Making Cultures

Making Cultures

‘Culture’ is a term which is used a lot:

—>high culture,

—>low culture/pop culture,

—>fan cultures,

—>consumer culture,

—>subculture,

—>celebrity culture,

—>digital cultures,

—> high culture:  See the photos bellow. There are in mounted in high culture. The skull is full of swarovski/diamonds. The Andreas Gursky photo is $4.3 million that year if it was on sale in our century it would’t be sold that much, because now we have the technology photoshop e.t.c and we can change the hole photo and ,make it how we want it to be, but in 1999 there wasn’t that much technology to do chance the photo e.t.c

—>low culture/pop culture,

—>fan cultures,

—>consumer culture,

—>subculture,

—>celebrity culture,

—>digital cultures,

A society can exist without a culture (e.g. insect or primate

societies), but culture cannot exist without a society

Culture is symbolic.

A symbol is something that stands for something else( language is symbolic )

A sign means what it does because of its relationship to other

signs within a system, not because of any essential property that

it embodies

When we are raised in a culture, we become fluent in a range of

languages (visual and spoken) without realising it. Look at the signs bellow, there are symbols  symbols, “text” —> Everything is a ‘text’ that we ‘read’

"It's vintage darling"

Event I helped: 

In November our tutor asked us if we need to be dressers for a fashion fashion called ‘It’s vintage darling’ back stage.  I said him that i need to go because we don’t have to lose opportunities that are given to us. So i went and i loved it. I was helping the models to get dresses I was finding there clothes, fixing their hair e.t.c.  I learned a lot from there because I’ve never been backstage and see all that fast play. We were all running to be in time, stressed, anxious.  When you sit in a chair and just look a fashion show you don’t actually know what is back there.  Also i had the opportunity to meed other fashion designers, famous people like politician, stylist e.t.c.I thank mr. Pantelis Panteli that gave me this opportunity to be back stage and see how it is.  Now as a fresh fashion designer i know haw it is and the anxious and stress that is all over the room.

Cyprus Fashion Days

Cyprus Fashion days event took place on the 21st of November. On that event lots of boutiques, fashion designers, jewelry designers etc attend and show there creations. This years Alexander collage was one of its providers and as a first year fashion student I told my teacher that I would love to attend and show my first design in that big event. So I got the opportunity and design a dress for that special event. My model that I chose was Chrystie Petrou. As I said it was my first fashion event that I participated and I loved it and I got very good impressions to. I just can't wait to participate in another event. 

  

My inspiration was greek ascend, vizantioum and church.

Creativity and Authorship

‘Authentic culture’ from ‘mass culture’

Real                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Art                                                                                                                                                                                        European                                          

Multidimensional                     

Active consumption         

Imagination                                     

Individual creation                   

false                                                                                                                                                                                   

entertainment                                                                                                                                                                                      American
one dimensional

passive consumption

distraction

mass production

Walker Benjamin

Benjamin argued that the fusing of culture with commercial technologies of industrial reproduction

Argued —> that the reproduction of the image democratised the image by destroying its aura ie. its unique existence in time and place.

Benjamin argued that meanings emerge at the moment of consumption.

Reproductions put copies of the original in places where we would never find the original work eg. books, ceramics, prints, tapestries, household products, textiles. 

See the photos below, i'm sure that you all had a chocolate or something else like flip-plops with Mona Lisa on.

On those two photos you can see our world. Beyonce and Jay-z that are famous can took photo next to Mona Lisa and at the other photo you see people trying to take a photo of Mona Lisa and they have to stand very far to take a photo or look at it!

critical thinking

Critical thinking is “the ability to think clearly and rationally. It includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking.”

