This study of placelessness and placeness was particularly intriguing to me, as my first project was so sentimental and personal. I chose to explore the Dandenong Ranges and find a place that provided me with sanctuary, despite the fact that I had no familiarity with the place whatsoever. I wanted to explore the concepts of safety and danger through sound and image, and venturing into a place I hadn’t been before seemed like an interesting place to conduct my study.

I grew up on the outskirts of suburbia; 30 minutes from the city, 30 minutes from the ocean, and 30 minutes from the mountains. When you’re in your 20s, theres so much pressure on you to have direction and a clear concept of where you’re going. As soon as I could drive, I wanted to explore the world and capture it on film and image, and all those places that weren’t so far from home were finally accessible to me. Assessment 2 allowed me to capture the confines of a home and the coziness of the environment that I grew up in. For Assessment 3, I wanted to reconfigure the wilderness and encapsulate a setting that is generally quite frightening and intimidating, and layer it with tranquil forest sounds to soften the atmosphere and evoke feelings of “directionlessness”. I used that word to encompass the idea that not having a direction can be okay, and there is peace to be found in that.

I wanted to draw on the ideas of line and texture that we covered in class and utilise the presence of these notions in nature to convey the two contrasting concepts of sanctuary/safety and danger/wilderness, which os heavily present in the images that I captured below.

The feedback that I received from Robbie was positive in the sense that he was impressed with the images that I captured and sequence of the film portion. Going forward and moving into my final tasks for the semester, Robbie would like to see me expand my horizons into more research to reinforce my final products, as well as the following:

• Creating a juxtaposition ominousness through sound and image (cicadas humming to contrast with serene imagery, taking the naked and vulnerable body into the forest which is a place that you wouldn’t anticipate to see nudity, disarm the viewer)
• Scale and symbolism
• Perhaps looking into bush stories, artworks, or poems to inspire the creative portion of the assignment
• Research the history of Australian bush
• The Road Less Travelled Poem by Robert Frost
• Frederick McCubbin painting called “Lost” (1907), of children lost in the bush and the displacement of something so innocent in the wilderness

This project was incredibly humbling in a sense that I never anticipated it to be. Looking at my “home in the world” from different perspective was fascinating; I inhabit this space and engage with it constantly but rarely do I ever take a step back and perceive the environment that I live in. I was really interested in depicting my home from the viewpoint of a third party, and I was inspired by an EP by artist Frank Ocean called nostalgia, ULTRA, which reminisces on older music and incorporates it with modern beats. I wanted to take the visuals of my home, a very sentimental and profound space and amplify it with jarring sounds to an “ultra” degree.

I took the concept of nostalgia and paired it with visuals of my oldest friend, my dog and the spices that my parents use in their cooking. Coming from a very close-knit Sri Lankan background, the kitchen was the hearth of my home and those vivid flavours and smells resonate deeply with memories of my childhood. In a literal sense, the images that linked with the idea of nostalgia were my parent’s wedding photos, my mother’s perfumes and scents that I associate only with her, a Sri Lankan dish called acharu (pineapple pickle), and polaroids of my loved ones. These illustrate memories in the most verbatim sense of the phrase. I juxtaposed these warm memories with the grinding, industrial sounds of the oven opening, the lighting stove, boiling water, and the barking of my dogs.

Isolation was the next idea that I wanted to explore. As a person who loves their space and time alone, I wanted to represent my own personal space within my home: my bedroom. I took the images of the books and roses on my bedside, white sheets, and the view from my bed and contrasted those with the sounds of a fan turning on, a running shower, a lighter, and stirring coffee to depict the things I do when I look for an escape. These images don’t have the same warmth that the others do and that is deliberate to complement the eeriness of the fingers typing on the keyboard and the ticking clock.

Belonging was the next concept that I wanted to portray through audio and visuals. Growing up in a very religious and conservative household, identifying with the LGBTIQIA+ community was difficult, and coming out was gruelling. My very loving family eventually came around and gave me a sense of belonging and I wanted to convey that.  The image of the pride flag, the image of my dad engaging in a culturally “masculine” activity such as fishing, my mums sewing machine, and the horseshoes that my mum carried down the aisle are symbols of my belonging within my own home, complemented by the sounds of hymns, the news, a sewing machine, and a door unlocking.

