So Glad To Meet You Angeles

Made up my mind to make a new start, Going to California with an aching in my heart. Someone told me there’s a girl out there With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.
- Led Zeppelin Going to California

It’s been a whole year since I’ve lived in Los Angeles, and though it seems like such a short time, I’ve really made a home here. I feel more at home here than I do in Las Vegas, where I’ve lived for nearly seventeen years. It’s December 16th, and come December 20th, Los Angeles will become yet another place I visit, rather than call home. I’ve always had such a vivid picture of LA painted in my tiny head - - it was the place where Zeppelin made a second home, where The Doors ran mad in Venice Beach and got kicked out of The Whiskey for crudeness, it’s where Anthony Kiedis shot up heroine under the bridge, and it’s where I surfed, studied, raved and played for one of the best years of my life. I’ve had some wild adventures and have met and lived with some of the most inspiring people here, and I feel all the better for it, so I suppose this blog is about how I plan to immortalize my experience here in LA through media, but really, it’s about saying goodbye.

Media played a huge role in making me come out to LA to go to school at USC. Don’t get me wrong, USC is reason enough to go, but really, I came for the LA vision that I had in my head. This vision that was melded together with various song lyrics, rock stories and serene pictures of six foot swells in El Porto. I’m here now because I was chasing an idea of California that was influenced by images such as these:

I chased LA because of the words of Anthony Kiedis - - "I drive on her streets cause shes my companion I walk through her hills cause she knows who I am She sees my good deeds And she kisses me windy I never worry Now that is a lie", Robert Plant - - "The sea was red and the sky was grey,Wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today." and those of Jim Morrison - -"Where the little girls in their hollywood bungalows Are you a lucky little lady in the city of light Or just another lost angel...city of night." I know it sounds a tad lame, maybe even contrived, but these are the guys I "grew up with" in a sense, and these are the art forms that really made a lasting impact on my perception of the world. My only hope now is that I can create something that will pay tribute to my muses, if not influence someone else's little world.

Anyways, I've learned a lot this semester working with the IML and want to create a pastiche of media images and sounds to pay tribute to my time here. It'll be a project juxtaposing images of the past with images of my experiences in Los Angeles. I've always been a bit stuck in the past, in the sense that I can't get over old rock legends and their stories. I probably know more about Zeppelin and The Doors than I do about any contemporary musician. Although they've been influential in my life, I think it's time to let them go and start living in the present - - I think making a short film including their influences with where I am today will help me transition back to Vegas without going crazy and missing this city too much. Los Angeles may have terrible air quality and it may be a place where everyone thinks that they are celebrities, but for me, it's my muse - - it's a place where I wake up feeling like crap and go to sleep feeling electrified - - alive. There's so much going on here and for those of you who get to stay - - any day here could be the best day of your life, so stop wasting time.

Jets are like comets at sunset

“…that this whole global, yet American, postmodern culture is the internal and superstructural expression of a whole new wave of American military and economic domination throughout the world; in this sense, as throughout class history, the underside of culture is blood, torture, death, and terror” (Jameson 31).

Quote Analysis
Jameson critiques the way in which a postmodern capitalist society has been built on blood and terror. Although the system appears to be progressive, advanced and stable, it also masks the way in which culture is produced. America has gained world power through its overt use of hegemonic bullying, military buildup, nuclear proliferation and war. However, this culture has been removed from the everyday lives of citizens. As Americans, we often feel powerless when it comes to our country’s political decisions, feeling as though we are not responsible for the spilled blood. For my project, I would like to create an environment where users could experience their direct connection with the terror that is produced in our society. The goal of the project would be to focus on our individual responsibility rather than making the outcomes of terror a global responsibility left to the government to solve.

