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August 22, 2004
Goodbye appropriation?
I'm ditching the 'term' appropriation. It implies a political and/or ethical motivation to the project . . . the general conception of the term as the borrowing or using of a thing (image/style) without permission, or 'right', is another whole issue which I think sits alongside, but outside, of what I'm doing/interested in. It's also an issue which is covered extensively elsewhere. Instead I will begin to discuss 'referencing' . . . 'sampling' . . . and 'consuming'.
A term I would perhaps like to introduce, to further define my interests/topic, is one I had been using earlier in the year, but which I had left behind because (at that stage) I felt it would narrow my focus too much . . . the term is 'vernacular'. I use it tentatively for now. All the work I have been making lately is motivated by this to some degree so it makes sense that I begin to use it again.
Vernacular signifiers in hybrid visual languages.
Posted by Luke Wood at 12:00 PM
August 21, 2004
Record covers
I've been wanting to try this for ages ñ trying to 'blend' two disparate record covers. This relates to my topic, but is directly related to the music I'm making with The Hi-Aces. I've been enjoying working with the photocopier ñ creating 'sketches', ie. quickly! The fact that it's a 'copier' works for me too ñ can't 'make' content etc . . . you 'feed' it . . .
. . . the originals.
What I guess I really like about this one is that the hybrid makes it's own connections . . . a non sequitur ñ that makes sense. Elvis sings the Sex Pistols. This could never have happened of course (see my previous post where the ghost of Elvis Presley visits Johnny Rotten), but it requires the viewer to consider that it might have . . . maybe 'could' have? All those song titles make so much sense coming from Elvis. I think Neil Young mentions in 'Hey Hey My My' that "The King is gone but he's not forgotten / Is this the story of Johnny Rotten".
I've tried a few of these today and there's heaps more I'd like to do in this 'xerox-sketch' kind of format. Obviously some will work better than others for the reason I've mentioned above . . . and maybe that's a very important part of what this project is about? (I'd like to try and clarify this through continuing to make work . . . searching for connections . . . non sequitur.) I have an M/M (Paris) qoute here along these lines, "An image never interests us as such. Its relevance lies in the fact that it contains the sum of preceding dialogues, stories, experiences with various interlocutors, and the fact that it induces a questioning of these pre-existing values. This is what makes for us a pertinent image. A good image should be in between two others, a previous one and another to come." Now basically that Bahktin, his notion of the dialogic . . . this is what I was trying to dig out in my seminar but which I just blew completely!
Going from photoshop to the photocopier, I've been really interested in how I can still use and manipulate the drop-shadows, setting things up at ever so slightly different heights, bending up corners, etc. The shadows are visual correspondents to reverb or echo (the relationship to my topic being fairly obvious ñ actually I couldn't help thinking how cool Jason's last title was). . . which kind of relates to my trying to blend my practices in music and design . . .
I've been become borderline obsessed with reverb lately. Our last gig [Friday 13th] I spent ages trying to get maximum reverb without totally losing control of the sound . . . I'm looking for extra reverb units, with bigger springs. I'm only interested in the original (analogue) spring reverb units, and they're really hard to find here! Actually planning to have a good look around Melbourne this week.
Posted by Luke Wood at 06:26 PM
Photocopying, shadows, and monsters
Trying to make work to present for critique in Melbourne next week. Not sure what to do with these illustrated caps . . . trying to remember how they fit (or shape?) my research topic? Been thinking about 'collage' a lot ñ from Cubism to Punk to my highschool maths and english folders which I would carefully cover with photocopied montages of my favourite bands . . .
"With the words in his head, Johnny Rotten, not yet Anarchy or Antichrist, just a kid making new culture out of old chords, takes off." [Greil Marcus, 'Lipstick Traces']
. . . which reminds me of another quote I used much earlier in this project . . . "Drive your cart and plow over the bones of the dead" [William Blake]. Which makes me think about what Denise said about being more irreverent.
