invoke social, political and environmental agency. Typically, it distances itself from commercial or mainstream public policy-driven approaches. Instead, it embraces marginal, non-profit or politically engaged design theories, articulations and actions.


An example of design activism that I found particularly interesting was culture jamming, a form of subvertising, where spoof ads, or changes to an existing advert are made to give it new meaning. 

According to AdBusters, a Canadian magazine and a proponent of counter-culture and subvertising, "A well produced 'subvert' mimics the look and feel of the targeted ad, promoting the classic 'double-take' as viewers suddenly realize they have been duped. Subverts create cognitive dissonance. It cuts through the hype and glitz of our mediated reality and, momentarily, reveals a deeper truth within."

Here some examples I have found of these spoof ads and altered ads. Some are quite clever as its not initially obvious they have been changed. These adverts are going against what is seen as being cool, or seen as acceptable in this capitalist society, to spread a new message. 


Design activism relates to what I have learnt about globalisation, as you will see that most of the spoof ads are for Western brands that are trying to take over the world, such as McDonalds, Coke and Pepsi. What is capitalism? It is the stage of history that we live in now (in the west). The ability to make profit is held by a few individuals, and everybody works to earn these people money. Everything is bought and sold, as we revolve around the logic of the market through the exchange of money.

From I'm loving it to I'm sick of it...

Sources: http://www.adbusters.org/ adrants wikipedia businesspundit  desizntech & google image search

What is design activism?

I was quite interested in this lecture so decided to find out a bit more, as well as looking more in to the adbusters work and finding relevant examples of graphic design. Found this blog with lots of information on it: http://designactivism.net/ 


Definitions


Design Activism


http://designactivism.net/ 



Design activism arises anywhere--from within advocacy groups, businesses, or public agencies. Design activists use artifacts and design processes to influence change by disrupting the status quo and revealing better visions for society


http://www.historiadeldisseny.org/congres/


Design activism has emerged in recent years as a term to denote creative practices that invoke social, political and environmental agency. Typically, it distances itself from commercial or mainstream public policy-driven approaches. Instead, it embraces marginal, non-profit or politically engaged design theories, articulations and actions



WIKIPEDIA:


Culture jamming, coined in 1984,  denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.

Culture jamming is often seen as a form of subvertising. Many culture jams are intended to expose apparently questionable political assumptions behind commercial culture. Common tactics include re-figuring logos, fashion statements, and product images as a means to challenge the idea of "what's cool" along with assumptions about the personal freedoms of consumption.

Culture jamming sometimes entails transforming mass media to produce ironic or satirical commentary about itself, using the original medium's communication method. Culture jamming is usually employed in opposition to a perceived appropriation of public space, or as a reaction against social conformity. Prominent examples of culture jamming include the adulteration of billboard advertising by the BLF and Ron English and the street parties and protests organised by Reclaim the Streets. While most culture jamming focuses on subverting or critiquing political or advertising messages, some practitioners focus on a more positive, musically inspired form of jamming that brings together artists, scholars and activists to create new forms of cultural production that transcend rather than merely criticize or negate the status quo.

Wikipedia

Subvertising is a portmanteau of subvert and advertising. It refers to the practice of making spoofs or parodies of corporate and political advertisements. Subvertisements may take the form of a new image or an alteration to an existing image or icon, often in a satirical manner. A subvertisement can also be referred to as a meme hack and can be a part of social hacking or culture jamming.According to AdBusters, a Canadian magazine and a proponent of counter-culture and subvertising, "A well produced 'subvert' mimics the look and feel of the targeted ad, promoting the classic 'double-take' as viewers suddenly realize they have been duped. Subverts create cognitive dissonance. It cuts through the hype and glitz of our mediated reality and, momentarily, reveals a deeper truth within."

Marxism & Design Activism

Lecture Notes

- Marx believed there is no point in just thinking without action
- Marx thought communism was a 'better way of organising society', however it hasn't been achieved. Communism is a philosophical method that was realised in a revolutionary political movement.
- What is capitalism? It is the stage of history that we live in now (in the west). The ability to make profit is held by a few individuals, and everybody works to earn these people money. Everything is bought and sold, as we revolve around the logic of the market through the exchange of money.

- Capitalism makes us compete to be the top of society, as we are taught that we will get what deserve.
- We are encouraged in education to compete for better marks, and to be top. Greed emerges
- In the early stages of society, there was a hunter-gather relationship. Societies co-operated. Everything was shared, and there was no such thing as monogamy.