Project Idea Take One
So for my first attempt at tackling the monster which is Adobe Flash Professional 8, I decided I would focus my argument on consumer responsibility, or rather, lack thereof. I wrote up a little blurb about it which said things like this:

In this project I would set up what looks like an online store. Users would have many products they could purchase. They would start with a set amount of money. Their goal would be to keep their money so they could spend more. However, depending on what products they buy, they could potentially loose more money. The goal would be to show how buyers need to be responsible when choosing where or what to buy. For instance I’d have some clothes from Bebe or Guess, ones that are undoubtedly made in sweatshops in low income parts of Asia. If the user decides to buy these products the environment would change and they’d be shown a clip of a horrifying scene in a sweatshop. Also, there would be a Walmart section, where users could again choose from various products. However, if they choose to buy from Walmart, the screen will then show a video or sound clip that demonstrates the effects of urban sprawl or how women who work for Walmart are still paid less than men. There could be many different products from various companies, but in every instance there would be a negative impact to them. I would hope that users would become interested in finding what products do not cause blood, torture, terror or death. However, for the sake of trying to make the site reflect postmodernism, everything would have a negative impact. Therefore making it the responsibility of the user to determine what is true and what is not, and how they can take responsibility for some of the outcomes and hopefully change the way they consume.

This didn’t work out
1. In retrospect, this idea was boring to me. It was too obvious and wasn’t getting the creative juices flowing.
2. I didn’t have the Flash skills to create this environment, let alone create it well enough to distract from the fact that my argument was so general and boring.

Project Idea Take Two
I decided to focus on the part of the quote that says “the underside of culture is blood, torture, death, and terror.” Instead of focusing on consumerism and exploitation, I wanted to focus on “nuclear culture.” I feel that we are a society that often throws around the terms “nuclear war,” “nukes,” “a bomb,” “proliferation,” and “nuclear deterrence” without really thinking about what those words imply, let alone do to actual people, countries, and nations. I feel as though our culture oftentimes revolves around nuclear tactics, but that we have become numb to their actual meanings and functions in society. For instance, “nukes” sounds like some adorable lovechild that North Korea and Iraq have made in their spare time, when in fact it is capable of things like this. So my project aims at taking a closer look into nuclear culture, the things we justify with it, and the way in which we don’t take responsibility for its use. Nuclear deterrence is like a performance, a play in a theater – we individuals as the audience watching the state play all the parts on stage – They do this because they refuse to take responsibility for their own will to violence and for finding solutions to problems – this obsession with the state as the locus of violence precludes us from examining our own violence and actually solving the problem. Nuclear deterrence entrenches state based activism – it forces us to look to the state to solve other problems because we need an institution that is strong enough to scare other countries – This is bad because when the state has the power to save life – it implicitly has the power to take life – this mass genocide ultimately culminates in extinction. By refusing to take part in a system that justifies nuclear use through both language and action, we can reclaim our responsibility to enact violence and mobilize some sort of change. Baby steps do matter.

Challenges with Flash
Flash was the hardest software I’ve ever touched, yet probably my favorite because there are so many possibilities with it. I had a lot of trouble with the text because I was coding in action script rather than just typing words exactly where I wanted them. Although this seemed like a useless tool, action script is actually really dynamic and allows creators to do much more with text than simply typing it in where you want it. I made the mistake of driving to class the day Dave gave a Flash tutorial and incidentally popped my tire and spent that afternoon making friends with Arturo the towing and tire guy. I felt as though I had no clue where to begin with flash so resorted to some online research. For anyone that decides to use flash again, or simply has a question on any software, I highly recommend using http://forums.creativecow.net/. It has entire forums where people discuss how to do certain things using Flash, as well as other Adobe products. This site literally saved my project because I could type in something like “how to encode html script while mousing over text on Flash,” and I’d find a forum where someone already had this question and subsequently had an answer for me.

