Design and Lifestyle from the 70s to the 90s. movies, music, fashion, art, architecture, design, products, politics and so much else. So many images and so much text. Learn everything. Researched, Assembled and Designed by Alex Brown. Blog: alexbrown.net

1. Popular Culture
1950s to 1990s
Music – war – fashion
politics – art – ideas
technology - style
Part II
The Story from
the 70s to the 90s
Reflections on ourselves

2. Points to Remember
‘Media’ is the plural form of the
word ‘Medium’
A Medium is a communication channel
It is a means of expression
It is a vehicle for transmitting ideas
It is the pipeline through which ideas travel
It is the means of exchange between people
It is a BRIDGE between MINDS

3. Types of Media (1)
Speech - Writing - Mathematics -
Painting - Drawing -Newspapers –
Television - Magazines - Music – Singing
- Sculpture – Dancing - Movies –
Fashion - Theatre……. and More
These and many other kinds of media allow the
transmission of ideas between the minds of human
beings.
The marks & drawings on the wall of the cave
are ancient media

4. Types of Media (2)
A Spiritual MEDIUM
Supposedly a person who can communicate messages
from the dead to the living
An Academic Medium
A teacher – who transmits the accumulated knowledge
of society to young minds
A crumpled piece of paper
The note scribbled between two pupils in a classroom
“what are you doing tonight?”

5. Types of Media (3)
Emotional Medium
The wind that brings her perfume through the air
Musical Medium
The electric guitar played by Eric Clapton singing
‘Tears in Heaven’
Print Medium
Books through which you can access the ideas of many
other people

6. Tall - Medium – Small
Three people stand in line
One is tall - One is ‘medium’- One is small
The medium is always the mid-point between
two poles
The medium acts as the bridge
between two minds

7. Between Minds and Things
The Medium – whatever it is – is always BETWEEN
things
Connecting them together
It has no purpose in itself other than to link different
entities
There is always the MEDIUM and the
MESSAGE

8. 1970s – 1980s Movies
Blade Runner Star Wars Alien

9. 1970s – 1980s Movies
E.T. Indiana Jones Jaws
All by Steven Spielberg

10. The 1980s – The New Wave Romantic Style
In the 80s style is everything if its clean and looks expensive:
David Bowie Meta punks Yuppie

11. The Postmodern Era
1970s-1980s
Elements of shock, retro, Pop
art, clashes of colour and of
normal design associations
The armchair joke An ‘historicist’ office building
Portland Building, Michael Graves

12. Postmodernism – what it is (1)
Postmodernism is…..
Since the 1970s an intellectual shift of attitude
Towards diversity of opinion, explanations and ideas
Towards different ways of doing the same thing
Towards identity, ethnicity, feminism, anti-science,
individuality
Towards the validity of PERSONAL experience
There is no one single, right or dominant way of doing
or thinking
Fragmentation of the social consensus

13. Postmodernism – what it is (2)
CONTRAST WITH MODERNISM WHICH PROVIDES:
A single theory or explanation for many different events
The Meta-Narrative (the big story)
Darwinism, Marxism, Freudianism, Functionalism, Fascism,
Science, Rationalism, Authority,Truth
Dominance of a priesthood, an elite and
‘Those who are supposed to Know’
Rejection of the validity of personal and individual
experience in the face of collective authority

14. The 1980s – Technology
Live Global Broadcasting possibilities thru
satellite communications and computer Control.
Top: ground station & shuttle satellite Delivery.
Right: Bill Gates of Microsoft

15. Space Exploration
Right: U.S. Space Shuttle
services a Russian MIR
space station.
Increased cooperation
between these countries
leads to the building of
the International Space
Station

16. The 1980s – Style Consciousness
Sub-rock music, sub-punk styles, smooth fashion all make the
1980s a matter of clean and inoffensive imagery.
No Threat to anyone here.
Above: Adam Ant ‘rock’ singer plus
80s fashions

17. The Movies 1970s-1980s
Raging Bull 1980 Apocalypse Now 1979 Cabaret 1972
Dir: Martin Scorsese Dir: Francis Coppola Dir: Bob Fosse

18. From Medium to Medium to Medium
An IDEA – a MESSAGE - can travel from medium
to medium
It can start as a book
It can then be translated into a play
It can then be translated into a film
The film can then be translated into a musical score
The musical score can then be translated into a stage musical
(And finally all of this can be translated into a lot of money at
the bank for the guy with the original idea!!)

19. The Language of Media (1)
A medium is a kind of language
The Message, Idea, Plot is written out in the
form of the language.
This can be sounds, writing, body language,
mathematical symbols, film, etc.etc.etc……..
The language/medium has its own vocabulary
of forms and a grammar for putting them
together sensibly

20. The language of Media (2)
When you buy birthday flowers for a family member
The flowers REPRESENT your affection for that
person
The flowers themselves ARE NOT the affection
They are just SYMBOLS of it
A medium for its expression……SO
The map is not the territory
The map is just a symbol – a medium - for
representing the territory

21. The Language of Media (3)
Do you really think Media are just about
Words and Numbers?
When you are watching a powerful Movie
What do you think then??
When you look at a photograph of someone you love
What do you think then??