Sanctuary was the final concept that I wanted to illustrate in the home, and I did this through using visuals and audio that make the audience feel simultaneously alert and safe. The light turning off and the curtains drawing shut can convey the feeling of keeping something out, or alternatively keeping something in. I used the sound of the smoke alarm, birds chirping, a window being pulled open and a door being shut and clashed them with warm and cozy images of knitting yarn, handmade quilts, the pictures on the fridge, and paintings on the walls.

The overall feedback from the class was that the exhibition was very sentimental, yet still effective.

Polo Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger are two iconic high-end fashion brands that operate internationally, which has made them subject to Adaptation (Customisation) Globalisation. This indicates that there is a varied marketing mix that changes with local preferences between countries, however the products and services are similar. The prestigious quality of the products that both brands produce is renowned and is a considerable strength respectively, however each brand has weaknesses that can be overcome by targeted communication and marketing strategies.

Cross-Cultural Context becomes especially significant when Globalisation within an organisation begins to occur due to human, technological, and economical rationale (John Fien, 2010). Polo Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger are global brands that have global websites, which can be customised to suit each country. This reinforces brand relationships between the company and their audience, and also makes their products attainable and appealing to a larger international demographic on the basis that more customers can understand and relate to the content that is being marketed to them.

For example, when the “Change Country” menu is accessed on the Ralph Lauren Global website, the customer is able to select from a range of countries in order to view specific campaigns, prices, and languages. Ralph Lauren International has a particular focus on the “Polo” Range, a variety of casual mens sportswear, which embodies high brand salience and imagery. (see Fig. 1).

Figure 1

Alternatively, the Ralph Lauren China website has a far more simplified and minimal layout and are instead driving the “Leading Man” Campaign, which prioritises tailored suits and features Japanese actor and dancer Ryōhei Kurosawa, known by the stage name Akira (see Fig. 2). “Leading Man” is a witty double entendre that utilises Akira’s acting career, in conjunction with the brand imagery that being a “leading man” evokes in relation to the style and fashion that Ralph Lauren represents.

Figure 2

Tommy Hilfiger Global has a similar layout and approach, however their target demographic was a younger audience. The bulk of the webpage is consumed by a soundless video of Gigi and Bella Hadid, Winnie Harlow and a plethora of younger, fresh-faced models with large social media followings modelling the TommyXGigi Campaign, (see Fig. 3). Tommy Hilfiger Italy, however, has a primary focus on intimates and outfit construction (see Fig. 4).

Figure 3

Figure 4

According to the Customer-Based Brand Equity Model, these are key factors that contribute to brand

According to the Customer-Based Brand Equity Model, these are key factors that contribute to brand identity, brand meaning, brand response, and brand relationship. The identity of these two iconic brands is conveyed through the layout, accessibility, content, and logos that are represented on the respective websites. There is a certain elegance and poise on the Ralph Lauren website, which contrasts with the vibrancy and energetic dynamic of the Tommy Hilfiger website.

In spite of designing and producing similar products, each website evokes different brand meaning in the sense that Ralph Lauren is an extremely refined high-end fashion label aimed at men, women, and families, who present as very civilised and polished. Over recent years, Tommy Hilfiger has taken their brand narrative in a different direction to become a label that embodies a younger market of vivid and fashionably casual clothing.

The consumer gravitates towards these brands because of the quality and rapport that they have established over the years. Ralph  Lauren globally made over 7 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2016, making it the ninth-biggest apparel retailer in the world in 2015 according to Apparel Magazine. Consumers are responding considerably well to the brand’s marketing strategies and the quality of the upscale lifestyle items. Tommy Hilfiger made a similar revenue in the same year of 6.6 billion U.S. dollars, and it’s possible that spike occurred that year due to the launch of TommyXGigi, hence the reason why that campaign is still being driven in 2018.

