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Filtered Reality?

Snapchat, Instragram, Facebook; Apple Photos; all of these are popular social media applications in which users update a selective audience of their friends and followers with pictures of their life. In concept, these applications allow for an individual to share their experience of life with friends. With the advent of camera phones, pictures are immediately distributed to the Internet within seconds.

However, the true value of pictures has become distorted over time. Digital filters have become immensely popular over the past decade, particularly with the advent of Instragram. Users can alter exposure, light, contrast, crop unwanted aspects, and even on Snapchat apply a number of filters to their faces or introduce geographic filters to caption photos. In a way, this perversion of a raw picture means what we view as the reality of others isn't really reality. In the modern digital age, we no longer have a sense of identity without running pictures through a number of filters in terms of what appears to be the best representation of life.

Filters can be interpreted one of two ways. Either filters are an art tool meant to enhance the positives and negatives of individual photos, bringing their foremost aspects to the forefront. Or filters are a perversion against what is assumed to be a honest retelling of life experiences through social media visuals.

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The library of media accessible to audiences in modern society has inflated to astronomical proportions. In this sense many feel a sense of disillusionment with the current Hollywood and TV system that now can feel so detached from regular society. In this sense the ascendency of Youtube a major content creator demonstrates the tastes and perception of media by society: a greater sense of transparency and destroying artifice and separation between artists and their audience. As an entertainment venue Youtube allows content creators to get instant feedback from their audience and also feel accountable to them. In this sense it has propelled Youtube as a media format that has begun to rival traditional media giants and this in of itself brings it's own issues and endangers the integrity of it's original strength. Advertising and the involvement of major media companies have begun to slowly pour onto YouTube to create content that now can make a less experienced content creator feel inadequate to keep pace. In this sense this open content environment has slowly been turning into the major media industry it initially was turning on it's head. Examples include how viral video segments on late night shows such as Jimmy Fallon have propped up traditional media outlets and begin to box in content creators who don't have access to major intellectual properties and the resources to rival such an output. Only time will tell if this adoption by major media companies will open them up from the monolithic nature of their content creation or if it will snuff out the grassroots nature on which YouTube originally founded itself upon

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Digital technology, as well as globalization as a whole, has greatly changed the viewer’s relationship to an image. With the rise of digital technology along with globalization, accessibility to images has reached unprecedented heights, negating the physical limitations separating different peoples and cultures but also resulting in a loss of value of images due to a sense of oversaturation from unlimited accessibility. With the development of interactive and virtual reality technology, the nature of the relationship between the viewer and the image has, in some regards, been reversed. With still images or even motion picture, the viewer’s experience is dependent on the static image which they have no direct influence over beyond their own personal response. Messages are conveyed with the viewer’s subjective experiences appropriating a message in relation to the picture. If a viewer is terrified of hurricanes from experience, a dark and cloudy picture may be seen as a literal scene out of that viewer’s anecdotal fear; in the abstract, another viewer who has no such fears may simply see a picture that can be interpreted another way.

In the case of virtual reality/interactive technology, however, the image shifts from a static phenomenon to a dynamic one in which the viewer directly dictates the image as well as their viewing experience in terms of how they interact with the piece. The pictures literally, rather than figuratively, tell you their story. Virtual reality and dynamic motion art are an advent in the history of the art form, but it leaves less open for subjective interpretation as the art form now has to be simplified to convey to the viewer exactly what the intent of the images are.

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The world in which we inhabit is filled with a myriad of creatures, both of those that we stop and recognize and those which might fall right under their nose. It was a young Satashi Tajiri's obsession with bug collecting and the fantastical nature of the world in which humanity inhabits always inspired him as he became a video game developer. It was this inspiration that along with his friend and artist Ken Sugimori to develop the famed video game series Pokemon. From it's onset Pokemon was focused on creating a sense of community and social interaction with players as they grow attachment to the creatures the players would capture and train. Sugimori, who has developed much of the artwork for Pokemon to this very day, bridged the gap between fantasy and reality in creating creatures that seemed larger than life and reality but also felt organic and integral to the everyday life's of the people inside the game's universe. It was this balancing act of Sugimori's artistic styles that helped players around the world feel attachment for the Pokemon they encounter. At this point with Pokemon having over 700 species players have often found at least one pokemon that they often personally identify with or feel a fondness for. In this way Sugimori has touched the hearts of countless individuals who have been able to see a part of themselves in the art of the Pokemon he has created. Pokemon itself has continued this trend of social interaction and community by making it easier than ever to interact with other players wirelessly and include games like Pokemon Go that now brings these same Pokemon into the real world. It is a perfect example on how art can create a sense of bonding between creator and player that transcends the traditional experience that happens between artist and audience.

