Cate Blouke's blog

Objectifying the Office - Michelle Obama and the Spanish Magazine Controversy

Cate Blouke — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 19:36:38 +0000

Image Credit: cropped version of Karine Percheron-Daniels magazine cover image

Even the First Lady can't escape the objectification of black women's bodies (at home and abroad).

The Internet has had a lot to say about the Spanish magazine cover unveiled last week depicting Michelle Obama bare-breasted, swathed in an American flag. Most reactions have been vehement condemnations, accusing the artist (Karine Percheron-Daniels) of racism at worst, and poor taste at best. The image involved certainly raises a lot of questions (about race, art, censorship, and objectification), and I'll get into more detail when you see the (theoretically) Not Safe For Work images after the jump.

The image is based on a painting by Marie-Guillemine Benoist titled Portrait d'une négresse, completed in 1800 and currently hanging in the Louvre. While the painting is a depiction of a slave, according to at least one art historian the portrait “may be seen as a voice of protest, however small, in the discourse over human bondage.”

Karine Percheron-Daniels, the artist responsible for the cover image, has responded to the various attacks and accusations of racism with a statement explaining her thought-process and expressing a (seemingly) sincere admiration for Mrs. Obama. And, to be fair, this image is one in a series of nude political figures including the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Princess Diana, Eva Peron, and Obama himself (among others).

It interests me that most coverage of the "story" has chosen to censor the image of Mrs. Obama while leaving the breast in the original portrait bare. This explicitly condemns Percheron-Daniels' work (as not-art) while retaining the artistic value of the original.

While much to do is being made of the artist’s choice of source painting, I’m particularly interested in the significance of the choices Percheron-Daniels made in her adaptation – particularly the shifting of the subject’s gaze.

In the original work, the woman depicted confronts the viewer directly – a much more active role than the demure, side-long glance of the Percheron-Daniels’ portrait. As such, the new image removes any agency from its subject, turning her body (and face) into an object to be gazed upon. This ties in with the Spanish magazine’s rather odd caption – that Michelle Obama’s face will be key in the upcoming election – as well as the continued American obsession with Mrs. Obama’s arms.

It also seems significant that Percheron-Daniels chose to incorporate the American flag, tying the image into nationalism. On the international stage, then, the cover portrays America as being inescapably tied to its roots in slavery, and the first lady is presented as an aesthetic object. And given the kind ofappalling headlines some coverage has indulged in, the incident is certainly disheartening – particularly if you heard NPR’s recent interview of GOP-leaning veterans in which Bobbie Lucier (of Indianapolis) complains that “It's about time we get a first lady in there that acts like a first lady and looks like a first lady.” And one can’t help but chalk that kind of comment up to race.

Hat tip to this year's viz. editor Rachel Schneider for helping me talk through these ideas.

Two Sex-Scandals: Focusing in on the Problem

Cate Blouke — Sun, 22 May 2011 14:16:36 +0000

AP Photo/Chris Pizello via NY Daily News

Given the increasing hullaballoo surrounding this week’s two sex-scandal stories (Strauss-Kahn and Schwarzenegger), this image of Schwarzenegger and soon-to-be ex-wife, Maria Shriver, strikes me as paradigmatic of how these scenarios seem to play out: focus in on brooding, somber (occasionally apologetic) male politician; blurry, out-of-focus female victim in the foreground. While the impetus behind these stories is supposedly exposing the men that “done them wrong,” it’s often the women who suffer most from the media backlash.Kate Zernike's New York Times article makes the point well, both the Schwarzenegger scandal and the Strauss-Kahn case “raise similar questions about imbalances of power” when it comes to sexual indiscretion and assault. With teams of high-powered attorneys and publicists at their disposal, both men have the means to launch vigorous counterattacks, circulating rumors and exposing the women’s lives to excrutiating public scrutiny.

Media stake-out of Mildred Baena's home - Jonathan Alcorn for The New York Times

It’s unsurprising that women are hesitant to come forward regarding sexual assault when such a media circus is bound to ensue, and/or when it doesn’t seem to have much impact. As Michael Shaw’s post on BagNewsNotes points out, Schwarzenegger’s infidelity and aggressive sexuality are nothing new – the man won the gubernatorial race despite exposés regarding his mistreatment of women by both the LA Times and Premiere Magazine. The only real news this time is living, breathing, incontrovertible evidence.

With known-philanderer (and consequent hypocrite) Newt Gingrich eying the White House, what become increasingly clear are the cultural denial and double-standards we hold regarding men in positions of power.

Post Adapted/Cross-posted from BagNewsNotes, a site comitted to the social, cutural and political reading of news images.

We're Watching You - Google Analytics and viz. Readership

Cate Blouke — Thu, 05 May 2011 23:34:32 +0000

Screen Shot of Google Analytics dashboard view for viz.

Earlier this semester, we here at viz. decided it might be nice to get a better sense of who we were talking to. As good rhetoricians, we felt it might be pertinent to know more about our audience. So we installed the handy-dandy (free) Google Analytics tool for tracking all sorts of information about our readership. The results have been surprising at times, reassuring on the whole, and ultimately quite useful for thinking about how better to serve you, our readers. The following is a discussion of both Google Analytics itself and the trends we've noticed on our site over the past few months.

Screen shot of daily readership graph

First and foremost, the Analytics tool will give you cold, hard numbers. You can track the number of visits, the time spent on the site, and whether the vistitors are unique or repeat customers. We have between 300 and 800 visits per day here at viz., and over 20,000 views each month. While we're pretty happy with these numbers, no self-respecting academic would object to increased readership. So we've been thinking about ways to broaden our audience and make the site more accessible/searchable - even though we've been pleased to discover that our readership stretches well beyond the continental United States.

Screen shot of the analytic map of viz. readership's geographic distribution

That's another thing Analytics can do - track from where in the world visitors are accessing the site. And, of course, being Google, it gets pretty specific...

