City In Flux
Jack Barnes
Taxi Driver Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver tells the story of a war veteran taxi driver, growing increasingly cynical and disgusted with
the state of New York and society with the rampant crime and prostitution on the city streets.
Shot during a heatwave and during a garbage strike, Scorsese captures New York in a gritty aesthetic, highlighting the urban decay that took place in the city during the 1970s.
Post-war New York had undergone a significant change - both economically and culturally. A shift in focus on economy saw many lose their jobs, particularly in the working class, an
increase in migrants from the Caribbean impacted on urban culture and increased racial tensions.
Taxi Driver provides some a form of social commentary on the issues facing New York and its citizens.
Overall the film illustrates the economic strain placed on New York due to the Vietnam war resulting in a crumbling environment, as well as an influx of crime and drugs. Director Scorsese commented on the decay of cities saying ‘When you live in a city, there’s a constant sense that the buildings are getting old, things are breaking down, the bridges and the subway need repairing. At the same time society is in a state of decay.’ In some sense, this could be comparable to current society and the state of cities, especially in the north, due to recent economic struggles and austerity measures which puts a strain on city growth. In addition to this, because of the shift in economy and the loss of many industrial manufacturing-based jobs, this could be related to my hometown - Barnsley which has undergone a significant change in the last 30 years as the mines were shut, leading to deprivation throughout the town, which has only just been started to be redeveloped.
“This city here is like an open sewer. It’s full of filth and scum. Sometimes I go out and I smell it...
He should flush it right down the fucking toilet”
Jonathan Barnbrook Jonathan Barnbrook is a British graphic designer and typographer. Famous for his notorious fonts such as: ‘Bastard’, ‘false idol’, and ‘infidel’, as well as his work on record covers, which he is an early design influence, Barnbrook also likes to create strong statements in response to political events, working for Adbusters - an establishment devoted to political and social causes (such as the Occopy Wall Street Movement). Barnbrook’s style and methodology inspires and appeals to me personally because of the way he uses design to convey strong social messages. On this matter, Barnbrook says his ambition is to ‘use design as a weapon for social change’ and that his main influence is his ‘inner anger which is a response to all the unfairness that is in this world’. In my response to City In Flux I could use Barbrook’s philosophy to communicate a viewpoint about the changes in cities and the many social issues that occurs in cities. A piece of work which appeals to me is his 2001 adbusters bilboard which repeats a Tibor Kalman quote ‘Designers, stay away from corporations that want you to lie for them’ by splicing existing adverts to form the bilboard. I feel that this style communicates Barnbrook’s message in an innovative fashion, which helps to soften the authorative tone of the design, making it appear less forceful. It made me think of how we or constantly surrounded by mass marketing, like billboards and how they are always being replaced. Despite this, I feel that Barnbrook’s further work for Adbusters does not work as well. His ‘designers are falling over each other’ and ‘economic progress’ designs appear somewhat convuluted and cluttered. The mixture of typefaces used also makes the work less functional. In terms of Barnbrook’s fonts, I especially like how exocet conveys its gothic aesthetic whilst still remaining legible. In addition to this, I like how Barnbrook takes inspiration from surrounding objects and how this influences his letterforms. This could potentially be something I explore in relation to my own project - creating some form of typographic response or typeface to City In Flux.
“You don’t see yourself as a designer, you see yourself
as a citizen, so use your tools as a designer to participate as a citizen”
Jean Michel Basquiat Jean Michel Basquiat was an American artist who started off as a graffiti artist in New York during the 1970s. In the 1980s, Basquiat has exhibitions showcasing his neoexpressionist paintings. In addition to this, Basquiat also worked closely with Andy Warhol that led to a large amount of collaborations. Using social commentary as a basis of many of his works, Basquiat focused on attacking problems in society, such as racism, colonialism and poverty. Basquiat’s style is extremely abstract, with an unclean aesthetic. His work uses lots of colours, creating an explosion of colour. Incorporated into his work are also words, letters, logos, numerals and numerous logos - making his work quite cryptic. Overall, I am not a massive fan of Basquiat’s work. I find it too abstract and incoherent which makes it hard to relate to, and to understand. Despite his work not engaging with me, I admire how Basquiat used art to deal with problems he felt strongly about. I think this signifies the importance of using art as a platform to challenge ways of thinking and conventions, as well as making social issues accessible and relatable to the public.
