Martin Hoskin: Critical Theory on ‘The Self’
Lecture Notes




My Reflection
This lecture really interested me as I enjoy discovering how the mind works through psychology. This was great because I was able to further my reading into it even deeper and get an understanding which at times I found to struggle to understand. Firstly I found the question that stands out from Martin Hoskin’s lecture at the beginning was “How do we begin to approach the sense of Me, Myself and I? It got me to explore this question and came across George Herbert Mead’s theory behind ‘The I and ME’. I found this very interesting as he explains how people perceive us through distinctive stages. This is the Preparatory Stage, Play Stage, and Game Stage that is developed through symbolic interactionism. I come across this video that gave me an intro into his method.
The thinking behind Sigmund Freud‘s theory in which he analysed the three ego states in developing and understanding the conscious mind I find fascinating. The model describes how our conscience mind is mediated between the desires of the id and the super-ego with our ego works by reasoning. This becomes a conflict with pleasure and guilt with actions in reality. Carl Gustav Jung’s concept of the Archetypes represents the conscious mind of the ego state comprises the thoughts, memories, and emotions that a person is aware of. The ego is largely responsible for feelings of identity and continuity. The conscious mind works wonder and understanding these models I feel I can see how these processes are influenced in our thinking speaking from experience. These theories are areas I can look into deeper insight and get a better understanding of myself.
Joseph Campbell’s archetype on Hero’s in western culture really gravitates towards me as it says within branding and advertising industries this method has a simplistic model of hooks. I came across this Ted-Ed video by Matthew Winkler ‘What makes a hero?’ which he explains and was a great way of expressing the hero. I can really get to grips on how and why this method can have such an emotional ride with the hooks that affect the conscious mind. This is a very fascinating way as storytelling is great for everyone to feel emotions on many different levels with their own experiences.
Edward Bernays is an expert in the marketing world with the power to influence people through propaganda or known in terms to be perceived in positive enlightenment as public relations to influence society. His approach can be seen very scary, as he has so much control over what he can perceive to others that think is good but can actually be bad for the consumer. The example of getting the woman to breaking the taboo of smoking by finding that feminists, cigarettes were like ‘Torches of Freedom’ as a symbol to their non-conformity and freedom from male oppression. How he can reiterate an idea to create conviction with individuals also in an example of how he advertised bacon as a healthy eating habit. Baring in mind there is a lot of unhealthy benefits in eating pork with the way the meat is treated to high cholesterol effects in the nutrition of the meat.
Further Research
Self Expression to Selfie
I started to look into self-expression and furthered my research. There are many great artists that show their self-identity and expression through many different mediums of art. These self-portraits are created to show others an understanding and expression of the subject that was created in the moment of time. This allows the audience to decide and question the identity of those that portray themselves in a way of expressing their personalities. This is the creation of symbolic meaning in discovering the self.
Christopher Baker created this large-scale audiovisual installation called ‘Hello World’ in 2008. This installation comprised of thousands of unique video diaries gathered from the internet. on the contemporary plight of democratic, participative media and the fundamental human desire to be heard. The digital space is a self-promotion platform of video diaries explaining their daily life, personal preoccupations, desires, and fears. I really enjoy the look and interaction of this piece, which I could imagine the whole experience of watching and listening to everyone’s expressing about themselves. This is creating a collection of self-identities in a gallery space to find stories of the individuals.
Selfies are often derided as an inane form of expression yet they can convey a mood, create a scene or tell a story, and are often consciously staged. There are moments people taking selfies for a memory, event, or in the moment of danger.




Workshop Challenge
How can graphic design enable you to communicate your core values at this moment on your course?
Understanding of your practice and your character, your values as a designer (aspirational, honest, negative). Make an initial list of 20 words you can then edit down to five words.



Laughter: I’m told on many occasions that my laughter is a big character of my self as I am herd by my peers and family whenever I’m a stone throw away. It’s something I feel it’s escapism for me to look at things in a humor and comedy perspective to help with my stress and worries in life. Personally, it’s the best medicine that you can have to keep yourself mindful.

Creative: This is my way of expressing myself through visual and interpret my thoughts through imagery than saying it verbally as I do struggle at times. Through creativity, I’m learning, discovering, and crafting, which is an area I really enjoy and thrive in life.

