Semiotics

Fig.1 Fig.2

the first sign that I have chosen to analyse is an image of a simple representation of a man. The image is in black and is commonly drawn on a white background.This image is the signifier. The signified however, is an indication of a public male restroom. this sign falls under the category of a 'symbol' as there no logical link between the sign and the meaning.The image does not include pictures of a man going to a toilet, but only a simple figure. The signifier or the sign which is deconotative is the image shown above(fig.1) somehow signifies the indication of a toilet. The reason being for this doconnoation is because this is a well known and recognised sign that is understood on an international scale.Similarly, the second image (Fig.2) is also a symbol. Although the sign is more complicated than the first one, it still operates in the same way. As the shape itself has not logical link to what it represents. The signifier is the image of a circle with four lines going across the shape and this signifies peace. The sign is often made in a simple colour but is also soemtimes filled in with a rainbow colour.This image is originally a symbol for a campaign for Nuclear disarmament. However, the symbol is now well acknowledged around the world and everyone agrees to accept it as a sign of preace. Therefore the connotation of this sign is infact 'peace' or even 'hippies'. The rainbow colour in this context supports the meaning/use of this sign and they are often placed in the same context signifying the meaning 'peace'. Peace demonstrators use this to identify themselves eventhough the demonstration are not neccessarily for a nuclear disarmament campaign but any 'peace' campaign in general.

Writing up the Modernity lecture notes

Modernity and Modernism : an introduction

The word modern suggests something that is positive and improved. Modernity is a signifant social and cultural experience that happened broadly around 1760-1960. The progressincludes the process of industralization and urbanization. Communication and transportation improved where railway systems, roads and telegrpahs were introduced. The world's first modern city is believed to have been Paris in the 1900. It was the most advanced at the time, in terms of indrustry and technology.In 1937 the city hosted the 'Expostion Internationale, des Arts et des Techniques dans la Vie Moderne'( International Exhibition of arts and Techniques in Modern Life' to show the world of its modernity and advancements.The painter, Amedee Ozenfant from Woods book expresses

In architecture, as with all the other arts and techniques, it is our advances that are being shown, advances definitely gained, consolidated. Not many radical innovations.....Some people, I know, would like have seen a radical demonstration of ultra-modern buildings. Such as the Eiffel Tower provided in 1889.(2004, p14)

The trotter Roullant( the electric oving walkway) which was another construction Paris introduced for the Exposition Internationale and also another example of urbanisation. With the process of urbanisation the city became the place of works and factories are replacing the rurals.

The architecture and city structure of Paris itself was also changing. The process of Haussmanisation was introduced where from 1850's the old Paris architecture of narrow streets and run down houses were ripped out and the city architect, Haussmen redesigned the new paris with large Boulevards making the streets easier to police creating a form of social control. However, as a result, Paris became divided into rich and poor partt creating a larger separation of class in Paris. As Dawtrey(1996,p.155) states'modern culture saw the creation of an immense new bourgeoisie and an urban working class'. The artist Geores-Pierre Seurat expresses his awareness of this through his painitng, Bathers at Asnieres, 1884 where he paints workers of from the factory bathing in the river after work watching the rices across the river with boat races.As Dawtery analyses:

The painting confronts urban poverty and, perhaps, unemployment. All its figures are male; none is wearing the well cut clothing of the bourgeuisie, nor the equally elaborate costumes used by the class for outdoor leisure. One figure, an adolescent youth, seems to call out across the Seine to the unseen inhabitants of the Grande Jette(1996,p156)





Another aspect of Modernity is the process of rationality and reason where people are embracing new ways of thinking and shifting from supersition to science. this period in the late 18th century is called 'Enlightenment' when scientific and pholosophical thinking made leaps and bounds.


As the city became the site of the modern, artists are also changing thier ways of thinking, Impressionist paintings become more popular amonsgt the Avant-Gardes. For example, Caillebotte 'Paris on a Rainy Day' 1877, the work becomes focused more about the city and the experience instead of the people.



