CREATION - THE ART OF MAKING - PRESENT

The second topic I will be researching into is the art of creating, how us, as humans, can create different innovative things with a purpose in mind, even if that purpose is nothing but simply making. If we take a look at the definition for "create" we find the following: "To cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes."(Dictionary.com)


To create something, we have to cause to come into being. This is a gift that all humans have, every person as an individual, is able to create, to make. The ability to create something useful or meaningful is something every one of us is born with, yet only very few can create something that is catching to an audience. For people to look at the creations of others and acknowledge the time and effort put into it, or simply the casualness and luck that can come into making something great.

 But what makes something great? that is a very subjective and personal point of view of a person, to acknowledge something as great, or inspiring. This is what I find fascinating, the hunger that some people have to have their work acknowledged by others as great, to effectively make something tailored to so many people at once, even when your objective could have solely been selfishness. For something to be acknowledged as great is a fantastic thing, and this is why I want to research into this topic. 


As humans, we always change our perception of things with time. Something you may consider amazing can be turned into something terrible with time. This creates trends, chains of products or things that are appealing to a certain amount of people in a certain amount of time. We see this in clothing, product design, music, games, and every other media...


The most obvious trend observations we can make are how things look. The other is what those things are meant for and what they represent or inspire. That's what I'll be researching today, how the way things look, and what they mean, the things they inspire, can make us like or dislike a product, and how this is portrayed in today's different media like music or films.


Lets begin, briefly, with a controversial topic, Weapons:

The reason I want to choose weapons its because of the immediate and obvious link at how the meaning and purpose of the creation of an item can be changed depending on how its presented.

"Instrument or device for use in attack or defence in combat, fighting, or war, as a sword, rifle, or cannon." (Dictionary.com)

Weapons have been a part of humanity since the first humans walked the earth. Evidence of weapons dates back to prehistoric times.
The purpose of a weapon is to harm, or take the life of someone else, whether its in self defence or as an attacking utensil. This is why I find it very weird that in general, media portray weapons and tools of self defence, harm and destruction, as something amazing and cool. I wish to investigate why this happens... is it the sight of an "empowered" man which makes a weapon so appealing to people? is it because their design is actually appealing?

I believe weapons are thought of as "cool" because of the distortion that the entertainment media sector, distortion on what the moral background of the object that is being proposed is.

But before we get too deep into how media's distortion affects our way of thinking about certain things, lets look at weapons, purely from an artistic and design point of view, forgetting their purpose and meaning in the real world.

Today's weapons of choice are Guns. Let them be automatic, semi-automatic, etc...

Lets look at a hand gun, its parts, assembly and they way it looks.

FIG 1: Breakdown of a guns components.

Guns can be a piece of art and the design behind it is fascinating. So many little yet vital parts must be working correctly to ensure the proper function of a gun. Its the way these things are simplified that makes the design of a gun so compelling.

One of the prime components of modern art is to make something that opposes completely to the original intention of the object. For example, Banksy's satire of "Pulp fiction" (BBC, Banksy, 2007):

FIG2: Banksy Street Art

So lets look at how art can really change the way guns are perceived, lets see how guns can turn this tool of death into something beautiful simply because of its form. Two examples of this would be Igner carina's Crocheted Guns featured in the famous "my name is Tiger" Blog (Tiger, Igner Carnia, 2011) and Francois Robert's art made with bones featured in The coolist Magazine (The Coolist, Bone art by Francois Robert, 2010):

FIG3: Crocheted guns by Igner Carina, 2011.

FIG4: Francois Robert, "Stop the violence". 2010.

As we can see, anything can be turned into art, as long as there is a clever mind behind it! But the obvious thing we can take out of this is that, the forms and elegance of the design of a gun a certainly inspiring, add the moral behind the uses of guns and the mere creation of them and we have an amazing opportunity to voice ourselves, through the medium of art, about what we think a gun should represent, or even just place a contrast to challenge the mind.
These expressions of art and their popularity through exhibitions and street art show that creation, as an artistic expression, is popular in today's media.


 I will now continue to look at distortions in today's media, and how they can affect so much in the thoughts that people have over, to some extent, morally wrong things.

