As society is surrounded by capitalism from companies to the government, we don’t tend to think about the effect that it has caused to other communities and our own. Due to people being so used to this system built around capitalism there are companies, cities and people that benefit hugely from the exploitation and wealth that capitalism brings into the major ‘first world’ countries. These countries that are built on fast fashion industries and other production industries that demonstrate that capitalism is very much in our everyday existence. Due to this ‘Capitalism is certainly based on self-interest’ (Butler, pg13, 2018) and this is something that we have tried to capture within each of the photos that demonstrate that these everyday items and places that are so different to one another but are connected heavily to the idea of capitalist ideologies but are not acknowledged on a surface level within our lives. Within these photos we capture companies, places and brands that have profited or been affected due to capitalism; some participating in the chain of fast fashion, of people being exploited so these companies can gain billions, to others that have used the situation of the pandemic in which they profited of the situation or others suffering.
Individual reflection - 500 words on your group process/choices, rationale/context, and how your photos fit into the overarching narrative/theme and the individual contribution you made to support the group project outcomes.
Within this project we had come up with a range of ideas that we could do for this project and investigated what would both challenge us and show off a unique outlook of what the essay will entail. So, with the artist statement we chose ‘Capitalism is acknowledged but only at a surface level’ and we chose this topic as its such a large subject that can be difficult to portray to those who don’t think about capitalism within their everyday lives. This allowed us to look at places and things around the city that would be connected to capitalism and take picture of the everyday shops, places and industries that work within this capitalist system.
As people are aware of capitalism but not how vast and impactful, we wanted to make our images to demonstrate places that normal people go to but have a caption that demonstrates how each of these play into roles of a capitalist society. I think we managed to communicate our ideas with one another and work towards this goal, we could have worked better when it came down to time management however due to the short amount of time we had as a group I think that we managed to communicate each how we would portray each step with one another efficiently.
Our group started off being unsure how we would tackle this project, however once we had come up with this theme, we communicated who in our team would portray which elements of the theme. The elements that I would portray would be industries and places that include the theme. This would link as they are all tied to Capitalism within our everyday lives. With the five photos I took I managed to capture environments and landscapes of parts of the city that have been built around capitalism and I connected them all together through the use of the caption which explains how these building have either used capitalism within their company or gained profit from it. Along with this we split the artist statement essay into five so we would each have to write about it and put out a reference which was an effective idea in working with each other by continue an essay from one person to the next. Despite some moments where we didn’t communicate enough, I believe we manged to show off a successful photo essay. However, if we were to do this again, I think we could narrow the theme down further and maybe make more of a story narrative or creative native with the images. The main improvement that I would make when doing this project would be to try and make the overall images link more as without the captions to link them, they would not have a clear enough link.
The overall photo essay was a completely different style of essay to what I’ve done before, and even though they’re aspects that could be improved, I think that we managed to create some successful images for the essay.
Nowadays, we live in a world full of capitalism. Suppose we search for a definition of capitalism. In that case, we will find that capitalism is a form of economics in which individuals or corporations hold the means of production and distribution—profits fund operations, which a state government does not regulate. Individuals, small enterprises, organizations, and corporations make their own judgments about prices, production, and distribution of goods, resulting in an automated market in theory. (White, n.d.) If we stop to think about this statement, we would think that it’s crazy if the world would be running in this way, where each person could decide the price for things. However, our group statement declares that “Capitalism is acknowledged but only at a surface level.” why? Because capitalism exists, and it’s becoming more extensive than ever! The small things are full of capitalism, but the world is so used to it that they don’t even notice anymore. We consider capitalism a topic that needs to be spoken about. For that reason, each of us started searching about different ways of capitalism that may exist around us, and we found very interesting themes that should be spoken about.
