These are the new images.

Look at these and chooses one to analyze.

Use the questions we used in class and that are posted with the first set to guide your analysis and post it in the comments. 

Dan Hiller, engraving

Sophy Rickett, Nature, photograph 2009

Alexander McQueen, Paris Fashion Week - ready to wear, 2009

Aline and Jacqueline Tappia, Rick Genest, 2011

A must see short animated film

Here is the first animated film by Tim Burton made in 1982 entitled Vincent.
After you watch it, post a comment including a brief analysis of how this reflects Gothic literature using what you learned in the "Gothic overview" about characters, setting, ambience, aims, and effects on the reader/viewer. Then give your opinion of the film.

Gothic literature and artwork

Here are some examples of various pieces of art that were certainly inspired by Gothic thinking. When looking at these, employ the same thinking and questions that you use when approaching Gothic literature;
What are the characters?
What is the ambiance evoked?
What kind of events (elements of plot) can we imagine that the artist is referring to?
Is there pleasure in horror?

Damien Hirst, For the Love of God, 2007 diamonds, human skull

Marci Washington, The Bracelets, 2011 watercolor and gouache on paper

Alexander McQueen, tulle and lace dress with veil and antlers, 2006-7

Alexander Binder, A Course in Dying, photograph

Dan Hiller, Pachamama, engraving

Although Gothic culture is rooted in the Middle Ages, many of the art styles that came after it used Gothic and added new layers and concepts to it. This is true of Romanticism in particular, but also of art trends and subcultures of the 20th century. Gothic culture has strongly influenced, for example, the punk subculture, which in turn has had an impact on art with its radical aesthetics. Another Gothic wave brushed through Western visual culture in the 1990s, when the visual language of art was influenced by the rapidly growing advertising industry and media, globalization and terrorism, as well as the daunting "trauma of the era": AIDS. Today, Gothic can be seen as a platform from which various approaches that combine horror, beauty and supernatural phenomena have risen, along with its dissonant and ambivalent aesthetic code referring to carnal desires and complex psychological states.

Post-dictatorship

  Once the dictatorship abolished, Wiston smith tells in media the horror which he lived during this one :

    "The freedom of expression, to think didn't exist...same thing for the freedom of movements.

Each of our movements were controlled by a surveillance system and an omnipresent militia. As soos as a person tried to rebel, the militia caught him, brought him down to the ground and fired a bullet in the head, just under our eyes. It had to exemplify us. This made us understand that the just cause for which we fought, was a waste of time. And then, there were already enough executions so that the message is inked into our spirits.

     Before the dictatorship began, London was full of life. Streets swarmed with inhabitants, there were parks with much greenery, boats on the Thames, smiles on people's faces. The sky was of an incredible clarity just like the water of the Thames. 8,7 million people lived here. Now, look at this place, it's a ghost town. Three quarters of the houses and buildings were completely destroyed. All the vegetation of other time is only a heep of ash on the grass darkened by the fire today. Now the Thames become a black, extremely toxic river and which releases a foul smell. It has been quite a while since the sun left London, supressed by these dark and threatening clouds, taken out of hell.

And all of that because of this gigantic monster grumbling non-stop and which throws up his dark, ardent and stinking matter straight ahead in the Thames.

     I worked myself in this monster, as all of the surviving men of the blitzkrieg which transformed London into a real no-man's-land. The saddest in this situation, it's the fact that we contribute indirectly to our death, how ? By making ourselves the weapons which served to kill us for the slightest false move."

After 1984

                                                      12 february of 2001

       For a long time, I wake up without nightmares in my mind. Whatever I do my memories came back to hung me or maybe to remember me to not make the wrong choice. I get up with great difficulty and walk to my library, it's my sanctuary. With a cup of tea and my old journal, I try to kill my demons and my demons, as you can see, they're my memories. Every time I close my eyes I see this world with no colors,  full of sadness. I call this world "1984". I see myself when I was young afraid by cameras which looks like the eyes of demons. My parents told me that they would be there forever but they lied to me, they abandoned me in this cold world. I grew up in this world, these same eyes scrutinized me everywhere, at home, at work or in the street. I felt trapped and so alone. People around me don't pay attention to me, I had to take care of myself and build my life without help. When I became an adult nothing had changed, just the fact that I had to look like a robot. No emotions, no questions, just work. But the more I grew up, the more I wanted to learn about this world and I think that they were right. Ignorance is strength. If you knew more that you had to know you were in danger. The world "1984" is in danger. And you have to die... This is what happens with the only friend that I made, Simon. He was like me, in constant search of truth. One day, I think he was too close of the light of "truth" that he never came back. And one more time in my life someone left me with demons.

Dear readers,

I'm Winston Smith, one of the employees of the Ministry of the Truth. Now that the dictatorship is over, I'm free and I can tell you all that I been through.
I like my new life or rather than the life I led during the dictatorship. I'm going to tell you my experiences recents although it's very difficult for me to talk about it ! 
The government decided to take away freedom, for example, everybody wearing the same blue overalls, everybody loses his identity because of this dresscode.
I'm not the only one who can complain but I suffered a lot.
Wherever we went, we were watched, always watched and controlled by all the means deployed by the government like patrols,telescreens,surveillance cameras... there was no privacy. It was hell, it was terrible ! 
Morever,the atmosphere was sinister,cold and dark : it was very strange for me because I wasn't used to it ! I have never seen London in such a condition, all was destroyed, it was creepy.
A voice spoke to me, it was like in an American movie, that is to say unrealistic.
During all this time, I hadn't the time to get bored, but what I did didn't interest me. The days passed slowly, the nights never arrived.
I really hoped that the end would soon arrived. 
Furthermore, the smells weren't pleasant, it smelt like boiled cabbage and old rag mats. I was eager to get out of this misery.
At least, this coveted day finally arrived !
My hometown had been completely destroyed. All my memories had gone up in smoke.
At the time of writing, I'm happy to be always present, to have regained my freedom and my life will never be the same again.
This event of my life makes me stronger. 
I hope that my testimony has aroused you and allowed you to understand this part of my life,

Winston Smith

!!!!! CLASS CANCELLED!!!!!!!!!!

Class is cancelled Thursday 21/09/2017!!!!!!!!!!!!

We will work on the extract from the Hunger Games on Tuesday 26/09.

Mrs. Buckley

1984

Here is the trailer for 1984 for you to watch again (under better watching conditions)! Watch for some of the futurist details we talked about in class.

Welcome to your digital working space!

We will use this space to share work that is done, to comment on it, and to go further in our subjects than we can during regular class time.

Enjoy.