Barbara Brownie - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Barbara Brownie

Film, Fashion & Consumption

In this commercial space age, audiences increasingly expect realism in science fiction. Weightles... more In this commercial space age, audiences increasingly expect realism in science fiction. Weightlessness is commonly simulated through physical or virtual special effects, but reduced gravity aircraft offer opportunities for capturing the effects of microgravity more authentically. While this poses practical challenges for costume designers, it also invites the possibility of creative engagement with weightlessness. Costume can be employed to visibly evidence the effects of weightlessness, but to take advantage of this opportunity, designers must discard many of the fundamental principles of fashion design. This article examines the effects of weightlessness on costume in sequences shot on board reduced gravity aircraft, from Apollo 13 (), ), and the music video for OK Go's 'Upside Down & Inside Out' (), as well as footage of real-life astronauts. It then identifies those features of clothing design which must be reconsidered when designing costume for microgravity.

Barbara Brownie, 'Alien Scripts: Pseudo-Writing and Asemisis in Comics and Graphic Novels&#39... more Barbara Brownie, 'Alien Scripts: Pseudo-Writing and Asemisis in Comics and Graphic Novels', paper presented at the 3rd Global Conference: The Graphic Novel, Oxford, UK, 3-5 September, 2014.

Barbara Brownie, Jayne Smith, Rebecca Thomas, ‘In Another Instant: Focus and Interaction in Creat... more Barbara Brownie, Jayne Smith, Rebecca Thomas, ‘In Another Instant: Focus and Interaction in Creative Arts Learning’, paper presented at the European Conference on eLearning (ECEL), University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK, 29-30 October, 2015.

In May 2013, the FSB expelled an American diplomat on the grounds that he was spying for the CIA.... more In May 2013, the FSB expelled an American diplomat on the grounds that he was spying for the CIA. Listed among the alleged spy’s suspicious possessions were ‘means of altering appearance’. It was later revealed that this disguise kit contained a variety of wigs and sunglasses. These paraphernalia were so ill-fitting that they seemed to belong in a comedy performance, but they provoked some serious debate. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, former CIA operative, Robert Baer, described the thick-rimmed glasses and stick-on moustaches that he and his colleagues had worn to break up facial contours. The aim of these disguises was to make people remember ‘something other than the face’. An individual’s identity is bound up in his or face more so than any other body part. Passport photographs, portraits, and other images related to personal identity, tend to feature the face. It is for this reason that criminal photo-fits tend to feature only the head, and why criminals’ disguises concentrate on concealing the face and head. The problem with any mask or facial disguise is that it immediately marks someone out as a wrong-doer. The mere act of wearing a mask may itself be considered morally questionable, as it is a deception of sorts. The ‘mask has come to connote something disingenuous, something false’. It is overtly a disguise. David Napier observes that it is this sense of an incomplete identity that drives audiences to seek out the secret alternative identity hidden underneath. The mask is ‘known to have no inside’ and this ‘invit[es] the audience to peer behind the mask’. This paper will explore the problem of the mask and its use in disguise. While effective disguise often necessitates the use of a mask (or other artefacts that distort or conceal the face), facial disguises often heighten the observer’s sense of curiosity about the identity beneath. Taking recent and historical examples of physical disguise, the paper will identify why the mask is the cornerstone of disguise, and simultaneously the disguise’s greatest point of vulnerability.Non peer reviewe

Barbara Brownie, Acts of Undressing: Politics, Eroticism and Discarded Clothing (London: Bloomsbu... more Barbara Brownie, Acts of Undressing: Politics, Eroticism and Discarded Clothing (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), ISBN: 978-1472596185

Part 1: Mapping the Field: Categories of Kineticism Chapter 1: What is Kineticism?Chapter 2: Glob... more Part 1: Mapping the Field: Categories of Kineticism Chapter 1: What is Kineticism?Chapter 2: Global v. Local Perception, and the problem with Global BiasChapter 3: Local Kineticism and Fluctuating Identity Part 2: Issues in Transforming Typography Chapter 4: Illusory Space: The Page and Screen as a Virtual EnvironmentChapter 5: Legibility and Asemisis in Fluid Typography Part 3: Case Studies Chapter 6: Fluid Branding: Channel 4 and its imitators Chapter 7: Telling Titles: The credit sequences of Kyle Cooper and his peersChapter 8: Visual Poetry Conclusion Bibliography Appendix

