The uniqueness of identity – a myth or ?

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“The uniqueness of identity- a myth or ?” by Nurul Rahman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

By nature, we desire to have connections with ˜something. It is a feeling of acceptance, to be part of someone, group, nation, country, culture, lifestyle, class and etc. People speak about where they come from, the custom they practice, the language they speak, their preferred kind of food, the style they adore, lifestyle and fashion, and sometimes the weather, depending on situation.

Through the discourse or through other communication mediums, people received perceptions and categories one from another. Others would perceive this information and categories one in a group one belongs to and give a name for it. Its what some people would describe as an identity. Gauntlett, David (1998) on Foucaults (1977) ideas on identity, people just wants to have ˜something, a reason to start a conversation. ˜It is a discourse.

However, can it be said that the notion of unique identity is emotionally attached, through elements such as icon, label, object, symbol, behavior, product and etc. This notion of uniqueness is powerful. It is powerfully built around the emotional connection of nostalgic memories, historical relations, personal interest and childhood experiences. It creates a sense of chivalry and injected patriotic spirit to the people that dwell in a country. Some would call it the spirit of nationalism. Others would describe it as singularity belief. Believing in ˜something that has an on going intimate relationship with oneself. Susan Stewart in her book ˜Longing wrote an interesting example in relation to people and their antiquities in england. Through the object, nationalism becomes romantic nationalism. ˜Between the time of Camden and the time of Victorian antiquatirians, nationalism became romantic nationalism in England, a venerations of pastoralism, decentralization, and a collective folk spirit.(Stewart 1993 pp143).

Another examples on people emotional attachment with objects and their connection with country is as Englishman Joseph Hunter explains, in the preface to his Antiquarian Notices of Lupset, the Heath, Sharston, and Ackton, in the Country of York (1851):

There are two sorts of countries that divide the face of the globe, new countries and old¦which of these two sorts of countries would a man reflection, a man of taste, a man whose heart beats with moral perceptions and feelings, a choose to dwell in?… I conceive it to be one of the advantages which the fortune of my birth reserved for me, that I was born in an old country¦I love to dwell in a country where, on whichever side I turn, I find some object connected with a heart-moving tale, or some scene where the deepest interests of a nation for ages to succeed have been strenuously agitated, and emphatically decided [Hunters ellipses].” (Hunter quoted in Stewart pp. 142)

What creates the intimates relations between the ‘object’ and people? How can the ‘object’ connect and become strongly attach to us? Is it the emotional connections between the people and ‘objects’, that creates the notion of uniqueness, describing, that the place where we dwelling is somehow different and unique?

˜Objectthat we collected have becomes part of our life, and live in our memories. Every time we see something similar in shape or color, or even a representation of it, somehow it could trigger the connection again.

These are some of the elements or ˜object that been used in the advertisements and some printed materials for the purpose of selling and communicating. The representation of the ˜object appeared again and it attracts people to relate it with their longed memories. The ˜objectcould be anything. It can be antiquities, behavior, nostalgia, glance of a narrative and etc. It is through the visual representation of these objects, we relates to our past. Perhaps, some object can takes us to a journey towards future. A vision, a dream or a myth!


David Gauntlett is Professor of Media and Communications at the School of Media, Arts and Design, University of Westminster. http://www.theory.org.uk/david/

See Objects of Desire, on Longing by Susan Stewart. Duke University Press 1993.

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“The uniqueness of identity- a myth or ?” by Nurul Rahman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

By nature, we desire to have connections with ˜something. It is a feeling of acceptance, to be part of someone, group, nation, country, culture, lifestyle, class and etc. People speak about where they come from, the custom they practice, the language they speak, their preferred kind of food, the style they adore, lifestyle and fashion, and sometimes the weather, depending on situation.

Through the discourse or through other communication mediums, people received perceptions and categories one from another. Others would perceive this information and categories one in a group one belongs to and give a name for it. Its what some people would describe as an identity. Gauntlett, David (1998) on Foucaults (1977) ideas on identity, people just wants to have ˜something, a reason to start a conversation. ˜It is a discourse.

