Research Proposal

After spending a long time very unsure of the direction I wanted my investigation to take, I had a spark of inspiration and have decided that I want to write my essay about the place of the introvert in modern society, specifically modern western society.  Having spent such a long time in ideas limbo, I decided that wiping the slate clean and beginning on a new idea from scratch was the best way forward.

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Possible essay title: Birth of a salesman: Has the extrovert ideal conquered modern society, and where does leave the introvert?

In this research project I intend to inverstigate if and how Western society has been dominated by "the extrovert ideal", and what place this leaves for introverts in an increasingly busy, noisy and connected world. 

I think this has the potential to be a really interesting body of research, as there are lots of areas for potential exploration, such as:

• What is "the extrovert ideal" and where did it come from?
• Is this specifically a western pattern? Do Eastern cultures hold confident, gregarious, extroverted individuals in the same esteem that we do in the west, or are introverts valued more highly in other parts of the world.
• What impact has social media, and the fact that the whole world is now connected at the click of a  button, had on the visibility of introverts in society? Is alone time simply now more important than ever? 

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Useful reading:

• An Introduction to Theories of Personality (7th Edition), Robert E. Ewen, Psychology Press (2010)
• Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality, W. Ronald  D. Fairbairn, Tavistock Publications Ltd (1952)
• A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C.G.Jung, Robert H. Hopcke, Shambhala Publications (1989)
• The Question of Psychological Types: The Correspondence of C. G.Jung and Hans Schmid-Guisan, 1915-1916, Princeton University Press (2012)
• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, Susan Cain, Penguin Group (2012)

Further Images

I'm still working on reworking (working eh?) my COP essay on Laura Carlin's 'Inside a Rape Trial', but here I'm going to document some more images that I think work in a similar way to that illustration. While I had originally planned to continue my project looking at the treatment of women (vague, I know), I've recently had a shift in concentration. Carlin's editorial image illustrated the isolation of the victim, and it is isolation that I am interested in.

I thought isolation could be an interesting topic, as it is a state that is very open to interpretation. Isolation can be self-inflicted, or inflicted upon one individual or group by another, or by the state. 

This is another of Carlin's editorial illustrations (Carlin overkill? Perhaps, but she really is one of the best). 

Right: I came across this image online, and cannot seem to find any information about the artist,or the time of production.

Below: These images, that I think deal so beautifully not only with isolation, but with loneliness, loss and nostalgia as well, come from Michael Rosen's Sad Book (2004, and were produced by Quentin
Blake. These illustrations hold a very special place in my heart, and are, in my opinion, incomparable in their depth.

Isolation doesn't have to be a negative thing, either. As a  quiet and shy person myself, I recently read 'Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking' by Susan Cain, and it cast a new light on the hidden powers of being a natural introvert.

Images by Gemma Correll (left) and Hannah Rowlands(bottom left). Two, rather diverse, illustrative interpretations of life as an introvert. This is a topic I would definitely be interested in developing further. Watch this space. 

CoP Essay: Laura Carlin's 'Inside a Rape Trial'

In 2006, an article entitled ‘Inside a Rape Trial’, written by Barbara Toner, appeared in The Guardian. This article was accompanied by an illustration produced by Laura Carlin, and would go on to win a V&A ‘Illustration of the Year’ award.

         The article and illustration deal with the isolation of rape victims during trial by the courts of law, with a focus on one particular case of domestic rape. The article references how the jury at this case were warned that they could not accuse unless they were positive the accused was guilty; with the absence of concrete evidence, the case was acquitted. Toner followed the case, and later wrote the article, in response to a set of figures that were published in 2005, figures that revealed that, at the time, just one in twenty reported rapes ended in conviction.

           Within her illustration, Carlin uses several subtle but effective visual cues that allude to the isolation of rape victims by the British justice system. A large, almost entirely blank space surrounds the lone figure of a woman walking away from the Crown Court; her stance is dejected, she looks downward, and trails her handbag behind her. The character appears to go unnoticed by a mass of figures, shown in the foreground of the image as going about the errands of everyday life, all coloured in the same light washes of grey, barely distinguishable from one another. They represent the sense of a mass, of continuation, and, perhaps, of the unchanging nature of a broken system. The central character, however, is coloured with far darker, stronger ink lines, juxtaposing the empty space around her, and further perpetuating a sense of isolation.

             Carlin’s use of a cool and almost entirely monochromatic palette is another way in which she allows sentiments of bleakness and aloneness to resonate through her illustration, as is her use perspective and proportion. By carefully positioning other, tiny characters at the top of the stairway, Carlin is able to display the central character as dwarfed by the Crown Court, with its sprawling front steps, tall marble pillars, and high walls. In amongst all that, she is tiny, and it is this sense of defeat that makes this image such a powerful one. The line work Carlin employs within the illustration is delicate and fragile, featuring very few solid, definite lines and forms. The most solid shapes and heavy colour washes within the image are used near the top of frame, to depict the entrance, walls and columns of Crown Court, with the image gradually ‘de-solidifying’, the closer the eye wanders to the foreground, a powerful and poignant reminder of the rigidity of the justice system, a system which, even with figures relating to abhorrent sexual violations spiralling beyond control, is perhaps failing to protect those most vulnerable.

              Carlin’s ‘Inside a Rape Trial’ editorial illustration is successful on many levels, as it resonates with a sense of bleakness and fragility. Using a variety of techniques, the artist has produced an implicit, yet through-provoking work of illustrative socio-political commentary. 

Inside a Rape Trial by Laura Carlin (2006)

CoP Introductory task: Part II

Following on from my thoughts on the place of women in present-day society, my ideas have expanded into something (vague, but it's early days) concerning the gender-gap in society, and how both women and men can bare the brunt of issues of gender inequality.

Gender Inequality in the Senate - Ping Zhu 

I found this illustration through a blog entitled New York Women in Communications, and couldn't find the artist's credit, but I thought that it was a really interesting conceptual image. This is partly because the image doesn't explicitly concern the sexes, but more the different 'types' of minds - this could be an interesting topic to explore in more depth.

Inside a Rape Trial - Laura Carlin (from The Guardian, 2006)

Laura Carlin is one of my favourite illustrators and this image really resonates with me. The isolation of rape victims in courts of law is a very sensitive subject, but could potentially be a good starting point for some very thought provoking and delicate illustrative work.

CoP Introductory task

Dewey decimal number: 301.412

Despite it being published over 30 years ago, I chose this book as I'm very interested in, and feel very passionately about, feminist issues, believing that feminist arguments are just as relevant in today's world as they ever have been, especially with the rise of  modern societal threads such as 'Lad Culture'. The way women see themselves, are expected to see themselves, and are seen by mainstream society is a bottomless issue, flooded with so much information, so much media and so many arguments that I think this topic has great illustrative potential, whilst still being very current and very much at the forefront of present-day culture.

I also picked this book as I thought it could be a good jumping-off point into other topics, such as history (and women's place within it - although this subject may be a little too broad), and even technology, and how the rise of the digital age (twitter, facebook, instagram, etc) has affected the feminist argument, with more and more women constantly striving to document round-the-clock aesthetic perfection.