Making people art

Alexa Meade uses real life people as art. She paints on top of them to make them appear as if there are the painting. It creates a strange result as despite being real people the paintings look less life like than other paintings, even though they include real people and are as life like as you could get.

Its really hard to distinguish by looking at the pictures that the person in them is actually real and not just a flat painting. I find these paintings extremely interesting and i love the compositions.

Making people the

500 word x2

In preperation for our disserattations we had to read books or journals related to our topic and then write a 500 word summary on each. Due to a change of mind with my topic i have written one summary on a book relating to my original topic (how music can affect behaviour and how design relates to this) and one on my recent choice of topic (Christmas and how its meaning has altered to being all about consumption and how design relates to this).

In The Dark Side of the Tune: Popular Music and Violence by Bruce Johnson and Martion Cloonan, the main purpose of this article was to highlight the effects that certain genres of music can have on increasing negative behaviour. It was important to note that music doesn't cause violence but can incite and arouse aggressive and violent behaviour.

The authors' key question is, can and which genres in particular cause such violent behaviour?

The authors' state that a lot of violent behaviour is committed as a result of listening to genres such as metal, rock and rap. One boy had killed his girl friend and it had been noted that the killing resembled the “Black Dahlia” murder, which Marilyn Mason had been fascinated with. Marilyn Manson DVDs had been found in the boys home and the DVDs featured the “Black Dahlia” murder suggesting that the boy had been influenced by this. (2009:108) Evidence to support this is several articles from the Guardian; “Goth fan who craved notoriety and said he was in league with the devil” this appeared on 22nd January 2005 and “Jodi's killer to serve at least 20 years in jail” which appeared on 12th February 2005. “Jodi murder: teen killer set to appeal” this appeared in the Observer, 23rd January 2005. Other evidence to support this comes form Robert Walser's Running with the Devil and Ambrose, Moshpit.
The authors' main conclusions were that not everyone who listens to heavy music commits crime and not everyone who commits crime listens to heavy music and that the “murderer who owns a Marilyn Manson CD may well own others as well which are not violent”. (2009:116) Rock/ metal and rap music appear “to further acts of violence”, although they cannot be linked “directly with suicide, satanism or crime”, and that “pop and popular music can and do incite violence”. (2009:122) The authors also state that “...metal offers 'fantasies' of empowerment.” (2009:119)

Other points the authors' state are that although heavy music seems to incite violence for some, for others it can have a completely opposite effect. It appears that for gifted children the heavy music is an escape route and allows them to relieve stress, “work off frustration and anger” (2009:115) this shows that the music also has a therapeutic effect on some individuals. They also state that rap music was a key factor in the rise in gun crime and was blamed for anti-social behaviour among teenagers. Rock music has also been linked to suicides and self harm, “But in some forms of metal, that action is explicitly manifested in violence, including self harm” (2009:104), “...teenager who shot himself while listening to Ozzy Osbourne” (2009:110)

If the authors' points are taken too seriously then rock music will be looked upon as a source from the devil and possibly banned and never listened to by anyone again as it appears to cause so much disorder. If the authors' points are completely ignored then even more bloodshed could occur and be even worse than it has previously been.
The overall main points of view in this article are that rock, rap and metal appear to incite and arouse negative behaviour in certain individuals. Although it causes certain individuals to act in this way it doesn't have this effect on everybody so cannot be solely blamed for such violent behaviour.





In Scroogenomics by Joel Waldfogel the main purpose of the article is to try and make Christmas more economical by eliminating the need to buy presents for Christmas.

The key question the author is addressing is do we actually need to spend and buy as much as we do at Christmas time, is it all real necessary?

The author states that a lot of gifts we buy, we buy because we feel we have to “And there are the adults for whom we are obliged to get something.” (2009:03) He states that a lot of presents bought are just wasted as we don't really know the people we buy for well enough to give them something that they'll actually want or appreciate. It works the other way too as we receive a lot of presents that we don't actually appreciate but we pretend to like as we've been raised in that manner. “The adults all arrange their faces into expressions of pleasure as they unwrap items they would never buy for themselves.” (2009:03) He continues to say that we don't actually have the money to buy what we buy at Christmas and instead its all put on to credit cards, meaning were still paying for Christmas months after the event. “...we do much of this spending with credit, going into hock using money we don't yet have to buy things that recipients don't really want.”
Waldfogel, talks about how people in general are bad economic decision makers, not thinking far enough into the future meaning they don't have enough saved for certain situations. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman's research supports this statement “...that the state knows more about an individual's future tastes than the individual knows presently.” (2009:39)
Likewise, Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler “...have advocated a light-handed government intervention in people's lives through what they term “liberal paternalism” (2009:39) it consists of simple tests which convey whether we are better than others at making consumption decisions for ourselves. The results of these show that people do make good consumption decisions for themselves, showing that purchasing gifts for others creates waste as we generally can't buy them anything better suited to them than they could purchase for themselves.