As I said in in my culture post I have bachelors degree in Primary teaching.  So I had been to many seminars and heard a lot of speeches about critical thinking, because you have to learn to criticize and have to say/state your own opinion from early ages. So Primary school have an effect on kids. From all the seminars and coerces I’ve been in my opinion critical thinking is a must. You don't have to be like a sheep and say yes to everybody, don't state your opinion and do/say what others need you to do/say.Critical thinking involves developing the key skills of questioning and reasoning and the ability to demonstrate:

—> a readiness to reason and create order and meaning from their experience of life

—> a willingness to be open minded, to question and challenge the ideas of others

—>an openness to be challenged by others, and to the possibility of being wrong

Children need to be shown how to develop as reasonable, fair minded critical thinkers. They need to practice the skills of questioning, reasoning, predicting and patterning experience. Learning to think critically means learning to make informed judgements. 

http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/critical/ct.php  

creativity & authorship

Did you knew that is a “museum of Bad art”?

“The collection is a tribute to the

sincerity of the artists who persevered

with their art despite something going

horribly wrong in the process”

                      Charlie & Sheeba, Anonymous     Gilded Nude, Anonymous

Creativity and authorship

Idea of creativity

The idea of creativity is central in art and design education.

Creativity is —> considered an important part of what makes us employable.

                    —> recognised as a driver of economic growth.

******The creative industries have been the fastest growing sector of the UK economy in the last 10‐15 years.

This photo has a deep meaning and it tells the truth--> this is our world

Different models of creative practitioner

Celebrated sole author, collaborator, facilitator, conceptual thinker, maker e.t.c

They —> are worth more than £36 billion a year and they generate £70,000 every minute for the UK economy, employ 1.5 million people in the UK.

The term is also used by: computer scientists, chefs, tourism managers, engineers, marketeers e.t.c

media and design our understanding of creativity (and what the creative practitioner does) has changed historically. It has meant different things at different times

18th century

We had the Montagu House, c. 1715,

first site of British Museum

The Louvre Palace (opened in 1793) and

the Pyramid, which was completed in 1989

Romanticism  

Movement in Europe across art. 

How small is man to the nature chaos 

Modernism

Consept, creativity, popular, understanding people free-away.  Also interior designers became modernism.

                         Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917

Creativity object that has a perp use. We don’t have painters e.t.c. We have designers, architects, e.t.c

—> the together in a space

—>fashiom—>experimentaly (shoe hat)

**Jeff koons—> post modern

Postmodernism: mid‐late 20th century

Creativity is in mixing high and low cultural forms.

                       Andreas Gursky, "99 Cent", 1999

Creative industries

Combines the idea of the creative arts with an interest, it commerce and marketplace (don’t agree)

New media technologie

Political interest in creativity as enterprise

Adorno and Max—> view of the masses as passive and easily dyped has always been problematic.  Their criticism of mass entertainment stemmed from a hatred of fascism. 

—> In 1944 they coined the term ‘culture industry’ to describe the products of mass culture. They argued

that these products were:

—>Homogeneous (standardised, uniform, all working in

the same way) and Predictable (we know what form the song will take from the first few bars, or how the tension in a Hollywood film will be resolved)

art exhibition

For professional studies course we had to visit one art gallery and take a picture of an artwork and then write something for it, try to thing the thoughts of the artist  to come up with that specific idea. 

The exibition took place at the gallery “Kypriakh gonia” on the 14^th-30^th of November.

The artwork we have chosen doesn't have a title, as the artist George Georgiades doesn't give titles to his artworks. The specific artwork is on sale for 450 euro.

The media he uses are: acrylic paint, newspaper collage, needles, plastic, wood, pictures.

What we see: Deformed man: big head/eyes/mouth/, tiny ear, long thin neck, short legs.

In the backround, we can see different photos, on the left we can see pictures of: grass, trees, and a person standing next to the tree and on the right we can see people selling products at a market.

Our point of view:

As soon as we look at the artwork, our attention mostly focuses on the man. It looks like something is bothering him. We had a lot of thoughts like:

Times of war, people are trying to make a living, depressions, sadness , hardship, struggle

We see the artist has emphasized the colour red which reminds us of blood. Also in our opinion the sad man that doesn't wear shirt and he is saturnine he is poor and he tries to find food, maybe he made the background like that to show us that the man is in a big city like NY(tat there are graffiti on lonely streets), that there are a lot of poor people fighting for food.

And then on the left we can see some photos of nature flowers and bright colors  showing that there is always light in the darkness and there is beauty  in everything.