Screen shot of the analytic map of viz. readership in the United Kingdom

Analytics will also tell us how people are making their way to the site. One thing we discovered is that our post titles could use some work - Google's search function picks up first on page titles, so the more specific we can be, the more likely it is unique visitors will discover our work. One of our most visited pages, is a post from last February that comes up when people search Google for "Diane Arbus." Analytics will tell us which pages on the site are getting the most hits, and how people are getting there - both in terms of the referring site and the keywords they use to find the page. While it will give us this information for the site as a whole, we can also narrow it down individual pages.

Screen shot of analytics source break-down for Ashley's post on athletes and body images

Another one of our top-trafficking pages, Ashley's post on athletes and body images, is garnering attention from a wide variety of sources. While we plan to work on increasing our Facebook and Twitter presence, our three most popular pages (at present) are an interesting indication of the ways in which we can better shape our content.

You may (or may not) have noticed some tweaks we've made to the page this semester, and we've got plans in the works for a more significant overhaul next year. One thing we did was move our tag cloud to the upper right hand corner of the page. As a result, one of our top three most visited sites is the page hosting blog posts tagged as "political cartoons."

We've become much more conscientious of tagging this semester, especially given Noel and Megan's work with the Steve-in-Action project, investigating the connections between composition and social tagging.

We also made it easier for readers to re-post articles by adding this widgit at the bottom of every page. We've seen some great results in terms of traffic from Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites where people are sharing our work.

While perhaps this shouldn't have been as surprising as we found it, visitors are accessing the static content of the site more than we had realized. Our teaching and visual theory pages are apparently being used fairly regularly, so we plan to continue to update those resources and make them even more useful.

In the four months since we began tracking this information, the launch page for visual theory has receieved nearly 1,000 visits - not bad, but it could be better. Did you even know we had a theory page available? It's in the menu bar at the top of the page, along with the teaching link that will take you to lesson plans our contributors have generated over the years, and the views link that hosts various interviews we've conducted with photographers, game designers, and other visual rhetoricians. We've got plans to revamp these pages next year, starting with the teaching page. Aside from our daily visual analyses, we plan to bring you more (specifically) pedagogically applicable content.

It's been a good year here at viz., and we're glad to know a bit more about who's out there. Thanks for reading, and we'll see you again soon!

(Re)Composing Bodies - Giovanni Bortolani's Fake Too Fake

Cate Blouke — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:30:00 +0000

Giovanni Bortolani, from the Fake Too Fake series

Using some seriously inventive (and at times disturbing) photoshop, Italian artist Giovanni Bortolani has created a series of photos about the composition of the human form. While the image above suggests a relationship between the body and the organic by superimposing a leaf skeleton on a man's back, most of Bortolani's photos in the series explore bodies in terms of that which is "fake" or constructed. The images in Fake Too Fake are jarring, but they ask us to consider what we're doing to our bodies in this age of plastic surgery and diet pills. NSFW (and somewhat gruesome) material after the jump.

Giovanni Bortolani, from the Fake Too Fake series

Though Joseph Ayoub from White Zine (a website about digital arts) argues that Bortolani's images "can sometimes be too trashy," I think that many of them make interesting and complex arguments about visibility and identity. Juxtaposing male and female, black and white, inside and outside, Bortolani questions how identity is constructed or shared. What is the relationship between inner self and outer appearance?

While the images might be rather risque for some classrooms, it would be an interesting exercise to ask students to come up with captions for these images, or to treat them like advertisements with slogans. The solitary, brooding model is reminiscent of the Calvin Kline underwear ads, and the arguments these images make would certainly fit the context of celebrity, body image, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I can imagine several of these images as strikingly effective anti-drug advertisements which wouldn't be too far off from the scare tactics of current campaigns. Of course, that could also open up a conversation about rhetorical fallacies, but the images are unquestionably effective in terms of getting our attention.

Meat America - a photographic celebration by Dominic Episcopo

Cate Blouke — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:30:16 +0000

WTF, by Dominic Episcopo, from Meat America

Dominic Episcopo wants to explain to you "the indefinable adjective that is 'American'." And as far as he's concerned, the best way to do that is with meat. The images are funny, deeply ironic, and often ambiguous given Episcopo's purported mission.

Above, packaged ground beef shaped into the letters "WTF" is surrounded by a variety of fresh vegetables - one of these things is not like the other. The meat seems to be asking questions about processed foods and meat consumption.

Last semester Megan wrote a post about viewer expectation and food art, touching on how food as a medium can move audiences through both desire and disgust. Since Mike's comment on my post about Lady Gaga's meat dress earlier this semester, I've also been thinking about the relationship between images and appetite.

Texas, by Dominic Episcopo, from Meat America

Episcopo's adventures in meat manipulation are ostensibly intended as a celebration of America. As he explains, his project "celebrates our [American's] appetite for insurmountable odds, limitless aspiration, and immeasurable success." Given that Texas holds by far the largest number of cattle (more than 13 million head of the nation's roughly 92 million total in 2011), the Texas-shaped steak makes a lot of sense. It's symbolic of a huge portion of Texas' industry and the immense pride of this state (we're a prime cut, not just ground beef). But, I can't entirely tell if Episcopo's project is meant to be read as ironic. And if meat is American, and America is meat, I'm wondering what exactly that means...

Love, by Dominic Episcopo, from Meat America

Perhaps the clues can be found in the details. In the image above, the ground beef "love" is paired with pretzels, coffee, some sort of packaged dessert bar, and placed next to a newspaper strategically folded to include only "& Death." The sticker's read "U.S.D.A. Choice Beef," and "Family Pak Buy More." Here, as in the image below, the meat industry is linked with mortality - perhaps a nod to the 400,000+ deaths each year from coronary heart disease.

