I've been playing around with Photoshop for this project. I know next to nothing about Photoshop and have only been doing basic simple things. I've been meaning to explore using Photoshop and Illustrator for a while but have never got to it, mainly because I'd have no idea what to do or even how to begin. This time though I thought I'd give it a try never the less and just play around to see if I could make anything that looks good. So far I'm mainly just using it to try and figure out a way to colour my work as I've still not found a way of working with coulour that I really like or think works with my preferred drawing styles.
I'm probably going about it the complete wrong way but I'm going to continue pursuing Photoshop and eventually Illustrator as well because I think it will open up a lot of new opportunities and directions for my practice.

Jo Brocklehurst was an artist I looked at for this project. Her work focuses on the punk/new romantic scene as well. Her work is very Egon Schiele like in the way the figures are proportioned and composed. I think her work really gets across a good idea of youth culture. Other than the purely aesthetic components such as the hair and clothes I think this is mainly down to the composition of the figures. They all look effortless and casual in there stances but in a way that makes them seem posed at the same time, as if quite a bit of though has gone into how look as relaxed or not interested as possible. Also in these drawings the figures are generally no making eye contact looking down or turned away. There is however another sort of composition to her work (though not much of it), some of her figures go for almost the opposite. They embrace a blatant pose and/or make direct confrontational eye contact with the viewer. The ironic thing about his is those obviously posing probably put a lot less effort and time into there pose than those seeming disinterested. This go me thinking about how important pose can be to representing a subculture and how slight changes to a pose can change the meaning the figure conveys entirely.

 (http://www.theblitzkids.com/site_archive/erics_club/brocklehurst4.JPG)  (http://s208.photobucket.com/user/killyourpetpuppy/media/Jo%20Brocklehurst%20drawings/TonydrawnbyGeorge.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1)

For my work on UK youth cultures I wanted to draw from real photos of people from within the cultures to make sure I got an accurate idea of how the people would have actually looked and that I didn't fall victim to false stereotypes. It was quite tricky to find a good amount of photos for each subculture, especially the earlier ones (anything pre-glam really). This may be down to photography not being as big or good back then or maybe the members of those earlier cultures were less concerned with getting photos of themselves out there. I found quite a few good photos on pinterest but in general I was able to find a lot more from the Glam to Goth segment of my timeline.

This is mainly because while reading an issue of Varoom magazine I came upon an article on another magazine called The Face, a music, fashion and culture magazine from the 80s which in it's early days focused on the sorts of youth culture that I am looking at. In the article it mentioned several photographers who worked for The Face such as: Derek Ridgers, Pennie Smith, Kevin Cummings and Shelia Rock. The work of these photographers, and others from The Face formed the basis of my reference material for this project and is why most of my work is based in the subcultures of the 80s.

Derek Ridgers book London Youth: 1978- 1987 was especially useful for this project covering a range of youth culture and including dates for all photos so I know exactly where they fit in with my time line.

My work became a lot more culture based and less class based as I started to create more work. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but the work doesn't have the original meaning I wanted when I started this project and is now more of a map of 70s-80s youth culture and taste which I actually prefer as it has allowed me to make more varying and impact-ful work.

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.