Final Image

I chose the image that had the best composition, lighting, balance etc. and played around with the image settings. I wanted to replicate the vanitas images well and make my photo look like a painting. I changed clarity on the photos to make them sharper, but I think that drew too much attention away from the phone.

Warren, Chris. Planned Obsolescence. Photograph. 2016.

My final is the first image which had very little editing done to it. It has been lens-corrected and I adjusted the white balance a bit. I’m very happy with the final image. At first glance it looks like it could have been painted, and the fruit especially looks like pastel.

 

Concept 2

This concept is based off the vanitas painting genre of the 17th century. I composed a scene using components similar to those used in the original paintings, but included modern technology with them. I took many photos and played around with lighting, angles, component positioning, exposure to get the picture that I wanted.

The Setup

The lighting. I used a back light shining up between the desk and the wall to replicate the lighting effect seen in the original vanitas images.

These are the individual components I chose to use:

The watch parts represent that obsolescence is imminent and unavoidable. The watch is broken, and soon the consumer will view the new phone as ‘broken’ and old technology.

I snuffed out the candle as I took the photo and tried to capture the smoke trailing off the wick. This represented the life of the phone being snuffed out. The candle is an object that is made to be used up, whereas the phone was originally something to be used, however the phone has now become an object to be consumed and used up in our consumer-driven culture.

 

The rotting fruit also represents the short life of modern technology.

The skull is a major symbol of death. This is a real human skull that I got from the science department at my own school. I suppose that by using a real skull I might have upset cultures who view human remains as sacred, and therefore have excluded them from my audience. Using a real skull makes the scene much more powerful I think.

The books make the photo look more like the vanitas of the 17th century, because they often had books in their scene. It made the photo more complete.

Finally, the phone represents modern technology. It is related to these symbols of death and change and these objects that are used up, to show how using up technology has become part of our culture. Maybe when people view my photo they will understand how ingrained planned obsolescence is in our culture, and will understand that it is a bad thing that should be stopped.

 

Vanitas

The vanitas is a genre of still-life painting from the 17th century. The paintings use skulls, clocks, hourglasses, decaying fruit and flowers and snuffed out candles as symbols for death or change, to remind the viewer of their inevitability. The idea of obsolescence fits nicely into this genre because it too is an inevitable thing that we can’t get away from.

I felt like my first concept was a bit too simple, and using this genre will bring more depth to it. I’m thinking of situating a phone or other piece of modern technology in a scene like in these examples, relating the phone’s inevitable obsolescence to the symbols of death and change. I will set up a similar scene to the examples below, but instead of using the paint medium, I will take a photo. I don’t think I will include any text with the photo because it would make my message too obvious. I hope the viewer will be able to get my message from the photo alone.

This means my medium is no longer a poster or billboard.

de Pereda, Antonio. Allegory of Vanity. (1632 – 1636). Painting. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Cittadini, Pierfrancesco. Vanitas-Stillleben mit Violine, Notenbuch, Blumenvase und Schädel. (1681). Oil on canvas.

Steenwijck, Harmen. Vanitas. 1640. Oil on panel. Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, Netherlands.

Concept 1

Tutorial feedback:

• position text better, trial different fonts
• choose a better photo that makes the device more obvious
• centre the skull, use a scarier skull
• use colour
• change quote mark to apostrophe (flip horizontally)

Technology Photos

I will superimpose an image of a skull onto the products in these photographs to represent how the products were ‘made to die’. I took multiple photos of each object, edited them and I will now pick my favourite ones to use for initial concepts.

Initial Ideas

These are my initial ideas for my creative piece. The piece is going to be a poster, billboard or some form of still image, and is going to convey a message about planned obsolescence.

I got some feedback from a friend and my mum, and I now have a clearer idea of what I want to do.

I want to use a skull, a symbol of death and ephemerality, in a design context – maybe drawing a skull over an image of obsolete technology. In Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors (1533) a skull is used to symbolise death, showing that humans have long made the relationship between the skull and death. It is also used on poison or dangerous chemicals as warning signs. In my piece, the viewer will associate the skull with death, making it a good symbol to use for my idea.

Hans Holbein the Younger. Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (‘The Ambassadors’) (detail). Oil on oak. National Gallery, London.

In terms of writing to go with the image, I’ve come across a song ‘Born to Die’ by Lana Del Rey. I’m thinking of using one of the lyrics, “‘Cause you and I, we were born to die”, in my piece. The song was released in 2012, making it a recent, contemporary thing to refer to. This means the viewer will connect with it better, so long as they know the song. Using the inclusive pronoun ‘you’ will also make the viewer think about the message more, because it is as though they are being addressed by it, and are a part of it.

Questions to Focus My Discussion

• Why is planned obsolescence bad?

Continuous replacement of products produces more waste, pollution and uses more natural resources than repairing the products. Waste products are shipped to 3rd world countries as ‘second hand goods’ where they are deposited in dumps, ruining ecosystems and waterways, and causing major pollution.

• How do people show it is bad?