Cartooning Crisis - Images After the Japanese Tsunami

Cate Blouke — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Pedro Molina, Managua, Nicaragua "El Nuevo Diario"

Ten days after the cataclysmic 8.9 earthquake in Japan, we have only a small sense of both the immediate and long-term consequences for the country. Political cartoonists world-wide are manipulating the image of the Japanese flag, positioning the crisis as a national tragedy/catastrophe and exploring the aftershocks. The resulting images are interesting for both their visual simplicity and the complex arguments they (inadvertently?) construct.

Addressing the pedagogical implications of images and tragedy, Megan's thoughtful post from Friday opens with another manipulated image of the Japanese flag in which the rising sun has morphed into a tear drop. That image highlights the sorrow of the tragedy - evoking global sympathy for a nation in crisis. Yet from another perspective, the image could also represent a drop of blood - acting as either a memorial for those who died or, theoretically, a call to arms. Though I doubt those are the intended readings, I merely want to point out that even fairly straightforward images can be sites of contestation.

The images above and below strike me as more overtly complex arguments about the disastrous consequences for the nation. In Molina's image, the sun is now a skull, cracked and disintegrating. While the image immediately points toward the massive death toll (8,450 dead and 12,931 missing at the time of writing), it also posits the disaster as crippling (and potentially lethal) for the nation as a whole.

John Sherffius, Colorado, Boulder Daily Camera

Various cartoonists have played with images of fracture and symbolic post-quake cracks, but Sherffius presents a sun severed completely in half. The image posits a rupture, with one half of the nation more grievously effected. Unlike the red teardrop which unifies the nation's grief, Sherffius' image points towards an irrevocable severance.

While the symbolic value of the flag makes it universally recognizable (and superficially simple to read), when cartoonists combine the flag with other "easily recognizable" symbols of Japan, the effects become more opaque.

Damien Glez, Journal du Jeudi, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Several dozen representations of the Japanese flag combined with the radioactive symbol have emerged in the last week, but they are mostly presented as solitary images - either the flag itself or a deserted flagpole. Damien Glez, however, depicts an anxious samurai waiving the flag aloft. The image is troubling for the way in which it suggests a connection between the radiation crisis, military aggression (a warrior in full dress) and surrender (waiving a white flag). In the post-WWII fallout this image might have made more sense, but it seems both anachronistic and insensitive now.

Political cartoons inevitably exploit stereotypes for both simplicity's sake and for comedic value, but many of the cartoons emerging after the tsunami raise questions about our ability to access and comprehend foreign nations. While the Japanese flag and the image of Godzilla are certainly immediately recognizable, if these are the images through which we understand Japan, what does that say about us?

Paul Zanetti, Australia

(Re)Constructing Bodies - Zackary Canepari's Art and the Real Girl

Cate Blouke — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:00:25 +0000

An image series of Real Dolls from photographer Zackary Canepari's blog

No, this isn't a photo-essay about the box of human heads found on a Southwest Airlines flight last June. But it's still a bit creepy. The ominous and evocative image above is from series of photos by Zackary Canepari, documenting the construction of Real Dolls - anatomically correct mannequins that run about $6,000 for those in the market. Not safe for work content after the jump.

An image series of Real Dolls from photographer Zackary Canepari's blog

You may remember the 2007 independent film, Lars and the Real Girl, which brought these otherwise obscure pieces of paraphernalia into the public eye. The quirky romantic comedy (with its PG-13 rating) rather skimmed over the sexual associations/use of the dolls in favor of a banal and sweet story about a lonely and socially maladjusted guy who just needed some company. But in this series of eerie photographs and short "documentary" video (bottom), photographer Zackary Canepari unearths a fragmentary and artistic approach to the life-size sex toys.

The images are uncanny and reminiscent of forensic labs or anatomy lessons. The rows of feet and teeth, framed by soft-focus, negative space, serve to disassociate the objects from the bodies they will be attached to, recalling notions of mechanization and assembly line production.

Despite how realistic the body parts may seem, the metal studs and exposed plastic remind us that these are manufactured, constructed objects. And, as a woman, it's somewhat unsettling to consider that creator Matt McMullen is literally building female bodies at the behest of male consumers.

However, Canepari's images, and especially the film, focus on the artistry involved in the creation of these "women." Regardless of any dubious or unresolved feelings I might have about the dolls' use, each one is unique, and their life-like quality isn't achieved without a certain craftsmanship.

I think that the images do evoke a kind of horror in objectifying the body. The photo above is especially serial killer-esque with its faceless plastic skulls and bodies suspended from the ceiling. And yet, I find it strangely compelling and beautiful at the same time.

In the video (below) Canepari interviews Matt McMullen, casting the creator as a skilled artist deeply invested in his creations. McMullen explains that he began with an interest in making a mannequin that was somehow more real than display models - something with curves, not super-model skinny.

"Honey Pie" from Zackary Canepari's video website

Re-Covering the Classics

Cate Blouke — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 20:09:40 +0000

Contest winning re-designed book cover by Philipp Dornbierer for The Fox Is Black

Elizabeth's post this week (about the Great Gatsby game) reminded me of a design contest I stumbled upon recently. TheFoxIsBlack.com, a blog about web and graphic design, has begun a series of monthly competitions inviting participants to redesign the covers of classic literature. Last month was The Great Gatsby (winner pictured above), and this month it's The Lord of the Flies. (The deadline is February 25th, so there's still time for you designers out there to get a shot at the $100 Amazon gift card).

Re-designed book cover by Matthew Gore for The Fox Is Black

It's interesting to think about the interaction of text and cover art, how the cover can shape our perception of and approach to a book. Aside from just being pretty cool to look at, the entries are fascinating to compare and could be used as a conversation starter in classrooms. For example, comparing the image above (Matthew Gore's entry) to the one below (Ian O. Phelan's entry). Though both feature the color green, what can we infer from the choice in hue? Also, the image above is more masculine and violent (with the broken glass), positioning Gatsby is the central figure, whereas the image below depicts a female figure and focuses our attention on Daisy.

