The following notes were made in the context of a lecture which described Artist James Pyman's reflections and his early life and up-bringing in Eastbourne. During this time the photographer Tony Ray Jones described Eastbourne as "a mug of the seaside".
The notions of class are formed very early in our lives and it seems that Tony Ray Jones's photographs, which were produced with Class and Culture as a thematic focus, seem quite different from the recollections that James makes of his own childhood... There are often a number of urban myths which can be propogated positively or negatively. For example in Southcliff Tower, apparently the famous "James Bond" actor, Roger Moore lived in the penthouse at that address, however, this in fact was pure rumour and supposition.
As we grow up we are often influenced by these urban myths and untruths.
The environment in which we grow up in, has a massive effect on our outlook on life, as adults. James (and to some degree myself) were brought up in an era that would remember television series like "Pogel's Wood" created in 1965 by Smallfilms Ltd, together with the comic books like Pippin etc. We were influenced by films like Eduardo Palozzi's 1947 film "I was a rich man's plaything" and the public at large were also influenced on their understanding of contemporary art by films such as "The Rebel" with Jonathan Hancock. This is a great example of the clash between high class and low class appreciation of art.
Around this time also in the 1960s, musical bands were emerging such as "The Who", they were significantly influenced by Gustaf Metzer and his destructionist art works, such as the example where he painted acid onto canvas in order to burn through the canvas as "a destructive statement". At the time this led to highly conflicting and charged issues regarding taste and class.
Considered too the work of Richard Hamilton and "Swingeing London 67" (1967) which helped to establish low and high class culture mixing together.
The next decade which was the 1970s was the decade that some people suggest that taste forgot.
There were television programs such as "The Likely Lads" which addressed culture and conflicts of understanding, where aspiring middle-class and conventional working class are thrust together.
But nothing was really changing in how people had been influenced either. Art, which by now was significantly excercised through Television and films had a massive effect since it's inception at the start of the century, television just being a kind of extension to film from the 1950s...
However, a landmark film called "the Exorcist" created a great stir in cultural society in 1973, where there were emerging "supernatural attempts of escapism" and the daily tabloid newspaper The Sun, suggested that a psychological "war" upon the public was actually in full progress during the Northern Ireland troubles. - It was suggested that the United Kingdom and in this case British army had a "Black Operations group" which consisted of a British army personnel who were actually engaged to look at witchcraft as a way for the MP Wallis and the Information Policy Unit of the British Government to create fear amongst the Irish, and suggested that British military intelligence used this fear in order to manipulate the devout mostly Catholic public in Ireland.
Popular culture and the imagery connected to it through Television during the early 1970s had a strong surrealist sort of view. In 1976 this very much changed however, as the whole outlook of culture of "the old guard" at this time were confronted with the new pop group known as "the sex pistols" who appeared on the BBC Today programme. This had an immediate impact on the culture of the time with a massive shift from high art to the punk and collage etc. A band known as "the Slits" were a woman only group formed in 1977, a period of particular turmoil. (See the video of "the Slits" and the aggressive style of disconnected confusion, the rather anarchic, fight against conventional culture through the song "typical girls" and The Slit's attempt to rebel against the old guard stereotypes, based on "how boys and girls should be", in an idealised fashion.
"Zyclone B" and the Throbbing Gristle band, provided the birth of the 'industrial' punk culture and irony in 1979, exemplified in "cosy fan tutti" and Genesis (Neal Megson). Another example would be the Sleaford Mods video "Tiswas" which is a montage of the previous 50 years.
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