GLOSSARY | Art and Design Blog

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

MOCKUMENTARY -

A tv show or film in the style of a documentary, intended to satirize it's subject.

A mockumentary can be a powerful way of spreading awareness for the given subject. The audience can easily connect with, and relate to, the charactors as they are often influenced by the culture of the time and society. The major examples are 'Come Fly With Me', 'The Office', 'People Just Do Nothing' and 'This Country'.

UTOPIA -

A concept for a society which is perfect in every way, economically and socially.

Everyone has their own idea of Utopia, their own perfect world that is guided by their views and fantasies. For some, this might be a very realistic idea in which their surroundings are comfortable in their everyday life. For others, Utopia could be a fantasy world like a form of Heaven, Nirvana or an alternate universe. Whether that is filled with everything they desire materialistically, or more sentimental wishes like seeing people they have lost.

The word Utopia can be used a lot within activism since most activists are fighting for something which they believe will bring them towards a more perfect world. There are many types of Utopia such as Ecological Utopia, Economical Utopia, Spiritual Utopia and STEM Utopia, it is hard to say which Utopia is the the ultimate perfect world since each Activist will have a different opinion, making there many different Utopias.

DYSTOPIA -

A society in which everything is the worst it can be for it's population, economically and socially. - The opposite of a Utopia.

METAHAVEN -

A dutch design studio consisting of Vinca Kruk and Daniel Van der Velden.

Both Vinca and Daniel studied a BA in graphic design at the William de Kooning academy in the Netherlands. They also both worked as researchers at the Jan Van Eyck Academy, an art school in the Netherlands and have worked as lecturers within the art field in various institutions. They began collaborating with each other in 2003.

They are referred to as strategic graphic designers, with agency they think as a set of political designers as artists. Metahaven are serving as a prime example for how interdisciplinary the work of designers has become today. In times when post-internet art has blurred the lines between fashion, art ,(corporate) design and post-factual politics have shown that the ability to (visually) trigger emotions has become the most important skill a politician can possess today, designers can be filmmakers, publishers - and political activists.

A dystopia is most commonly depicted in sci-fi stories and films, in which the government has become corrupt and the lives of its citizens do not matter. The most common examples of this would be George Orwell’s novel 1984, Bladerunner or Star Wars.

Although dystopia and utopia have very opposite definitions, they are more similar than you think. In theory there cannot be a perfect place without it eventually looping back around to a dystopia.