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Sin City is a 2005 film helmed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, based on the latter’s comicbook of the same name. In its era, it was heralded as a unique visual accomplishment by critics. The movie is predominantly shot in black-and-white, from the conversations between characters, to the gratuitous violence, and even the intimate interactions between characters. Minimalist artwork made the film’s sparing use of color become even more pronounced whenever it was employed. For instance, Bruce Willis’ character is chasing a presumed pedophile across a warehouse, who has a victim in tow. The scene, shot entirely in black-and-white, ends with Willis shooting the suspect multiple times. When the suspect reappears later in the movie, after facial reconstruction, he is depicted as having a monstrous yellow face. This very deliberate use of color is used to demonstrate how the character has been identified as and seen as an inhuman monster for his actions. The other characters in the scenes do not seem to see any difference in the man, but we as an audience see him as a monster because he remains yellow and his blood, when spilled, is also yellow.

Color in this movie is used to signify concepts rather than literal constructs. Another instance, in addition to the pedophile referenced above, is a female character smoking on a rooftop in a red dress as she talks to a charming stranger. The dress is provocative in a very bright red and her cigarette smoke is puffed in color. After the dialogue, the charming man kills her, seemingly in a manner to suggest she had hired him to kill her. In hindsight, this makes it apparent that the red of the dress and puff of the smoke signified her impending death and the acceptance of the concept of death. The movie is a fascinating analysis of the use of color to convey messages in a minimalist aesthetic field.

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Christmas Motif and its use in Stranger Things

Christmas is a holiday of merriment and festivity. Among the many visual associations for Christmas is the recurring color motif of red, green and white lights. Throughout the centuries, these colors have most been identified with the tradition since Medieval times. In recent marketing, society is beset upon red, green and white Christmas lights, cookies, color schemes for toys, clothes, book covers and so forth. There is an instinctual relation with these colors associated with feelings of joy and happiness.

Stranger Things is a recent science fiction show mingled with horror and suspense. Among its most iconic imagery is the alphabet scrawled on the wall made of Christmas lights by a desperate mother looking for her missing son who she believes can communicate to her from a dark dimension through these lights. The Christmas lights adorned on the wall heavily use the red, white and green Christmas color scheme. Every time they use the Christmas lights, it is being used in a suspenseful manner; either the mother sees the lights turn on one-by-one to communicate to her presumed dead son, or moreso to signify impending danger from the Demogorgon, a malevolent creature pursuing victims in the real world. What is astounding is that despite centuries of associating Christmas colors with joy, Stranger Things turns the concept on its head. In a show that relies on strong friendships to get through the dangers present in the show, Christmas colors are a warning sign of impending danger. Every time the camera pans over the alphabet wall or the lights begin to turn on, the audience is left with a sense of dread because they feel a danger coming. It may not be the most historic portrayal of this color motif, but it is significant enough because it has had the cultural impact to give viewers pause over a visual aesthetic they had always associated with happiness.

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Globalization as seen in the History of Anime

The growing trend of Japanese animation, otherwise known as anime, in the west is intriguing in the fact that not only has this allowed for a germination of interests and ideas to intermingle between eastern and western audiences but also has shown a cyclical nature of adopting and evolving artistic styles and motifs. Most countries outside of Japan will attribute their introduction to anime as Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, which originally released in 1963. Tezuka is noted to have drawn much inspiration from the artistic styles of Walt Disney and Max Fleischer, the latter of which created iconic characters such as Betty Boop and Popeye. The “large eyes” component often associated with anime even to this day is usually attributed to the major critical and commercial success that Astro Boy had both in Japan and overseas. This string of artistic homages has evolved over the past several decades in which one can still see the influence of Tezuka's work on anime to this day but also how it has grown and developed based on each individual artist.   What has drastically altered anime's influence not only in Japan but abroad is that translation and distribution has become increasingly easier for audiences to access. This increased access and pool of material for global audiences to digest has now inspired artists across the globe to emulate the style of anime in their own countries. This can be seen prominently in both Avatar: The Last Airbender and it's sequel The Legend of Korra which not only drew artistic inspiration from anime but from architectural styles and philosophies from several Asian cultures. This beautifully demonstrates on how different artists across time and cultures can inspire each other and in turn evolve the themes and styles of popular culture.

