A Book of Findings g.o

by e. lawrence

Contentsp4-5 A Lifetime in a Suitcase

p6-7 Found Objects

p8-9 Exhibition piece

p10-11 Orwell Bio

p12-10 looking at ‘Why I Write’

p21-22 Info graphics (Why I Write)

p26-27 1984 -Critics Opinion

p32-39 Essay -Orwell Vs Obey

p42-43 Animal Farm -Critics Opinion

p46-47 Politics

p48-49 ‘Left/Right Wing’

p50-51 Info graphic -Understanding politics (basic)

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A Lifetime in a Suitcase.

(London College of Communication 2011)

Our piece was inspired by the discovery of a suitcase; found discarded in the same street as George Orwell’s blue plaque. We chose to create a character based on t h e l o c a t i o n a n d a e s t h e t i c s o f t h e s u i t c a s e , k e e p i n g t h i s i n m i n d a s w e collected objects that could represent key events within our characters’ life.

In the exhibition the objects are placed in chronological order, ranging from household goods to items of potential sentimental value.The timeline begins with the suitcase; it ‘snakes’ within the square, ending at the bottom right hand corner. We wanted to tell a story through these objects with a minimal amount of explanation and guidance given to the viewer, whilst emphasizing the importance

of each objects’ own personal history.

Sam Wrigley

Emily Lawrence

Ewa Leszczynska

Found objects

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- The ‘found objects’

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A Lifetime in a SuitcaseFound Objects

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GA Lifetime as George Orwell.

O u r j o u r n e y b e g a n w i t h t h e d i s c a r d e d suitcase found upon the street of the George Orwell blue plaque situated in London. Following this I felt led to learn more about Orwell. After reading 1984 and Animal Farm I have become fascinated with Orwell as a writer, a person and a political advocate. I would like to begin researching his life and his work to distinguish what was the main focus for him and what pursued him as a writer.

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OGFull Name:E r i c A r t h u r B l a i r Pseudonym:G e o r g e O r w e l l B o r n :2 5 t h J u n e 1 9 0 3

D i e d :2 1 s t J a n u a r y 1 9 5 0

Birth Place:Motihari, Bengal, India Nationality:British

P a r e n t s :Richard Walmesley Blair (father)Ida Mabel Blair (mother)

C h i l d r e n : Richard Horatio Orwell

Occupation:Political WriterJournalist Novelist

I discovered this essay while going through ‘The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell’ (1968) I was really interested in the content of this essay. Why I Write is an account of Orwell’s discovery into the reasoning behind his style of writing and it also acts as a small biography, containing personal traits of him self that h a v e e f f e c t e d a n d u r g e d h i s w o r k . I feel this essay shows a real personal insight into Orwell’s life and his work, therefore I would like to look into the essay further t o s e e i f t h e r e a r e a n y i n t e r e s t i n g re occurring themes imbedded within the text.

Why I Write.

- A short essay written by George Orwell, 1946.

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Negative Connotations

Positive Connotations

Towards/Involving himself and his work

Towards other writers/people in society

Towards the Government/higher powers’

Scale

Direct Indirect

Direct references to the government/poltical parties

Indirect references to the government/poltical parties

References to an unexplained ‘higher being’

After analysing Orwell’s essay ‘Why I Write’ it is clear to see that his strong political o p i n i o n e n c o u r a g e s a n d e n a b l e s h i s work. ‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm’ have both b e e n h i g h l i g h t e d a n d r e c o g n i s e d f o r t h e i r p o l i t i c a l c o n t e n t . T h e r e f o r e I would now like to look at these two books to see how Orwell has used each plot in an attempt to convey a political purpose.

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‘The most powerful and terrifying novel I have read in years.’ - Arthur Schlesinger Jr

‘More relevant today than almost any other book that you can think of.’

-Jo Brand

‘The book of the twentieth century…haunts us with an ever-darker relevance.’-Independent

1984

Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwells final novel. He created a preconcieved dystopian future, where the world lived under constant surveliance of the dictator ‘Big Brother’.

Critics Opinionsg.o

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5.‘George Orwell was an imposter...he was desperate to pass for ordinary, to be absolved of social sin, to shed the crimeof privilege. To this end, he changed his name and tried to change his character- Craig Raine, The Financial Times, 1998

Orwell’s legacy is profoundly contradictory- Jonah Raskin, Monthly Review, 1983Critics Opinions

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“Winston finds he has unknowinglywritten, DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER over and over in his diary.” -1984

“The face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features.“

“He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.”- George Orwell

Orwell vs Obey

IIn this essay I would like to explore the way in which ‘art’ has been applied and been inspired by George Or-well’s dystopian satire, Nineteen Eighty-Four. I would like to research into the connection be-tween Shepard Fairey’s style of work and Or-well’s literary fiction. By researching into Faireys different art pieces I hope to discov-er how they individually and collectively alter the perception and the32.

meaning behind Orwell’s original ideas. Further-more I would like to discover how Fairey has contextualised the book through his own media and taken a 50 year old fiction and brought it forcefully into a harsh reality. Place, ver-nacular, class of soci-ety, context and value will all be considered in an attempt to under-stand the meaning behind Fairey’s work. Firstly I would like to look into the designer, Shepard Fairey and discover how his design style has in-fluenced and encouraged a current perception of George Orwell’s Po-litical opinion. Fairey seems to be a good can-didate for the re-design of Orwell’s book cover. An established street artist whom has a po-litically propelled mind and has been both criti-cised and acclaimed for the subtle and obvious content of his work, seems to be a modern em-bodiment of Orwell him-self.

