Territory: Graffiti. Object: Graffiti Art. Graffiti as an art movement and global phenomenon, originates in the early 1970’s in New York City. The unique dynamics of the city gave rises to an artistic battleground of expression in a cultural climate of alienation and class divide. As the youth at the heart of American capitalism struggled to gain recognition, the graffiti subculture was born. Using unconventional mediums and the alternative canvas of the urban landscape, graffiti, enveloped the city, the nation and eventually the entire world. Philosophical Concept: Heidegger- The Origin of the work of art. Heidegger’s intent is always to bring us closer to the understanding of Being. Art in its origin, is art; the happening of truth of a people’s historical existence. Great artworks in the current tradition of aesthetics are ripped away from their essential truth when classed as objects to be judged and experienced in pleasure, losing their authenticity and ability to ‘set-up’ a world and ‘set-forth’ the earth. Graffiti’s philosophical relevance: The Truth of Being. Graffiti writing rose out of a particular ‘world’, a horizon of disclosure dominated by capitalist alienation. The struggle of the youths in New York City was a battle of resistance to authority and conformity that led to an artistic battle of expression. In graffiti’s expression, the ‘world’ of the American culture is opened up, the ‘earth’ rips through this ‘world’ in the form of undefined and sublime images of the New York subway trains, taking us out of our everyday world and reminding us of other existing realities. We forget the mysteriousness of truth in its dual essence of aletheia, and the works of the original underground graffiti movement disclose this struggle of world and earth; the truth of Being. It is this struggle that graffiti writers sought to sustain in their works, therefore, graffiti did not originate from art but rather from the truth of a people’s historical existence; the historical truth of being.
Category: Abstracts
The dilemma of whether there is still a place in today’s society is one that still poses a lot of questions, and so I decided to look in more detail at the issue for the basis of my project. I used ‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Dan Brown in order to look at how literature has changed to reflect the decline of religion and faith in society. I realised that due to technological advances, such as developments in medicine, religion and faith have begun to take a backseat in terms of how much influence they still have in people’s lives. Alongside this was the discovery of the fact that religion itself could have changed in that Dan Brown claims that the church itself has been hiding a huge secret: that the Holy Grail is in fact not a chalice as Christians for millions of years have believed, rather it is a woman- Mary Magdalene – and there still exists today the bloodline of Jesus Christ, living descendants. Is it possible that after all this time the Christian faith has been based on a lie? And if that is the case, can it be said that the Christian faith is worth any less? After looking at how religion has changed I moved on to begin to introduce philosophical concepts into my project. I drew on ideas and notions put forward by philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Friedrich Nietzsche: o He did not believe in the divinity of religion, the idea that religion allowed us access to another dimension of reality. o He claimed that science cast doubt on the comfort of religion. o He believed it was fear, not faith that drove people to religion. o He argued that the Christian conception of God was one of the most corrupt images of God to exist. o God is dead. Fyodor Dostoyevsky: He suggested that people were in search of miracles as opposed to looking for a place for God in their lives. He thought that people believed in God because they desired to, not because they truly believed. He advocated a Christianity in which human redemption and resurrection could occur on earth. Every individual has the ability to choose whether or not to believe in God. Throughout my entire project I have attempted to link religion with society, or alternatively assess how society has changed so much that there now is no place in society for religion. The philosophical concepts I used seemed to suggest a change in faith and religion and this is something that I explored in my project. It is evident that religion has less significance in society, and by religion I am referring to the ‘motions’ of religion, such as going to church. However I discovered that many people still call themselves Christians, and so even though religion has declined there is still faith and belief in God, so this led me to conclude that religion might be declining within society, but there is still evidence of God today.
