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sciencespies · 4 years ago

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Civil Rights Icons' Mothers, Lost Ancient Cities and Other New Books to Read

https://sciencespies.com/history/civil-rights-icons-mothers-lost-ancient-cities-and-other-new-books-to-read/

Civil Rights Icons' Mothers, Lost Ancient Cities and Other New Books to Read

Anna Malaika Tubbs has never liked the old adage of “behind every great man is a great woman.” As the author and advocate points out in an interview with Women’s Foundation California, in most cases, the “woman is right beside the man, if not leading him.” To “think about things differently,” Tubbs adds, she decided to “introduce the woman before the man”—an approach she took in her debut book, which spotlights the mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and James Baldwin.

“I am tired of Black women being hidden,” writes Tubbs in The Three Mothers. “I am tired of us not being recognized, I am tired of being erased. In this book, I have tried my best to change this for three women in history whose spotlight is long overdue, because the erasure of them is an erasure of all of us.”

The latest installment in our series highlighting new book releases, which launched last year to support authors whose works have been overshadowed amid the Covid-19 pandemic, explores the lives of the women who raised civil rights leaders, the story behind a harrowing photograph of a Holocaust massacre, the secret histories of four abandoned ancient cities, humans’ evolving relationship with food, and black churches’ significance as centers of community.

Representing the fields of history, science, arts and culture, innovation, and travel, selections represent texts that piqued our curiosity with their new approaches to oft-discussed topics, elevation of overlooked stories and artful prose. We’ve linked to Amazon for your convenience, but be sure to check with your local bookstore to see if it supports social distancing–appropriate delivery or pickup measures, too.

The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs

Ebenezer Baptist Church is perhaps best known for its ties to King, who preached there alongside his father, Martin Luther King Sr., between 1947 and 1968. The Atlanta house of worship proudly hails its ties to the Kings, but as Tubbs writes for Time magazine, one member of the family is largely left out of the narrative: King’s mother, Alberta.

The author adds, “Despite the fact that this church had been led by her parents, that she had re-established the church choir, that she played the church organ, that she was the adored Mama King who led the church alongside her husband, that she was assassinated in the very same building, she had been reduced to an asterisk in the church’s overall importance.”

In The Three Mothers, Tubbs details the manifest ways in which Alberta, Louise Little and Berdis Baldwin shaped their sons’ history-making activism. Born within six years of each other around the turn of the 20th century, the three women shared a fundamental belief in the “worth of Black people, … even when these beliefs flew in the face of America’s racist practices,” per the book’s description.

Alberta—an educator and musician who believed social justice “needed to be a crucial part of any faith organization,” as Tubbs tells Religion News Service—instilled those same beliefs in her son, supporting his efforts to effect change even as the threat of assassination loomed large. Grenada-born Louise, meanwhile, immigrated to Canada, where she joined Marcus Garvey’s black nationalist Universal Negro Improvement Association and met her future husband, a fellow activist; Louise’s approach to religion later inspired her son Malcolm to convert to the Nation of Islam. Berdis raised James as a single parent in the three years between his birth and her marriage to Baptist preacher David Baldwin. Later, when James showed a penchant for pen and paper, she encouraged him to express his frustrations with the world through writing.

All three men, notes Tubbs in the book, “carried their mothers with them in everything they did.”

The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy Lower

Few photographs of the Holocaust depict the actual moment of victims’ deaths. Instead, visual documentation tends to focus on the events surrounding acts of mass murder: lines of unsuspecting men and women awaiting deportation, piles of emaciated corpses on the grounds of Nazi concentration camps. In total, writes historian Wendy Lower in The Ravine, “not many more than a dozen” extant images actually capture the killers in the act.

Twelve years ago, Lower, also the author of Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields, chanced upon one such rare photograph while conducting research at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Taken in Miropol, Ukraine, on October 13, 1941, the photo shows Nazis and local collaborators in the middle of a massacre. Struck by a bullet to the head, a Jewish woman topples forward into a ravine, pulling two still-living children down with her. Robbed of a quick death by shooting, the youngsters were “left to be crushed by the weight of their kin and suffocated in blood and the soil heaped over the bodies,” according to The Ravine.

Lower spent the better part of the next decade researching the image’s story, drawing on archival records, oral histories and “every possible remnant of evidence” to piece together the circumstances surrounding its creation. Through her investigations of the photographer, a Slovakian resistance fighter who was haunted by the scene until his death in 2005; the police officers who participated in their neighbors’ extermination; and the victims themselves, she set out to hold the perpetrators accountable while restoring the deceased’s dignity and humanity—a feat she accomplished despite being unable to identify the family by name.

“[Genocide’s] perpetrators not only kill but also seek to erase the victims from written records, and even from memory,” Lower explains in the book’s opening chapter. “When we find one trace, we must pursue it, to prevent the intended extinction by countering it with research, education, and memorialization.”

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz

Sooner or later, all great cities fall. Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic settlement in southern Anatolia; Pompeii, the Roman city razed by Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 A.D.; Angkor, the medieval Cambodian capital of the Khmer Empire; and Cahokia, a pre-Hispanic metropolis in what is now Illinois, were no exception. United by their pioneering approaches to urban planning, the four cities boasted sophisticated infrastructures and feats of engineering—accomplishments largely overlooked by Western scholars, who tend to paint their stories in broad, reductive strokes, as Publishers Weekly notes in its review of science journalist Annalee Newitz’s latest book.

Consider, for instance, Çatalhöyük, which was home to some of the first people to settle down permanently after millennia of nomadic living. The prehistoric city’s inhabitants “farmed, made bricks from mud, crafted weapons, and created incredible art” without the benefit of extensive trade networks, per Newitz. They also adorned their dwellings with abstract designs and used plaster to transform their ancestors’ skulls into ritualistic artworks passed down across generations. Angkor, on the other hand, became an economic powerhouse in large part thanks to its complex network of canals and reservoirs.

Despite their demonstrations of ingenuity, all four cities eventually succumbed to what Newitz describes as “prolonged periods of political instability”—often precipitated by poor leadership and unjust hierarchies—“coupled with environmental collapse.” The parallels between these conditions and “the global-warming present” are unmistakable, but as Kirkus points out, the author’s deeply researched survey is more hopeful than dystopian. Drawing on the past to offer advice for the future, Four Lost Cities calls on those in power to embrace “resilient infrastructure, … public plazas, domestic spaces for everyone, social mobility, and leaders who treat the city’s workers with dignity.”

Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, From Sustainable to Suicidal by Mark Bittman

Humans’ hunger for food has a dark side, writes Mark Bittman in Animal, Vegetable, Junk. Over the millennia, the food journalist and cookbook author argues, “It’s sparked disputes over landownership, water use, and the extraction of resources. It’s driven exploitation and injustice, slavery and war. It’s even, paradoxically enough, created disease and famine.” (A prime example of these consequences is colonial powers’ exploitation of Indigenous peoples in the production of cash crops, notes Kirkus.) Today, Bittman says, processed foods wreak havoc on diets and overall health, while industrialized agriculture strips the land of its resources and drives climate change through the production of greenhouse gases.

Dire as it may seem, the situation is still salvageable. Though the author dedicates much of his book to an overview of how humans’ relationship with food has changed for the worse, Animal, Vegetable, Junk’s final chapter adopts a more optimistic outlook, calling on readers to embrace agroecology—“an autonomous, pluralist, multicultural movement, political in its demand for social justice.” Adherents of agroecology support replacing chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other toxic tools with organic techniques like composting and encouraging pollinators, in addition to cutting out the middleman between “growers and eaters” and ensuring that the food production system is “sustainable and equitable for all,” according to Bittman.

“Agroecology aims to right social wrongs,” he explains. “… [It] regenerates the ecology of the soil instead of depleting it, reduces carbon emissions, and sustains local food cultures, businesses, farms, jobs, seeds, and people instead of diminishing or destroying them.”

The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The companion book to an upcoming PBS documentary of the same name, Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s latest scholarly survey traces the black church’s role as both a source of solace and a nexus for social justice efforts. As Publishers Weekly notes in its review of The Black Church, enslaved individuals in the antebellum South drew strength from Christianity’s rituals and music, defying slaveholders’ hopes that practicing the religion would render them “docile and compliant.” More than a century later, as black Americans fought to ensure their civil rights, white supremacists targeted black churches with similar goals in mind, wielding violence to (unsuccessfully) intimidate activists into accepting the status quo.

Gates’ book details the accomplishments of religious leaders within the black community, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Malcolm X, Nat Turner and newly elected senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock. (The Black Churches’ televised counterpart features insights from similarly prominent individuals, including Oprah Winfrey, Reverend Al Sharpton and John Legend.) But even as the historian celebrates these individuals, he acknowledges the black church’s “struggles and failings” in its “treatment of women and the LGBTQ+ community and its dismal response to the 1980s AIDS epidemic,” per Kirkus. Now, amid a pandemic that’s taken a disproportionate toll on black Americans and an ongoing reckoning with systemic racism in the U.S., black churches’ varying approaches to activism and political engagement are at the forefront once again.

As Gates says in a PBS statement. “No social institution in the Black community is more central and important than the Black church.”

#History

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abby-studies-art · 7 years ago

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Hello everyone!

As promised before, I will be posting an exhibition review below for the Montreal Museum of Fine Art’s Exhibition “Once Upon a Time… The Western”. This is a part of my final exam, however before you are thrown headfirst into the art world, I thought I would talk about what an exhibition review is and how to conduct one as an artist.

An exhibition review is much like a movie review, and as an artist or art student, you will right several over the course of your academic career. They discuss the themes and motives of the exhibition and the artworks featured, as well as the use of space and curation technique: what is the art like? How is it displayed?

Before you go:

Pick an exhibition, in most cases for your courses you will be required to pick one you can attend in real life, and I personally prefer those. If you are going to discuss a space, you should be able to go stand in it for best results.

Read some other exhibition reviews! The best part of an exhibition review is that it is about your feelings and your experience of the gallery, and shows through in other writings. You can also get a good sense of what kinds of things to talk about although I will try to help you there.

BRING A NOTEBOOK AND PENCIL! Seriously. You will not remember everything you need if you don’t write it down, and most galleries won't allow you to use pens near the art, to prevent potential vandalism.

With that being said…… WRITE THINGS DOWN! If you like a piece, or the way it’s displayed, or something about the gallery, make note of that! Your reactions, your thoughts, those are important things to have when you want to begin writing. You should also feel free (unless the museum or gallery forbids it) to take pictures of the works that particularly stick out to you, as well as the artist's description. You can also take pictures of the gallery space to help you remember what you saw, or if you are a drawing person, you can make sketches of the space and the works.

While you are there:

If the gallery has a guidebook or a pamphlet for the exhibition, take one! It will be a good reference for later and may provide information like the featured artist list and the names of the curators.

READ THE EXHIBITION DESCRIPTION. This will describe the goal or theme of the exhibition in the curator’s own words, and it is often up on the wall.

Take your time. Try to take in the exhibition as a whole. As you walk through the space, ask yourself some questions: what does the gallery space make you feel or remind you of? Can you relate it to the theme of the exhibition? How does the artwork shown relate to the theme? Is there any art that you don’t feel fits the theme? Would you arrange it differently? Who is making the art, does it all come from one group? Write down your answers because that is basically an exhibition review.

After your visit, while writing:

Talk to other visitors! Especially if you went with a class or a group for a school assignment. This will help you understand your own ideas, and hear what others thought. They may have different perspectives that you can use to inform your own writing, even if you do not agree.

Read exhibition reviews written by others! If you don't have access to other gallery visitors, then the internet can be a great resource, as many writers will post there. There are many art journals that operate online and they are worth checking out, I promise.

Visit the Museum website! There may be a full list of works shown for the whole show which can help refresh your memory.

While writing: don't be afraid to be honest! I have written many reviews about exhibitions I enjoyed, and I have written just as many about ones I did not. Share your opinion, but be sure to tell people why: if you didn't like the art, why? If you loved the use of space, why?

Language When Writing

We have arrived at the other aspect of the project, which involves confronting some frustrating situations and circumstances. If you are writing this for submission to a university, you will be required to write using some pretty stuffy and inaccessible language. This kind of “Formal” writing will often be required for a good grade.

However, this kind of voice used in academics can leave a lot of people out of the conversation. And in my opinion, art should not be exclusive, because are is universal. Everyone needs to be welcome in the conversation.

Because of this, I have written the following exhibition review using much more common language, in the interest of including everyone who comes across it on the internet. Hopefully, that will also make it easier for you to see how the writing is structured and give you some ideas on how to write this kind of review.

And if you have a thought or comment or if you have seen this show as well and want to talk about it, instead of sending me an ask, leave a comment! If someone has left a comment or question below and you feel like you have something to add or the answer, please feel free to respond! My goal is to foster discussion that welcomes everyone.

With that in mind, please be respectful of others and their opinions. You are allowed to disagree, but please keep it civil. Violence or inappropriate comments will be reported and blocked because this is meant as a positive platform for discussion.

The exhibition review is under the cut! Thank you so much for reading!

The exhibition, “Once Upon a Time… The Western” calls itself an “in-depth, interdisciplinary look at western genres”. It boasts multimedia displays, complex discussions of history, and a massive exhibition space made up of a maze of rooms and hallways. They use this space to discuss the romantic stereotypes that developed in the artistic representations of the west, and they’re continued effect today. The show is co-curated by Mary-Dailey Desmarais and Thomas Brent Smith, curator of modern art at the MMFA and Director of the Petrie Institute for Western American Art respectively.

The massive space is split up into a maze-like array of rooms, but it not hard to navigate. Each one has one entrance and one exit, meaning that even if you didn’t spend $7.00 on the audio guide, your tour of the exhibition will still have some structure. They move through chronologically, organized very carefully into parts, so it really is quite easy to guide yourself through and gain a good understanding of the themes the exhibition aims to discuss.

The first few rooms, following the Hollywood thread, are organized into “The Set” which discusses the landscape of the west, which served to inspire the artists, “The Cast” which covers the tropes and stereotypes of the mounties, cowboys, vagrants and native americans that would all be manipulated and romanticized, “ The Real Characters” which serves to showcase the real-life celebrities of the west, like Buffalo Bill and Billy the Kid, and “The Drama” discussing the so called “common” events that litter the plotlines of the hollywood western: kidnapping, train hijacking, robbery, battles, and runaway stage couches. While the first rooms do well to represent different media and art styles, they also address both side of the western story: that of the fictionalized settlers, and that of the displaced and abused indigenous people.

On the settler side of things, the first few rooms discuss the power of art, especially photography and painting. Both of these mediums presented a visual for the settlers arriving on the continent and greatly contributed to inspiring the writers and directors of Hollywood. One of these paintings, Thomas Moran’s The Mirage (1879, oil on canvas), is a perfect example of this amazing scenery: sweeping valleys and towering mountains dwarf the riding party that cross the scene near the bottom of the canvas. This goes on into an exploration of the heroes and antiheroes that shone on screen, in front of these backdrops. The Cowboys, vagrants, mounties, sheriffs, some of whom are based on real outlaws, going about their lives thwarting the kidnappings, preventing (and orchestrating) bank robberies, getting into bar fights, and living free in the open air, as shown in Charles Marion Russell’s Free Trapper (1911, oil on canvas).

The story told of the roles of the indigenous people is much more traumatic and horrifying to consider. Pushed out of their homes and lands for the sake of white colonial settlers, and massacred when they resisted, the remaining indigenous people were then further mistreated in art and film. The men became villains: holding up trains and threatening passenger, kidnapping and holding hostage “innocent” settlers, and stealing women from their husbands, as shown in The Captive by Eanger Irving Course (1891, oil on canvas). The indigenous women were romanticised and sexualized and abused. This villainization and sexualization would continue up to the present day.

The “Drama” room is also the beginning of the second and third themes of the exhibition: the different varieties of westerns in Hollywood, and the effect of various world events on the genre, and modern indigenous responses to the representations of their ancestors, and the lasting impression those representations left on North America. The “Drama” room gives way to a series of smaller rooms, which discuss two major directors (complete with dramatic, shadow lettered names) John Ford and Sergio Leon. Ford was a famed director, and his 140 films were inspired directly by the 19th-century painters explored in the first few rooms. His film, Stagecoach (1939, film), Leon came after the second world war, participating in the more international sect of western films, including the “Spaghetti Western” Sergio Leon's films came at the end of the western genre as it had been known up until that point, and his characters were tropes of themselves. Their exhibition rooms include movie release posters, massive timelines detailing their filmographies, and on the right sides of both, a screening of clips from their films for visitors to sample.

Separating the two men’s rooms is a room that discusses the effect of the end of the second world war had on the western genre. Heros became anti-heroes; brooding and outlaws, living isolated on the fringe of society. This isolation was meant to relate to the men who were returning home from the war, who themselves also felt isolated, and of course the constant threat of an atomic bomb.

Moving from these viewing rooms, we approach one of the final rooms of the exhibition. This room talks about the next age of the western after the post-war western: the western genre’s interaction with the counterculture of the 1960’s in response to the Vietnam war. The cowboy character was played with especially, in their gender and sexuality. Andy Warhol’s film, Lonesome Cowboys (1968, film), played with this heavily in order to dramatize homosexuality in Hollywood. And finally, the indigenous were shown as the victims of a violent colonial attack, much like the citizens of Vietnam were casualties of the war.

