Essay Redemption Task

In no more than 500 words describe the Seagram Building in relation to Louis Sullivan's "The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered".
Mies van der Rohe - Seagram Building 1969

In this text Sullivan breaks down "the tall office building", used as an enveloping statement to apply to any building in this category, to its most basic elements and the reasons for them. He states that essentially "offices are necessary for the transaction of business" and that the invention and construction of elevators makes vertical travel "easy and comfortable". He continues to talk about materials and advances in technology that make the construction of such large scale buildings completely normal and that with limited ground space the only way to build is up. This reigns true with the Seagram building and its thirty-eight floors. It was originally erected as the home of Canadian distillers Joseph E. Seagram's & Sons, also fitting in with Sullivan's idea that an office building is "necessary for the transaction of business".
He continues to talk about the floors within a building, a basement for boilers and power supplies etc, a ground floor for the friendly face of a shop or bank, a second floor for offices that is split into various sub divisions, this floor can be repeated numerous times before the final floor. He then states that the 'circulatory system completes itself and makes its grand turn" at which the attic is the top room, it too is filled with various pipes and paraphernalia to ensure the building is light, heated, safe etc.
Obviously a building must have an entrance and he describes this as "a main aperture or entrance common to all the occupants or patrons of the building". This continues his notion that there are a number of specific things that are present in all tall office buildings that give them the same characteristics; he presents them almost a recipe for building. Again these things reign true with the Seagram building in that its first floor is open to the public while its upper floor are delegated to the office workers arguably the actual business of the building. This is exaggerated further by his formula that "all things in nature have a shape, that is to say, a form, an outward semblance, that tells us what they are, that distinguishes them from ourselves and from each other." Essentially this is stating that the shape and form of the building, as is the case with a persons body or facial features, defines them as what they are which in turn means that we can tell them from one and other. This should also be linked with one of Sullivan's most notable quotes that "form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change."
The Seagram building is a perfect example of modernist architecture and cannot be viewed in any other way, it can be seen in the light of Sullivan's text as a "tall office building" because it is. Its initial design and build was for the purpose of business and it still stands today for these reasons, its form follows its function and its function is business.

Portfolio Task 5 - How to Read a Photograph

In general we think of text for reading and images for viewing, but we do in fact read photographs and this can be recognised by anyone familiar with the adage "a picture is worth a thousand words". Having read "How do we read a photograph" ( Clarke, G (1997) ‘The photograph’) this has become abundantly clear to me, as stated in the first paragraph we do in fact read pictures and this involves "a series of problematic, ambiguous, and often contradictory meanings and relationships between the reader and the image", this is referred to widely throughout as 'photographic discourse'.
The first main point made is about the "problematic nature of the photographic image as both arbiter of meaning and trace of the "real"', essentially the problem that becomes apparent when people think of pictures as depicting the truth. In reality a photograph can only show what was present at the time and that itself is accurate, but everything outside of the frame that has bought about the culmination of that image cannot be seen and herein lies the problem. A photo is essentially a product of a photographer and thus shows one side of the situation they are portraying, by default a photograph cannot be biased. This is how photographer's adopt styles that can be defined by certain traits, however as stated in "How to read a photograph" "The image is as much a reflection of the "I" of the photographer as it is of the "eye" of the camera".
Roland Barthes explains that there are two levels to a photograph, the "denotative" and the "connotative", and they can be broken down in their simplest form to the literal appearance and meaning of elements of a photo and the connotations that can be derived from these things. For example a picture of a person stood alone, they are the only person in the picture and that is a fact, but it could be seen that they are alone in the world or an outcast, this is a connotation that can be interpreted in various ways.
The text continues and speaks about Lee Friedlander's photographs, explaining that he has "broken up the surface of the photograph so that an ordered, three-dimensional space is simultaneously questioned and altered". Essentially this is making the point that we are not really looking at a landscape, or at a person, or at a bowl fruit but that we are looking at a photograph of that particular thing and it is only a representation of that.
Essentially it can be said that even by acknowledging the subject matter of a photograph, let alone the intricate details, we are in fact reading it and making our own judgements on the meaning of it. These judgements may boil down to preconceived stereotypes or relate to a persons own views on any given subject matter but as soon as a link is made between these things in a person's head this is how they perceive it and in fact how they have read it. Due to this two people can be shown the same picture but derive complete different meanings from it depending on how they interpret the given image. It should also be remembered that a photograph is only a select frame of an overall bigger picture and that although you can only see what is shown you, it will have undoubtedly have been affected by its surroundings.