Re-designed book cover by Ian O. Phelan for The Fox Is Black

Communal Remembering - The Johnny Cash Project

Cate Blouke — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 14:17:23 +0000

Screen Shot of the video opening in The Johnny Cash Project

Cyber memorials are interesting beasts. A new, more publicly available way to mourn, they are often sites of controversy - raising questions about representation, curation and the appropriation of tragedy. But what happens when a multimedia memorial invites visitors to actively participate in the creation and curation of the content? A hyper-mediated explosion of awesome (among other things).

Screen shot of frame contribution from Bobby Latham, McKinney, Texas

The Johnny Cash Project is a virtual space better explored than explained, but I'll do my best to give you an idea. Visitors are invited to contribute drawings of Cash to be included in a sort of hybrid rotoscope music video, the frames of which flash by in a psychedelic flurry of grayscale images. You can pause the video at any point to explore the frames individually, and you can even watch the"drawing session" in which the image was created.

Screen shot of the filtered viewing options

Visitors are also encouraged to rate the drawings, and the video can then be viewed from a variety of perspectives - the highest rated frames, the director curated frames, the most recent frames, and more. The project is incredibly malleable and interactive. It gives visitors an extreme sense of agency in both controlling their own experience and contributing to the experience of the memorial as a whole.

Screen shot of rame contribution from Marc Verhaegen, Merksem, Belgium

The project bills itself as a "living," "communal" work, and the language is interesting in terms of its push towards vitality, especially given the song selection - "Ain't No Grave." The idea is that the project will continue to grow, creating "a living, moving, and ever changing portrait of the man in black." It encourages a sense of assimilation and immortality. People can become a part of Cash himself (or at least the remembrance of him) by contributing an image to the collection, and the "portrait" will continue to live on.

All in all, the project raises interesting questions about mourning, memorial, agency and ownership. Aside from being a pretty amazing piece of hyper-mediated content, it's certainly a very democratic approach to memorial.

Bringing the Streets Inside - Google Art Project

Cate Blouke — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:06:03 +0000

While the google “street view” feature has certainly revolutionized the way we look at maps, they’re now taking that technology a step further – over the threshold and into buildings. The “Art Project,” powered by Google, has partnered with museums all over the world to bring not just the art, but the museums themselves to your computer.

Screen shot of The Art Project home page

The street view technology enables viewers to explore the museums’ galleries in virtual space. Moving from gallery to gallery, they can zoom in on the works of art. While not all of the works are available for viewing (some of the pieces have been blurred for copyright reasons), the project enables people to explore museums they would never otherwise be able to see – since the museums involved are scattered across the globe (from New York to Madrid, Prague to Berlin).

Screen shot of street view tour of Gemalgalerie; Berlin, Germany

Although at times I find myself a bit dubious about the fact that Google seems to be taking over the (virtual) world, I’m all for increased accessibility and availability of artistic and cultural commodities. In addition to the museum tours, the project includes high-resolution images of some of the museums’ prized possessions. Selected and curated
by the museums themselves, the images include varying amounts of background information including “Viewing Notes, Artwork History, Artist Information,” and
“Tags.”

Screen shot of Art Project's high-resolution image of Boticelli's The Birth of Venus

Over the past year or so, the viz. team has been working with The Blanton Museum here at UT on the Steve in Action Project – a collaboration between a variety of institutions who are exploring the value of social tagging to increase access and engagement with museum collections. While The Art Project doesn’t seem to allow tagging by visitors, and the tags currently seem rather limited, it will be interesting to see how this aspect evolves.

A third feature of the site enable viewers with google accounts to “create an artwork collection” from the available images. This is certainly a much more interactive experience than flipping through the pages of a book, and it opens up untold possibilities for art history classes, let alone the everyday art enthusiast. It’s also pretty cool in terms of preservation and proliferation of works of art.

Meat is Couture? - Lady Gaga's Meaty Message

Cate Blouke — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 06:38:12 +0000

Image Credit: Lady Gaga at the VMAs, Designer Franc Fernandez

I realize that I may be a bit behind the times to be addressing (ha!) Lady Gaga's fashion stunt of last fall, but meat's been on my mind this week as I'm about to embark on 30 days of eating vegetarian - largely as a result of the text we're teaching in our introductory rhetoric classes here at UT: Colin Beavan's No Impact Man. But that's another story. Gaga's appearance at the Mtv Video Music Awards sparked controversy that dissipated rather quickly, and though this may have been due to the singer's own inability to adequately (or logically) explain the reasons behind her wardrobe choice, the images left behind offer a really interesting opportunity for varying and disparate interpretations.

While I was surprised (and a bit disappointed) to discover that Jezebel didn't have much to say about the dress, my immediate reaction was to think of the outfit as a commentary on female objectification. The dress literalizes an all too familiar trope - that women are just pieces of meat - and the contrast between the female body and the hunks of beef strewn about it seemingly negates the metaphor by calling attention to it. Yet considering Gaga's videos and her ethos in general, it could also easily be argued that the outfit does just the opposite (reenforcing the trope/idea/attitude instead of negating it), especially considering the precursor to the dress - her appearance on the cover of the Japanese Men's Vogue in a meat bikini. They say we are what we eat, perhaps we are what we wear, too?

Image Credit: Vogue Hommes Japan

Now, while Gaga argued that she meant no disrespect to vegetarians, that didn't prevent a backlash from animal right's activists and environmental groups. PETA was predictably outraged by her VMA outfit, though their response was surprisingly brief. Ecouterre.com, a website devoted to sustainable fashion, instead used the dress as a conversation point, exploring the environmental impact of designer Franc Fernandez's 50 lb. creation. I'm sure both organizations would disagree with me, and perhaps this is a bit of a stretch, but I can see how one might argue that the dress is in fact an argument for vegetarianism and animal rights.

Image Credit: Designer Franc Fernandez

For one thing, looking closely at the dress certainly doesn't make me want to run out and eat a steak. But it also opens up space for an argument through analogy - how is wearing leather any different from wearing pieces of beef? Vegetarians are often critical of those who abstain from meat but still wear animal products, and the dress seems to call attention to this complaint. It also calls into question what constitutes acceptable use - if we can eat it, why can't/shouldn't/don't we wear it? And vice versa? Would the fur trade somehow be more palatable if we ate all the animals we wore?

