hitchcock-esque

The images we looked at last class yesterday tied into the readings, "What is Art" and "On Meaning". By looking at these images it was easier to understand the ideas of denotation and connotation. I was in the second group, and the images could have all had completely different meanings if they had been ads, or in some cases, if they had not. We discussed in our group that the first image could have been less intimate and personal if at the bottom it read, "Aveeno Skin Care". Another example is the khaki ad. The text connotes that the image was designed to sell khakis. Without it, the image would just be an interesting portrait of Jack Kerouac.

My favorite image was the final one, which i posted above. It reminded me of an old Hitchcock movie, mysterious and somewhat dark. Your eyes have to follow hers, wondering what she's looking at or if she's looking away from something. This image is another prime example of what text could do to an image. If there was bold text "It's Coming....2/13/09", the viewer would be more like, oohh what's coming, I want to see that movie. They would lose sight of the woman and statement she is trying to make.

artist une

Velvet-Strike

Anne-Marie Schleiner, Joan Leandre, and Brody Condon's work addresses the subject and overall violence of video games post the tragedies of September 11, 2001. Surrounding the months after the attacks, video games appeared that encouraged the players to destroy terrorists without explaining the complexities of the situation.
They responded with Velvet-Strike, a pseudo interactive game that allows the gamer to insert graffiti messages of love and peace along with digital protests instead of the violence. Velvet-Strike is designed to bring awareness to the over simplification of world issues portrayed in video and internet games and hopefully bring people's attention to what is really going on in the world.
What really drew me to these artists was not the work, but one of the quotes on their artist page, which read, "Reality is up for grabs. The real needs to be remade by us." I felt like that tied into the readings we were assigned this week on the complexity of what art is. I've always believed that art in someway is a response to something greater, which is what these artists try to convey. "Reality" is subjective, and we have the opportunity to create it for better or worse. They have created a game that criticizes the amount of violence accepted by society and allow others to voice their opinions on the matter as well. It's art that only furthers more art, which to me is very cool.