Talking about capitalism, we could say that there are three main categories: capitalists who profit from the work of others, exploiters whose activities bring profit, and the excluded who are not included in the equation. However, these categories do not have strict boundaries, and some people might take a couple of roles simultaneously. The way capitalism affects a person’s life depends on if he is a worker or a boss. As the base of capitalism is profit and consumption, the more profit the company gains, the wealthier the owner becomes. Money makes money (Crimethinc, 2011). However, capitalism brings some problems and critiques. One of them is that capitalist bosses do not always intend to share their wealth with others, such as their employees. It becomes more important to be wealthy themselves than to give a possibility for others to earn an appropriate amount of money. That leads to the issue that some people earn very little money and work in unhealthy conditions even though the companies make a considerable profit. The reality is that these bosses have the power over that because the more capital they control, the more power they gain. Nevertheless, even though many people are aware of capitalism and how it works, not everyone acknowledges that.
As society is surrounded by capitalism from companies to the government, we don’t tend to think about the effect that it has caused to other communities and our own. Due to people being so used to this system built around capitalism there are companies, cities and people that benefit hugely from the exploitation and wealth that capitalism brings into the major ‘first world’ countries. These countries that are built on fast fashion industries and other production industries that demonstrate that capitalism is very much in our everyday existence. Due to this ‘Capitalism is certainly based on self-interest’ (Butler, pg13, 2018) and this is something that we have tried to capture within each of the photos that demonstrate that these everyday items and places that are so different to one another but are connected heavily to the idea of capitalist ideologies but are not acknowledged on a surface level within our lives. Within these photos we capture companies, places and brands that have profited or been affected due to capitalism; some participating in the chain of fast fashion, of people being exploited so these companies can gain billions, to others that have used the situation of the pandemic in which they profited of the situation or others suffering.
Although capitalism has some pros such as individual performance being valued and a higher quality in products marketed to consumers, the cons heavily outweigh the pros as only a small percentage of the population actually benefit greatly from the capitalistic systems in place. Cons range from mass exploitation and homelessness to wealth gaps and individuals not getting equal opportunities in life based upon their wealth.
To sum up, our visual essay and artistic statement have proved that ‘capitalism is acknowledged, but only on the surface level.’ In other words, we recognize that capitalism operates in our daily lives, i.e., the cost of living rises while salaries remain unchanged, but we simply accept it and live with it. This could be due to the fact that we have no option but to live by it because we as citizens lack the power or influence to change it, or it could simply be due to the fact that it has become so normalized that we don’t care enough to do anything about it. As previously stated, capitalism pervades society, from companies to government, and we rarely consider the impact it has had on other communities and our own. This means we don’t consider the profit margins of huge corporations like Amazon, where we purchase, in comparison to how the workers who generate those large profits are exploited. This can also be known as ‘amazon capitalism’. In simpler terms, ‘All corporations share one fundamental goal, to maximize profits.’ (Alimahomed-Wilson & Reese, 2020). Moreover, Our Photo Essay explores various aspects of capitalism that are acknowledged but only at a surface level, with some being more evident than others, such as luxury goods like Burberry products vs the less obvious, such as educational institutions, going into debt for university paying fees such as tuition and SFE.
Bibliography/References:
Alimahomed-Wilson, J., & Reese, E. (2020). The Cost of Free Shipping.
Companies, such as Primark, make Billions through their consumers and underpaying factory workers. Underpaid workers as dying due to these fast fashion industries.
The disposable vape industry has exploded as of recent with companies making millions but the cost seems to be increased pollution, health issues and more children with nicotine addictions
This picture represent how industries hoard products that many people need in their lives, despite the products not being in use. You can see this in the food industry where food is thrown away or here where the laptops are kept exclusively for university students
Apple is a prime example of pricing based on status rather than material value. This is a standard in consumerism but when companies present their products as a status symbol it allows them to charge exorbitantly for their products
The luxury car industry is exploitative of their workers. The prices for these cars are exorbitant compared to the labour and what these labourers earn. Many of these cars are valuable because of the status they show the owner has rather material value.