“I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is”
Metropolis Fritz Lang’s 1927 Germany sci-fi film ‘Metropolis’ is another film that interests me in regard to cities in flux. Despite being over 80 years old, Metropolis is still seen as being one of the most influential films in cinema, and after not being critically acclaimed on release, is now seen as one of the films that was ahead ot its time. Lang’s film is set in a futuristic urban dystopia - meaning a negative, unpleasant society. It tells the story of Freder, the son of the city’s ruler and juxtaposes it with Maria, a worker in poverty, and how they work to overcome the massive difference between classes in the city. Metropolis features beautiful set design, with Lang attrributing his set designs to his first visit of New York and its skyscrapers in 1924. In addition to this, the architecture of the film is influenced by Italian futurist architect Antonio Saint Elia. In addition to this, Metropolis’s art style is also strongly influenced by the art decor movement, as well as modernism. I think the synergy of all these influences is integral in what made Metropolis such an iconic piece of work and this could be something I consider when creating a response to the brief. From researching into a variety of styles, artists and issues I could incorporate all these into a response, giving me a unique and personal outcome. In addition to this, it enables me to fine-tune the influences and take out things I don’t like and tailoring the influences to suit the brief. Again, this piece of work provides some form of social commentary to an audience, and this is something I would like to address in my response to the brief, especially in regards to differences in class and its impact on culture and society.
“The film was born from my first sight of the skyscrapers in New York in October 1924. I looked into the streets – the glaring lights and the tall buildings – and there I conceived Metropolis”
Banksy Banksy is a street artist who is well known for his anonymous persona and his political and social commentary motivated works which often contain themes of humour and satire, many in the form of pop-culture references. With Banksy’s stencilised art style and minimal use of colour hardly pushing any boundaries, I feel as if Banksy’s work relies more on its content and the message it’s trying to communicate to an audience. In recent times, Banksy has grown to international fame, with many now claiming he has become part of the establishment something of which he was so critical of in his work.
Despite this, I admire how Banksy brings issues that he feels strongly about to millions of people. In particular, Banksy’s work at the West Bank inspires me because of how he attacks such a controversial subject, and the creativity behind intergrating the west bank barrier into his work. I feel that Banksy can be a large influence upon me for my city in flux brief, as I want to incorporate some form of social commentary into my response, which much of Banksy’s work is based around, as well as the fact that lots of his work utilises the urban environment as his canvas. In particular, I think Banksy’s views on corporations and branding could be something which I share, especially as much of city landscapes are heavily filled with corporate branding and marketing, such as Picadilly Circus in London. Whilst Banksy’s work takes the form of illustration-based street art / graffiti, I don’t think I will be able to present my response to the brief in the form of street art.
“The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.”
Road Signs Essential to the infastructure of a city, road signs form a major part of all cities. They help navigation through the city and are essential to part of our every day life. I looked at Magarat Calvert and Jock Kinneir’s work as they designed Britain’s road signs in the 1950s.At the time, Britain’s road signs weren’t standardised, leading to inconsistent design. In addition to this, with the increasing accessibility of cars, the British government appointed Calvert and Kinneir to standardise road signs and to make them legible when travelling at high speed. Their response to this saw road signs change to the combination of upper and lower case letter, their reasoning for this was: ‘“The actual word shape was the most distinctive thing because if you had Birmingham in capitals, from a distance, it’s difficult to read but in caps and lower case you have word shape,”. In addition to this, Calvert was responsible for designing the pictograms that form our road signs, which also was based around the transport typeface they designed, forming an identity of consistency and ease of communication. Again, much like the typography that made up the road signs, the sillohuette sole purpose is functionality. I think the redesign of Britain’s road signs in the 50s and 60s symbolises the idea of a city in flux and our need for functionality in everything around us. The choice of colour has a function. The choice of typeface has a function. In terms of a response to the brief, I feel that road signs could provide a large amount of inspiration and resources to my project. For example, I could use the transport typeface in my response which is an iconic reference to urban environment, or a response could take the form of a collage. As well as this, I could use the style of illustration as an influence to create a response to the brief. I think a possibility could be to explore the use of road-sign styled illustrations to represent a city.
“It wasn’t a fashion thing because we were designing for purpose, we were designing for something that wouldn’t look dated in 5 or 10 years”
Shepard Fairey Shepard Fairey is a contemporary graphic designer and illustrator who is renowned for his works involving the Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster and his ‘Andre the Giant has a posse’ work. Fairey’s first recognised piece of work was the ‘Andre the Giant Has a Posse’ in 1989, although later it became known as the ‘Obey Giant’ campaign. The sticker campaign became viral and was distributed by the skater community. The original sticker showed wrestler Andre the Giant with the text ‘andre the giant has a posse’ followed by the wrestler’s height and weight. Fairey next shifted the ‘Andre the Giant has a posse’ campaign into ‘OBEY Giant’. The slogan was a parody of propaganda and spired an OBEY clothing line.
