Hidden Meanings and Entangled Objects by https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw This week’s session explores examples of objects and designs that have more complicated histories than might first appear. This is often a result of a consumer changing the meaning of things through use. As part of this discussion, we will explore the idea of subcultures where, rather than being a passive consumer who accepts social norms, individuals attempt to challenge and subvert the status quo. The session will also explore the idea that we, as people researching writing about objects, can also influence their meanings and histories. en-us 2017-11-19 13:15:18 UTC 2026-02-22 07:20:33 UTC hello@padlet.com Punk Culture rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208467781 Changing the meaning of clothes from Street Style and Its Meaning in Postwar Japan, FashionTheory,

"British Punks also mixed items from various other subcultures into their clothes style. The Punks used diverse objects such as Lurex, old school uniforms, plastic garbage bags, safety pins, bondage and sexual fetish wear in their clothes. They wore their hair shaved, dyed, and spiked, to create a shocking image (Brake 1985: 77). They were inspired by such diverse subcultures as those of the Rockers, the Skinheads, and even the Psychedelics, combining them all into an original style (Polhemus 1994: 93). Dick Hebdige explains this style as “cut ups”: punk style was defined principally through the violence of its “cut ups.” [...] Anything within or without reason could be turned into part of what Vivienne Westwood called “confrontation dressing” so long as the rupture between “natural” and constructed context was clearly visible."(Hebdige 1979: 106–7) 

]]> 2017-11-19 13:35:58 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208467781 Objects and Semiotics rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208467974  A"Semiotic"Analysis"of"Women’s"High"Heel"Shoes Analysis"By"Rachel"K."Fischer ]]> 2017-11-19 13:38:06 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208467974 Looking at objects differently rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208468021 “It ‘transubstantiates’ a set of important values: straightforwardness, 
strength, honesty and elegance. By getting closer to the chair, we stand to become a little more like it, which is an important piece of inner evolution.

Material objects can therefore be said to play a positive psychological (or spiritual) role in our lives when higher more positive ideals are ‘materialised’ in them, and so when 
buying and using them daily gives us a chance to get closer to our better selves. When they are contained in physical things, valuable psychological qualities that are otherwise often intermittent in our thoughts and conduct can become more stable and resilient.”
(practical and physical and also embody or allude to a positive personality or spirit).
]]> 2017-11-19 13:38:33 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208468021 HOODIES and Mixed Meanings rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208468106 Still the garment’s meaning remains mixed.
Even the word “hoodie” has echoes of racial overtones, differentiated only by prepositions and suffixes. In the hood.
From the hood.
Hoodlum, derived from “hudelum,” found in a 19th-century German dialect, meaning ruffian….”

…Things pre-exist the meanings they acquire,” 
White youths and older folks in hoodies have relatively benign meanings.”

“… “I’ll never think of a hoodie the same way I used to,” Maree, organizer of the NYC’s Million Hoodie March, said. “While I didn’t think about this on the outset, it’s become a way to confront our initial or subliminal reactions to race. It’s subconscious, but when people start to confront their initial reactions,
we’ll see progress.”
]]> 2017-11-19 13:39:11 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208468106 Homes from Home rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208468623  Irene Cieraad (2010) Homes from Home: Memories and Projections, Home Cultures, 7:1, 85-102 

Think of your ideal home, where would it be and what objects would surround you? Why are these objects important?

 "The psychological link between memories of past homes, present home situations, and projections of future homes also changes with age. Throughout one’s life, the first home, the childhood home, retains its special meaning. Memories of the childhood home remain a primal point of reference, whether one loved it or hated it. However, the projections of future homes will change over one’s lifetime." (p93,94)

"The intermediary role of objects, not only in reviving memories of past homes, but in linking present homes to future homes, needs to be addressed in more detail. A key issue for examination will be the object’s hidden power to trigger memory. Nowadays, the memorising power of objects is acknowledged by psychologists and used in the treatment of Alzheimer patients, the so-called reminiscence therapy. In therapy sessions patients are confronted with objects that might have decorated their past homes."