The basic aim of my project is to explore the fundamental themes of both aesthetic and ethical lives. What does drive us to make decisions and what should drive us to make decisions; in other words what sort of a life should we live? Through the exploration into my territory “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde, I identified the key concept of aestheticism and observed the character’s downfall due to his choice of life. This led me to explore the life of the aesthete in comparison with the ethical in the context of existentialism. The existentialists believed that it is the choices that we make as individuals on how we live our lives that provides the central sense of meaning to our existence. In particular I chose to look at Kierkegaard and more specifically at his work “Either/Or.” Kierkegaard closely explores the relationship between the aesthetic life; where the individual is consumed by beauty and the fulfilment of the senses, and the ethical; where the individual bases decisions on commitment and rational thought. He shows that the aesthete is ultimately doomed to a life of despair due to the limited nature of such a life. Those that live within the ethical stage of life will on the other hand achieve happiness in balancing aesthetical values with ethical conduct and responsibility. The final thought on my project brings these values of aesthetics and ethics into modern society in order to observe the concepts in relation to today’s generation. It seems that the majority of today’s youth are being consumed by the media and having aesthetical values forced upon them. Magazines are primarily concerned with looks and bombard the senses with images telling the reader how to think of themselves and others. Little is done to promote ethical values in this modern age and as this worsens future generations could suffer.
Aims and Objectives • To being by establishing and exploring the shift towards Capitalism and more importantly, how and why it came about. • To show, through the work of Deleuze and Guattari, how MySpace is a product of Capitalism. • To illustrate how and why society has changed with the production of MySpace. Overview of Territory: MySpace is a social networking website which consists primarily of an interactive, user-submitted network of friends. The site consists of personal profiles with photos, music, videos, and blogs, attracting a billion page views every day. The company consists of over 106 million accounts and gains over 230,000 new registrations a day. MySpace is currently the fifth most popular English speaking website in the world, while 82% of online visits to social networking websites are made to MySpace. Key Change: The redistribution of labour with the move to the city saw a new emerging middle class with the bourgeois controlling the factories and their profit. The old hierarchy and values of the feudal system are replaced by money which operates as the universal source and bearer of all value. The emerging economic system of a world where money is the centre of social organisation is Capitalism. Capitalism creates desire in a fundamentally unpredictable way in a society where fortunes are made and lost. Through the use of marketing and advertising, Capitalism is able to unleash desire and channel it towards our fixation with money itself in a society structured around the capacity to earn. Philosophical Concepts To Be Explored • MySpace as a rhizome • Pre-personal desires • The processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization • The major and minor movements • Identity. Sources: The Key source for my investigation will be Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus. In addition to this, I will refer to Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
Territory: The ‘Byker Wall (1973-1978). Constructed by Ralph Erskine in the 1970’s this remarkable As an example of social housing, does not only highlight innovation of modern urban design but was the first in the UK to be a joint project between architecture and the people of the community, and has often be hailed as Newcastle’s best kept secret. The harshness of the exterior is purposely so to protect the flats and houses from the north wind and the noise of traffic. The uniqueness of the design is that the wall actually ‘turns’ in on itself with the interior being the all important feature. Object: In 1953 Byker had 1,200 dwelling unfit for human habitation, meaning a clearance of the area and a planned re-development. What is off significant is that 80% of the residents wanted to stay. Why? There were high crime rates, poor housing and a high density of population. What the residents did value was the community spirit of Byker, the working-class community with its social bonds, shared value and family ties. Along with Newcastle city council it became important for that to be retained. This was the first time that community had been recognised as something intrinsically valued within itself, this led to the appointment of architect Ralph Erskine known for his humane and climate conscious urban designs, together they created a Byker for Byker people. Objectives: – To investigate through the philosophical discourse of Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue) how we value the traditional concept of community within our contemporary society. – Does community shape our identity? – Are we being deceived by modern morality and virtues? – If so, how is it possible to extradite ourselves from that? – Universalism vs. Particularism – Is the liberal democratic method of the industrialised west our only option? – Will individualism finally result in our own isolation?