Gaga's dress wasn't the most appetizing wardrobe choice, but it certainly got some attention. Everyone should be please to note, however, that the dress won't be going to waist - according to People Magazine, the dress is slowly turning into beef jerky that will be preserved for posterity (not eaten).

(Apologies for the rampant puns in this post, but I simply couldn't resist).

Xtranormal in the Classroom

Cate Blouke — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:55:32 +0000

Image Credit: Adriana Cervantes, created as final presentation for my RHE 306 class

Particularly in technology-based classrooms like we have here in the DWRL, instructors are always looking for new ways to teach students non-traditional forms of writing. A few weeks back, Ashley wrote a viz. post about the on-line animation program, Xtranormal, whose motto is “if you can type, you can make movies.” Her post inspired/challenged me to give it a try with my students. It's extremely user-friendly, and we were able to create animations in a single class period. Users enter text, and the program animates the dialogue for them. Above and after the jump are examples of my students' work, and I'll talk more about pedagogical value of the program.

In addition to viz., the DWRL hosts Blogging Pedagogy, a blog that each of the instructors contribute to each semester. I already blogged there about my first classroom experience with Xtranormal, and you can view that post here. It explains the premise behind the video below. To avoid repeating myself, I'd like to use this viz. post to approach the program from a more theoretical standpoint.

In his seminal work, Understanding Comics, cartoon theorist Scott McCloud posits that “cartooning isn’t just a way of drawing, it’s a way of seeing.” He argues that cartoons are uniquely poised to amplify arguments through simplification. He explains that the less representational the figure, the more likely we are to identify with it, and this abstraction makes viewers more receptive to the message – less apt to focus on who is saying than what is said. This can be particularly useful with students - asking them to focus more on the argument itself than the person making the argument.

Image credit: Loraine Ng and Leticia Garcia, created in class

As you've probably noticed, because Xtranormal uses mechanized and predetermined voices for the characters, the emphasis can end up on the wrong syllable, and the resulting animation often makes familiar language sound foreign. In theories of performance, intentional distancing (or alienation), prevents audiences from identifying too closely with characters, and consequently encourages more critical observation. Here, this distancing can be useful to call attention to the soundness of an argument, especially because we have to listen carefully to follow what the characters are saying.

This combination of identification and alienation produced by Xtranormal animations is often both funny and informative. As Megan pointed out in her viz. post about the TSA, Xtranormal can potentially be used to depersonalize sensitive or inflammatory issues. It also encourages students to translate arguments across media, and to think critically about the substance of arguments without focusing so closely on the players involved. And while, like Megan, I find the robotic voices particularly irritating after about 2 minutes, my students loved the exercise.

"Useless" - Photographing the Everyday

Cate Blouke — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 16:55:22 +0000

Image Credit: "Smashed Glass" by Jessica Alpern

Guest blogger and Austin-based photographer Jessica Alpern discusses her recent work, Useless, in which she offers new visions of everyday objects. As she explains, "This collection is a look at common object, made or found, that no longer serve their purpose due to damage, defect or the inevitability of time." More from the artist after the jump.

Image Credit: "Wax" by Jessica Alpern

The following is from Alpern herself:

Two common themes in my work are identity and materialism. Having moved excessively in both my childhood and adult life, I've devoted many hours to acquiring and discarding the detritus of everyday living (dishes, furniture, bed linens, etc.), transferring things that filled utilitarian needs, leaving behind those no longer served a purpose.

Image Credit: "Tape" by Jessica Alpern

Exploring Kafka's notion that "The meaning of life is death," [in Useless] I took particular interest in objects that were rendered useless through use; being destroyed by performing the very function for which they were created.

Image Credit: "Gum" by Jessica Alpern

The images are unexpectedly organic but are not intended as abstracts. Rather they are a close look at an object that has itself, become an abstraction. Watching these man-made entities transitioning from one form to another feels something akin to witnessing Pinocchio become a real boy.

Image Credit: "Pencil 2" by Jessica Alpern

Despite being at the end of its necessity, it has not reached the end of its existence. It's simply moved beyond the familiar. photographing these objects during that transition feels like a celebration of potential as well as a final record before the destruction, recycling, repurposing, disbursing of its parts makes it unrecognizable.

Image Credit: "Pencil" by Jessica Alpern

When It Can't Be Clever - Domestic Violence PSAs (part two)

Cate Blouke — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 05:26:43 +0000

In many of the ads, the abuse tends to occur off camera, subjecting the viewer/auditor to the sounds of violence without the spectacle (this French ad, for example, and this British one). These ads tend to be aimed at the "innocent bystanders," those who are surrounded by abuse but who do nothing to stop it. While I've been fortunate enough to be spared such an experience, I imagine that the commercials cause the target audience to re-live the experience and reflect on their own passivity.

Image Credit: Screenshot from Pond's Ad on YouTube

Other ads depict the effects of abuse without showing the causes. These tend to be aimed at women who may be the victims of abuse. This Pond's commercial (the lotion company) shows images of battered women next to a quoted excuse such as, in the above image, "Fell off the bed." This ad for the Family Justice Center shows us a wedding in which the woman vows to "make excuses when you humiliate me in public" and "to blame myself when you hit me."

As a woman, I bristle at the way these ads seem to implicate the victim for not speaking up. They strike me as more accusatory than supportive, and one wonders if shame is really an effective means to reach victims of domestic violence. Perhaps. In the Jezebel post I cited last week, the author explains how most people involved in abusive relationships don't actually see themselves as villains or victims.

That issue is quite poignantly addressed by this British advertisement directed at teenagers:

Image Credit: UK Home Office via YouTube

H/T again to Rachel

This is one of the few ads I found that targets the perpetrators of abuse specifically, and it's interesting that the target audience is young men. It asks the teenage boy to look at himself and his actions from an outside perspective - arguing that if he could "only see" himself, he wouldn't be behaving that way.

