STUDIO TASK 3

Context of Practice

Firstly, I want to define the meaning of the word manifesto. 

man·i·fes·to  

/ˌmanəˈfestō/

Noun A public declaration of policy and aims, esp. one issued before an election by a political party or candidate. Firstly, a design manifesto should define the personal opinions of a designer regarding the current social, political, cultural and historical events. We have to consider what our ethos is as a designer, as it will affect the way we design, who we work for and messages that we try to communicate. An example addressing this matter can be found within the 'First Things First Manifesto 2000' where it is mentioned that advertising products should not be the focus of any designer, but instead we should be more culturally and socially aware. "Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programmes, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help." Using the sectors of: politics, society, culture and history I created a list of words for each term. Moreover, when generating the lists I wrote down words that instantly sprang to mind when thinking about the topic in hand. Below are the scanned in versions of my lists. I then reviewed the words I had generated and sorted them into positive and negative terms. I found that certain topics such as politics had a lot more negative  terms than positive, I believe this reflects my views and opinions of the British government quite well. Moreover, after I had separated the words from each topic into negative and positive  terms, I wrote five statements explaining my choice of words for each section. I then used these statements to help me complete task 3. Task 3 Write 4 short statements that summarise your individual positioning / opinions in relation to the following contexts: Politics, Society, Culture and History.  You should aime to write a clear statement (50 - 100 words) that explains what you believe and why in response to each of the four words. The statements should be positive rather than negative affirmations. If you don't like something or are against a certain viewpoint, you should aim to communicate the positive response to it as discussed in the session. Politics Politics in modern society is showing signs of failure. From corrupt politicians to unjust prime ministers, I have seen countless scandals exposed by the press such as the MP Expenses scandal, and Tony Blair's decision to go to war with Iraq. Moreover, a recent report conducted by Transparency International UK (TI-UK) shows that there is a growing influence of business and corperations in politics. The danger of this lies within corporations being able to then influence decisions made. The public should be able to completely trust in politicians and political institutions, but instead people are losing their trust. I have a more left-wing view on politics, I believe in social equality, and disagree with social hierarchy and elitism.   Society  A society is a group of people that relate to one and other, this can be for a number of reasons such as living on the same continent, or living under the same law. In Britain modern society is capitalist, which means people’s lives are ruled by money and possessions, which in turn puts the wealth of not only our country but also the world into the hands of an elite few. The reason I know this is because of the flourishing side of society, free unrestricted access to information means members of society can research into possibly unspecified news and stories. Moreover,  in modern society people are showing a greater understanding of differing views and opinions, compared to a half a century ago when racism was still rife, which is evidence that modern society is becoming more diverse. Culture Firstly, I want to define culture as the characteristics displayed by a group of people, this can be defined by beliefs, language, art and music. In modern society there is a range of different cultures all living in the same vicinity. In the past a lack of understanding has led to discrimination and violence. However, in modern society there is a greater understanding and acceptance of different cultures, through communication cultural interaction is achieved meaning individuals can learn from different cultures and become a more enlightened person.   History Our history is made up of a collection of important events involving human affairs and interaction. Events in the past have affected how modern society is today, for example technological discovery’s that were made in the past have affected the progression of technology in modern society. Moreover, there are also a lot of moral lessons to be learned from the past, as our human history is riddled with accounts of injustice against the human race, such as atrocities like the holocaust. As a modern society all we can do is learn from our past mistakes and work towards social equality.