Distortion: "To give a false, perverted, or disproportionate meaning to; misrepresent: to distort the facts." (Dictionary.com)
We see it every day in movies, the way they portray heroes out of men that are basically "tools of destruction" . The addition of an exaggerated gun or and exaggerated ability to use guns make a hero cool. It makes us forget about the actual atrocities that these heroes commit, even if its for a noble purpose. The killing of hundreds of people with no moral remorse or bad feeling. It is very different to what we see in real life action, like soldiers talking about their experiences. Then why do we accept it without any hesitation? I believe the answer is a combination of mass exposure, and knowing that what we see is not real life.

FIG5: Rambo

FIG6: US Soldier.

When we get exposed over and over again to some situations, they lose the shock they can create when only viewed a small number of times. The fact that the viewer can make the differentiation between reality and fiction is also a very important factor. If we were exposed to a real life situation in which someone like the film "Rambo" (Lionsgate, 2008) goes on one of his adventures I'm sure most of us would look away.

This distortion doesn't only happen in movies, we see it in music, with songs crafted from a feeling of anger and the elevation of the people who write these songs, simply because they can hurt and do bad things  without moral repercussions for them. Or at least that is how I feel media portrays it.

FIG7-8: Notorius Big Greatest Hits album released in 2007.

                                 
             
Although Notorious Big's career ended in 1997 after his death, his music is still sold today in most music shops and to even further show the popularity of his creations, in 2007, Atlantic Records released his "Greatest Hits" (Bad Boy records, 2007) album.
                       
It is not only media that create a distortion from what something really means. We've seen it over and over again, when someones creation inspires different thoughts and incites people to look for meaning which hadn't necessarily been intended by the creator in the first place. The search for hidden meaning in someones work. Traditionally this has been fine, and people have accepted that these meanings can be found in works of art and other media. But recently some forms of media have been criticising this behaviour and even making fun of it.
One of the easiest examples to think of is an episode of the popular TV series "South Park" (Comedy Central, 2009). In this episode, the kids write a book with one purpose only, to be as disgusting and bizarre as they can. When people get to read the book though, they put aside all the disgusting things they read and find hidden meanings within the book... Which creates many different views and a wide debate about the books actual meaning... the kids however, reiterate, that its sole purpose is to be as disgusting and vile as possible.

FIG9: South Park, 2011.

                           
The relevance of the meaning of a creation in media seems to be a very big deal, whether we are ready to embrace it as how the media shows it to us, or we make a satire and make fun of the hidden meanings behind each situation or object. In the end, everything we see in media is going to have some sort of distortion, and its up to us to accept it or think nothing of it.

I will now look at exhibitions, collectibles, toys, etc to see how creation is represented in media, and to see if the media in which they are presented to us can also change what we think of the purpose of an object.

One of the galleries I like to frequent due to its ever changing exhibitions in the top floor is the Manchester Art gallery . This top floor usually contains contemporary art by artists that are, usually, quite renowned.  This is usually the case for most famous galleries. If they can get a well known artist to exhibit in their premises, it will attract people that are interested in what this artist makes.
That attachment between the well known artist will, in today's society, mean his work is probably more worthy of being seen by other people, granted the reputation of this artist is good. Although collectibles and the possession of media created by an artist that someone looks up to or admires can have a greatly influenced by how renowned an artist is, there are some that prefer the mysticism of the unknown, the not knowing the mind from which his revered creation came from.

The British museum now holds an exhibition called "The tomb of the unknown craftsman" (British Museum, Grayson Perry, 2011). It showcases the creations of an unknown artist and really has some fantastic images.

"This is a memorial to all the anonymous craftsmen that over the centuries have fashioned the manmade wonders of the world…
The craftsman’s anonymity I find especially resonant in an age of the celebrity artist." (Grayson Perry RA, Turner Prize winner)

FIG10: Vase by Unknown artist. The tom of the unknown craftsman, 2011.

                                                      

But how about looking at creation from other types of media, for example books, magazines, toys...

Lets begin with  books and magazines.

