I Prefer FOUR Stripes

We watched a video that looked at why people created unrealistic sculptures of the human body as well as a video from the same series looking at why people made pictures, both quite insightful.

The first video took us back to what is arguably the first statue of the human figure, a statuette known as the Venus of Willendorf, similar to many ancient venuses, the maker of the statuette chose to emphasise certain curves and body parts disregarding others. The figure had no arms or face, yet large breasts and hips. These aspects are considered markers of fertility and may have been important to the people of a simpler nature but the investigation went further.

Comparing to gulls and how chicks seek the stripe of a beak for food, research found that chicks go towards something with more stripes, indicating a want for more in the most basic, primal part of the brain. Instinct wants more.

The program continued, looking at the stylized figures in Ancient Egyptian art, moving from that to Greek art where figures moved from the Kritios Boy to a more realistic Parthenon of figures yet even in the contra-posto state, where a more relaxed stature of the figure is expressed, elements continue to be exaggerated, being the conclusion of the documentary.

The other documentary concluded that people made art, cave art, the idea of a flat image of things, coming from the trance state achieved in tribal dances. If someone had never seen or was told what a picture was, how could that someone create a picture? The main question lead an investigation into cave paintings, looking at the strange shapes and patterns found on the shapes. The video concluded that in sensory deprivation, when the eyes start making shapes of their own, these shapes would get projected onto the surroundings, leading people in caves to have their trance images to project what they’re seeing onto the walls.

Glaser and Gehry walk into the Opera House…

Okay, a bad start to what would probably be a bad in-house designer joke but that’s who we discussed this week in Design History.

Milton Glaser, an American Graphic designer has a few well known designs such as his Bob Dylan poster and I Love New York Logo. My first impression of Milton Glaser was, honestly, “This guy looks scary”. 

He developed his own studio and is often cited as an influence by many designers and illustrators. Glaser has stated that when working on his drawings, he prefers to work alone, as well as when he’s on a project that requires more complex thought. Glaser’s work covers a large range, his style seemingly random making it difficult to see a pattern in his works.

Gehry v Utzon would be a fascinating fight to see. I chose the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles as the Gehry work I would compare to the Utzon’s Sydney Opera House considering their comparable use. Both buildings use organic shapes, moving away from the rigidity of parallel lines and rectangles commonplace in buildings, using curves in a sense echoing a visual interpretation of soundwaves. Both buildings also use these curves to generate a feel for acoustics even though the shape of the building is not actually used in the acoustics but rather overridden by internal structures designed by specialized acoustic architects. Gehry’s building (the Walt Disney Concert Hall) appears much similar to his other works such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao as well as the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago, the sense that metal has been bent and deformed giving it a crumpled paper look. The Disney Concert Hall has sails and upward points similar to the Sydney Opera House giving them another common point. The Opera House mirrors sails, giving the sense that it is an old ship docked in Sydney Harbour, a clear nod to the history of the harbour when the tall ships came with the first European settlers. Both these buildings, although housing much the same function, were built with a different intended outward sense and do this successfully, serving as icons in their respective cities.

The Jay Pritzker Pavilion