What I think of my project
I think there are a lot of shortcomings - - the most notable one being that this was supposed to be a visual representation of a Jameson quote, and I relied heavily on text. However, there is a point to my project, it is somewhat boring and has trance-like music, but it was the best way I saw fit to express an idea about being “numb to nuclear use.” Since the idea is that the underside of culture relies on justifying mass killings through nuclear weapons, and that we have become so numb to this idea that we don’t do much to prevent it, I wanted an environment that made nuclear war look pretty normal and standard. However, I relied on the text to show that we should not accept this nuclear culture. The text offered questions to the viewer, and though it did not give strict answers, it provided some food for thought so that the viewer could come to his or her conclusions. The song is from Blur’s Jets, which simply says “jets are like comets at sunset.” I thought this was the most appropriate song because it describes something that can be used as a weapon (for instance we are using jets for air raids on Afghanistan now which are killing hundreds of civilians a day) as a beautiful comet at sunset. It juxtaposes something terrifying and deadly with something magnificent and appealing. In the same effect, I think we often forget how deadly nuclear weapons are, and instead, we simply look at it as a means of protection and security. Nukes are like security blankets at sunset. For the most part, I’m happy with my project, but if I were to do it again I would try to get more movement on the page, I had a lot of difficulty with animation and the timeline and I think that really shows.

Post Paper World
Though I may not read Jameson again, I would hope that many more projects will scratch the use of paper and just be interactive assignments like this one. I think there’s a good chance that will happen, not in the near future, but sometime in the future…hopefully sooner than later. The tools we used in this class provided great new ways for learning content, and I want to continue using them in my near future.

Rabbit in your headlights

Watch this music video. Yes it is five whole minutes of your life - - but you must see the end.

Let me catch you up:
This is a music video directed by Jonathan Glazer for Unkle’s first song off of their 1998 release of Psyence Fiction. The track “Rabbit in Your Headlights” features front man Thom Yorke from Radiohead. The song alone is mesmerizing, but when paired with Jonathan Glazer’s visuals…it becomes, like nicotine coated smack syringes - - addicting - - euphoric - - mind altering.

Form and Function
The song consists of lyrics which could be interpreted as little snid bits of social commentary. Thom Yorke sings “I’m a rabbit in your headlights, Christian suburbanite, washed down the toilet, money to burn.” The chorus offers vivid picture of hypocrisy - - the “rabbit in your headlights” symbolizes the disaffected, disenfranchised broke down existence of most men and women, especially those living far below a 6 figured income. He sings this song to the “Christian suburbanite,” who in this instance, is being characterized as the wealthy people who put on a façade of good willingness and charity, but are in fact only judgmental hypocrites who do little to nothing to benefit the good of the people. The “rabbit in your headlights” can also be interpreted as being put on a spotlight and being completely vulnerable to the menacing smiles and apathy of the “Christian suburbanite.”

Jonathan Glazer’s video delivers Unkle’s message by matching the form of the video to the function of the song. The song contains some really heavy content, and instead of backing out on that message or sugar coating the meaning, Glazer goes straight to the jugular on this one and not only does he do the music justice, but he also creates an environment that supports the music’s message rather than hinder it. The video begins with a man walking through a dark highway tunnel. Cars are swerving around him, not even stopping to help him off the road or rolling down a window to see if he is okay. Eventually cars begin to hit him and drive off. The first hit nearly kills the man, but each one thereafter makes him stronger - - strong enough so that he is getting up right away. The man is speaking in what sounds like tongues, or perhaps is merely gibberish. This imagery presents him as a madman, but what is ironic is the people in the car seem madder because of their apathy at the sight of his destruction. I think the visuals here make the song even more complex because we don’t want to believe that this is actually happening, but instead we can think of the whole scene as a metaphor - - the man has become invisible to society in the same way that the poor, homeless and crazy have become invisible to society. We may make sad attempts at showing concern, but in truth, do we ever really do something about it?! We become so comfortable in our lives that the problems of other people are just things we talk about, analyze, commodify, or in this instance, write about.