Luxury brands extremely exorbitant in nature when it comes to pricing. The fashion industry is exploitative, making use of cheap labour then charging hundreds or thousands for the products made for fractions of that amount
The Marvel franchise has been around for over 80 years, the franchise started out with comics which lead to it becoming one of the biggest most well know franchises of our generation. Due to Marvel having such a big industry that makes films, tv shows, animations and a range of other media products I wanted to just focus on one of the most well-known part of the franchise which is the Avengers films.
The Avengers films started out originally in 2012 which in turn lead to the making of one of the most popular movie series with the Marvel franchise. The whole series is one of the most successful films series of this generation, as Marvel has evolved overtime and has become increasingly more developed and has technology keeps advancing so does the motion of the cinematic universe that has created Marvel. (Technical thrill)
Marvel overtime has started to break barriers and stereotypes that have been placed within superhero style movies an example of this is that they have made women strong and added more diversity within their films, even though there is still a long way to go Marvel is starting to add more cultures within their films and therefore allowing the targeted audience to witness more of a range of different people. As the meaning of culture has changed overtime showing a more modern take on culture. This links into Raymond Williams theories of culture and how culture has been redefined within modern times. Williams talked about how culture can be split into three categories and the Marvel industry touches on more social section of culture and this is mainly done within the more later avengers films as it shows of the culture of different countries but twisted in a way to fit the action. An example of this is when they show people of different class and races, they do this with through using superheroes such as Iron-man who is in the higher class and this compared to other characters such as Antman who does have as much wealth or education as the character of Tony Stark. Williams analysis culture plays into this construct as Williams describes culture as ‘a description of a particular way of life’ (Williams,1998, pg48).
This however could both support and oppose the cultural theory of Adorno, Frankfurt school talks about as this can show that people are just using films as a way to distract themselves and therefore would consume there time instead of using their time for something more valuable. However, Marvel can be shown to educate people about different cultures and therefore this would go against that theory and shows that people can both enjoy these media products and learn something from them. (Frankfurt school, Adorno)Even though through the Frankfurt school critical thinking could be classed as out dated it still can hold a lot of relevance to today’s society as people rely so much on technology and social media as an escapism however, this could be viewed as something that has been constructed to distract and therefore can take over people’s lives. (Adorno, video|)
As Marvel has developed and grown overtime so has the industries overall funding and therefore the quality of the films, they produce have become better and more intriguing. This also means that due to the development of the cinema industry and the overall how people get to see films. As cinema has been popularised over time it allowed Marvels industry to grow and in this allowing Marvel to branch out into different media productions and products. Cinema has been a way to fund the film industry for generations and this has allowed the film industry to get more creative with the types of films that have been produced and therefore has created genres and overtime adaptations of books and comics started to become popularised. Marvels Avengers is an adaption from the comics written by Stan Lee and other writers which were popular before the films came out which helps brings more of an audience to see each of films produced based of these comics. Marvel mainly relies on the typical way to fund films when it comes to the making of the films and are given a budget which they work with this is often around $350 million to make which is often funded by the owners of Marvel which is currently Disney.
Avengers has been a growing film series for the past 8 years and this allowed the industry to find new ways to get the audience interested in the films. The Marvel often do this by advertising new products through multiple ways however this is mainly done through social networking and due to the on-going growing fanbase of Marvel this allows particular films to gain more attraction and therefore will gain more people wanting to see the film and this brings in more money. This also allows people to connect with one another and create friendships through social media and their shared love for this franchise. This fits in with the concept of social networking and being able to use the social media platforms to bring people together that would not normally interact with one another. (Boyd, Ellison, (2008) pg1-2)
In conclusion the Marvel industry is one of the fastest and most popularised industries in the media right now and has continued to use their fanbase to gain more influence within different media. Marvel has used the growing cinema to its advantage by incorporating more unique shots, camera angles and playing on the genre that is superheroes and action to be able to draw more of the intended audience in. (Altman (1999)).
