Visual Arts Preparation - Utopia/Dystopia

This visual I have created represents the idea of change and transformation by taking a Dystopian environment or society and adjusting it to make it potentially a Utopia. The transformation occurs in the roots of the tree and progresses into a tree from the fiery underground environment. The branches and leaves on the top of the tree merge with the clouds which represents Utopia as an almost heavenly paradise.

This idea came purely from the research I did into Dubai and the man made islands they had created, one which from above looked like a palm tree and the other like a rough take on the world map. The shape of the islands which I have visualised on this sketch of the world collectively spell the word Utopia. I came to the conclusion through my research that the idea of a Utopian society would be a complete fantasy given the environments we have been initially given on this planet but Dubai could potentially transform this ordeal by going through with this completely unnatural behaviour of creating their own islands/countries/environments from scratch.

This visual shows very simply the occurrences of the 11th September attacks on America and how one action can turn a Utopia straight into a Dystopia. It also just confirms the fact that a Utopian society will never be achieved, especially all the time us as the human race are going through with such acts to cause mass hurt and pain to one another.

This visual shows a Swastika placed in a maze. This is meant to represent the issues Hitler and his men had to tackle to make this radical idea Hitler had to create this super race and society even a slight possibility. For every turn and pause in the maze represents a new issue that would have to be overcome to continue with this regime, for example the addition of the gas cambers to eradicate the jews and the mentally/physically disabled was put in place mostly due to the amount of strain that was put on the Nazi shooters to kill them personally.

Robert Missen's Visual Art Preparation Module presentation.

Link to presentation - http://vimeo.com/29850073

For the assignment i was asked to explore the Utopian ideal and how this has effected western culture. I used a range of techniques to gather information and knowledge on the subject. The variety of different mediums included books, websites, films, TV shows, documentaries, radio shows, exhibitions, newspaper and magazine articles.

I initially started this journey by looking into the origin of the term utopia. Utopia in most cases is the ideal community, It's the idea of perfection where everyone is equal and where everything just seems to work out with zero stress or concern. The term Utopia was first devised by Thomas More. it was taken from the greek words of good and place. Utopia went on to be the name of his 1516AD publication which shared his vivid imagination in relation to this fantasy island that he had fabricated to such detail in his mind, to More this was the perfect world. More initially took inspiration from the work of Plato, yet he disagreed with some of Plato's Utopian ideals. In Plato's book "The Republic" having communal property was the basis for an ideal city which More disagreed with. He believed that if a country had communal property there would be no prosperity. People would not have the incentive to work, and the lack of private property would eliminate respect for authority leading to conflict. More wrote Utopia just before the outbreak of the protestant reformation in a time when England was under great stress along with corruption, the book is a response to this time as a criticism to the world he saw around him. The Utopian ideas present in the book cover vast aspects of society some of these being; great productivity; no love for gold; no distinction in class; zero poverty; little crime and a religious tolerance. These where all problems he felt needed resolving in the community in which he lived in. The imagery present in the book was recognised to some readers and utopian socialist as a realistic blueprint for the perfect society one that should've been reflected on to the nation.

Please refer to reference 1 which is a ink drawing by or-tea-lee-us from 1595. And reference 2 which is a woodcut by Ambroseius Holbein for the 1518 edition of Utopia. the lower left-hand corner shows the traveller Raphael Hythlodaeus, describing the island.

Even though Thomas More first invented the word utopia, the utopian ideal was first proposed by the greek philosopher plato. Plato thought of differing models of social economic structures each with a variety of social regime and laws to conclude the happiness of man. These ideas were recorded in his 4th century BC publication titled "the republic". likewise in the 4th century another greek philosopher mentioned a fictional paradise island in the indian ocean known as Pancaea.

After looking into the origins of utopia i was led onto how the utopian ideas can be dystopia for others. Dystopia is the opposite of utopia. It would be an imperfect corrupt stress filled society. An example of how utopia is due to personal opinion would be with the example of Hitler's radical ideas to create a super race and society.

