There were several things my research into subcultures revealed to me. One was how much cafes reoccurred, especially at the beginning. I also noticed that most youth culture rooted in the middle class tried to reject perceived notions of the middle class, Beats, Hippies, Punks, Hipsters etc, and tried to emulate a more working class or bohemian lifestyle instead. Working class cultures however tended to still be very working class, Rocker, Skinhead, Punk etc. The only real exception to this is mods who aimed for middle class sophistication.
Most of the subcultures, especially the middle class routed ones, seem to have some element of taking down gender divisions, getting more androgynous.
I have more to say on this but I've left my notes at home.

I began this project by researching a range of British subcultures, how they linked together and if they were routed in a certain class. I made a lot of spider diagrams and rough timelines to try and organise my thoughts and figure out how everything fitted together. Despite focusing on British youth movements I did touch on a few American movements that influenced various British teens. 

The timeline I developed went like this: 

Hipster ( late 1940's)- The original hipsters were generally middle class Americans who adopted the lifestyle of black jazz musicians. One key feature of this was 'self imposed poverty'

Beat (1950's)- Again middle class Americans who rejected the perceived notions of the middle class and lived a bohemian like counter culture lifestyle. Liked cafes

Teddy Boy (1950's)- The first British teen youth group. Routed in working class they sometimes formed gangs and rioted. Initially associated with jazz then later rock & roll.

Rocker (late 50's)- Working class bikers, known as outsider loners who rebelled against society.(The Wild One). Liked cafes

Mod (1960's)- Originally a middle class British extension of Beat cafe modern jazz culture or originally a small group of working class fashion orientated men who wanted clothes in a certain European influenced style. Mods aspired for the sophistication of middle class culture regardless of cultures. The working class 'hard mods' emulated rude boy West Indian culture as they came from the same impoverished areas of London and could be said to be more Teddy boy than Beat influenced. Mods were famously in conflict with rockers (somewhat routed in class). Liked cafes

Hippie (late 60's)- Hippies were middle class routed and lead a similar bohemian Lifestyle to Beats and the name comes from Hipster. Like Beats they rejected middle class values.

Skinhead (late 60's)- Skinheads came from the working class sector of mod culture. They shaved there heads as it was needed for factory work and better in fights (both working class associated), it also differentiated them from the middle class hippie movement. They couldn't afford to keep up with the fashion of richer mods and became a subculture when first wave mod died out.

Glam (1970's) Middle class based. Continued the middle class youth movement pattern of getting rid of gender boundaries (hippies and mods also did this) through fashion and make up

Punk (late 70's) Punk started as a way to oppose the 'affluent' pop music of the time, in that sense it has working class routes. Punk doesn't appear to have a preference to the working or middle class initially though. It embraced and was embraced by both classes and there was a unity between the two. There is a lot of information about punk and I've barely scratched the surface.

New Romantic (late 70's, 80's)- Middle class routed, evolved from glam. They had a working class equivalent - soul boys

Punk factions (1980's)- As punk developed it diversified into a multitude of sub-genres such as:

    Glam Punk- middle class based, from glam, ;inked with New Romantics

    Hardcore- Mainly middle class (especially the bands) but like other M-class cultures they rebelled                        against the current values of the class and dressed very W class. A lot were straight-                            edge.

    Oi & Street Punk- both working class. Developed because current punk was deemed pretentious                                       and student based. Many skinheads became part of the Oi pink scene.

    Hatecore punk- Oi punk is often confused with this. Think racist skinhead punk.

Goth (1980's)- Middle class offshoot of punk, coexisted and conflicted with punks and New Romantics

Brit pop (1990's)- More of a class driven sub-genre than subculture. The music mainly revolved around M-class culture but had followers of both class. Blur were seen as M and Oasis as W. There was a lot about creating a less androgynous scene than earlier subcultures. 

Emo (2000's)- A very modern subculture mainly middle class and pretty androgynous.

Chav (2000's)- Working class routed, like modern day skin heads (not aesthetically). Middle class versions did appear, trying to emulate a working class lifestyle.

Hipster (2010's) Current. Middle class. A lot like original hipsters. A sort of faux poverty. Against the mainstream. Ill defined because so current. Like Cafes.

That's all the cultures. This is such a big subject and there's so much information and a lot of it disagrees and argues with each other but what I've written hear is what I'm going with.  I'll write more about what this means and stuff later. For now I'm a bit exhausted. 

 

I haven't really posted much this project (partly down to me and partly because I had limited internet for a while). Anyway my project is starting by looking at subcultures throughout the ages in Britain and how those cultures are routed in class. Here is a Mod based piece I hand drew and then edited on Photoshop and Microsoft Picture editor to put the 'mod symbol' over. Mod's were both middle and working class and there are arguments for them originating from either class. Of course a lot of the working class mods went on to become Skinheads, this was partly due to factory work requiring short hair and long hair being unsuitable for fights. Middle class mods could grow their hair and became known as Suede heads.

 

Narratives of Taste, Culture and Class

The new project revolves around culture, taste and class. To get started on such a large and broad topic I watched the Greyson Perry TV series 'In the best possible taste' and went to  his exhibition'The Vanity of Small Differences' in Temple Newsam House, a stately home. The exhibition showed the 6 tapestries Perry made that were informed by his exploration of class in the TV show. The tapestries were so intricately detailed with minutiae that you could actually get a lot of information about each class just from studying the tapestries.  From the tapestries you don't get a sense that Greyson favours one over the other but more that he is mocking all of them and the whole system. The whole thing gave me a lot to think about in terms of Culture, Taste and Class and how they are all linked.

Here's a piece of writing I did now that this project is all but over

I had a lot of trouble at the start of this project. I’m really not interested in drawing buildings and the three sites we were given I found either tedious to draw or just not interesting. This presented a challenge to the way I work. I started just drawing the most interesting of the sites, the train station, but even though I tried different approaches I felt like my work had no meaning or direction and I was really forcing myself to do work.  I felt like all this was having a negative effect on my project so quickly came up with a way to give the work direction. I did this by incorporating a figurative element to my work but feel that I may have sacrificed a certain amount of focus on the sites themselves by doing this and maybe I fell into my comfort zone when I could have tried to explore new techniques and options for dealing with the issues I had. Despite this I do believe the quality of my work and my attitude to the project increased when I gave it a more solid direction that I was interested in. I believe I made a good foundation of work with a clear development. 

The main issue I have with my work this project is maybe I didn’t do enough of the initial survey step and could have developed more site oriented ideas or tried more options than the figurative one I went with. I also feel I could have done more work with materials I’m not so familiar with on a wider variety of materials as well. For instance I would have liked to do some digital work which I never really do. However I never did so partly because my lack of experience in the area stopped me as I didn’t know what I could do or how. I need to develop the way I approach concepts that are completely new to me like this in the future otherwise my practice will not develop to the extent that it should. While I like the work I have done this project and especially the way I started incorporating colour it is very similar to my usual work in material and style. This isn't necessarily a problem but I do need to explore a little more.  I do like how I developed using colour in my work and using different type of line however. I am also pleased with the general concept of the project.

 When I did the building inside this figure I was influenced in the way I use colour from these two pieces from the initial survey portion of the project.
















I also really like the tiny train station on a piece of cardboard. This was from some initial playing with scale.

 Here is my work on the wall ready to be exhibited for assessment. I had a limited amount of space and a lot of work I wanted to stick up. On top of that I wanted it to be at least somewhat chronological. In the end I had to just put pieces where they'd fit but you can see the general stages of development, the change of scale, the introduction of colour, changes in the production of line etc. That beam is really annoying though.