Sneaker Events

During research towards an event that I could hold in Leeds, I looked into other events on offer globally and found that the majority are located solely in the USA.

Complex magazine has a dedicated part on it's site for sneakers and recently posted an article of their '10 Sneaker Events To Attend in 2013'

10   Sneaker Friends - Charlotte, Atlanta, USA
9     Crepe City - London, England, UK
8     Sole Con - New York City, USA
7     Cleveland Got Sole - Cleveland, USA
6     Sneaker Swap - Connecticut, USA
5     Sneaker Con - New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, USA
4     Sneaker Pimps - various locations, USA
3     Baltimore Sneaker Show - Baltimore, USA
2     Dunkxchange - Southern California, USA
1     H-Town Sneaker Summit - Houston, USA

Crepe City do something similar to what is possible to achieve, but they have a sweet venue in Nike 1948 store, but due to the location are limited on the trainers they can exhibit/sell.

The London Vandal review Crepe City

   HypeBeast TV coverage of Crepe City    

Psychoanalysis

- Understanding of the psyche

- The role of the unconscious - everyday living

- Gender development - sexual identity

- Human subjectivity understanding

Study of human subjectivity

Psychoanalysis - form of therapy - human subjectivity - study psyche

Theories of the unconscious

- Human sexuality development

Understanding human desire/motivations/dreams

Human control is not all through the mind

-Unconscious thoughts are vital part I day to day reactions

- Sigmund Freud, Jacques lacan, lemanie klien, Carl Jung, Juliet mitchelle, Lucie irgaicay, Julia kristara

Sigmund Freud - conceived the idea late 1890s

-       Through the treating of hysteria patients the use of psychoanalysis – guidance to accept thoughts once repressed due to thoughts/events

Dream analysis – analysis of his own

-       Unconscious – ‘wish-fulfilment’

Infant observation – associations with parental/motherly figures

Establishment of dynamic unconscious

The dynamic unconscious

Through early human development as an infant – as a means of protection – unacceptable thoughts and behaviours to the conscious.

-       These early developments continue to effect the self in SOME ways

-       Unconscious is chaotic without order without language

Freudian slip – unconscious thoughts from early development made known through ticks/slips/symptoms.

-       Hysteria patients developed symptoms due to early repressed thoughts - experiences

Developmental stages

Development – wilful, conscious beliefs – full of confusing, contradictory, misinterpreted

Thoughts and feelings

- Human development – attempt to make sense of biological/instinctual self

                                    - Logical/thinking self

Development of associations and assumptions through out judgement of data – often misinterpreted

Developmental stages as a child

-       Oral

-       Anal

-       Phallic

Oedipus complex – sexual/love feelings towards motherly figure – resentment of father – stems from childhood dependence on mother – self centred view on world

Love/jealousy

-       Feelings to want / to be wanted

Development of preconceptions – Oedipus complex/castration complex/penis envy

-Oedipus complex – sexual/love towards motherly figure – resentment towards father – self centred view on the world

-Development of feelings – love/rivalry/jealousy – become mixed and confusing

- Development of male/female identities in relation to penis

-Castration complex – boy in fear of castration = loss of power

                                    - Girl accepts – she has already been castrated

Phallus – symbol of power

-Penis envy – girl experiences when she realises she is without – relation to father figure

-Presence/absence – negative feelings

- Boy fears loss of power – castration

-Girl fears she is missing something

Child must experience and overcome feelings and misconceptions

-These misconceptions/contradictory ideas continue throughout our lives – unconscious

The uncanny

‘unhomely’

Unnatural – familiar

Something to remind hidden – come to open

Boundaries of fantasy/reality break down

Analogies – unconscious (psychology) – uncanny (aesthetics)

Freudian models

Id

Ego

Superego ----- iceberg

Unconscious

Preconscious

Conscious

Id – represents biological/ instinctual part of us

Ego – represents individual/personality

Super ego – represents the part of ourselves in relation to others

Unconscious – hidden / repressed unacceptable feelings stored

Preconscious – unconscious buy not repressed – memories/words/recollection of this