Spoiler Alert
The end of the video is pure visual candy. It does something the song alone can not - - which is to redeem the subject of the song, the rabbit in your headlights. There are many ways to interpret this, especially since the man is in the position of a crucifix and there are religious overtones throughout the song. Either the man is a symbol of sacrifice for the rest of society, meaning his misery gives the Christian suburbanites something to throw their money at to feel better, or it simply symbolizes humankinds ability to overcome all of the hardships in life and still live on.

Woke this morning and it seemed to me That every night turns out to be...

A little more like Bukowski...

Adam Long's motion graphics depiction of Charles Bukowski's A Little Bomb is terrifying, depressing, apocalyptic, and down right - - Bukowski. It's disturbing form works perfectly with the meaning of the poem, thus displaying how form and content can parallel one another in order to reinforce the message of the medium.

It was interesting to see this video because I am familiar with this poem, and have always regared it as one of my favorites. However, Adam Long's work only made my experience with the text that much better because of the way the form and content work in unison rather than against one another. For me, A Little Atomic Bomb is about our maniacal desire and willingness to destroy the things in life that are either annoying, troubling, or stressful in order to increase the quality of life. Take this clip of the poem:

"o, just give me a little atomic bomb not too much just a little enough to kill a horse in the street but there aren't any horses in the street well, enough to knock the flowers from a bowl but I don't see any flowers in abowl enough then to frighten my love but I don't have any love "

The poem is asking for "just a little atomic bomb", just enough to destroy something. However, the preceding lines always reveal how we don't even have any of the things we wish to annihilate. Bukowski asks for a bomb to frighten his love, but responds by saying he doesnt have any love. The poem not only taps into the nihilistic and destructive tendencies of the human nature, but it could be interpreted as commentary on how human's have destroyed everything beauitful and are left with nothing, yet continue to act on this willingness to violence.

The text in the video works well with the poem because it is fleeting - - it comes and goes in every direction on and off the screen - - somehwat like our fleeting desires to kill and desroy. It is also written in a dark black scripted cursive text which gives off an eery aetshetic. The motion of the text is made even more interesting by the way that a horse will appear when the poem asks for enough of an atomic bomb to kill the horses in the street, or when a zeppelin flies past the screen and drops that bomb, it blows up and smears blackness all over the screen. These aesthetic variables are not only appealing to the eye, but also to the mind. It draws the viewer into the medium of the message as well as drawing them closer to the meaning of the message. Adam Long's creation also pairs form with content by having interaction between the visual icons and the text. For instance, the poem says "give me a little atomic bomb to scrub in my bathtub...like a dirty loveable child," and then the screen motions the viewer in on the child who looks disturbed and spills out the words "I've got a bathtub." The interaction between visual content and scripted content also reinforces the message. If you were reading this poem strictly out of a book, your mind could wander and interpret the message in various ways - - perhaps even mistaking the poem for something pleasant. But if you were to experience this poem through Adam Long's video, he does not leave the viewer with much room to wander or even flirt with an inkling of optimism because his form, content, sound, and visual aesthetic work in conjunction with each other to create an environment which encompasses Bukowski's appeal.

Is This Me?

It's Sunday and I am in Vegas at my local Starbucks. Hi my name is Jazmyn and I'm an addict. Caffeine addict that is. But I am mainly here because my wireless connection at my house went out. Hi my name is Jazmyn and I am also addicted to my wireless connection. I know this probably sounds like too much personal information, but it is relevant I promise! Relevant to the Michael Wesch videos I finally got around to watching - - thanks to my best friend that is T Mobile Wireless.

According to the argument made in his videos, "Web 2.0 links people - - we are the machine."
I agree and disagree.
At times I feel myself completely connected to the world by the fact that I can converse and see friends who are miles, countries and sometimes just rooms away, talk to strangers who I will never see let alone hear their voice on the phone, and post blogs that people I don't know can read.
But at other times, I miss hearing/seeing/being with the people I know, and I sometimes wonder if it would enhance my life if I actually met the people I talked to over the Web. That's not to say I want to meet the creepers who pop in and out of my inbox on myspace or facebook - - I'm talking about the people you converse with on sites like Creative Cow - - colleagues of sorts, creators.

