Live Theory

We Need to Talk

Craftivism + Feminism 

Within one of feminisms crafts - zine making  how do communities propogate their brand of activism, and how does this reveal what this community aims to achieve.  

Chidgey, R. (2009). Free, Trade: Distribution Economies in Feminist Zine Networks. Signs: Journal Of Women In Culture & Society,35(1), 28-37

Fisk, A. (2012). 'To Make, and Make Again': Feminism, Craft and Spirituality. Feminist Theology,20(2), 160-174. doi:10.1177/0966735011425302

Payne, J. (2012). The logics of Sisterhood: Intra-feminist debates in Swedish feminist zines.European Journal Of Women's Studies, 19(2), 187-202. doi:10.1177/1350506811434871

Weida, C. L. (2013). Feminist zines: (pre)occupations of gender, politics, and D.I.Y. in a digital age. The Journal of Social Theory in Art Education (Online), 33, 67-85. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1466173589?accountid=14782

Weida outlines the ways in which DIY craftivism has continued on from the 90′s activist movements and outlasted protests. They then suggest that with the combination of digital media the message is further spread and easily reachable. This is a way in which we can see grassroots efforts being produced and accessed. Handmade craftmanship is an obvious element to this production and how this is treated in a gendered sphere. 

Zobl, E. (2009). Cultural Production, Transnational Networking, and Critical Reflection in Feminist Zines. Signs: Journal Of Women In Culture And Society, 35(1), 1-12. doi:10.1086/599256

Explanation // Conclusion

Quantified Flaneur

 When moving through our urban space we tend to notice trends. We see patterns emerge in our rationalized surroundings, reflecting back the quantified nature of the city. I have concentrated on the juxtaposition of the organic movements of the flaneur and the regimented quantified approach of gamification. How can both exist when the other is present and do they interact? Using a thematic colour to create a ‘punctum’ as Barthes (1981) described them, a punctuation in my depiction of the city. “The punctum is a rupture, a discontinuation in the fabric of received knowledge .” The orange punctum to me represents the unnatural and stand out nature of gamification, the colour is a metaphor for the rationalisation and creation of social control in a public space. The rationalization that the flaneur was working against is  a constant battle,  gamified social control  is an environment centred on efficiency not simply existing in a space (deWinter, Kocurek, Kocurek, 2014). This fascinating pairing of the flaneur experience and gamification I believe shows two elements of modern life, often pitched against one another. Finding both in our day to day lives. I created hyperbolic representation of gamification to show what people are afraid of happening, but I hoped to enable critical thought on whether or not this was a justified fear or a fallacy. The switch back to normal sounds and the removal of the distorted backing track when the credits role means that the dystopian reality that people fear is only a creation of the mind. While gamification exists I do not think it will be able to trump the experience of the Flaneur. Both tell interesting stories about modern life and our crafted environments.

Alpert, A. (2010). Overcome by photography: camera Lucida in an international frame. Third Text, 24(3), 331-339.

Barthes, R. (1981). Camera lucida: Reflections on photography. Macmillan.

Here I have combined both the city soundscape and my sampled backing track (Freemusicarchive.org, 2015). Combined with editing to make them more ‘pixelated’ or ‘digitised’ I am hoping that the gradual transition to low-fi increasingly flat sounds indicates what I’m trying to say with the photographs, that gamification has become more and more present in our city as we attempt to rationalise everything. 

I was wanting my sound track to mimic the sensationalised approach to gamification and by extension people have to technology. 

This is my remixed // sampled creation of the soundtrack I downloaded from the free sound archive. 

This was edited to keep it simple / minimalistic as it was being paired with the city soundscape. 

Movement towards concentrating on punctuating my photos with orange - this represents to me elements of gamification. I am wanting to edit my photos slightly to show this. my first attempt at this editing is the last photo in the set. I think that further development of this subtle editing is going to convey gamification. 

Choice of Orange:

Gamification is explained as a form of extended Taylorism - which is a form of citizen control. Through gamification we can rationalise actions just as paris was rationalised in the restructuring that occurred. The Flanuer is attempting to escape this, however as gamification is the metaphor for the increasing rationalisation of our everyday mundane actions. Gamification has been appropriated by capitalism in order to extrude efficiency. (Daft & Lengel, 1986)

Taylorism is theorised as being a form of social control - the science of creating an environment that makes workers work the hardest and for the longest hours. Manipulation of the senses and emotions is employed in Taylorism approaches which continues to exist in work places today. This rationalisation is inherent in our cultural approach to production of design - it is about commodity and what margin you can make, not about the futherment or critique of modern culture of life.