Waldfogel had done some of his own research which includes surveys and questionnaires. The surveys consisted of asking students to list the Christmas gifts they received, the relationship of the giver to them, the amount they thought was paid for the item and the actual amount they thought it was worth to them. He wrote a paper on this called “The Deadweight Loss of Christmas” this expressed the opinion that “gift giving destroyed at least 13 percent of the resources transferred.” (2009:31) He also did a set of questionnaires which concluded the results that “...people's own choices generate about 18 percent more satisfaction -per dollar spent- than do gifts”

If people take the authors point of views too seriously there will be no giving at Christmas from one to another as he talks about how much waste this circumstance generates. On the other hand if we ignore what the author is saying the world will continue over consuming creating more and more waste which together contributes to destroying the environment an its resources.
The main conclusions are that we appear to give gifts because we feel we have to and we get satisfaction from doing so as we feel guilty if we don't buy a gift for that “distant relative”. But the research shows that we get more satisfaction from buying our own gifts than if someone else was to buy it, with the exception of “...siblings friends and significant others...” (2009:68) so we need to think more carefully about the gifts we give and how “...we could realistically reduce the waste from ill-chose gifts and beyond that to raise some money for good causes” (2009:145).

AdvAIRtising

While on the website 1 design per day i came across this image. At first glance i wasn't quite sure what it was but thought it resembled a tree, it turns out that its actually a billboard advertising clean air. It's quite a nice idea and i think the design has been beautifully done, although i do think its quite hard to tell exactly what it is as it doesn't exactly look like your regular billboard.

ibeer

A new case for the iphone has been produced which not only protects your phone against dirt and scratches but also works as a bottle opener. The case has a bottle opener on the back of it so you'll never need to rummage around looking for one or worrying about taking one away with you as where you phone is the beer can flow.



The case retails for $19.99

Packaging

While researching for my studio project i came across a few nice package designs. Each packaging is very different, clever, innovative and suits its purpose quite well.






This design is quite comical and although not a tea drinker myself i think i could be converted if my tea bags looked like that.



I like the design of this product as it eliminates the rummaging around trying to find the correct pills as its very clearly labeled.



This is my favourite design as food is the one thing i do not like to share and with package like this you can guarantee nobody is going to want some of your lunch.

Shoe-less

While researching for one of my studio projects which is to pretend that water has just been discovered/invented and package and advertise it as a completely new product never seen by the consumer i came across this image;



Its quite a dramatic image which is painful to look at. I can't image water bottles being very comfortable to wear as flip-flops but i suppose its a lot better than walking bare foot. Although it would be better for the person to have a proper pair of shoes its quite a clever way to recycle a plastic bottle.

Dissertation Discussion

Talk of dissertations has begun already, so we were to meet in our groups to discuss the route in which we are all think of going. This discussion was then to lead to a mind map to show the proposed route.






Before the meeting i thought i wanted to go in the direction of consumer culture and conducted a mind map to support this idea but after a lot of thinking i decided to choose a topic which i am more passionate about. I have now decided to do my dissertation on music looking particularly at the effects it has on individuals.

Typography in a city environment

One of our recent class briefs is to create a Typography magazine and to do this we first had to source our own photographs of typography within a city environment.

Here are a selection of my favorite photographs (still to be edited though)

Post-its

I saw this video on Rude Tube last night and thought it was a really clever and quirky idea. The video i feel sums up the life of a design student as you start off with that one post-it note on your wall of things to do, then you get bombarded with work relying on photoshop then you get tired, distracted by games etc, and the videos seems to include all of this and more.

Who knew post-its could be so attractive.

wiki Greenwash & design

Definition

Green washing is the practice of companies falsely misleading their consumers in to thinking that their products and policies are environmentally sound.