But I suppose every good thing has its shortcomings. And in this case, I think the Web has in fact connected me to so many things that the classroom can not. The message in a Vision of Students Today was very interesting and pretty much hit home for me. Out of pure curiosity and because I finally have some wireless connection, I did some inventory.

In the past month:
-I have written 51 pages for school papers
-I have written 613 pages of email
-I have posted about 150 wall posts on Facebook
-I have spent on average 5 hours in front of my computer a day. Keep in mind I'm usually awake for only 10 hours or so during the day.

O and my roommate pointed out a very peculiar habit I have. As soon as the alarm goes off in the morning I do not run to the bathroom, I do not make my coffee, I do not stay in bed and I do not brush my teeth right away (ya kinda gross). I get up and go STRAIGHT to my laptop and check my email. I never even realized this habit of mine, it seemed so normal to me. The first thing I see in the morning is my inbox. The first thing I hear in the morning is "You've got mail." Am I sick?

I suppose I'm a product of my culture. Or at least that's what I am going to tell myself for now. The machine has not taken over my life, I've made my life part of this machine. Nearly everything I do in a day is contingent on whether or not I have received some sort of data that was sent to me over the wonderful friend which is the Web.

In terms of College and the Web and Technology
If I could reimagine my college experience I'd change many things. I would want everything to be interactive. Even if that meant that there were no computers involved, I'd want more hands on experience. And if I was fortunate enough to have computers in every class, well,I'd bascially throw out the idea of the class and sit in front of my computer from wherever I was and watch class through a screen and interact with other students and my professor through the Web. This would have many advantages. I could travel and be anywhere in the world and still get a degree. I wouldn't have to pay for housing if I was simply moving about all the time. And maybe, just maybe that would mean that tuition costs from great universities weren't so extravagant. All books could be posted online and that alone would cut out a significant portion of costs.

But there are problems with that. Problems that would become mine. In this ideal college setting - - as a student, I win. As a person trying to make a living in the media industry in the future - - I lose. Authorship flies out the window and nearly any publication or media tool becomes free to the public. It has its perks, but at the same time, it's stealing in a way. It's reaping the benefits of one person's work without them getting any entitlement to it.

The Web is a confusing area-no black-no white-just grey. It's getting messy and it is our problem, whether we create it or not, we've surely inherited it.

Revisiting the Web interface of the LasVegasWeekly.com

A little History
This past summer I was an intern for a local magazine that was in the beginning stages of going Web. Our Web site's interface pretty much sucked in terms of aesthetics/user-friendliness. So I made it a point to revisit it this past weekend and little has changed...

The LasVegasWeekly.com is run by the Greenspun Media Group which subsequently runs pretty much everything that makes big money in Vegas. So they have the means to hire the best people to design a Web site and the experience to make it look good. So why am I left with a critical eye and that gut feeling of dissatisfaction? Why isn't the Web site as chic looking as its competitors and enemies? I'm not quite sure.

Design Metaphors

"For the same reasons that schemas and metaphors give us power to conceptualize and reason, so they have power over us. Anything that we rely on constantly, unconsciously, and automatically is so much part of us that it cannot be easily resisted, in large measure because it is barely even noticed. To the extent that we use a conceptual schema or a conceptual metaphor, we accept its validity. Consequently, when someone else uses it, we are predisposed to accept its validity. For this reason, conventionalized schemas and metaphors have persuasive power over us." (Lakoff and Turner, 1989)

Ah yes, the power of metaphor, very important and very effective. When browsing through the LasVegasWeekly.com, I found little to no display of this. I am no sure if I am just slow and am not getting it, or if they think their users are slow and won't get it, or if it is there and I am just that slow user that they did not intend to get it. Either way this is what I see:

1-Too much text
2-Still too much text
3-The text itself is plain and scattered. It does not lead me to think about the nightlife/arts/culture of Vegas. It is plain blue and boring and nothing screams glitter/partying/booze/drugs and debauchery. Maybe Vegas has changed since I've lived there and it is a simpleton suburbia like the Web site suggests. WRONG.
4-Perhaps the busy text and little reliance on user interactivity and imagery does try to set up a metaphor for the content of the Site. Maybe its supposed to represent how busy and fast-moving this city actually is. And if this is the intent of the designers, they really need to get out more and display this more effectively.