The brands are both constantly staying in touch and maintaining brand relationships with their audiences through constant posts on social media platforms, such as Instagram and Twitter. These posts are in relation to upcoming product launches, events, collaborations, and sales. These platforms bridge the gap between brand and consumer and help audiences feel closer to the brand and its ambassadors. (see Fig. 5 and 6)

Figure 5

Figure 6

Branding ultimately boils down to “adding emotional meaning to a product or service, a strong layer of emotional affinity, or identification between brand and constituent” (Bergstrom, Blumenthol & Crothers, 2002, p.134). While producing similar products but marketing to different demographics, each brand has a very unique brand narrative. Ralph Lauren places a key focus on the way in which the past has impacted the brand presently, and what the future holds for both them and the consumer. This is encapsulated in their Instagram bio: “Iconic American style, rewritten for today”. They emphasise the importance of consumer insights and very inclusively orbit around the role of their customers in their successes and profit (see Fig. 7). Tommy Hilfiger alternatively focuses on promoting their sub-brands and takes a more retail marketing approach by highlighting their broad distribution network and their enormous revenue (see Fig. 8).

Figure 7

Figure 8

Overall, Ralph Lauren’s values align with their brand narrative, and their products are targeted extremely efficiently towards the larger portion of their demographic, which is their male audiences. However, on both the global website as well as the Chinese website, the dominant advertisements were for their menswear ranges, whether that was the Polo Range or the “Leading Man” campaign. In order to facilitate economic and demographic growth within the business, it would be in their best interests to more actively promote their women’s and children’s ranges, and perhaps even represent teenagers and millennials, in order to more efficiently reach that segment of their audience.

According to the official Tommy Hilfiger Instagram bio, their intended dynamic is “fresh, fun, [and] sharp”, and this is translated through their social media presence, inclusive advertisement campaigns, and invigorated brand ambassadors. In spite of this, their brand narrative isn’t an accurate representation of these values and instead is based around driving sales and marketing without having a primary focus on their audience and in order to cultivate financial success, the Company Overview should be reassessed to prioritise their audience.

Below are SWOT Analyses that outline the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats that are present in both brands.

References:

• Bergstrom, A., Blumenthal, D. and Crothers, S. (2002). Why Internal Branding Matters: The Case of Saab. Corporate Reputation Review, 5(2-3), pp.133-142.
• Fien, J. (2010). Module 18: Globalisation. [online] Unesco.org. Available at: http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/mods/theme_c/mod18.html [Accessed 20 Mar. 2018].
• www.statista.com. (2018). Topic: Ralph Lauren Statistics. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/topics/1864/ralph-lauren/ [Accessed 20 Mar. 2018].
• statista.com. (2018). PVH Corporation’s retail sales worldwide 2016. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/285377/pvh-corporation-s-global-retail-sales-2012-by-brand/ [Accessed 20 Mar. 2018].

When I selected Everyone’s a Critic as my studio for Semester 2 of the second year of my Bachelor of Communications (Media), I was a film buff who wanted to develop my skills as a writer. The concept that I wanted to interpret more profoundly was the evolving role of social media in the criticism industry, and the way in which those who have access to social media platforms utilise their voice as critics. Ultimately, I learned about authority in critical writing and was able to establish my own voice as a writer, enabling me to cultivate confidence in my opinions and style. This has further accredited my ability to curate my writing and question the art of “curationism” in a society so saturated with curators.

It is clear that social media is a platform that enables anyone with an iPhone to check-in, tweet, gram and yelp their opinions and experiences to anyone, and it was this semester that I learned to question what makes me qualified to critique a restaurant or the customer service that I have received at a store. Sure, I may have certain social media applications installed on my phone and sure, there is a “recommend” or “review” feature on each of them, but in comparison to professional critics, how valid or sustainable is my opinion? Bashing a company, film, employee, brand, TV show, book, or eatery on social media isn’t criticism. We eventually learned through screening City of Gold (2015) how important criticism can be and our abilities to change peoples lives through our voices. In the documentary, Jonathan Gold, an internationally renowned critic, was able to improve the quality of life for small businesses by critiquing their cuisine. Ultimately, the role of the critic may revolve around constant analytical thinking and the ability to take a stance on even the most trivial subjects, however it was integral for us to understand and distinguish between writing from a critical perspective, and writing from a criticising perspective.

