OUGD501 - Practical Work Synthesis

In my COP2 essay, I came to a conclusion that contemporary visual culture has become, for want of a better word, stagnant. This may come across as slightly dramatic or sensationalist, but I came to that conclusion through undertaking extensive academic, contextual and visual research, I didn’t simply arrive at that conclusion based on personal views or attitudes. My conclusion was supported by key theoretical statements from poignant figures such as Baudrillard and Hutcheon, who were making observations about trends in visual culture in the 1970's and 80's. I found it fascinating that their investigations into this topic produced theories that seem to predict and foreshadow our current creative/visual culture. 

Importantly, I didn’t conclude that we have arrived at a state of pure simulacrum, nor have we entered into a total hyper-reality. The majority of commercial visual communication today is just that: commercial. Aesthetics here feel polished, sophisticated but there are definite elements of expression and experimental attitudes seem to be popular, especially amongst graphic designers. What I found interesting was to look more closely at personal work produced by contemporary creative's. 

It was here that I could see that pastiche and parody were running wild. I believe that these pieces of work produced today are either consciously or unconsciously designed with certain intentions. These works could be said to be contributing  to a sense of a simulated, hyper-real world which has come to be with the help of an extremely wide range of other influencing factors, besides designers personal interests, preferences and agendas. The very specific visual and creative culture that I find myself fascinated by appears to have an incessant desire to reference itself and texts from the far and recent past. These characteristics underpin a lot of work that can be described as being traditionally postmodern. Devises such as pastiche and parody are not necessarily bad things; they do have the potential when used appropriately to produce critical, well informed and well rounded pieces of visual communication. But what seems to have happened today is slightly concerning. It’s as if some creative practitioners have become uber-post-modernists, working in a self contained environment, hopelessly and almost desperately recycling, appropriating and re-referencing visual texts from the past whilst simultaneously being experimental and self-expressing. It all feels a bit strange, and I still unsure whether or not I appreciate these contemporary trends. That is why I came to the conclusion that visual culture is starting to feel stagnant. I didn't make this comment because I dislike the aesthetics, I actually find a lot of commercial work produced today exciting and refreshing. I meant it in a lateral, conceptual way. It feels stagnant in the sense that things have been done before in terms of surfaces. It's as if designers are taking post-modernist principles and attitudes and amplifying them beyond recognition.

My practical work aims to make a comment on the state that I personally feel we are experiencing. You could say that my practical work attempts to answer the issues highlighted in the essay, particularly providing a solution to the quite bold conclusion that I came to. 

It critically analyses and comments on our contemporary visual culture through the eyes of a contemporary, practising designer. My practical work is fundamentally fictional exhibition branding. It acts as a proposal, a theoretical cure to this stagnancy. At the centre of the exhibition is the Neuism manifesto. The manifesto is inspired by radical, avant-garde manifestos written for key art movements from the 20th century. The fictional exhibition would feature examples of work which would be describes as neuisms. A neuism is a piece of visual work which follows four fundamental pillars which are underpinned by key modernist and post-modernist principles. The branding itself reflects the nature of a manifesto, whilst portraying conceptual aesthetics. The branding draws inspiration from branding that surrounds me currently, but it is also trying to establish its own, quite neutral aesthetic.