THE
ROBERT GORDON
UNIVERSITY
ABERDEEN
FACULTY OF DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY
gray’s school of art
Stage 2 2005-2006
Contextual and Critical Studies – Mini-Programme 2
Consuming Signs
Tutors: Lesley Scott / Andrea Peach
email: l.scott@rgu.ac.uk /a.peach@rgu.ac.uk (tel: 263692)
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CONSUMING SIGNS
This programme will look at how we ‘consume’ culture, and the ways in which the art and design ‘industries’
increasingly produce commodities that we consciously or unconsciously desire and aspire to possess. We will
investigate theories behind the complex system of cultural signs and signifiers that surround us all, and use case
studies from consumer culture, as a means of critiquing art and design practice. Cultural artefacts can be read on
many different levels; both design and art are subject to commodification, and may circulate meaning. By the end
of this programme, you should have a better understanding of what is meant by cultural consumption, the
commodification of art and design, and the application of semiotics to advertising and branding.
1.
INTRODUCTION AND TIMETABLE
This programme comprises one of two mini-programmes running in Semester Two 2006/07. Each programme runs
across 3 weeks, and includes a lecture on Mondays at 1.00 pm, SB42 Scott Sutherland School, followed by
seminars for Stage 2 on Tuesdays in A34M Gray’s School of Art. Seminar groups and times will be posted
on the CCS noticeboard (by the art school shop). Students must come to the seminars prepared to participate.
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Weekly seminar details can be found in the course outline which follows. Assessment will be based on seminar
2.
12
Feb
5
6
7
8
9
19
Feb
26
Feb
5
Mar
12
Mar
19
Mar
26
Mar
Programme 1
Judith Findlay
‘A Delicate
Shuttle: Art as Non
Modern’
Programme 2
Andrea Peach /
Lesley Scott
‘Consuming Signs’
10
11
12
13
14
15
10
Apr
16
Apr
23
Apr
30
Apri
7
May
14
May
Assessment 2&3
5
Feb
4
Assessment 2&3
29
Jan
3
Hand in CCS
Coursework
2
April Break
Stage
2
23
Jan
Post Assessment
Break
SEMESTER 2
2006
1
BRIEFING
MONDAY 5 Feb
SB42 12-1
WK
2 April
participation and a written assignment. Details of the assignment are given below.
OVERALL OBJECTIVES OF THE CONTEXTUAL AND CRITICAL STUDIES MINI-PROGRAMMES
The Contextual and Critical Studies mini-programmes aim to encourage discussion of contemporary practice and
theory with a view to situating that discussion in a wider cultural and historical framework, and enabling you to
make links with studio practice. At the end of this series of mini-programmes you will be expected to:
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
Demonstrate an increased understanding of both the historical and contemporary context relating to art and
design theory and practice.

Further develop the ability to analyse, read and critique your own studio work in relation to a wider range of
themes and a broader cultural context.

Demonstrate an ability to undertake research relevant to the critical aims of the programme, using both
paper based and electronic sources.

Build up confidence in discussing and sustaining a critical argument that is clear and consistent.

Begin to consider self- directed areas of research in Contextual and Critical studies relating to your studio
practice and emerging critical interests.
3.
COURSEWORK
Seminar Participation and Attendance
There are three seminars for each mini-programme in Stage 2. The seminars will follow the theme of the lectures
and will address a particular issue each week. Students will be placed in groups and are expected to contribute to
the seminars as part of their assessment. For this reason, it is essential that students attend all lectures and
seminars relating to their elected mini-programme. If for any reason, you are unable to attend, please email your
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tutor. Details of the seminar tasks and groups will be found in the weekly schedule that follows and will be
discussed in the first seminar.
Assessment
This semester you are asked to complete one piece of assessment. There are two components to the assessment
comprising a Critical Notebook and an Essay.
Critical Notebook
Apply personal reflection and academic research to compile a Critical Notebook inspired by the mini-programme
theme. Where possible relate the content to your own studio activity and interests. The Critical Notebook should
take the form of a hard-backed notebook, no larger than A3, and can comprise writing, drawings, photographs,
sketches and any other materials relevant to the analysis and criticism of your chosen mini-programme. It should
contain your responses and thoughts in relation to the lectures and seminars, as well as any additional research
and development you have undertaken in relation to these. Your Essay should be securely incorporated within
your Notebook.
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Essay
For the essay, you are asked to critically evaluate an aspect of how we consume signs. To do this, you should
focus on one of the three lecture themes, and use your own examples to illustrate your understanding of how
we consume signs. Make links, where appropriate, between your own studio interests and subject.
Your essay should comprise approximately 1,500-2,000 words, must be fully word-processed and include a
comprehensive bibliography. You will be expected to reference all sources used in your text, using the Vancouver
referencing system (see section 5: ‘Referencing Sources’ for details).
The submission date for the Critical Notebook and Essay for this mini-programme is: Tuesday April 10th 2007
4.
REFERENCING SOURCES
RGU has adopted two systems for referencing sources: Harvard (also known as Author/Date) and Vancouver (also
known as ‘endnotes’ or ‘footnotes’). For your written assignment, we recommend that you use Vancouver
and Footnotes. You will find information on Vancouver in handouts available from the CCS website, at
www.studioit.org.uk See Contextual and Critical Studies / Support Files 2006/7 / General CCS
Documents:
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
Vancouver Referencing System – Sheet of examples

