Project 3. DiversityAdaptability, Taboos and

Dependency

DescriptionExcessive simplicity can result in boredom.

Human brains have been known to defend against this state by conjuring hallucinations. Like brains, functional ecosystems thrive on diversity. Biodiversity entails many species interacting in multiple and complex ways.

How can you, as an artist, engage with the issue of diversity, it’s role in your life, or your world, in your artwork?

Requirement• Create a poster that addresses the idea of

Diversity through choosing from one idea: Adaptability, Taboos and Dependency.

• Visual Method: Create a poster ( 11"x14", CMYK, 300dpi ) Using a digital camera, adjust images in Photoshop and import into Adobe Illustrator. Using images and text create an 11’ X 14” composition, 300 dpi, exploring the concept of diversity. High quality print is required.

• Argumentative essay ( minimum 500 words) about your theme related with your poster.

Approach 1: Adaptability with new environment • Transferring members of a species from one

locale to another will decrease diversity if the new comers out-compete indigenous life forms and increase diversity if they coexist with indigenous life.

• Create an artwork that documents a change in diversity or a potential change in diversity due to the introduction of something new, such as people, plants or animals.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciu9xFTvELQ

Approach 2: Dependency• The benefits of biodiversity apply to

resources as well as genetics.• For example, depending on a narrow range

of resources jeopardizes a species ability to adapt to environmental change. The bison’s dependency on a tall prairie grass, and the red-cockaded woodpecker dependency on an old growth pine in Florida for its’ nesting habitat are examples of dependency on a narrow range of resources.

Bio-diversityBiodiversity is about the variation of life

forms within a given ecosystem, and it is used as a key measure of health. History shows that monoculture (the lack of biodiversity) is a key factor behind illness and system instability.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKIjmUIoZ84&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxG43tuDRZ4&feature=related

For example, The Irish potato blight of 1846, a major factor in the deaths of a million people and migration of another million, was the result of planting only two potato varieties, both of which were vulnerable to disease. Biodiversity means health and resilience, whereas monoculture means extinction.

Approach 3: TabooA taboo is a strong social prohibition

relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and/or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society.

Making art from tabooCreate a concept map to explore the

breadth of the taboo as well as the origins or reasons for such a taboo. Use your concept map as a starting point and create a work of art about a cultural taboo that either increases or decreases diversity.

Religious taboo: Food

In Hinduism, the cow is a symbol of wealth, strength, abundance, selfless giving and a full earthly life. Consumption of beef is taboo out of respect for the cow.

Religious taboo: ClothingThe veil is a tool of oppression used to

alienate and control women under the guise of religious freedom.

Taboo1. sex: restrictions on sexual activities and relationships (sex

outside of marriage, adultery, intermarriage, interracial relationships, incest, animal-human sex, adult-child sex, sex with the dead), sexual fetishes, restrictions on state of genitalia such as (transsexual gender identity, circumcision or sex reassignment)

2. body: restrictions of bodily functions (burping, flatulence, defecation and urination), exposure of body parts (ankles in the Victorian British Empire, women's hair in parts of the Middle East, nudity in the US)

3. religion: death, dietary restrictions (halal and kosher diets, religious vegetarianism, and the prohibition of cannibalism)

4. addiction: restrictions on the use of psychoactive drugs, alcoholism

5. language: restrictions on the use of offensive language

Taboo videosNational Geographic Taboo Beautyhttp://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/taboo/videos/beauty/National Geographic Taboo Outsidershttp://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/taboo/videos/one-mans-trash/National Geographic Taboo Signs of Identityhttp://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/taboo/videos/signs-of-identity/National Geographic Taboo Strange Lovehttp://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/taboo/videos/strange-love/

ACTIVITY 3-1 “Make 3 idea boards”

1) Choose one approach (taboo, adaptability, dependency)

2) Make 3 idea boards using Illustrator (3 of 8.5"x11” JPEG or PDF)

3) Idea boards: your concept + visual direction (color, font, text, form) for making poster.

Bring a specific example or case which you consider an important and urgent matter to talk about in contemporary society.

Group Activity 2 "Posters for Study"

1. Choose 5 posters from one period (choose one website)

2. Analyze political concept, message and historical background.

3. Analyze visual strategy and style (how many colors are used, lines or forms, images, collages, font, typography.) What is purpose/goal of the poster? How does the poster convey the message strongly and effectively?

4. Make presentation (30 minutes)5. Present it in the class (10 minutes)6. Upload your presentation as PDF in wiki (save as PDF)7. You will use style/visual strategy of the posters.

What is a poster? At the present time, poster art is in a

period of renaissance. Posters have come to be regarded as mysterious cultural objects, whose flatness and literalness only deepen their resonance, as well as inexhaustibly rich emblems of the society. Posters have become one of the most ubiquitous kinds of cultural objects—prized partly because they are cheap, unpretentious, "popular" art.