The other end of this next-to-last room, and continued into the last room, we see modern era indigenous artists responding to these representations of their ancestors. Here the multimedia aspect of the art truly shines, especially in Llyn Foulkes’ the Last Outpost (1983, mixed media) and a number of other indigenous artists, including Wendy Red Star and Gail Trembloy.

The very last room lead into a sort of entrance to the gift shop, which I referred to as the “bonus room”. It had a few seats and was showing clips of modern westerns, including Django: Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, film, 2012) and True Grit (Ethan and John Coen, film, 2010). I felt as though more could have been done with this room, as the clips were hard to follow if you were not familiar with the films (I was not) and so it was hard to relate what were shown on screen to the rest of the exhibition. This room did lead into the gift shop, which had a few large cabinets of indigenous art for sale, providing visitors with the opportunity to support real indigenous artists. Among the handmade works was a few true treasures: a cast of Miss Chief’s praying hands by Kenneth Monkland, edition two of only ten made.

Overall, the exhibition met the expectations it set at the entrance. The decision to lay everything out chronologically made it seem much more like a story and recalled the films that it was aimed at critiquing. Some of the lighting was dark in some of the rooms, especially those with projections of films, which made it harder to read the information in some cases, but this was a minor issue that did not greatly affect the impact of the works being shown.

The show also aimed to explore the mistreatment of indigenous people during colonization and continuing today. While I was glad to see this aspect of the western explored at all and I was encouraged to see modern indigenous artists benefiting from the exhibition and sale of works, it should be noted that as someone who benefits from colonialism, I cannot accurately form an opinion on the representation in the exhibition.

The exhibition will be showing until the fourth of February in 2018 and is worth visiting for its interesting and depth look at the western genre and all its implications.

#concordia #mmfa #mbam #montreal museum #Montreal Museum of Fine Arts #final exam #exhibition review #art student #art history #abbystudiesart #my posts #studyblr #studioblrcollective #studioblr #artblr

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outlaw3d · 7 years ago

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I don’t like the films of Quentin Tarantino. I think Woody Allen’s work is rubbish, and Brett Easton Ellis’s books suck. Am I allowed to admit to this now?

For so long, I’ve been held back by the sexist male genius paradox, which decrees that any failure to appreciate the genius of a sexist male artist must be down to one’s own failure to rise above the sexism. It’s a problem many women have, though we’re only finding out about it today.

In Uma Thurman’s recent New York Times interview, she outlined awful experiences with Harvey Weinstein, but also described how she had felt pressurised by Tarantino to drive a car that she thought was dangerous. Tarantino is yet to respond to the allegation, but more and more women are coming forward to admit they never liked Pulp Fiction anyway. We’re witnessing similar things in relation to Allen’s films.

While this may not be the primary aim of the #metoo and #timesup movements – and not liking a film is hardly comparable to experiencing assault – I think this matters. One of the many ways in which abusive men get away with terrible things is because we’re supposed to respect their genius (and assume that misogyny is somehow a necessary part of it). Right now we’re calling time on the misogyny, but why can’t we call time on the perception of genius too?

I know that to some this will sound terribly unsophisticated, but there is a relationship between misogyny in art and misogyny in real life. It’s a complex one, as female writers have been outlining in recent discussions around thrillers and true crime, and it’s obviously not the case that artistic description equates to real-life prescription. Nonetheless, when male artists produce works which consistently prioritise the inner lives and/or fantasies of men, something has gone wrong. There’s a limit to how much women should have to transpose art in order to see a world in which they, too, are human. How good is a book or film when it demands so much on-the-spot correction from the reader or viewer?

Men who don’t like women – and there are an awful lot of them – frequently make art that a male-dominated establishment considers to be amazing, but which a high proportion of women consider to be crap. You didn’t know this? That’s because up till now we haven’t said.

For women, witnessing misogyny in “great” film and literature is akin to being one of the subjects in The Emperor’s New Clothes. You can’t help but notice something is wrong, yet no one else seems to notice, so you worry that the problem lies with you (and of course you can’t say anything – anyone who fails to see the finery is a simpleton!).

Like so many women of my generation, I’ve spent years pretending to laugh at “ironic” sexism, refusing to “stigmatise” extreme pornography and bestowing serious, straight-faced analysis on the useless art of self-styled genius men. Why have I done this? Because I want to be thought of as someone who has a sense of humour, someone who’s open-minded, someone who’s intelligent. I want to be seen as someone who “gets it”, even when I don’t.

Deciding a work of art is irreparably flawed just because the entire worldview underpinning it, the characterisation, the narrative drive, the humour, the whole lot relies on the assumption that women are not fully human – well, that’s a bit naïve, isn’t it? Shouldn’t I be able to get over that?

Well, no. No, I can’t and I won’t. I’ve struggled with this “hang on, is it just me?” feeling ever since I watched my first James Bond film at eight years old and concluded that rape, in some circumstances, must be OK. From now on I will be the little boy in the crowd pointing out that the misogyny-in-art Emperor is stark bollock naked.

This is not just a case of judging an artwork by the disgrace of the artist. Bret Easton Ellis may or may not be a misogynist in his personal life (he told The Guardian in 2010 “I don't think I'm a misogynist. But if I was, so what?”). His book American Psycho, however, is packed with detailed scenes of rape and mutilation of female bodies. Writing about American Psycho in 2015, fellow author Irvine Welsh argues that accusations of misogyny are based on “bad faith” and “fatuous notions”:

American Psycho holds a hyper-real, satirical mirror up to our faces, and the uncomfortable shock of recognition it produces is that twisted reflection of ourselves, and the world we live in. It is not the “life-affirming” (so often a coded term for “deeply conservative”) novel beloved of bourgeois critics.

Obviously I don’t want to be bourgeois and conservative – who does? But honestly, this is the bullshit defence of an ultra-conservative, male-dominated art establishment which desperately tries to position misogyny – so mundane, so unoriginal, so murderous – as in some way edgy. There’s no genius required to describe pinning down a woman’s fingers with a nail gun before you cut out her tongue and rape her. I’m not shocked (I know what happens to women in real life); I’m just pissed off.

And I’m done with this, all of it. I understand the difference between art and artist (I wrote a PhD on the subject, not that this has ever silenced the mansplainers). I also understand that there’s nothing clever, subversive or enlightening about watching men in stupid suits with stupid names talk too fast and shoot each other, or in noticing a gay subtext in Top Gun, or in watching abused women die or – amazing plot twist! – not die in the end.

Just as the “best” postmodern theory tends to be appallingly written in order to fool us that the difficulty is in the ideas, the nihilism and misogyny of the “best” male directors is so glaringly obvious we end up assuming we’ve missed the hidden message (so we use “hyper-reality” as a posh way of describing unimaginative exaggeration). The real creativity isn’t in Manhattan or Inglourious Basterds; it’s in the imaginative contortions critics have gone through to make these films seem more than the sum of their parts.

There’s nothing unsophisticated in recognising that an industry mired in sexism will produce art that is tainted by sexist beliefs. There’s nothing childish or bourgeois about calling time on representations of the human condition which fail to accommodate half the human race. For too long genius has been defined as male, far removed from such petty concerns as granting consideration to the female gaze. This isn’t just unfair; it’s dull.

“You just didn’t get the irony/humour/bathos/[add your own technique]” is the male critic’s version of that lesson girls are taught from the first time they’re groped in the playground: abuse is flattery. We just haven’t learned to read it correctly. From now on I suggest we don’t even try.

#quentin tarantino #woody allen #misogyny #film #long post

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sylleboi · 5 years ago

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𝖂𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖉𝖔𝖊𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖓 𝖒𝖊𝖆𝖓?

A growing glossary for my confused brain, all being alphabetical.

Accidental: When speaking of something accidental, most often you’d associate it with making a mistake. In art, that is an often occurrence; but it’s not always for the worse! Mistakes can force you to see your creation from a different perspective or make you have to think outside the box to cover it up/blend it into the rest of the picture. You might even end up liking your mistake as it is and choose to then embrace it.

Allegorical: Allegory is often used in art as a way to convey and symbolize a deeper moral or spiritual meaning such as; death, life, jealousy, hatred, etc.

Angular: This refers to some kind of shape, object or an outline having sharp angles and corners.

Animatic: Essentially it can be described as a moving story that is synced up to audio. In the animation industry, it is used to create a rough visual of the final product with the use of the voice recording that they have had their voice actors record. During this process, they can add and take away everything they feel like.

Animation: A series of linked images placed in a sequence to create the illusion of movement and life

Antagonist: They are the rival of the protag. A person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary. They are often portrayed as characters with a dark background; an example of this could be an evil ruler that grew up in an abusive environment or something alike.

Archetype: This can be defined as a very typical example of a certain person or thing, often very generalising/stereotypes, but this is not how you would define archetypes in storytelling specifically. Archetypes can be defined as for example; the sidekick or comical release character (the jester), the mentor (wise), the innocent, the explorer, the hero, the lover, the ally, the trickster, the guardian, the shadow, the ruler, the friendly beast. Essentially, they are different roles.

Automatic: This is a way of tapping into the unconscious mind. When you create something using the technique of automatism, it means that you aren’t thinking about what you are drawing, have drawn and is going to draw next, you simply just let the pen and your hand do the work while your head is left to rest.

Chaotic: When referring to something being chaotic, most often you’d use this term to describe a piece of artwork, depending on how many individual aspects are put together on the “canvas”. In some cases, if the artist has a lot to say, it might end up affecting the way it turns out in the end; chaotic. If a piece of art is chaotic or feels busy, it could reflect something allegorical as well; a hidden meaning hiding in between all of the distractions.

Chattering: It generally means that each frame in a given animation isn’t lined up completely evenly; general imperfections are often very easy to spot once played back, but with practice, it can be avoided quite efficiently.

Clean up: This is part of the overall process of animating. It is especially often used in hand-drawn/analogue/traditional animation. In this workflow, the first (conceptual) drawings are called roughs, referring to how they are very loose and rough at this stage. Professionally speaking, when the director has approved of these roughs, this is when clean versions of these are created. This process is called clean up. The term of clean up can also be referred to as, for example, when you have done frames in ink and some of it may smudge in the process, you can scan in the frames and proceed by cleaning up the frames digitally.

Climax: A climax builds upon everything that has been introduced during the exposition and rising action. This is the moment of truth for the protagonist and the peak moment of the story. You know the plot is successful at delivering a good climax when the outer journeys and the inner goals of which the protagonist wish to complete click.

Considered: Opposite to automatism, considered art has been planned out before being done. Sometimes artists even go as far as planning out each line and colour before applying to the final product. This can be done by doing a bunch of tests and sketches, or by mind-mapping ideas beforehand.

Denouement: Denouement (resolution) is a fancy way of saying that the story is about to come to an end. At this point, all questions are resolved and answered; letting the reader.

Encounter: (verb) Unexpectedly be faced with or experience (something hostile or difficult). (noun) An unexpected or casual meeting with someone or something.

Exposition: This is where the characters of the story gets introduced alongside the story and plot itself. This is often the most difficult part to set up successfully, simply because you need to capture the readers/viewers/target audiences’ attention and have then clued in on what’s going on in the story, but this has to be done without completely spoiling the rest of the story. It is important to not mistake exposition and an info dump.

Falling action: So, what now? You’ve technically finished the story. Finishing a story after a climax or during one is what is known as a cliff-hanger. Cliff hangers work well in film series, but they don’t feel as satisfying. A way to see falling action could be as the old saying; “What goes up must come down.” Putting together any hanging threads not yet solved in the plot is done during this stage.

Frame by Frame: An animation will only work if key positions are lined up together. There has to be a start and a finish for it to be a successful frame by frame animation.

Illustration: When talking about illustration, it describes usually a drawing or an altered picture of some kind. It can also be referred to the act of illustrating; (creating, drawing, altering, etc.)

Inanimate: Doesn’t move or have any life to it. Lack of consciousness and power or motion. Not endowed with life and spirit. Some examples being; bricks; it comes alive if you throw it. inanimate things come to life.

Incongruent:

Juxtaposition: This is when you bring together two opposite things that may not naturally go together, go together; creating contrast.

Linework/Keyline: Linework can simply be put as a specific technique of drawing lines when talking about art. There are countless ways in which you can interpret linework, some of them being; bold, fine, scattered, clean, sharp, fluid, altering thickness, etc. - When talking about keyline, it can relate to linework as the planning part of linework. To give an example of this, it could be that you outline the image or shape of something, planning where the linework has to be placed; keyline.

Looping: Looping is where you have a sequence of frames that repeats infinitely. The first frame is the same as the last frame. It’s like an endless cycle. It’s a labor-saving technique for animation repetitive motions; walking, a breeze in the trees or running.

Model Sheet: When talking about model sheets (also known as a character board, character study or character sheet) it is mostly understood as a visual representation of a character to understand the poses, gestures and even the personality in animation, comics, and video games.

Mutated:

Narrative: This can be explained as the plot of a story. It most often includes characters and a setting as well as a person or narrator from whose point of view the story is told. It is generally speaking a spoken or written (to later be illustrated/animated to convey this story) collection of connected events. It’s how a story is told. Who? It is told to an audience. In the beginning, the scenario is set up. Why is a narrative different from a story? The story is a subjective opinion about what’s happening, whereas the narrative is more of an objectified version of that. Jack walks up the hill; story, Jack has mental problems, narrative.

Narrative theory: Exposition -> Rising action -> Climax -> Falling action -> Denouement

Neolithic: Neo means “new”, Lithic meaning “stone”- New-Stone (stone age/new stone age; creating something new from old stone)

Objective:

Organic: When something looks organic, it’s just another way of saying “natural”. Most often, an organic shape would appear fluid and have some imperfections to its qualities. A sharply edged shape would convey something manmade like houses or other solid manmade objects.

Primary research: Interviews, looking and studying imagery, galleries, museums, exhibitions

Primitive Art: The term “Primitive Art” is a rather vague (and unavoidably ethnocentric) description which refers to the cultural artifacts of “primitive” peoples - that is, those ethnic groups deemed to have a relatively low standard of technological development by Western standards.

*This term is usually not associated with developed societies but can almost definitely be found in most cultures.

Protagonist: This is the main character or one of the major characters in a play, film, novel, etc. It is not at all unheard of that the protagonist is a heroic figure for. They make the key decisions and experience the consequences of these decisions and actions. Protagonists usually go through a journey to learn and evolve upon themselves.

Quest: A quest is a journey that someone takes, in order to achieve a goal or complete an important task. Accordingly, the term comes from the Medieval Latin “Questo”, meaning “search” or “inquire”.

Rising action: This is the moment where the plot and narrative beings picking up. Rising action is usually encouraged by a key trigger, which is what tells the reader that “now things will start to take form.” This key trigger is what rolls the dice, which then causes a series of events to escalate to then set the story into motion.

Rotoscoping: It is one of the most simple and accessible ways of animating regardless of the level of skill, aimed to create realistic sequenced movement. It is one of the simplest forms of animation and is also used universally. Rotoscoping is an animation technique that animators use to trace over filmed footage, frame by frame, to produce a realistic sequence of action and movement.

Secondary research: Book, documentaries, the internet, presentations, articles

Sequence: A sequence is a collection of something that is related to each other, put into a specific order to create motion, storytelling, feel, spark thoughts etc. It is used in animation, related to Frame by Frame.

Stop motion: Where you have a model or any animate objects and you move it a bit for each picture taken; when played back it should give the illusion of movement. The more frames per second, the more fluid the movement will become.

Storyboard: Storyboards are a sequence of drawings, often with some kind of direction and/or dialogue included within. They are often used for storytelling in film, television productions and comics/comic books.

Subconscious: In art, the use of one’s subconscious mind was inspired by the psychologist Sigmund Froyd and his many theories on dreams and the subconscious mind. To put it simply though, the noun subconscious describes a person’s thoughts, impulses, feelings, desires, etc. all of which are not within the individual’s direct control, meaning they simply just contribute and affect the conscious decisions and thoughts the person do and experience.

Turnaround: A turnaround or character turnaround is a type of visual reference that shows a character from at least three different angles. They are essential for mediums that will be showing the character from multiple different angles, such as animation and comics. Another use for these turnarounds is to make sure artists keep their character visually consistent and proportional, to pitch characters for projects and as guides for teams where a bigger group of people will be drawing the character and need to stay on model.

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jshi43 · 5 years ago

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#Week 6 Reading response

Bodies, Surrogates, Emergent Systems, p. 140

I still think it’s kind of arrogant to put human bodies and artificial intelligence parallel together. I’m kinda believe that one day artificial intelligence will break that final door and become completely self functional beings. Look at how fast they involve; once pass the final point there’s no way human can keep controlling them. If that day comes, it’s even hard to say if human can still survive. Just think of the Neanderthal.

However it all starts with human body. When making artificial intelligence human intentionally made them similar to body functions. We want to make new things that looks like our self. God made human with his image, and human made their creations with their images. It’s creation, but it’s also control.

Atsuko Tanaka, p. 140

To me this is a very beautiful work for sure. The style of it is also so timely sensitive. It is also a wonderful example to show the artist’s traditional background, but not using any cliche icons or contents.

I think it’s hard to deal with the cultural background thing. On one hand, artists tend to show all the good and beautiful things they think: traditional paintings, icons, hand made styles- but all of those had already be seen too many times and used on too many inappropriate situations that already became such cliches that even not worth to look at; they are also cultural bias in both ways. Artists treasure them think they are the best over all other cultures, while ‘outsiders’ viewed them as the same thing as ‘Asians have small eyes’.