Conscious – self/personality/identity

Jacques lacan

1960s-1970s presentation of psychoanalysis

Reconception of Freud’s findings – structured linguistics – signification

Lacan – development of the psyche – formed with the structures of language – ‘mold the self as we mold it’

The mirror stage

The Childs reflection

-       Child sees itself in the mirror for the first time – split/alienation

-       Seen as the subject and the other

-       Rivalry – child may recognise the image is its own

-       Identity of itself outside of itself – sees mirror as ‘other’

-       - Formation of the Childs ego – boy image/subject/other

Specula image

Captivated – child is absorbed/repelled by own image

Lacan unconscious

Unconscious is structured like language

Meaning is encoded with linguistic signs

Metaphor/metonymy

Symptom

-       Metaphor – representation of something else which possesses similar characteristics

-       Symptoms – translated elements – metaphor style coding

Desire

-       Metonymy – part used to represent whole or the whole represent small part

-       Displaces all on sales of associations

-       Desire for objects (inc people) displacement of desire for what cant be obtained

Lacan phallus

Not the biological penis – object of owner association

Through the potential LACK

Masculinity/femininity are not biological

Definition – SYMBOLIC positions

Phallus – ‘speaking position in culture’

-Relation to nature of the phallus – signifying

- Sexual identity

Orders of reality

-       The real – cannot be symbolised/signified

-       The imaginary – ego is born and developed

-       The symbolic – the other

Subjectivity

-       Human motivation desires – unconscious

-       - Understanding of why things are

-       Understanding of designers/artists creativity

Model based theory

Edward bernays – Freud’s nephew

‘The godfather of PR’

Applied theories to advertising and pr

Manipulation techniques

Embedding desire within products

Torches of freedom

Conclusion

Psychoanalysis provides definition of unconscious

Subjecthood outside logic/rationality

Understanding of motivations and art

How art and design effects us and why

How to be Anonymous Online

Through my research I have stumbled upon many 'How to be Anonymous Online, 'How to Stay as Anonymous as Possible' and other such articles which explain ways of how to stay anonymous.

Many of the articles point to using a certain program called Tor, which is an anonymity network. Tor is an acronym for 'The Onion Router' the name, well specific use of 'onion', depicts the layers of encryption used within the network.

"Tor aims to conceal its users' identities and their network activity from surveillance and traffic analysis by separating identification and routing. It is an implementation of onion routing, which encrypts and then randomly bounces communications through a network of relays run by volunteers around the globe. These onion routers employ encryption in a multi-layered manner (hence the onion metaphor) to ensure perfect forward secrecy between relays, thereby providing users with anonymity in network location. That anonymity extends to the hosting of censorship-resistant content via Tor's anonymous hidden service feature.^[8] Furthermore, by keeping some of the entry relays (bridge relays) secret, users can evade Internet censorship that relies upon blocking public Tor relays.^[18]
Because the internet address of the sender and the recipient are not both in cleartext at any hop along the way, anyone eavesdropping at any point along the communication channel cannot directly identify both ends. Furthermore, to the recipient it appears that the last Tor node (the exit node) is the originator of the communication rather than the sender."

 As stated, Tor is a tool to conceal identity across the internet, and is mandatory in connection to the Darknet and the Silk Road.

So what exactly is the Darknet?

"Well, the Darknet is pretty much an anonymous Internet where you can browse the Internet and not be traced. The Darknet is often referred to as the ‘Deep Web’ and ‘Hidden Internet’, it doesn’t operate the way your used to. The address you use on the anonymous internet isn’t the same as the ‘surface’ web, for example: Typing “Google.co.uk” into your web browser will take you to Google’s British search engine, however, for a search engine on the Darknet such as TORCH Search Engine, you cannot type in “TORCH.co.uk” because the website is hidden from view. In order to go to TORCH you would have to know the URL, the URL for TORCH is “xmh57jrzrnw6insl.onion”."

Provided by theanonymousinternet.tumblr

So the Darknet is another internet which is lesser known and linked with a lot of illegal activity, but boasts anonymity, whilst staying pretty design basic.

This image is a screenshot from the Silk Road and a lovely store called 'Arms Depot' featuring assault rifles for sale at Christmas special prices "Get a fucking submachine gun for Christmas!' is a particularly gripping sentence.