By Susan Sontag

1. Posters as Propaganda (WWI)What: Spread ideas, arguments or

allegations and to promote causes.Propaganda in war: Patriotism or darker

emotions of anger at the human cost of war.

The goal of the poster: communicate message strongly and effectively.

How to present effectively: a simple/complex layers of words, symbols, systems and design.

I want you for U.S. Army, 1917by James Montgomery Flagg

2. Produce for Victory (WWII)World War II posters helped to mobilize a

nation. Inexpensive, accessible, and ever-present,

the poster was an ideal agent for making war aims the personal mission of every citizen.

Government agencies, businesses, and private organizations issued an array of poster images linking the military front with the home front--calling upon every American to boost production at work and at home.

"Don't Let Anything Happen to Them!” 1942

3. Confusion EraArt and Culture of Japan During the

Allied Occupation, 1945-1952Japan’s poster designers and printers’

resilienceTopic: Emergency, survival notices, food,

health announcements, shortages, entertainment posters for theaters and movies

Quality: poor, small, lithographic process

Occupation in JapanIn the beginning of the Occupation, the

domestic press: a wide variety of pulp magazines, sewing monthlies, children’s and young people’s periodicals, photo new magazines, and even design and art journals.

Color of the poster as a mean of mass communication

By the end of the Occupation, consumer goods, services, advertisement, and poster design flourished as the flush of postwar expansion.

"Don't Sell Salt Illegally. Make an Effort to Deliver All Your Production to the Government," 1949.

4.Propaganda Posters of Soviet EraThe first truly modern propaganda

machine, from postage stamps and Mayday parades to monumental sculptures.

The Propaganda posters of the Soviets: colorful, dramatic and original form

Through it, the greatest artists of the time proclaimed government policies, asked for support, and demanded greater efforts - all with the goal of building Soviet power.

The Soviet art of propaganda: six main periods1. The Bolshevik Era (1917-1921) was a life and

death struggle for the Bolsheviks and their ideology. Helping to fight enemies within and without, the early Soviet poster was remarkable for its revolutionary fervor and powerful symbolism.

2. The New Economic Policy (1921-1927) was a period of recovery and relative freedom for a country ravaged by war, famine and bitter discontent. The commercial and film posters of the "Roaring Twenties" were remarkable for their avant-garde constructivist style.

3-4. The First and Second Five Year Plans (1928-1937) were Stalin's draconian push to convert Russia into a fully communist industrialized power. The great photomontage posters of the First Five Year plan echoed the heroic side of this effort, only to be followed by the purges of the late '30s and the retreat from avant-garde art in the Second Plan period.

5. The Great Patriotic War (1939-1945) brought a revival of the great age of the Bolshevik poster. The Soviet struggle for survival forced a return to symbolism that fanned the patriotic fires of the heartland.

6. The Cold War (1946-1984) brought a return to "Social Realism," with utopian views of Russia and Joseph Stalin predominating. In its middle years, the best images featured Vietnam and the space race. As Perestroika (1984 - Present) dawned, the most powerful images were protest posters created and posted at great personal risk.

DudonovThe North Caucasus has joined the relay cult, 1930 ca.The First and Second Five Year Plans (1928-1937)

5. Decade of Protest: Political Posters from the United States, Cuba and Viet Nam1965-1975 An age of conflicting ideologies and social

upheavals on a grand scale, utilizing the power of visual imagery to concretely render one of the defining events of that era: the Vietnam War.

Even in the most desperate situations, people express themselves in creative languages that both reveal and surpass the meanings of the conflict (and consensus) they were devised to reflect.

The social, political, and aesthetic concerns of the diverse cultures in these posters.

The United States 1965-1975The antiwar movement in the U.S.(not

propaganda)Contextualizing the posters: the medium’s

potential for provocation and its contributions to the sixties atmosphere of rebellion, liberation and dissent

The Vietnam War was a lighting rod for the social disaffection mirrored in the struggle of black Americans for equality and justice.

Decade of Protest frames an age of idealism and rage, of energy and optimism, activism and dissent.

Amerika Is Devouring Its Children, 1970Jay Belloli (Berkeley, CA); silkscreen on paper

Help End Demonstrations, 1968(New York); offset; 22 1/16 x 15 3/4 inches

Activity 3Making final poster

1. How to make connection with diversity and your poster

2. Choose one of your historical posters, which adopt historical poster strategy.

3. Consider: 11”x14”, CMYK, created in illustrator.

If you use an image, especially if downloaded from the internet, make sure that the image has a high quality.

If you use image you took, you need to use your creativity.

Activity 4: Research for argumentative essay for project 3 1) WIKI/ PROJECT 3/ RESEARCHfind and

post 10 posters, which are related with your idea/ theme.2) Write Argumentative Essay to support your argument.( one page/ minimum 500 words)( ex. if you work on gender discrimination, find some posters which talk about the gender issues.)( ex. If you work on beauty about plastic surgery, find some posters which talk about obsession of beauty, plastic surgery, trends.)