Good taste create by lots of aspects, and is probably not a good design in the society. For example, Rei Kawakubo is a Japanese fashion designer.

Fig 1, Comme des Garçons

1 She created the fashion brand of Comme des Garçons(fig 1), which is “ break the idea of ‘clothes’”, Moreover, there is no doubt that the accompanying work “Don’t Make Clothes” (Spring/Summer 2014) represents a new level of abstraction in the designer’s work, which is then amplified in subsequent works.2 Art, fashion history, movies and tourism have little influences to do with the creation of the spring and summer 2014 commodity line (rather than making clothes).

Fig 2, Earlier Fashion Week Series

Pierre Bourdieu has a point of good taste and bad taste, which include home environment, social notions of ‘ culture’.3 Furthermore, taste is socially situated, and a person chooses to communicate with others, choose clothes type, the choice of
environment, opinions on various works of art and so on.

Kawakubo’s autumn-winter 2016 runway collection of Comme des Garçons, which is luxury fashion with high culture.4Her earlier Fashion Week series(fig 2) used the magnificent materials of Versailles Palace and made them into three-dimensional structures of decorative fabrics embellished with gold-plated roses.For instance, this dress is from features the bulbous forms of imaged eighteenth-century punks saturated in pink and red vinyl skewed black wigs. And this dress is fashionable and beautiful design. Therefore, the autumn-winter 2016 collection design and material using is art for art’s sake, freeing and popular taste with aesthetic consumption and designer production.

Fig 3, Autumn-Winter 2016 Collection Design

5 Kawakubo’s opinion is “ Artistry, especially the originality of women’s fashion, is characterised by its “speed and novelty”, Brave Creation”, inspired Volt (1920, 253) to claim that it was equivalent to futuristic women. Invention is a major component of aesthetics for Kawakubo. In other words, the autumn-winter 2016 collection design of this dress(fig 3) not only is good taste but also good design.

Bling is an example of vulgarity and luxury, which is also not something to design and think deeply and low cultural. The design of this dress is the work with deep thinking and has high-quality cultural knowledge to analyse and understand.6Moreover, High-quality production fields are inseparable from specific cultures.

According to a period of time, a kind of civilisation and cultural background designed a range of Kawakubo’s autumn-winter 2016 runway collection, such as EmilyBraun Supported women’s rights after the Post-World War II affects social situation and breaks traditional institutions. So that Kawakubo also supports women’s rights with her fashion collection and there is high cultural in her design. Meanwhile, this is a good taste with material, which are synthetic fabric and metal.

Victoria national gallery have lots of good taste fashion collection, especially Kawakubo’s autumn-winter 2016 runway collection represent the taste with high cultural, good design with luxury brand identity. And the upper class is places value on aesthetic experience. As a result, this dress represents the collection highlight the expensive and good value for the society and people.

1 Karen de Perthuis, “ Breaking the Idea of Clothes: Rei Kawakubo’s Fashion Manifesto,” Fashion Theory, Jun 7, 2019: 2.

2 Ibid.

3 Despina Christoforidou, “Good Taste vs. Good Design: A Tug of War in the Light of Bling, ” in the Design Journal (PrintedIn the UK), 2012: 187.

4 Sarah Mower, “ Fall 2016 Ready-To-Wear: Comme des Garçons,” Vogue Runway Website, https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2016-ready-to-wear/comme-des-garcons.

5 Karen de Perthuis, “ Breaking the Idea of Clothes: Rei Kawakubo’s Fashion Manifesto,” Fashion Theory, Jun 7, 2019: 7.

6 Pierre Bourdieu, “Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste,” in the Distinction ( Cambridge, Mass, HarvardUniversity Press 1984）：4.

Bibliography

1. Perthuis, Karen de. Breaking the Idea of Clothes: Rei Kawakubo’s Fashion Manifesto.

Fashion Theory. Jun 7, 2019, 2-7.

2. Christoforidou, Despina. Good Taste vs. Good Design: A Tug of War in the Light of

Bling. In the Design Journal (Printed In the UK), 2012, 187.

3. Mower, Sarah. Fall 2016 Ready-To-Wear: Comme des Garçons. Vogue Runway Website.

https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2016-ready-to-wear/comme-des-garcons.

