Digital remixing

So far, I'm not that happy with how my remixes are coming out. I have ideas that seem really great in my head, but when I try to execute them, they are less than stellar. Still, I'm sure that with some effort, they will get better.

My first idea was to mock the images of brutalized animals in vegetarian/animal rights ads by showing a "brutalized" carrot on a cutting board, bleeding, with its bones visible:


Somehow, though, I don't think it draws up much of an emotional response of any kind. So I modified it to make it more cartoonish:


My next effort refers to PETA's latest ad campaign aimed to discourage people from eating fish: sea kittens.



My first attempt to imitate this approach to discouraging carnivorous activity is a "Grazing Teddy Bear" or "Teddy Bear on the Range".



This one is a pretty primitive first draft, but I intend to work on making a more elaborate one in the coming week.

Reading Images - Chapter 1

One of the most interesting statements that Kress and van Leeuwen make in the first chapter relates to power. On page 13, they write:

Communication requires that participants make their messages maximally understandable in a particular context... On the other hand, communication takes place in social structures which are inevitably marked by power differences, and this affects how each participant understands the notion of "maximal understanding." Participants in positions of power can force other participants into greater efforts of interpretation.

It seems that this is true in many aspects of life, visual and otherwise. An obvious example of this may be the stereotypical moody boss who barks out a vague set of orders, leaving the people working for him to guess at his exact meaning in an attempt to meet his unclear demands. Yet we can see this at play in many more subtle settings. A concept may be mentioned by a professor without extensive explanation or clarity, because the professor knows that even without an explanation, students will need to research it in order to pass an exam. My experience in technical translation has also shown me that instruction manuals for home assembly of various products (furniture, etc.) tend to be more simple and clear than those for industrial devices. Now clearly, this is due in part to the presumed expertise of the user: an industrial engineer is assumed to have a wealth of knowledge and therefore require significantly less technical explanation than a college student assembling a computer desk for the first time. Still, is it possible that there are some dynamics of power at play? If the college student is frustrated with the assembly instructions, he may simply return the desk and buy another one from a different manufacturer. However, an engineer is responsible for doing her job, and figuring out how to follow the directions in her manual, regardless of how unclear the directions may be.

Another topic that the authors bring up is how visual ideas may be represented through varying means that are significant to the artist in what they represent to him or her. The notable example given is that of a 3-year-old boy, whose drawing of a car does not highlight its shape, but rather the circular motion of its wheels (in his representation through circles). In this way, the meaning of the resulting picture may not be immediately clear to an outside observer without an explanation, but the image carries clear meaning to its creator. Because of the child's background of knowledge and associations, this set of symbols is entirely logical and meaningful. Both this book and our previous text talk about the importance of context and background knowledge in interpreting images. Reading Images mentions the fact that we may perceive artistic artifacts from other cultures as beautiful, interesting, or bizarre, but we may be incapable of understanding their meaning because we are not a part of that culture, and do not have the background information and cultural associations that allow particular symbols to represent concrete ideas.

But I would like to return to the idea of visual representation through the motion of creating an image. I decided to search for examples of modern art that employ associations of motion, rather than visual associations, in making a painting.

One well-known artist who focused on motion in the creation of his paintings was Jackson Pollock. He eschewed the easel and paintbrush, and preferred unconventional tools, such as sticks, trowels, and knives, as well as dripping and splattering paint onto a canvas on the floor from all four sides.



His work was part of the Action Painting movement, which eschewed the conventional use of paintbrushes to create careful images, and instead focused on the physical act of producing the painting as an important element of the art itself. This work by Franz Kline is also a well-known example of action painting:

Chapters 9 and 10

In Chapter 9, which discusses imagery in relation to science and biology, I was initially surprised by the very public spectacles of anatomy theaters in past centuries, where cadavers were operated on in displays before large crowds, as a form of entertainment. Today, it seems improbable that people would flock together to an arena to watch a body get sliced apart and see what is inside. It then occurred to me, however, that this particular practice in "looking" within bodies is alive and well today, through television. It's true that the popularity of medically-themed television shows can be attributed to many factors, ranging from the personal drama in the medical staff's relationships to fascination with rare and surprising medical cases (a fascination whose basis have may have nothing to do with visual elements). Still, doesn't at least part of the interest in shows such as Grey's Anatomy stem from a voyeuristic desire to see inside people's bodies and to vicariously experience the characters' excitement in cutting people up?