Hitler's key influence with going through with this was with Charles Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest" in mind. Hitler wanted to eradicate all Jews as he believed that "Jews were a disease and needed to be destroyed" also to create this super race (known as the Aryan race) anyone with any physical or mental disabilities were either sterilised or killed, this mass extermination was known as The Holocaust.

During Hitler's time in power he ordered the killing of over 170,000 mentally and physically disabled citizens, he had a range of techniques for singling out the ones he viewed as imperfect that he felt were not fit to be a part of his Aryan race. He had a team of researchers who believed that they were race scientist who followed the pseudoscientific ideas popular in the 19th Century, the aim was to improve/perfect the human race. A range of characteristics were recorded such as skull shapes, eye and hair colour, height, bone structure to work out the racial composition of the German population and to identify influences considered harmful and how to go through with eliminating these acknowledged issues correctly.

Hitler used varying techniques to eliminate the imperfect and jews. Initially he started with mass shootings carried out by his German officials, this later proved not beneficial with the amount of strain being caused on the shooters themselves and the amount of time taken to carry out this method. Then more rapid techniques were then recognised such as the the gassing of the victims in the chambers and mobile gas vans in which they used the fumes of the vehicle to irradiate the inadequate. This mass extermination was named by Hitler as "Programme T4" (Mercy killings).

reference 3 is a collection of photographs taken from the holocaust exhibition i attended in London's imperial war museum.

ideas of dystopia led me on to the islamic culture with regards to jihad, this was at a time when i going away on holiday to morocco. my holiday in morocco allowed me to explore the islamic culture and to explore their religions views and rules with regard to their society and how this would compare with western societies views. reference 4 is a collection of photographs taken from my time in Morocco. Whilst i was out there a number of things became apparent that were different to our society. Women were treated as second class citizens. They were usually covered up head to toe in a hijab, and the treatment of women was also reflected onto non muslim women where men were served before women and even spoken to before. These different ideas allowed me to look into utopian ideas of religion. Religion's fundamental rules are based on their own ideas of Utopia. Each religion has it's own set of rules and values which followers believe would lead to a perfect way of life in society. The most famous rules being Christianity's 10 commandments, which are a guide for Christians to follow to be a perfect citizen, and if all were to follow these rules society would be perfect.

Modern interpretations of the 10 commandments taken from Exodus 20: verses 1-17 are:

1. Do not worship any other Gods.

2. Do not make any idols.

3. Do not misuse the name of God.

4. Keep the Sabbath day holy.

5. Honour your mother and father.

6. Do not murder

7. Do not commit adultery.

8. Do not steal.

9. Do not lie.

10. Do not covert.

Christianity is one of 22 major religions in operation today, with thousands more differing faith structures. The top two religions are Christianity with 2.1 billion followers and Islam with 1.5 billion. Both of these religions have doctrine in which the rules to become a good citizen are based. Christianity has the Bible and Islam has the Quran. Both of these religions are monotheist (Christians believe in God, and Muslims believe in Allah) and both have their own scriptures in which to follow the religious rules.

My time in Morocco allowed me to appreciate a different society and it allowed me to gather insight into how this religion has very strict rules to follow. This allowed me to form an understanding of the ideas behind Jihad. In today's modern society there is a new example of what some people may consider to be similar to The Holocaust, not in relation to the eradicating of the Jews or the mentally/physically disabled but by eradicating our Utopia of Western society by the extremist Muslims with Jihad.

Jihad is suppose to be a religious duty which was traditionally understood to be a military effort to spread the Islamic faith. In an offensive war it is an obligation on the Muslim community as a whole and in a defensive war it becomes a personal obligation on every adult male Muslim. Over time it has become more about extending Muslim power with the eventual goal of achieving domination of the entire world.