However, can it be said that the notion of unique identity is emotionally attached, through elements such as icon, label, object, symbol, behavior, product and etc. This notion of uniqueness is powerful. It is powerfully built around the emotional connection of nostalgic memories, historical relations, personal interest and childhood experiences. It creates a sense of chivalry and injected patriotic spirit to the people that dwell in a country. Some would call it the spirit of nationalism. Others would describe it as singularity belief. Believing in ˜something that has an on going intimate relationship with oneself. Susan Stewart in her book ˜Longing wrote an interesting example in relation to people and their antiquities in england. Through the object, nationalism becomes romantic nationalism. ˜Between the time of Camden and the time of Victorian antiquatirians, nationalism became romantic nationalism in England, a venerations of pastoralism, decentralization, and a collective folk spirit.(Stewart 1993 pp143).

Another examples on people emotional attachment with objects and their connection with country is as Englishman Joseph Hunter explains, in the preface to his Antiquarian Notices of Lupset, the Heath, Sharston, and Ackton, in the Country of York (1851):

There are two sorts of countries that divide the face of the globe, new countries and old¦which of these two sorts of countries would a man reflection, a man of taste, a man whose heart beats with moral perceptions and feelings, a choose to dwell in?… I conceive it to be one of the advantages which the fortune of my birth reserved for me, that I was born in an old country¦I love to dwell in a country where, on whichever side I turn, I find some object connected with a heart-moving tale, or some scene where the deepest interests of a nation for ages to succeed have been strenuously agitated, and emphatically decided [Hunters ellipses].” (Hunter quoted in Stewart pp. 142)

What creates the intimates relations between the ‘object’ and people? How can the ‘object’ connect and become strongly attach to us? Is it the emotional connections between the people and ‘objects’, that creates the notion of uniqueness, describing, that the place where we dwelling is somehow different and unique?

˜Objectthat we collected have becomes part of our life, and live in our memories. Every time we see something similar in shape or color, or even a representation of it, somehow it could trigger the connection again.

These are some of the elements or ˜object that been used in the advertisements and some printed materials for the purpose of selling and communicating. The representation of the ˜object appeared again and it attracts people to relate it with their longed memories. The ˜objectcould be anything. It can be antiquities, behavior, nostalgia, glance of a narrative and etc. It is through the visual representation of these objects, we relates to our past. Perhaps, some object can takes us to a journey towards future. A vision, a dream or a myth!


David Gauntlett is Professor of Media and Communications at the School of Media, Arts and Design, University of Westminster. http://www.theory.org.uk/david/

See Objects of Desire, on Longing by Susan Stewart. Duke University Press 1993.

Another GRC…

Another GRC past, and I realised that my time is running fast, hopefully I could catch up with it. GRC went well, apart from the amount of work I need to cope with in 6 month period time.

I need to continue reading, the more the better and keep on writing and make some mark and point in my research. I have to explicitly articulate my argument in my research. I come to realised that this research is not so much about Malaysian Identity, it is more about the image and visual representation of it, and how it create the perceptions?

Clearly design plays significant roles in these process. But what is it and how does it plays the roles is an interesting areas to investigate as what I’m researching now. It is fascinating to discover some things in this research. I’m discovering another Malaysia, its representations of identity and designer’s roles in this. I asked these questions in my GRC and would be nice to hear some thought about it.

Can it be said that part of designer roles is also capturing the history and record it through their creation. Do designer deliberately re-use this elements of history to modify, and provide perception as a way to communicate with the audience? Can it be said the designers are partly responsible perpetuate the myth of national cultural identity?

Here’s an interesting quote that might give you some ideas about what I’m trying to say up there:

Advertising and design have more in common than the postmodern trend for vernacularism (or the anesthetization of timeworn artifacts) reveals. Advertising and graphic design are equally concerned with selling, communication and entertaining. To appreciate one, the other is imperative. But more important, if graphic design history does not expand to include advertising and other related studies, it will ultimately succumb to the dead-end thinking that will be the evitable consequence of being arrested in a state of continual adolescence.
Steven Heller, ˜Advertising the Mother of Graphic Design, from Eye, no.17. vol.5 summer 1995.

Look again and think a head…

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‘Look again and think a head’ by by Nurul Rahman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.

