Assignment 2 Research Essay Question: (4) History/Social history (3) The events surrounding Paris May 1968 and the Situationists Internationale “The Paris May ‘68 Movement was not some political theory looking for workers to carry it out; it was the acting proletariat seeking its theoretical consciousness.” Rene Riesel “All power to the imagination” .. (the student revolt) To describe the events surrounding the Paris May ’68 and the Situationist Internationale first we need to be clear about what the Situationists were all about. Situationist Internationale was an international group residing in Northern Italy. It was a group of social revolutionists, avant-garde artists, intellectuals and theorists. It existed from 1959 until …show more content…
The writings and political theory of Situationist publications and journals especially Guy Deobord’s “The Society of the Spectacle” and Raoul Vaneigem’s “The Revolution of Everyday Life” became very influential in shaping the ideas behind the May 1968 insurrection in Paris. Their political ideas and perspectives helped fuel the crisis of ‘Paris May 1968’ and awakened that which already lay deep in the constructs of the people. The Scandal in Strasburg in December 1966 was an important event leading up to May 1968. The National Students of France declared their support of the Situationist Internationale Thesis and they used public funds from the University to publish pamphlets by Mustapha Khayati “On the Poverty of Student Life”. Thousands of these pamphlets were distributed and helped to make the Situationists well known to those that did not support the Stalinist …show more content…
The Graffiti and Printing these posters was a means of communication that the students and strikers had that would remain untainted. The posters were distributed for free and seen on barricades, carried in demonstrations and plastered on walls all over France. The posters of Paris 1968 uprising are some of the most brilliant graphic works to be associated with a social movement. From the design aspect they are thought to be incomparable. These were not simply decorations just to be hung on a wall of a home or office. Their purpose was for the streets to provoke awareness and action. They were done anonymously. A collaboration between student and striking workers and they still remain uncredited today. The messages, bold and influential, still have a message we recognise today. “Mai 68 Debut D’une Lutte Prolongee (May 68 is the beginning of a long struggle) “ – Representing Industry and the Red flag of
In book two, there is an image that represents a poster for the civil rights movement; it is drawn in traditional realism, using light crosshatching for shading. There are little to no lines around each person, in contrast to the artwork in the rest of the book that uses bold lines with shading like what one would see done with watercolors. On the actual poster, “come let us build a new world together” stretches across the feet of the protesters (see figure 7). Lewis states “That picture became probably the most popular poster of the movement” (Lewis and Aydin: Vol. 2, 120). I agree with him; the picture is important for the Civil Rights Movement. The protesters are kneeled peacefully, appearing almost as if in prayer. By drawing the image in a softer, realistic style, readers realize the importance of the image. Anytime Lewis recalls a news report on the tv, the artwork is changed to that pencil-like style. The changes in artistic styles were effective in leaving his audience with an impression of the importance specific images
Posters were used during World War II by the U.S. government to get a significant message across to their citizens. To analyze a poster it is important to think about the choice of color, placement of words and images, shapes, and emotional appeal ( Lunsford and Ruszkiewicz 91). All of these factor into the message the author is trying to explain to its viewers visually. In the poster “When You Ride Alone,” the message the author was trying to get across to Americans was the importance of carpooling. This poster successfully conveys the message through the words,color scheme and representation of objects.
What happened at Kent State University? This is a question that many Americans were asking following the crisis on the Kent campus. In the days preceding May 4, 1970, protests, disruption, and violence erupted on the university grounds. These acts were the students’ reaction to President Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia. The events surround the deaths of four students in Kent, Ohio are disorderly and violent. In the government’s investigation after the shootings, the officials made several recommendations to students of the future. As the massacre is looked back upon, there are several key events that set the tragic day into motion.
This photograph, taken in 1967 in the heart of the Vietnam War Protests, depicts different ideologies about how problems can be solved. In the picture, which narrowly missed winning the Pulitzer Prize, a teen is seen poking carnations into the barrels of guns held by members of the US National Guard. This moment, captured by photographer Bernie Boston symbolizes the flower power movement. Flower power is a phrase that referred to the hippie notion of “make love not war”, and the idea that love and nonviolence, such as the growing of flowers, was a better way to heal the world than continued focus on capitalism and wars. The photograph can be analyzed through the elements of image as defined by ‘The Little Brown Handbook’ on page 86. There are a total of nine elements that contribute to the communicative quality of an image. The message that this particular image tries to convey is the strong sense of way that conflict should be handled; by way of guns or by way of flowers. The ‘way of guns’ is violence and excessive force which heavily contradicts the ‘way of flowers’ which is a more peaceful and diplomatic way of handling conflict or disagreement. This photograph depicts these ideologies through its use of emphasis, narration,point of view, arrangement, color, characterization, context and tension.