In fact, I’m thinking of China’s official cultural advertisement- it’s also been a family, father and mother, grandparents and kids who lives happily together. This kind of advertisement is aimed to be a national image for foreigners to show that how good China is. However, just put the good or not part away, it doesn’t make sense. Every cultural, every country on earth will have families of the exact same constructions; every family will have parents, grand parents and children. How is that suppose to be a cultural unique thing?

What’s more, cultural unique has this easy and dangerous trend of going into nationalism. In this case, I like this art work the most. It’s showing the Japan style; especially these multi-color bulbs. Its similar to traditional color pattern, common modern Japanese light bulbs decoration style(just visit any authentic Japanese restaurant here and you’ll see what I mean), and most importantly its content. The artist was expressing some serious cultural problems; but instead of saying Japan cultural No.1 or saying Japan gender discrimination sucks, she put it in between- everything looks so decent and honorable on the outside, but what about inside?

In short, I really like her way of dealing those topics.

Harold Cohen, p. 144

I think of Photoshop when I saw this work. Computer art media has difference from traditional media; for most of the time the label will be ‘digital’ or ‘computer’, but no one can really specify which exact ‘digital’. Because computer is artificial intelligence to some extend, so sometime it’ll raise the question about how many percentage of a digital work is actually executed by the artist? Yet how many by the computer?

However, is this really a big question? Cohen’s work might be popular among that time, but seldom do people mention it now. As human we still want to see human’s work; its imperfection made its meaningful to look. It’s almost the same when looking at ‘paintings’ by animals. We’ll never admit those to be art works. Art works have to be made by human, because creative thinking needs to be happy, satisfying, painful and all emotions mixed together during the progress, and only human can achieve that.

Chris Burden, p. 145

I think this one is somehow like Roca’s work since I actually read that first in the book, and I prefer this one. I can’t help to think about all these people with depression that I met online or in real life. Some people just yell a lot about it to get attention, while they probably not suffer it at all; other ‘real’ patients might just kill themselves quietly at one night. However, you can never tell who’s who; and you can never ask. All activities that involving suicide have the similar facts, that is people can only wait for them to come, but cannot change a thing.

Indeed, this is a nice picture. One thing I would like to point out is, except from doctors/soldiers/police, common people don’t really get that many chances to see dead people, or to be more specific, the moment before death. What is more, we cannot see our own moment for that. As a result, I was kind focus this photo on the fact that Burden’s facial expression can be a suicide person’s last minute. No matter how the artist put it as an experiment, an art work or gave it such a long list of meanings, this still is a potential suicide. That fact actually interested me the most than any other thing. We don’t really know how human died; we will never know if there is a afterlife, or if we can thinking during the last minute. As it was put in the book, the author describe it as an eerie clam, but I find it eerie from the reverse angle; It just seems too idealized, like a movie. It’s almost like ‘he passed away peacefully in his sleep’, but that was not supposed to be the result. I just kept thinking of ‘do not go gentle into that night’ when I saw and when I wrote this response, and I have no idea why.

Antunez Roca, p. 153

No doubt this is a powerful art work. To me this one is special because of this description: “A monitor with a digital representation of Antunez Roca’s body allows the user to commit violent virtual acts, like...”

I think it is a clever way to deceive the viewers, or in this case, users. I think virtual acts cannot represent real life thoughts. For example, the violence in games. Whenever there’s a school shooting/ teenager crime happens, media and public will always blame on virtual worlds. I think it was just ridiculous for Walmart to remove all the video games in their stores after a recent shooting but kept all real guns on sale as usual. Back to the art work, I think it then created this unbalance between virtual and reality acts, because users can see both in a really short time. From this aspect, I think it is powerful to see how is imaginary movement really out put, and it is about power as the artist choose as his topic.

Another point is its format. Looking at the way the artist put those device on him, it was brutal. I think that this and other similar behavior art have the same trend of wanting the viewers/users to do harsh work. Artists in these performances wanted to be hurt; they are almost inviting viewers to make them pain and even death to justify their topics, whatever those are. It’s like the viewers are physically controlling the artists, while the artists are mentally controlling the viewers. This somehow sounds like a twisted but yet common form of love.

Stelarc, p. 154

We all heard the phrase of human body is like a computer, but then the artist literally turned his body into one. I might never understand why every artist valued their body to such a high extend, but still this sounds like a good experiment.

The fact that it is remote makes it complicated. Online viewers are different from actual viewers; Online viewers are behind several screens, and also cannot receive actual timely feedback. What is more, in this art work the viewers can almost only view the artist body, which makes it so erotic in some ways than Roca’s work while electric shock could be erotic, but the way the artist put the devices on made it not. Considering the time for this artwork it is innovative at that time, but how should we view it now? It has a weird balance of questioning and teasing the viewers in some ways. The photo showed in the book also made it so irrelevant with actual human beings.

Just off the topic a bit, I think in the year of 1980-1999 many performance art included hurting body and extreme behaviors, even I can recall seeing those artists in China doing the similar acts and were (and are) viewed as lunatics. After that time, this kind of act become less and less. I do wonder if there was a universal background made it so, or just individual historical progression in individual areas separately involved into the same result.

Jim Cambell, p. 155

I like this work of trying to be offensive. It’s simple; it doesn’t have any fancy decorative pieces attach to it; but it’s enormous. I can’t really tell how religious people felt when they looked at it, but at least I’m curious. I’m not sure if Mozart’s Requiem worked in here since I can’t experience it myself, but it’s just probably because Requiem is one of my favorite and I’m having a bias of using it as a background music.

This work and Requiem also share a similarity. To some extend, they are all by product of religion; first is the Bible, then come those work. It’s an appropriation, but I can’t see them as appropriation. It’s also extremely difficult to value any aesthetic meaning of any religious holy books; it’s simply a task cannot be done. However, put the religion aside, holy books were made by human. In this case, they should be able to valued by human.

I remember in one religion and universe class, my teacher ask us to re-read the very first chapter of the Bible. I had this long term impression that in the Bible, woman was made by one rib of man. That’s one of the reason why I don’t like about the whole religion thing. However then the teacher said that there were two version of this creation of woman; in a previous version, man and woman were made in the same time. As I do find the text to prove that, I start to wonder how religion truly worked. Just as this piece, everyone can put his or hers assumption, action, experiment and literation on the Bible; and some of the viewers will be affected by those secondary sources, and leave and propagate these thoughts. Religion is about people putting their faith in a higher thing/figure, but sometimes it also can be putting the faith into other normal human that share the same level with them in this world.

Coming back to this piece, I think the artist had made his point starting but going beyond religion. However, because it’s religion, so viewers’ focus point will be forever trapped in it, before they going elsewhere.

Ken Feingold, p. 165

I don’t think the artist’s description really matches his work. In fact, I think he is a better writer than artist. To be honest, I won’t be that disappointed if I don’t look at the description but just the art work. It seems like something you can find in every big and small galleries in Chelsea; it looks cheap and unfinished. I can see the artist is telling the truth about how it functions, but there are just some words that make the whole thing not seems appropriate.

Like “nature of violence”, “interior worlds”, “cinematic sculpture” and “personality”, these are all very big words that should be used with extra caution to not let the viewers feeling they are being deceived and the artist doesn’t know what he is doing at all. There are just some well handed parts mixed with rough parts, together without transition, and make the art work fragile. For example, the artist used real people looking heads; they are very detailed; but the robotic arm and board underneath them look like some high school student work. All three heads are placing in one line, so honestly there’s not much space for movement. What bothers me the most is “that thing” before them. I can’t see the meanings that it should have; because they look like overnight undergraduate final project. This kind of nonprofessional touch in this work is just making me cannot get into it, or understand it. This is even worth when he got a nice description; reading the description only I’m imagine something that looks completely different from this one.

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ghostlystore · 7 years ago

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The New-York based artist guides us through Several Shades Of The Same Color.

Max Ravitz, aka Patricia, produces techno with a spelunker's wide-eyed exploratory flair. His new album offers infinite ways in which a listener can roam along with him. Released July 14th across three 12"s, Several Shades Of The Same Color was Bleep's album of the week and is featured among Bandcamp Daily's essential picks — they summarize it well: "The whole thing is a marvel, the kind of maze-like album that keeps revealing surprise left turns and secret passages. Several Shades reveals Patricia to be a true synth artist, comfortable in multiple mediums, bending all of them to his will." Below, Max fields our questions with patience and consideration. Sit back, cue up the kaleidoscopic trip, and get to know the mind behind the maze.

[ Several Shades Of The Same Color in The Ghostly Store | iTunes | Spotify ]

Suppose by nature an interview asks us to defy some of Several Shades Of The Same Color's listening tips ("Don't think; Just hear."). If that's alright, explain your mindset behind encouraging listeners not to over-analyze?

I could literally write a several page essay on this one topic, but I'll try my best to keep it reasonable... I'm gonna start with this immense quote by Igor Stravinsky (anyone reading who isn't familiar with Stravinsky, get familiar): I consider that music is, by its very nature, powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc....If, as is nearly always the case, music appears to express something, this is only an illusion, and not a reality.... In my mind, music serves as an extension of language, aimed at expressing ideas that can't be described with words. Obviously lyrical music has the capacity to make this expression a bit more overt, but music began as a non-lyrical tradition and it's real power lies in abstraction. To our brains, all sound is just stimuli used to generate information. Our ears monitor fluctuations in air pressure, and our brain filters these fluctuations through past experiences to determine the source of the sound, and its meaning. For example, say you've watched an action movie with gunfire, after which, you hear a gunshot in person without seeing the shot fired, you will assume the sound was made by a gun, because you recognize it as similar to the sound from the movie. Your brain looks for these associations to derive meaning from sound, and in turn, generate the appropriate bodily response. Music, in its simplest form, is nothing more than a series of these air pressure changes, and our brain tries to translate this stimuli into information. Determining the source of the sound is often the easy part, as most people know what different musical instruments sound like, but our brains trying to understand the meaning of music is where the great nebulous mystery lies. Music journalism is often an attempt to translate this mystery into words, and its pervasiveness nowadays encourages people to approach listening from an analytical point of view where music has to have meaning. Personally, I don't listen to music in an attempt to glean its message. I'm not looking to understand why music makes me feel a certain way, the fact that it makes me feel things I don't always understand is more powerful than knowing why. If my goal as a musician was to convey some clearly discernible message through my work, I might as well just be a writer. Music inherently defies description, so the record's listening suggestions were meant to encourage people not to analyze it too much.

On that topic, what is 'body music' to you?

Well I consider body music to be any music that a listener can feel, as opposed to think about. I would say most lyrical music strays away from being body music, as the addition of words will lead the listener to consider what is being said. Also, to be clear, body music can of course elicit thoughts and ideas, but is able to do so without using formal signifiers like words. Ultimately, I tend to avoid defining musical concepts, as definitions can give rise to rules and restraints. I also avoid classifying music by genre , because in my mind, genres are essentially a set of guidelines for what a type of music is 'supposed to be'. In general, you'll find I have an aversion to the idea that music needs to follow any rules.

Your music is recorded live. Is there a certain effect or freedom or constraint to this approach?

My current solo recording process is aimed at heavily restricting what I allow myself to do. I used to spend weeks, if not months editing songs to death trying to achieve some sense of perfection, then I'd reach the end of that process and not even like what I made. After moving to New York, I met a few likeminded producers, and began collaborating more and more. Having worked in relative isolation up until that point, getting to see how other people would approach recording and production was very useful for me. Eventually I made a rule for myself that I could never take longer than a day working on a song, and if I couldn't finish it in a day, I'd just move on. In the past, I would get attached to ideas, and like one element of a song so much that I'd try to force it to work, but having a one day limit makes me move on from ideas that aren't working. In the end, I find the songs I like best, are the ones I make quickly anyways.

When performing live, how closely do you follow the recordings?

Not at all. My live and studio practices are two entirely different things. I've been collecting recording gear since I was 15, so I have a lot of equipment. On any given song I record in my studio, I can be using drastically different gear, so trying to approximate these different techniques live becomes difficult. My solution has been to just approach live performance differently. At shows, I play 90% improvisational material that has almost no relation to my recorded stuff. Occasionally I'll end up liking something from a live set enough to try and recreate it at home, but that doesn't happen often.

What were the conditions or emotions and logic that lead you to this record? When did the concept of three LPs, an epic, first enter your mind?

My only real goal in developing the record was to make something long. I wanted the opportunity to show a wider range of my musical interests than a 4-5 track record would allow for. I think that longer albums are often given more exploratory leeway than something like an EP, and I wanted to show some weirder/slower/different music than I had released in the past. I thought about doing a 2x12", but I became fixated on the idea of the 3x12", and was lucky enough to have Sam Valenti from Ghostly be open to the idea. The track-listing itself was arranged by a friend of mine named Russell Butler, who also releases on Opal Tapes, the label that put out my first and third Patricia records. I sent him the 15 tracks to listen to, and asked him to come up with the sequencing because I was struggling to do so, and I'm really happy with what he arrived at.

The title and artwork reflects the music's stoicism in ways I can't quite define. Can you?

Well the title has a few personal meanings to me, but I'm not going to share them, as I don't think they're relevant to the music. In terms of the artwork, it was done by my friend Molly Smith. I just sent her the music, gave her very little input, and she did all the heavy lifting. It was an incredible amount of work on her part, as all the images are meticulously-drawn pointillist pen drawings, and she did all the layout and graphic design work on top of that. It was a wonderful symbiotic working relationship, and I couldn't be happier with how the records came out. The chosen imagery could be related to her interpretation of the music, but that's really a question for her.

Spectral Sound is releasing the album in conjunction with your own label, Active Cultures. It's a pretty new venture — tell us about it.

Well I wouldn't even call Active Cultures a label, it's more a swirling entity lacking in form :) While releasing music will be an aspect of the project, it's really just a means to not only give myself more freedom to explore ideas, but also support my friends who are making interesting things. I find the idea of curation intriguing, so Active Cultures will allow me to flex that muscle a bit. Actually, Molly Smith who did the artwork for my record has helped develop the aesthetics for the project. I also worked with Bill Converse aka Tide Eman, who produced the Active Cultures record that came out in June. That was followed up by the Patricia LP co-released with Spectral Sound. There are a few other releases coming together, but the next record will be an archival release of music recorded by Todd Sines in the '90s, from around his .Xtrak and Enhanced days. I also recently started working on developing a website with a friend of mine named Jesse Pimenta, who records music as Dreams and has a record coming out on Apron records soon. Not sure what else to say, time will tell where it goes.

#ghostly #ghostly international #the ghostly store #patricia #max ravitz #interview #bandcamp

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caveartfair · 6 years ago

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This Open Source Software Could Make Museum Websites More Accessible

MCA Chicago front steps. Photo by Nathan Keay. © MCA Chicago.

Earlier this year, dozens of New York City art galleries were hit with lawsuits filed separately by two legally blind plaintiffs. Their common charge: The websites of galleries including Sperone Westwater, Gagosian, and David Zwirner were not readable by people with vision loss, an alleged violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Many of these cases are pending, and the law on ADA website compliance is murky. But defendants and other cultural players who do want to break down digital barriers face the question of how they can redesign their websites to be accessible to all. One particular issue: how to provide clear information about images of artwork. For this, galleries and museums can look to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago, which has created a tool that seamlessly integrates image descriptions into its online platform.

Called Coyote, this program provides a system for creating, reviewing, and managing the language used to describe art—a thorny process that involves acknowledging and navigating personal prejudices. Its name refers to a Hopi legend about a coyote that wanted to see further than its own eyes would allow.

Details of the MCA's homepage showcasing Coyote image descriptions. © MCA Chicago.

Visit the MCA’s website, toggle on the descriptions by clicking “image description” in the menu on the left, and small white boxes with blue text appear atop images. The caption for Laurie Simmons’s Walking House (1989), used to promote the MCA’s ongoing survey of her work, reads: “A black-and-white photograph depicts a model house sitting atop naked, feminine legs wearing nude heels.” A work by Doris Salcedo is described as: “Four murky sepia-toned images of shoes embedded on a white wall by what appears to be surgical stitching.” These descriptions can automatically be transcribed aloud by screen readers, allowing visually impaired or blind users to imagine the artwork.

Many museums ensure that individuals with disabilities can experience art in person by providing special resources, from in-gallery audio descriptions to tactile tours. But most can benefit from improving accessibility for their virtual visitors. The MCA Chicago’s website is the first by a museum that has “intentionally created visual descriptions as a primary feature,” according to Sina Bahram, founder of Prime Access Consulting, a company that helps organizations make their digital spaces more accessible. “There are museum websites that put alt text on images”—HTML code descriptions that screen readers can detect—“but to our knowledge, this is the first to take image descriptions so seriously and surface them for all users.”

The result is a laudable example of inclusive design—a design approach that ensures products have equitable use for people with diverse abilities. In other words, the same information is conveyed to everyone, no matter their visual acuity.

Long and short description of Kerry James Marshall’s Untitled (Painter), 2009 in the MCA’s image description software, Coyote. © MCA Chicago.

Bahram was hired by the museum in 2015, when it was redesigning its website, and he spearheaded the project alongside former MCA employees Susan Chun and Anna Chiaretta Lavatelli. That year also marked the 25th anniversary of the passage of the ADA, and the MCA had been in conversations with other museums across the country about how to better serve visitors with disabilities. “We wanted to build a platform to solve a need for institutions to enhance access for visitors who are blind and visually impaired,” said Lisa Keys, MCA Chicago’s deputy director. “It was clear that we needed better tools.”