Guide to Academic Referencing
Please note that failure to fully reference quotations and sources constitutes plagiarism which is a serious
academic offence with corresponding penalties.
6.
Consult your tutor if you have any queries about referencing.
EXTENSION REQUESTS
Extensions will only be granted in exceptional circumstances, which encompass serious and acute problems or
events which genuinely affect your ability to complete coursework on time. Such circumstances could include:
serious physical or mental illness (must have doctor's
certificate), serious illness or death of an immediate family member or close friend. 'Exceptional circumstances'
do not include colds, headaches, hangovers, poor time management, problems caused by English not being your
first language, and circumstances within your control (absence due to holidays, weddings, jobs etc). To request an
extension, please complete a Coursework Extension Request Form (available from the School Office). This form
must be submitted before the coursework submission date, and include written documentation (medical
certificates etc.) where relevant. Claims are reviewed by your CCS tutor and treated as confidential.
Coursework handed in after the hand-in date, which is not supported by a fully approved Coursework
Extension Request Form will be recorded as a non-submission. There will be no exceptions.
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Week 7 Semester 2
Monday 12th March
1.00 SB42
Scott Sutherland
School
LECTURE 1: Consumption as Manipulation?
Key Issues and Questions
 How do we make meaning through consumption?
 Are we ‘active’ or ‘passive’ consumers?
 Do the processes of consumption manipulate or empower the individual?
Key Writers
 Theodor Adorno (1903-1969)
 Jean Baudrillard (1929-)
 Angela McRobbie
 Mike Featherstone
Case Study
 Girl’s magazines (Sugar, Bliss, More etc.)
Required Reading 