Posters were mainly used to sway public opinion. They were aimed at brainwashing society to think and act a certain way. Each poster was designed specificly for a particular community, playing upon the cultural norm. Since posters were rather inexpensive, they were not made to last, but were effectively used as a visual tool of propaganda. They were usually very graphic, therefore allowing even the illiterate to be swayed in the direction of the artists choosing.
Filene makes the bold yet practical statement that, in reference to the progressive movement, when “research has produced less rather than more conclusions…historians are asking a false question.” His main goal thus is to prove that the progressive movement itself “never existed.” He begins his argument by defining the word “movement” as “a collectivity acting with some continuity to promote or resist a change in society.” By creating this fundamental framework Filene then breaks down the progressive movement into four basic dimensions: program, values, membership, and supporters. He first attacks the basic progressive ideology.
Klimke, Martin. “Black and Red Panthers.” In The Other Alliance: Student Protest in West Germany and the United States in the global sixties. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010.
“Society is used in the service of hierarchy,” says Derrida; however, according to von Ludwig[1] , it is not so much society that is used in the service of hierarchy, but rather the futility, and thus the meaninglessness, of society. Therefore, if Sartreist absurdity holds, the works of Pynchon are empowering.
One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was written, African Americans were still fighting for equal rights in every day life. The first real success of this movement did not come until the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 which was followed by many boycotts and protests. The largest of these protests, the March on Washington, was held on August 28, 1963 “for jobs and freedom” (March on Washington 11). An incredible amount of preparation went into the event to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people attending from around the nation and to deal with any potential incidents.
Jasper, James M. The Art of Moral Protest Culture: Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Print.
Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels, Samuel Moore, and David McLellan. The Communist Manifesto. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Print.
This is a very clever protest poster and includes several clever elements, the first main element is the portrayal of colour. The only lighter objects in the picture is the kinder surprise egg and the shirt of the kids. This symbolically demonstrates
In the article “Revolution in a Can” by Blake Gopnik, he states, “The most elaborate images from Egypt, Libya, and Haiti today look very much like the 1980s paint jobs on New York subway cars and warehouse facades, and yet their point is not to function as art but to work as carriers of content and opinion” (114). In other words, graffiti is used to show how people truly feel inside. This is important because in addition to being considered art, it also serves the function of expressing oneself if that freedom does not exist. As a matter of fact pieces like this can be found all over the world. They are located on the Palestinian West Bank, on a wall on Benghazi in Libya, and in Tahrir Square in Egypt. A piece of graffiti art that epitomizes this is Begging for Change by graffiti artist Meek. The work engaged the public since it was done right near a train station. It features a homeless man holding a sign that reads, “Keep your coins, I want change”. The piece radiates a very powerful message stating how money can’t solve
The world War II had pressed hard ‘The Absurdists’ as well as the ‘Existential philosophers’. They both got disillusioned and came to realize the emptiness of the human world. In retaliation to Ionesco’s criticism, Sartre criticized his ideas that he had put in his book ‘Rhinoceros’. According to Rosette C. Lamont, “Sartre’s criticism highlights a primary difference between the Theatre of the Absurd and Existentialism. The Theatre of the absurd shows the failure of man without recommending a solution” 10. Ionesco felt that Sartre and Camus thought out the themes which they did not express in a far more vital contemporary fashion. He said in an interview with Claude Bonnefoy, “ I have the feeling that these writers---- who are serious and important – were talking of absurdity and death, but they never really lived these themes ….. that all this was not deeply inscribed in their language. With them it was still rhetoric, eloquence; with Arthur Adamov and Beckett it really is a very naked reality that is conveyed through the apparent dislocation of language11. Beckett’s own relationship with Sartre was complicated and ‘he generally found the writing style of Sartre and Heidigger to be too philosophical and he considered himself ‘not a philoshpher’’ 12. However, it is safe to say that the war-weary world had shaken the nerves of all thinking men, whether ‘Absurdists’ or ‘Sartre- minded philosophers’ and everyone gave expression to his feelings as per his own bent of mind either using philosophical expressions or simply ‘absurd’ outbursts. The Existentialism and ‘Absurdism got so mixed up that it was difficult for great critics even to distinguish and disentangle one from the other. The ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ movement was original...
In 1968 vocal Wadham students, following a national trend of protest, sent a list of non-negotiable demands to the college hierarchy calling for change. The amused governing body pointed out that their ranks consisted of ex-commandos, several qualified marksmen, karate experts and three leading exponents of chemical warfare – any confrontation would be met with enthusiasm! This response resulted in much media coverage, defusing the protest.