Coyote is a free, open-source software that lives in the cloud, so anyone can adopt it. Editors log in and write descriptions for images assigned to them, which get reviewed before web developers present them to the public. “Think of it like a Google Doc for image descriptions,” Bahram said. “There’s an editing and approval flow that is really critical.”

Currently, just about 10 percent of the MCA’s 20,000 or so images have descriptions, but the museum’s editorial team has devoted a lot of energy to coming up with guidelines for writing about artworks in the most effective and intelligible way. The quandaries are complicated: What kind of visual information do you include in a few succinct lines? How does diction help shape the experience of learning about an artwork? How do you clearly describe abstract art?

MCA staff gather on the stage to write Coyote descriptions. Photo © MCA Chicago.

“Our primary goals are to be accurate, informative, and to stay within [30 words],” said Sheila Majumdar, the museum’s senior editor. “The biggest challenge lies in guarding against internal biases and mistaking opinion or assumption for fact. This is why every description is reviewed by an editor, and no editors approve their own descriptions.”

The Coyote team developed a style guide (also freely accessible online) to help them decide what to include or exclude in descriptions. There are tips related to focus (“describe the objects/information most important to understanding the image”), demographic information (“default to ‘light-skinned’ and ‘dark-skinned,’ when clearly visible”); and precision (“avoid excessive specificity and jargon”). “The first question I recommend asking is, ‘What is relevant?’” said Majumdar. “There is a lot of room for interpretation. In some instances, colors, shapes, or textures might take precedence over narrative content.”

The MCA’s team is also aiming to write two descriptions for every image—a short one and a long one. Screen readers automatically read the former; the latter, which requires users to opt in, gives a more detailed and evocative understanding of an image. The aforementioned Simmons photograph, for instance, has a longer description that reads: “The humanoid house is dramatically lit against a black background, as if posing for a portrait or performing in a play. The house is angled downward toward the floor, giving an impression of sheepishness or a bowing movement.” And the MCA doesn’t only describe images of artworks; it also provides captions for promotional photography and performance documentation. Faced with a massive and growing image repository, editors are now prioritizing images related to current exhibitions and programs, while working backward to fill in text for images of artworks in its permanent collection.

Photo from MCA’s Touch Tour of Chicago Works: Amanda Williams, 2017. Photo by Nathan Keay. © MCA Chicago

A web designer might shudder at the thought of all this additional text. But the notion that it is difficult to produce a website that is both accessible and elegant is “a false narrative that we fight against,” Bahram said. “That these two things are antithetical is simply not true. It’s not only the right thing to do, but it is easy to achieve those things.”

Of course, revamping your website to meet accessibility standards requires resources, and image descriptions are a very small part of this process, which involves considering details like color contrast and the number of flashing objects on a page. Museums and other cultural spaces interested in using Coyote have to consider the labor required of their web and content developers. But the software can be customized, even for small businesses. “We want to work with people to encourage them to make their websites more inclusive, as far as image descriptions,” Bahram said. “We want to make sure we have the right solution for them. We’re solving a need, not a want.”

Coyote is just one program the MCA has implemented to enhance the museum experience for its visitors with disabilities, in addition to its American Sign Language and touch tours. Last month, it started offering free admission to members of this community and their caretakers. “By removing any financial barrier, we really want to encourage them to visit,” said Keys. The museum’s commitment to Coyote extends that sentiment to its digital gateway—often the first impression visitors have of an institution they plan to visit.

Chicagoan Patti Gregory-Chang, treasurer for the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois, was excited when she found out about the museum’s website and in-gallery programs earlier this week. “This might make me go back to museums,” she said. “Too often our experience is finding glass with nothing we can touch and no audio we can hear. Museums should be for everyone.”

from Artsy News

#Artsy News

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blogdccollaborative · 6 years ago

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Focus on Art, Books & Creativity at the National Museum of Women in the Arts

Submitted by: Elisabeth Orengo, Program Intern, DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative April 10th, 2019

Created in the 1960′s with a collection exclusively dedicated women’s art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) has more recently became an authentic laboratory and research center for art education. Over the years, the institution has increased its collaborative efforts to build a diverse array of educational opportunities. In addition to its contribution to the creation of the DC Collaborative, of which it is a founder member, the education team at NMWA has built Arts, Books & Creativity (ABC), that is a comprehensive program aiming to facilitate art integration into school curriculum.

The DC Collaborative would like to share an overview of the series of accomplishments that led to the high quality programs currently offered at NMWA. We have asked Director of Education Deborah Gaston, and Senior Educator in charge of Arts and Humanities for Every Students (AHFES) at NMWA Adrienne Gayoso, to present the creation and the implementation processes of ABC programs.

Creation of ABC

Deborah Gaston explained that two successive grants, allocated in 2003 and 2006 by the US Department of Education, facilitated the creation of ABC. First conceived as an art integration program for students supported by a research component for educators to evaluate the impact of their work, ABC has now been combined with a professional development program based on teacher participation. Each year, NMWA offers summer institutes to help teachers from all over the country “integrate the visual arts into the core curriculum”. Further, an advanced institute has been created at the request of participants willing to go even further in their approach to art integration. Lastly, NMWA has set up online education resources to extend learning opportunities all over the country.

Visible Thinking Routines

ABC’s programs include some of the Visible Thinking routines developed by Harvard Project Zero. Originally established at Lemshaga Akademi in Sweden, Visible Thinking is a research-based initiative aiming to enhance students’ thinking dispositions across subject matters. This “extensive and adaptable collection of practices” enables students to make better use of their skills in a variety of contexts. At the National Museum of Women in the Art, educators “select methodologies based on the developmental level(s) of the audience, the works [they] show, and the habits [they] hope to introduce and habituate,” Adrienne says.

Artworks often tell a story. That’s why many routines make use of this narrative power to engage students. In Beginning / Middle / End, artists are considered storytellers, and students try to figure out how the picture of a specific moment in time may refer to a whole story. Then, they use evidence based on what they see to imagine what happened before and what might happen after. Adrienne noticed that “children are innate storytellers, and this exercise allows them to express their creativity while practicing their evidential reasoning skills”.

Headlines i s a perfect routine to continue the work done with Beginning / Middle / End. For students, the exercise - that consists of generating titles for narrative works of art - is a way to feel engaged and get excited by the stories pictures may tell. For the educator, Headlines acts as an assessment tool enabling us “to see what students have synthesized and are taking away about the ‘essence’ of this artwork”.

See / Think / Wonder is the core routine of Harvard Project Zero and used often at NMWA. Three basic questions are used to enhance observation and interpretation skills: “What do you see?”, “What do you think about that?”, “What does it make you wonder?”. This is a helpful observation technique and makes sense out of objects in a variety of contexts that some teachers use it into their classrooms. In this case, the museum’s workshop become an opportunity for students to reinforce the practice of looking, inferring, and questioning in a new environment. For this reason, See / Think / Wonder is probably one of the most efficient art integration techniques.

Lastly, Colors / Shapes / Lines is particularly efficient way to start a conversation with young students, those with developmental challenges, or when students don’t seem receptive to the routines that are based on stories. As they focus on formal elements of art, students progressively enrich their descriptive vocabulary, while getting more familiar with the interpretation process.

Please visit Thinking Palette to get an overview of the practices.

Adrienne underlines that this practice is a very good way to discuss artworks in which color is essential, as in Amy Sherald’s paintings.

Amy Sherald, They Call Me Redbone but I’d Rather Be Strawberry Shortcake, 2009; Gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in honor of the artist and the 25th Anniversary of NMWA.

Amy Sherald at NMWA; Photo: Emily Haight, NMWA

More information about the exhibition is available in the article “Go Figure! Amy Sherald at NMWA” on the museum’s blog Broad Strokes.

Adapting to students needs

As well as thinking, creating is essential to learn, and the hands-on workshops are an integral part of ABC’s programs. NMWA was inspired by the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, a non profit organization working to inspire a love of art and reading through picture books in Amherst, Massachusetts.

The merging of visual and language arts is a great opportunity to keep up learning while considering the direct parallel between images and texts, and thus reinforce the link between the museum experience and academic curriculum. At NMWA, this concept has been implemented through an “artists’ books” workshop: individually or as a team, students create their own books to reflect and recall their visit. Since every one of them is unique, the artist book is also a way to encourage students to identify and best use their own abilities. Moreover, artists’ books also employs a flexible education format allowing students to freely describe their experiences, emphasizing images or texts.

We hope you will find these resources helpful to your own educational practice, either in the classroom or outside of the school setting. Please email [email protected] if you have any questions about this article or connecting to NMWA staff.

#CollaborativeEffect #language arts #visual art #project zero #art integration #DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative #visual arts

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writersarestruggling · 8 years ago

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💛 writer asks 💛

I'm answering them because yolo - by skylerwritestoomuchphansmut

1: how long is a good length for a plot? I don’t think the length of a plot is important in majority of cases, writing isn’t some high school assignment. As long as the story remains consistent and well written and has some conclusion, it’s fine.

2: do you like writing longer stories, or shorter one shots? Well whenever I aim for shorter one shots... it turns into chapters.

3: are you better at writing characters who are sarcastic and witty or cute and funny? I don’t even know? I think sarcastic/witty?

4: what are three of your favorite character traits? Aspired, individualistic and emotional (because I’m tired of the ‘i hate everybody i am high and mighty and great at everything but i never cry because ew’ trope).

5: what’s the longest story you’ve ever written? fanfiction: 155, 985.

6: what’s a story/ one shot you’re most proud of? I don’t know if I’m proud of any of them. But the one I’m most like ‘okay that was difficult but I made it fun’ was a Songfic I wrote for Alex Rider and I got reviews saying I made it work and how they barely noticed so the lyrics weren’t annoying (25 to Life - Eminem).

7: do you consider yourself a good writer? I consider myself a... decent writer. I’ll accept I’m not completely hopeless.

8: do you consider writers artists? Yes. People consider poetry an art form because it’s wording can be so metaphorically beautiful. Poetry is words, writers use words, it’s almost the same. Artwork can be interpreted and is made to evoke emotions, so do writers.

9: do you mostly write for others or yourself? With fanfiction, if it was chaptered- others. Fanfic oneshots was myself, mostly to vent. Original stories, is just to satisfy my urge to write and tell a story.

10: do you like poetry? I used to hate it, idk why, silly me. Now I don’t mind it but I don’t prefer it. It depends on the poem itself.

11: what’s your favorite book? What kind of dumb question is that??? I can't choose a favourite singular book. A favourite book in a series, maybe. Favourite series, sure.

12: how did you start writing? I don’t even remember. I know I was coming up with stories since I could pick up a pen.

13: what was the first thing you wrote? (if you remember) Nope.

14: does writing calm you? Most times.

15: do you like being descriptive or more brief? Descriptive.

16: what’s one thing your readers could do to encourage you to write more/ write something they want? Engage with the story, that encourages me that somebody actually cares. Constructive criticism also works, I’ll be motivated to work on it.

17: do you ever get stressed about writing? Too much more than I’d like.

18: do you give yourself schedules/deadlines? Nah.

19: on a scale of 1-10 how important to your life is your writing? Sometimes like a 5. Sometimes like a 15. Usually like a 9.

20: does being outside help you write, or would you rather be in a coffee shop with fast internet? Cofffeeeeeee shop. I respect people that can write outside though, I wish I could focus.

21: who encourages/inspires you to write? Usually my stubbornness and emotional state.

22: what’s your favorite thing to write about? I don’t even know?

23: do you like fanfiction or making your own stories better? Both!

24: do you read other’s work? I don’t know any writer that doesn’t read other people’s work, all writers love writing, which means books, writers’ love books wtf.

25: who’s your favorite author? probably Rick Riordan.

26: do you want to be a writer when you grow up? Obviously.

27: what’s one good tip for aspiring writers? Think of your writing as a world, you can keep evolving it through your own thoughts- don’t listen to those evil anon hate thoughts where you just harshly criticise your own work, focus on becoming your own constructive critic and don't let it stop you from writing, writing, writing.

28: what’s a pet peeve of yours about writing [online] ? Probably over time when I reread it I find new things to add or improve, or I notice minor mistakes and it’s like this was on the internet people have seen this I can’t take it back ahhhh

29: how would you describe your writing style? I tried.

30: what author’s style would you use to associate with your own? (you may combine two if you’d like) Um... probably like, a mix of Victoria Aveyard because the first book was focused a lot on setting and world building, like how focused she was (necessarily) on politics- and so is my story. But my characters are also a lot more emotional and diverse, so I guess you could say Rick Riordan inspired that?

31: what’s your favorite descriptive word (adjective)? I don’t know??

32: what’s one word you think you use the most in your writing? probably ‘and’.

33: what’s one word you use too much? probably something random like ‘lifted an eyebrow’

34: are you proud of your work? depends on my mood.

35: why do you write? It’s the only thing I know the most and understand. I love expressing myself. It’s a healthy way to vent.

#did you mean: my life

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seriesfoundation · 4 years ago

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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Imagination

First published Mon Mar 14, 2011; substantive revision Tue Jan 22, 2019

To imagine is to represent without aiming at things as they actually, presently, and subjectively are. One can use imagination to represent possibilities other than the actual, to represent times other than the present, and to represent perspectives other than one’s own. Unlike perceiving and believing, imagining something does not require one to consider that something to be the case. Unlike desiring or anticipating, imagining something does not require one to wish or expect that something to be the case.

Imagination is involved in a wide variety of human activities, and has been explored from a wide range of philosophical perspectives. Philosophers of mind have examined imagination’s role in mindreading and in pretense. Philosophical aestheticians have examined imagination’s role in creating and in engaging with different types of artworks. Epistemologists have examined imagination’s role in theoretical thought experiments and in practical decision-making. Philosophers of language have examined imagination’s role in irony and metaphor.

Because of the breadth of the topic, this entry focuses exclusively on contemporary discussions of imagination in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition. For an overview of historical discussions of imagination, see the sections on pre-twentieth century and early twentieth century accounts of entry on mental imagery; for notable historical accounts of imagination, see corresponding entries on Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Gilbert Ryle; for a more detailed and comprehensive historical survey, see Brann 1991; and for a sophisticated and wide-ranging discussion of imagination in the phenomenological tradition, see Casey 2000.

1. The Nature of Imagination

1.1 Varieties of Imagination

1.2 Taxonomies of Imagination

1.3 Norms of Imagination

2. Imagination in Cognitive Architecture

2.1 Imagination and Belief

2.2 Imagination and Desire

2.3 Imagination, Imagery, and Perception

2.4 Imagination and Memory

2.5 Imagination and Supposition

3. Roles of Imagination

3.1 Mindreading

3.2 Pretense

3.3 Psychopathology

3.4 Engagement with the Arts

Supplement: Puzzles and Paradoxes of Imagination and the Arts

3.5 Creativity

3.6 Knowledge

3.7 Figurative Language

Bibliography

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1. The Nature of Imagination

A variety of roles have been attributed to imagination across various domains of human understanding and activity (section 3). Not surprisingly, it is doubtful that there is one component of the mind that can satisfy all the various roles attributed to imagination (Kind 2013). Nevertheless, perhaps guided by these roles, philosophers have attempted to clarify the nature of imagination in three ways. First, philosophers have tried to disambiguate different senses of the term “imagination” and, in some cases, point to some core commonalities amongst the different disambiguations (section 1.1). Second, philosophers have given partial taxonomies to distinguish different types of imaginings (section 1.2). Third, philosophers have located norms that govern paradigmatic imaginative episodes (section 1.3).

1.1 Varieties of Imagination

There is a general consensus among those who work on the topic that the term “imagination” is used too broadly to permit simple taxonomy. Indeed, it is common for overviews to begin with an invocation of P.F. Strawson’s remarks in “Imagination and Perception”, where he writes:

The uses, and applications, of the terms “image”, “imagine”, “imagination”, and so forth make up a very diverse and scattered family. Even this image of a family seems too definite. It would be a matter of more than difficulty to identify and list the family’s members, let alone their relations of parenthood and cousinhood. (Strawson 1970: 31)

These taxonomic challenges carry over into attempts at characterization. In the opening chapter of Mimesis as Make-Believe—perhaps the most influential contemporary monograph on imagination—Kendall Walton throws up his hands at the prospect of delineating the notion precisely. After enumerating and distinguishing a number of paradigmatic instances of imagining, he asks:

What is it to imagine? We have examined a number of dimensions along which imaginings can vary; shouldn’t we now spell out what they have in common?—Yes, if we can. But I can’t. (Walton 1990: 19)

Leslie Stevenson (2003: 238) makes arguably the only recent attempt at a somewhat comprehensive inventory of the term’s uses, covering twelve of “the most influential conceptions of imagination” that can be found in recent discussions in “philosophy of mind, aesthetics, ethics, poetry and … religion”.

1.2 Taxonomies of Imagination

To describe the varieties of imaginings, philosophers have given partial and overlapping taxonomies.

Some taxonomies are merely descriptive, and they tend to be less controversial. For example, Kendall Walton (1990) distinguishes between spontaneous and deliberate imagining (acts of imagination that occur with or without the one’s conscious direction); between occurrent and nonoccurrent imaginings (acts of imagination that do or do not occupy the one’s explicit attention); and between social and solitary imaginings (episodes of imagining that occur with or without the joint participation of several persons).