Navigation System

Take a look at the Site Map

Does it catch your eye? Are you in the slightest way intrigued to click on the 70+ links?
My guess is probably no, but that's understandable, I mean how many Web designers really put a lot of their sweat and blood into the site map? That's supposed to be left for the actual Site.

Take a look at the Homepage

Granted there is a lot of content, but I feel as though the Site lacks organization. There are so many links, that if a user was not familiar with the magazine, they wouldn't really be pulled in any one direction. Perhaps the videos would catch their attention because it features a huge Play button and the only thing on the homepage which has moving images. Beyond that though, I don't feel the Site pulls the user in any one direction. This could be advantages because the user would not be "controlled" by the Site and have some freedom to browse around. However, I feel the navigation is so overwhelming it detracts users rather than keeping them going from 1 to 2 to 3 to hopefully 20 page views in one visit. Although I find the homepage a bit scattered, I suppose navigating it wouldn't be too much trouble. There are some new added icons for the Beautiful People contest and some pictures next to the feature stories. In terms of aesthetics, it still suffers for me.

Who is the intended audience?

The color scheme of this Site doesn't necessarily scream 18-35 year olds looking for good nightlife, fun, culture and arts in Vegas to me. But I feel the magazine has a broad audience, reaching kids as young as 14 and maybe adults as old at 50. However, if it is going to be competing with other Web sites which offer hundreds of newly uploaded pictures from the nightclub scene and videos of all the hot stuff going on in the city, then they really need to up their anti. Maybe this means using some black, some gold text, glitter - - jazz whatever. Vegas entertainment screams sex to me. And that doesn't mean that a barely clothed woman makes the cut. If its aim is to reach a broad audience but keep the prominent Web users coming (16-35 year olds) then I think the design interface is in need of a makeover.

Why I keep coming back
It's ashame to me that this site isn't designed effectively. The content of the articles, the impressive video editing, the interesting blogs are all great factors. However, the medium is everything. To me, this magazine is the best one in Vegas, they have a good message and they have talented people working behind every word you see. Perhaps as time goes on the actual design and medium will compliment the content rather than inhibit it.

Punctum Image Assignment

The Studium
This is the original Robert Frank’s photo of a woman working in a diner. It looks like that classic 50’s diner, perhaps serving up some strawberry milkshakes alongside a mean hamburger. The woman in the picture looks bored with her job - - that, or she just delivered a great joke and kept her face in a dead-pan. I would think the latter is a stretch. There’s a man in the background, probably a co-worker. There’s also a picture of Santa Claus which hangs over the woman which gives us a sense that it is probably December.

“Where power works “from below,” prevailing forms of selfhood and subjectivity (gender among them) are maintained, not chiefly through physical restraint and coercion, but through individual self surveillance and self correction to norms.” Susan Bordo Unbearable Weight