4. Perthuis, Karen de. Breaking the Idea of Clothes: Rei Kawakubo’s Fashion Manifesto.

Fashion Theory, Jun 7, 2019, 7.

5. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. In the Distinction ( Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press 1984), 4.

When I came to Australian National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), I was not expecting much from an exhibition that was running at the moment: Hans and Nora Heysen: Two Generations of Australian Art. From the promotional image their booklet was showing, it looked like another European-influenced painting. However, I was actually surprised of how much I appreciate their works after I finished the excursion.

The exhibition was curated as a narrative and divided into several themes and year such as everyday life, landscape paintings, still-lifes, and portraits as they progressed as artists. Visitors were given an atmosphere of being in the rural areas of Australia using videos of Australian landscapes and sounds of birds and cicadas loud enough that we can still hear from inside as we go deeper. A brief background of the artists were also given at the start.

German born artist, Wilhelm Ernst Hans Franz Heysen, set foot in Australia in 1887 when he was 7 years old. His family moved to Adelaide, South Australia and purchased a property called “The Cedars” which then became his permanent home until he died in 1968. Hans’ daughter, Nora was born in 1911 until her death in 200as the only child in the family who pursue the same career . She then became the first woman to be officially appointed as war artist in Australia. In terms of subject matter this exhibition offers Hans’ landscape and sometimes still life paintings while Nora was fortunate enough to paint not only what her father taught her, but also more portraits.

The main difference of Hans and Nora’s art could be seen in the brushstrokes when they’re using oil paint. Hans’ characteristic was more soft and if looked closely, it almost seems like it’s not blended. You could really see the brush strokes against the canvas. While Nora is more smoother, more crisp-looking and blended nicely. Especially with her still lives where you could almost feel the ceramic that the vase holds the flowers.

We can see in image 1, from afar the European resemblance could be seen in Hans’ paintings on how the techniques and composition are used. Vincent Van Gogh, John Constable and Johannes Vermeer are just some of the few artist that he admired (1). As someone who grew up in Australia might look at the work and say that it is undeniably Australian due to the gum trees and other flora that is often illustrated in most of his works. However, Tony Fry argued that Australia is the land of simulacrum. Meaning that most of what produced in Australia is merely just a copies of the original and unplaceable familiarity (2).

Despite the fact that such statement could disinterest their audience in this day and age, I found a particular demographic that truly enjoys their works, the elders. Which is not a bad thing. In fact, what I got from these people, they saw Heysens’ arts with awe and gives a feeling of nostalgia about maybe their younger days when they were playing deep in the woods or they used to live in a place similar like in the paintings. Similar with Hans’ artwork, Nora’s portraits gave a particular aspect of nostalgia about the war. As she was not only portraying the soldiers and officers, but also the medical staffs, the sick, and even indigenous people as well.

Throughout the exhibition, I learned that being truly original does not matter as much if the art resonated with the audience. Even as someone who does not grew up in Australia, I can still feel the nostalgia from the context that this exhibition was showcased and how it is enjoyed by a totally different demographic than I am.

(1) National Gallery of Victoria, ‘Hans and Nora Heysen: The Two Generations of Australia Art’, 2019, https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Hans_NoraHeysen_LargePrintLabels.pdf (Last Accessed 12 April 2019).

(2) Tony Fry, “A Geography of Power: Design History and Marginality” in Design Issues 6, No 1, Design in Asia and Australia (Autumn 1989): 15-30.

Moomin was huge in Scandinavian countries and Japan. Tove Jansson was to thank for. Beside her career as artist, we also have to recognise the role that Jansson lead especially being a queer woman artist living in the 20th century.

Born in Helsinki, on 9 August 1914, in a loving family, Tove Marika Jansson grew up to become an artist. She studied at Stockholm College of Applied Arts, Helsinki Art Society and moved to Paris to study at L’École d’Adrien Holy and L´École des Beaux-Arts. She moved back to Helsinki to set up a studio where her journey of writing Moomin began. Jansson was very enthusiastic of what she did. During her career, she was a not only painting in canvases, but also created graphic illustrations, novels and short stories of the Moomins. Although she enjoyed writing stories, she thought that she was only doing it as a hobby.