Clothing Cultures, 2019

Design practice has historically been constrained by the assumption that designed objects, includ... more Design practice has historically been constrained by the assumption that designed objects, including clothing, will be made and worn in Earth gravity. The notion that designed objects have an upright state has influenced common approaches to design, including the tendency towards depiction and presentation of designed objects in elevation view, which, for fashion, is frequently understood in terms of silhouette. However, those who have experienced weightlessness, either in space travel or on board reduced-gravity aircraft, describe a post-gravity experience that prompts them to revisit these assumptions and consider the extent to which future commercial space travel will liberate creative practitioners to operate at all angles and orientations. As we enter the commercial space age, fashion will be increasingly worn in a variety of gravitational conditions, and the dressed body will therefore be encountered at a variety of orientations, showcasing views of garments that are not often...

Fashion: Exploring Critical Issues, 2012

Frame Escapes: Graphic Novel Intertexts, 2016

Superhero narratives are distinguished by the hero's negotiation of the relationship between two ... more Superhero narratives are distinguished by the hero's negotiation of the relationship between two constructed identities, one ordinary, one extraordinary. The superhero, whose costume emphasizes otherness, shelters in the guise of a civilian, in a performance of ordinariness. Prompted by Jacob Riis' invitation in 'How The Other Half Lives' (1890), journalists of that era engaged in performance of ordinariness in search of transstatus empathy. These journalists cloaked themselves in a 'signified cloth granting liberation and opportunity.' The clothes reduced their status, masking their profession or prestige, and they found themselves empowered. The disguises allowed them normalcy and anonymity, thereby enabling relationships and activities previously out of reach. Dressing down in civilian wardrobe, the superhero engages in similar trans-status disguise. By concealing otherness, he is liberated from the responsibilities of the superhero lifestyle and the extreme attention it garners. Superman's civilian masquerade provides the freedom to engage with normal human society. We can consider his Clark Kent persona in terms of the trans-status observations emerging from social experiments that utilise disguise to enter a closed social group. Kal-El of Krypton is a 'covert operative' who originates from outside the subject of his study, and disguises himself in order to infiltrate the group. He learns their costumes and customs via his rural Kansas upbringing, and then in adulthood and the urban sprawl of Metropolis, positions himself as 'one of them.' Superman's relationship with his civilian alter-ego differs from that of other superheroes, who acquire their superpowers later in life. Spider-Man, for example, can be equated to a 'retrospective participant observer': he is able to model his civilian disguise on his own past experiences of ordinariness. This paper will compare trans-status disguise in superhero comics to the activities of undercover journalists and social scientists, exploring the concealment of otherness through the performance of ordinariness.

Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network, 2007

Current understanding of the nature of type assumes it to be static, with properties of form and ... more Current understanding of the nature of type assumes it to be static, with properties of form and colour. With the introduction of temporal media, typographic artefacts may additionally have properties of behaviour. Temporal media allow type to perform and evolve. ‘Fluid’ (Kac, 1997) type, as it appears in onscreen, is ‘dramatized’ (Helfand, 1997). A single form may present multiple letters through processes of morphing, rotation or deconstruction, and multiple forms may present a single letter through processes of reorganisation. Analysis of such artefacts not only requires us to re-evaluate our understanding of the nature of type, but also to reassess the notion that a single letterform may only have a single identity. Referencing examples of typographic performance, this paper will discuss the nature of fluid type, and propose that current typographic theory may need to adapt in order to respond to the introduction of temporal media.

Arts and the Market, 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to propose that, within the practice of motion branding, tr... more Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to propose that, within the practice of motion branding, transforming type has been largely neglected by existing theorists and its importance to wider marketing trends overlooked. It will be observed that previous texts on transitional letterforms have tended to focus on changes in global arrangement and in doing so have neglected to recognise the significance of changes that occur at a local level, within individual letterforms.Design/methodology/approach– Taking an interdisciplinary approach, with examples including idents and bumpers from Channel 4, Sky, FOX, Five and MTV. New methods of understanding these artefacts will be introduced, with emphasis on how they affect the relationship between broadcaster’s identities and the medium of television. Modes of definition and understanding that have previously been applied to holographic poetry will be applied to the field of on-screen artefacts.Findings– The paper will discuss how branding has a...

