Alessandro Colizzi: Bruno Munari and the Invention of Modern Graphic Design in Italy, 1928-1945 (2011)
Filed under thesis | Tags: · 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, art, avant-garde, constructivism, design, futurism, graphic design, italy, painting, typography
“Despite the difficult political conditions under the Fascist regime, Italy saw its own modernist wave hit the commercial arts in the 1930s, resulting from a complex interplay of factors as diverse as the weight of Futurism, the rise of advertising, and the debate surrounding Rationalist architecture. This research examines Bruno Munari’s work as a graphic designer from the late 1920s to mid-1940s, with the aim of understanding the emergence and characteristics of the modernist trend in Italian graphic design. Taking shape in Milan, this original ‘design culture’ eclectically brought together two quite different strains of Modernity: a local tradition represented by the Futurist avant-garde, and a European tradition associated with Constructivism. Munari (1907–1998) worked simultaneously as painter and as advertising designer: he debuted with the Futurists, whose broader cultural reach he shared, while also remaining open to other currents—such as Dadaism and Surrealism—and ultimately aligned himself with a more Abstractionist stance. Insofar as he was an exponent of the new advertising profession, his design work also reflects its evolution, mixed references, aspirations, and limits. Concentrating on Munari’s stylistic development, the study seeks to explore the interaction between the Futurist visual vocabulary and conceptions coming from architecture, photography, abstract painting, and functionalist typography trickling in from central and northern Europe. Hence, the discussion positions the designer in his time and place, concentrating as much on the artefacts as on the broader cultural framework. Secondly, the study attempts to assess Munari’s reputation against a body of exemplary work, based on firsthand documentation. It is the first extensive, detailed record of Munari’s graphic design output, and as such provides a substantial base for a full understanding of his œuvre. While Munari’s evolution is dealt with chronologically, the analysis of his graphic works highlights key areas of visual interest, offering a cross reading that sheds light on their underlying poetics, themes, and formal attributes. In its trajectory, Munari’s wide-ranging graphic design work shows how modernist ideas were received and assimilated in the Milanese environment of the 1930s, as well as the shift in conceptions of the graphic design profession—from one related to avant-garde art practice to a Modern one, based on rational idioms. The roots of modern Italian graphic design, which fully emerged after 1945, can be traced to this heterogeneous legacy—and it is no coincidence that Munari became one of the fields’ leading exponents.” (Abstract)
Doctoral Thesis
Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
Promotor: G. Unger
Co-promotor: T.M. Eliëns
PDF (Works section missing)
PDFs
Daniel Kreiss: Taking Our Country Back? Political Consultants and the Crafting of Networked Politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama (2010)
Filed under thesis | Tags: · internet, networked politics, networks, politics, social movements, united states
While many scholars argue that the falling cost of producing and disseminating digital information drives new forms of collective political action, this dissertation reveals how digital tools, practices, and cultural processes together shape electoral campaigning. In the process, this research shows that digital technologies are not the primary drivers of changes in political practice and networked politics is not as radically democratic as many scholars suggest. Through open-ended interviews, archival research, and participant observation this work shows how until the 2003-2004 presidential election political consultants used the Internet as mass medium. During the Howard Dean campaign, however, consultants deployed a set of Internet applications that enabled citizens to work together on tasks such as voter mobilization and fundraising. As these new media staffers drew from their corporate experience to build these tools they described the campaign as a technologically-empowered, 1960s-style social movement. The dissertation concludes by showing how after the campaign these staffers founded political consultancies and brought these tools, techniques, and claims to many other sites in electoral politics, including Barack Obama’s bid for the presidency. While telling this history, this dissertation shows how social formations and cultural work together shape the uptake of tools in electoral campaigning. Meanwhile, in contrast to many accounts of democratizing ‘Web 2.0’ technologies, this dissertation reveals that digital media vastly extend the power of campaign consultants to motivate, channel, and control electoral work.
Dissertation
Department of Communication, Stanford University, 2010
251 pages
The thesis was later published as a book, author, publisher
Comment (0)Kateřina Drajsajtlová: Světelný klavír v uměleckém díle Alexandera Nikolajeviče Skrjabina a Zdeňka Pešánka (2012) [Czech]
Filed under thesis | Tags: · art history, kinetism, light piano, multimedia, poetism, synaesthesia, theosophy, visual music
Bakalářská diplomová práce se zabývá světelnou kinetikou v díle A. N. Skrjabina a Z. Pešánka. Omezili jsme se na vynález světelného klavíru jako artefaktu, který se objevuje v díle obou autorů. Z širšího hlediska se v práci zabýváme stručným vývojem tohoto technologického díla. Podstatnou část práce tvoří komparace díla obou autorů – a to z technologického, uměleckého a kulturního hlediska. Srovnávali jsme užití barevných systémů, technologické možnosti, historické, kulturní a duchovní zázemí obou umělců, tedy jakým způsobem byl ovlivněn Zdeněk Pešánek ve své umělecké tvorbě dílem skladatele A.N. Skrjabina.
Bakalářská diplomová práce
Teorie interaktivních médií, Filozofická fakulta, Masarykova univerzita, Brno
Vedoucí práce: Martin Flašar
62 stran