Tutorial

 In the week leading up to the tutorial I finally managed to nail down exactly what it was I wanted to discuss in my essay. I already had a good idea of the general topic but needed to make it more focussed and structured to fit a 3000 word essay.

I wanted to analyse the effectiveness of various kinds of satirical illustration and the effect that changes in social and technological trends have had on this. I read an interview with Jonathan Coe in which he says that satire has become toothless and in fact acts as a tool for the government as it allows like minded people to vent their frustrations without taking action.

I don't fully agree with his comments but do believe that satire can easily work to the advantage of its supposed victim. I think that the more the public are exposed to satire they become desensitized to it and illustrators have to work harder to get their point across. I think some illustrators tried to employ more extreme images or messages in an attempt to get a response from their audience but this method has the effect Jonathan Coe was talking about. For satire to be effective i has to be based on real events and characteristics that are widely accepted as true. If an illustrator only communicates information that is biased to one side of an argument they lose any sense of integrity and will alienate the people that their message could have an influence on. To investigate this i looked at the work of Gerald Scarfe during the Thatcher era.

Gerald Scarfe's illustrations although blatantly anti Thatcher were very well balanced, his almost grotesque illustrations of thatcher used physical manifestations of character traits that were celebrated by her follows as much as they were despised by people who opposed her. By chosing these characteristics to highlight Scarfe creates a common ground for both sides of the political divide. This provides a platform to alter peoples opinions gradually over time.

After the peer feedback from the tutorial i feel much better about my essay and feel motivated to get stuck into writing it. One good suggestion form the tutorial was to look at the graffiti in Ireland in the Thatcher era. I could compare the different impact of various methods of satire and propaganda.

Struggling to find a basis for my essay

I have struggled to decide on a basis for my essay over the past couple of weeks, i want to find an interesting idea that isn't an obvious take on the questions we chose from. the problem is that the further you stray from the mainstream the harder it becomes to find literature to back up your ideas or to argue against. I have been looking a lot at the Thatcher era and the way illustration was used to in that time. As it was a period of unrest that polarized opinions about the countries leadership it was a situation that triggered powerful emotional responses from each side of the divide many of which took the form of illustrations.

Even though I had found a period of time and a general subject to concentrate on I still did not have a starting point for my essay. I started to look at satire and how it has been used during Thatcher's time as prime minister. Gerald Scarfe's illustrations depicted Thatcher as aggressive and sharp, characteristics that her fans would see as positive attributes rather than something to be made fun of. Scarfe's illustrations were obviously anti Thatcher but had a level of honesty and accuracy that may have made his work more effective. If people see that an image is accurate and and relates to current events and views held by both sides of the political divide the message of the image can be more easily trusted and in that way more effective.

Scarfe also had the benefit of his work being seen by a large portion of the population as it was published in newspapers on a regular basis meaning he could bit by bit alter the viewers perceptions and keep his work up to date with current events.

It was interesting to see the ways effective satire worked, in most cases it seems that effective satirical illustrators use a subtle approach that that maintains there credibility and means that their work is met with more trust. The further you try to push boundaries the the less credible you work becomes and the less effective. something else to be taken into account is the over saturation of satirical images meaning that the population becomes desensitized and limits the effectiveness of the images forcing illustrators to change their way of thinking. I found a really good article on ft.com made up of interviews with a variety of people well known for their satirical work.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5784ac84-bc50-11df-8c02-00144feab49a.html#axzz3sE6ZEJbK

The most interview i found most interesting is with Jonathan Coe in which he argues satire instead of stirring up rebellion and encouraging the population to take action against the political issue they disagree with in fact provides a safe environment for like minded people to vent their frustrations in the form of laughter and discussion instead of taking action. Satire can be seen as much as a tool for the rich and powerful as a rebellion against them. It provides a way for the public to feel they have won a battle or made a point without taking any notable action that could effect change.

I would like to base my question on the evolving relationship between an illustrator and their audience during times of social and political upheaval.

Image Analysis-Part 2

 My chosen question is-

“Discuss the role that Illustration can play during periods of political and/or social upheaval."

I have chosen to base my essay on the 'Thatcher Era' and the way Illustration was affected by and responded to the political climate.

 The first image is an illustration by Gerald Scarfe that shows Margaret Thatcher depicted as a shark. Gerald Scarfe is one of the most well known political cartoonist of his generation and took great pleasure in transforming Thatcher into a variety of distorted almost grotesque images. Thatcher divided the country and polarized opinion. She had a strong aggressive personality that made her stand out form most other politicians of the time. Scarfe often used these aggressive character traits in his cartoons by portraying Thatcher as an axe, shark, pair of scissors and a Pterodactyl. Although Thatcher was admired by a lot of people she was despised by many. Scarfe has said in interviews that villains were the characters people found most engaging: "It's a bit like in theatre, where the villains are the best ones - they're the ones everyone wants to see. No one cares about bland heroes." As an editorial cartoonist for The Sunday Times Scarfe's illustrations were seen by the public on a regular basis and may have had an impact on the public's perception of Thatcher rather than just acting as a representation of already held opinions. Scarfe's cartoons became easily recognisable as Thatcher no matter what he transformed her into. He used set characteristics, primarily the over sized angular nose as a visual motif. Scarfe acknowledges the ability of cartoonists to create images that become an almost universal symbol for the person they are trying to portray and in some cases even alter common perception of that person's appearance. In a interview with the BBC Scarfe said,

 "I always started with her nose, this flourish of the pen which brought about the beak-like nose.