Within my product I decided on creating a game cover and I experimented with different genres I could create along with different games I could take inspiration from. So, I ended up choosing to create a game within the horror sci-fi genre. Aspects that I want to focus on is the visual conventions that are within the genres that I could include within my cover. Some examples conventions I could investigate are colours, blood, planets, robots, etc. Along with using these conventions I’ve researched vector artists that create art in illustrator that inspired my design.
After researching different artists and finding out design elements that I find eye-catching I decided to implement them into my design. Elements that I found interesting was the limited colours schemes and the glowing effects. So, to do this I will use horror convention colours and create these effects the best I can.
As I only have limited skills so far within illustrator I wanted to try and include a lot of the skills that I have learnt such as using opacity, shapes and vector anchors using the pen tool. When designing the cover I used a lot of reds and darker shades to create this dark atmospheric look to the cover and I designed a lot of villainous monster designs to fit the horror genre which will appease the target audience and as well as that I made the cover include cryptic designs for the artificial intelligence parts making a glowing effect using blurs and gradients making different transparency’s and shades within the design to give off a robotic feel to the piece this would catch the target audiences attention due to the fact that I am targeting teens and consumers of the sci-fi and horror genre. Along with this within the design I decided to reference other main horror character designs through making my character wear a yellow jack which is a slight intertext reference to games such as Little Nightmares I/II or films like ITchaper1.
After designing the character and backgrounds to include elements such as planets, robots and other elements I made sure to add game conventions such as the company who made the game, PlayStation, along with a game developer, naughtydoggames, along with that I included a barcode, rating and scenes within the game.
Once I did this I made sure to add a title that I stylised to fit the sci-fi genre by making the title have a slight glitch effect to it using reds and blues on the front cover but using red on the spine. I made it still readable so the audience can easily see what the name of the game would be. I made the title give some mystery to the game.
One of the main improvements or changes I could have done would’ve been to include more horror conventions as I didn’t make it really clear as to which game genre it would be. I could’ve made the genre slightly clearer for the audience.
They took their films to audiences all around the world and brought the entire world to each audience. They were inventors, they left conema when they thought it would not make money.
Cinema of attraction:
Gunning 1990.
Early Cinema was not literary but spectacular – more in common with fairgrounds than the theatre.
Sandow (1894)
It was about showing off, performings.
The four troublesome heads (1898)
Kinetoscope – Edison
The idea that this is a domestic thing, in which we can watch films indivually but it did not take off.
Kinet0=movement
Scope= look into/examine
Cinematograph
Did not require electricity
Cinema= movement
graph= write/record
The boxing cats (1894)
The Invention of cinema:
is the ‘idea of technology’ the same now as in 1895 (Punt,2000)
Commercial imperatives
cultural tourism
user agency
Silent Hollywood:
Standardised Techniques and forms emerged:
Continuity Editing
Parallel editing – cutting between two locations but it makes sense for the story.
Close-, Mid-, Long- shots
Movie stars – eg charlie chaplin
Steamboat Bill Jr (1928)
Its hedigmonic.
Mgm, universal and were known for genres such as universal was known for horror. – Invisible style. – cinema as an escape.
Standardisation = assembly production = big business
the invisible style wasnt the only way
Un Chien Andalou (1929)
Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
Hollywood even through was dominant WASN’T the only style of cinema!
The Arrival of a Train (1934)
Remaking – creating within 3D however the concept of 3D didnt take of til around the 1950s
Digital Cinema: Evolution or Revolution?
Ganz & khatib 2006
Celluloid
One viewfinder, one eye on the image.
Time delay between shooting and viewing.
Primacy of cinematographer and camera operator
Digital
Infinitely reproducible on screens
No delay between shooting and watching
primacy of postproduction
a screen on camera- the difference between the too were very separate compared today’s camera.
A video assist changes how films are made – be able to watch it immediately – Jerry Lewis. This has implications on how cinema was made.
The physical limitations of the medium, which defined many of the practices of traditional cinema, have become more or less irrelevant.