Fairey’s recognisable style seems to have brought Orwell’s fic-tional world into the reality of the 21st cen-tury. Orwell writes of

a future where the world is constantly un-der surveillance. To-day, surveillance is becoming a larger fac-tor of our everyday lives in the form of CCTV cameras. The rise in CCTV cameras has be-gun this Orwellian idea of constant surveil-lance. It is has been claimed that “the aver-age Briton passes un-der 300 cameras a day”. (Lewis,P) Therefore due to the similarities of the fiction and our reality, it would seem that Fairey is simply addressing this modern day take on Orwell’s predictions.

The accessibility of Fairey’s work seems to slot into Orwell’s ideal perfectly. The modern street artist paints his work over the streets, enabling everyone to view the artwork and be apart of it. Fairey seems to demolish the idea of Low and Highbrow art. Obey brings ‘low to the high’. (Lupton, E: 1992: p157) Schumann discusses how the use of open spaces sparks the debate of what sep-arates street art from graffiti.’ We have been

brought up to perceive this form of art to be negative; it is after all against the law. However by Obey choos-ing to ‘disobey’ the law in order to show his art amplifies the con-nection between himself and Orwell. He is a true believer in the cause he is denoting and shows it by continuously break-ing the law and receives attention for it. This clandestine way in it-self is a form of re-bellion, being seen as another modern day act against the government and would not be toler-ated in the world of Big Brother. Here, an exam-ple of Fairey’s work in Farringdon, London. This piece would seem to have been inspired following the interest of Orwell

and his books. The use of the eye imme-diately sparks this ‘Big Brother’ symbol and the ironic strap line “Never trust your own eyes, trust what you are told” furthers this Orwellian refer-ence. Here we see an example of Obeys work being de-valued through the context in which it has been delivered. By applying it to the street Obey is allow-ing the public, the younger generation, other street artists/ graffiti artists to respond to his work in a way they are comfort-able with which in turn lowers the value of the piece. The placement of the art enables oth-ers to ‘vandalise’ the work, where as if Obey

had chosen to present the same design in a gallery the value would instantly be increased and the work would be admired in a convention-al way. Due to the at-tention received by the Obey campaign, Shepard Fairey has quickly be-come renowned for his graphic prints. There-fore although he contin-ues to paint the streets with his work, he also has the opportunity of gallery exhibits. As soon as his work is taken from the context of the street both the value and the meaning behind the images change dramatically. For in-stance when in the con-text of an art gallery, the prints become about being aesthetically ap-preciated. Also the

intention is able to be discussed which in turn detaches the work from Obeys ‘phenomenological’ intention, therefore re-turning the politically propelled piece back into simply a work of art. This also enables the value of the work to be increased. ‘Mr. Fairey’s 2008 show “Du-ality of Humanity”…sold out before it opened, with some pieces going for as much as $85,000’. (Schumann, H:2009) Thus showing the name and reputation of ‘Obey’ has become vastly recog-nisable, and with this association comes de-sire. By Fairey giving the opportunity for his work to be perceived in an institution distorts our idea of his link to Orwell. By allowing his

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work to be appreciated by both classes sends a confused message, his work suddenly becomes attached to media con-notations and monetary values rather than sole-ly the political purpose intended.

Although Obey being a street artist coincides with Orwell’s support for the lower classes, the Obey style ironical-ly envisions a similar persona to the descrip-tion of “Big Brother “ in the novel. “…there seemed to be no color in anything, except the posters that were plas-tered everywhere. The black mustachioed face gazed down from every commanding corner.” (Or-well: Nineteen Eighty-Four: Chapter one) The work of ‘Obey’ seems to reflect the posters that are fictionally imag-ined. By having his work ‘plastered’ over the streets creates a haunt-ing resemblance to the panoptic world that Or-well has built up. He is inadvertently or, per-haps purposefully, cre-ating through the use of visual means a parallel world between that of Nineteen Eighty-Four and the world we live in

today. Simply by plac-ing these two images along side each other creates a mountain of resemblances. The ‘Big Brother’ character was once just an imaginary figure, built up subcon-sciously in different ways within the readers mind. Through the help of Orwell’s intense de-scriptions we instantly search for our own vi-sual image to relate to the character. However, in the year 1984, a filmadaptation was released. We suddenly were given a real visual image to associate the persona of ‘Big Brother’ to, an overall visual response to the literary descrip-tions and therefore be-coming the ‘face of Big Brother’. This image is solely a direct repre-sentation of power. Or-well creates a panoptic world through the idea

a haunting resemblance to the panoptic world

of Big brother being everywhere; that is at least the image of Big Brother. “…the sym-bol of Party dominance. Big Brother’s presence is everywhere on post-ers, on cigarette cov-ers, on coins and on telescreens.”(Orwell: 1984) There seems to be a similar idea be-ing replicated in the form of Fairey’s ‘Obey’ campaign. Fairey un-derstands this connec-tion and utilizes it to his advantage, “started pasting the stickers everywhere and anywhere the casual eye might fall”.