" Although they do not hold the same therapeutic power, inherited objects are also treasured for keeping memories alive. Inherited objects revitalize memories of parents and the childhood home. In the case of the younger generation, however, it will more likely be the memories of their grandparents and their grandparents’ homes."]]> 2017-11-19 13:44:24 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208468623 Sub Cultures explained - ADDITIONAL READING: Hiroshi Narumi (2010) Street Style and Its Meaning in Postwar Japan, FashionTheory, 14:4, 415-438 rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208472158 "Both British Punks and Japanese bôsô-zoku were keenly conscious of their appearance. For example, when the Punks also used symbols such as the swastika, they just appropriated the antisocial connotation rather than identified themselves with Nazis. This was similar to the use of nationalist images and symbols by Japanese bôsô-zoku. A central constituent of both the bôsô-zoku and the Punk style was the appropriation of existing cultural symbols to shock their original cultural constituency. Both subcultures were explicitly antagonistic towards middle-class culture and branded themselves as anti-social villains. They appropriated the styles of existing deviant cultures, such as gangsters (yakuza), and biker subculture (leather jackets), garments associated with fascism (Nazis, Japanese Imperial Army), and workingclass culture. Both the Punks and the bôsô-zoku were keenly aware of the critical significance and the shocking effect of their style, to the rest of society. In other words, they consciously played the role of folk devil." ]]> 2017-11-19 14:15:04 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208472158 Appropriation and Misappropriation of objects and clothing rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473057 Hippy way of living consisted of rejecting conventional lifestyles and fabrics. Modern day examples of hippy clothing appropriated by costume companies are made from polyester and have made the sub-culture into a commodity, subverting it's initial meaning.
Can you think of any other examples?

]]> 2017-11-19 14:23:17 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473057 rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473333 2017-11-19 14:25:49 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473333 Fountain, 1917/1964 Glazed ceramic with black paint© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel Duchamp San Francisco Museum of Modern Art rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473760 2017-11-19 14:28:55 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473760 MARCEL DUCHAMP https://www.moma.org/ rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473776 DADAISM
Seeking an alternative to representing objects in paint, Duchamp began presenting objects themselves as art. He selected mass-produced, commercially available, often utilitarian objects, designating them as art and giving them titles. “Readymades,” as he called them, disrupted centuries of thinking about the artist’s role as a skilled creator of original handmade objects. Instead, Duchamp argued, “An ordinary object [could be] elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.”

The ready made also defied the notion that art must be beautiful. Duchamp claimed to have chosen everyday objects “based on a reaction of visual indifference, with at the same time a total absence of good or bad taste….

”In doing so, Duchamp paved the way for Conceptual art—work that was “in the service of the mind,” as opposed to a purely “retinal” art, intended only to please the eye.

]]> 2017-11-19 14:29:05 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473776 Barry Rosenthal rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473849 2017-11-19 14:29:51 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473849 Gabriel Orozco rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473927 2017-11-19 14:30:05 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473927 Adding meaning to Objects... rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473952 Alejandro Duran]]> 2017-11-19 14:30:17 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208473952 Artists and Objects rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208474120 2017-11-19 14:31:52 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208474120 rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475318 2017-11-19 14:43:14 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475318 rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475344 2017-11-19 14:43:25 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475344 rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475381 2017-11-19 14:43:33 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475381 rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475426 2017-11-19 14:43:54 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475426 Military Fashion rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475441 Appropriation


