From http://www.eco.utexas.edu/~hmcleave/357kPopCulture.html
What constitutes so-called "popular" or "low brow" culture, i.e., those aspects of culture which occupy the general population, as opposed to "high brow" culture (classical music, avant garde art, theater, opera) which is generally viewed as being produced by and for a "cultural elite," changes over time but has often been defined to include a wide variety of activities and media, from daily life activities (patterns of family interactions to television and schooling) to special events (carnivals, comic books), film (grade B, drive-in), theater (street) and literature (romance novels, westerns, science fiction). While these two terms: popular culture and high brow culture have not generally been given class specific definitions, there has been a tendency among Marxist critics to understand popular culture in terms of the amusements and life styles of the working class and high brow culture in terms of those of the wealthier leisure classes, e.g., the bourgeoisie in capitalism.
Historically, Marxists have generally distinguished between those aspects of popular culture which have been produced by working people themselves, e.g., folk art, tales or music, and those aspects which have been produced for them, e.g., commercial television, advertising, arcade video games, film and music. This distinction is usually associated with a valorization of the former - as being authentic expressions of mass creativity - and deprecation of the former - as being mechanisms of cultural pacification and domination. Indeed, the Marxist literature dealing with culture has had two distinct strands: one rediscovering and celebrating manifestations of "authentic" grassroots culture, the other elaborating a detailed critique of the mechanisms of cultural domination via consumerism and the society of the spectacle.
Unfortunately, these two strands of work have largely stood outside each other, whereas, what we need is a recognition and analysis of how these two forces interact to produce the cultural world that surrounds us. For while it is true that some working class intelligences and imaginations have been harnessed to the task of crafting manipulative cultural experiences, be they passivity inculcating spectacles or order inducing lessons in consumption, work discipline or allegiance to authority, it is no less true that much of this work of domination involves desperate attempts to deflect, redirect or otherwise nullify dangerously antagonistic cultural innovations created by rebellious spirits unharnessed by any of the existing capitalist mechanisms. As a result, a great deal of popular culture of all kinds contains conflicting currents of critical revolt against the status quo as well as attempts to neutralize and tame such currents.
One of the spheres of culture in which these conflicts are most clearly played out is popular music. From traditional folk and country music through rhythm & blues to modern jazz and all the permutations of rock & roll, we can find these conflicts shaping the lyrics, musical styles and evolution of popular music. At the one extreme are overt "protest songs", such as those so popular during the cycle of struggles of the late 1960s in which civil rights and anti-war militants wrote, sang and played music aimed to mobilize social movements against existing institutions and policies. At the other extreme is such commercialized, mechanical music as disco or Muzak designed purely for manipulation and profits. In between, and even to some extent within these extremes, we find an endless variety of mixtures of intentions, roles and effects. Shaping these mixtures are, on the one hand, the creativity of song writers and musicians reacting to, or with, and often against, the world that surrounds them; a creativity that restlessly and repeatedly breaks out of old forms and styles and thought patterns to craft new reactions and interventions. On the other hand are the forces of capitalist commercialization and its tools of ideological warfare.
Educated in a ruling class culture, Marx illustrated and buttressed his arguments in Capital with a wide variety of pithy quotes from classical authors, from Aristotle to Goethe - which helped give him a reputation for being extremely erudite as well as extremely radical. Understood within their context, these quotes often not only illuminate Marx's analysis but also add considerable humor to his presentation. When it comes to reading Capital, however, especially when reading it at the beginning of the 21st Century as opposed to situating it in the 19th Century, I find it as amusing to draw on the various moments of critique in contemporary popular culture, especially in music, as to search out modern counterparts to Marx's classical references. For this reason I have included in this study guide, and may sometimes play in class, a wide variety of more or less contemporary folk and rock songs which provide both an auditory illumination of the text and demonstrations of how the relationships that Marx treated are, unfortunately, still with us today.
In the same spirit I have included a variety of graphic art - political cartoons, comic strips, graffiti, advertisements and so on - which also reflect the continuing pertinence of Marx's analysis in our present. These various moments of popular culture are presented without commentary in this study guide so that you can simply enjoy them in their immediacy. I will provide more or less detailed commentary on various of them in class lectures. Again and again, in many different forms, styles and media, the illustrations included can easily be seen, and understood, as manifestations of a pervasive resentment of and rebellion against the most fundamental social mechanism of capitalist domination: the imposition of work.
The first of these illuminations are out and out protest songs: Pink Floyd's "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" and "Another Brick in the Wall" from their famous concept album The Wall which protests the deadening effects of school and teachers on students' creativity and freedom, and two songs from Jimmy Cliff's film The Harder They Come which express the anger and determination of a young Jamaican who has recently moved from the countryside to the city and discovered the myriad mechanisms both for exploiting people and for hiding that exploitation behind pious ideological veils. Despite the fact that all three of these songs have been commodified (packaged and sold for a profit -- on recordings and at concerts) they have also been vehicles for the international circulation of bottom-up struggle. "Another Brick in the Wall" has been banned in numerous countries around the world because of the chord it strikes in the hearts of school children and students who, again and again, adopted it in their own struggles. One particularly dramatic example of this occurred in the black township of Soweto in South Africa where, during a student strike against apartheid, thousands of black children sang this song while facing off with the South African police across barricades.