I was looking at some of my advertisement collections and try, again and again to analyzed it. I started with a formal lenses, then change the roles to communication designer’s and then to a researcher. It is an interesting process. I had experienced and I have to admit that I’m enjoying every minutes of this process.

It is shocking and frustrating to imagine that everyday we will have to face and sometimes we might consume, images and ton of information each time we walk on the street. Accompany by billboard and posters, nearly every second we turn our head around, we look and unconsciously we gather this information in our memory bank. At home or sometimes in the cafe or bar, adding to this process we have other media such as television, internet and radio surrounding us. Just imagine that! How do we as a consumer cope with this? Our brain must did an excellent job then, recording and remembering these images and recall it again to view, every time we look at other object and managed to recognized it.

Such scene that I just describe is a normal scenario in most of the main city in the world. What actually influences us in consuming material? Do we need them? Is it important to have them or just because be like them, and want to own them? Even if we are aware of if, we cannot say the we can escape from this scenario.

Who are the people that responsible in this process? Advertising, marketing, company, artist and obviously designers. I would say graphic designers, communication designers and interaction designers are not much less responsible that others. Now, in a global world, this scenario cannot be stop. Information is at our fingertip and amazingly easy. We, as a consumer actually play a significant roles in this as we continue consume the product, and therefore there is a market for the product.

I’m not saying that we should not buy anything, but would be good if we take our step in slow motion and think a head before some rhetoric visual and text in the advertisements influences our thought and desire. Just try and explore this process, please be aware that it can be dangerous (dangerous as you might end up using your credit card or use your saving), you might end up buying something at the end.

I’m very interested in this process, investigating the communication designer’s position in this, and how we contribute in shaping the lifestyles. Are we deliberately use the rhetoric of images to communicate? or we didn’t actually think about the impact we created? Well, clearly we managed to see the product or at least we manage to get the information in the market.

Advertising is the mother of graphic design, as how Steven Heller claims in the ‘Eye’ magazine 1994. Clearly that graphic designer contribute most of their work in advertisements, that because at that time, there was not that much job available for graphic designer. Some might be in the printing company as DTP artist, some might be at the hotel as display artist etc. Is graphic designer’s role is minor in the process of creating the visual?

“The history of advertising is more interested in how Marlboro cigarettes tested a variety of trade characters before stumbling on the Marlboro Man as a symbol of manliness. While graphic design appears negligible in the cultural analysis of this campaign, understanding the relationship of this symbol..to the larger mythology provides insight into how the American myth was perpetuated.”Heller, 1994.

So what do this mean, that graphic designer are part of creating these myth? I will take further investigation in my research….it is significant..

In the search of oneself, what is uniquely identity and what is identity?

People do not have a ˜real identity within themselves; it is just a way of talking about self, it is a discourse. An ˜identity is communicated to others in your interactions with them, but this is not fixed things within a person. It is shifting, temporary construction. Gauntlett, D. (1998) on Foucaults ideas of identity.

When a person search for identity, what are the things one should look for and how to look for it.

What are the differences between uniqueness and identity?

Process of understanding deconstruction.

I haven’t been writing for sometime in this blog. I’ve been busy gathering information about DECONSTRUCTION in Graphic Design for my research. The intention to look deeper in this area rise after my presentation in the group meeting. I thought why not, after I didn’t have enough knowledge about this.

Part of the proposal from the group to help in my research, is to look at my collections of advertisement and make a visual analysis out of it. Before I even go near deconstruction I was asking myself, what is visual analysis? So I read and read and read… I came around names like Ellen Lupton, Ric Poynor, some really interesting essay on reproductions of the productions by Althusser (recommended by Neal, thanks), the punk era, Reid the sex pistol graphic designer and more..I could go on. I have to admit I did enjoy digging in this areas under the umbrella of deconstruction. Now the visual analysis…where do I start?

Well, I thought after getting all sort of information from reading and visual inspired of deconstruction I should reconstruct something. I started with one of the add I have. I started with what I understand with the idea of deconstruction, which is to pull out different elements from the constructed adds and reconstruct it with my critical ideas. In other words is the action of putting theoretical text verbose and sought ways to simplify these ideas into graphic form. (Paynor, R. in No More Rules on deconstruction). In 1960’s, designers and artists used and scissored headlines from establishment newspapers and put an attempted to ‘detourne’ the media – to ‘turn it back on itself’ by applying its communications in new contexts.