In nature, dead leaf ‘waste’ becomes nutrition for new life. Chemist Michael Braggart redesigned a Swiss textile company with this life-cycle in mind. He whittled down the hundreds of toxic chemicals the company used for dying fabrics to 36 biodegradable dyes. This meant the fabrics would biodegrade easily and wouldn’t produce toxic waste, fumes and wouldn’t harm the manufacturers or the consumers.

Chris Jordan is an artist based in Seattle. His project Camel Gastrolith is a display of the pollution generated from humankind’s ‘disposable culture’, and how that pollution effects the environment. Jordan says “I care about the bigger phenomenon of desert plastic pollution, and what it mirrors back to us about the insanity of our disposable culture” (Jordan).

Some clothing manufactures use course thread with delicate fabrics, or use single seams instead of double, which ensures their clothing will break down more quickly. Brooklyn designers Flint and Tinder are doing the opposite to this, and have designed a hoodie that is “built for life, guaranteed to last at least a decade and backed with free mending” (Flint and Tinder). Its features include: reinforced stress points and safety seams; 3-end yarn knit; and a 10-Year Guarantee including free mending service.

Posters and Billboards

My project is going to be a poster or billboard. It will display a message about planned obsolescence and why consumers need to consider whether they need to buy a new ‘thing’, and how long this new ‘thing’ will last for. These are some examples of existing posters and billboards to help me with the theme, layout, font, imagery etc. of the text.

Resources

These are some texts I will use for assessment 3 in my Communication in Creative Cultures course. They are relevant to my topic because they discuss planned obsolescence both generally and in a design context. The sources are credible because they are academic sources. They identify the qualifications and expertise of the writer, credit the sources they have used, are peered reviewed, and are objective.

• Bartels, Bjoern et al. Strategies to the Prediction, Mitigation and Management of Product Obsolescence. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. massey.ac.nz Library Catalog. Web. 30 May 2016. Wiley Series in Systems Engineering and Management.
• Boradkar, Prasad. Designing Things: A Critical Introduction to the Culture of Objects. English ed. New York: Berg, 2010. Print.
• Cooper, Tim, ed. Longer Lasting Products: Alternatives to the Throwaway Society. Farnham, Surrey [England]: Burlington, VT: Gower; Ashgate Pub. Co, 2010. massey.ac.nz Library Catalog. Web. 30 May 2016.
• Highmore, Ben, ed. The Design Culture Reader. London; New York, NY: Routledge, 2009. Print.
• Laszlo, Ervin. Vision 2020: Reordering Chaos For Global Survival. Yverdon, Switzerland: Langhorne, Pa.: Gordon and Breach, 1994. massey.ac.nz Library Catalog. Web. 30 May 2016.

Questions to Focus My Discussion

• What is ‘planned obsolescence’?

Planned obsolescence is a strategy designers employ whereby they intentionally shorten the life of their products to encourage sales and produce more money (Boradkar, 180). The products are made obsolete through frequent changes in design, end of production of spare parts, and the use of non-durable materials. In companies’ eyes, this is an important strategy to implement because it ensures they get more money, but it has devastating effects on the Earth and its resources.

One of the earliest examples of planned obsolescence is from the 1920s. On December 23, 1924, a group of electronics manufacturers including Osram, Philips, and General Electric started the Phoebus cartel. A cartel is a group of manufacturers who regulate price, production, quality and the marketing of goods. This particular cartel controlled the production of lightbulbs.

In 1881, lightbulbs lasted 1500 hours, and by 1924 designers had increased that number to 2500 hours. However, two years after it was founded, the Phoebus cartel had decreased the average life of lightbulbs to less than 1500 hours, and its aim was to make all light bulbs have an average life span of 1000 hours. They were planning obsolescence into their lightbulbs in order to make consumers buy more. The cartel believed “lasting lights are an economic disadvantage” and ensured “the average life of lamps… must not be guaranteed… for another value than 1000 hours” (The Lightbulb Conspiracy). Members of the cartel were even fined if their bulbs were found to last longer than 1000 hours. In this way they made more money from consumers buying more bulbs.

• Why do people use it?

Companies plan obsolescence into their designs to force consumers to spend more money buying a new product. Originally, companies did not see the Earth as a finite resource, and instead saw it from an ‘abundance perspective’ (The Lightbulb Conspiracy). This is a common world view even today, when the effects from our disposable culture are becoming ever more prominent through global warming, pollution and mass extinctions. In 1932, Russian–American real estate broker Bernard London proposed to end the Great Depression by making planned obsolescence compulsory in all products (The Lightbulb Conspiracy). His idea was to assign all goods a specific lifespan, and when these goods became ‘dead’, they would be returned to the government, thus generating the need for factories to continuously produce new products (Boradkar, 181).

Works cited:
Boradkar, Prasad. Designing Things: A Critical Introduction to the Culture of Objects. English ed. New York: Berg, 2010. Print.

The Lightbulb Conspiracy. Cosima Dannoritzer. Yleisradio (YLE), 2010. Documentary.