A quick google search reveals (not surprisingly) that in this modern version of the anatomic arena, all of the blood and organs shown are fake. This brings us back to issues addressed at the beginning of the book; namely, how real is an image that is manipulated or staged? Is the entertainment value of these shows affected by the fact that these portrayals of the human body do not use real organs? And if these organs were used in a program intended for medical education, would it matter more than the body components are fake, even if they were portrayed in an exact, true-to-life manner?



In Chapter 10, the authors address the global flow of visual culture. One of the issues discussed is the ubiquity of certain companies (particularly restaurants and coffeehouses) that are spread throughout the world, which allow individuals in many places that are distant from one another to experience the same atmosphere (including visual elements).

However, this is not entirely true. The book speaks about the relationship between globalization and localization, and it is a relationship that can be observed in even such seemingly cloned franchises as McDonald's restaurants. All around the world, adjustments are made to accommodate local culture--for example, the Maharaja Mac in India, which is made of lamb or chicken (beef and pork are not served for religious reasons). Localized items are also offered simply to accomodate local tastes: hence the McKebab in Israel, McKrokets (Dutch croquettes) in the Netherlands, the Bulgogi Burger in South Korea, and the Korokke Burger in Japan, which is a sandwich with breaded mashed potatoes, shredded cabbage, and katsu sauce. Several Asian countries also offer burgers whose contents are sandwiched between two patties of glutinous rice.



Still, when a large global corporation takes elements of local culture and incorporates them into their product line, which is the winner, local culture or globalized influence? Let us look at an example more directly tied to images: if a beauty product company from an outside culture creates billboard advertisements that use local models and elements of local decor to sell its product line, does it still run the risk of influencing another culture's perceptions by representing its own standard of beauty as ideal?

Chapters 7 and 8

In discussing advertising and postmodernism, Sturken and Cartwright spend a lot of time talking about consumer culture and its effect on modern society. It is interesting to look at the way that consumer culture developed over the course of time, on the initial basis that shopping was not merely a chore but something one could do for pleasure, as a way to engage the senses (particularly, the visual). On p. 270 and 271, the authors discuss the importance that visual pleasure played in the development of this trend: shopping arcades and the first department stores were designed in visually appealing ways that were novel for that era. It is interesting to make this connection to the shopping cultures in today's world, and how this idea was integrated into different societies. In the United States, the modern version of the 19th century arcade is the shopping mall. Indeed, when entering the mall, one is often surrounded by appealing visuals (as well as sounds and smells), with everything possible being done to entice the shopper to stay a while-- all necessary amenities, such as food courts, restrooms, and sometimes even message parlors, are available within its confines. What is interesting is that although malls are often fully-indoor facilities, it is increasingly common to find malls (particularly upscale ones) that emulate an outdoor environment: floors made to look like cobblestone streets, outer shop walls that look like outdoor storefronts, etc. I find this curious because the early arcades were aimed at providing the opposite: a shopping experiences shielded from all that is outside, in a place where the sounds, smells, and sensations of street life do not affect the shopper. Clearly, in today's outdoor-like malls, one could say that the best of both worlds is achieved: we are given the illusion of being outdoors, but it is the "fake" outdoors, without any bothersome realities such as inclement weather, dirt, or unsavory smells. The book addresses this kind of meta-reality in Chapter 8, when discussing World Park in Beijing, where replicas of various famous landmarks around the world are displayed. It is to note that, like Chinese tourists visiting the "Eiffel Tower" at the World Park without ever actually seeing the real tower, some city- or suburb-dwelling Americans have never actually had the experience of shopping on the Main Street of a small American city; instead, their point of reference for this is the simulated experience provided by malls that Emulate a small-town shopping street.