Objectives. It is my intention to demonstrate in my essay that colonialism still takes place across the world today, and that it finds its foundations entrenched firmly within the same prejudices which were used to justify the type of colonialism typical of 19th century Europe. For this purpose I will concentrate my investigation upon the most notorious and long-running of available examples; namely, the Israeli-Arab conflict and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the Palestinian people. As well as showing Israel to be a Western colony of the oldest and most classical type, Israel can be seen as a colony not just for its own sake, but as part of a wider Western “project” and belief system. Concepts. All of the above investigations will be conducted after an introduction to Foucault’s conceptions of Discourse and Power, which will themselves be applied to the investigation, as I believe they aptly provide an explanation for everything that has taken place regarding Palestine since the 19th century. I will also be depicting this narrative as part of a larger, even global Discourse. Sources. I will use Edward Said’s book Orientalism to explain how, in Foucaultian terms, a contrasting image of the East as opposed to the enlightened West was created over centuries until it has reached its current form which allows the West to justify the colonization of the Arab world, several books by Foucault, including Madness and Civilization and Discipline and Punish. This will be accompanied by a scrapbook containing translated Israeli newspaper articles which will be referenced in the main body of work in order to support my claims regarding the workings of Israeli media discourse in perpetuating the above beliefs. Articles will refer not only to political events reflecting the reality of Israeli society’s perception of itself and its Arab population; they will also be used to illustrate the way in which the media in Israel contributes to Israeli colonialism through its irresponsible (and at time perhaps deliberate) use of everyday words and concepts.
How has surrealism changed the way we can look at “art” and how has art changed since its “rebirth” in the 16th century Italian Renaissance? Kant’s notion of art posed against the Surrealist Philosophy using the object of Un Chien Andalou. Critically comparing this form of art against the notions of the Renaissance period assessing the emergence of the fascination with the Sublime in Surrealism from the typical Beauty in Renaissance. Philosophers and Artists: I shall be involving the philosophers Kant and Breton in discussing the merit of art and surrealism, as well as the Artists Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel and various Renaissance artists. I shall also involve insights from the work of Sigmund Freud.
The main focus for this project will be on the work of Michel Foucault (see photo), looking at sexuality in terms of the discourse and power structures which have created and moulded it. Ultimately, I wish to use sexuality as an example of discourse which permeates our deepest pleasures and desires. These desires in turn are what create our identities and govern our relationship with the world. There is therefore a need to differentiate between animal (or biological) desire and social (or discursive) desire, the former being the framework within which the latter exists. Foucault’s work stresses the importance of our awareness of discourse and the violence through which it is enforced and subsequently the need to live with a critical attitude which he calls ‘the art of not being governed.’ Bibliography: Michel Foucault – The History of Sexuality: 1, Didier Eribon – Insult; the Making of the Gay Self, Georges Bataille – Story of the Eye, Deleuze and Guattari – Anti-Oedipus, Destricted (DVD)
The Cyborg Concept: The first section of my project sets out a definition of the cyborg as a cybernetic organism: the symbiotic combination of human and machine. From this definition I explore the idea that we now live in a cyborg society where the combination of human and machine has become the norm. The Cyborg Concept in Science Fiction: The second section of my project involves a discussion of the depiction of cyborgs in science fiction and the fears/hopes involved in the narratives. Since Haraway and Baudrillard have agreed that the line between science fiction and reality is illusory it is apparent that these issues are important today. Cyborg Acceptance/Cyborg Resistance: The third section of my project explores arguments for dissolving the boundaries between human and machine and for protecting these boundaries. The main sources of reference are Donna Haraway’s ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ and Jean-Francois Lyotard’s ‘The Inhuman’. Heidegger and Technology: In the final section I discuss Heidegger’s claim in ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ that technology is so imbedded in our time that we cannot accept or resist it. We use technology but technology uses us too: it is our way of seeing the world yet it determines us. Vattimo says that the subject is weakened by technology and a weak subject is essential if we are to deny metaphysics.