When adult abusers are targeted, children are often invoked, using the argument that children learn from their parents. In this ad, the violence is acted out by children, though we only see their feet in oversized (parental) shoes. This poignant Australian ad is aimed at a variety of parental misbehaviors, pairing adults with children who mimic their actions.

I wish I had something profound to end with, but wading back through these commercials has just left me disheartened. While the David Arquette ad that I talked about last week may not have been serious enough, it also wasn't as depressing. And so I wonder if it's actually possible to find ways to raise awareness without making people feel lousy?

When Humor Hurts - Domestic Violence PSAs (part one)

Cate Blouke — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 03:13:36 +0000

Image credit: The OPCC via YouTube

H/T to Rachel for suggesting the topic sending me the clip

Although Halloween is behind us, and we've packed up the glam make-up and eaten all the goodies, I'd like to call your attention to an interesting use of bunny suits I recently came across. Or, perhaps "interesting" isn't quite the right word... inappropriate, insincere, ineffectual... these seem more apt. While this ridiculous domestic violence PSA has already been addressed by Irin Carmon over on Jezebel, I think there are some more fundamental issues we can tackle from a rhetorical standpoint. Ultimately, the commercial leaves me with questions about when humor actually hits the mark and when it just goes horribly wrong.

Using humor to "get your attention," the two segments of the commercial don't line up. Bunny suits and feigned infidelity, while possibly funny (though I found it rather inane), have nothing to do with the realities of domestic violence that the second half claims to concern itself with. The attention grabber, by essentially admitting to its own frivolity, undermines the potential for taking the second part seriously. So does using David Arquette to deliver the message. As pop culture spokesperson, he's woefully impossible to take seriously, despite the attempt to reclaim authority at the beginning of the commercial.

While I'm a huge proponent of using humor to make a point, here, all it does is undermine the message it attempts to deliver. In the following Australian PSA, however, the humor really hits home...

Image Credit: YouTube

Whether you laughed or cringed or both when the husband handed over the baseball bat, this commercial hits its mark. The "humor" correlates directly to its message, and makes it even more affective. Aimed not at those perpetrating violence, but people who stand by and do nothing, laughter, regardless of motivation, implicates the viewer in the scene of violence we hear behind the door. Laughing at the problem is tantamount to ignoring it, or, like the next door neighbor, handing over the bat.

Whereas the audience for the Arquette commercial is undefined at best, this commercial makes it clear that domestic violence is a concern for everyone, not just the abusers and abused. The Jezebel post I cited above includes a French commercial that is similarly aimed at "the people around abusers," and it raises interesting questions about audience which I'll pick up on in my post next week.

A New Look at the Dead - Taxidermy for the Arts

Cate Blouke — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:57:47 +0000

Image Credit: Jon Montmayor photo of "Rejected Brother" by Tildon Humphrey

H/T to Jessica

Partly in the spirit of the upcoming holiday, and partly as a thematic continuation of recent viz. posts, I'd like to introduce you to an Austin-based artist whose work repurposes and reinvigorates "natural history." Tildon Humphrey's creations look right back at us and ask us to re-think what we see.

Hunting trophies: monuments to man's truimph over nature. They hang on walls in homes and hunting lodges, natural history museums and country manors. Often creepy, at times angry, and nearly always sad, these shells of the once-living are paradigmatic assertions of domination. What better way to prove authority than to hang the dead from the walls? World leaders did it for centuries, but in the age of human rights, human trophies are abominations that we hope we never have to imagine. Thanks to the Victorians, however, taxidermy evolved into an art form to enrich any home's decor. Tildon Humphrey's take on taxedermy, on the other hand, encourages us to think about our objectification of living things

Image Credit: Jon Montmayor photo of "Bereshit" by Tildon Humphrey

Humphrey's artistic beginnings are humble - he rescued two mounted deer heads from a trash heap, saddened at the thought that the creatures' lives would go to such waste. Yet, like most of us animal-lovers, Humphrey had a hard time looking at the preserved corpses in his living room. He decided that if, perhaps, the animals didn't look quite so real, their presence wouldn't be so unsettling. Thus, with some hair dye and hot glue the aristic creations of OpenedHeart.com were born. Okay, I don't know if he actually used hot glue, but over time, Humphrey acquired several more discarded trophies, and his works continue to evolve despite their premature demise.

Image Credit: Jon Montmayor photos on OpenedHeart.com

Humphrey's work gives each animal a sort of second-life, and I particularly appreciate the recycled/re-purposed aspect of his art. As hunting trophies, the deer carcasses hung as monuments to their own defeat. With their new face lifts, each animal reminds us of the sanctity of life - that we can't access (and shouldn't repress) the spirit within others, be they human or beast. Any dog or cat owner would agree that animals have personalities, so why would deer be any different?

Image Credit: Jon Montmayor photo of "Nirvana" by Tildon Humphrey

The artist is extremely spiritual, and his discussion of his works might surprise you. They're often inspired by scriptures (and not just disco). For example, Nirvana, the piece pictured above, is inspired by "a quote from a psalm likening the physical thirst of a deer to the author's thirst for God." I'll let you look at his site for more detailed discussion of the symbolism behind each piece, but the works are often able to speak for themselves. They seem to say to us with their silent eyes, "Life is beautiful, and the dead deserve respect."

The Inner Life of Toys - The Art of Jason Freeny

Cate Blouke — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:18:33 +0000

Image Credit: Jason Freeny Moist Productions

Elieen's viz. post from a few weeks ago on Justine Cooper's photo-documentation of the American Museum of Natural History in New York has been bouncing around in my head ever since. It (re)kindled a long-standing interest I've had in both natural history museums and slightly morbid kinds of art. In both digital images and sculpture, artist Jason Freeny invests familiar children's toys with anatomical interiors, suggesting an inner life/death that both unsettles and intrigues.