Learning: I find educating and learning new things everyday helps to keep our minds active and break away from our daily routine to embrace something that prolong our curiosity. Curiosity is my fundamental point in discovering new things and understanding Who? What? Where? and Why?

Nature: I find nature is part of me as I believe you are who you are in your environment and culture that you’re surrounded in. There is a balance with the term Nature v Nurture as your nurtured around others in your life but nature brings you to learn new ways of applying yourself in your identity.

Determination: I thrive on determination on bettering myself as a person by my own individual goals regardless of what life brings you. There have been challenges in life I’ve had to adapt to do better to achieve my goals. I look up and inspired by others that make a change in this world. This helps me educate and discover new possibilities in becoming a better person of myself.
My single visual expression
The visual expression I thought to make, was something three dimensional and that’s creating a typographic visual with words that I can relate to expressing determination. I created this lego theme piece with the words ‘ I Can. I Will.’ expressing my attitude through myself in a creative and natural environment. With lego, it’s a great way of discovering learning which symbolise the relationship we build and educating ourselves. I guaranteed there was some laughter in making this with my children as they were telling me to create a Jurassic World theme park and the constant of knocking my bricks all over the place.


Build Process
The I Amsterdam was the influence as to the way I created this piece. My thinking process is making a visual expression through a physical, three-dimensional sculpture/artwork.

There is more to work on this piece of expressionism as I need to show it in a place that’s better for lighting and environment that fits well with the final piece. Overall the concept is there, but needs some fine tweaking to do make it impact more and sits well with its meaning.





Ideas Wall
Weekly Reflection
This was a great introduction into ‘Self & Identity’ as I found Martin Hoskin: Critical Theory on ‘The Self’ lecture very useful in understanding ourselves through psychology. It became very overwhelming with constant theories of how our mind works perceive ourselves and others. The psychology process of understanding oneself is a very complicated matter as there are so many ideologies to process. In saying this you have to find the right model that fits with you as you can be misleading in thinking that other models are characters that you might be chasing is not you. What I found most interesting is the work of Joseph Campbell and Edward Bernays which they can use methods of simplistic methods of hooks and power to influence people through the media manipulative process. Between the two they use techniques that the opposite of their practice. Campbell uses storytelling which is a more compelling and insightful way of drawing the audience. Whereas Bernay using the same techniques that propaganda can have an effect on influence people into believing that can be a sinister approach to what is being delivered. These two theorists have really drawn my attention and maybe t’s because they’re are opposite and would be more interested in getting to know more on both sides of their stories.
I find self-expressions is a particularly interesting part of this week’s topic as to search for my identity this would help my path the way to know myself. There are many great artists that express their self-identity through the medium of self-portrait, which is created in their moment of time. I would say there are many paintings or photograph that is a creation of symbolic meaning in discovering the self of the artist. I found this a great useful tip in creating my mood boards to help with my workshop challenge.
So this week I had to make an initial list of 20 words that speak of my practice, character, and value as a designer. This didn’t come easy as I think In used over 20 words to describe myself as I was picking between words that I found hard to associate with me. Once I had a look at the overall words that were listed I did find it easier to pull out what I felt would associate with me. I was really pleased with my choice of words and mood boards as they express different meanings through visuals in my words. Still believe some parts can be improved if I had more time, but these weren’t meant to be spent to much time on. The visual expression I really enjoyed creating this piece and felt it worked well with my chosen words Laughter, Creative, Learning, Nature, and Determination. This was totally a playful project away from the screen which I’m normally used to. I like the phase I chose ‘I Can, I Will’ as it shows a positive mental attitude as this week is about identity and this brings out the attitude of my determination as a person. The production of the shoot wasn’t carefully thought about and could have done better in the first shots. What I could have done better is created a stop motion of creating my piece to show the build of my identity if I had more time. Is there also something in using a single colour in the whole phase or each word, rather than the mixed-use of colours throughout? These are maybe something I can improve on my planning and time management. Overall it was a fun workshop and really enjoyable, which allowed me to create something physical rather than using the computer screen. This allowed me to be more creative, as well as thinking out of the box, which I will consider using this method more before going on the computer.