“The term is a portmanteau of “whitewashing” in the sense of covering up misdeeds, and “green”, a common term used to refer to environmentally sounds practices.” (Smith, 2009)

“Green washing is a marketing strategy” (J& H Hoffman, 2009) which paints a misleading picture of environmental friendliness. Such techniques include stating that there packaging is biodegradable or recyclable when its not or simply using a colour scheme and glossy ads to suggest a green company, this results in the companies looking reputable and responsible. (Smith, 2009) This therefore makes it hard for consumers to distinguish between genuine and green wash companies, as there is no easy way to prove that the company actually practices what it preaches and isn't just using 'green' as a slogan. (Greenpeace, n.d.)

Image of literal greenwashing.

History

“Green washing took root in the 1970s when the growth of the environmental movement brought awareness of ecological damage to the general public.” (Greenpeace, n.d.)
Due to the Bhopal, Chernobyl and Exxon Valdez disasters in 1980 the environmental movement strengthened and green wash advertisements increased.
On the 20th anniversary of Earth day 1990, millions joined together to protest the degradation of the planet and corporations were forced to realise the level to which consumers took environmental concerns when making purchases. This caused green washing in advertising to peek and companies began making misleading claims about their products to capitalise on consumers desires for green products. (Doyle, 1990) Companies would claim that there products were “biodegradable”, “recyclable”, “compostable” or “ozone-friendly” (Durning, 1993) when in fact there actions were resulting in them being among the biggest polluters.
Consumers then began to become confused by authenticity of “green” products and a number of attempts were made to stop green washing.

In a blog in 2004 Abhor states that on November 1990, one of the first steps to ban green washing was made, by a group force of ten state attorney generals who released the “The Green Report”. This report reviewed the controversies around the meanings of the words “degradable”, “recyclable” and “recycled”. The Green Report established a need for federal standards to guide environmental advertising and recommended specific standards to incorporate into legislation regarding the validity of environmental claims.
The Green report resulted in other attempts to ban green wash, Sen Frank Lautenberg
of New Jersey sponsored a bill called the Environmental Marketing Claims Act in the 1991-2 congressional session. This failed to make it through congress and therefore the rules didn't come it to place.
In the 1990s California passed labelling statues for strict legal definitions for words like “recycled”. Complaints were made as companies from the Association of National Advertisers thought it prevented free speech. They lost the case and the federal court upheld the statue in 1995.
The Federal Trade Commission issued a set of guidelines in 1992 named the “Green guides” they worked on refining the guide and this was completed in 1998. Although the claims are not legally enforceable the Federal Trade Commission will contact a company when it fails to adhere to these guidelines. Once this action has been made the Federal Trade Commission allows the company to continue displaying its products on the shelves for months before the company diminishes its current misleading packaging.

Greenpeace have been working on this issue since the 1990s and in 1992 released the Greenpeace book of Greenwash highlighting the worst cases of green wash at that time. (Greenpeace, n.d.)
Current guidelines on the issues of green washing are far less strict and many companies such as the oil industry continue to make false claims about their policies as they have the finances to carry effective greenwash out.
Although the first steps have been made to eradicate this problem companies are still getting away with it.

Greenwash & design

Designers are constantly thinking of ways to be green, from the design process to the final product and so to “ keep up with the Joneses” companies will either follow suit or at least appear to follow suit with the help of green wash.
Green wash plays an important role in design, as being seen to have designed something environmentally friendly gives a company a better reputation and makes them appear more caring to the public eye.
Green wash is also important in the advertising process of a company as companies will use many techniques to design a campaign which portrays their company as environmentally friendly.

In 2001 Jonathan Glancey wrote an article on Gordon Brown and his new “eco towns”. He stated that Gordon Brown had proposed to make 5 new 'eco towns' around England, which would consist of 100,000 carbon neutral homes, that, in theory, seem to tick all the self-congratulatory "green" boxes but within these “eco towns” there would be no job opportunity's just homes, so the habitants would have to commute to work increasing the number of cars on the road and therefore the amount of pollution.
Further out from the city these towns will not solve the problem of ever more sprawl, ever more commuting and ever more driving to supermarkets.

Chevron an oil based company from california is turning an old oil refinery into an 8 acre field of solar panels making them appear green but in fact the company is using the energy from these solar panels to fuel its Texaco filling stations in Britain. Chevron is one of the biggest greenhouse-gas emitters in California but with a cleverly designed promotional video all the consumer sees is the energy saving solar panels and not what these solar panels are actually being used to power. (Pearce, 2010)

Chevron's field of solar panels.