Aim: To analyse whether or not the internet can be said to form a functional rhizomatic system and from this analysis to discuss what this implies for the future management or control of the structures that exist therein. Sources: Deleuze and Guattari – A Thousand Plateaus and Anti-Oedipus, Manuel Castells – The Internet Galaxy
How is nature represented and how is this important to our attitudes towards it? My project aims to explore this question in the hope that one reading it will be able to assess each representation and its implications and in turn assess the way nature is represented today. It is clear that attitudes have a long way to go even in our current climate but why and how are they to change? This project will look at different representations to assess this. From the Romantics with Kant and Coleridge’s notion of nature as the sublime, to the postmodern viewpoint of Heidegger and his theory of technology, to the current attitude we find ourselves today with contemporary philosophers such as Michele Serres. Hopefully attitudes will change to ensure a secure future for nature and this project aims to assess what this attitude may be.
Insomnia/Society of the Spectacle. The narrator suffers from insomnia, he describes this feeling as being ‘never really asleep and never really awake…everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.‘ This, Guy Debord says, is caused by a veil that has emerged between us and society, where nothing is real. We have moved from Being into Having. What we ARE is no longer important; what we HAVE is. The expanse of mass corporations has created a society controlled and driven by consumerism. People have forgotten their aims and goals and have become obsessed with material possessions. Masculinity has hit a crisis point as the dynamics of society life have changed, namely by the increasingly common absence of the father figure. These men are in search of validation as men, something which they will not find in the consumerist society. Men have become servants to large corporations and through fighting each other they are able to feel something real, and therefore are able to catch a glimpse of the reality they seek. This has caused identity to be something elusive and missing, due to the subduing effect of consumerism. Nietzsche’s Herd/Nihilists/Free Spirits analogy. Modern society has become what Nietzsche would describe as the Herd, a majority of people who are preoccupied with their own ‘game’ and the never-ending pursuit of owning better objects. The narrator undergoes a journey from Herd to Nihilist when he splits his personality, to Free Spirit when he kills Tyler in the final scene of the film.
Climate change has become the issue that defines our age. It makes man’s detrimental relationship with his environment undeniable. The planet is warming up and is becoming uninhabitable for large parts of its population, and assuming that the science is correct, our activities are to blame. Territory: Climate change. Thinkers: Kant, Heidegger, Adorno. Aim: The aim of my project was to try and understand the development of man’s relation to nature, from mystical nature through to instrumental nature, in the hope of figuring out where we might have gone wrong, and what we can do about it.
RKCR/Y&R (territory) has placed itself as the leading strategy within advertisement and marketing. TV commercials give maximum consumer response by using techniques that have been developed over the past sixty years. But how does the advertiser compel it’s target market to buy/ support a product? By means of market research a creative team can generate ideas from on statistics based on consumer needs. A transition from scientific method to artistic creativity takes place, from idea to screen attention to detail allows a campaign to become the centre of a product launch. If a idea is successful the return can be impressive. The M&S food campaign (object) is a perfect example of the results that can be achieved when a campaign is successful. The way an individual processes the information from screen and associates this with a product is the importance of this study, how can the creative department develop a campaign that will mentally intrigue its audience? Can psychology or philosophical ideas give an insight into the thought processes behind advertisement? Kantian thought can help us understand how the advertiser connects to the consumer. Free play for Kant allows the categories of the mind to be influenced by outside concepts; Kant speaks of music and art. Just as a piece of fine art can spark the imagination, this is how in Kantian theory the advertiser reaches the consumer. The advertiser essentially uses imagination as a tool to ‘communicate’ the product to the consumer. Kant’s work influences the ideas and philosophical concepts that this project discusses concerning the mental faculties of the consumer. This project uses Hume’s work connects the consumer and the creative thinker within advertisement. Hume speaks of how ideas are copied from impressions, in short Hume argues that the human imagination, idea’s, cognitive attributes are all part of our physical being. Hume highly supports this project’s research on ’the creative idea’. This project is concerned with how the human mind perceives external influences, and also how the mind has the ability to use the imagination as a means to an end. This study has centred M&S food as its example rather than interest. What is most important is the research into human understanding and the different faculties that are involved between the consumer and a product. TV commercials have many different levels, messages, objectives and specifications, the importance is the TV COMMERCIALS ABILITY TO USE THE HUMAN MIND AS A MARKETING TOOL.