Ryan McGinley (2005) "Lily, black eye"

Initially this we can say that this is a portrait of naked, at least from the waist up, woman with a bruised eye that is about to light a cigarette, on a beach. In relation to Roland Barthes' terms these are the "denotative" elements of the picture, they can be seen by anyone instantly and would not be questioned however it is the reasoning behind them that brings about questions and in turn the "connotative" thoughts or connotations that these elements imply. Is this woman completely naked, why is she naked, why does she have a bruised eye? etc.
The subject seems to be actively looking away from the camera, this may be due to the wind, which appears to be blowing her hair and possibly sand in her face, or it could be linked with her bruised eye, Is she avoiding eye contact to avoid judgement from the photographer or is she simply looking at something else? Although the subject is shown alone we do not know if other people were present and/of they were in fact in the same situation as her. Again a picture is as much about what it shows as it is about what it doesn't show. Although the contents of this image can be easily seen and aren't really disputable the reason for them and the situation that bought it to fruition is left entirely to the person looking at the photograph. If paired together, the bruised eye and the subject being alone, the viewer conjures up various emotions in relation to these factors and may start to question the bigger picture. This is when it becomes apparent to them that the photograph they are viewing is only a small part, that the photographer wanted to convey, of a much larger series of events and that alone it cannot tell us more than the "denotative" elements described earlier.

Portfolio Task 4 - Postmodernism

Postmodernism is essentially a reaction to the happenings of the modern era, it is characterised by complexity and an unapologetic mix of different styles. It also celebrates what otherwise may be thought of as kitsch and otherwise tacky. However due to its roots in questioning conventions it also questions the boundaries of communication and the legibility of text, in the eyes of the postmodern era ornament is not crime.


Wong, A (1980) "Women In Transition", http://gds.parkland.edu/gds/!lectures/history/1975/postmodern.html (30/62)

Here you can see the use of a traditional grid system but with the addition of a twist by splitting the text in half and altering its size in order to to distort it. It still reads and communicated appropriately but requires a little more than a first glance to see what the designer has done.


Greiman, A (1983) "Your Turn My Turn", http://gds.parkland.edu/gds/!lectures/history/1975/postmodern.html (23/62)

Here is use of the popular typeface helvetica, however it has been used in italics and also printed numerous times offset in different colours to give an image similar to that of a drop-shadow.


Poynor, R (2003) "No More Rules, Graphic Design and Postmodernism"http://static.letsbuyit.com/filer/images/uk/products/original/62/52/no-more-rules-graphic-design-and-postmodernism.jpeg

Here is use of various texts and colours overlapped, a convention that would normally be frowned upon in terms of communication but has been used here, interestingly enough the focus of the book is based around Graphic Design in relation to Postmodernism.


Klein, S (2006) "Folding poster about the work of Wolfgang Weingart" http://www.skrm.de/portfolio/wwfaltblatt.html

This poster shows use of left aligned text and a very formal gird layout, however it is overlaid with large green circles, again the content of the piece is about the work of Wolfgang Weingart and his approach to postmodern typography.


Carson, D (2011) "Little White Lies" http://www.davidcarsondesign.com/

Here is an example of text overlaying image, furthermore the islands within some of the letters are filled in, taking away from the initial communication of the text. However the overall design is stripped back to a simple black and white colour scheme.

Portfolio Task 3 - Avant Garde

The Avant Garde is a term applied to schools of thought or works thought to be innovative and forward thinking, essentially things considered as avant garde could be considered as the "cutting edge" of a given movement. It is regularly thought about especially in relation to art, culture and politics and traced back to the Dada movement. The term avant garde essentially translates to "advancing guard" or vanguard" which would have been the most forward part of an advancing army, it would include highly skilled sodliers attempting to pave the way for the substantial movement behind them and so artistically this is the practitioners breaking boundaries and pushing things forward ahead of the initial crowd.

De Stijl, Dutch for "The Style" and sometimes known as neoplasticism, is an example of an avant garde movement. It is often focused around abstraction and a simplification returning to basics of form and colour. Though produced a long time after the De Stijl movement in the Netherlands the artwork for the White Stripes album of the same name echoes this style. As previously stated components of an image tend to be abstract and composed of bold colour and geometric lines, this is evidenced further in the text and imparticular the way the letter "E" has been simplified to three horizontal bars but is still recognised as the letter it portrays.


Another example is the constructivist movement often assosciated with Kasimir Malevic, a Constructivist working between the period of 1878 and 1935. Constructivism is often based around art and or architecture and is recognised for its simple and bold imagery however this is not to be confused with a lack of detail or though, but a considered collection of shapes and colour. The image below by Kasimir Malevic embodies an even more stripped down style of work reduced simply to shapes and colours that are unrecognisable as an actual form.