Assignment 3

Lecture 4: Modernity in Art and Design

Readings:
Williams, R., Art Theory: An historical introduction, Blackwell, 2004.

Question 1
Why, according to Modern Design text, did products become more streamlined and machine-like?

Products became more streamlined and machine like due to the increase in industrial designers. Another influence was based on economic decisions, standardisation and obsolescence. Style changed changes less significant and less often. The standardisation was largely influenced by economics, more streamlined , economics of scale, greater profits made mass production become easier. Products were made of new materials: plastics, composition, veneers, alimira, all these products were capable of being mass produced. The Gestetner photo copier machine got a new design, modern look, but basically all that was done , was that it was repackaged. Advertising became easier because products looked god and different, with all the new designs, taste got better too.
Obsolescence became a reality. This machinism became evident in office environment., bewy a great influence. Due to mass production there was a significant decrease in prices this became a very powerful selling point. The refrigerator was redesigned , everything was modernised to be fashionably acceptable.
Streamlining claimed to be the ultimate form of each object. This streamlined look gave vision of dream homes, and so Futuristic form became so popular.
“the streamlined style not only a phallic technological thrust into a limitless future. It’s dominant image, the rounded, womb-like teardrop egg, expressed also a desire for a passive, static society , in which social and economic frictions engendered by technological acceleration would be eliminated.” - Robert Williams, Art Theory- An Historical Introduction.






Question 2
What is Utopianism? Why are art, design and architecture in the early 20th Century described as utopian?

Utopianism is the idea of creating the perfect most modern world so that everything looks as if it has been modernised. A good example of an idea of Utopianism is Le Corbusier’s plan for the modernization of Paris (the so-called Plan Voisin) pg 185 ,the early 20th Century, beyond nature. This model le Corbusier created is of Paris but what he had done is removed all the old/current buildings and replaced them with new, modern and all identical buildings, and by doing so he had created his Utopia (a modernised paradise)
In order for the Utopian idea to exist, the artists’ had a difficult challenge to overcome, not only did they have to create a new type of art for a new society , but of fashioning a new conception of what the meaning of art really is. THE ART OF THE FUTURE. The Utopian expectations would never be fulfilled, and the extraordinary burst of creativity that they nourished would soon be smothered by brutal state repression.