One notable descriptive taxonomy concerns imagining from the inside versus from the outside (Williams 1973; Wollheim 1973; see Ninan 2016 for an overview). To imagine from the outside that one is Napoleon involves imagining a scenario in which one is Napoleon. To imagine from the inside that one is Napoleon involves that plus something else: namely, that one is occupying the perspective of Napoleon. Imagining from the inside is essentially first-personal, imagining from the outside is not. This distinction between two modes of imagining is especially notable for its implications for thought experiments about the metaphysics of personal identity (Nichols 2008; Ninan 2009; Williams 1973).

Some taxonomies aim to be more systematic—to carve imaginings at their joints, so to speak—and they, as one might expect, tend to be more controversial.

Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft (2002) distinguishes creative imagination (combining ideas in unexpected and unconventional ways); sensory imagination (perception-like experiences in the absence of appropriate stimuli); and what they call recreative imagination (an ability to experience or think about the world from a perspective different from the one that experience presents). Neil Van Leeuwen (2013, 2014) takes a similar approach to delineate three common uses of “imagination” and cognate terms. First, these terms can be used to refer to constructive imagining, which concerns the process of generating mental representations. Second, these terms can be used to refer to attitude imagining, which concerns the propositional attitude one takes toward mental representations. Third, these terms can be used to refer to imagistic imagining, which concerns the perception-like format of mental representations.

Amy Kind and Peter Kung (2016b) pose the puzzle of imaginative use—on the seeming irreconcilability between the transcendent uses of imagination, which enables one to escape from or look beyond the world as it is, and the instructive uses of imagination, which enables one to learn about the world as it is. Kind and Kung ultimately resolve the puzzle by arguing that the same attitude can be put to these seemingly disparate uses because the two uses differ not in kind, but in degree—specifically, the degree of constraint on imaginings.

Finally, varieties of imagination might be classified in terms of their structure and content. Consider the following three types of imaginings, each illustrated with an example. When one imagines propositionally, one represents to oneself that something is the case. So, for example, Juliet might imagine that Romeo is by her side. To imagine in this sense is to stand in some mental relation to a particular proposition (see the entry on propositional attitude reports). When one imagines objectually, one represents to oneself a real or make-believe entity or situation (Yablo 1993; see also Martin 2002; Noordhof 2002; O’Shaughnessy 2000). So, for example, Prospero might imagine an acorn or a nymph or the city of Naples or a wedding feast. To imagine in this sense is to stand in some mental relation to a representation of an (imaginary or real) entity or state of affairs. When one imagines X-ing, one simulatively represents to oneself some sort of activity or experience (Walton 1990). So, for example, Ophelia might imagine seeing Hamlet or getting herself to a nunnery. To imagine in this sense is to stand in a first-personal mental relation to some (imaginary or real) behavior or perception.

1.3 Norms of Imagination

There are general norms that govern operations of imagination (Gendler 2003).

Mirroring is manifest to the extent that features of the imaginary situation that have not been explicitly stipulated are derivable via features of their real-world analogues, or, more generally, to the extent that imaginative content is taken to be governed by the same sorts of restrictions that govern believed content. For example, in a widely-discussed experiment conducted by Alan Leslie (1994), children are asked to engage in an imaginary tea party. When an experimenter tips and “spills” one of the (empty) teacups, children consider the non-tipped cup to be “full” (in the context of the pretense) and the tipped cup to be “empty” (both within and outside of the context of the pretense). In fact, both make-believe games and more complicated engagements with the arts are governed by principles of generation, according to which prompts or props prescribe particular imaginings (Walton 1990).

Quarantining is manifest to the extent that events within the imagined or pretended episode are taken to have effects only within a relevantly circumscribed domain. So, for example, the child engaging in the make-believe tea party does not expect that “spilling” (imaginary) “tea” will result in the table really being wet, nor does a person who imagines winning the lottery expect that when she visits the ATM, her bank account will contain a million dollars. More generally, quarantining is manifest to the extent that proto-beliefs and proto-attitudes concerning the imagined state of affairs are not treated as beliefs and attitudes relevant to guiding action in the actual world.

Although imaginative episodes are generally governed by mirroring and quarantining, both may be violated in systematic ways.

Mirroring gives way to disparity as a result of the ways in which (the treatment of) imaginary content may differ from (that of) believed content. Imagined content may be incomplete (for example, there may be no fact of the matter (in the pretense) just how much tea has spilled on the table) or incoherent (for example, it might be that the toaster serves (in the pretense) as a logical-truth inverter). And content that is imagined may give rise to discrepant responses, most strikingly in cases of discrepant affect—where, for example, the imminent destruction of all human life is treated as amusing rather than terrifying.

Quarantining gives way to contagion when imagined content ends up playing a direct role in actual attitudes and behavior (see also Gendler 2008a, 2008b). This is common in cases of affective transmission, where an emotional response generated by an imagined situation may constrain subsequent behavior. For example, imagining something fearful (such as a tiger in the kitchen) may give rise to actual hesitation (such as reluctance to enter the room). And it also occurs in cases of cognitive transmission, where imagined content is thereby “primed” and rendered more accessible in ways that go on to shape subsequent perception and experience. For example, imagining some object (such as a sheep) may make one more likely to “perceive” such objects in one’s environment (such as mistaking a rock for a ram).

2. Imagination in Cognitive Architecture

One way to make sense of the nature of imagination is by drawing distinctions, giving taxonomies, and elucidating governing norms (section 1). Another, arguably more prominent, way to make sense of the nature is by figuring out, in a broadly functionalist framework, how it fits in with more well-understood mental entities from folk psychology and scientific psychology (see the entry on functionalism).

There are two related tasks involved. First, philosophers have used other mental entities to define imagination by contradistinction (but see Wiltsher forthcoming for a critique of this approach). To give an oversimplified example, many philosophers hold that imagining is like believing except that it does not directly motivate actions. Second, philosophers have used other mental entities to understand the inputs and outputs of imagination. To give an oversimplified example, many philosophers hold that imagination does not output to action-generating systems.

Amongst the most widely-discussed mental entities in contemporary discussions of imagination are belief (section 2.1), desire (section 2.2), mental imagery (section 2.3), memory (section 2.4), and supposition (section 2.5). The resolution of these debates ultimately rest on the extent to which the imaginative attitude(s) posited can fulfill the roles ascribed to imagination from various domains of human understanding and activity (section 3).

2.1 Imagination and Belief

To believe is to take something to be the case or regard it as true (see the entry on belief). When one says something like “the liar believes that his pants are on fire”, one attributes to the subject (the liar) an attitude (belief) towards a proposition (his pants are on fire). Likewise, when one says something like “the liar imagines that his pants are on fire”, one attributes to the subject (the liar) an attitude (imagination) towards a proposition (his pants are on fire). The similarities and differences between the belief attribution and the imagination attribution point to similarities and differences between imagining and believing.

Imagining and believing are both cognitive attitudes that are representational. They take on the same kind of content: representations that stand in inferential relationship with one another. On the single code hypothesis, it is the sameness of the representational format that grounds functional similarities between imagining and believing (Nichols & Stich 2000, 2003; Nichols 2004a). As for their differences, there are two main options for distinguishing imagining and believing (Sinhababu 2016).

The first option characterizes their difference in normative terms. While belief aims at truth, imagination does not (Humberstone 1992; Shah & Velleman 2005). If the liar did not regard it as true that his pants are on fire, then it seems that he cannot really believe that his pants are on fire. By contrast, even if the liar did not regard it as true that his pants are on fire, he can still imagine that his pants are on fire. While the norm of truth is constitutive of the attitude of belief, it is not constitutive of the attitude of imagination. In dissent, Neil Sinhababu (2013) argues that the norm of truth is neither sufficient nor necessary for distinguishing imagining and believing.

The second option characterizes their difference in functional terms. One purported functional difference between imagination and belief concerns their characteristic connection to actions. If the liar truly believes that his pants are on fire, he will typically attempt to put out the fire by, say, pouring water on himself. By contrast, if the liar merely imagines that his pants are on fire, he will typically do no such thing. While belief outputs to action-generation system, imagination does not (Nichols & Stich 2000, 2003). David Velleman (2000) and Tyler Doggett and Andy Egan (2007) point to particular pretense behaviors to challenge this way of distinguishing imagining and believing. Velleman argues that a belief-desire explanation of children’s pretense behaviors makes children “depressingly unchildlike”. Doggett and Egan argue that during immersive episodes, pretense behaviors can be directly motivated by imagination. In response to these challenges, philosophers typically accept that imagination can have a guidance or stage-setting role in motivating behaviors, but reject that it directly outputs to action-generation system (Van Leeuwen 2009; O’Brien 2005; Funkhouser & Spaulding 2009; Everson 2007; Kind 2011; Currie & Ravenscroft 2002).

Another purported functional difference between imagination and belief concerns their characteristic connection to emotions. If the liar truly believes that his pants are on fire, then he will be genuinely afraid of the fire; but not if he merely imagines so. While belief evokes genuine emotions toward real entities, imagination does not (Walton 1978, 1990, 1997; see also related discussion of the paradox of fictional emotions in Supplement on Puzzles and Paradoxes of Imagination and the Arts). This debate is entangled with the controversy concerning the nature of emotions (see the entry on emotion). In rejecting this purported functional difference, philosophers also typically reject narrow cognitivism about emotions (Nichols 2004a; Meskin & Weinberg 2003; Weinberg & Meskin 2005, 2006; Kind 2011; Spaulding 2015; Carruthers 2003, 2006).

Currently, the consensus is that there exists some important difference between imagining and believing. Yet, there are two distinct departures from this consensus. On the one hand, some philosophers have pointed to novel psychological phenomena in which it is unclear whether imagination or belief is at work—such as delusions (Egan 2008a) and immersed pretense (Schellenberg 2013)—and argued that the best explanation for these phenomena says that imagination and belief exists on a continuum. In responding to the argument from immersed pretense, Shen-yi Liao and Tyler Doggett (2014) argue that a cognitive architecture that collapses distinctive attitudes on the basis of borderline cases is unlikely to be fruitful in explaining psychological phenomena. On the other hand, some philosophers have pointed to familiar psychological phenomena and argued that the best explanation for these phenomena says that imagination is ultimately reducible to belief. Peter Langland-Hassan (2012, 2014) argues that pretense can be explained with only reference to beliefs—specifically, beliefs about counterfactuals. Derek Matravers (2014) argues that engagements with fictions can be explained without references to imaginings.

2.2 Imagination and Desire

To desire is to want something to be the case (see the entry on desire). Standardly, the conative attitude of desire is contrasted with the cognitive attitude of belief in terms of direction of fit: while belief aims to make one’s mental representations match the way the world is, desire aims to make the way the world is match one’s mental representations. Recall that on the single code hypothesis, there exists a cognitive imaginative attitude that is structurally similar to belief. Is there a conative imaginative attitude—call it desire-like imagination (Currie 1997, 2002a, 2002b, 2010; Currie & Ravenscroft 2002), make-desire (Currie 1990; Goldman 2006), or i-desire (Doggett & Egan 2007, 2012)—that is structurally similar to desire?

The debates on the relationship between imagination and desire is, not surprisingly, thoroughly entangled with the debates on the relationship between imagination and belief. One impetus for positing a conative imaginative attitude comes from behavior motivation in imaginative contexts. Tyler Doggett and Andy Egan (2007) argue that cognitive and conative imagination jointly output to action-generation system, in the same way that belief and desire jointly do. Another impetus for positing a conative imaginative attitude comes from emotions in imaginative contexts (see related discussions of the paradox of fictional emotions and the paradoxes of tragedy and horror in Supplement on Puzzles and Paradoxes of Imagination and the Arts). Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft (2002) and Doggett and Egan (2012) argue the best explanation for people’s emotional responses toward non-existent fictional characters call for positing conative imagination. Currie and Ravenscroft (2002), Currie (2010), and Doggett and Egan (2007) argue that the best explanation for people’s apparently conflicting emotional responses toward tragedy and horror too call for positing conative imagination.

Given the entanglement between the debates, competing explanations of the same phenomena also function as arguments against conative imagination (Nichols 2004a, 2006b; Meskin & Weinberg 2003; Weinberg & Meskin 2005, 2006; Spaulding 2015; Kind 2011; Carruthers 2003, 2006; Funkhouser & Spaulding 2009; Van Leeuwen 2011). In addition, another argument against conative imagination is that its different impetuses call for conflicting functional properties. Amy Kind (2016b) notes a tension between the argument from behavior motivation and the argument from fictional emotions: conative imagination must be connected to action-generation in order for it to explain pretense behaviors, but it must be disconnected from action-generation in order for it to explain fictional emotions. Similarly, Shaun Nichols (2004b) notes a tension between Currie and Ravenscroft’s (2002) argument from paradox of fictional emotions and argument from paradoxes of tragedy and horror.

2.3 Imagination, Imagery, and Perception

To have a (merely) mental image is to have a perception-like experience triggered by something other than the appropriate external stimulus; so, for example, one might have “a picture in the mind’s eye or … a tune running through one’s head” (Strawson 1970: 31) in the absence of any corresponding visual or auditory object or event (see the entry on mental imagery). While it is propositional imagination that gets compared to belief and desire, it is sensory or imagistic imagination that get compared to perception (Currie & Ravenscroft 2002). Although it is possible to form mental images in any of the sensory modalities, the bulk of discussion in both philosophical and psychological contexts has focused on visual imagery.

Broadly, there is agreement on the similarity between mental imagery and perception in phenomenology, which can be explicated as a similarity in content (Nanay 2016b; see, for example, Kind 2001; Nanay 2015; Noordhof 2002). Potential candidates for distinguishing mental imagery and perception include intensity (Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature; but see Kind 2017), voluntariness (McGinn 2004; Ichikawa 2009), causal relationship with the relevant object (Noordhof 2002); however, no consensus exists on features that clearly distinguish the two, in part because of ongoing debates about perception (see the entries on contents of perception and epistemological problems of perception).

What is the relationship between imaginings and mental imagery?

Historically, mental imagery is thought to be an essential component of imaginings. Aristotle’s phantasia, which is sometimes translated as imagination, is a faculty that produces images (De Anima; see entry on Aristotle’s conception of imagination; but see Caston 1996). René Descartes (Meditations on First Philosophy) and David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature) both thought that to imagine just is to hold a mental image, or an impression of perception, in one’s mind. However, George Berkeley’s puzzle of visualizing the unseen (Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous) arguably suggests the existence of a non-imagistic hypothetical attitude.

Against the historical orthodoxy, the contemporary tendency is to recognize that there is at least one species of imagination—propositional imagination—that does not require mental imagery. For example, Kendall Walton simply states, “imagining can occur without imagery” (1990: 13). In turn, against this contemporary tendency, Amy Kind (2001) argues that an image-based account can explain three crucial features of imagination—directedness, active nature, and phenomenological character—better than its imageless counterpart. As a partial reconciliation of the two, Peter Langland-Hassan (2015) develops a pluralist position on which there exists a variety of imaginative attitudes, including ones that can take on hybrid contents that are partly propositional and partly sensorily imagistic. (For a nuanced overview of this debate, see Gregory 2016: 103–106.)

Finally, the relationship between mental imagery and perception has potential implications for the connection between imagination and action. The orthodoxy on propositional belief-like imagination holds that imagination does not directly output to action-generation system; rather, the connection between the two is mediated by belief and desire. In contrast, the enactivist program in the philosophy of perception holds that perception can directly output to action-generation system (see, for example, Nanay 2013). Working from the starting point that imagistic imagination is similar to perception in its inclusion of mental imagery, some philosophers have argued for a similar direct connection between imagistic imagination and action-generation system (Langland-Hassan 2015; Nanay 2016a; Van Leeuwen 2011, 2016b). That is, there exist imagery-oriented actions that are analogous to perception-oriented actions. For example, Neil Van Leeuwen (2011) argues that an account of imagination that is imagistically-rich can better explain pretense behaviors than its propositional-imagination-only rivals. Furthermore, Robert Eamon Briscoe (2008, 2018) argues that representations that blend inputs from perception and mental imagery, which he calls “make-perceive”, guide many everyday actions. For example, a sculptor might use a blend of the visual perception of a stone and the mental imagery of different parts of the stone being subtracted to guide their physical manipulation of the stone.

2.4 Imagination and Memory

To remember, roughly, is to represent something that is no longer the case. On the standard taxonomy, there are three types of memory. Nondeclarative memory involves mental content that is not consciously accessible, such as one’s memory of how to ride a bike. Semantic declarative memory involves mental content that are propositional and not first-personal, such as one’s memory that Taipei is the capital of Taiwan. Episodic declarative memory involves mental content about one’s own past, such as one’s memory of the birth of one’s child. (See the entry on memory for a detailed discussion of this taxonomy, and especially the criterion of episodicity.) In situating imagination in cognitive architecture, philosophers have typically focused on similarities and differences between imagination and episodic declarative memory.

There are obvious similarities between imagination and memory: both typically involve imagery, both typically concern what is not presently the case, and both frequently involve perspectival representations. Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan: 2.3) claims that “imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse consideration has diverse names”. In making this bold statement, Hobbes represents an extreme version of continuism, a view on which imagination and memory refer to the same psychological mechanisms.