David Mancuso, born October 1944, threw the first Loft party “Love Saves the Day” on Valentine’s Day 1970. It practically established what we now know as DJ / club culture through its reinvention of dance culture. My project aims to apply elements of the conceptual machinery developed by Deleuze and Guattari, in their collaborative project of ‘Capitalism and Schizophrenia’, to the history of The Loft and to dance / club culture in general. The possibilities within Capitalism (but also the limitations) outlined by Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy will be explored within this context. The main areas of investigation are the political status, in Deleuze and Guattari’s schemata, of The Loft (its visitors and David Mancuso included) and the actual individual experience of nightclubbing and dancing, as it might be understood in terms of the model of thought which they develop. The compatibility of David Mancuso’s intentions (“Love is the message”) with this theory will also be explored.
Modern art is generally understood to be any art created between the late 19th century and the 1970s. Following the emergence of photography, art was no longer needed as direct representation so artists turned to abstraction and experimentation. Modern art is a blanket term for all artistic movements in this period, as well as the avant-garde. Postmodern art is generally believed to be in some way opposed to an aspect of modern art, experimenting with genres, cultures and mediums not previously considered. It is art following modern art, and some areas of contemporary art. It accepts past styles and traditions, unlike modern art, as well as embracing new media. Lyotard did not distinguish modern art and postmodern art in the traditional way described above, he believed that postmodern art was always at work within modern art; it is the avant-garde in all its forms, it is whatever is new and progressive about modern art, forcing it into new territory. He therefore said that something must be postmodern (new and disruptive) before it can become modern (acceptable). Although the postmodern eventually becomes the modern, it never entirely loses its ability to shock and disturb. He believed that modern art showed us that the unpresentable exists, while postmodern art attempted to present it. This paradoxical task leaves in the viewer a mixture of pleasure and pain, known as Kantian sublime. Lyotard thought the ultimate task of art to be presenting the unpresentable, which is fulfilled by the avant-garde, in which matters of taste and public opinion simply aren’t important. The sublime is the feeling when the imagination is pushed to the limit, causing pain as the individual is faced with something beyond them, which they have no control over and are faced with their true position in the world. Pleasure follows this as our reason reasserts itself and we become aware of the superiority of human reason over perception. The mathematical sublime is when we are confronted with an object unbelievably large, so we cannot see and comprehend it as a whole. The dynamical sublime refers to our confrontation with something far more powerful than us, in which case we are aware of our own mortality and insignificance. Having looked at Lyotard’s postmodernism and postmodern art in detail, with both Lyotard’s examples and my own, I will conclude with a brief examination of the works of Anderson and Jameson, as they provide arguments both for and against Lyotard’s work, taking their own examples to illustrate points made.
Territory: The territory of my choice is Newcastle University. In the perspective in which I will be looking at University, it will be easy to consider all universities the same, as the aim of this project it to illustrate the dramatic change that has happened in the educational body of this country. Therefore, though I will be dwelling on the change that Newcastle has undergone, it will be representative of University as a whole in the United Kingdom. My aim: My aim in this project is to illustrate the change in university, both in its purpose and how it has become run. In this project is to show that University has changed from a place of excellence in learning, to a place that prepares one for the world of work. Therefore the emphasis on money making is not only in the minds of the applicant but also of the University. It will be important for me to draw upon the ideas of Marx and Lucaks for the idea of the ‘commodification of education’ which will be corroborated with several other sources from modern writers.