In one of her novel that she intended for adult audience called Fair Play, she portrayed a female couple that resembled Jansson and her significant other, Tuulikki Pietilä. Although it was not seem noticeable, the characters shared quiet moments of intimacy that does not seem straightforwardly lesbian (1). Considering the fact that she was living in an era of Nazi occupation and homosexual acts were condemned in FInland. She herself was not huge on speaking about LGBT rights. As Hallie Wells describes her, Wells referred Jansson as being “elegant” in a way that Jansson uses her works as a way to disclose yet keeping her sexual preference as something discreet by using slangs (2).

Although Jansson was not that outspoken about her relationship, she and partner often collaborated for Moomin storybook. One of the characters, Too-Ticky (image 2) was even modelled after Pietilä. In Moomin’s official website, they described the character as “…wise woman who knows how to solve all sorts of dilemmas in a sensible and practical way” (3) referring to how Jansson think of Pietilä. Jansson also made a portrait of Pietilä (image 3) while she was working in the studio. Illustrating a tranquil yet intimate moments that they both shared.

Considering that Australia has legalised gay marriage, it is a monumental step for the LGBT community. Especially in arts where we are getting to acknowledge more queer artist from the past or present including Jansson and Pietilä. This way, younger artist might be more comfortable expressing who they are whether in a subtle way or tongue-in-cheek.

Jansson not only contribute to the LGBT community history, but also as a women artist in the 20th century as well. Although she grew up in a supportive artist family, in the outside world during her studies, she had to compete with fellow male artist to be on par if not better. But that fact didn’t stop her from creating works of art. Being a woman artist myself, learning about Jansson opened my eyes of what women could become and even more. Maud Lavin stated that young girls are “relationship centred” in terms of looking up to someone (4). Having someone who could identify themselves with a past figure is important to build confidence in their career. That is why it is important to give spotlight to someone like Tove Jansson.

(1) Tove Jansson, Moominland Midwinter. Thomas Warburton, trans. New York, NY: Macmillan.

(2) Hallie Wells, “Between discretion and disclosure: Queer (e)labor(ations) in the work of Tove Jansson and Audre Lorde” in Journal of Lesbian Studies 23 (2019): 224-242.

(3) Too-Ticky in Moomin Characters https://www.moomin.com/en/characters/too-ticky/ (Last accessed 12 April 2019).

(4) Jane Connory, for DHARN in “Plotting the Historical Pipeline of Women in Graphic Design”, 2017 http://dharn.org.au/plotting-the-historical-pipeline-of-women-in-graphic-design/ (Last accessed 12 April 2019).

The world’s coral reefs are being destroyed at an alarming rate with a fifth of all the coral in the world dying in the last three years alone (1). The exhibition A Thousand Tides brings to light to natural beauty of the flora and the fauna of the extraordinary underwater wold, and the importance of saving it.

Artist Vera Möller seeks to ‘blur the boundaries between the real and imagined,’ through a series of captivating paintings, collages and sculptural fields of the underwater world. The dream-like artworks and combine both science-based observation and her own figurative interpretation to effectively ask the audience recognise the natural world as a place for creative exploration. She addresses the issues ‘pollution, global warming, overfishing and tourism’ on Western Port Bay, calling for change by the Australian government to formulate an effective global warming policy.

Möller’s interest in the natural world began in Germany with her training in biology, microbiology and limnology. She later to Melbourne where she studied fine art at VCA and Monash University. This knowledge has informed her recreation of the amazing underwater habitats, as she has first-hand witnessed the degradation of the world’s coral and understands the urgency to do something about it.

As you enter the space, the gallery feels intimate with huge paintings filling the walls and an array of sculptures filling the middle. The soft soundtrack of waves crashing allows the audience to immerse themselves into the artwork and imagine they are in the dreamy oceanic environments that Möller portrays. The whole space is curated effectively with careful use of spot lighting over the artwork allows their intricate details to shine. Didactic panels placed next to reiterate the artists stance to look after the beautiful environment she creates. Throughout the gallery, videos can be played of Vera speaking about her art, giving the audience a feeling of connectedness to the artist and to discover her process of creation. Children and adults are encouraged to create their own underwater sculptures with plasticine through a workshop which rungs alongside the exhibition.

One piece of work I particularly noted was the installation titled Cajalia, which comprised of thousands of tiny individual forms with phosphorescent tips that glow in ultraviolet light. It represents the fascinating aerial root system of Western Port Bay’s mangrove swamps, and their means of communication. The dark installation placed in the centre of the room provides a stark contrast to the bright room, captivating the audience as Möller encourages the audience to ‘take notice of [the] incredible visual characteristics and observe [the] stunning biological complexities,’ of the delicate ecologies she portrays.

