Tag Archives: Cultural Studies

Identity in Newcastle: Flickr Photostream

Posted on by
Reply

The identity in Newcastle Flickr Photostream

Here you’ll find a recording of 700 photos about identity in The North East of England that I took, uploaded, tagged, commented on, and categorised between 2010-2012.

The photostream shows how the categorisation of photos became an integral aspect of my project; selecting and ordering the photos so they made some kind of social scientific sense, placing them within a wider context. Creating a digital archive which aimed to capture some of the moments and signifiers of ‘identity’ in the North East during this time, now provides an interesting social history of that time. How many of these moments / sites are still there? If they’ve gone, what’s replaced them? (why do you think that is?)

Identity in Newcastle Flickr albums

The Culture Shock Project and Video

Posted on by
Reply

Culture Shock was a digital storytelling project that started in 2005, and recorded over 550 different stories from people across The North East of England.

Read more about the origins and legacy of the project here: About The Culture Shock Project

The project was a joint partnership between many different museum and heritage organisation in the North East, but it is extensively housed and maintained by The Tyne and Wear Museum Trust.  What you’ll find if you look at this project is a fantastic, extensive digital archive of memories, voices, experiences, cultural moments, celebrations etc. from the region.

I took part in this project in 2010, and created this video about the arrival of my son, and as a way of thinking about my own arrival and place in Newcastle:

Cultural Shock: Geordie’s Arrival Day Video

You can create a similar digital story using this software:

Lightworks Free film editing Software

or even with PowerPoint on Word using the voice over facility.

 

‘Prezzi’ Presentation on Urban Art in The North East

Posted on by
Reply

‘Prezzi’ Presentation on Urban Art in The North East

Between 2010 -2012 I conducted an ethnographic study of  ‘Identity in The North East’, photographing anything I deemed interesting as a comment on ‘identity’. Urban Art in the North East became an incidental but main feature of the project, as my interests grew, I started to see how urban art itself fell into different categories, and with that, held different cultural values and said different things. I’m interested in the link between urban art and place, so what art might say about an area and why.

Have a look at this Prezzi Presentation, as see what you think:

‘Prezzi’ Presentation on Urban Art

Do you agree with my classifications of urban art? What have I left out? Can you add to the collection?

Further Reading:

If you’re interested in conducting a project like this, here’s some further reading:

Metro-Roland, M, Tourists, Signs and the City: The Semiotics of culture in an urban landscape, Ashgate Publishing, London: 2012

Tourists, signs and the city : the semiotics of culture in an urban landscape

 

 

YouTube Film: The city in sound and image

Posted on by
Reply

The way we perceive ‘place’, in this case the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne, is influenced by the images and accompanying sounds used to define, stylise and objectify.

I have put together this short video using YouTube Editor, which aims to show how presenting the city through iconic images (in the case of Newcastle- the river, bridges, characteristic ‘Tyneside’ housing stock), and using a soundtrack more reminiscent of the way other big cityscapes are presented (so in this case I’ve chosen a jazz soundtrack, synonymous with the Manhattan skyline), removes Newcastle from the traditional ‘working class, football, heavy industry’ association or stereotype that we’re often talking about in class.

‘Imagining place’ or ‘constructing the city’, as is discussed in the literature surrounding this topic, is a way of inverting or supporting cultural expectations. In this video I have included some travelling shots, such as the view from an escalator going down in to the metro, to get a ‘big city feel’.

If you’re interested in this try these reading about place, branding, image construction, events, and the city:

Ed Aitken, S and Zonn, L (1994) Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film, Rowmann and Littelfield

Alberto Vanolo, The image of the creative city: Some reflections on urban branding in Turin, Cities, Volume 25, Issue 6, 2008, Pages 370-382, ISSN 0264-2751, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2008.08.001
Abstract: Continue reading →