]]> 2017-11-19 14:44:05 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475441 Other examples of Clothing changing meaning -mRebellion, Emancipation and Self-Expression rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475486 2017-11-19 14:44:23 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475486 HOODIES and SPORTSWEAR rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475500 “The point of origin is obviously Black American hip-hop culture, now thoroughly mainstream and a key part of the global economy of music through Eminem and others. Leisure  and sportswear adopted from everyday wear suggests a distance from the world of office [suit] or school [uniform]. Rap culture celebrates defiance, as it narrates the experience of social exclusion. Musically and stylistically, it projects menace and danger as well as anger and rage. The hooded top is one in a long line of garments chosen by young people, usually boys, and inscribed with meaning suggesting that they are ‘up to no good’. In the past, such appropriation was usually restricted to membership of specific youth cultures – leather jackets, bondage trousers – but nowadays it is the norm among young people to flag up their music and cultural preferences in this way, hence the adoption of the hoodie by boys across the boundaries of age, ethnicity and class.”]]> 2017-11-19 14:44:31 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208475500 The Influence of Pop Art - Appropriation is the intentional borrowing, copying, and alteration of preexisting images and objects. It is a strategy that has been used by artists for millennia, but took on new significance in mid-20th-century America and Britain with the rise of consumerism and the proliferation of popular images through mass media outlets from magazines to television. rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208477535 Pop Artists liked to satirise objects and they sometimes enlarged them to seemingly unnatural proportions. In the pop movement food was a common theme, but also household objects as chairs and toilets were made out of squishy plastic rather than the materials normally used. As an example, we have the Soft Toilet by Claes Oldenburg.]]> 2017-11-19 15:00:28 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208477535 Campbells Tomato Soup - Andy Warhol 1962 rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208478172 2017-11-19 15:06:00 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208478172 Object Analysis - things to consider... rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208478340

  • What is your object’s cultural relevance or meaning?
  • How do you want to celebrate or change or critique that object’s meaning?
    • ]]>     2017-11-19 15:07:46 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208478340     Andy Warhol - Artist rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208478847 Warhol had a positive view of ordinary culture and felt the abstract expressionists had taken great pains to ignore the splendour of modernity. The Campbell's Soup Can series, along with his other series, provided him with a chance to express his positive view of modern culture. However, his deadpan manner endeavoured to be devoid of emotional and social commentary. The work was intended to be without personality or individual expression. Warhol's view is encapsulated in the Time magazine description of the 'Slice of Cake School,' that "... a group of painters have come to the common conclusion that the most banal and even vulgar trappings of modern civilisation can, when transposed to canvas, become Art."

    He also realised that the serial repetition of an image drained it of its meaning]]>     2017-11-19 15:12:02 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208478847     Questions.... rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208479448 •What is a subculture?
    •What do people want to subvert with subcultural dress?
    •How are entangled objects, like the Zoot Suit, linked to notions of identity?
    •Are aspects of the Zoot Suit still visible in dress or design today?
    •What part do subcultures play in contemporary society?
    How do ideas about entangled things relate to your object? Does it mean the same thing when it was made and today?
    What might have changed?
    What might have influenced these changes?
    ]]>     2017-11-19 15:17:50 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208479448     Washed Up - Transforming a Trashed Landscape rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208480009 2017-11-19 15:22:49 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208480009 Sub Cultures explained - ADDITIONAL READING: Hiroshi Narumi (2010) Street Style and Its Meaning in Postwar Japan, Fashion Theory, 14:4, 415-438 rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208480965 "Hippies made their style by selecting items from amongst previous styles, by accessing their heritage of subcultural capital. Hippy preferences for old fur coats, crepe dresses and army greatcoats, shocked the older generation for precisely this reason. Those items favoured by the hippies reflected an interest in pure, natural and authentic fabrics and a repudiation of the man-made synthetic materials found in high street fashion. The pieces of clothing sought out by hippy girls tended to be antique lace petticoats, pure silk blouses, crepe dresses, velvet skirts and pure wool 1940s-styled coats. In each case, these conjured up a time when the old craft values still prevailed and when one person saw through his or her production form start to finish." (McRobbie: 1994: 143) ]]> 2017-11-19 15:30:44 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208480965 rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208481276 2017-11-19 15:33:12 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208481276 rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208481423 2017-11-19 15:34:22 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208481423 Tutorials - Monday 4th and 11th December rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208482616 CPL Students bring notes towards your assignment.

    If you are in London, sign up to 11th December tutorials.

    ]]>     2017-11-19 15:43:44 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208482616     Can you ascribe a human characteristic to an object? For example, is the chair male or female? rachael_walker2 https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208485068 2017-11-19 16:03:23 UTC https://padlet.com/rachael_walker2/yxw4ob1yauzw/wish/208485068