Additional Reading 



Seminar Assignment 
Barnard, Malcolm, Art Design and Visual Culture, New York: St Martin’s Press,
1998, pp 185-196
McRobbie, Angela, Postmodernism and Popular Culture, London: Routledge,
1994, pp. 163-167
Storey, John, ‘Cultural Consumption as Manipulation’ in Cultural Consumption and
Everyday Life, London: Arnold, 1999, pp. 18-35
Featherstone, Mike, ‘Lifestyle and Consumer Culture’ in Consumer Culture and
Postmodernism, London: Sage, 1991, pp. 83-94
McRobbie, Angela, ‘MORE! New Sexualities in girl’s and women’s magazines’ in, In
the Culture Society: Art, Fashion and Popular Music, London: Routledge, 1999,
pp. 46-61
McRobbie, Angela, ‘Pecs and Penises – The Meaning of Girlie Culture’ in, In the
Culture Society, pp. 122-131
Can you find examples of Adorno and Baudrillard’s theories on active and passive
consumption in magazines aimed at youth culture? What precisely are these
magazines selling? Are they simply providing choice or do they contain other
subliminal messages? Please bring examples to the seminar.
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Week 8 Semester 2
Monday 19th March
1.00 SB42
Scott Sutherland
School
LECTURE 2: Art, commodification and the ‘culture industry’?
Key Issues and Questions
 Art within a capitalist economy; ideologically opposed or inextricably linked?
 Is Fine Art now more commodity than critique?
 Was ‘Young British Art’ more ‘culture industry’
Key Writers and Texts
 Julian Stallabrass – High Art Lite and Art Incorporated: The Story of Contemporary
Art
 Pierre Bourdieu – Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (primarily
the Introduction and sections specifically addressing art)
Key Works and Practitioners
 Pop Art, Young British Artists (See ‘Art Incorporated’ for more)
Required Reading  Stallabrass, J. ‘Uses and Prices of Art’ in Art Incorporated, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 2004, pp127-49
 McRobbie, Angela, ‘Sensation: Art as Cultural Populism?’ in In the Culture Society.
Art Fashion and Popular Music, London: Routledge, 1999, pp6-10
Suggested Reading  Ford, Simon, ‘The Myth of the Young British Artist’ in Occupational Hazard.
Critical Writing on Recent British Art, London: Black Dog Publishing, 1998,
pp130-140
 Keat, Russell, Whiteley, Nigel and Abercrombie, Nicholas, (eds), ‘High art and the
high street: the ‘commerce-and-culture’ debate, in The Authority of the
Consumer, London: Routledge, 1994, pp119-137
 Stallabrass, J. ‘Consuming Culture’ in Art Incorporated, London:
 Stallabrass, J, ‘Saatchi and Sensation’ in High Art Lite, London: Verso, 1999,
pp196-222 (See also Chapters 4 and 5)
SeminarAssignment Did Young British Art critique consumer culture or was it complicit with and
compromised by it? Does the ‘culture industry’ now influence the direction of art or can
art maintain its separation? What precise challenges does a capitalist, corporate and
consumer culture pose for Fine Art? Consider these questions in the light of the
readings and come prepared to discuss.
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Week 9 Semester 2
Monday 26th March
1.00 SB42
Scott Sutherland
School
Required Reading
Suggested Reading
Choose ONE Seminar
Assignment
LECTURE 3: Design as Commodity
Key Issues and Questions
 Signs and myths and commodities: reviewing semiotics and consumption
 Decoding Advertisements: How are verbal and visual signs used to generate
messages about products and their users?
 “Buy the Brand” – How are brands used to construct identity and sell products?
Key Writers
 Roland Barthes – Mythologies
 Judith Williamson – Decoding Advertisements
 Jonathan Bignell – Media Semiotics
Case Studies
 Examples will be taken from contemporary advertising and branding
 Bignell, Jonathan, ‘Advertisements’ in Media Semiotics: An Introduction,
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997, pp. 30-36
 Williamson, Judith, ‘Meaning and Ideology’ and ‘Sign, Signifier, Sign’ in Decoding
Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising, London: Marion Boyars,
2002, pp.11-14 and 17-19
 Pavitt, Jane, ‘In Goods We Trust’, in Brand.New, London: V&A Publications, 2000,
pp. 18-68
 Goldman, Robert and Papson, Stephen, ‘Introduction: Advertising in the Age of
Accelerated Meaning’ in Sign Wars: The Cluttered Landscape of Advertising,
London: The Guildford Press, 1996, pp.1-19
 Miles, Steven, ‘Design for Life or Consumption Designed?’, Consumerism as a Way
of Life, London: Sage, 1998, pp.36-51
 Paterson, Mark, ‘Logo or No-Logo? The Poetics and Politics of Branding’,
Consumption and Everyday Life, London: Routledge, 2006, pp.197-223.
 Analyse the connotations of the brand names and logos of three products. Why were
these names and logos chosen? Could any of them be used as the name of a product
of a different type?
 Choose three ads for a similar type of product (car, training shoe, pension, perfume,
etc.) How similar and how different are the mythical meanings of the products in the
three ads? Why is this? What semiotic connotations are contained within
13these ads?
7.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND ADDITIONAL SOURCES
GENERAL TEXTS
Adorno, Theodor, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, London: Routledge, 2001
Barnard, Malcolm, Art Design and Visual Culture, New York: St Martin’s Press, 1998
Barnard, Malcolm, Fashion as Communication, London: Routledge, 1996
Baudrillard, Jean, Selected Writings, Oxford: Polity, 2001
Cummings, Neil and Lewandowska, Marysia, The Value of Things, London, August Birkhauser, 2000
Featherstone, Mike, Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, London: Sage, 1991
Harris, Anita. All About the Girl. Culture, Power and Identity, London: Routledge, 2004
Julier, Guy, The Culture of Design, London: Sage Publishers Ltd., 2000