I've been enjoying reading Marcus, and the Burdick text seemed to fit right into both his books, . . . I've been building this mental picture of pop culture as this cyclical system, spinning fast ñ out of control, but so fast that you can't escape the pull of the spin, so never actually OUT of control. If that makes sense? Graphic designers are inherently interested in the centre of this cycle ñ which is a vortex containing everything (because nothing escapes - due to the speed of the spinning). The transcendentally focused (the spiritualists, the artists, etc) are interested in what's outside the vortex, the void. But as designers we deal in the 'everyday' ñ this is why we come to be doing what we do, it is what we make and what we reference . . . and what we wish to add to. We add to this system/vortex by consuming and regurgitating . . . we need to think about what we're eating though, and make sure we chew it right (not too much, not too little) . . . and if we're lucky, when we spit it out or puke it up, there'll be a new idea there that'll make the world a more interesting place to be in . . . for a short while before it becomes an everday part of the vortex, spinning around and waiting to be chewed up and made new again. More often though designers [all of us] will just consume, digest, and defacate . . . it's just easier I guess? But it means we end up spinning around in all this crap . . . but that's ok too because we can eat each other and there'll be plenty to go around.
Ok that became a really bizarre little rant and perhaps sounds negative? It's not supposed to. It should sound like a B-grade horror ñ kind of tragic, kinda' funny, and kind of true. I like horror, and I like monsters, I don't think they're negative at all . . . they exist to show us things about ourselves. Monsters are quite often the 'things' that are regurgitated or spat out (especially the hybrid human/monsters, like werewolves etc) . . . they are the 'new' things. We call them monsters because they are not immediately recognisable.
Compared to Elvis, Art Chantry looks like a monster! That's him over Elvis' shoulder getting the idea that he could appropriate (consume) everyday printed ephemera in his work. But does the work look like a monster? I kinda' don't reckon . . .
[I had no idea this was going to come out when I sat down here to write this] . . .
So I guess maybe I've chewed too long? Perhaps if I chew faster and spit out earlier I'll get my monster . . . some inconcievable mess of a being who none-the-less will tell me something about the (image?) world and my place in it?
I think I'm losing it so I'll knock it on the head right n
Posted by Luke Wood at 10:37 AM
August 19, 2004
"Neomania: feeding the monster"
Been reading Anne Burdick's text 'Neomania'. Lisa sent it through to me ñ I think because I expressed some reluctance to the idea that my project was all about 'style' (and nothing at all to do with monsters?). Can the development of a personal style be adequate motivation behind an academic research project? Thinking about this more, I think that what I'm really interested in is not just developing 'a' style, but more something like developing a strategy, or process, whereby the practitioner (in this instance, me) can move from style to style (identity crisis), develop a 'new' style perhaps but be able to move on from that continually exploring new forms (or new combinations of familiar forms). So yes, this is about form, surface, the artefact, and making 'new' . . .
I found Burdick's text really helpful in terms of it's legitimizing style. She talks about "style's function as a cultural communicator", and discusses the Modernist notion that 'intrinsic' style (style developed from within) is inherently superior to 'applied' style (style applied from without), which is considered to "corrupt the marriage of content and from".
Previously Lisa had asked me if I was more interested in process or form, and felt like I should answer without hesitation ñ process, of course . . . but didn't feel totally comfortable with that ñ although I also felt uncomfortable saying that I was more interested in form!
I found this contradiction(?) really interesting. I think I am more interested in form . . . in the artefact, in the surface? This would seem to be apparent in the 100 images I took to Melbourne at the very beginning of this project! It's definitely apparent in the music I'm currently practicing ñ it's about forms and surfaces, and the references that reside in those (cultural memory).
So why do I feel uncomfortable admitting this about my design practice? My previous undergrad education was a strict Modernist one, but I've certainly moved on from that by now (I think?) . . . there's something more here ñ a larger shadow . . . and Burdick's essay touches on this. She highlights that we, as designers, "take pleasure in style. We thrive on form" . . . but that we tend to keep that to ourselves and instead we talk up the processes we go through to get the 'solution' to the 'problem', so that the client feels they can justify the few thousand dollars they've just handed over! I'm being cynical, but "to confess that we revel in expressive artifice might be considered self-defeating when attempting to justify design's relevance to industry".