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Nature vs Motion: Animatronics vs CGI

Steven Spielberg created one of the most iconic movie monster portrayals when Jurassic Park was released in theaters in1993. The depictions of the tyrannosaurus rex, triceratops and velociraptors were the first time many in the audience could even conceive of a lifelike analog to these extinct creatures. Crafted predominantly through miniaturized models and animatronics, Spielberg worked to bring life to these physical monstrosities. The movie’s T-Rex, arguably the most popular dinosaur of all-time, was a working animatronic that allowed the actors to feed off the energy of reacting to a physical construct. This allowed for fear, excitement and awe to be fully expressed in masterful performances, particularly by Jeff Goldblum as he runs away from the behemoth. This work was groundbreaking for the early 1990s, as Spielberg minimized the use of CGI to breathe life into what holds up even today as realistic portrayals.

In contrast, the recently-released Jurassic World relies entirely on CGI for each and every prehistoric beast and action set piece. While the movie was well-reviewed for its enjoyability, the visuals were arguably a limitation in pale comparison to what Spielberg had once achieved in his physical studio. The acting in the movie no longer had a sense that the characters were responding to a very real threat. The attacks by the dinosaurs felt too clean, too shiny. There was no longer a visceral sense of danger associated to getting eaten by these prehistoric monsters.

In terms of visual movie history, Jurassic Park achieved something movies today lack. Jurassic Park achieved emotion through very humbling, yet monstrous, physical creations. CGI has perverted this concept into actors merely running away from an imaginary threat on a green screen.

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Conversation about the Use of Iconography in the Visual Development of Batman (as seen through the Joker)

Person A: The Joker has been a consistent measuring stick of the stylistic development of the visuals and tone of Batman. For a long period of time, the Joker as a character was more of a prankster and goofy character; but with the arrival of the 70s and 80s the series through the comics begins to take a darker tone and it reflects in the visual treatment of the characters.

Person B: What has always been a definitive characteristic of his aesthetic has been multi-colored hair, bright purple suit, fedora, and a humorous but deadly arsenal. Person A is right in that the Batman series evolved in the 80s to take on a darker tone, but the Joker of all characters uniquely maintained his identifying motifs within the confines of this new tone and portrayal of the series.

Person A: I personally believe Joker has always had this air about him like he would fit into a gangster identifying motif. The way he was drawn, treated and dressed. The movies, to a sense, I think tried to capture that.

Person B: Disagree to an extent. The Jack Nicholson Joker was actually a gangster in that movie before he transforms. And yes, he did wear the purple suit even prior to that. But the Joker as a character was never really treated as such until his portrayal in Suicide Squad when other criminals would pay homage to him as a crime lord. Interestingly, this Joker is the one that sacrifices his personal aesthetic in lieu of tattoos.

Person A: Yes, agreed. Instead of developing the character through a series of actions, they resorted to stripping him of his traditional look and going with a post-modern depiction by scrawling tattoos across his body. They spell “ha ha ha” and “broken.”

Person B: It’s lazy on the visual team’s part because it tells me the producers were not confident in the storytelling for us to understand who Joker is without literally telling us. It may also have been a bid to appeal to who they view as modern viewers, with tattoos and angst more at the forefront.