The works are currently being exhibited at the incredible Bunjil Place Gallery, a new entertainment and creative percent located in Narre Warren. The small gallery feels intimate inside the large, impressively designed building, which allows the audience to really connect with the work. A thousand Tides is a part of Art + Climate = Change, which is a socially engaged festival of ideas, exhibitions and events centred around activism and accelerating the action on climate change. The exhibition is well curated which serves well to highlight important environmental issues through Möller’s visually exciting multimedia works.

References

1 The Economist. (2018) Why is so much of the World’s Coral Dying?https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/03/21/why-is-so-much-of-the-worlds-coral-dying

Möller, V (2019) A Thousand Tides. Bunjil Place Gallery, Narre Warren.

The Road To Equality

“Women’s interventions, both past and present, are consistently ignored’ (1). As a society, we are becoming a more progressive nation in terms of gender equality, however barriers between the representation of female and male designs continue in present day design, and women still appear to be less valued in the artistic sphere.

Information designer Margaret Calvert is the ubiquitous woman behind one of the UK’s most commonly used systems, and you wouldn’t even know it. Between 1957 and 1964, Margaret along with the well-known graphic designer Jock Kinkier cerated the Transport font and a series of pictograms that forms the entire UK road sign system that is still used today. Calvert’s designs have had an important contribution to the cultural landscape of England, however being a female, she never received as much public acclamation for her work as her male partner did. It can be said that “the way in which people measure or determine what is good design is only important to the design critic, not to the design practitioner” (2). In this way, Calvert’s designs can be seen as ‘good designs,’ as to the user, these designs have been effective in communicating their message and help provide clarity on the UK roads.

In 2008, Margaret released her first print titled Woman at Work which is a play on her original work creating the road signs. The print depicts the roadwork sign, which typically features a man at work digging. However, her new artwork has been redesigned to a female, long-haired, skirt-wearing worker, in an attempt to break down the gender barriers that society has formed, and giving the road sign a completely new dimension.

“The unwritten social rules of appropriate pursuits limited options for women,” (3) in design as gender limits the success of women and the impact of the work they create. “Despite women comprising more that 50% of Graphic Design graduates since the 1970s, only one woman… was included in the Australian Graphic Design Academy Hall of Fame,” (4) which really reflects the limitations upon women in the industry, and the regular oversight of their work, leaving many without their deserved recognition. There is believed to be three barriers preventing the progression of women in design. The first is “getting onto a degree course and completing this,’ which is often hindered by the technical aspect being considered inherently difficult. “The second stage is attaining a job,” where the ability of a woman outside the domestic environment fuels this inequity. The final barrier “appertains to success at work,” where females must have contacts and “fain experience in leasing with the client.” (5)

The glass ceiling is an invisible barrier prevalent in our society that prevents women and other minorities from achieving further success, however by recognising female designers both past and present that have help shaped our society, we can attempt to erase this barrier the oversight of their work.

Bibliography
1 Buckley, C. (1986) Made in Patriarchy: Toward a Feminist Analysis of Women and Design. Design Issues, Vol. 3, No. 2 , pp. 3-14

2 Christoforidou. D, Olander. O, Anders. W, & Holm.L. (2012) Good Taste vs. Good Design: A Tug of War in the Light of Bling The Design Journal, VOLUME 15, pp 185–202

3 Connory, J (2017) Plotting the Historical Pipeline of Women in Graphic Design. Available at http://dharn.org.au/dharn2017/plotting-the-historical-pipeline-of-women-in-graphic-design/

4 Bruce, M & Lewis, J. (1990) Women designers- Is there a Gender Trap? Butterworth and Co Publishers

5 Bruce, M & Lewis, J. (1990) Women designers- Is there a Gender Trap? Butterworth and Co Publishers

Few inventions change the world. Thomas Edison’s Light bulb was a revolutionary development that sparked the development of the electronic era we live in, Fords application of the assembly line invigorated the modern quality and quality expectations for products and the development of the first handheld phones from Motorola have lead to almost half of the globes population having a mobile phone in 2019. While it can be argues all these have had tremendous affects on society and the development on our modern day world none have been around longer or had nearly as much widespread reach as the invention of money

Money has seen three major revolutions since it first was observed in early 600 B.C. Initially it was in the form of trading and goods swapping which allowed people to gather items they may not be able to procure themselves. Brought about by social issues faced by bartering and trading, currency was developed by civilians and Lydia’s King Alyattes was the first to mint a currency in China. This lead this region of china to be the wealthiest part of Asia. 100 years later the first money paper appeared and after that it was spread across to the Americas, this would be the last development money sees for almost 2 and a half millennium until credit cards appeared in 1950.

