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De Stijl and IKEA

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Nowadays, it’s difficult to go shopping anywhere without finding the effects of De Stijl, Bauhaus, or Swiss design marking furniture, clothing, and other household items for sale in such places as Walmart, Target, and, most famously, IKEA. De Stijl was developed as a response to the growing need for the consumer to have some power over their environment, while still maintaining a strong grasp on material cost efficiency and ergonomics. Style, effectiveness, and keeping costs low has defined many of the goals of design throughout the 20th century, leading into the 21st. This focus has seen the development of materials to better suit this goal, and even a different method of assembly: IKEA furniture. Affordable and available, IKEA furniture is shipped in pieces and usually must be assembled by the customer themselves. The instructions are always as simple as possible, and the designs are kept minimalist enough to avoid confusion in which pieces fit, slot or screw where. I admire t...
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Russian Constructivism and Collage

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Reflecting on more traditional techniques for creating graphic art, Russian Constructivism overlaps somewhat with collage, as they seem to result in a similar independence of shapes and colors. With Constructivism, as with collage, each element can only be deliberately placed, as they’re individual objects being brought together to form a cohesive image. Their marked differences come to bear in just how deliberate they are. In most cases, collage as a technique is an art form in itself, but with Constructivism, the process isn’t nearly as important as the finished product. Collage incorporates not only shapes which can be difficult to form in the first place, whether by scissors or knife, and colors which are often already applied. Collage can be a more casual form of art-making, in which the process and its rough edges can be just as valuable as the finished piece. In some cases, adding to the collage, taking from it, and generally treating it like a boon by nature of being a ...
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Dada and the Art of Vietnam-era America

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Dada emerged in Europe as a direct response to the horrors of the first World War, in which society had collapsed for the lives of so many, especially those in the trenches, that it seemed absurd to simply return to what was before as soon as the fighting was done. In a similar vein, the art, especially the anti-war art, which emerged in Vietnam-era America was a response to the horrors of the war, though both movements distinguish themselves from one another in key ways. For one, Dada’s focus was on disassembling and deconstructing all art which had come from society previously, in a way which valued irreverence and a satirical tone, as can be seen in Hugo Ball’s Karawane . In his specific instance, Karawane is a nonsense poem of phonetic sounds, almost lampooning the feeling of cruel absurdity which seemed to mark the lives of the artists who were forced to fight--and often die--in the trenches. As for Vietnam, much of the art produced was not in response to the horrors of...
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Futurism and the Cyberpunk Genre

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  With the Industrial Revolution came the miracle and paradox of the 20th century. Never before in human history has technology reached such a state of rapid, clamoring, and all-encompassing advancement, to the point that with every new generation, the gap between the technologies they each grew up with only widens. With such a rapid shift in lifestyle, most notably towards the end of the era of massive population migration into cities in the early 20th century, many people had many responses. While some despaired, lamenting the loss of humanity’s connection to its roots, other movements took the shift in stride. I will focus on one such group, and juxtapose it against a similar, yet distinct modern movement known as the “Cyberpunk” genre, popularized by such films as Bladerunner, The Matrix, and Ghost in the Shell. Futurism had a bit of an identity crisis when it first emerged. Critics of the movement declared it hardly distinct from previous movements, such as Impressionis...
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New Objectivity and Expressionism

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I found New Objectivity particularly interesting, as it sought, in a strange reversal, to rebel against Expressionism by emphasizing the mundane. In this regard, I believe Expressionism represents a romantic lens through which to view daily life, whereas New Objectivity seeks the truth of daily life. In this pursuit, they weren’t necessarily pessimistic, just as Expressionism isn’t necessarily more optimistic. I will seek to first break down the differences in tactics between the two to portray their meaning, and then I will break down the differences between the meanings themselves. In Expressionism, it distorts daily life through several avenues: warping forms, dulling or brightening colors, or simply portraying impossible situations in which to frame the emotion they seek to portray. Overall, Expressionism deals in emotion and the metaphysical: curiosity, doubt, lust, and fury all inflict themselves on the surroundings first and foremost, shaping the world and thereby the moo...
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Mario and Surrealism: Abandoning Reason and Embracing Yoshi

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       Viewing surrealism in literal and broad terms--by the layman’s vernacular, rather than through the lens of history or art criticism--it represents a freedom in how the world is explored, an abandoning of the shackles of reality. Mario references the real world in passing: Yoshi, a lizard creature, lays eggs, Mario is an Italian plumber, Princess Peach presides over a kingdom.        These more recognizable motifs offer a frame of reference for the viewer, while still taking them on a visual journey through a strange and wonderful world, distinct from their own while still drawing on familiar symbols to inspire images of America, nature, and modern life. This design process is exemplified in the character of Yoshi, a small dinosaur character whom Mario may ride occasionally. This is strange, but not too strange to the point of surrealism, as dinosaurs are accepted images in pop culture. Yoshi als...
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A Strange New Frontier: Hieroglyphics and Memes

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        The World Wide Web, as it’s called (and not called anymore by anyone below 30), was invented in 1990, and opened the world to a new, parallel world: one which doesn’t exist in the physical space, and which operates primarily through unseen forces and faceless users.        In such a subspace, few people have face-to-face conversations, and in this social struggle was born a new solution: images and lines which convey a meaning all their own, only understood by the initiated. With the rise of social media, this need for a more robust symbology to convey emotions difficult to describe in casual settings, as well as a desire to separate users into “in” groups and “out” groups, caused memes to explode.        In this way, memes almost serve as a social litmus test. Cruel as it is, a young child may not recognize or understand the meaning behind certain meme reactio...
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