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Representational Art

The historical factors influencing artists’ explorations of art and its relationship to representational truth range from socio-political influences to cultural influences (such as religion). For example, while many Renaissance artists sought to break from the long standing western traditions of representational art and explored new (and at times ‘heretical’) schools of thought, more often than not these artists were employed or commissioned by local aristocracy or even clergy who dictated the parameters of ‘truth’ to be represented in a given piece; such as augmentation of facial features in a portrait to align with socio-cultural beauty standards or dramatizing depictions of a scene to be used for political ends. The chapter discusses a number of artists and the ways in which they engaged with the traditional expectations of representational art. One of them, Chuck Close, in attempting to replicate photographic realism by hand; exposed conventions of photographic reproduction, achieving a level of hyper realism and fidelity to the source photograph that made his image appear abstract. Vik Muniz explores the relationship between photographic imagery in the popular conscious and representational painting by taking well known, iconic imagery (portraits of people, famous photos or artwork, etc) and 'painting' them out of odd or mundane materials (such as food items, condiments, plastic toys, etc.) to challenge the illusions of realism in photography and raise questions about perception of realism. A third artist, Luc Tuymans, uses a quasi-photographical style where he takes photographs of seemingly mundane subjects and paints scenes over them referring to the history of the subject, thereby addressing "the visual and psychological disappearance of information".

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Is Photoshop Remixing the World? discusses the extent in which the program Photoshop has revolutionized contemporary visual culture. As a visual medium, the program enables artists to create complex visual imagery typically considered vastly difficult to create with traditional media. The newfound creative capabilities made accessible through photoshop (and the resulting effect on the demand and expectations of the viewer) indicate the qualitative shift in the nature of art discussed by Walter Benjamin, where exhibition value increasingly takes precedence over cult value as a result of mechanical reproduction. The impact of Photoshop is most felt in its chief function, photoediting; where artists now have access to an unprecedented level of control when doing corrections or alterations to a piece. In addition, the program also highlights two different concepts discussed by Benjamin. The aforementioned increased level of control in photo 'correction' enables an artist to make alterations to an image which simultaneously conform and enforce existing cultural beauty norms (or even create new ones); thereby indicating both a further diminishing value of authenticity of images (as in the 'aura' concept) and the shift from ritual to politics as the basis for the total function of art as discussed by Benjamin.

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Quill Feather Wands are hand carved wands strictly made from naturally found wood. What originally started as a hobby quickly evolved into a much more spiritual venture. A couple months into wand making, wiccan friends of mine enlightened me to the significance of wand lore in their culture. I further investigated and found my own beliefs congruent to many of their teachings regarding respecting nature so I decided to adhere to the tenants of wand crafting as I saw to the best of my ability. With this newfound philosophy, I found myself with a much more experimental crafting process. Wiccan wand lore tradition strictly forbids use of any power tools on the wood nor can they ever forcibly taken from their trees. Therefore, instead of using store bought dowels, I began to seek out sticks naturally found on the ground, chosen specifically for a unique character I see in them to in turn be preserved and enhanced in the crafting process. In order to achieve this, work on the raw wood primarily consists of minimal changes to the overall form of the wand; generally limited to minor whittling, water-based staining, thread, tape or leather added on as detail work. Through my efforts to explore different, more natural (and cost effective) ways to augment the wands during the crafting process; I’ve developed alternate techniques such as burning, sun drying and other methods of aging the wood to give it as authentic a feel as possible while still allowing the wands to technically be consistent with the basic tenants of wiccan wand lore which are at the core of my process.

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The Gaze

The gaze is a psychoanalytic concept coined by Jacques Lacan referencing the anxious state that comes with awareness of one being viewed. While this term has a long history, many critics and artists since the renaissance (and increasingly so from the 19th century onwards) became more aware of the power of gazing often incorporating the gaze into their artwork, either as themes or structuring devices. As written by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright in Practices of Looking, “the gaze is integral to systems of power and ideas about knowledge. Therefore, the concept of the Gaze transcends the literal connotation of a look by interconnecting power dynamics, either social, political, or commenting on spectatorship itself. By the 1970s, many feminist scholars became concerned to think about how the gaze impacts the construction of gender roles. Hollywood narrative film use women in order to provide a pleasurable visual experience for heterosexual men (the gaze is structured through patriarchy and extends the power of patriarchy). The power dynamics of looking Mulvey referred to in her study are (even today) put on full display in commercial material and advertisements.