Along the lines of natural history displays, this Mickey Mouse figure in particular speaks to an archival and archeological interior. The iconic Disney character has been a part of American culture for nearly 80 years now, and, as such, has gone through a series of evolutions and "lives." By granting Mickey an inter anatomy, replete with full-color intestines and other innards, Freeny argues for a life outside our imaginations. Mickey is a living, breathing (even though we can't see his lungs) figment of our imaginations. Animated by humans in both senses of the word, Mickey exists as an entity both different from and similar to ourselves.

Image Credit: Jason Freeny Moist Productions

Despite his three eyes, toes, and fingers, the Alien's skeleton also seems familiar. This Toy Story figurine literalizes the conceit of the film where toys come to life in the absence of humans. The 3-dimensional medium of action-figure turned sculpture adds to the "liveness" of the figure. While recent studies on Tyrannosaurus rex fossils have led scientists to conclude the dinosaur may have been cannibalistic, one wonders what this skeleton might indicate about its vessel. If we can create a fictional world for him to live in, what would this intertior tell us about that world?

Image Credit: Jason Freeny Moist Productions

Though as a child, this image of a My Little Pony might have horrified me, my adult self finds it both amusing and fascinating. The statue gives the doll an inner life that I certainly dreamed of in my youth, and might not have been surprised to discover. I remember feeling that dolls and toys could be hurt and could heal, that I had to be careful with them, and that though they may possess magical powers (like the ability to fly) they otherwise operated on the same principles as I did. Maybe that was just me.

Image Credit: Jason Freeny Moist Productions

Freeny's digital work mimics traditional anatomical charts hung in doctor's offices and classrooms. I particularly like the dissonance created by a balloon animal with a skeleton. The instructions at the bottom of the image demonstrate how to create a balloon-animal dog, and this strikes me as paralell to the evolution of a zygote. The poster suggests that we can call these creatures into being, and through their creation, invest them with life.

I wonder if the anatomical charts would be a useful tool for teaching anatomy to kids? I can't decide if they would disturb or delight. Biology never interested me much, but maybe it would have if interiors were more fictive and imaginative.

Accessorizing Surveillance - Barbie Video Girl

Cate Blouke — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 13:03:14 +0000

Image Credit: screen shot from barbie.com

H/T: Noel

From coloring books to glitter to unicorns, my viz. posts seem to be revolving around adult repurposing of the trappings of youth. Naturally, we'll have to throw Barbie into the mix. While she has certainly seen her share of fashion updates over her 50-year reign as fantasy icon extraordinaire, this creepy 21st-century update to Barbie's accessory collection reverses the gaze and turns Barbie’s body into a tool for surveillance.

The doll is marketed and designed for video sharing. The website encourages girls to take video, upload it on the computer, and share it with their friends. The chord plugs right into Barbie’s spine, and for just $49.99, you too can have a cyborg girl gadget!

Image Credit: screen shot from barbie.com

With a video camera “hidden” in her necklace, Video Barbie ostensibly allows young girls to “record movies from Barbie’s point of view.” However, masking technology in the doll’s bosom opens the door for less appropriate kinds of video-taping and raises questions about children and technology.

Aside from my instinctual reaction – that this is the perfect new toy for pedophiles (the jacket looks like it could easily be replaced with one that would conceal the video interface) – I’m dismayed by the message this sends. For one thing, the placement of the camera reinforces fetishization of the female chest. Though the location may have been strictly due to technological constraint, to make eye-contact with the camera, little girls have to gaze directly at a biologically impossible female form.

Image Credit: screen shot from barbie.com

The language used to sell the doll blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. Barbie explains to us, “I am a real working video camera.” In a weird way, she ends up objectifying herself – selling both herself and her camera within. For all Barbie’s associations with female objectification, this doll flips that, and you become the filmed object.

And why are we teaching little girls to tape themselves in the first place? Let alone with a hidden camera? The recent internet incidents with 11-year-old “Jessi Slaughter” should be enough to have parents kicking their kids off computers, let alone buying them toys to broadcast with.

Image Credit: screen shot from barbie.com

Glitter re-visited (deadly and disembodied)

Cate Blouke — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:43:55 +0000

Image Credit: Norton

H / T to my mom for sending me the video in response to last week's post

Last week on Viz I posted about glitter as an undermining agent in images of solemnity. In this commercial for Norton security software, the glitter use results in deadly (and delightful) consequences.

The commercial functions through analogy. "Your on-line bank account" is like an adorable little cartoon unicorn - friendly, harmless, and essentially insubstantial. Depicting on-line information as a mythical creature, the commercial highlights the "unreality" of computer-based data. Whereas we can (and should) shred our sensitive information when it comes in physical documents, our on-line information is much more vulnerable through its illusive, unicorn-like existence floating in the ether.

Dolf Lundgren, however, is a very "real" representation (so to speak) of all the nasty bad guys out there waiting to do horrible things to our unicorns. "Real" criminals can seriously harm our ephemeral information, as demonstrated in the alternate version of the commercial below. Criminal activity is embodied in the looming stature of Lundgren, whereas our own points of vulnerability are disembodied (cartoon) and unwittingly dreaming of rainbows.

Similarly, Lundgren's weapons are also very physically menacing (a knife, a pistol, and a flame thrower), whereas the unicorn's defenses (when bolstered with the Norton software) are just as fantastical as the unicorn itself - he/she/it defeats Lundgren with a cloud of poisonous, sparkling fairy dust.

While I still hold that the comparison between security software and fairy dust might not actually be that reassuring on closer examination, in this instance the incongruity seems intentional. The fact that the unicorn fights off an automatic weapon with a cloud of smoke shot out of its horn (complete with tinkly fairy noise), causing Lundgren's head to explode into a cloud of glitter, is hilarious. The seemingly innocuous dust has deadly effects which are made festive and amusing through sparkle.