The Punctum

When I first saw this photograph I was immediately drawn to the words on the menus behind the people. At first they seemed quite boring, advertising 18 cent hot dogs and insisting that the food had “absolutely no fillers.” But then, then I saw that woman’s face. She looked plain miserable, which was especially interesting in contrast to the jolly Santa Claus which hung over her head. I decided to make this image be more than just about a woman working in a restaurant. I deleted some of the text in the menus so that it now only read “Absolutely no fillers,” “Bigger and Better than Ever,” “100% all meat,” and “Jumbo Size.” This menu was no longer offering food products, instead, I wanted it to replicate the kind of “menu” society and popular media often offers to women in terms of how we should present ourselves to the world. Popular magazines such as Seventeen and Cosmo often depict images of the perfectly structured woman. To the same effect, I wanted my photo to offer the woman those expressions. I deleted the man from the picture since he didn’t really do anything for the punctum. I highlighted the woman’s face and her outfit because they emphasized her femininity and worked the best for showing how she colluded with the insistence on an ideal form of beauty. I wanted her to look as though she was aware of what society was imposing on her, and did the best to fit into its strict norms. I debated whether or not to change the Santa Claus, but decided that its faked happiness mimicked the fake happiness which such beauty standards have to offer. I also found it interesting that Christmas generally promotes consumerism in order to have a joyous holiday, and the media promotes consumerism in order for women to be happy with their looks. Make those boobs bigger and better! Jumbo size them lips with such and such a product etc… The menu of slogans hang over the woman, as does the idea that she is a consumer rather than a producer of society, thus making her use self-surveillance in order to fit the norm. The signs lie - - there are fillers.

Barbara Kruger Image assignment

“The mind/body dualism is no mere philosophical position, to be defended or dispensed with by clever argument. Rather, it is a practical metaphysics that has been deployed and socially embodied in medicine, law, literary and artistic representations, the psychological construction of self, interpersonal relationships, popular culture, and advertisements - - a metaphysics which will be deconstructed only through concrete transformation of the institutions and practices that sustain it.” –Susan Bordo Unbearable Weight

The mind/body dualism is nothing new. Descartes made the distinction between the two in his Meditations, Objections, and Responses way back when. He determined that the body was functionally meaningless, a heavy weight which followed our ever thought, yet had no real relevance to our existence. Instead, he reasoned that the mind was the crux of every being’s existence, thus making the body a mere burden.

The original photograph was taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt on V-J Day, Victory over Japan. He may have had the simple intention of catching a joyous moment between two estranged lovers in order to mark the end of war, and the beginning of a happy life. However, I felt that this image exhibits the classic Lacanian “male gaze,” “the determining male gaze that projects its fantasy onto the female figure” (Laura Mulvey). The woman is cradled, powerless, in the arms of her soldier. He dips her and takes her ever-so-romantically by the mouth. I felt that this picture could represent the mind/body dualism in that the man is seen as the victorious, thoughtful subject, whereas the woman is merely a picturesque submissive body. Her face is covered by his hand, and her knees are visibly weakened. She is HIS. She has no subjectivity in this photo; she is a mere piece of flesh in a pretty outfit.

I needed to change this…

Foucault says that discourse consists of “rules and practices that produce meaningful statements and regulate what can be spoken about in different historical periods….a group of statements which provide a means for talking about (and a way of representing knowledge about) a particular topic at a particular historical moment.”

In order to change this representation, I tried using the text to make a sarcastic statement about the idea of a woman’s body and her powerlessness when in the arms of a man. I experimented with placing the text around the figures, below them and simply across them - - none of which really displayed what I wanted. I ended up placing “he missed” directly above the man’s head in order to associate it with his thoughts, his mind. The placement of “his” is quite obvious, it covers her torso in order to show the possessiveness which he has taken for her body, her identity. And finally, “plumbing” is meant to hyper sexualize her body, just as dominant institutions in the media and society have done for women. I tried placing the word so that the “l” and the “b” frame her skirt and point up it. The text is a tad vulgar when you think about it, and that’s how I wanted it. If you can get past the literal connotation that “plumbing” has, you may see that I was trying to show how the body has been so important in determining the value of a woman, even if it means that she becomes plumbing. In this photo, I feel she is exactly that - - hollow, empty and “useful.” It’s not to say that actually are these things or this is how all women are - - no not at all what I am trying to say. This is instead, how we have often been looked upon in society and exhibited as in photographs. The intent of the photo is not to shift power and make the woman look more powerful. Power is not “top-down” and the solution to changing power relations is not to reverse its source to its subject. Instead, power may be seen as networked, a constant struggle between consumer and producer. The photo is meant to be met with disagreement - - “no she is not plumbing!” or “that’s not what he is thinking!” But that, is in fact how society works. Unlike the photo, power relations and gender struggles have become much more benevolent looking and covert. The sheets have been pulled over our eyes, and I urge you to rip them off.