Undersign is inspired by Street Art, art developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to art of an illicit nature, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives. The term can include traditional graffiti artwork, stencil graffiti, sticker art, wheatpasting and street poster art, video projection, art intervention, and street installations. Typically, Street Art is used to distinguish contemporary public-space artwork from territorial graffiti, vandalism, and corporate art. The motivations and objectives that drive street artists are as varied as the artists themselves. There is a strong current of activism and subversion in urban art. Street art can be a powerful platform for reaching the public, and frequent themes include adbusting, subvertising and other culture jamming, the abolishment of private property and reclaiming the streets. Other street artists simply see urban space as an untapped format for personal artwork, while others may appreciate the challenges and risks that are associated with installing illicit artwork in public places. However the universal theme in most, if not all street art, is that adapting visual artwork into a format which utilizes public space, allows artists who may otherwise feel disenfranchised, to reach a much broader audience than traditional artwork and galleries normally allow.
Robert Banks or Robin Banks (born 1974), best known as Banksy as his real identity is pseudo-anonymous, is a world renowned, British artist whose artwork is often political and/or humorous in nature. His Street Art, which combines graffiti with a distinctive stencilling technique, has appeared in London and in cities around the world. Publicity in the media has made his name well known.
The Undersign project continues its search of pop culture icons for its campaign. Our intention is to use them as an emblem of what we think and support. Salvador Isabelino del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Allende Gossens (July 26, 1908 – September 11, 1973) was President of Chile from November 1970 until his removal from power and death on September 11, 1973. He was the first democratically elected Marxist president in the world. Allende's career in Chilean government spanned nearly forty years. As a Socialist Party politician, he became a senator, deputy, cabinet minister and, following the 1970 presidential election, President of Chile. After Allende had won a plurality in the popular vote, the United States tried unsuccessfully to prevent his taking office. He had also stood for the presidency on three previous occasions, in 1952, 1958 and 1964. As President, Allende carried out a democratic socialist program, and his term was marked by civil unrest, strikes and lockouts, opposition from the United States and complaints from the Chilean Supreme Court. Less than a month after his condemnation by the opposition-controlled Chamber of Deputies of Chile's Resolution of August 22, 1973, a military coup d'état place on September 11, 1973 and installed Augusto Pinochet, with dictatorial power. President Allende died during the coup.
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, June 4th Incident, or the Political Turmoil between Spring and Summer of 1989 by the government of the People's Republic of China, were a series of demonstrations led by students, intellectuals and labour activists in the People's Republic of China between April 15, 1989 and June 4, 1989. The demonstrations centred on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, but large scale protests also occurred in cities throughout China, such as in Shanghai. In Beijing, the resulting crackdown on the protestors by the PRC government left many civilians dead, the figure ranging from 200–300 (PRC government figures), to 2,000–3,000 (Chinese student associations and Chinese Red Cross), although the PRC government asserts and most independent observers agree that these deaths were not in the square itself but rather in the streets leading to the square. [1] The protestors came from disparate groups, ranging from intellectuals who believed the Communist Party of China-led government was too corrupt and repressive, to urban workers who believed Chinese economic reform had gone too far and that the resulting rampant inflation and widespread unemployment was threatening their livelihoods. After the protestors defied government calls to disperse, a split emerged within the Communist Party of China on how to respond to the protestors. Out of the party turmoil, a hardline faction emerged and the decision was made to quell the protests, rather than to heed their demands. [2] On May 20, the government declared martial law and, on the night of June 3 and the early morning of June 4, army tanks and infantry were sent into Tiananmen Square to crush the protest and disperse the protestors. Estimates of civilian deaths vary: 23 (Communist Party of China), 400–800 (Central Intelligence Agency), 2600 (Chinese Red Cross). Injuries are generally held to have numbered from 7,000 to 10,000. As of June of 2006, the confirmed death happened around that night is 186 according to professor Ding Zilin. [3] Following the violence, the government conducted widespread arrests to suppress the remaining supporters of the movement, banned the foreign press and strictly controlled coverage of the events in the PRC press. The violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square protest caused widespread international condemnation of the PRC government.[4] Thirty years ago, a group of young American radicals announced their intention to overthrow the U.S. government. In The Weather Underground, former Underground members, including Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, David Gilbert and Brian Flanagan, speak publicly about the idealistic passion that drove them to "bring the war home" and the trajectory that placed them on the FBI's most wanted list.