- Society changes and develops.
- Bourgeoisie are the ruling class
- Marx thought society was unfair, and so people would want to take over the state, and redistribute the money for everyone so that it was fair, and the workers were treated fairly. Revolutionary idea.
- The materialist concept of society is broken down into two: base and superstructure
Base: Skills/tools people have. People are put into relations of production: employee/employer
- Everything is a result of the forces and relations of production, even if it is not directly political.
- Dialectical process: one thing producing its opposite. The base determines content and form of superstructure which reflects form of and legitimises.
- Relationship example: boss tells worker what to do, like at school, so this relationship feels normal because the worker is used to it
- Base produces things like education, family, religion, politics, mass media
- Society produces our lives, not us. Its already determined who you will be when you are born: e.g. if you are born in to wealth, or where you are born is an effecting factor. We don't like to think like this though.
- We are forced into relations of production that we don't have control of.
- Superstructure determines our conscious. Our society conditions everything.
- If you change the base (change capitalism) you would change our relationships between each other.
- Forms are art, religion, politics, law, philosophy
- Marx believe that capitalism oppresses people.
- We think that the queen is in charge, and is the ruling class, but she is just a head. Rich owners of businesses are in charge.
- Marx thought that the Monarchy, Aristocracy and Army were a committee for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie.

- Ideologies (systems of belief) control the way the working class think.
- Religion teaches us that if we're good and honourable then we'll die and be rewarded. In a cynical way Marx sees it as a trap, a form of mental control. - You're dead, so you don't get your reward.
- Certain systems of ideas only selectively present a way of thinking. They could legitimise the oppression of certain people. They make us live in a false consciousness.
- We don't understand that in someways we are being exploited. This happens because of all the examples of ideology around us.
- Ideology emerges from the ruling class and represents their world view. The exploited class start to think its their view too, and start feeling infinity to the oppression.
- Classical art is always an example of ideology. It isn't about one persons free expression as it might be thought of. Only the people who could afford to be educated used to be artists, and women weren't allowed as they were seen as inferior. It was white, rich men making art. It was a culture made by rich people for rich people, reflecting the way the ruling class think. The art was bought by royals. Art can make people think the way you want them to think.
- Example: Lincoln cathedral figures of men being bitten by snakes in the genitals show what the punishment for lust is. They are a warning for the people, saying that if you don't behave this is what is going to happen to you. Art can train people to think in a particular way.

- Discipline emerges from Marx's thoughts. Ideology becomes the idea through which we live our lives.
- Mostly artists are men, so they choose (probably sexually) to paint naked women. That feeds in to our social relations. The attitude of thinking women are the beautiful sex has been taught to us, so we start to think its okay to think this way.
- Ideology offers reasons for why we are in the situations we are in.
- Education is about training you to exist in our society the way it wants you to exist. You have to be productive and make money for society.
- All media societies are owned by the super rich. Media is everywhere, and is invasive. It is a powerful way of controlling the way we think and feel. It is scary how a few people have so much control over us.
- Ways in which the media is ideological: Rupert Murdoch thinks he has the power to control elections. The sun changed from being tory to labour because there was something in it for him, as Murdoch was allowed to buy more companies because of Blair changing a law. Then the sun fell out with labour and went back to supporting the conservatives.
- Papers that are marketed at the upper class contain formal language, and there is an idea of quality, and the stories are sophisticated. With the papers that are for the working class, the stories are about things such as big brother, and the paper contains photographs of women in bikinis. The use of informal language makes the working class seem like they are stupid, whereas the upper class are intelligent. Journalists are clever, but they dumb themselves down because they think all of the working class are in to is 'common' stuff. If this is all the working class are fed to talk about, this becomes all that they know, and they think its okay.

- All of this is traced back to base relation of production. Media production is skewed to the interest of the elite. If the media was controlled by the working class, then the product would be different. The working class aren't stupid!
- The media act as judges for people who do wrong, such as with the student protests.
- There is a ideology of men being the dominant race and ruling society. Women are objectified by men. Wonderbra adverts suggest that a women's road to success is being good looking and sexual. Whereas the mans road to success comes from being intelligent.
- We need to not look at what is being said, but what is not being said, as there are underlying assumptions.
- We start to be identified by these things we consume. We are made to feel as if we can rise or fall in society because of what we can buy. Consuming makes us poorer, but other companies richer. It is a trick, as we are never really gaining status in society. Commodity fetishism.
- You can brand anything now, an example of this is the man who sold garbage from NYC.

- Conclusion: Our society is ultimately grossly unfair. Something has to be done to change this perverse way of living. But why do people not do anything about it?
- Capitalim is apparently the best, fairest way to live. It is the 'age of no alternatives'. There are no communist countries anymore
- Proletarian: there are no other means of making money than to sell your labour power
- We judge a society on how it treats its youngest/weakest people. Our society is cutting education maintenance allowance for students, and cutting pensions from the old.
- Things need visual identities and that is where we come in.
- Examples: Occupy Wall Street campaign, Adbusters
- Culture jamming is when people change the message of an advert on a billboard, such as the esso logo being changed to e$$o. People are used to taking instructions from billboards.
- Adbusters 'uncommercials' on TV