Clothing Cultures, 2013

ABSTRACT Disguise – the substitution of one identity for another – is a deliberate act of constru... more ABSTRACT Disguise – the substitution of one identity for another – is a deliberate act of construction and an elimination of self. Through costume, signs of self are concealed and erased, and in their place appears an apparently complete alternative identity. Although dress is typically aspirational, reflecting a desire to imitate those of higher socio-economic status, this article observes that there are occasions on which it is desirable to use costume to reduce status, and to escape the perceived pressures and responsibilities of social or economic power. In trans-status disguise, it is necessary to abandon all outward indicators of individuality and status: to perform ordinariness.Performance of ordinariness is a means to an end: a tool to enable behaviour that would otherwise be inappropriate or impossible. Inspired by Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives, nineteenth-century journalists used costume to experience life in the poorest sections of society with the aim of increasing trans-status empathy. In screen-based narratives, a disguise can often be pivotal to a plot, particularly since, in these primarily visual media, costume is a key identifying feature of any character. Taking as examples, Coming to America, Superman and The Saint, this article observes how costume permits a perceived lowering of status, which in turn enables liberation. In particular, it will propose that there are parallels between the social experiments of nineteenth-century journalists and the fictional narratives of twentieth-century television and cinema.

Journal of Media Practice, 2013

The Senses and Society, 2021

Deception: Spies, Lies and Forgeries, 2016

Empty bundles of clothes have the power to signify a variety of events, including voluntary undre... more Empty bundles of clothes have the power to signify a variety of events, including voluntary undressing and forcible denuding. In empty clothes, the human body is notable in its absence, and the use of discarded shoes and garments in Holocaust memorials attests to their capacity to represent individual victims of large-scale tragedy. By representing absence through presence, clothes index the absent wearer, and invite speculation about the event that has separated body from garment. In a number of noteworthy events, ranging from Labour minister John Stonehouse's faked suicide (pseudocide) in 1974 to the 'rapture bombs' which littered the internet in the wake of predictions of the Rapture in 2011, abandoned clothes have been used to falsely signify tragedy. For the fictional anti-hero of David Nobbs' The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1975), undressing, and the planting of his empty clothes as false evidence, becomes the defining act of a complex act of deception, in which he fakes suicide and begins a new life under an assumed identity. This scene of 'pseudocide' has been recreated so many times that it is referred to colloquially as 'doing a Reggie Perrin'. This chapter will explore the role of abandoned clothes in what Daniel J. Boorstin describes as 'pseudoevents'-'synthetic happenings' that are 'fabricated to make up for the world's deficiency'. 1 It will examine how empty clothing is planted with the intention of fueling media speculation and to provoke the generation of false narratives, drawing on examples of promotional stunts in the 1920s, pseudocides in the 1970s, and rapture pranks in the 2010s.

Journal of Design History, 2013

Fluid typographic forms (letters, numbers, and other characters), which transform over time to pr... more Fluid typographic forms (letters, numbers, and other characters), which transform over time to present new identities, are employed in a new kind of temporal typography. These forms, and the behaviours they exhibit, are most commonly seen in temporal media, including television idents, credit sequences, and typographic animation. However, fluidity is dependent on characteristics that were developed historically, from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. It has become possible to retrospectively identify the ways that historical developments anticipated fluid transformation in temporal typography. Some categories of fluid behaviour would be impossible if it were not for the concept of the letter as malleable, as a three-dimensional object, or as modular. These characteristics permit processes, or fluid behaviours, through which a new identity is introduced to a changing form. This article demonstrates that these three characteristics are reflected in three historical developments: the use of the transformable grid in the development of Romain du Roi, three-dimensional nineteenth-century typefaces, and the modular lettering of Josef Albers, Theo van Doesburg and Bart van der Leck.