The orthodoxy on imagination and memory in the history of philosophy, however, is discontinuism, a view on which there are significant differences between imagination and memory, even if there are overlaps in their psychological mechanisms. Some philosophers find the distinction in internalist factors, such as the phenomenological difference between imagining and remembering. Most famously, David Hume sought to distinguish the two in terms of vivacity—“the ideas of the memory are much more lively and strong than those of the imagination” (Treatise of Human Nature: 1.3; but see Kind 2017). Others who have adopted a phenomenological criterion include René Descartes, Bertrand Russell, and William James (De Brigard 2017). Other philosophers find the distinction in externalist factors, such as the causal connection that exists between memories and the past that is absent with imagination. Aristotle uses the causal connection criterion to distinguish between imagination and memory (De Anima 451a2; 451a8–12; see De Brigard 2017). Indeed, nowadays the idea that a causal connection is essential to remembering is accepted as “philosophical common sense” (see the entry on memory; but see also De Brigard 2014 on memory traces). As such, it is unsurprising that discontinuism remains the orthodoxy. As J. O. Urmson (1967: 83) boldly claims, “One of these universally admitted distinctions is that between memory and imagination”.

In recent years, two sets of findings from cognitive science has given philosophers reasons to push back against discontinuism.

The first set of findings concern distortions and confabulations. The traditional conception of memory is that it functions as an archive: past experiences are encapsulated and stored in the archive, and remembering is just passively retrieving the encapsulated mental content from the archive (Robins 2016). Behavioral psychology has found numerous effects that challenge the empirical adequacy of the archival conception of memory. Perhaps the most well-known is the misinformation effect, which occurs when a subject incorporates inaccurate information into their memory of an event—even inaccurate information that they received after the event (Loftus 1979 [1996]).

The second set of findings concern the psychological underpinnings of “mental time travel”, or the similarities between remembering the past and imagining the future, which is also known as mental time travel (see Schacter et al. 2012 for a review). Using fMRI, neuroscientists have found a striking overlap in the brain activities for remembering the past and imagining the future, which suggest that the two psychological processes utilize the same neural network (see, for example, Addis et al. 2007; Buckner & Carroll 2007; Gilbert & Wilson 2007; Schacter et al. 2007; Suddendorf & Corballis 1997, 2007). The neuroscientific research is preceded by and corroborated by works from developmental psychology (Atance & O’Neill 2011) and on neurodivergent individuals: for example, the severely amnesic patient KC exhibits deficits with remembering the past and imagining the future (Tulving 1985), and also exhibits deficits with the generation of non-personal fictional narratives (Rosenbaum et al. 2009). Note that, despite the evocative contrast between “remembering the past” and “imagining the future”, it is questionable whether temporality is the central contrast. Indeed, some philosophers and psychologists contend that temporality is orthogonal to the comparison between imagination and memory (De Brigard & Gessell 2016; Schacter et al. 2012).

These two set of findings have given rise to an alternative conception that sees memory as essentially constructive, in which remembering is actively generating mental content that more or less represent the past. The constructive conception of memory is in a better position to explain why memories can contain distortions and confabulations (but see Robins 2016 for complications), and why remembering makes use of the same neural networks as imagining.

In turn, this constructive turn in the psychology and philosophy of memory has revived philosophers’ interest in continuism concerning imagination and memory. Kourken Michaelian (2016) explicitly rejects the causal connection criterion and defends a theory on which remembering, like imagining, centrally involves simulation. Karen Shanton and Alvin Goldman (2010) characterizes remembering as mindreading one’s past self. Felipe De Brigard (2014) characterizes remembering as a special instance of hypothetical thinking. Robert Hopkins (2018) characterizes remembering as a kind of imagining that is controlled by the past. However, the philosophical interpretation of empirical research remain contested; in dissent, Dorothea Debus (2014, 2016) considers the same sets of findings but ultimately concludes that remembering and imagining remain distinct mental kinds.

2.5 Imagination and Supposition

To suppose is to form a hypothetical mental representation. There exists a highly contentious debate on whether supposition is continuous with imagination, which is also a hypothetical attitude, or whether there are enough differences to make them discontinuous. There are two main options for distinguishing imagination and supposition, by phenomenology and by function.

The phenomenological distinction standardly turns on the notion of vivacity: whereas imaginings are vivid, suppositions are not. Indeed, one often finds in this literature the contrast between “merely supposing” and “vividly imagining”. Although vivacity has been frequently invoked in discussions of imagination, Amy Kind (2017) draws on empirical and theoretical considerations to argue that it is ultimately philosophically untenable. If that is correct, then the attempt to demarcate imagination and supposition by their vivacity is untenable too. More rarely, other phenomenological differences are invoked; for example, Brian Weatherson (2004) contends that “supposing can be coarse in a way that imagining cannot”.

ImaginationSuppositionAffectVariableAtypicalMonitoringTypicalTypicalInferenceTypicalTypicalUpdaterTypicalAtypicalDomain-Specific SystemsTypicalVariableScript ElaboratorVariableAtypicalInputter (punctuate)TypicalTypicalInputter (streaming)TypicalAtypical

Table 1. Architectural similarities and differences between imagination and supposition (Weinberg & Meskin 2006).

There have been diverse functional distinctions attributed to the discontinuity between imagination and supposition, but none has gained universal acceptance. Richard Moran (1994) contends that imagination tends to give rise to a wide range of further mental states, including affective responses, whereas supposition does not (see also Arcangeli 2014, 2017). Tamar Szabó Gendler (2000a) contends that while attempting to imagine something like that female infanticide is morally right seems to generate imaginative resistance, supposing it does not (see the discussion on imaginative resistance in Supplement on Puzzles and Paradoxes of Imagination and the Arts). Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft (2002) contend that supposition involves only cognitive imagination, but imagination involves both cognitive and conative imagination. Alvin Goldman contends that suppositional imagination involves supposing that particular content obtains (for example, supposing that I am elated) but enactment imagination involves “enacting, or trying to enact, elation itself.” (2006: 47–48, italics omitted). Tyler Doggett and Andy Egan (2007) contend that imagination tends to motivate pretense actions, but supposition tends not to. On Jonathan Weinberg and Aaron Meskin (2006)’s synthesis, while there are a few functional similarities, there are many more functional differences between imagination and supposition (Table 1).

There remain ongoing debates about specific alleged functional distinctions, and about whether the functional distinctions are numerous or fundamental enough to warrant discontinuism or not. Indeed, it remains contentious which philosophers count as continuists and which philosophers count as discontinuists (for a few sample taxonomies, see Arcangeli 2017; Balcerak Jackson 2016; Kind 2013).

3. Roles of Imagination

Much of the contemporary discussion of imagination has centered around particular roles that imagination is purported to play in various domains of human understanding and activity. Amongst the most widely-discussed are the role of imagination in understanding other minds (section 3.1), in performing and recognizing pretense (section 3.2), in characterizing psychopathology (section 3.3), in engaging with the arts (section 3.4), in thinking creatively (section 3.5), in acquiring knowledge about possibilities (section 3.6), and in interpreting figurative language (section 3.7).

The variety of roles ascribed to imagination, in turn, provides a guide for discussions on the nature of imagination (section 1) and its place in cognitive architecture (section 2).

3.1 Mindreading

Mindreading is the activity of attributing mental states to oneself and to others, and of predicting and explaining behavior on the basis of those attributions. Discussions of mindreading in the 1990s were often framed as debates between “theory theory”—which holds that the attribution of mental states to others is guided by the application of some (tacit) folk psychological theory—and “simulation theory”—which holds that the attribution of mental states is guided by a process of replicating or emulating the target’s (apparent) mental states, perhaps through mechanisms involving the imagination. (Influential collections of papers on this debate include Carruthers & Smith (eds.) 1996; Davies & Stone (eds.) 1995a, 1995b.) In recent years, proponents of both sides have increasingly converged on common ground, allowing that both theory and simulation play some role in the attribution of mental states to others (see Carruthers 2003; Goldman 2006; Nichols & Stich 2003). Many such hybrid accounts include a role for imagination.

On theory theory views, mindreading involves the application of some (tacit) folk psychological theory that allows the subject to make predictions and offer explanations of the target’s beliefs and behaviors. On pure versions of such accounts, imagination plays no special role in the attribution of mental states to others. (For an overview of theory theory, see entry on folk psychology as a theory).

On simulation theory views, mindreading involves simulating the target’s mental states so as to exploit similarities between the subject’s and target’s processing capacities. It is this simulation that allows the subject to make predictions and offer explanations of the target’s beliefs and behaviors. (For early papers, see Goldman 1989; Gordon 1986; Heal 1986; for recent dissent, see, for example, Carruthers 2009; Gallagher 2007; Saxe 2005, 2009; for an overview of simulation theory, see entry on folk psychology as mental simulation).

Traditional versions of simulation theory typically describe simulation using expressions such as “imaginatively putting oneself in the other’s place”. How this metaphor is understood depends on the specific account. (A collection of papers exploring various versions of simulation theory can be found in Dokic & Proust (eds.) 2002.) On many accounts, the projection is assumed to involve the subject’s imaginatively running mental processes “off-line” that are directly analogous to those being run “on-line” by the target (for example Goldman 1989). Whereas the “on-line” mental processes are genuine, the “off-line” mental processes are merely imagined. For example, a target that is deciding whether to eat sushi for lunch is running their decision-making processes “on-line”; and a subject that is simulating the target’s decision-making is running the analogous processes “off-line”—in part, by imagining the relevant mental states of the target. Recent empirical work in psychology has explored the accuracy of such projections (Markman, Klein, & Suhr (eds.) 2009, section V; Saxe 2005, 2006, 2009.)

Though classic simulationist accounts have tended to assume that the simulation process is at least in-principle accessible to consciousness, a number of recent simulation-style accounts appeal to neuroscientific evidence suggesting that at least some simulative processes take place completely unconsciously. On such accounts of mindreading, no special role is played by conscious imagination (see Goldman 2009; Saxe 2009.)

Many contemporary views of mindreading are hybrid theory views according to which both theorizing and simulation play a role in the understanding of others’ mental states. Alvin Goldman (2006), for example, argues that while mindreading is primarily the product of simulation, theorizing plays a role in certain cases as well. Many recent discussions have endorsed hybrid views of this sort, with more or less weight given to each of the components in particular cases (see Carruthers 2003; Nichols & Stich 2003.)

A number of philosophers have suggested that the mechanisms underlying subjects’ capacity to engage in mindreading are those that enable engagement in pretense behavior (Currie & Ravenscroft 2002; Goldman 2006; Nichols & Stich 2003; for an overview of recent discussions, see Carruthers 2009.) According to such accounts, engaging in pretense involves imaginatively taking up perspectives other than one’s own, and the ability to do so skillfully may rely on—and contribute to—one’s ability to understand those alternate perspectives (see the entry on empathy). Partly in light of these considerations, the relative lack of spontaneous pretense in children with autistic spectrum disorders is taken as evidence for a link between the skills of pretense and empathy.

3.2 Pretense

Pretending is an activity that occurs during diverse circumstances, such as when children make-believe, when criminals deceive, and when thespians act (Langland-Hassan 2014). Although “imagination” and “pretense” have been used interchangeably (Ryle 1949), in this section we will use “imagination” to refer to one’s state of mind, and “pretense” to refer to the one’s actions in the world.

Different theories of pretense disagree fundamentally about what it is to pretend (see Liao & Gendler 2011 for an overview). Consequently, they also disagree about the mental states that enable one to pretend. Metarepresentational theories hold that engaging in pretend play requires the innate mental-state concept pretend (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith 1985; Friedman 2013; Friedman & Leslie 2007; Leslie 1987, 1994). To pretend is to represent one’s own representations under the concept pretend. Behaviorist theories hold that engaging in pretend play requires a process of behaving-as-if (Harris 1994, 2000; Harris & Kavanaugh 1993; Jarrold et al. 1994; Lillard & Flavell 1992; Nichols & Stich 2003; Perner 1991; Rakoczy, Tomasello, & Striano 2004; Stich & Tarzia 2015). Different behaviorist theories explicate behaving-as-if in different ways, but all aim to provide an account of pretense without recourse to the innate mental-state concept pretend.

Philosophical and psychological theories have sought to explain both the performance of pretense and the recognition of pretense, especially concerning evidence from developmental psychology (see Lillard 2001 for an early overview). On the performance side, children on a standard developmental trajectory exhibit early indicators of pretend play around 15 months; engage in explicit prop-oriented play by 24 months; and engage in sophisticated joint pretend play with props by 36 months (Harris 2000; Perner, Baker, & Hutton 1994; Piaget 1945 [1951]). On the recognition side, children on a standard developmental trajectory distinguish pretense and reality via instinctual behavioral cues around 15–18 months; and start to do so via conventional behavioral cues from 36 months on (Friedman et al. 2010; Lillard & Witherington 2004; Onishi & Baillargeon 2005; Onishi, Baillargeon, & Leslie 2007; Richert and Lillard 2004).

Not surprisingly, the debate between theories of pretense often rest on interpretations of such empirical evidence. For example, Ori Friedman and Alan Leslie (2007) argue that behavioral theories cannot account for the fact that children as young as 15 months old can recognize pretend play and its normativity (Baillargeon, Scott, & He 2010). Specifically, they argue that behavioral theories do not offer straightforward explanations of this early development of pretense recognition, and incorrectly predicts that children systematically mistake other acts of behaving-as-if—such as those that stem from false beliefs—for pretense activities. In response, Stephen Stich and Joshua Tarzia (2015) has acknowledged these problems for earlier behaviorist theories, and developed a new behaviorist theory that purportedly explains the totality of empirical evidence better than metarepresentational rivals. Importantly, Stich and Tarzia argue that their account can better explain Angeline Lillard (1993)’s empirical finding that young children need not attribute a mental concept such as pretend to someone else in order to understand them as pretending.

The debate concerning theories of pretense has implications for the role of imagination in pretense. Behaviorist theories tend to take imagination as essential to explaining pretense performance; metarepresentational theories do not. (However, arguably the innate mental-state concept pretend posited by metarepresentational theories serve similar functions. See Nichols and Stich’s (2000) discussion of the decoupler mechanism, which explicitly draws from Leslie 1987. Currie and Ravenscroft (2002) give a broadly behaviorist theory of pretense that does not require imagination.) Specifically, on most behaviorist theories, imagination is essential for guiding elaborations of pretense episodes, especially via behaviors (Picciuto & Carruthers 2016; Stich & Tarzia 2015).

Most recently, Peter Langland-Hassan (2012, 2014) has developed a theory that aims to explain pretense behavior and pretense recognition without appeal to either metarepresentation or imagination. Langland-Hassan argues that pretense behaviors can be adequately explained by beliefs, desires, and intentions—including beliefs in counterfactuals; and that the difference between pretense and sincerity more generally can be adequately characterized in terms of a person’s beliefs, intentions, and desires. While Langland-Hassan does not deny that pretense is in some sense an imaginative activity, he argues that we do not need to posit a sui generis component of the mind to account for it.

3.3 Psychopathology

Autism and delusions have been—with much controversy—characterized as disorders of imagination. That is, the atypical patterns of cognition and behavior associated with each psychopathology have been argued to result from atypical functions of imagination.

Autism can be characterized in terms of a trio of atypicalities often referred to as “Wing’s triad”: problems in typical social competence, communication, and imagination (Happé 1994; Wing & Gould 1979). The imaginative aspect of autism interacts with other prominent roles of imagination, namely mindreading, pretense, and engagement with the arts (Carruthers 2009). Children with autism do not engage in spontaneous pretend play in the ways that typically-developing children do, engaging instead in repetitive and sometimes obsessional activities; and adults with autism often show little interest in fiction (Carpenter, Tomasello, & Striano 2005; Happé 1994; Rogers, Cook, & Meryl 2005; Wing & Gould 1979). The degree to which an imaginative deficit is implicated in autism remains a matter of considerable debate. Most radically, Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft (2002) have argued that, with respect to Wing’s triad, problems in typical social competence and communication are rooted in an inability to engage in imaginative activities.

Delusions can be characterized as belief-like mental representations that manifest an unusual degree of disconnectedness from reality (Bortolotti & Miyazono 2015). Particularly striking examples would include Capgras and Cotard delusions. In the former, the sufferer takes her friends and family to have been replaced by imposters; in the latter, the sufferer takes himself to be dead. More mundane examples might include ordinary cases of self-deception.

One approach to delusions characterize them as beliefs that are dysfunctional in their content or formation. (For a representative collection of papers that present and criticize this perspective, see Coltheart & Davies (eds.) 2000). However, another approach to delusions characterize them as dysfunctions of imaginings. Currie and Ravenscroft (2002: 170–175) argue that delusions are imaginings that are misidentified by the subject as the result of an inability to keep track of the sources of one’s thoughts. That is, a delusion is an imagined representation that is misidentified by the subject as a belief. Tamar Szabó Gendler (2007) argues that in cases of delusions and self-deceptions, imaginings come to play a role in one’s cognitive architecture similar to that typically played by beliefs. Andy Egan (2008a) likewise argues that the mental states involved in delusions are both belief-like (in their connection to behaviors and inferences) and imagination-like (in their circumscription); however, he argues that these functional similarities suggest the need to posit an in-between attitude called “bimagination”.