Brothers Mart and Rob Drake-Knight are currently campaigning to make marketing as green as the sustainable products it promotes. (Charlesworth, 2010) Rob Drake-Knight told Businessgreen.com

“We feel that supply and demand should be allowed to work naturally, but the current trend of green marketing is making it difficult for consumers to work out what is a truly sustainable product and what is greenwash,”

There solution is to mix user-generated content with honest communication and user design. Rapanui has built a wiki style application which allows consumers to get a better insight into the scientific details behind the products and ask further questions in open dialogue with the company. As a result the company sales have increased by 1,000 percent and won them the 2010 Sustainable Business Award. (Charlesworth, 2010)



Bibliography

Abhor, T (2004) History of Corporate Greenwashing and Top Ten Offenders of 2003. dialogic.blogspot.com, [blog] 19 February Available at [Accessed 24 September]

Charlesworth, A (2001) Fashion Brand declares war on Green wash. [online] Available at [Accessed 19 September 2010]

Doyle, J (n.d) A brief History of Green wash. [online] Available at [Accessed 19 September]

Glancey, J 2007 Brown's “eco towns” are a green wash. Guardian [online] 15 May. Available at:
Greenwash (n.d.)Introduction to stop Greenwash.org. [online] Available at: [Accessed 24 September]

Hoffman, J. Hoffman, M (2009) What is green washing? Available at:
[Accessed 19 September]

Karliner, J (2001) A brief History of Green wash. [online] Available at [Accessed 19 September]

Pearce, F 2010 Chevron's solar panels won't clean up its filthy oil field. Guardian [online] 8 April. Available [Accessed 19 September]

Smith, S, E (2010) what is green washing? [online] Available at [Accessed 19 September]

mind map group meeting

Our group met up to talk over our mind maps, and we all found out interesting facts about the others topics.

mind maps

I'm not a huge fan of minds maps as i don't feel i work well with them hence why it took me three attempts to come up with one that i could follow, and was going to be of use to me for my wiki extract.






My final mind map focuses on the three areas we need to write about, definition, history and how it links to design.

Something and design

To establish which topic everyone was going to write about we each stated which topic we desired then waited to see if anyone else wanted the same topic. Luckily everyone in my group chose something different so we all left the meeting happy.

I decided to choose greenwash and design as i thought it would be an interesting topic to research and learn more about as i'm not too familiar with the term. The others in my group chose up cycling, down cycling and recycling and design, ethnography and design, crime and design, fairtrade and design, co-design and design, branding and design and one member was still unsure at this point, he has been told to keep us updated once he has made a decision though.


Group & working hard decided which topic to wiki.

Dinner in the sky

After watching it on big brother as one of the tasks Dinner in the sky is now available at the Edinburgh festival.

It allows you to witness your meal being prepared and is eaten 100 feet above the capital. You can take in the scenery while you enjoy your meal. I think this would be an amazing experience although i'm not so sure how well your meal would settle while your swaying about at 100ft but will probably be a dinner you'll never forget.

If your not so keen on eating 100ft up you can also enjoy the experience by attending one of the cooking course, depending on which package you buy the prices vary from £32.50 - £97.50.

I really want to head to Edinburgh with a group of friends and have my Dinner in the sky, the only problem is i'm such a fussy eater i don't like any food on the menu, i can't even attend a cooking course as they use the same menu :( might just have to go with a pack lunch instead!

Tantastic

James Titterton, a 24 year old, 2nd year graphic student at kingston recently masked of parts of his body and endured 8 sun bed sessions to result in a body of tanned artwork, including fish and a cockerel.

He did this as part of a competition he created called "Tan the Man" and came up with the idea after thinking that skin was similar to photogenic paper.

The tanned designs look similar to henna tattoos, i think its quite a nice idea but i wouldn't fancy walking around like that.



Want to find out more then visit his blog http://jamestit.blogspot.com/

I can't believe its not paper, it's better

While in Manchester i came across this amazing arts and crafts shop which i could of spent all day in but sadly i couldn't.

I was browsing around and came across this wallet which i thought was really unusual it was made from what looked like paper but on the packaging it said water proof and tear proof, meaning that it could't possibly be made form paper. I took a closer look and revealed that it was actually made from a material called Tyvek® which is durable olefin sheets spun and bounded together using heat and pressure without any binders. The material itself is much stronger than paper and cheaper than fabric its also fully recyclable.

I bought one of the wallets for my brother and he seemed to really like it he said it would be a really handy wallet for school as the material its made from makes it lightweight, we've yet to check if it actually withstands water damage but it definitely seems durable as we failed to tear it.

I think this material could come in very handy with certain projects as you could achieve a handmade, natural look like when you use paper but with a longer life expectancy, as projects made with paper are easily damaged.