Towards the end Burdick takes a shot at design annuals for fostering "an environment of superficiality", which I'd have tended to agree with (actually I've just written a bad review for the latest TDC annual for this very reason), but now I'm wondering . . . and didn't she start out pro-superficiality? Is being interested in surface, form, artefact, the same as being superficial?
Can you be motivated by form in a way that is not superficial? I think so. I don't really believe in any such thing as an empty vessel . . . form can be more or less loaded, but there's always something there (though that something will often shift and change as the form/artefact 'travels').
If you are motivated by FORM must you always be seeking NEW FORM? That's a good question . . . and is one that underlies Burdick's text (hence her title 'Neomania' ñ from Barthes) . . . she's interested in the "affliction that makes graphic designers crave perpetual stylistic (r)evolution". To what end though? She mentions things like enriching the "visual vocabulary of the profession", and that "invigorating new voices are necessary" but that the current rate at which styles are being consumed and regurgitated is more about consumer culture than it is about "growth within the profession".
But hang on. What's graphic design about if not consumer culture?
That question ñ if you are motivated by FORM must you always be seeking NEW FORM? ñ isn't really unpacked here. Perhaps this is something I'd like to look at through my topic?
An aspect of this text which had real resonance with the work I've been making lately were her references to style's consumption and regurgitation ñ to monsters, descendant mutations, being eaten alive . . . I've been thinking about cannibalism (Situationists), Pop Will Eat Itself . . . etc, especially in regard to Elvis, Johnny Rotten, Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain . . . Monsters to be tamed, or destroyed!
Graphic designers?
Posted by Luke Wood at 11:06 AM
August 18, 2004
Band/Design
I've been thinking a lot about the possibilty of bringing what I'm doing in music into this project . . . similarities are already there, as I was using my interests in music as triggers for this project a while back anyway. Talking to Lisa last Wednesday she mentioned Delaware in this respect ñ I'd like to find out more about them, but also other design/band cross-overs (hybrid practices). I guess looking at Elliot Earls made me think about this . . . and lately I've been thinking about Tomato and Underworld. I already seem to be moving toward developing a visual language for The Hi-Aces, and being that the music is hybrid the associated visual language will be too . . .
Posted by Luke Wood at 04:46 PM
hybrid fonts
This comes from an idea I had when doing the country/horror poster, but which I never had time to investigate . . . making a hybrid country/horror typeface.
There's been quite a tradition of hybrid fonts ever since the Mac was intro'd into graphic design. I referenced hybrid fonts by Makela and Barnbrook in my book 'Hot Rod Biology'. The piece here I just made quickly today to see how it might work to try and graft one display font onto another ñ the two originals are Rosewood and Spookhouse. [please excuse the shit kerning]
I did this today because I started reading a book on Art Chantry which discusses his collecting and combining of things that don't usually go together (through collage) . . . he'd done some great band logos and I thought maybe this hybrid font thing might work for The Hi-Aces. It seems very simple . . . easy perhaps? And I wonder how far this could go?
Could be good to use in the Elvis illustrated caps anyway . . .
Posted by Luke Wood at 04:09 PM
August 12, 2004
M/M (Paris) ñ illustrated alphabets
Went to the M/M (Paris) site via a link on Denise's. Their projects 'AñZ of Beauty' and 'The Alphamen' are 'illustrated' alphabets . . . I quite liked the humour in the alphabet/alpha male one.
http://www.mmparis.com/thealphamen/a.html
http://www.mmparis.com/thealphabet/index.html
. . . can anyone tell me how to make this an active link?
Posted by Luke Wood at 03:33 PM
August 11, 2004
Elvis Monster '?' ill cap
Thought I'd try and rework the image from the previous post, trying to get the Jamie Reid/Sex Pistols reference 'in' here more. This is still not right, and I'll probably replace this image soon . . . I'd like to keep pushing this more.
The question mark doesn't work. Also, I need to think about exactly what kind of hybrid is this? Perhaps too many references just turn it to mush? And what the hell is Elvis doing? . . . he's supposed to have come back from the dead tempted by the possibilities of digital technology.