So with the benefit of privacy the Darknet has accumulated a large user base, with the Silk Road being a prominent feature in this, it has created a platform for a whole host of different activities. This is similar to what happened with 4chan, a lot of good has come from the internet community within /b/, the random image board dubbed 'the internets arsehole'. /b/ is the home to probably some of the best hackers known to the world, fighting for what they believe to be 'the greater good', and causing a bit of chaos at the same time.

The chaos side of /b/ and the Silk Road both draw a lot of negative attention from the media and the positive contributions made on either are overlooked.

In summary, the Darknet could prove to be a very useful tool. Advert free, complete freedom of speech through anonymity and an untraceable connection are all very appealing.

Panopticism in Modern Society

Panopticism exists within the modern world through a variety of surveillance processes such as CCTV, body scanners and numerous other identifying cards etc.

"Through a variety of measures such as closed circuit television, body scanners and numerous methods of identification we could be easily located and detected if the need was there. The government promotes theses processes as to be of benefit to us and for the sole purpose of maintaining our personal security, which could well be truthful, but at what stage will there be a cut-off point? When do these panoptic ways start to become an invasion of our privacy?"

I found this quote on a website and saved it in a blog post but without a link, so I don't know where it came from, however, it is relevant to my subject.  Highlighting how strong the public view on how we currently deal with such aspects of society and the community at hand.

Identification cards for everywhere, we even use an identity card which we can to enter/leave the premises, which inevitably logs our comings and goings. Arguably for safety reasons, but it still is a bit invasive, let alone other means that exist out of the establishment as part of everyday society.

'The Gaze' Study Task 2

 

The company American Apparel are famous for their outlandish, over sexualised advertising campaigns – many of which often end up banned due to a substantial amount of complaints against the images that are used.

However, the images used provide an interesting insight into Gaze Theory within the media and advertising today. Through this analysis, I will compare the image from an American Apparel campaign pictured and it’s reaction from the theories of the gaze and ‘The Look’ by Rosalind Coward.

The male gaze appears when the camera puts the audience in a position that they are the eyes of a man looking at the subject. For example the focus may be on the figure or nude body of a woman. The image is cropped so the main focus is on her body, rather than her face or personality traits. The woman pictured in usually photographed in a way that she is seen as an erotic object or powerless to the male (the gaze).

"Womens inability to return to such a critical and aggressive look is a sign of subordination" (Coward 2000) 'subordination' 1. Belonging to a lower or inferior class or rank; secondary. 2. Subject to the authority or control of another.

In this advert pictured the girl is laid on a bed with her legs spread, the text to the right of the image reads ‘now open’. As in the male gaze this is immediately related back to the womans spread legs, this then brings on the sexual thought that she is ‘open’ for sex, teamed with the ‘home photo’ style of the shoot it demoralises the woman in that she is an erotic object. "Peeping Toms can always stay in control" (Coward 2000) the idea that the viewer (the male gaze) is seeing the woman in a place of intimacy, but has the power of the situation and being able to be there.

Her expression is innocent with a hint of fear and vulnerability it is almost as if she wants to look away but her gaze is stunted by the over rule of the male; the male gaze is in control and holds power over her in a sexual sense. 

Adverts such as this can also represent the way women see themselves, or other images. They begin to look at themselves through the ideals of the male gaze – sex and exposure sell, and it is what is ‘ideal’ therefore desirable. "Critical glance of the cultural idea" (Coward 2000)

Coward suggests in her writing that there are so many unrealistic images of women in media and advertising as it is a manly male dominated area, the images are controlled and produced by men. "Men who produce the pages will continue to build their power on the decorative excess of the women who are pictured on them" (Coward 2000)

In society today and the media, it is unwritten rule that sex sells, from cars to perfumes the over sexualised images are often used. This creates a disjointed and confused view in society on the ideals and what we should conform too. We are in a world where the explicit pornographic pictures of women in the media are the norm, this only boosts to use the idea what males need to be in control from the viewing perspective. "obsessive recording and use of women's images in a way to make men comfortable. Clearly this comfort is is connected with feeling secure or powerful" (Coward 2000)