We chose this specific artwork as we found it interesting. George Giorgiades has a unique way of working. What has drawn our attention on this specific art piece, is the use of color and medium that gives it life. We like the fact that it’s a bid messy and uneven (maybe because the artist wants to show something) . In addition the artist uses different ways of creating his art. 

In my opinion fashion design communicate with art and design, so we have to go to exhibitions.

Fashion designers get inspire from anything, why not from a piece of art?

What do you think when you see this artwork?

Photo-shoot

2 weeks ago I had the opportunity to work with a photographer (Maria Antoniou), that studies photography at Alexander collage and that was one of her projects. I was a model to a studio photo-shoot (portrait photography) and I’ve learned a lot about photo-shooting, studio lights, camera, poses etc.  Had a great time and i’ve learned a lot.  In my opinion photographers and fashion designers must work together because without knowing they learn a lot from each other. Fashion designers at some point are going to take photos their designs and of course they will need to work with a photographer so is good to learn how to work together from collage. 

     

Personal shoppers at TOPSHOP Cyprus!

There is a new service for all costumers at topshop Cyprus, called personal shoppers. Every topshop in Cyprus has their own personal shopper. Everyone that needs help about their style?  they need us to find them sets of clothes for an event? to see which clothes suits them?, just contact and we will be there for you. 

You can find me in Makariou street Nicosia to find your personal style:)

The Style Icon: Your go-to girl for a look that's sure to stand out from the crowd. Never missing a beat Panayiota shows us looks to wow.

My culture

Hi, I am Panayiota Pavla, and  I was born in Owensboro, Kentucky (USA). I  now  leave on the small island of Cyprus. I am 22 years old, and I have a bachelor's degree in teaching. I am currently studying for my Bachelor of Arts in Fashion design.  To become fashion designer is my dream, and now I have the opportunity to follow my dream in University of the west of England. I can write pages and pages about fashion, fashion designing and style. The tasks is to write about my culture. As I said I was born in the Us and from that day a go every year in the Us because of family. I love staying in the Us but i love Cyprus too.  There are absolutely different and if you ask me to chose i would say - I cant chose because in both countries I fill like home.  So I think I have multi culture, because staying in a huge town and opposite in a very small town there are many other things that you could do. In Us I love going climbing, road trips, having open parties to everyone, skying,e.t.c. But in a small town (Nicosia) there aren’t a lot of things you could to but I love going to a quietly cafe with no that much noise also out week routine is more loosely. The air is more fresh than Us, it doesn’t have that much exhaust.  Also in Cyprus you can go everywhere by your self and don’t get scared. So I couldn’t say witch Country I love. But Us is in my future dreams for MA. Also I love partying, making people laugh, be friendly with all people, helping people, music (English songs) Rihanna, that I’ve been to her consort last year in London,  last but not least I love shopping, sewing my own designs and making cakes:) My favorite foods are: hamburgers, fridays (oouhh i love fridays), souvla (cypriot food) and of course I love sweets :)

Critical Perspectives

Critical Perspectives:

Introduction

Broadly speaking, there are probably 3

different explanations of culture

1.“Culture is a special intellectual or

artistic endeavour/ product”

Mathew Arnolds: Culture and Anarchy, 1867

“High Culture VS Low Culture”

look at the photos bellow: What you see? The first photos are hight culture and the second photos on your right are right culture.  You see one modern and hight building and then you see KFC building:/. You see opera and then you see Miley Cyrus that i dont have words to describe what she’s doing. 

 

2.“Culture is a quality possessed by all

people”

Edward Taylor: Primitive Culture, 1870

See the photos below, you see Knowledge, religion, language, art, laws, customs (as culture)

—> there are Three levels of uniqueness in human mental programming (Hofstede 1994:6) 

1. Human rights
2. culture
3. personality

What is ‘Visual Culture’?

It combines —> cultural

          —>  historical

          —> philosophical

                   —>political

                   —>psychological

And other critical frameworks to make sense of contemporary cultural forms;

Writers are not disinterested, objective viewers – they and positioned.

—>We all have a position and that position is not neutral;

—>we are sophisticated readers of cultural “texts”;