As we talked about before, there has always been a fascination or admiration in the process of making. Whatever this may be. The idea that a book could sum up all the process of the creation of something that a person loves or admires would be indeed an invaluable source of inspiration and information to the person who buys it. These types of books are in their prime as people begin to understand more and more what goes into creating games or movies, and an Amazon search provides a massive list of books that concentrate on the process of making. One of these examples can be "The art and making of: Star Wars, the old republic" (Parisi Erickson Arcade, 2011)

FIG11: Star Wars: the old Republic art book. Parisi ericson Arcade, 2011.

Other examples are "Assasins Creed Art Book" (Prima games, 2007) and "The art of God of War 3" (Daniel Wade, 2010):

FIG12: Art Book for Assasins Creed. Prima Games, 2007.

FIG13: The art of God of War 3, Daniel Wade, 2010.

"Making of" books  or videos are really popular, specially with Special edition launches of a game or film... but what if we look into the making of a book the actually concentrates on the originality and look of the book? if the content of creating was actually the book, and not the books content? Then we have the new and extremely cool Zines.

What is a Zine? a Zine is usually a small compilation of some one's work that is self published. This can be art, or anything else. Zines these days have acquired a particular look that makes them stand out of the crowd. They aim to be Eco-friendly, creative, cheap and attracting.  

FIG14: Some of the Zines created by various artists.

Usually a Zine will be created by the person who makes the contents of the actual Zine, but every day more companies are starting to offer Zine printing services.
Zines growing popularity is advancing at a really good rate and they are becoming really famous, so famous that some Zine inspired magazines are just becoming impossible to find since they sell out in no time, one perfect example is "Amelia's Magazine"(Amelia's Magazine, 2010) .

FIG15: Copyright Amelia's Magazine, 2010.

The other type of media I wanted to look at was toys.

The development of one's ability to create in this media has always been one of the most successful type of toys. Toys that are based around giving the user the tools to enhance their creativity and build, create whatever world their imagination can offer them. The most obvious toy that provides these tools is the legendary LEGO (The LEGO group, 2011).

The ever evolving Lego brand primarily offer blocks with which one can create structures that any kid can build. You could be 4 years old or 80 years old and still be able to create an interesting design with Lego blocks. With the passing of time, Lego has introduced new tools to its well known blocks and people can now create even electronic devices out of Lego. There is even a new programming language developed by Lego which is being used by entry level engineering courses.
The relevance of Lego in the Toys media is still thriving today as it was the first day of its release, and with new releases even in the video game media, Lego and creation in toys is as popular as its ever been.

FIG16: Lego Block

If we make a quick Amazon search, we can see that new Lego products come out every month, and that it is still very popular.
I was also quite surprised to see a book that gives insight into how one should approach building in Lego (:

FIG17: The Lego Ideas Book. Daniel Lipkowitz.

Other interesting uses of the Lego toys:

                                                     FIG18: Lego Printer, over 4 million views in youtube

But Lego is not the only Toy that is aimed at creation.
Another great example of toys that inspire creating thoughts is Meccano (Meccano International, 2011).Meccano offers tools to create any structure you want, but also gives it a certain physical ability. It is more aimed at an engineering point of view, allowing to create cars, cranes, and any sort of useful construction.
While they were much more popular in the past, Meccano still has a very wide range of products that allow for creating anything you want, and with new releases every year, including a "TinTin" theme based on the new movie, the popularity of this products also shows that "creating" is a never-dying form of entertainment, development and education.

FIG19: Mecano Airplane.

Another type of media that is focused on the creation and recreation of certain objects is the model making industry.

People have been making models (even fully functioning models!) of air planes, tanks, scenes.... everything you can imagine, for decades, and the model making industry is ever growing as well. With shops entirely dedicated to this form of media, the popularity of these cannot be denied. A good example of this is the Kyosho Minium (Kyosho Corporation, 2011)

FIG20: Kyosho Minium, 2011.

Creating is a topic that is very popular in all forms of media. From cartoons to toys and films, creating is a part of our every day lives. There is something so fascinating about man's ability to create what one pictures in his mind that it is represented as something of importance or admired by all. Even when it is something based on the creation of something to destroy, we are able to still see the genius that is behind the creative process of getting a final product done, and this is represented in various media today, if not every type of media.