Brettel analyses

The figures are scaled down with respect to the buildings, which are also placed at greater distances from each other than they are in reality. Surely, this was done to give a modern, anonymous grandeur to this utterly bourgeois quarter. succinct in his condemnation(http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/resource/412)

A section from Modernism essay: The Bauhaus

The first example to demonstrate how Modernity is resposible to the modernist design is the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus was an art school started in Germany in 1919. Even though it only shortly operated and closed down in 1933 under pressure of the Nazi regime who, as Strasser (2009, p.132) explained saw it as "a hotbed of ommunist and Bolshevists ideologies"", the Bauhaus and its approach had a profound impact on the modernist design we see today.. The Bauhaus was considered a hotbed Founded by the architect, Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus school was designed to exhibit his response to the ever growing modernity in Europe. The Bauhaus building is an example of one of the key aspects of Modernism in design, Gropius responded to the forces of modernity by showing 'Truth to Material" where the concrete building has been left unpainted and uncovered to show the material used to construct the building, this allows the material traits to speak for itself. The structure of the building is also in simple geometric forms that are appropriate to the material being used. As Walter Gropius expresses in Willia Curtis's:


Architecture in the last few generations has become weakly sentimental, aesthetic and decorative.....this kind of architecture we disown. We ai to create clear, organic architecture whose inner logic will be radiant and naked, unencumbered by lying faces and trickery; we want an architecture adapted to our world of machines, radios and fast cars,....with the increasing strenghts of the new materials-steel,concrete,glass-and with the new audacity of engineering, the ponderousness of the old methods of buildings is giving way to a new lightness and airness(1996 p.194)


As the Bauhaus is an art school, the building consisted of large windows that accupy most of what woud usually be a wall to let a large amount of light in as it would be needed to suit the funtion of the building
This is an example of ' Form follows funtion' where the aesthetics comes out of how well something operates and is secondary to the function of the building. The design of the building has been largely dictated by what it is being used for Strasser(2009, p132)explained' it included a four story workshop wing with large area of glass, and an elevated administration area which connected the workshops with the building containing the arts and craftes college. Although the Bauhaus was very short loved as an art schoo, the approach that it has developped became one of the most influential movement in the history of Modern art and design. Architects applied the same rules to many structures that we see standing today. Apart from the impact this had on architecture, it also had a great influence on the emerging of new art movements such as futurism and cubism.

Harvard Referencing for Essay

Meecham, P. , Sheldon, J. (2000) Modern Art: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge

Harrison, C. (1997) Modernism. London: Tate Gallery Publishing

Dawtrey, L., Jackson, T., Masterton M., Meecham, P., Wood, P. (1996) Investigating Modern Art.Milton Keynes: Open University Press


Chipp, H. (1992) Theories of Modern Art. California: University of California Press

Mercer, K. (2005) Cosmopolitan Modernisms. London:MIT Press
Collings, M. (2000). Pheonix;New Ed Edition

Text Summary

At the beginning of the twentieth century a new art had been introduced, its concept being "expression". More artists are wanting to express themselves rather than sticking to the traditional and classical art from the 19th century. This was the impact of the modern condition which was being felt across Europe.

It is indicated that the "ideologies of the universal" are expressed in modernism. Paris was the main place of these events. The three stages of the dynamic of the modern were: Modernisation, Modernity and Modern. Modernisation describes the processes of scientific and technological advance such as the increase in impact of machines. Modernity refers to the social and cultural condition of such changes, a form of experience of change and adaption.Modernism is the cultural response to such changes

The responses to these modern conditions varied. One response was a profound pessimism, it was foind that machines were controlling the human loves and creating alienation amongst people. However, an opposite effect of this was felt by others. The poet Marinetti, has been granted a compelling vision of the modern and was the foundr of the futurism movement in art.



Cubism and futurism are forms of responses to modernity and rapidly ditinguished themselves as the paradigm of subsequent avant-garde art. it mattered less what particular subject the artist was address and more on the medium through which the world is represented, it was more about the means of representation.

The Document

Lecture Notes: Graphic Design: A Medium for the Masses