In actual fact, her nose wasn't that big but the thing with being a cartoonist is that you can convince the public bit by bit that what you're seeing is that creature." If a cartoonist can alter the public's perception of physical attributes it is not out of the question that they could alter perception about their personality or actions as well.

Tintin - Breaking Free is a parody of the original work by Herge and was written under the pseudonym J. Daniels. In this rework of the popular cartoon some of the main characters remain but the narrative has been drastically changed. The story centers around the main character (Tintin) and his development from disaffected youth to revolutionary leader. This cartoon was first released in 1988 two years before the end of Thatcher's time in office and tackled issues synonymous with Thatcher's rule. The story depicts escalating tension between trade union workers and the government leading to strikes and demonstrations. The strikes become more widespread and the government responds with increasing repression. This story mirrors the conflict between trade unions and the government during Thatchers reign. Each page of the book is copied directly from Herge's original cartoons and has been altered to fit the new narrative. The longstanding popularity of the Tintin series meant that meant that J.Daniels had a well recognized and trusted platform to introduce his ideas to the public. The use of a usually lighthearted and innocent cartoon may have made the ideas in the book more easily trusted or at the very least will have caught the eye of people familiar with Herge's original work. The book caused a huge stir in the press with several papers condemning it for being naive and brutish or simply calling it a copy of Herge's work (The Times,1990; The Guardian,1994). I think calling this book a copy is an oversimplification and misrepresents the nature of the book but it does raise issues with the copyright of an artist's work. It is in interesting rework and the use of a well known existing publication is a tactic that has been used many times before and since but not often quite as boldly as in this case. I think that as a response to the political climate and the governing powers at the time this means of communicating serious issues and making them available and appealing to the general public is a subtle and effective one that demonstrates one of many ways illustration can be applied to periods of social and political upheaval.

Reading and Understanding Text

I chose the text 'PROPAGANDA' by EDWARD L. BERNAYS as the basis for my research.

The authors tone of voice implies he has no trust for the government and believes we are manipulated as a population in regards to our social and political beliefs. He seems to think there are a number of very deliberate techniques and agendas to the way we receive information. 

5 key points

1-The few that dictate our social and political beliefs know how to influence he masses.

2-we accept information on the word of various sources to mold our group identity.

3-The groupings and affiliations of today are no longer subject to local and sectional limitations.

4-Advances in technology allowed information to be spread across the whole of america, in some cases almost instantly.

5-propaganda influences all aspects of our lives and molds our opinions on almost everything.

5 key quotes

1-"We are all governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of."

2-"We have voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issues so that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical proportions."

3-"With the printing press and the newspaper, the railroad, the telephone, telegraph, radio and airplanes, ideas can be spread rapidly and even instantaneously over the whole of America."

4-"The America Newspaper Annual and Directory for 1928 lists 22,128 periodical publications in America."

5-"But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history"

This article speaks a lot about politics but not about individual parties or opinion on political beliefs, instead it focuses on how these beliefs are delivered to us in simplified and hand picked packets of information designed to mold our political affiliations. The author speaks about the government as a small number of individuals that are skilled at identifying ways the manipulate the ideas of the masses. Our social and cultural identity's are dictated to us with subtle propaganda. Technological advances have meant that these techniques are able to reach communities worldwide making them extremely powerful, whereas before information was confined to local community's the advent of print and faster methods of travel meant that information could become widespread almost instantly.

The sheer number of publications available in America by 1928 shows the scope of the printed word, literacy had given people the chance to expand their minds but was also a tool to control them. With this new found wealth of information available the masses needed someone to sift through it and highlight the important issues. the author says that a small group of people learned that they could use this cherry picking to dictate the way the masses acted and even thought.

Choosing a Question and Theme

My chosen question is-

“Discuss the role that Illustration can play during periods of political and/or social upheaval."

I have collected 20 images that relate to the question. This research helped me understand the question and discover some of the wide variety of ways that Illustration has been used over a long period of time and in contrasting social and political situations. In the last session we were given one of the questions and researched them using the library and the internet. We collected definitions of the given question form a variety of sources to get a good understanding of varying views of key components of the subject. We also collected 2 photos and explained why we had chosen them and there relevance to the question itself. For this exercise we were given the question 
“How did Postmodernism impact on Illustration?"