The Most recent development in currency and continuing the digital age trends on the 21st century was Bitcoin a crypto currency developed by Satoshi Nakamoto. Despite the widespread knowledge of the bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto remains relatively unknown. This is possibly due to the anonymity of the name and that it is not an individual but a pseudonym for the designer. Money is a dominating force in our world and the choice to anonymously implement the next step in the evolution of money is very interesting. The Creator of Bitcoin expresses the need for a unmanned currency system due to the “problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work” (Maurer et al., 2019)

Design is not always a product from someone but a service that should be provided to a community. Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous inventor may have removed his identity from the process to discourage branding on an idea or removing the spotlight from them but to the service. Like Many sources of the Money revolution it shall remain vague and non-specific about where it has come from but more importantly it shall be a product of the developing world and present us with the next step forward in the economic process. Money is not a product or a service that can be owned by an individual but by the rapidly changing society we live. Don Norman puts it well “technology is a powerful driver of change…sometimes to fulfil important needs, and sometimes simple because the technology makes the change possible”(Norman, D. 1988). Simply put money has not been invented because someone thought of it but because our world has grown to need it and so it arose.

Maurer, B., Mainwaring, S., Swartz, L. and Nelms, T. (2019). Shibboleth Authentication Request. [online] Journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au. Available at: https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/doi/pdf/10.1177/0263276417746466 [Accessed 12 Apr. 2019]

Norman, D. (1988). The design of everyday things. United states: Basic Books.

The World around us is very real and observable. Everything we see exists and everything we see can be explained but this isn’t true for how we feel. The world around us changes everyone of us in a different way and there is no way to explain how or why we should feel the way we do and why it isn’t the same for everyone else.

Science and art are very different for those reasons. Science we can boil down to hard facts and calculations based on observable phenomena while art seems to move us and affect us in a way that is much more complex and more difficult to comprehend. Escher, the famous illusion artist from 1900s is able to captures complicated scientific concepts which he instils in much of his own art work.

He observes Infiniti, a seemingly impossible task to grasp like it is his muse to be drawn and channel his creative outlook on the world he sees around him. Escher seemed to view the world around him in a fundamentally creative way yet grounded in science. The Laws of science were not constraints on his visual works but a bendable lens for him to view and reimagine his surroundings.

The scientific research and development arena for a millennia has been driven by the concept of the benefit to understand the world around us down to its rawest form. From Biologies discoveries on Microscopic cells to chemistries depth of knowledge on periodic elements. The breadth on study and its underlying beliefs that the world around us can be explained by numbers and equations has lead to the extraordinary level of understanding. However fundamentally the Study of Art and Design can never be this understood because it is all a product of imagination and “design does not easily fit into the traditional humanities or social science disciplines”. At a surface level we can study colour and its affects on our mood or shapes and form and how it is perceived but ultimately art and design is a product of an individual or collectives understanding of the world around us. We can aim art at people and beliefs, we can direct the meaning but in the end everyone will have a different experience and a different reaction to art and design. In a study showing personal prejudice of art researcher Dimeji Onafuwa found that participants noticed radical differences of their interpretations due to their own prejudices.

So when you visit a gallery don’t aim to understand what the artist wants you to feel or react the way you think you should simply endeavour to let the art be seen through your own eyes. Ecshers work is a beautiful reimagining of how he sees the world. Walking though his exhibit fills me with an amazing sense of wonderment about how our world works and how constrained we are when we limit our minds to see what is in front of us instead of seeing how we feel from the world around us.