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Keat, Russell, Whiteley, Nigel and Abercrombie, Nicholas, The Authority of the Consumer, London: Routledge,
1994
Lee, Martyn J., The Consumer Society Reader, Oxford: Blackwell Publisher’s Ltd, 2000
McRobbie, Angela, Feminism and Youth Culture: From Jackie to Just Seventeen, London: The Macmillian
Press Ltd., 1994
McRobbie, Angela, In the Culture Society: Art, Fashion and Popular Music, London: Routledge, 1999
McRobbie, Angela, Postmodernism and Popular Culture, London: Routledge, 1994
Miles, Steven, Anderson Alison and Meethan Kevin, The Changing Consumer: Markets and Meanings, London:
Routledge, 2002
Miles, Steven, Consumerism as a Way of Life, London: Sage, 1998
Nava, Mica, Changing Cultures: Feminism, Youth and Consumerism, London: Sage Publications Ltd., 1992
Paterson, Mark, Consumption and Everyday Life, London: Routledge, 2006
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Storey, John, Cultural Consumption and Everyday Life, London: Arnold, 1999
Storey, John, Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd.,
1996
SEMIOTICS, ADVERTISING AND BRANDING
Arvidsson, Adam, Brands – Meaning and Value in Media Culture, Abingdon: Routledge, 2006
Bignell, Jonathan, Media Semiotics: An Introduction, Manchester University Press, 1997
Chandler, Daniel, Semiotics: The Basics, London: Routledge, 2002
Cobley, Paul, The Routledge Companion to Semiotics and Linguistics, London: Routledge, 2001
Cortese, Anthony J., Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising
Crow, David, Visible Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics, Lausanne: AVA, 2003
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Davis, Melissa, More than a Name: An Introduction to Branding, Lausanne: AVA, 2005
Goddard, Angela, The Language of Advertising: Written Texts, London: Routlege, 2002
Goldman, Robert and Papson, Stephen, Nike Culture: The Sign of the Swoosh, London: Sage Publications,
1998
Goldman, Robert and Papson, Stephen, Sign Wars: The Cluttered Landscape of Advertising, London: The
Guilford Press, 1996
Levy, Sidney J., Brands, Consumers, Symbols and Research, California: Sage, 1999
Nava, Mica; Blake, Andrew; MacRury, Iain; Richards, Barry, Buy this Book – Studies in Advertising and
Consumption, London: Routledge, 1997
Packard, Vance, The Hidden Persuaders, London: Longmans Green and Co Ltd., [1957], 1967
Poyner, Rick, Obey the Giant: Life in the Image World, London: August Birkhauser, 2001
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Pavitt, Jane, Brand.New, London: V&A Publications, 2000
Reichert, Tom, Sex in Advertising: Perspectives on the Erotic Appeal, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003
Schroeder, Jonathan E. and Salzer-Morling, Miriam, Brand Culture, Abingdon: Routledge, 2006
Williams, Gareth, Branded? Products and their Personalities, London: V&A Publications, 2000
Williamson, Judith, Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising, London: Marion Boyars
Publishers Ltd., 2002
ART, COMMERCE AND COMMODIFICATION
Adams, Brooks et al., Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi collection, London: Thames and
Hudson, 1997
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Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1998 (In particular, see Introduction, The Aristocracy of Culture and The Modes of Appropriation
of the Work of Art)
Collings, Matthew, Blimey!: From Bohemia to Britpop: The London Artworld from Francis Bacon to
Damien Hirst, London: 21 Publishing, 1997
Keat, Russell, Whiteley, Nigel and Abercrombie, Nicholas, (eds), ‘High art and the high street: the ‘commerce-andculture’ debate, in The Authority of the Consumer, London: Routledge, 1994, pp119-137
Mattick, Paul, ‘Art and Money’, in Art in its Time: Theories and Practices of Modern Aesthetics, London:
Routledge, 2003, pp. 24-45
McCorquodale, Duncan, Siderfin, Naomi and Stallabrass, Julian, (eds), Occupational Hazard. Critical Writing
on Recent British Art, London: Black Dog Publishing Limited, 1998
McRobbie, Angela, ‘Sensation: Art as Cultural Populism?’ in In the Culture Society. Art Fashion and Popular
Music, London: Routledge, 1999, pp6-10
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Mullholland, Neil, ‘Art after Britain?’ in The Cultural Devolution. Art in Britain in the Late Twentieth
Century, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Lts, 2003, pp131-156
Saatchi, Charles N. Artvertising: the Saatchi Influence on Brit Art, London: Channel 4, 2001. Recorded
3/5/01
Stallabrass, Julian, Art Incorporated. The Story of Contemporary Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004
Stallabrass, Julian, High Art Lite, London: Verso, 1999
8.
INTERNET SOURCES
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/semiotic.html
Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler
9.
ACADEMIC RESERVE
Core texts will be placed on Academic Reserve in the Library. Academic Reserve is the desk at the far end of the
Issue desk as you enter the Library. Books on Academic Reserve are issued for a 2 hour period during the day, but
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after 4pm they go out overnight and are due back the next day. On Friday, books can be taken out after 2pm and
they are not due back until 10am on Monday. Books can be booked in advance, and 2 can be borrowed at a time.
Fines for overdue Academic Reserve books are charged at the following rate: £1 per hour for the first hour
overdue, 50 pence per hour thereafter, every hour, with a maximum fine of £15 per item.
TUTORS FOR PROGRAMME 2: Lesley Scott / Andrea Peach
E-Mail: l.scott@rgu.ac.uk (tel: 263692) /: a.peach@rgu.ac.uk (tel: 263692)
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