Re-presenting Reality, Recovering the Social: The Poetics and Politics of Social Realism and Visual Art

Author(s):  
Whiteley Gillian
Keyword(s):  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-168
Author(s):  
Celal Hayir ◽  
Ayman Kole

When the Turkish army seized power on May 27th, 1960, a new democratic constitution was carried into effect. The positive atmosphere created by the 1961 constitution quickly showed its effects on political balances in the parliament and it became difficult for one single party to come into power, which strengthened the multi-party-system. The freedom initiative created by 1961’s constitution had a direct effect on the rise of public opposition. Filmmakers, who generally steered clear from the discussion of social problems and conflicts until 1960, started to produce movies questioning conflicts in political, social and cultural life for the first time and discussions about the “Social Realism” movement in the ensuing films arose in cinematic circles in Turkey. At the same time, the “regional managers” emerged, and movies in line with demands of this system started to be produced. The Hope (Umut), produced by Yılmaz Güney in 1970, rang in a new era in Turkish cinema, because it differed from other movies previously made in its cinematic language, expression, and use of actors and settings. The aim of this study is to mention the reality discussions in Turkish cinema and outline the political facts which initiated this expression leading up to the film Umut (The Hope, directed by Yılmaz Güney), which has been accepted as the most distinctive social realist movie in Turkey. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
I Gde Suryawan ◽  
Ida Bagus Komang Sindu Putra ◽  
I Putu Suyasa Ari Putra

<p align="center"><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p> </p><p><em>Murals are one of the alternative media for street visual art / street visual art that functions as a forum for people's aspirations through paintings. The attractiveness of art gives a strong impression, in line with visual communication theory which assumes that the use of art in educational media is very important. One of these forms of art is a mural. The purpose and function of the mural itself is still developing today. The making of murals in early childhood schools is basically a form of utilizing empty space by incorporating educational missions, such as: as a medium for recognizing local cultural values (folklore). Because through folklore, it indirectly represents the social reality that is around us. Thus basically the implicit function of making murals in empty spaces in early childhood schools is to train students' sensitivity.</em></p><p><em>The environment is a factor that can affect a child's imagination. By placing murals on the walls of early childhood schools, apart from functioning as decoration, indirectly has the function of stimulating children's sensitivity to visuals. This visual sensitivity indirectly develops children's imagination. Thus, murals can stimulate the imaginary environment or imaginary world of children that penetrate the developer of their imagination. Art will always develop, which will be the source of ideas in the process of its creation. Like children who are inspired by murals in creating their works. Seeing this, students will be more open and sensitive to the environment around us so that new ideas will emerge fresh and close to us as a source of ideas for creating works.</em></p><p><em> </em></p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-99
Author(s):  
Marek Krajewski ◽  
Filip Schmidt

Who is an artist? Questions over how to define this role divided the makers of the project The Invisible Visual: Visual Art in Poland—Its State, Role, and Significance. The authors’ sources of data were the results of a nationwide survey, a survey of graduates of the Polish Academy of Fine Arts in the years 1975–2011, and in-depth interviews with seventy individuals in the field of visual arts. The authors were able to establish, first, that persons working in the art field give different definitions from those beyond its bounds; second, that artists, decision-makers, curators, and critics try to defend the sense and autonomy of their activities against ways of thinking and acting that are typical of other areas of the social world (while they are themselves engaged in disputes over who has a right to call him- or herself an artist and what is and isn’t good art); and third, being an artist is marked by a difficult-to-cross boundary, as is shown by the common necessity of supplementing artistic work by other sources of income and the high risk of failure in an artistic career.


Author(s):  
William K. Malcolm

Mitchell’s first two novels are examined as works deploying the medium of imaginative literature for introspection and analysis of his own past. In reverse chronological order they recreate the narrative of his childhood and early adulthood, in the course of which they present a state of the nation critique of early twentieth century Britain. The forthright verisimilitude of the social realism is in keeping with the philosophical nihilism prevailing in the inter-war years, with the political responses of mainstream parties and of radical splinter groups such as the Anarchocommunist Party appearing unable to change society for the better. Mitchell’s technical experimentation with metafiction and intertextuality indicates the scale of his literary ambition, while his proto-feminist sympathies are marked by his reliance on female protagonists.