Part of the allure which made the OBEY Giant popular, especially amongst a younger audience, was the anti-authoritarian themes which the campaign portrayed. Much like the other artists that I have looked at, a large philosophy behind Shepard Fairey’s design idealogy is the addressing of political and social issues that he feels strongly about. A piece of work that illustrates this is Fairey’s cover for TIME Magazine’s person of the year. Using his iconic stencilised illustration style, the design is representing the protester as TIME’s person of the year which highlights Fairey’s passion for activism. Likewise, Fairey has also produced murals for anti-war based movements. Again, utilising his stencilised design style, I also like how the designs contain the art style associated with 20th century propaganda posters and in addition to this, the designs which contains reds and yellows, also strongly reminds me of communist propaganda used by Russia after the Russian revolution. In terms of a response to the city in flux brief, I could incorporate Fairey’s stencilised style into a response based around consumerism and the moral issues around decay in the city.
“My hope was that in questioning what Obey Giant was
about, the viewer would then begin to question all the images they confronted with”
Initial Idea #1: Barnsley Because I was born and raised in Barnsley, I think I could look at Barnsley in terms of how it has changed over time. Barnsley, as a town, has undergone significant change in the last 30 years. Since the mines closed, Barnsley has had to adapt and redevelop; from having some of the most deprived areas in Europe to major reinvestment which has seen a new bus station, college sites and a shopping centre open in the early nineties. I think this captures the idea of a city being in flux as Barnsley is now developing a new identity. This idea also relates to my intentions of designing a response to the brief that intergrates some form of social commentary into the outcome. Somewhat similarily to this, after researching Barnsley I found a diary entry by George Orwell in which he visits Barnsley during the 1930s. He criticses the town for its construction of the town hall, instead of improving living conditions for its citizens. Similar to this idea, there are several existing publications from Barnsley that are focused on this theme - ‘memories of Barnsley’ and ‘Chewin t Cud’. I could use these to look for materials for my research, and inspiration. In terms of an actual response to the brief, I feel the idea of exploring the changing state of Barnsley opens up a large amount of possibilities. One possible route I could explore is to contact the Barnsley museum,who have a large collection of materials such as records, files and photographs. This will give me an insight into what Barnsley was like, and how the area as a whole has developed over time. I can also use the materials in a response to the brief by scanning them. However, there could be possible copyright issues that arise from this. Similarily I could use old photographs of Barnsley and contrast them with how Barnsley looks now. This would enable me to examine the development that has occured in Barnsley in recent times. I feel I could present this in the form of a book / magazine which would allow me to incorporate my social commentary into the piece. Editorial design is also something which interests me greatly and is something I would want to develop further. The book could include photography, which could be developed / manipulated into something more art-based.
Initial Idea #2: Consumerism I feel that the combination of the city and consumerism could work really well because cities are full of marketing, advertising and shops, as well as the fact that the city is home to corporations. In particular, London could be a city of interest. Being the former financial capital of the world, London is the home of many large corporations. As well as this, because of the massive population and the amount of tourists, London also has lots of advertising. For example, one of its most iconic landmarks in London - Piccadilly Circus is well known for its illuminated advertisements which helps to establish a link between consumerism and the city in flux.
An interesting idea that I have is to look at billboards. Because billboards make up a large amount of a city’s environment, and they are always changing I think this provides a good opportunity for me to make a response to the brief that addresses consumerism and the change that occurs in cities. For example, I could design a form of photomontage made up of multiple advertisements on a billboard that helps to illustrate the constant bombarbment of advertising that we are greeted with every day. In addition to this, I could also look at the competition that occurs amongst corporations / advertisers in how they compete for advertising space. This idea arose from my tutor who used the phrase “what goes on behind the billboards” which gave me the inspiring idea of creating an illustration of a billboard which peels away to reveal an auction with corporations bidding for the adspace. Expanding on this, I could also label some moneybags in the illustration to illustrate the ethical issues of large corporations and consumerism. Again, this helps to incorporate some form of social commentary into the brief. I feel that this idea is slightly banksy-esque, although I feel that this doesn’t really show a city in flux, and I think my skills in illustration also limits me with this idea.