Another aspect of the role of the critic, which goes hand in hand with establishing my voice as a writer and questioning what enables me to critique subjectively, is authority. This topic makes me reminiscent of the workshop that we had with Alex Heller-Nicholas, an incredibly talented critical writer, during which she asked us “who the hell are you?”. That question resonated with me and amidst a mild existential crisis I found an incredibly valuable lesson: writing with authority often begins with writing with conviction. I struggled for most of the semester to discover my “voice” as a writer, and it was only when I started writing about topics that I was passionate about and/or interested in that I assumed the voice writer I wanted to be. My “Eureka!” Moment came in the critical review that I wrote on Lick The Star (1999, dir. Sofia Coppola). I took a feminist perspective and was able to cut from the fabric of myself as a person to fashion the version of myself as a critical writer. I had to teach myself to write with the self-assurance that my words would articulate my opinions and with each piece I wrote, my voice became stronger and more assertive.

The word “curation” is textbook defined as the ability to “select, organise, and look after the items in a collection or exhibition”. This definition feels outdated for the modern society that we currently live in. It would seem that anyone with a Pinterest board or an Instagram feed is a curator; selecting, organising and maintaining the features of their online presence, establishing a following and managing the content that represents them as an individual, or as a brand. Curationism is the ability to control the themes and subjects of the material that is associated with the core values of the curator, and in one way or another, we are all curators. When we were given this topic to discuss, I initially scoffed at the thought of referring to myself as a curator for owning something as trivial as a blog, but upon further consideration, the notion of curation made a lot more sense. It was only when I felt comfortable with my authoritative voice that I could also feel comfortable curating the content that I published in order to maintain the persona of the voice that I had worked so hard to establish. The role of the critic had now extended past self-doubt and self-exploration, and had delved into self-awareness.

This semester I learned that the role of the critic is ever-changing and complicated. I, however, watered it down and simplified it to three simple lessons that I learned on my journey to critical self-discovery: Contrive, Canvass and Curate. Contriving is the phase in which I looked at criticism as a modern art accessible to all, and attempted to understand what makes me qualified or competent enough to critique subject matter. Canvassing was the point at which I was challenged with establishing my voice and perspective as a writer. Finally, I learned the skill of curation, and developed the ability to organise and exhibit as a reflection of myself. Everyone’s a Critic granted me with the skills, confidence and competence to write and critique, and I am extremely proud of the progress that I was able to make through this studio.

Today we were lucky enough to have a session with Senses of Cinema Editor and film critic on Melbourne radio station Triple R, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. We discussed authorship and readership, as well as having a screening of the short film “I’m You, Dickhead”, directed by Lucas Testro. We were then tasked with writing a 200-400 word capsule review of the short, which would be critiqued by our peers. As with any crit session, I find it to be incredibly unnerving when someone reads my work, specifically someone who is unfamiliar with my ever-developing authoritative voice as a writer.

Here is a short excerpt from the piece that I was able to come up with in the 30 minutes that we were allocated for this task:

“This existential affirmation is cushioned with earnestly crude and wholeheartedly Australian humour, which exists in an exclusive subculture of dickhead-ery that only true blues can comprehend.”

Other topics that were covered by Alex included:

• Who do you think you are? Why do people care what I am saying? What validates my authority as a writer?
• Keep audience in mind in relation to the film being discussed.
• The amount that you must take in depends on the scale of the writing, what you have to say and how many words you say it in.
• Context and history of the film is integral to writing a quality piece.
• Opinions and individual taste are not criticism.

Week 7 brought about a pitching session for the blog posts that will eventually be posted on our anthology website. We dissected each others ideas and gave feedback to one another to help tease out the crux of our classmates pitches, to ensure that their pieces were as interesting and engaging as possible.