2020 ◽  
pp. 117-140
Author(s):  
William A. Callahan

The chapter engages with another popular approach to visual international politics: visuals as a site of resistance to power, both through producing critical artwork and by ethically witnessing international crises. To trace these issues, the chapter analyzes the work of Ai Weiwei, a world-famous artist-activist whose ethical witnessing creatively resists China’s authoritarian party-state. It shows how Ai’s art presents ideological resistance to state power, in both the traditional sense of liberal resistance to authoritarian state oppression and the hermeneutical sense, in which it is necessary to decode his work for its “meaning” as the social construction of the visual. The chapter then considers how Ai’s documentary film Human Flow (2017) provokes transnational resistance through its “visual construction of the social”—and of the global. It thus examines how visual art can serve as an ethical witness to resist reigning political regimes, and how it also can excite affective communities of sense to creatively resist reigning political aesthetics. Chapter 6 thus highlights the need to appreciate the dynamic tension that entangles cultural governance and resistance.


Humanities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Brantly

This essay proposes a narrative of the Nordic countries’ relationship to modernism and other major literary trends of the late 19th and 20th centuries, that situates them in conjunction with the rest of Europe. “Masterpieces of Scandinavian Literature: the 20th Century” is a course that has been taught to American college students without expertise in literature or Scandinavia for three decades. This article describes the content and methodologies of the course and how Nordic modernisms are explained to this particular audience of beginners. Simple definitions of modernism and other related literary movements are provided. By focusing on this unified literary historical narrative and highlighting the pioneers of Scandinavian literature, the Nordic countries are presented as solid participants in European literary and cultural history. Further, the social realism of the Modern Breakthrough emerges as one of the Nordic countries distinct contributions to world literature.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura M. H. Gallo ◽  
Vincent Giampietro ◽  
Patricia A. Zunszain ◽  
Kai Syng Tan

A worldwidemental health crisis is expected, as millions worldwide fear death and disease while being forced into repeated isolation. Thus, there is a need for new proactive approaches to improve mental resilience and prevent mental health conditions. Since the 1990s, art has emerged as an alternative mental health therapy in the United States and Europe, becoming part of the social care agenda. This article focuses on how visual esthetic experiences can create similar patterns of neuronal activity as those observed when the reward system is activated. The activation of the reward structures could have a stress buffering effect, given the interdependence observed between the reward and stress systems. Therefore, could visual esthetic experiences stimulate mental resilience? And if this were the case, could art-based interventions be offered for mental health in the context of COVID-19 and beyond?


2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherill A. Gilbas

Hornedo, a literature icon asserts that “A piece of literature documents the world and the worldview of its author.” Accordingly, some literary pieces can provide information on the socio-political and cultural background of a certain society. Anchored on this premise, this paper aimed to identify the aesthetics of satire in Merlinda Bobis’ Banana Heart Summer. It also sought to unveil the novel’s message and the author’s manner of criticizing the novel’s social setup. Specifically, it sought to describe the novel’s theme, tone, structure and style, as well as the socio-political and cultural aspects using food as primary trope. The paper also aimed to present the reality frame of the depicted societal problems of the Filipinos in general and those of Bicolanos in particular. The formalist theory was applied in the treatment of material, which is a satire, and being so, the researcher also applied defamiliarization theory, through devices such as tropes and social realism, as it forms part of the aesthetics of satire that can help identify the ideology behind the author’s work. The researcher grouped the identified satirical techniques into five: exaggeration, incongruity, parody, reversal, and defamiliarization.  In conclusion, this paper asserts that Bobis wrote the material for the readers to see the flaws of the society; alongside, she also implicitly offers a solution or presents the possibility of curing the social ills highlighted in the novel. Keywords—Literature, aesthetics of satire, defamiliarization, Banana heart summer, Bicolanos,  Filipinos,  formalist-contextual analysis, Philippines


Author(s):  
John M. Artz

Information modeling is a technique by which a database designer develops a conceptual model of a database depicting the entity classes that will be represented in the database. There are three competing ontological assumptions that guide the modeling process. The broadest characterization of these assumptions is realism vs. conceptualism, with social realism occupying a middle ground. The realist believes that object classes exist in the real world, waiting to be discovered. The conceptualist believes that object classes are constructed in the mind of the modeler, based on observations about the application domain and the objectives of the information model. The social realist believes that classes exist as shared meanings among stakeholders in an application domain. This article explores these assumptions and then reviews selected literature in information modeling to determine which assumptions are held by key authors. It concludes that most authors hold inconsistent views, and this inconsistency provides some important insights into information modeling while presenting serious problems for practitioners and students of information modeling.


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