Posted by Luke Wood at 12:13 PM
August 08, 2004
Elvis-monster: '&' ill cap
". . . with the momentum of a flood in a museum, strange creatures appeared: Elvis Christ, Elvis Nixon, Elvis Hitler, Elvis Mishima, Elvis as godhead, Elvis inhabiting the bodies of serial killers, of saints, fiends. Each was a joke, of course; beneath each joke was bedrock, obsession, delight, fear." [Greil Marcus' intro to 'Dead Elvis']
This is the outcome of a few different things I've been trying this week. I've been looking at Elliot Earls work quite a bit following Denise's advice, and it's influenced this a lot . . .
Initially looking at Earls' work I really hated it ñ that was about 5 years ago I guess when I first saw it in Emigre . . . and I hadn't thought about it since. Until Denise mentioned it. Actually when she mentioned it I thought 'Oh my god, she doesn't get me at all' . . . but I went and looked at his stuff (via his site http://www.theapolloprogram.com/, and also an article in Eye #45 by Rick Poyner) and I can totally see why she directed me to him now. He makes Country music! He makes monsters too. He's developed some weird fucked up visual language that appears to be a hybrid of multiple sources ñ of course he NEEDS to make his own typefaces for this 'voice' to operate. The "referential density" [Poyner] in his work really appeals to me . . . as does his use of ". . . multifocal complexity to provoke a vertiginous sense of displacement. He wants to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange" [Poyner again]. I like that his work appears to evolve out of some sort of identity crises . . . a common theme in hybrid monsters like werewolves!
Also, see his Elvis piece at http://www.emigre.com/FF/ELB15.GIF
In regard to my image here . . .
I have, for now, ditched the need to render these as b/w vector art. I've been looking at Earls work in an effort to 'push forms harder' [Denise] . . . his work certainly pushes me outside my [formal] comfort zone. The image I'm including here is very different to anything I've ever done before . . . I'm enjoying trying to make ugly work. Actually, I'm not sure if it is 'ugly', or 'icky' [see Lisa's comment on previous post] . . . how do you tell in your own work?
There are multiple appropriations here [sources, references?] . . . the comic book monster figure, Elvis, B-grade horror letterform [House Industries], Punk [the way punk posters used cut-and-paste/collage to create hybrid images . . . also originally I had the pink letterform on a yellow background, referencing Reid's cover art for 'Never Mind The Bollocks' ñ maybe I should have left it yellow?], and then the frame is obviously taken from the illustrated capitals I've been looking at, an effort to plant the work back into that genre. I'm calling this an 'ill cap' because I like the link to sickness, to monsters [and also the contemporary use of the word as an affirmation]. On top of all this there's the [what I would call] gratuitous use of photoshop filters which I'm using in an effort to render some kind of contemporary kitsch [rather than being purely nostalgic]ñ this comes from the magazines I was looking at in my book 'Hot Rod Biology' . . . I wish I'd known about these filters then!? [see I told you this was new for me]
So I guess I'm wondering now . . . is this a 'Hybrid Statement'? Is this "referential density"? Is that the same thing? Does this monster reveal anything? Can the Hybrid Practitioner be like Dr Frankenstein [appropriating dead 'parts' to create new, living 'wholes']?
Posted by Luke Wood at 11:18 AM
August 07, 2004
Notes [post discussion with Denise]
As I've mentioned I had felt like this research topic made sense ñ well, as much as thought it needed to. It worried me that Denise said she didn't "get it". I'd like to think that that's because primarily she was referring to my seminar text, and that I've come a long way since that?
Anyhow, as I'd been focusing on making work for a while I thought I'd stop last weekend and just try to write up what I thought I was doing . . . this [image] is a result of that. I wrote a lot more, but this was my initial response. I was going to draw this up and edit it on the computer, and have it on here as a PDF . . . but in trying to do that I was procrastinating about how to edit it etc, so I decided that I'd just put it on here as happened, in all it's naivety!
Posted by Luke Wood at 11:16 AM