Fueled by outrage over racism and the Vietnam War, the Weather Underground waged a low-level war against the U.S. government through much of the 1970s--bombing targets across the country that they considered emblematic of the real violence that the U.S. was wreaking throughout the world. Ultimately, the group's carefully organized clandestine network managed to successfully evade one of the largest manhunts in FBI history, yet the group's members would reemerge to life in a country that was dramatically different than the one they had hoped their efforts would inspire. Extensive archival material, including, photographs, film footage and FBI documents are interwoven with modern-day interviews to trace the group's path, from its pitched battles with police on Chicago's streets, to its bombing of the U.S. Capitol, to its successful endeavor breaking acid-guru Timothy Leary out of prison. The film explores the Weathermen in the context of other social movements of the time and features interviews with former members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Black Panthers. It also examines the U.S. government's suppression of dissent in the 1960s and 1970s.
Looking back at their years underground, the former members paint a compelling portrait of troubled times, revolutionary times, and the forces that drove their resistance.
One of Undersign all time icon favorites. Michigan J. , the singing frog who refused to be exploited, a classic Warner cartoon from the 50s. Warner Bros. Corporation uses his image all over the world and it became a representation of entertainment. But the original cartoon is about NOT being exploited by men. Our idea is to design a sticker with the image of the frog when he is not singing or dancing, as a reminder of his powerful will.
Stickers are very widely used when an object requires identification with a word or idea. Brand stickers may be attached to products to identify those products as coming from a certain company. They may also be used to describe characteristics of the products that would not be obvious from simple examination. They are frequently distributed as part of promotional, advertising, and political campaigns; for example, in many voting districts in the U.S., stickers indicating an individual has voted are given to each voter as they leave the polling place, largely as a reminder to others to vote. Other methods of underground forms of voting for your favorite graffiti artists' current productions are by an open form of appreciation such as clapping while passing such a sticker (a smile and a kind reminder to a fellow appreciator throughout the day is commonplace as well). Stickers placed on automobiles, called bumper stickers, are often used by individuals as a way of demonstrating support for political or ideological causes. Identification of vehicle registration and last service details are two examples of stickers on the inside of most car windscreens. The term "window sticker" is generally used for vinyl labels which are stuck to the inside of a vehicle's window, as opposed to water-resistant stickers that are stuck to the outside of a vehicle. Barcodes are frequently used on many products as a convenient way of identification. If one wants to remove a bumper sticker, and this sticker is not one of the easy-to-remove variety, then a penetrating oil can be used.
It's not about the world of design. It's about the design of the world.
Design has emerged as one of the world’s most powerful forces. It has placed us at the beginning of a new, unprecedented period of human possibility, where all economies and ecologies are becoming global, relational, and interconnected.
In order to understand and harness these emerging forces, there is an urgent need to articulate precisely what we are doing to ourselves and to our world. This is the ambition of Massive Change.
Massive Change is a celebration of our global capacities but also a cautious look at our limitations. It encompasses the utopian and dystopian possibilities of this emerging world, in which even nature is no longer outside the reach of our manipulation.
For many of us, design is invisible. We live in a world that is so thoroughly configured by human effort that design has become second nature, ever-present, inevitable, taken for granted.
And yet, the power of design to transform and affect every aspect of daily life is gaining widespread public awareness.
No longer associated simply with objects and appearances, design is increasingly understood in a much wider sense as the human capacity to plan and produce desired outcomes. Engineered as an international discursive project, Massive Change: The Future of Global Design, will map the new capacity, power and promise of design.
Massive Change explores paradigm-shifting events, ideas, and people, investigating the capacities and ethical dilemmas of design in manufacturing, transportation, urbanism, warfare, health, living, energy, markets, materials, the image and information. We need to evolve a global society that has the capacity to direct and control the emerging forces in order to achieve the most positive outcome. We must ask ourselves: Now that we can do anything what will we do?
The best way to express the capacities of our modern world is through its fullest range of media. To date, Massive Change has taken on the form of a traveling exhibition, a book, a series of formal and informal public events, a radio program, an online forum, and this blog. Since the exhibition’s opening in October 2004, several school boards have expressed interest in incorporating the project’s ideas into educational curriculums.
Undersign is inspired by people like Dave Chapelle.
He had the a sketch comedy show hailed by the critics. He had fortune, fame. He had Comedy Central offer him a $50 million dollar contract. He was the funniest man in America. And he went to Africa.
And now he has the best selling DVD in America.
Underisgn is not against comercial success. What matters is the message, or what lies under the message.
The idea for this poster started in 2005. I was trying to come up with something for the International Biennial of the Poster in México, with the theme of desertification. It's quite interesting to see how it evolved from my initial sketches, because my initial design wasn't working completely - and that's very normal. But I wasn't in a hurry. I had no client or deadline whatsoever. Like a good wine, it got better with time.
Blog created to support my M.A. project in graphic Design at the University of Iowa.The Undersign Blog is a receptacle of ideas, a growing oasis of inspiration and resource.