I will definitely try and get my hands on some sheets of Tyvek® so i'm prepared for future projects it may be useful for.

Bon voyage!

Sadly one of my high school friends is moving to Australia next week :( I'm really going to miss her even though i don't see her as much as i use to because of uni, work, etc i always knew she was there if i needed her. Whenever i had spare time i could just go and visit her but now i'm going to have to save a hell of a lot of money and travel to the other side of the world.

Due to the fact we may never see each other again i thought i would make her a wee something to remember me by as it would be far more personal than buying a present and seeing as we never received a summer project i thought it would be an ample opportunity to get creative.

Ideally i would have liked to have made her a photo album/memory book thing, but it turned out i didn't have that many photos of us together as they were all on my old computer, so instead i made her a kind of book/card thing including the few pictures i could find.

I made it entirely from resources lying around the house to give it a kind of rustic look but then realised it would also have the value of being eco-friendly, and seeing as my friends going to leave a pretty big carbon footprint by flying "down under"i thought i better do my bit :P

Handburger

While reading the recent issue of Wired magazine i came across an article by Warren Ellis which i found quite unusual.

The article was talking about cannibalism and what if, human meat is the tastiest of all meats (being similar in taste to pork), not being the greatest fan of meat in the first place the thought of eating human meat makes me retch, so why would anyone want to do it?

Other cultures and in medieval times humans ate other humans mainly for mythical beliefs however eating another human being in this country is illegal as its cannibalism. There is a certain situation which makes this law void though, if you were stranded on an island with other people, some of which have already died then you are allowed to eat them if the only other option would be to starve and die. If you decide not to eat the others not so fortunate to still be alive and you end up dying then its considered suicide, as you had the choice not to starve but you chose to do so.

In this situation there is no way i can see myself being able to eat human meat as it just seems so wrong and disgusting, even if it is the "tastiest" meat, the thought of eating lamb or deer alone makes me feel sick enough.
I'm sure there would be plenty of people who would agree and also many others who wouldn't see the meat as being a human but just a means of survival and to be fair if there already dead why should they have to die too?

Seeing as human meat could be the tastiest of all and there is only one circumstance in which you can try it scientist have been doing experiments which allows them to make meat from the cells of the animal in which the meat would usually come from, creating artificial meat.
"A collagen matrix is impregnated with cultured muscle cells, thousands of them, all derived from a single muscle cell extracted from an animal. The meat then grows over the matrix, in sheets or blobs. There will be scenarios where the meat is "exercised" to gain the correct texture, either mechanically or through electronic stimulus."
This results in meat which has never been cut off a living thing or caused it any pain.

Using this technique, it may actually be possible to create human meat which everyone can try and taste, next time you go to a supermarket you may be buying human burgers rather than beef.

Speeding kills

While shopping yesterday i was in one of those moods when you just want to go it to a shop get what you need then leave. Due to this every other shopper just seemed to be getting in my way by faffing about,hanging in the middle of the shop floor so you have to squeeze pass them and basically just being too slow.

Not only were people irritating me in the shops but also outside of them when walking to different shops, by walking at such a slow pace you have to stop on the spot to avoid walking into the back of them. This is when i thought wouldn't it be great if there were two walking lanes, a fast lane and a slow lane (similar to that on a motor way) so people who were in a rush could get to where they wanted to go at the speed they desired without people getting in there way, and the people who like to dawdle could happily do so without getting in the way.

I'm aware this idea probably has some flaws but it is just a thought after all and would probably make life a lot easier, because lets face it there always seems to be someone in your way when your in a rush or just not in the mood.

elephART

This month began the Elephant Parade in London, which is an event to raise money for Asian elephants and 20 UK conservation charities.
It is London's biggest art event on record and consists of 250 life-sized elephants brightly coloured and decorated by artists and celebrities. The elephants cover all areas of the city from parks to street corners and once the event is finished the elephants are up for auction www.givinglots.co.uk/ElephantParadeLondon starting bids are £250 and increase by £250 at a time.

I would absolutely love one of these elephants as i think there amazing unfortunatly i don't really have that sort of money just lying around to spend on a life-size ornament of an elephant, owell i suppose i can settle for one of these smaller versions http://shop.elephantparade.com

If i could i would definitely go and see this event but somehow i don't think it will happen so for now i'll just make do with the images online.



Some of the elephants have even been cleverly designed to resemble other animals




One of my personal favourties is Tigerphant created by Dominique Salm as it combines two of my favourite animals.