As for the posters I created based of the Celcom add August 2007, and I have to admit it does have political response in it. Celcom add from my point of view contained an ethnic issues. The guy holding the flag seem Indian or Malay-Indian to me, of course for other people outside of Malaysia will argue the race of that person. Political issues – The questions are what’s the add is telling us and why chose a specific race as a leading person? In the background of the add there’s the youth..little children running following the leading, this contain an issues of nation building, are we creating an image of Malaysia for our future generation?

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Where are we heading?

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Focus on locus!

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Labsome Studio

This research is driving me insane! I need to narrow it down. At some point I can’t see where I’m heading from here. Why am I doing this research? Who and what is it for? This questions also drives me crazy. Am I trying to create a future Malaysian Identity (which I did not intented too, or is this where I’m heading to?) or analyzing Malaysian Identity through past ( sounds more realistic )?

For a start I re-arranged the ad and images. Put them as in time line from 1957 to 2007. My time line works between 10 years. I found fews catagories while separating them. There are economy, social, environment and culture appear in the images.

What does it trying to say? What are the things that are not visible in these images and how do these meaning relates to the images?

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Informing through design!

If you’ve been in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I’m pretty sure you once used this LRT ticket. It’s very interesting to see how the visual helps to communicate the information through design. We use to have a paper ticket that obviously we will throw it away after using it, but with this new LRT tickets, it won’t allow you to take it back home with you. You need the ticket to enter and to use the LRT transport, then after using it you need it to be able to go out from the station. Without the these ticket, you can’t go out. Ont the ticket itself (as you can see below), it have the ma of the LRT station. So the user can refer it back regularly. Donald A.Norman in his fantastic book called The Design of Everyday Things (DOET) wrote a lot about design ‘human-centered design’ and how design should be functional not only because its looks and presentation.

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LRT Tickets in Kuala Lumpur (KL)

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Metro Bus Tickets in (KL)

Designer’s contribution

The last time I wrote, I did questioned the designers role and contribution in the societies. Last week, in Melbourne, between the period of election time, there’s many of demonstration going around the Melbourne CBD. It’s amazing to see how many design have been created to visualized the ideas. I believe designers does play important roles in communicating the main ideas to the public through their creation. How can this situation communicate without the visual?

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War on Nuclear in front of the Melbourne State Library.

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Copyright, tag line and words is also important to be clear and be able to create ‘noise’. What is the ‘noise’? Regarding to Frascara (2004) ‘Noise’ is any distraction that appears between the information and the public, thereby interfering with, distorting, obliteration, or hiding the message. In the case of communication design, noise can appear at the purely visual level, because of the elements or techniques that obscure the visibility of the stimuli presenting the information. It can also be caused at a semantic level, when the logic of the message does not match the cognitive culture of its intended audience.

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Noise can exist in the channel (medium), the code (language), or the form (aesthetic or style). Noise is created by irrelevant information, obliterating elements, or poor technical quality. The consequence of noise can range from lack of clarity to the total incomprehensibility of a message.

Who are we designing for?

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It’s been nearly 4 years I’ve lived in Melbourne. Since I arrived, I been doing freelance job in Graphic Design and getting involved with other design association to get different opinion and thought. It is an ongoing learning process for me. Not only in design but also in life. In Melbourne, I can feel the designers spirit to establish themselves, crying out loud, collaborate with others and trying to define their roles in society. Who are designing for? What is the propose? Are we designing for ourselves, clients or are we designing for the societies?

In order to establish ourselves in various discipline, we need to be strong, we need to believe and trust that we can make a different by using our ‘petit skill’. I saw many of my friends now getting involved with various areas (e.g. environment and sustainable, education, user centered design, interaction, cultural studies, community services etc.) Hopefully by doing this we are defining our little roles.

Design in Melbourne are moving, progressively. Thanks to designers who are aware of their roles in design and take few step forward finding a way to offer their knowledge and skill to the societies.

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