Ganz and Khatib ; 24
MCM set of THE NEXT VOICE YOU HEAR (1950) – props, director, etc around 50 people
Ten (2002) – two people in a car using a dash board on the car.
“In the digital film the immediacy of the image becomes the aesthetic” (Ganz & Khatib: 28)
Look of reality – through shots of a film.
Laura Dern – Inland Empire(2006) – show on digital – reality compared to Blue velvet which she is looks like a movie star due to how it is shot.
Greater Convergence – does the difference matter?
35mm Celluloid – Detective Pikachu (2019)
Digital – The Irishman (2019)
audience typically can’t tell the difference.
All the tools necessary for a complete industrial film practice are arriving in places that did not have the infrastructure to support an indigenous cinema. The technology not only has the potential to revive the ossified Hollywood cinema, but also to enable storytelling from different cultures and from people who were previously unheard. The technology is therefore transforming relationships of power between different cinemas: it is not only the west that is the bearer of the gaze
(Ganz and Khatib: 34)
Nollywood – Worlds most prolific film Industry.
Iran: new ways to evade censorship – often shot in a car.
Jafar – Got banned from making film within Iraq but he still continued to make films. – well regarded internationally – got screened in france.
New Digital Cinema
Isuma– production company making films embedded in Inuit culture and society- A digital film culture specific to the company.
Atanarjuat (2001) – could only be made by the people within the community
Aesthetics determined by location – frozen camera, low sun, igloo shots etc- creates a new film language.
Is digital technology an advantage or obstacle for political filmmakers?
more documentaries than ever… but digital programming is determined by algorithms and profit.
Do algorithms, filters, and customization make digital media ultimately insular?
Accessible and adaptable technology means filmmakers can escape meddling.
Crises are captured in real time with greater ease than ever.
Xianchang – style in china – an aesthetic of immediacy and reality. observation and communication of lived experiences – even as it contrasts the state.
Forsama
digital camera is ‘always on’.
Constant remix and adaption – Not just ‘telling stories’ – but showing off, jokes, memes, shared experiences, displaying the common and the unusual. Eg. Tiktok, Instagram, etc. ‘This is a cinema that displays its visibility, willing to rupture a self-enclosed fictional world for a chance to solicit the attraction of the spectator’ (gunning 1986: 64)
Avantgard. the creators and the artists that experiment and doing thing that haven’t been done before.
Cinema of attraction:
Point of view in cinema-
How it feels to be run over (1900)
Film (1965) – Rene Magritte,Not to be Reproduced (1937) – person trying to avoid the camera.
Society throughout time has had built up this idea that men, more specifically cis straight white men, have the most power within society and this became a dominant ideology or hegemony when it came to people in everyday life and this includes within the media. However, even though this is still mainly true to this day people of minorities and different backgrounds have begun to challenge these ideals. This is heavily shown within the film ‘On the basis of sex’ which shows a woman breaking these dominant ideology’s and power dynamics.
The main studies of power and hegemony tend to have overlapping elements. However, with these the basic explanation of hegemony is a way to describe a process of people or ideas that become dominant in everyday society, this is shown in the study of media keywords: ‘Hegemony is a way to describe people or ideas that become—and seek to remain—dominant in society.’ (Lewis,2017, pg88). However, power is slightly different as it mainly involves the ideas and people that the entire media thinks is important. With this being at least the basic understanding of power according to the study done by Nick Couldry, ‘Whatever “media power” means, almost everyone thinks it is important.’ (Couldry, 2017, pg49). However, power and hegemony can be more complicated and in-depth than the basic understanding of the topics as there has many theorists that have studied different aspects of power and hegemony throughout time.