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Throughout the modern era of the capitalist free market, rampant appropriation and bricolage increasingly finds a home in corporate advertisement and marketing strategy, especially in the fashion industry. A specific example in a topic of personal interest is the case of Fred Perry’s strategy of counter-bricolage as represented by a photograph of Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis in Fred Perry for Teen Vogue Fall Collection. In the photograph, Day Lewis poses with his arms crossed and covered in tattoos, wearing a black and red trimmed Fred Perry twin tipped polo shirt, the iconic clothing article of the brand. He sports a haircut short on the sides and long with a comb over on the top with bangs, a modern albeit counter-culture style increasingly popularized among teens and younger demographics. The rise in popularity of Fred Perry as a front running brand in the football fashion scene largely stands as a testament and example of bricolage in contemporary visual culture. The traditional patron of Fred Perry would be of a more privileged social standing and the brand therefore was associated with high taste in fashion. With the rise of Hooliganism in football especially during the 70s and 80s, hooligans developed a style appropriated expensive high taste fashion (i.e: suits and eventually high end brands such as Fred Perry) so to avoid police detection when participating in illegal activities (including but not limited to violence and clashes with other groups).  Through use of its elements and semiotic appropriation of their counter-cultural implication; this advertisement by Fred Perry, a traditionally high-end sporting goods brand for the upper-class, intends to market to a younger demographic (though still of the same social standing) by taking advantage of the allure of a counter-culture identified with the brand through counter-bricolage.

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Midwife to Gargoyles #2 - Jane Hammonds

Jane Hammond’s 1996 oil paint and mixed media work Midwife to Gargoyles #2 best fits the description of the surrealism category. Like much of Hammond’s art, Midwife to Gargoyles #2 best resembles surrealism through its juxtaposition of unusual images which share a quixotic association to a central theme in the work. This quixotic association of images creates dreamlike images which create the definitive surrealist effect. Despite not actually being in the time of the actual artistic movement of surrealism, Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights also fits the mold of a proto-surrealist piece. Similar to surrealism and Midwife to Gargoyles #2, The Garden of Earthly Delights incorporates fantastical imagery especially in its figures to instill a dreamlike and at times nightmarish quality in the composition’s imagery. Surrealism, as defined by André Breton in his Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, “is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought”. The Garden of Earthly Delights, albeit being several centuries before the surrealist movement, fits the mold of surrealist imagery, particularly in the second and third panels of the triptych which include mythical creatures and fantastical beasts. Midwife to Gargoyles #2 incorporates the figures of animals to child-like figures as well as symbols thematically associated to the composition however starkly contrasting the background elements.

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Jane Hammond

Jane Hammond was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in June 27th, 1950. She spent much of her formative years with her grandparents, especially her grandmother who regularly took her to museums in Europe and instilled her interest in art. Hammond cites the importance of science and especially language to her even at a young age. Though she initially attended Mount Holyoke College intending to be a doctor, but inspired by the passion of an instructor in a studio class, she instead earned a B.A in Art in 1972, and went on to earn an M.F.A in Ceramics from Arizona State University in 1973-74, an M.F.A in Sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977 and teaching at Maryland Institute College of Art for 10 years. Her compositions extensively use juxtaposition and layering of images through quixotic association to a central theme of the piece. “I’m interested in finding something in the world, the constellation of thoughts that immediately goes through my mind when I see it, and what I can make it mean in another setting” Hammond states regarding her artwork. Her interest in collaging with her experimentation with different media has yielded works of different media which don’t necessarily look like they’re from the same artist, yet maintain her interest in collecting and collaging.

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An instance in which I was acutely aware of the power dynamics of looking was watching the music video for Lotus Flower Bomb, a love song by rapper Wale. In the intro scene of the video, there is a shot in which the camera has Wale and the woman he is flirting with at a side view, separated by an empty space (occupied by the counter between them) in the middle third of the shot. The woman is standing upright and giving a guarded but strong look down towards the man trying to chat her up. Wale, on the otherhand, is leaning down against the counter with his eyes locked on hers with a wanting look. Speaking through the lense of the traditional social construct of gender relations; the male, the more aggressive by nature, instigates the interaction and therefore hold the power in the scenario while the female, the more passive by nature, responds to the whim of the male. While, in the video, Wale maintains the traditional gender role of the male initiating the situation; the woman in this situation, literally looking down to him, does not conform to the passive/submissive role traditionally given to females. Her tall stance and strong (and unimpressed) look show her being in control of this interaction, leaving the power in her hands and Wale the one who is responding reactively. This reversal of gender roles, albeit implicit, communicate a progressive power dynamic which also can be found (implicitly) in the song's lyrics