The idea that I pitched was an explorative piece about musician Maggie Rogers and her rise to fame in the music industry, as well as speculation about where her career could possibly lead and the the release of new music as an emerging artist. I want to specifically focus on her very otherworldly and distinctive sound, and hone in on the inspirations behind her music.

On Wednesdays class we covered all things grammar and common mistakes that were made in PB2. We touched on the importance of reading our writing out loud to help pick up on simple mistakes, as well as the difference between passive and active voices. Other topics that came up were grammatical errors such as the difference between colons and semicolons and “it’s” versus “its”. A passive voice is a trap that I’ve found myself in, specifically in critical writing and my journey to find my voice as a writer, and that is something I’ve really been working on in my current work.

This week we discussed the textbook definition and the broadly-accepted interpretation of the word “curator”. By definition, the term curator refers to

a keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection.

However, in the 21st Century, that definition has shifted to curators of a different sense; bloggers, social media influencers, and basically anyone with a Pinterest or Instagram account. We discussed what gives a “curator” the responsibility or qualifications to refer to themselves as such. Is it a Bachelor degree or PhD that grants a person the eligibility or right to curate? Or do the lines blur with the actual content that is being curated? We read two articles that are prime examples of cultural criticism, which is a branch of critical writing. These two pieces speculate about the ever-evolving definition of curationism in popular culture. David Balzer’s article has a disparaging tone about social media curators, whereas Alexandra Molotkows piece had a more interesting insight into the role of the curator. According to Molotkow,

The curator’s ascent is partly the effect of something sweet: Through the torrent of stuff, and beyond the hierarchies of taste and cultivation, we are really just looking for the sense of someone else.

I feel that this encapsulates our journey and purpose as writers delving into criticism and curationism.

This week in Everyone’s a Critic we were challenged in our first class to give one another feedback on either our PB2 drafts, or on other critical reviews that we have been working on. For a lot of us, giving and receiving feedback can be awkward and uncomfortable, but we are steadily growing better at it. As a very insecure person, I can tend to be very critical of myself and my own work in a very negative or debilitating way, so receiving feedback from other people enables me to see the aspects of my work that are positive and strong.

Alexia read only the first sentence of our reviews, and gave us some excellent advice to take on for our writing across all fields: to always rewrite your introductory sentence and see how that manipulates the quality and both yours and other readers perception of the piece.

Wednesday’s class was a Q&A session with renowned critics Philippa Hawker and Simran Hans. Both writers had a very distinct and individual style, which was conveyed even in their mannerisms and their answers to our questions.

The aspect of the session that I found the most useful and informative was the discussion on finding and developing an authoritative voice through our writing. Simran and Philippa’s best advice was that the more you write, the more your voice as a writer will establish itself. They both made it clear that translating how you feel about something and articulating those emotions is an excellent way to tease out ideas about the kind of writer you want to be.

Other really interesting insights included:

• How to pitch a piece to a publication in a way that is efficient, deliberate and authentic. Pitch a story, not an idea. 
• When freelancing, always establish upfront whether it is a paid job or not.
• Tailor pitches to the respective publication.
• Social media platforms such as Twitter can be useful networking tools, however you must tailor your posts to the target audience.

Week 3 brought about our first screening, which was City of Gold, directed by Laura Gabbert. The film documents Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold through his culinary adventures through Los Angeles.

The aspects of the documentary that stood out to me the most were the ways in which a simple review could potentially change the lives of the small business owners whose traditional and modernised cuisines fly under the radar in the critical community of L.A. It made the whole concept of critical writing so much more meaningful in the sense that there is an entire society of critics dedicated solely to providing a voice for those who don’t have the platform to do so themselves.

We were tasked with taking notes on the film to prepare us to write a critical review of it, thus making another addition to our steadily growing portfolios.

We did a close reading on one of Gold’s published reviews in the L.A. Times and analysed his writing style, honing in on his descriptive language and ability to engage audiences so profoundly that their mouth waters.