3.4 Engagement with the Arts

There is an entrenched historical connection between imagination and the arts. David Hume and Immanuel Kant both invoke imagination centrally in their exploration of aesthetic phenomena (albeit in radically different ways; see entries on Hume’s aesthetics and Kant’s aesthetics). R.G. Collingwood (1938) defines art as the imaginative expression of feeling (Wiltsher 2018; see entry on Collingwood’s aesthetics). Roger Scruton (1974) develops a Wittgensteinian account of imagination and accords it a central role in aesthetic experience and aesthetic judgment.

In contemporary philosophy, the most prominent theory of imagination’s role in engagement with the arts is presented in Kendall Walton’s Mimesis as Make-Believe (1990). (Although Walton uses “fictions” as a technical term to refer to artworks, his conception of the arts is broad enough to include both high-brow and low-brow; popular and obscure; a variety of specific arts such as poetry and videogames; and—as Stacie Friend (2008) clarifies—both fictive and non-fictive works.) Walton’s core insight is that engagement with the arts is fundamentally similar to children’s games of make-believe. When one engages with an artwork, one uses it as a prop in a make-believe game. As props, artworks generate prescriptions for imaginings. These prescriptions also determine the representational contents of artworks (that is, “fictionality”, or what is true in a fictional world). When one correctly engages with an artwork, then, one imagines the representational contents as prescribed.

Out of all the arts, it is the engagement with narratives that philosophers have explored most closely in conjunction with imagination (see Stock 2013 for an overview). Gregory Currie (1990) offers an influential account of imagination and fiction, and Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen (1996) discuss literature specifically. Indeed, this research program—despite many criticisms of Walton’s specific theory—remains lively today (see, for example, papers in Nichols (ed.) 2006b). For example, Kathleen Stock (2017) argues that a specific kind of propositional imagination is essential for engagement with fictions. In dissent, Derek Matravers (2014) argues that, contra Walton, imagination is not essential for engagement with fictions.

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brush-haus-blog · 6 years ago

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Essay planning - reflective report

Within this reflective report, I will be discussing the research that I have conducted so far for the essay assigned within this module. The assignment is to write an essay in which we have chosen two of the methodologies talked about in our lectures and apply readings to two different art works to add context to the pieces. Moreover, this reflective report is also to allow me to reflect upon my previous work and how I can use my knowledge of writing them to aid me in writing my future assignments. If I am not able to look back at previous work and the feedback I received from it, then I am unable to improve my work much further.

In the first semester of my second year, I found it somewhat hard to adapt to the Art and Representation module, as the contents of the lecture was not just information about artists or about art movements. The content was largely to do with theories behind art history and historians that had thought that way, which I felt challenging to comprehend. I have never really done much research into philosophy and similar areas, therefore the concepts were foreign to me. However, with help from our lecturer and the discussions that we had with my course mates helped greatly, and allowed me to begin to understand how methodologies have a place in art history. Yet, whilst writing the essay for that module, which was a 2500 word essay on a contemporary artist, I still found it difficult to add deeper criticism to my work. This could be seen in my feedback, where my lecturer described my work as good, but it lacked deeper thought, and I included too much description of the artist and his work. I still got a high 2:1 for this essay, and believe that with some extra thought and planning, that I can get a 1st for this next essay. Because of this, for my next essay in this module, I am going to try to keep my descriptions of the artists and their work to a small minimum, and only include the necessary details. I am aiming to focus on describing the methodologies to ensure that I am understand them, before applying them to the work of the artists that I will be discussing.

My aim for this module is to continue having good attendance to the lectures, so I can fully understand all of the topics that we are covering. By doing this, I can then choose which methods and topics I want to use within my essay without worrying about not understanding them. I appreciate that our lectures have been quite in depth so far, and haven’t just covered a basic understanding of the topics. For example, I didn’t truly understand the overall concept of post-colonialism and the importance of the methodology, yet through the lecture I began to grasp the theory better than I had before. Furthermore, by reading the articles and books set for the lectures, this has helped me to understand the origins of the methodologies and how they have been applied in the context of art history. One example of this is the reading that we had for the biographical lecture, being the book Legend, myth, and magic in the image of the artist: a historical experiment by Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz. By reading the chapter The heroization of the artist in biography (chapter 2), this helped me to understand why this method was so important to art historians. That looking back at an artist’s history and life could gain insight into why they created the works that they did. This reading helped me to begin thinking of all the different artists and works of art that I could use for my essay; however, I had not begun to realise a solid idea at this time. My plan was to think of as many ideas as possible, to brainstorm them until I found the right one for me. Through the lectures on Thursday mornings, my knowledge of artists, old and new, expanded thoroughly. Artists such as Gillian Wearing, Zanele Muholi, Pierre Molinier and Nan Goldin all interested me for different reasons, yet I couldn’t think of a good argument as to why pair two of these artists and then couple them with two different methodologies. I wanted to use two artists/artworks that were different from each other, yet still had enough similarities to compare from, so my essay didn’t seem as if I was just trying to grasp at straws for connections between them. If this were the case, the essay would end up being messy with little structure, whereas I would want it to flow easily and connect well. Being intrigued by Pierre Molinier’s work and thinking that I could link his work well to the feminist and LGBT+ methodologies, I began to research him and his work, however I couldn’t find much written about him academically. Whilst within my essay I would be largely discussing the methodologies, it would still be fruitful to have a plentiful knowledge on the artist and his works, and plenty of research to accompany it, such as journal articles and books. I decided against using Pierre Molinier’s work and continued looking at artists to make connections between. Initially, I wanted to use the methodology of psychoanalysis, as from completing an A level on the subject, I have been interested in psychology ever since. However, I have previously done essays and presentations using this methodology and thought not to use it again. Whilst I am able to do so, I wanted to push myself too, and not just do the same methodology or type of theory for every assignment. I see my university assignments as chances to explore different fields of work and research, and to prove that I can effectively write about many different topics. The only issue was, finding something I was interested in in different areas. During the lecture on feminism we received, a new field of work had been opened up to me. I typically tended to stay away from feminism as a subject to write about. Whilst in my day to day life, feminism and the happenings around it are very important to me, I feel as if the subject is already written about a lot. Whilst this doesn’t stop me from including my own opinions, I thought I would find it hard to find a subject to talk about that would still stand out and not be overshadowed by already published work, or the work of my peers. However, I was introduced to the work of Mickalene Thomas, who is a contemporary African-American artist. Her work, consisting of paintings and collages, typically examines the ideas surrounding feminism, race, sexuality and gender. After seeing her work, Sleep: Deux Femmes Noires, I felt the need to use this piece in my work. Not only, aesthetically, was the work different to most I have seen, that being that it is a collage and not a painting, but it also tackled the issues of black feminism, but also black lesbian women. I felt like this would be a perfect opportunity to talk about feminism and LGBT+ within my work and it still be relevant and fresh.

I began to think of many different artists, and how their work would be able to compare to Mickalene Thomas’s. Instead of only thinking about artists that had been discussed in the lecture PowerPoints thus far, I thought to any I knew previously to see if they could fit the feminist LGBT+ narrative I wanted to tell. I then remembered the artist David Hockney, an English artist who’s works often commented on homosexual relationships that reflected his own. Whilst he would easily fit the LGBT+ section of my essay, I didn’t initially know how any of his work would link into a feminist perspective. Personally, my favourite work of his is the painting titled

Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool

, largely due to the aesthetic nature of the work. However, I then realised I could use this as a gateway to talk about male feminism. My reasoning would be that throughout history, particularly in older paintings, that men are depicted as muscular and strong with little emotion showing. Yet in this painting, the figure of Peter has feminine curves and is posed in a somewhat flirtatious way, contrasting the typical stance of men in history. I feel like this is a good topic to discuss, as usually feminism is only about women, and sometimes about non-binary people. Whilst those topics are valid and still need to be discussed, encouraging men to be open and not typically masculine is just as important. Including feminism focused on men will also allow my essay to be different and more unique, which is what I like to keep consistent throughout my work.

With a solid idea in place, I began to research the artists and the methodologies to be used. In the past I have found it hard to locate academic sources, and therefore with this essay I am going to look for more substantial sources. I began my search using the university’s library, looking for books and articles on the artists and the methodologies. From this, I found a good few sources, such as

Mickalene Thomas

(D.Murray), an article about the artist and her work. By using sources about the artists and artworks I am using, I can write a more solid point about how they relate to the methodologies I have chosen.

I have also noticed that I work better when I print off a hard-copy and go through it, rather than just reading them online. This is because when I go through the hard-copy, I can use a highlighter to pick out important points to return to later, and even make notes on the paper next to certain areas. It also helps me to colour code the readings for the lectures, as well as the readings I am doing for my essay, as it helps to separate the points made in the papers.

For the rest of this essay, I am going to continue researching different areas for my essay, such as the feminist and LGBT+ methodologies I am going to use. This may also mean researching different methodologies like social history and biographical theories. This is because feminist and LGBT+ theories come under the umbrella term of social history and biographical. Therefore, I must have a good understanding of these methodologies before attempting to write an essay including them.

So far, I have been using the universities library, both using physical books and also articles and journals. I have also been using Jstor, which is a website database that holds many journal articles that, with a little more time spent on, I could locate many sources that I could use within my essay.

Within this report, I have identified the goal for my essay and the plan I have for it, such as the methodologies to be used and which artists/artworks I have chosen to incorporate. I have also picked out the areas in which I have to improve on in my essay in comparison to my previous essays. Therefore, I believe I have a good plan for my essay and should be successful in writing it

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nicoleignn · 6 years ago

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GLOSSARY OF TERMS

ABY WARBURG

Abraham Moritz Warburg, known as Aby Warburg (June 13, 1866 – October 26, 1929), was a German art historian and cultural theorist who founded a private Library for Cultural Studies, the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg, which was later moved to the Warburg Institute, London. At the heart of his research was the legacy of the Classical World, and the transmission of classical representation, in the most varied areas of western culture through to the Renaissance.

Warburg most well-known project was ‘Mnemosyne Atlas’, which has long remained a legend, even after its publication in 1993. From 1924-1929, Warburg concentrated his entire knowledge in this collection of images, which ultimately spanned 63 panels and encompassed almost a thousand individual pieces. He mostly used photographs and included illustrations from books, picture files, original graphics and newspaper clippings. The Warburg Institute’ is one of the world’s leading centres for studying the interaction of ideas, images and society. It is dedicated to the survival and transmission of culture across time and space, with a special emphasis on the afterlife of antiquity. It was founded at the end of the 19th Century.

Warburg became very active in Hamburg’s cultural life and expanded his collection of books. In a lecture on Dürer and antiquity, he coined the term “Pathosformel” [pathos formula]; soon he was speaking of “Bilderfahrzeuge” [image vehicles] as well, those portable carriers, such as carpets, prints, and oil paintings, that made images mobile and dominated international communication along the “Wanderstrassen der Kultur” [pathways of culture], another of his coinages. He discovered the writings of Franz Boll, which opened up the field of astrology to him and drew his attention to the long distances by which the knowledge of antiquity had passed through the Arab world before returning to the European cultural sphere. Building on this foundation, Warburg was able, in 1912, to solve the riddle of the frescoes at the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, Italy. No one before him had realized that they must have been painted according to a detailed plan including descriptions of all the characters: the gods and heroes of Greek mythology, retranslated from Arabic sources.

AUTHORSHIP

What makes the art of an artist really his/hers? Nowadays it seems like everything has already been invented. There are no original, new inventions because even the smallest part of the product is made out of something already existing. Every new song has a riff that was years ago already recorded; every upcoming movie has at least one scene that, in the best case, resembles some classic one; and every art piece is a variation of a work by a known or unknown artist somewhere in the world. Knowing all this, how can we claim authorship over anything? Still, thinking this way is quite radical. It would mean that no one actually owns anything and the whole perspective on history would be changed. However, this certainly raises some interesting questions. In the art world, some of the today’s most famous and renewed artists have based their artwork on remaking existing art and went through numerous lawsuits with the authors of the pieces. If we accepted the previous premise, it would mean that every single person in the world is a plagiarist of sorts. Even though we all know that it’s not that simple, it brings us to another, similar problem – when does art turn into forgery?

BRUTALISM

It is a French term that translates as ‘raw art’. This word was invented by artist, Jean Dubuffet to describe art such as graffiti or naive art which is made outside the academic tradition of fine art. This can therefore be seen as lowbrow. Brutalism within web design is intended to make an impression on a user by breaking rules on functionality and aesthetics. It is now a trend that is becoming more popular which is majority aimed towards the younger audience . Some of the biggest companies in the world are on board with these trends and are making it a success. Brutalist Websites- In its ruggedness and lack of concern to look comfortable or easy, Brutalism can be seen as a reaction by a younger generation to the lightness, optimism, and frivolity of today's web design. Brutalist architecture flourished from 1951 to 1975, having descended from the modernist architectural movement of the early 20th century.[1] Considered both an ethic and aesthetic, utilitarian designs are dictated by function over form with raw construction materials and mundane functions left exposed. Reinforced concrete is the most commonly recognized building material of Brutalist architecture but other materials such as brick, glass, steel, and rough-hewn stone may also be used.

FORENSIC ARCHITECTURE

Forensic Architecture is a multidisciplinary research group based at the University of London that uses architectural techniques and technologies to investigate cases of state violence and violations of human rights around the world. The group is led by architect Eyal Weizman.

The agency develops new evidentiary techniques and undertakes advanced architectural and media research with and on behalf of communities affected by state violence, and routinely works in partnership with international prosecutors, human rights organisations and political and environmental justice groups.

The agency is an interdisciplinary team of investigators including architects, scholars, artists, filmmakers, software developers, investigative journalists, archaeologists, lawyers, and scientists. It undertakes investigations in human rights violations by states or corporations, on behalf of civil society groups.

The group uses advanced architectural and media techniques to investigate armed conflicts and environmental destruction, as well as to cross-reference a variety of evidence sources, such as new media, remote sensing, material analysis, and witness testimony.

Forensic architecture is also an academic field and an emergent field of practice developed at the Centre for Research Architecture, at Goldsmiths, University of London. It refers to the production and presentation of architectural evidence, relating to buildings and urban environments and their media representations.

NOAM TORAN

Noam Toran’s work involves the creation of intricate narratives developed as a means to disrupt hegemonic historiographies. Drawing from marginalized or neglected histories, Toran reflects upon the interrelations of memory, erasure, mythology, identity, and the essential force of storytelling as embodied in archives, film, literature, and performance. The work is materialized through dramatizations that take the form of installations, educational models, films, performances and scripts.

ONKAR KULAR

Onkar Kular’s work investigates how contemporary design practice, its processes, methodologies and outputs, can be used as a medium to engage with and question the understanding of cultural and popular issues.

TORAN AND KULAR COLLAB

Their first projects together were meticulous exercises in film taxonomy, such as the dark catalogues of explosion and demolition clips in Violence and Destruction. Through this work, the pair became interest in the cinematic object – the prop as protagonist.

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sylleboi · 5 years ago

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𝖂𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖉𝖔𝖊𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖓 𝖒𝖊𝖆𝖓?

A growing glossary for my confused brain, all being alphabetical.

Allegorical: Allegory is often used in art as a way to convey and symbolize a deeper moral or spiritual meaning such as; death, life, jealousy, hatred, etc.

Angular: This refers to some kind of shape, object or an outline having sharp angles and corners.

Animation: A series of linked images placed in a sequence to create the illusion of movement and life

Clean up: This is part of the overall process of animating. It is especially often used in hand drawn/analogue/traditional animation. In this workflow, the first (conceptual) drawings are called roughs, referring to how they are very loose and rough at this stage. Professionally speaking, when the director has approved of these roughs, this is when clean versions of these are created. This process is called clean up. The term of clean up can also be referred to as, for example, when you have done frames in ink and some of it may smudge in the process, you can scan in the frames and proceed by cleaning up the frames digitally.

Denouement: Denouement (resolution) is a fancy way of saying that the story is about to come to an end. At this point, all questions are resolved and answered; letting the reader.

Exposition: This is where the characters of the story gets introduces alongside the story and plot itself. This is often the most difficult part to set up successfully, simply because you need to capture the readers/viewers/target audiences’ attention and have then clued in on what’s going on in the story, but this has to be done without completely spoiling the rest of the story. It is important to not mistake exposition and an info dump.

Frame by Frame: An animation will only work if key positions are lined up together. There has to be a start and a finish for it to be a successful frame by frame animation.

Inanimate: Doesn’t move or have any life to it. Lack of consciousness and power or motion. Not endowed with life and spirit. Some example being; bricks; it comes alive if you throw it. inanimate things come to life.

Incongruent:

Juxtaposition: This is when you bring together two opposite things that may not naturally go together, go together; creating contrast.

Linework/Keyline: Linework can simply be put as a specific technique of drawing lines when talking about art. There are countless ways in which you can interpret linework, some of them being; bold, fine, scattered, clean, sharp, fluid, altering thickness etc. - When talking about keyline, it can relate to linework as the planning part of linework. To give an example of this, it could be that you outline the image or shape of something, planning where the linework has be be placed; keyline.

Looping: Looping is where you have a sequence of frames that repeats infinitely. The first frame is the same as the last frame. It’s like an endless cycle. It’s a labour-saving technique for animation repetitive motions; walking, a breeze in the trees or running.

Model Sheet: When talking about model sheets (also known as character board, character study or character sheet) it is mostly understood as a visual representation of a character to understand the poses, gestures and even the personality in animation, comics and video games.