That's no ordinary apple

Unfortunately, these images are not the best, so for all of you who are without a magnifying glass and some 'god'-like patience, here is what the text reads:

"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never ever be boring. Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified? Maybe humans are just the pet alligators that God flushed down the toilet. And if Christ had died from a barbiturate overdose, alone on the bathroom floor, would he be in heaven? The answer is - - there is no answer."

(The quotes are selected from various Chuck Palahniuk books. You know, that guy who wrote Fight Club?)

It takes two to Disco-urse

I apologize for the lame attempts at humor in the headings ahead of time, granted it's not late, but this week has nearly left me with no energy to lift my fingers and type this blog. So it goes.

I have a new found appreciation for the above image. Though it is a 2-d piece, painted on cheap canvas and glued-on newspaper, the text really gets to me. The image of the apple, is for aesthetics. The content of the text alone is controversial, however it aims at making its viewer think, if not question, what it is saying, and what organized religion is saying as well. When it comes to the topic of religion, there are a lot of grey areas. It's a baffling question for me and often a circular process. The idea that we can sin, repent, be redeemed, and repeat...just gets to me. I feel that the typography of the image is important in that its form mimicks its function. It has an uneasy rhythm - - scattered around and around, with some letters bold, others italicized, and some just plain crooked. I believe the message of the text beckons the viewer to QUESTION and perhaps to challenge the walls that have been built up by organized religion. When reading the sentences, one must swivel his or her head aroudn and around to get the message, in the same way, I feel that is how we may sometimes feel when thinking about the existence of a higher being, or really, just thinking about existence in general. The bold text is set atop of random newspaper clippings, which I think give the painting the chaos that is needed to represent the topic that it contemplates. There's a message here, and though it may be offensive to some, it takes two to determine the implications of any image or media form. Instead of simply colluding with the message, the viewer should maintain his or her identity and be able to discern what is true and not true for oneself, rather than complain that a cheap canvas is "insulting" them.

What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas (the first and last time I will use this most annoying phrase)

This photo is nothing new. Nothing you haven't already seen - - or maybe imagined? But save those stories for weekends with close friends. What you are looking at here is a snapshot of typical Vegas (insert any geographic area)advertising.

So what does this foxy femme denote?

Well, quite simply, a foxy femme. Maybe a skilled card dealer, but more importantly, a skilled card dealer in a Playboy get-up working for The Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

And what a mythical creature she is...

But the myth she perpetuates is one that is old. It's the one that says women are objects and her purpose is to fuel society's capitalism at the expense of her identity being hypersexualized. Pardon the jargon, let me break it down. Images of scantily-clad women have been used to sell products since colonial times. Yes that's right, Mr. Ben Franklin not only made that lightbulb spark but he also sold ad space in his newspaper that promoted the idea that sex sells! Women have become objects whose mere purpose is to look sexy and sell someone's product. It's not to say that a woman can't embrace her sexuality and use it to her betterment, but the problem being is that these images are taken for and from "the gaze" of a hypermasculine lens. Lacan argued that the act of looking at images was an important means for looking at a society's values. He believed that one must actively identify the 'viewing relationship' between the actual audience and the intended audience. In this instance, Lacan would agree (as if I know) that "the gaze" or the intended audience for this image would be for a heterosexual man. It is intended to grab the attention (balls) of a man who will therefore become suckered into buying whatever Ms. Card Dealing Bunny has to offer. The image itself may be simple, but its implications are far from it. The image upholds the camera's ability to act as a voyeuristic weapon of masculine power - - and unless we are active observers, we will be subject to its violence.