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Description
I was given the task of making a piece based around the word "Zeitgeist"

Firstly i decided to explore the meaning and context of the word, the definition is “spirit of the time/age”. I broke the meaning apart and thought about each of the keywords. “Spirit” refers to a representation of something, so this could be a person, object or group of things. The word “Spirit” also suggests an “other-worldly” entity or something that is placed on a pedestal above other things, a large towering presence over life.
“Time” obviously refers to the moment that the Zeitgeist represents. I took this to mean i could base my ideas on whatever period of time i wanted, past, present or future. I chose to look at current affairs, looking towards the near future; as this is what i feel the closest to personally.
The origin of the word is from Germanic descent, this led me to approach my chosen avenue of ideas. Germany has had a long history of fascist culture and warmongering, something which he come back into play recently with the unsolicited war with Iraq, and the increasing frivolity of certain world leaders. This brought the meaning of “zeitgeist” back to my mind and the thought of it representing the people, and this made the link to communism. Russia's history during its period as the Soviet Union was very similar to fascist rule, despite the opposite beliefs, and used a lot of propaganda to control it's people. This is the same thing which is happening now with the war in Iraq and attempted cover up, the government is trying to “spin” people to its way of thinking.
To this end I developed an idea of creating a Soviet propaganda style poster for todays Britain. I looked at some artwork used in that period and saw that a lot showed Lenin or Stalin watching over his people. I chose to use Tony Blair as he is the long term leader of our country and controls our interests. I positioned him in the “jesus christ pose” as i feel this shows him as he sees himself protecting his people, and between his arms a depicted the landmarks of our country, Big Ben, also the London Eye and in the middle the mess that is the Millennium Dome. A crowd of people are under Tony Blair to show he is watching over them like a “spirit” or god-like presence.
I made initial sketches of layouts for my poster as i was developing the idea, then proceeded to gather source pictures and render them into vector art. This along with the red, gold background and limited colour palette gives the clean cut style of the old soviet posters i was looking at.

Description
I was given the task of making a piece based around the word "Zeitgeist"

Firstly i decided to explore the meaning and context of the word, the definition is “spirit of the time/age”. I broke the meaning apart and thought about each of the keywords. “Spirit” refers to a representation of something, so this could be a person, object or group of things. The word “Spirit” also suggests an “other-worldly” entity or something that is placed on a pedestal above other things, a large towering presence over life.
“Time” obviously refers to the moment that the Zeitgeist represents. I took this to mean i could base my ideas on whatever period of time i wanted, past, present or future. I chose to look at current affairs, looking towards the near future; as this is what i feel the closest to personally.
The origin of the word is from Germanic descent, this led me to approach my chosen avenue of ideas. Germany has had a long history of fascist culture and warmongering, something which he come back into play recently with the unsolicited war with Iraq, and the increasing frivolity of certain world leaders. This brought the meaning of “zeitgeist” back to my mind and the thought of it representing the people, and this made the link to communism. Russia's history during its period as the Soviet Union was very similar to fascist rule, despite the opposite beliefs, and used a lot of propaganda to control it's people. This is the same thing which is happening now with the war in Iraq and attempted cover up, the government is trying to “spin” people to its way of thinking.
To this end I developed an idea of creating a Soviet propaganda style poster for todays Britain. I looked at some artwork used in that period and saw that a lot showed Lenin or Stalin watching over his people. I chose to use Tony Blair as he is the long term leader of our country and controls our interests. I positioned him in the “jesus christ pose” as i feel this shows him as he sees himself protecting his people, and between his arms a depicted the landmarks of our country, Big Ben, also the London Eye and in the middle the mess that is the Millennium Dome. A crowd of people are under Tony Blair to show he is watching over them like a “spirit” or god-like presence.
I made initial sketches of layouts for my poster as i was developing the idea, then proceeded to gather source pictures and render them into vector art. This along with the red, gold background and limited colour palette gives the clean cut style of the old soviet posters i was looking at.