Mutated:

Narrative: This can be explained as the plot of a story. It most often includes characters and a setting as well as a person or narrator from whose point of view the story is told. It is generally speaking a spoken or written (to later be illustrated/animated to convey this story) collection of connected events. It’s how a story is told. Who? It is told to an audience. The beginning, the scenario is set up. Why is a narrative different from a story? The story is a subjective opinion about what’s happening, whereas the narrative is more of an objectified version of that. Jack walks up the hill; story, Jack has mental problems, narrative.

Narrative theory: Exposition -> Rising action -> Climax -> Falling action -> Denouement

Neolithic: Neo means “new”, Lithic meaning “stone”- New-Stone (stone age/new stone age; creating something new from old stone)

Objective:

Primary research: Interviews, looking and studying imagery, galleries, museums, exhibitions

Primitive Art: The term “Primitive Art” is a rather vague (and unavoidably ethnocentric) description which refers to the cultural artefacts of “primitive” peoples - that is, those ethnic groups deemed to have a relatively low standard of technological development by Western standards.

*This term is usually not associated with developed societies but can almost definitely be found in most cultures.

Rising action: This is the moment where the plot and narrative starts picking up. Rising action is usually encouraged by a key trigger, which is what tells the reader that “now things will start to take form.” This key trigger is what rolls the dice, that then causes a series of events to escalate to then set the story into motion.

Rotoscoping: It is one of the most simple and accessible ways of animating regardless of level of skill, aimed to create realistic sequenced movement. It is one of the simplest forms of animation and is also used universally. Rotoscoping is an animation technique that animators use to trace over filmed footage, frame by frame, to produce a realistic sequence of action and movement.

Secondary research: Book, documentaries, the internet, presentations, articles

Sequence: A sequence is a collection of something that is related to each other, put into to a specific order to create motion, storytelling, feel, spark thoughts etc. It is used in animation, related to Frame by Frame.

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dippedanddripped · 8 years ago

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Smithyland — that is, the global headquarters of the Paul Smith fashion brand — is housed in a handsome, red brick warehouse on the edge of the long-gone fruit and veg market in Covent Garden. From the exterior and the smart but unshowy waiting room there is little indication of the building's eccentric owner: not his distinctive cursive signature; nor the thin, bright stripe pattern he created that became so popular he had to kill it off. Not even a rabbit, an animal that, in various forms, has been a lucky charm for much of his career and which must be doing a job because the 70-year-old Smith has clung on at the top, or near it, of a notoriously greasy pole for the best part of five decades.

The absence of branding on the building could be taken as a reflection of its egoless, don't-call-me-Sir-Paul proprietor. But, in truth, you wouldn't have to be much of a detective to work out that this is Smith's place. Behind the reception desk, there's a cabinet full of tell-tale curios: an Eddy Merckx poster, mini-robots, David Bowie memorabilia. Climb the four flights of stairs to his office — the lift, as usual, is broken — and you pass hundreds of framed photographs, many of which were taken by him or have a personal resonance. Then, slightly puffing, you are in front of the man himself: you might need a few seconds to catch your breath, but that's OK, because Smith starts talking and pretty well doesn't stop.

"Tea, coffee?" he asks, leading you into his office, the Nottingham earthiness in his voice gone nowhere. "Bacon, eggs, beans?"

I'm not the first visitor or journalist to have a pop at describing Smith's mancave and I'm already resigned to not quite doing it justice. There are wobbling high-rise towers of books everywhere, so many that Smith has found that the only way to keep track is to operate a micro lending library. On walls and in piles, there are artworks, many of them very valuable: a Le Corbusier painting, an Yves Saint Laurent sketch, a Cecil Beaton photograph. Bicycles are piled up, as if dumped by students late for their 9am lecture, except these machines used to belong to Bradley Wiggins, Mark Cavendish and Chris Froome. "A little girl was in here the other day and she counted 20 bikes," says Smith, wafting a hand. "But then I think she might only have been able to count to 20."

Best of all, though, is the exotic junk that Smith hoards and curates like no one else on the planet. One example: for over 30 years an anonymous fan — he doesn't even know if it's a he or a she, only that the postmark is from the United States — has been sending him odd keepsakes. They arrive unwrapped, with the stamps stuck directly on to the object, which might be a snowboard, a fluffy chicken, a ladder, a seven-foot sunflower. A recent gift that arrived was a female torso, which — important detail this — was made from bright pink plastic.

"The postman wasn't quite sure where to hold it," Smith chuckles. "And the receptionist just said, 'Oh, for Paul, right?' It's become like a performance art and it's an absolute delight in today's greedy, homogenised, corporate world. There's no demand: I love you; I hate you; I want money. Nothing. It's just a thing that somebody does."

Smith has gone serious, at least for a moment. We are meeting at the tail-end of the year, one of those murky December days when it feels like the sun has pulled a sickie and stayed home. And 2016 has been a challenging year for Paul Smith, both the man and the brand.

"Yes, it's been quite troublesome," he admits. "Obviously we have had Brexit, we've had Trump, we've had the referendum in Italy, we've had terrorism. Places like France, 30 per cent less people are going to Paris so that's a very practical problem. The worldwide recession has never really gone away. It is just that people have been in quite a lot of denial. So for us, we've got a stable-but-flat business, which is better than a lot of others out there that are not stable and not flat. And they are having to cut down staff or close shops. Luckily, we're not cutting down on staff or shops at the moment."

In this climate, the Willy Wonka-esque Smithyland — which he describes as "child-like" but resolutely not "childish" — has become something of a sanctuary from a cruel world. "We just had some people here for a sandwich at lunchtime and they were saying" — Smith exhales — "'Oh thank goodness for this office and thank goodness for this conversation because it's just so light-hearted. And so refreshing.' I had my business when there was the coal miners' strike in the Eighties and the three-day week, when you had to have a generator for the rest of the week. And I managed to always do well through these things. So, we're not going anywhere incidentally, we're very solid, it's just you're witnessing a time which is different to what you've witnessed before."

It's a grim picture, but Smith, an inveterate entertainer, never allows the mood to sink for too long. "I get to work every morning at 6am and I have this wonderful relationship with the cleaners," he says. "It's a bit of a skill cleaning in here: she puts the vacuum cleaner on blow, which you can do, you turn it the wrong way round. So she goes, 'Pffffffff!' Then she turns it to suck and collects all the dust in the air."

A lean, handsome man, Smith is the best advertisement for his own clothes: today, a denim shirt with pearl buttons and indigo chinos. Suddenly, he springs to his feet, with the zeal of a lepidopterist chasing a rare species with a net. "So she goes 'Pffffffff!' And then 'Ckckckckk!'" It's a very funny little skit, as he leaps around the room trying to tame the nozzle of an imaginary vacuum: who knew Paul Smith, knight of the realm, was such a clown? "And it works!"

Even if you only have a passing interest in fashion, the story of Paul Smith is a fascinating, and perhaps unrepeatable, business case study. How did a one-man brand turn into a global mega-empire with a turnover, in 2015, of £192m? How did someone who started in a windowless broom cupboard in Nottingham grow that into 39 directly owned shops, 180 franchises in 60-odd countries and a scarcely credible, looks-like-a-typo 250 stores in Japan? And all of this has been achieved with cursory tailoring experience, dyslexia and while still retaining a majority stake — a rarity in the industry these days — in the company that bears his name.

Smith opened his first store, the grand-sounding Paul Smith Vêtement Pour Homme, in 1970 in his hometown, when he was 23. It didn't feature his own designs yet, but it already had some elements, in miniature, that would later become his trademarks. While most retailers aim for a fixed sales return per square foot, Smith's boutiques have always been more focused on creating a "special feeling". In its original incarnation, this meant offering records and magazines alongside the clothes. The ambition has since increased significantly: at No 9 Albemarle Street in Mayfair, his flagship store, there's a room with 26,000 dominoes covering the walls, mainly to stimulate conversation between staff and customers.

"The owners of both Colette in Paris and 10 Corso Como in Milan have both independently said that our way of running a shop was the influence for their shops, which was having not just clothes," says Smith. "So I suppose, without realising it, I was the absolute pioneer of all that, really."

Smith started making his own clothes in the mid-Seventies. Aged 21, he'd met a girl from London, Pauline Denyer, a Royal College of Art fashion graduate five years his senior. She taught him sewing and pattern cutting on the long pine table in their flat, and he supplemented these lessons with night-school classes from a man who happened to specialise in military tailoring and ceremonial dress. These two approaches fused Smith into an approach often called "classic with a twist", though I prefer Smith's description: "no-bullshit clothing". Along with Giorgio Armani, he led the trend to relax the lines of the suit in the Eighties, and he is also credited with re-popularising boxer shorts.

Like many readers, I'd guess, Paul Smith has been part of my wardrobe for all my adult life. It started with the little things I could afford, mainly boxers, and hand-me-downs from my older brother. Latterly, Smith's clothes have proved timeless and near-indestructible, better-made than makes any commercial sense. I have a red and black checked shirt by him that must be the oldest, most-worn item in my wardrobe. It's not crazy-exciting to look at, but it has horn buttons and subtle contrast cuffs. Smith seems to know intuitively that while most men don't necessarily want others to comment on what they're wearing, that doesn't mean it should be boring. Or that it shouldn't feature details that only they know about.

When Smith met Pauline, she already had two young children, and together they had two Afghan hounds and a pair of long-haired cats. (Smith jokes that he and his pets were hard to tell apart: flowing locks, big schnozzes.) That sounds like a lot of responsibility for someone who left school at 15 with no qualifications, I suggest.

"Well, I did anything that came along to earn money, which I think has given me the skill of doing lots of things," he replies. "I was a racing cyclist from the age of 12 to 18 and you learn that you do have a competitive spirit and you learn about teamwork, which has helped me enormously having 180 people in this building. I don't think I'm really competitive but I do have a survival instinct, which is, 'Well, we'll just work it out then.'"

In a tough time, this resilience has been called on again. "Paris has got a lot less people, so let's try and sell to more of them online, which is what we've done," says Smith. "It makes you dig deep. In cycling, they always say you dig deep when you're feeling tired and during the 2008 recession and things like that, you think, 'That's not doing so well, so let's try…' Then we opened three shops in India, for instance. So you just sort of work it out somehow."

On the runway with the Paul Smith models during Paris Fashion Week menswear SS '17 collections,.

For a man who turned 70 last May, Smith is certainly not resistant to change. His collections have always been known for their almost-ADHD variety of ideas: perhaps 1,600 items in a season, produced in small runs, whereas other designers might typically design, say, 600, but in much bigger quantities. The goal, he always said, was that his customer should never go into a pub and see someone wearing the same shirt. But in December 2015, Smith announced that he would be streamlining his business — in line with similar initiatives from Burberry and Marc Jacobs — from 12 offerings to two: Paul Smith and the more affordable PS by Paul Smith; Paul Smith London and Paul Smith Jeans were among the lines either trimmed or incorporated. The move came following results that showed the group turnover was down by 8.4 per cent, though e-commerce revenues were up 12 per cent.

No one is about to call Smith cut-throat, but he is clearly capable, when needs be, of taking hard decisions to secure the future of the business. I remind him of an old quote from his wife Pauline that hints at a steely quality to the jovial, avuncular designer. "We have always described our projects as 'keeping plates spinning'," she said in 1995. "Has Paul ever dropped a spinning plate? No. But he has, on rare occasions, disposed of one, usually due to mistrust. Then the side of Paul that people rarely see is exposed."

Smith laughs, "Ho-ho, that's very good. I didn't know she'd said that."

Does he have a temper? "No, not at all," he replies. "I don't think I've ever lost my temper, probably twice in my life, it's very unusual. Pauline and I never argue at all and we've been together since 1967."

The famous Paul Smith stripe is an example of his pragmatism. It was never meant to be a recurring feature on his clothing and accessories. In fact, Smith was always wary of such things: he doesn't do T-shirts with his name written on them ("I've always worked hard at no-brand," he says). But the stripe sold so well he had to bring it back the next season and then the next and then the next. Before he knew it, it was ubiquitous on boxer shorts, wallets, even his carrier bags. So, about three years ago, he dropped the stripe entirely from his designs.

"It cost millions of quid to do that," Smith concedes. "But we had to be brave. Isn't there that funny expression where you have to go backwards to go forwards? Something like that. Over the years some of the decisions I've made have been not that wise and probably some of the staff would think, 'Oh gosh, I wish he'd not done that.' I'm not autocratic and I do try to get opinions, but at some point you have to make a decision, because you can't keep beating around the bush. You have to say, 'We're stopping that for the time being. And let's think about it.'"

The stripe, modestly redesigned with a nod to expressionist artists such as Frank Auerbach, has now returned and appears sparingly on a handful of items in the current collections. "We've taken a breath and we're slowly introducing it again," says Smith. "If you have something that is too popular, you find eventually the young person comes up who is searching for their own identity and doesn't want something that was worn by the guy who reads the sports news or by their older brother or their dad.

"In your life, you must probably have 20 bands, 20 restaurants, 20 fashion labels that were important when you were 18 and either don't exist or they're less important now," he goes on. "We'll all experience how fickle it can be. So, by just keeping your head and keeping very solid, that's why, luckily, we're doing OK."

A week after our first meeting, I return to Smithyland to meet Smith at the end of the work day. Most evenings, he drives his Mini Cooper from Covent Garden to his home in Notting Hill, stopping in at No 9 Albemarle Street to check in on business and show his face. Tonight, I'm coming along for the ride. He bounds down the stairs at his HQ, pauses (for reasons best known to himself) to lie down and stretch out his six-foot-plus frame on the reception counter and then we're out, like Bruce Wayne becoming Batman, through a back door and onto the road.

At a time when bricks-and-mortar stores are being overtaken by online sales, Smith's decision to expand No 9 Albemarle Street, an opulent refit completed in September 2013, might seem like an odd one. Why did he do it? "I adore shops, I'm a merchant," says Smith. "I like people."

We whizz along narrow streets, parallel to the Strand. "This is a little rat run," Smith commentates. "Of course, when I did 'The Knowledge'… I was a taxi driver for 25 years — but only at the weekend!" He laughs and toots his horn at no one in particular.

Smith is sincere in his affection for shops. There can't be many big-name designers who pace the floors of their own establishment, but he can be found most Saturdays at No 9 Albemarle Street for at least a couple of hours. "You respect the people who pay your wages," he explains. "So many designers build up a reputation and then surround themselves with subservience in their ivory towers, with their chauffeur-driven cars. And they have a great success for eight years or something and sadly start to go into decline. So by going out there, a) I love it and it's nice to meet your customers. And b) you learn as well: 'Why don't you do big-fitting suits?' Or, 'Why don't you do long-fitting?'"

He spots a parking space and swings the Mini in. "Neither of those things are true incidentally," Smith says.

A true destination experience, No 9 Albemarle Street channels the spirit, if not the chaotic mess, of Smith's office. Clothes are perched on a slab of 250-year-old burr oak from Devon; shoppers gawp at a set of resin- cast fingers attached to a battery made by the mechanical sculptor Nik Ramage. There's a one-off bicycle from Mercian in Derby that has been sprayed in multicolours and is priced at five grand, a figure, Smith admits, set because part of him hopes no one will buy it and he will be allowed to keep it.

Striding into a Paul Smith shop with Smith himself is a surreal experience. He must be confident in the quality of his products, I say, because otherwise he'd endlessly have customers coming up to him to complain. "You'd get a black eye!" he replies. "But people will say they bought shoes 20 years ago and they are still wearing them. They are too well made!" Smith might not consider himself a celebrity, but the double-takes from Japanese tourists are especially pronounced. He has visited Japan more than 100 times since 1982 and the country accounts for nearly half of his company's sales.

"People always ask why I'm so popular in Japan and I always cite the rubber chicken," says Smith. "When I first went I was on my own and it was 18 hours via Anchorage, economy class. You'd go for two weeks and you'd get really tired and hardly anyone spoke English. So you'd be in a meeting and sometimes, if the timing was right, I'd just go into my bag and go, 'Bleurgh!' and pull out a rubber chicken. They'd go, 'Whooor!' Then of course, the next time they'd want to know where it was. It was one of those things where it just breaks the ice, makes people relax and makes people realise you've got a sense of humour. And they could never knock it because I was always so correct.

"I'm the king of bad jokes," he goes on. "I'm very polite, very well mannered, very correct, but odd and unfunny and sort of cheeky; sometimes a bit theatrical. I remember sitting down for a breakfast or something at Downing Street and I had Jony Ive from Apple next to me, and he said, under his breath, 'Paul, no mucking about, right?'" Smith laughs, "Because he knew that I'd probably get a napkin and pretend to sneeze or something. Do something funny."

It's almost 6pm and a day that began, as it always does, with a swim at the Royal Automobile Club at 5.15am is starting to wind up. These are long hours — for anyone, let alone a septuagenarian — but Smith wouldn't have it any other way. And, even though these are complex, challenging times for his business, and for all companies in the fashion industry, one suspects that he will be able to pull a rubber chicken or two out of his bag when he most needs to. You wish him well, too: in these often bleak times, it is heartening to know there are still people who take the business of whimsy and silliness very seriously.

"I do put the hours in," he says. "There was a guy I liked on television years ago and somebody said, 'How well you've done with your career.' And he replied, 'I admired this chap once and I thought, I can't be better than him but I can work longer hours than him.'" Smith guffaws and heads for home and a quiet night in with "the missus". "So I thought, 'I'll try that!' Just work longer and harder than everyone else. Get more hours in and see if that works."

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