Fight club a bizarre fantasy about the “repressed self”. The main character, (who throughout the film is not named and in the credits referred only to as narrator) a depressed business man, had a vision. He doesn’t like his work and gets no satisfaction from it so he tries different ways of passing time. He creates the perfect apartment but still he is not fulfilled. He has trouble sleeping and he feels in no way part of the surrounding world, he has become so desperate to fit in and to relate to others that he has started attending therapy sessions for people with terminal diseases and pretends that he is ill to just so he can have someone to talk to. One day on a plane he meets the man that he wishes he was the one who he has envisioned. He envisioned he was the street-wise hard man who loved to fight and who wasn’t afraid of anything and who was respected by all. And then the streetwise tough guy became real, at least he did in the mind of the business man. Hence the creation of Tyler. Tyler holds the materialistic world in contempt and he believes people learn everything they need to know through pain, misfortune and chaos. Tyler challenges the narrator to a fight and our narrator finds his much sought after release in the brawl. The two create a group named fight club and as more men join it one rule becomes apparent. ‘Do not talk about fight club.’ The philosophy I intend to explore is automatism and drifting. The whole thing with Freud where we all have subconscious desires and it is thought that if we continue to talk to non- stop after a while they come out and we actually say what we think deep down. Breton said we should do that with writing stuff down, just write anything and not think about it, free association, that’s automatism. And doing it when you’re walking around was what he called drifting. Also Sartre because he believed that men cannot rely on society to control them. Mankind is radically free and responsible. In every moment we choose ourselves, with no assurance that we have a continuing identity or power. We set up determinisms to ease our minds, but in the face of the finality of death, only through our present consciousness do we establish our own authentic existence.
Outline: The project will analyse extensively the philosophical theory of French philosopher, Michel Foucault and will demonstrate how his theories can be applied to performance in sport. Aim: To argue that philosophy, and in particular that of Michel Foucault, plays a significant role in performance in sport. Method: The following aspects of both Michel Foucault’s philosophy and the role they play within sport will be used to support my argument: – Discipline: Disciplinary power is spawned from and spawns in turn a whole series of techniques and knowledges of the body. Discipline, both of the self and with respect to hierarchy, is crucial in sport – Knowledge: Elements formed in a regular manner by discursive practice and which are indispensable to the constitution of a science can be called ‘knowledge’; vital in the world of sport – Power: Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society. Like discipline, respect must be paid to this concept for success to be achieved – The Self: Interaction between the self and others, the technologies of individual domination and technologies of the self. Understanding the self and other individuals will heighten performance in sport – Discourse: Essentially referring to statements, the rules by which they are governed and their subsequent circulation and exclusion – ‘Mind Games’: How the words a coach uses can influence the performance of not only his own team, but also other coaches, players and sporting authorities; strongly linked to Foucault’s notion of Discourse – Performance: How all the above themes ultimately influence sporting performance. Sources include: Foucault, Sport and Exercise – Pirkko Markula & Richard Pringle, Michel Foucault – Sara Mills and Discipline and Punish – Michel Foucault. Information collated from the internet, magazines, newspapers and television will also be used to illustrate my project
Territory: My initial study took place in Saint Walburga’s Catholic Primary School, in Saltaire, West Yorkshire. I spent time within the school and particular classrooms collating information and observing the interactions between students and teachers. Aims: I aim to consider the relationships between students and teachers within the education system. I will look at the notion of dependency within this relationship and consider whether the teacher and/or student are dependent on the other. Also key to my study is the question of freedom in education and whether either student or teacher holds the most freedom. I will look to the paradox of teaching and learning and how this need not prevent teaching or learning, provided that both teacher and student willingly risk a power relationship of mastery and dependence. Philosophers and Sources: The majority of my study uses Hegel’s lord and bondsman dialectic, as found within in his Phenomenology of Spirit. However I wish to undertake an exploration of the master/slave relation beyond the Phenomenology of Spirit through the ideas of Educational Theorist Nigel Tubbs.