TYPOLOGY:

• A classification according to general type, especially in archaeology, psychology, or the social sciences. (Oxford Dictionary)
• Study or analysis using a classification according to a general type.(Oxford Dictionary)

Bernd and Hilla Becher

Bernd and Hilla Becher were German conceptual artists and photographers working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images, or typologies, of industrial buildings and structures, often organised in grids. Also well known as the founders of what has come to be known as the ‘Becher school’ influencing generations of documentary photographers and artists. The Couple met as students at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1957 and first collaborated on photographing and documenting the disappearing German industrial architecture in 1959. Bernd Becher studied painting at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart from 1953 to 1956, then typography under Karl Rössing at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1959 to 1961. Hilla Becher also studied photography at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1958 to 1961 but prior to this she had completed an apprenticeship as a photographer where she lived in Potsdam. After their education they both began working as freelance photographers for the Troost Advertising Agency in Düsseldorf, concentrating on product photography.

This contact sheet of photographs by the Becher’s shows typology
photographs which document the similarities between the different
industrial structures. The photographs compare the similarities to the
point where they almost appear as though they are almost photographing
the same structure in each photo as each photo is taken exactly the same
way with the same angle and distance. Also the time of day and weather
must have been taken into account as the sky colour is the same in all of
the photographs.

For my work on Consumerism this would be interesting as i could produce work in a typological format that would represent how all of the products are similar but also to highlight the details of the everyday items. Although this type of documentary photography is of the landscape i would want to produce it in a studio shot photoshoot which would become much more focused on the products themselves.

Andy Warhol, born 6th August 1928, was an American artist and a leading figure, a beacon, in the Pop Art movement and was one of the most influential artists of his generation with his influence still felt today. He was known to have a nervous disorder as a child and spent a lot of time at home where he would listen to the radio and collect pictures of movie stars. This exposure to the media is said to have caused him to obsess over pop culture and celebrity which dominates his work and process. In 1945 Warhol began his training in Pictorial Design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and shortly after he graduated in 1949, he moved to the city of New York to become a commercial Illustrator. He had success throughout the 1950’s working for well-known magazines such as Vogue and the New Yorker as well advertisement displays for local businesses.

The 1960’s was the most prolific period of Warhol’s life. In 1960 he moved out of his shared family apartment into a townhouse on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan which gave him the opportunity to have space to work. His work began to incorporate advertisements and comic strips. This was the forming of early examples of Pop Art. His work became more expressive and painterly with clearly recognisable brushstrokes and loose influences of Abstract Expressionism.

Warhol continued with his theme of advertisement and comic strips throughout the early 1960’s focusing on illustrated imagery mainly from printed media and graphic design. In 1964, Warhol rented an old fire station using this additional new space to further his work at a scale he could not achieve before. For his large scale canvases he would project his work onto the walls and freehand trace the images using paint directly onto a canvas resulting in a continuation of his painterly style. By 1964 works such as ‘Brillo Box’ would be a counterpoint to this style and to abstract expressionism by almost stripping away brush strokes completely.

Throughout 1961 and 1962 Warhol’s work became increasingly commercialised using mass production techniques such as silk screen printing to quickly replicate his drawings of mundane household brands, such as the famous ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans’ series (1962). Andy Warhol’s work became controversial at the time as it was questioning the very definition of what is art.

EDITS:

For the editing of the images i edited them all on Lightroom changing the settings to give the desired effects. I then went through a second selection process selecting the images which worked best after editing but then also editing images in green to create a gif.

Final Selection:

Overall the photoshoot worked well as a response to commercialism as i wanted to created these big stand alone graphics projected onto the area. The photoshoot is meant to question our usage of brands and how in our everyday lives they are everywhere and we have ended up consuming brands more then we consume our natural landscape and spend time outside. If I was to redo the shoot I would select several other outdoor areas or a city area. This shoot required lots of planning so i want to find an easier way to project without requiring lots of equipment.

For this Shoot I set up at Jardin d’olivet forest which is a small woodland area that has an old stone structure. This was perfect for using my Projector to project the brands into the landscape. I organised to borrow a generator to have power for the generator which was perfect for making the projector portable. For the shoot I waited till it was dark so that the images would have lots of contrast when projecting the light.

The Screenshots bellow show my selection process that i have done reducing the images to the most successful ones which have a white flag and the ones that didn’t work as well with a black crossed flag.