I have been to MUMA for the exhibition in 1^st April. I went to there in 5 mins from my lecture room. I get into the MUMA. Reconfirm this is the right exhibition with the staff in the service desk. (image 1)

There are some rooms in the exhibition hall. When I first get in there the room, there is a long dark walking path to every rooms. (image 2)

The first room on the right is an exhibition I totally don’t understand what is about. (
image 3) It is a room with some TV and surrounded with some photos of the jungle. Which I totally don’t understand what is about.

The I went to the second room. The exhibition was totally getting my attention. I saw some art works very interested me. There was some art work about the east Asian revolution. Including Japan and China. I can speak Chinese and I can read some of the Japanese because they were quite similar.

Beat the imperialism revisionism reactionaries ( image 4) is a political humorous propaganda art work. This art represents a list of the so called “counter-revolutionaries” have been recognized by Chinese government. This work put Hitler and some other bad guys together. Including Nixon, Brezhnev and Chiang Kai-shek and some others. The way of defaming the leaders make them still recognizable and humorous. According to Tony, that design is influenced by the politicians of the history in the specific time period. He thinks the design is served for the special social background in Australian. Which I agree with him, and I think his theory not only fit in Australia but also fit for the Chinese design too. That Chinese design is also influenced by the time and political environment during the history movement too. Although Hitler is a devil cannot be cleaned. Some other people has been recognized as a good friend in the later history event. For example, in the earlier years, China and Soviet Union were so closed in the communist revolution. But this work placed Brezhnev and Khrushchev as revisionism villains. Nixon was interview China in 1972. The relationship between China and USA is getting closer since that. In 1980s, Chinese government re-define the reputation of Shaoqi Liu ( image 5). Above all the history events were the evidence that this design has been influenced by the history in that specific year.

Their also some other works made in the Chinese culture revolution time. The Mao’s portrait ( image 6) might be considered as a personality cult only happened in that specific decade.

The Japanese art has also interested me. There are Japanese currency designed and the portrait in the currency is looks familiar to me （ image 7）. He is a leader of Japanese modernization call Meiji Renovation. The clothing and style are completely different from the traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e art.

At the same room, I have heard a video playing the music in the melody of Bella Ciao. This should be another language edition of the Bella ciao. I am not sure what language is this. But it doesn’t matter, just like le international. People from the world hear it can sing in their own language.

Basically, the exhibition has interested me in the politic influenced in the special time. as a later generation I might unable to fully understood this design if I don’t get the history background in the time.

Reference

Fry, Tony, A Geography of Power: Design History and Marginality,Design Issues, Vol. 6, No. 1, Design in Asia and Australia (Autumn, 1989), pp. 15-30

All image were take by me in the shapes of knowledge exhibition.

The indigenous Australian art work has been recognized as a forgotten art. Even sometimes I feels like I’m in Australia, but I never saw and indigenous Australian people and indigenous culture. Even the indigenous culture product in Melbourne city gift shops were possibly made in China. I decided to find out some indigenous design works after I done my presentation about indigenous culture. There is an exhibition in national gallery.

I went to the from bark to neon exhibition in 2 weeks ago. The exhibition is in level 3 of the gallery. I took the lift to the exhibition and start my journey. When I first get in there, I saw something horrible on the right-hand side: Two kid heads and a boomerang? (image 1) And a kid switches his body with watermelon? (image 2) This two works makes uncomfortable to look at it. It makes me feels like intimidate someone by sent a picture of their kids and a bully. I totally can’t understand that.

I moved inside, the exhibition is getting more interested me. The traditional indigenous artworks are highly recognizable. The dot art works are unique in the world. the indigenous artist uses the dots to pix-elate a painting. Some of them were using a single color to represent the work: The entire frame is constructed by many dots in same color and same size.

I am more interested in the line works. There are some traditional indigenous line artworks are making me playing funny with. While I stand in front of a line work. （image 3）. Suddenly, I am thinking some idea of hypnosis . So, I took my phone, turning to video shot move front and back. The lines are keep moving. Looks like then video really can dizziness me when I check what I have shot in my video.(GIF image 4)

It seriously makes me feels like the indigenous artist and designer has been forgotten by the world. Otherwise the Hypnotist should hold an indigenous art works to hypnotize people and forgot their pocket watch. (image 5)As a industrial design student, I suddenly have an idea of design a product by using the indigenous art works to hypnotist the bad sleepers to help them have a good rest.