a haunting resemblance to the panoptic world

By ‘plastering’ the streets repeatedly with the same prominent im-age instantly conveys a propaganda element and captures the attention of the public. Thus be-ing the exact intention behind Fairey’s ambigu-ous artwork. In the CBS News article ‘An Icon-ic Artist of the Mo-ment’ Fairey explains, “I wanted to get people to have to confront the concept of obedience”. Fairey almost mimics the propaganda style, he is suggesting that the pub-lic are so caught up and absorbed in this form of advertisement that it is the only way to communi-cate and to question.

The campaign has been described as ‘an ex-periment in Phenomenol-ogy’. Fairey wants to have an impact on personal levels. The posters are there to provoke a direct expe-rience, they are meant to urge the viewer into questioning the meaning of the repetitive im-ages and question the surroundings in which they are received. Therefore in an at-tempt to reach out to the public he creates a panoptic world through his own eyes. By forc-ing public thought through visual imagery Fairey (Obey) ironi-cally becomes a “Big Brother’ figure rather than the preconception of the government being this embodiment.

To conclude we discover that Orwell predicted not only a fate of our political world and the thriving of gov-ernment power but also his own fate. In ‘Why I Write’ Orwell explains his target ‘to make political writing into an art’. (Orwell: p28) This therefore seems to have encouraged the

to have toconfront theconcept ofobedience

outcome of the artwork that has been inspired by the books politi-cal ideas. Through the use of Shepard Fairey’s artwork Orwell’s ideas live on. We see the in-spiration derived from Orwell’s fiction and can see how Fairey ap-proaches the politi-cal ideas in a relevant and current way. The new generation who are not as familiar with the book and the books literary effects still are able to grow up in a society where politi-cal opinions, similar to them of Orwell, can be questioned. By allowing George Orwell and Nine-teen Eighty-Four to be associated with street art constantly changes the value of his ideas within the book, but perhaps this is how the book is still popular after fifty years in print.

By Emily LawrenceWord count: 1,510

Bibliography

Orwell, G, Orwell, S, Angus, I. (1968) The Collected Es-says, Journalism and letters of George Orwell- Why I Write.

New York: Harcourt Brace Jo-vanovic

Poynor, R. (2001) Obey The Gi-ant. London: August Media

Cartwright, S. (2009) Practic-es of looking- An Introduction to Visual Culture, Second Edi-tion. Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press

Rose, G. (2005) Visual Meth-odologies- An introduction to the interpretation of visual materials. London: Sage Lupton, E. (1992) High and Low in Everyday Life. London: Phaidon

Varnedoe, K & Gopnik, A. (1993). High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture. Mu-seum of Mod. Art, N. Y.

Schumann, H. (2009). Shepard Fairey. Available: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/ref-erence/timestopics/people/f/shepard_fairey/index.htm

Braver, R. (2009). An Iconic Artist of the Moment. Avail-able: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/22/sunday/main4818530.shtml. Last ac-cessed 30th Nov 2011.

Lewis, P. (2011). Your being watched. Available: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/02/cctv-cameras-watching-surveillance. Last accessed 1st Dec 2011.

Drake, N. “Artist captures at-tention with sticker based on Andre”. Available: http://www.thegiant.org/wiki/index.php/Obey_Giant. Last accessed 1st Dec 2011.

A Fairy Story

“Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into

one whole.”

- Why I Write, George Orwell

‘It is the book for everyone and everyman, its brightness undimmed after fifty years.’- Ruth Rendell, Daily Telegraph

Matchlessly sharp and fresh… The clearest and most compelling English prose style this century’- John Carey, Sunday Times

His work endures, as lucid and vigorous as theday it was written.’- Paul Gray, Time

‘Orwell’s innocent eye was often devastatingly perceptive…a man who looked at his world with wonder and wrote down exactly what he saw, in admirable prose.’- John Mortimer, Evening Standard

‘One of the most influential English writersof the twentieth century’- Robert McCrum, Observer

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Critics Opinionsg.o

BEASTS OF ENGLAND

P O LI T IC S

“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it.“

- Why I Write, George Orwell

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LEFT WING

“The Party of Movement“

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F L A T T E R

T H E L E F T

ATTACK RIGHT

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RIGHT WING

“The Party of Order“

- Who are the War Criminals George Orwell

BUT NOT TO

F L A T T E R

T H E L E F T

ATTACK RIGHT

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Left Wing

Right Wing

The Extent of Socialism

Anarchism

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The Extent of Socialism

The Form of SocialismTotalitarianism

Understanding Politics (Basic)

After the Spanish Civil war and during thereign of Stalin in Russia Orwell took a Democratic Socialist political opinion. There are so many overlaps within political parties. This is a visual attempt to differentiate the extremists.