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Jim Sanborn is an American photographer and artist born 1945 in Washington. In his photographic series ‘Topographic projections and implied geometries’ he explores archaeological, mathematical and scientific exploration through his photography. In his photography Sanborn tries to highlight mixing mathematics and physics such as looking at unseen aspects of existent concepts or objects such as the Coriolis effect, the earth’s magnetic field or cryptography. 
Sanborn produced his series ‘topographic projections and implied geometries’ in the late 1990’s. He created all of the images individually using a large format light projector to create the shapes and formations in his images with the projector being half a mile away to create the perfect scale of the projection. He used generators to power the projectors which he transported to the locations. Sanborn photographed the American South west as well as the coastline of Ireland.

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Definitions:

Commercialism-

• the principles and activity of commerce, especially those connected with profit rather than quality or doing good [Cambridge Dictionary]

Consumerism-

• the state of an advanced industrial society in which a lot of goods are bought and sold [Cambridge Dictionary]
• – the situation in which too much attention is given to buying and owning things[Cambridge Dictionary]

For my theme I wanted it to be about Commercialism and Consumerism. I wanted to focus on products and brands, looking at how people consume these products and how we are influenced by certain brands more then others. I also wanted to potentially create a pop art sense in my photography after looking at Andy Warhol. With my photography i wanted to produce work that makes the viewer think about when they are shopping questioning whether or not they need these things but also looking at Consumerism in a less negative light seeing how the shapes and images in the products can create an almost art form with its typology and illustrations.

Post-Modernism:

“Postmodernism was a reaction against modernism. Modernism was generally based on idealism and a Utopian vision of human life and society and a belief in progress. It assumed that certain ultimate universal principles or truths such as those formulated by religion or science could be used to understand or explain reality. Modernist artists experimented with form, technique and processes rather than focusing on subjects, believing they could find a way of purely reflecting the modern world.”

Modernism:

“While modernism was based on idealism and reason, postmodernism was born of skepticism and a suspicion of reason. It challenged the notion that there are universal certainties or truths. Postmodern art drew on philosophy of the mid to late twentieth century, and advocated that individual experience and interpretation of our experience was more concrete than abstract principles. While the modernists championed clarity and simplicity; postmodernism embraced complex and often contradictory layers of meaning.”

Lorna Simpson is an American Photographer born in Brooklyn in 1960. She is known for creating bold works of African American women and sometimes African American men, questioning conventional notions of race and identity. In ‘Five Day Forecast’the images shows an African american woman. The images has been cropped so that the face is not visible in the image meaning the viewer only see the torso of the women. From a quick glance the images all look identical but after looking each image is different in the way she has her arms crossed, clothing and overall positioning. The photos appear underneath five contiguous frames, labeled above with the days of the workweek, Monday to Friday in a sort of calendar or weather forecast format. Underneath the image is ten plaques two for each image, which read
misdescription, misinformation, misidentify, misdiagnose, misfunction, mistranscribe, misremember, misgauge, misconstrue, and mistranslate.

Simpson said ” I use the figure to examine the ways in which gender and culture shape the interactions, relationships and experiences of our lives in contemporary America.” and that she was exploring what could happen to a Black women within one week.

For this task I looked at GIFs and Video art. I took photographs that i used to produce a Gif In Photoshop. GIFS work well with the theme as they are repeated in a continuous loop.

A GIF Standing for ‘Graphics Interchange Format’ is an image that’s been encoded using the graphics interchange format where it has multiple frames encoded into a single image file and a web browser or other software will play those images back in animated sequence automatically

The theme  given for our exam, Variation and similarities has an instant link to several different movements and types of photography. When hearing this my instant reaction was to look at Typologies and also use pop art as an inspiration.

Definitions:

Variation-

1. A change or slight difference in condition, amount, or level, typically within certain limits.
2. A different or distinct form or version of something.

Similarity-

1. The state or fact of being similar.
2. a similar feature or aspect.

MIND MAP:

 

I was particularly interested in looking at incorporating Commercial advertisement into the theme to produce interesting images that would critique modern day advertisement. I was also keen to create images that have complete oppositional properties to another set of images. I thought using colour as a focus would be a good to compare images.

MOOD BOARDS:

An idea I looked at was Creating portrait photography for this theme as I have not explored portraiture as much and could create interesting images in this style. another idea could be reoccurring objects or buildings in landscape photography.