One of the main theorists that worked with different parts of power was Michel Foucault who demonstrates that there is a range of different layers to power and that there are different types of power than just one. He presented the concept that power requires knowledge as knowledge holds a lot of power which can change how people think and that power is not just about the hierarchy or the government. Foucault links his concepts heavily to connect with the study of discourses. Foucault shows human beings have attachments and that due to how rapidly society is evolving power dynamics are changing with it. Foucault talks about how power can change depending on the relationship the people have the perspective that you follow, ‘While the human subject is placed in relations of production and of signification, he is equally placed in power relations which are very complex.’ ((based from the works) Foucault, 2014, pg3). This study shows that due to the power being complex so are the relationships that go with them.
Theorists such as EdwardSaid’s and his concept of Orientalism were largely link to Foucault as within his book he explains that there is a dominant way of studying an culture and that there is a power dynamic in the fact that people approach minorities at the “other” or the orient, in this cast the western style is more dominating and is the dominant way of studying the east even though they are completely separate. This links to Foucault as he talks a lot about how knowledge and language is power which is touch upon in Said’s concept. ‘Orientalism as a Western style for dominating restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.’ (Said, 1978, pg11).
As Foucault would have contrasting views on the power dynamics of today, he would both see the benefit of social media giving minorities a voice. However, he would also make the point that people are being absorbed by social media and that social media can trap people in echo chambers and that we have trapped ourselves in this concept of consent surveillance. Foucault within his concepts talks about truth, power and knowledge and how they can be used in different ways and to take apart different aspects of society, ‘‘Everything I do, I do in order that it may be of us’’ (Foucault, 2018), this shows that he believes that your actions that you do hold power and consequence. This could link to the film as we are shown different perspectives of how people are fighting for change, along with different ways that people view equality an example of this is the scene where we are shown a rally/ movement or protest of women trying to gain equality and power within a system that is purely run by men.
So the when the audience sees a film such as ‘On the basis of sex’ some of the older generation or people who have the morals that men should be in power would see this film as having a women shot down and the men having the power instead or the overall power struggle that is actually happening within the film.
Since the main power struggle within this film is the hegemony of men being the dominant and smart sex proving this dominant ideology wrong. The audience is shown at the start of the film that this production was based on the main points of the career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was known as one of the first women to fight for gender equality within the Supreme Court of Justice. So, when looking at this film we (the audience) is shown the perspective of sexism, along with how women, mainly the main character: Ruth Bader Ginsburg played by Felicity Rose Hadley Jones, react to sexist remarks that was present during that time period and is partly still around to this day. This will mainly cover hegemonic feminism and the power dynamics within the film.
https://images.app.goo.gl/zayeXUPA3ua7JWu16
Hegemony is more of a process to make dominant ideology’s seem normal with society or social groups. Due to this film showing women as intelligent and brave this shows the film trying to break the common hegemony that has been built into society. This is theorised a lot when it comes to what hegemony is and what it often involves, within the film the audience is shown the woman’s struggle to gain respect and gain power throughout her career, this shows off the research of Justin Lewis who spoke about hegemony reinforcing forms of inequality this film does this with most of the men in this as they are stereotypically sexist which makes the character of Ruth Ginsburg fight hard for equality in her field and within the law. ‘Hegemony often involves masking or solidifying various forms of inequality so that they seem part of everyday life, making customs and contrivances that favour some people over others appear to be common sense.’ (Lewis, 2017, pg.88). This suggests that due to the hegemony over time the dominant ideology of men having all the power is starting to shift and this is shown more at the end of the movie when the character of Ruth Ginsburg breaks the typical dynamic and takes the power and a step for gender equality.
This whole film shows that women can be rational, smart and handle any job that a man can. This alone starts to break down the stereotypical aspect that women are stay at home mothers or housewives as this film shows off a powerful woman who is a mother and is still striving for gender equality in a supreme court. This shows her struggle to get there and how people treat women during this time period that is still relevant to this day.
In conclusion to this the film demonstrates Lewis’ example of what hegemony is and how it can be used to effect and form a dominant society that relies on these ideals to form an opinion. The film shows off a progression of breaking a stereotypical power dynamic and changing it through knowledge and reasoning, which links into Foucault’s concept.
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