It is 2019 now, since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd were apology to the indigenous people for stolen their culture. Then while I did my presentation in week 2, my research makes me realized that there are still have company such Channel (figure 4) stolen the indigenous culture and make profit for themselves. According to the AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS DESIGN CHARTER the Australian government has called on the creative industries to more closely consider the relationship between Australian indigenous people and their cultural. The Australian government have legislation to protect the indigenous culture and copy right.

However, the legislation wall might be too high for the people who want to publicize the indigenous culture. And the wall also might be blocking the indigenous artist mind and make them only focusing on their traditional art works. The dots or line paintings. they might be forgotten in the high legislation wall.

reading

AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS DESIGN CHARTER – Communication Design

image　

image１２３ shooting in NGV Australia Federation Square

image ４ https://www.shutterstock.com/zh/video/clip-6804622-swinging-small-pocket-watch-slow-motion-classic

image ５https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-16/chanels-$2000-boomerang-sparks-aboriginal-appropriation-claim/8531496

Gorden Wagener is a German car designer and a chief designer for Mercedes Benz. A lot of automobiles manufactured by Mercedes have come his “pen”. Which is why many will say that validates Gorden to be one of best car designers and works at one of the biggest automobile company in the world. Some of his famous works include the Mercedes Benz EQ which is the first electric car from the company along with the Mercedes Benz EQ Silver. (Images 1 and 2)

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Gorden Wagener designs do not just limit to automobiles he designs boat and even some jets, but to do so his designs are based of philosophy and research into the future as well as user experience. Gorden is forever questions himself to be more innovative and future seeking like “how will the urban future would like?” “What will the mobile technology of tomorrow enable?”. Questions like these enable him and his team to seek beyond human expectation and reinvents their outlook on car design as a whole. [1] My design on cars follows a similar path of questioning but like all designers there are differences in our outcome on how we would picture the future. Car designers somewhat base their designs on meeting the 5 senses of the customer, the similar technique used in retailing like John Mackey’s Whole Foods Supermarket in Austin Texas. John Mackey built a state-of-the-art supermarket where he insists on smelt baled bread and roasted nuts the visuals being of colour coordination and meets the eye and successfully meeting all other senses through this to acquire attraction which lead to sales. [2]

My latest work on a jaguar electric car has proven that all designers have a different out look to the future but may seem to have a similar process on getting to the final product. Differences between me and Gorden may start from something simple as our sketching and rendering methods. Looking at images 3 and 4 we can see that our sketches varies in our strokes and line weight and the overall proportion on based on the fundamental designs of the car in this case Jaguar and Mercedes. It varies from how we what it too looks like to and how we apply certain line weight to get that idea within our mind. In my case side view a side view is how I get my design going and build up from there but Gorden has enough experience to start his sketch exactly the way he sees it because although we both design cars I am a third-year student and a master of the craft.

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Gorden philosophy revolves around this norm of “DNA of Form” whereby he draws his ideas form nature and all its natural curvatures. These earthly elements are what he resembles is his sketches and his work. By studying a piece of long grey granite and describing it as an “essential beauty and elegance and earth at its purist form”. He reflects this ideology in his sketches and has incorporated into the Mercedes automobiles. Whereby my own ideology revolves around the fluidity of water in its original state, like organic shapes it makes when it hits the ground or when its exposed to low temperatures and turns into ice. These stages are how I navigate through my sketches and designs and incorporating this philosophy into my final design in image 5. The way I have rendered it reflects a sense of fluidity across the car with touches of white reflections. But looking at Gordon’s final image 6 in his design we see the long silver granite DNA in his final being elongated and has “exaggerated proportions and pronounced wheel arches”[4]

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We both have a vision for the future and some sort of idea of how it should look like and some may argue that they are similar outcomes but in saying so would validating why we are so different but the same in a strange way but I as a student I will still look to designers such as Gorden for inspiration to become a stand out car designer and rebuild the future in the ways that I picture it by asking myself the critical questions and having to answer it through my designs.