22. Japanese Design 1980s +++
The hi-tech alternative
New Architecture The Sony Walkman Matrix in Japan

23. Postmodern Style 1990s-2000
• Left: M-M
• Invitation Card
• 2002
•
•
•
• Rings by Azagury-Patridge ‘Muff Daddy’lounger 2002
• by Seymour

24. Postmodern Style The
1980s
1980s
Yuppie symbols of wealth and confidence

25. Wars 1970- 2002
Afghanistan, Burkina Faso,
Comoros, Fiji, India, Liberia,
Libya, Myanmar, Nicaragua, China,
Iran, Ghana, Chile, Albania,
Azerbaijan, Bougainville, Haiti,
Macedonia, Yugoslavia, Panama,
Argentina,Grenada,
Israel, Iraq, Russia, Bosnia,
Palestine, Ireland (Britain), Iran,
Iraq, Serbia, Morocco, Congo,
Angola, Bali, New York, Chechnya
East Timor, Somalia, Guatamala,

26. Wars 1970s-2002
•
• Chechnya, Georgia
Palestine
Bali, Indonesia

27. TV News Media
Channel News Asia; BBC; CNN; Fox News; CBS;
Al-Jazeera; Sky News……………
Every country has its own news service
Where do they get their information?
1. If they are rich, they have reporters on the spot.
2. They buy reports from news agencies who have
reporters on the spot
News Agencies:
AP, UP, Agence France, Reuters, Novosty, China
News Agency……….

28. The Medium of Art (1)
Magritte
It is a painting of a
pipe.
Title:
‘This is not a pipe’
1928
Art as Representation – As a medium of Expression
Playing games with ideas

29. The Medium of Art
(2)
Making things much bigger than
expected, changes their meaning,
and also changing the context in
which you expect to see them.
They remain familiar
BUT also strange.
Claes Oldenburg:
‘Clothespin’,
Philadelphia’
Its all about changing expectations

30. The Medium of Art (3)
Size matters!
Do we expect this
kind of scale of
Ordinary things?
A giant matchstick
in an art gallery.
Claes Oldenburg
1970s
Manipulating the medium to provoke thought

31. The 1980s – Graphics Imagery
Below Left: Giger Extreme Graphics
Right: Grace Jones
album cover
Below right: Garry
Glitter
posing
on the
Glitter
Glam
Rock
Show

32. Top 100 Albums of 80s90s

33. Top 100 albums of 80s90s

34. The Postmodern Era
1980s-1990s
Above: Lou Reed album cover
by Stefan Sagmeister, 1996
‘Mona leo’ by Schwartz
1998

35. The Berlin Wall
The Fall
Built in 1960/61 – to keep
East Germans inside the
Soviet Empire
November 1989 it is opened
And demolished soon after
Top: The Demolition

36. Conceptual Art Ideas
• Pure Form, no ‘art’
to be seen. Art is no
longer regarded as a
precious commodity,
but simply as an
EVENT, as an
EXPERIENCE. So..
• Carl Andre:
• ‘Equivalent VIII’
• (The ‘bricks’) 1978

37. Installation Art (2)
• A temporary event
• In Conceptual and
Installation art it is
the idea which is
supposed to be
significant – NOT
the physical object.
• Installation Art:
1980s

38. Flash Cars of the 80s and 90s
Above:Lamborghini Countach Above : Ferrari
Below: Lamborghini Diablo
If you have to ask –
You Can’t afford it!

39. 1980s 1990s –
Sport
The World Cup
Argentina winners: 1978 & 1986
Brazil winners: 1970 & 1994
Italy winners: 1982
Germany winners: 1974 & 1990

40. 1990s – The News (1)
The Gulf War 1991 U.S. and
Allies force Iraq out of Kuwait
U.S. Soldiers in the Iraqi desert President George Bush
with Margaret Thatcher

41. 1990s – The World News (2)
Princess Diana Bill Clinton elected Mother Theresa
Dies in 1997 President in 1992 & 1996 dies in 1997

42. Japan Fashion
From Streetwalk to Catwalk
Japanese fashion can be VERY
Radical and fun

43. Icons & Ideas (1)
Popular icons
Ironic statements
about familiar
figures
Cute but strange
‘Bubbles’
1970s
Icons focus the values and desires of
many people onto a single object or person
Icons are media for belief and devotion

44. Icons & Ideas
(2)The Medium is one thing
The Message is another
The message is an organized
set of ideas transmitted
through a particular medium
and intended to persuade,
provoke or trick you into
Doing something
Sometimes people are out to trick you with illusions

45. 1980s - 1990s Movies
Platoon 1986 Unforgiven 1992 Braveheart 1995
Dir: Oliver Stone Dir: Clint Eastwood Dir: Mel Gibson

46. 1990s – Movies
Gladiator: 2000 American Beauty 1999 Pulp Fiction 1994
Dir: Ridley Scott Dir: Sam Mendes Dir: Q. Tarantino

47. 2000+ Movies
8 Mile Matrix Reloaded Chicago

48. Terrorism Sept.2001
Terrorists attack the
World Trade Center
New York killing over 3000 people

49. The Iraq War 2003
The bombing of Bagdad
Child & Saddam poster
Iraqis taken Prisoner

50. The Iraq War 2003
Pain & suffering at the
loss of family

51. The Goodbye Wave
The Wave by Hokusai, 19th
Century Japan

52. The End
• Thank you for your
attention.
• I hope you have
found it interesting
and maybe have
learned something.
Vroom! Vroom!