The use of the word Jihad has been associated with both violent and non-violent meanings. In essence the term means "struggling for a noble cause". It can simply mean striving to live a moral and virtuous life, spreading and defending Islam as well as fighting injustice and oppression, among other things. However the term has also been interpreted to define the term to mean "sacrificing one's life for the sake of Islam/God/a just cause" or "fighting against the opponents of Islam". However the Quran never uses the term Jihad for fighting and combat in the name of Allah, yet many terrorists use Jihad as an excuse for their actions

These dystopian act of terrorism have influenced modern art in recent times. reference 5 is a painting by the artist mark sinckler called the age of shiva. it was painted in 2010 in a response to the 7th of july london bombings in 2005. his idea behind this piece was to jolt people into thinking about the political effects of faith. The use of the angels in the piece is a visual representation of the Utopia caused for the terrorists of this catastrophe, and when exhibited caused controversy due to the painting almost dismissing the seriousness of the attack, and almost mocking it.

After looking at utopian ideas of religion this allowed me to think about other people who may have differing thoughts of utopia. I then looked into the utopian thoughts behind marxism and utopian socialism.

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, sociologist, economic historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist who developed the socio-political theory of Marxism. His ideas have played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement. He published various books during his lifetime, with the most notable being The Communist Manifesto (1848).

Marx's theories about society, economics and politics, which are collectively known as Marxism, hold that all societies progress through resolving the disagreement of class struggle. He was heavily critical of the current socio-economic form of society capitalism believing the state was run by the wealthy middle and upper classes purely for their own benefit, which in turn would lead to tension and self destruction. Marx envisaged a new system for society to run, called socialism. This was where society was run by the working class. He believed that socialism would eventually be replaced by a stateless, classless society called pure communism.

Marx's thoughts on a perfect society were based on a movement in the 1820s and 1840s called Utopian Socialism. Between this period of time individuals who believed in the perfectibility of the social and political order founded hundreds of utopian communities. These experimental communal societies were called utopian communities because they provided because they provided blueprints for an ideal society.

After looking into theorists i then started to explore how we can create our own utopia through the form of architecture and more specifically i looked into dubai's man made islands. From research gathered

the idea of Utopia needs to begin with the perfect environment with absolutely zero flaws. And the world in which we live can allow us to create new buildings and structures and also islands. In Dubai due to the wealth from their oil resource, it has allowed them to create some of the tallest skyscrapers in the world. Alongside this they have also gone one step further into creating their own island of utopia with man made islands in the shape of a palm tree and the rough shape of a world map. Not only can architects create an island from new but they can solve societies problems (for example building blocks of flats for our housing needs) and architecture visually changes our environment. by carving and re-sculpting, and creating the new.

the idea of creating the new and re-sculpting the world around us led me onto the art movement called earth art or land art as it is otherwise known. this art movement was started in the 1970s in which the primary ideology is that the earth and the art integrate with one another. The earth is changed suit the purpose of the artist. reference 6 is a piece of land art by robert smithson constructed in 1970 called spiral jetty, and is an example of how land can be altered to make it visually perfect. It was arranged with rock, earth and algae to form a long spiral shape protruding into great sake in norther utah.

In conclusion to my research it became very apparent that the utopian ideal has heavily influenced Western society. It has influenced and shaped literature, religion, architecture, socialist theorists, modern advertising, art, but yet it has also been a prime cause of mass extermination in the need for perfection and belief that a set of rules and values are best for everyone. From the research gathered i was then able to assess whether these ideas have effected my work. it is my opinion that It has indirectly influenced my own work for the need of perfection and how i create my own set of rules and guidelines to follow in which to achieve this. please refer to reference 7 which is my piece of work called " This Is The Life" (2011) . this piece of work best reprints how ideas of utopia can be found in my work. this is based not only the wording, as the title this is the life would suggest a good and perfect life but also in my execution of the piece i had a dedicated regime and rules to follow. Visually the work is neat and crisp which furthermore visually reinforces the title and therefore how ideas of utopia have effected not only western culture but also indirectly in my own work.

Handout.