[1] (Mercedes Benz ‘The spectacular utopias of Chief Design Officer Gordon Wagener’ 27 February 2017)

[2] (Adam Mack (2012) The Politics of Good Taste, The Senses and Society, 7:1,
87-94, United Kingdom)

[3] (Voldy Bukishie ‘Final Jaguar Concept SX, 08 November 2018)

[4] Greg Kable in ‘Modern Day Concepts captures the spirit of streamliners, 25 August 2018)

Artworld
noun [ahrt-wurld]
1. A group or network of people involved in the production, commission, preservation, promotion, criticism, and sale of art. (YourDictionary 2019)

Art is a tricky concept to construe. It could be 2-D or 3-D. It could be intentional or accidental. It comes in different forms. It could be the Mona Lisa. Or it could be a room filled with engine oil located in the ever-so-unique Tasmania, but I’ll get to that shortly.

First, lets start off by asking the dreaded question: “What is art?” Perhaps no-one knows. But I shall introduce an example that may provide some insight. In 1917, French-American artist Marcel Duchamp presented a controversial yet riveting piece of art in the form of a standard porcelain urinal, titled as Fountain, and signed with “R. Mutt 1917”. However, it was denied for exhibition by the board, much to Duchamp’s disappointment. (Tate 2019)
Fast forward 99 years, Italian artist Piero Manzoni managed to sell a can of fecal matter, known as Artist’s Shit for €275,000. Crazy, right? (La Stampa 2016)

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So what happened in between those 99 years that resulted in a transition between a urinal being rejected for display and 30 grams of poo exceeding the value of gold? Could it have just been luck? Or the more plausible explanation – the development of the Artworld! The community that determines what classifies as art, and what does not. A platform that legitimises art. Much like the words of philisopher George Dickie, “a work of art is an artifact of a kind created to be presented to an artworld public” and “a framework for the presentation of a work of art by an artist” (Margolin 2013).

As for Manzoni’s example, the allure of his art pieces that provide them with artistic status may stem from numerous factors. They were intimate and personal. They were well presented and produced in a limited batch of 90. And most importantly, they were a metaphor for the nature of artistic labour – raw materials, violent expulsion etc. (Tate 2019). So it wasn’t just your regular ol’ can of shit; it had extended meaning behind it, which is why it was (and still is) seen as “art”, and hence the absurd price tag.

So back to my engine oil story. I paid a visit to the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart last year, and needless to say, I was very intrigued. The one exhibit that had a lasting impression on me was called 20:50, located in the new Pharos wing at MONA. It was a room flooded with black reflective liquid (probably sump oil), with waist-high barriers which allowed viewers to walk in through a narrow channel. The liquid was filled to the brim – one drop more and it would overflow. My temptation to reach out and touch the liquid was held back by common sense, the pungent greasy smell and of course, the “do not touch” signs scattered everywhere. It was a very interesting exhibit, despite the fact that there was no particular meaning attached to it. But that’s art, right? It is up to us individuals to give it some meaning, some sense, some artistic value. For me, it was a frustrating experience. Usually, when you see an exhibit, you try to absorb it with as many senses possible: see, feel, smell, hear. Almost in all cases, you can both see and feel it. In this exhibit, I was held back by limitations, which dampened my experience. Instead, I was provided with the alternative of smell that I had to settle for. And one other thing – if they did not want people touching the oil, why were there no restrictive railings to prevent us from touching it? Maybe the beauty of this art piece is the fact that there is no need for a physical barrier; it is rather the mental barrier that proves sufficient.

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In this day and age, we see art in everything. It does not matter what we are told; we all see things in our own way. The same group of people who caused a can of excrement to sell for big money is the same group of people that we see browsing through galleries and exhibits. That’s us. We are the Artworld.

Bibliography:

Alcuni Dirriti Riservati. Record per “Merda d’Artista” di Manzoni: 275mila euro per la scatoletta n. 69. La Stampa. Accessed April 10, 2019. https://www.lastampa.it/2016/12/08/cultura/arte/home-cover/record-per-merda-dartista-di-manzoni-mila-euro-per-la-scatoletta-n-9BhUWPVZJtOQqT1CVBOysK/pagina.html

Margolin, V. 2013. Design Studies: Tasks and Challenges. The Design Journal 14, no. 4: 400-407.

Tate. Marcel Duchamp | Fountain. Tate. Accessed April 10, 2019. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573

Tate. Piero Manzoni | Artist’s Shit. Tate. Accessed April 10, 2019. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/manzoni-artists-shit-t07667

YourDictionary. Artworld Dictionary Definition. YourDictionary. Accessed April 10, 2019. https://www.yourdictionary.com/artworld