I did an essay on postmodernism last year as part of an access course and still struggle to find a way to define it. I think this is due to the fact that postmodernism can be applied to a wide variety of contexts and that there is still a lot of argument about its  characteristics. Because postmodernism is a reaction to modernism you need to know the philosophies and beliefs of modernism first to be able to understand postmodernism. The images I used to demonstrate postmodernism were a Simpsons version of the Nirvana album cover and Andy Warhol's campbells soup painting. Both of these pieces blur the lines between illustration and fine art and show signs of postmodernism's relationship with popular culture. 

After this session I decided i did not want to choose that question as the basis of my essay so i chose “Discuss the role that Illustration can play during periods of political and/or social upheaval."
I collected 20 images that I think have a strong link to this question and i have visually responded to 3 of them. 

The first picture I chose to create a response to is this one of the statue of liberty gagged by the second amendment. I like the use of a well known national monument and symbol of freedom and America as a character.

for my response i used Big Ben as the eye of Sauron to represent the surveillance state of the united kingdom and the mistrust aimed at the government.

The second image i chose is one of sea creatures crying over the body of a child washed up on a beach while trying to escape conflict and seek asylum.

My response shows a child crying looking over a fence at a pig that is about to be slaughtered while the pig is crying for the child that has a cancerous tumor caused by eating bacon. This idea is based on the recent resrch showing that bacon as well as other meats has been found to be carcinogenic and the modern trends relating to humane treatment of animals.

The third image I chose is of refugees on a boat travelling to get aid from a country that is effectively sponsoring the weapons that have led to them needing aid in the first place.

 My response is a similar layout but the scenery has been removed and replaced with hands representing the the governments that are causing this exchange. Facilitating  hatred and death upon the same people.

Image Analysis-part 1

The first image by Schumacher and Ettlinger is as advert for the "Uncle Sam Range" stove and oven and is comparable with modern day adverts although the main emphasis  seems to advertising America itself rather than a specific product. The image is crammed full of imagery that showcases the financial, political and trade power of the U.S. the image portrays 'Ucle Sam' at the head of the table with characters representing the south, east and England taking a back seat.

The clock on the mantle piece shows the time line between American independence and what was then present day, this could be to show how much an independant America has achieved in this time. The globe at the table is holding an almost unending lsit of produce from around the world which may signify Americas trade links all over the world. Even though these products have been taken from foreign lands and brought to America the 'Uncle Sam' character seems to be showing off the productr of the "Uncle Sam Range" as if to show the world what they have achieved. Everything in the image is bold and bright and covered in imagery celebtrating America from the carpet and wallpaper to the rifles on the wall. One very dark aspect of the advert is the inclusion of a slave who is operating the range. As everything in the image seems to be a celebration of power i can only assume the inclusion of the slave is no exception, meaning that at this point in time slavery was not something to be ashamed of or hidden in any way rather it was held up as a status symbol.

These images are depicted using Art-Deco prints with simple bold uniform lettering as apposed to the bombardment of information and complex heavily embellished lettering of the first image. The term graphic design was coined by William Addison Dwiggins in 1922 and could be part of the reason these images differ so much even though they aim to achieve similar goals. Designers may well have been starting to understand more about visual communication, realising that simpler bold text stripped down to statements rather than more complex sentence structure have more of an impact on the audience. At this point in time colonialism was being met with criticism regarding the economic and moral implications and this campaign was designed to show the positive effects. Slavery had been made illegal by this point so the poster attempts to show how much colonialism has improved life in the colonies while assuring the public at home of the benevolent control of the white man.

Both the white man and 'Uncle Sam' seem to be trying to show how they are generous and having a positive effect on other nations while exploiting their natural resources. The first image uses traditional illustration and a large amount of fairly crude symbolism whereas the second set of images uses makes use of popular art movements of the time. This may be due to the target audience of wealthy would be investors back home in England.

Preparatory Task

Definitions

Social

'Needing companionship and therefore best suited to living in communities'- Google definitions

“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.” -Ernesto Che Guevara

Illustration by Pawel Kuczynski

Photo taken from David J Rodger Wordpress, credit unknown

Cultural

'Of or relating to artistic or social pursuits or events considered to be valuable or enlightened'-TheFreeDictionary.com 

“The first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. to write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.” -Chuck Palahniuk

Mario Illustration by Tilt

 Credit Unknown

Historical

'Based on or reconstructed from an event, custom, style etc., in the past.'

-dictionary.reference.com

"We are not makers of history.We are made by history."

-Martin Luther King, Jr

Ages of Batman.- techmash.com

300 Illustration by Ben Herrera.

Political.

'Chiefly derogatory done or acting in the interests of status or power within an organisation rather than as a matter of principle.'- oxforddictionaries.com

 "All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill the history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of great leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill at dancing."

-Moliere

 Illustration by Denman Rooke.

 Photo-manipulation by Deviant Art user WarUnderground

Technological. 

'Resulting from improvements in technical process that increase productivity of machines and eliminates manual operations or operations done by older machines.'

-merriam-webster.com

"it has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded out humanity."

-Albert Einstein.

Image from sigmadog.com

Image by Aleksandr Kuskov