Overall, I find the embodied/disembodied personifications the most rhetorically interesting aspects of the commercial, but who doesn't love some unicorns and glitter? Or flame-throwers and bad jokes (below)?

Image Credit: Norton

H / T to my mom for sending me the video in response to last week's post

All that glitters is not gold... or in good taste

Cate Blouke — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 20:15:55 +0000

Image Credit: posted by "Hellen Killer" on Regresty, originating from PeachyProfiles.com

H/T to Megan Eatman for sending me the blog

As recent Twilight films have demonstrated, sparkling is one of the few things that doesn't translate well into new media. It also makes it hard to take anything seriously - regardless of authorial intention or gravity of subject matter.

In the wake of the September 11th attacks nine years ago, comedians across the country were faced with the question of how soon would be "too soon" to joke about the tragedy. The question of timing has arisen over and over again, recently in conversations about Clear Blue Tuesday, a movie musical with 9/11 as its narrative foundation that premiered in New York last week. The subject is inherently a sensitive one, and though the blog post I pulled these images from used them as a source for ridicule, this will be a conversation more about glitter than the ethics of humor.

Image Credit: posted by "Hellen Killer" on Regresty, originating from HitUpMySpot.com

Though these images were (presumably) created as hearfelt monuments to one of America's most significant tragedies, the use of a "glitter" effect fundamentally undermines any sense of solemnity that they were intended to invoke. The underlying photographic image of two New York City firefighters with hands clasped and arms raised, signifies a brotherhood and sense of community that infuses our collective memory of the 9/11 attacks. Yet the sparkling overlay, though it certainly draws our attention, also obscures the sincerity expressed in the caption. Sparkles are tied to feelings of festivity and celebration that seem utterly inappropriate for the content, and the juxtaposition verges on laughable (depending on your sense of humor) or downright tragic.

While these images are bound to stir up an unpedictable mix of feelings, they might serve as a useful tool for talking about context, content, and ethos. They seem to come from websites that specialize in icons for use on MySpace, and this could be used to fuel conversation about social networking and the "image" students present to the world. Or, an equally interesting converstation might arise regarding marketing strategies and pathos - to what lengths will advertisers go to grab our attention?

I'm not including a link to the url listed at the bottom of this last image as it seems to be a spam site that traps you into answering survey questions before you can navigate away from the page. Perhaps that's fitting given this is probably the most tasteless of all the images "Killer" collected. The cartoonish sparkling sky set against the reality of the smoking buildings completely negates the seemingly reverant message.

Image Credit: posted by "Hellen Killer" on Regresty, originating on MySpaceLayoutsHome.com

Sensual Suicide and Ironic Intent - Florian Jennet and Valentin Beinroth's "Freeze! Revisited"

Cate Blouke — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 21:42:01 +0000

Image Credit: "Freeze! Revisited" by Florian Jennet and Valentin Beinroth via todayandtomorrow.net

H/T to Ben Koch

Since the 1950s, the pop art movement has been challenging our ideas about mass-produced images and objects. Particularly by manipulating context, pop artists identify and exploit cultural trends. In a recent exhibition, two German artists explored the intersections of art, violence, and mistaken identities.

Image Credit: "Freeze! Revisited" by Florian Jennet and Valentin Beinroth via todayandtomorrow.net

The “guns” in these images are actually just gun-shaped popsicles. Even with contextualization, the images are striking, primarily because they reverse my expectations. The sensuality of the young woman contrasts ironically with her (essentially) suicidal pose. Given the other people in the background and the incongruity of her expression, it’s easier to disassociate the image with the potential violence it depicts.

The vending machine look of the freezer (above) provides an interesting commentary on contemporary issues of mass-produced violence and the widespread availability of weaponry. I don’t know much about gun politics in Germany, so maybe I’m just reading my own political views onto it. However, images from this project were featured in an issue of as|peers (an American Studies journal) that focused on America and Crime.

These images come from "Freeze! Revisted," the second version of Valentin Beinroth and Florian Jenett’s “Freeze” project. In the first project the ice guns were flavorless, not intended for consumption but just to “look real on first sight.” The artists enacted realistic situations with the ice guns and then discarded them in various places around Frankfurt – until the performances were stopped by the police.

For “Freeze! Revisited,” the edible ice guns were handed out to visitors. Whereas the first project left little visible record, this version resulted in an exciting archive of images.

Image Credit: "Freeze! Revisited" by Florian Jennet and Valentin Beinroth via todayandtomorrow.net

On the whole, I found the project delightfully morbid, and most of the images amused me thoroughly. The photo of the little boy, however, I find rather disturbing. Standing alone and gazing earnestly at the camera, the boy reverses the gaze and thereby implicates the spectator. Directly connecting youth and violence, this image loses the sense of irony that the project otherwise invokes.

Or, perhaps, irony was never the goal. The artists’ websites are largely written in German (which I don’t understand). So this brings up the interesting question of intentionality, especially across cultural divides. Is my reading of these images as anti-gun, pro-gun-control any less valid though the “text” is German and I’m American? Were these ever meant to be ironic? Or were they intended to shock instead of amuse? Does intentionality even matter if I can’t access it?

The Ethos of Hipster Dinosaurs

Cate Blouke — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:37:47 +0000

Image Credit: Imgur

H/T to Matt

For me, humor is one of the most powerful tools available for both pedagogy as well as social resistance. It seems appropriate therefore to introduce myself to the viz. blog with something a little offbeat and (potentially) funny.

The term “hipster” has experienced a resurgence in American vernacular in the last few years – at least I’ve heard it used with increasing regularity since I moved to Austin. For quite some time I found myself a bit perplexed about what people meant when they called a person a “hipster.” Since it generally seems to be used as a derogatory sobriquet, I felt it important to have a clear idea of what the term encapsulates.

As I should have known, the populist and notoriously un-academic resource, urbandictionary.com, offers an extensive and thorough discussion of the term. I was surprised by the thoughtfulness of several of the entries, and amused (as usual) by others. Much as I’d like to elaborate on those entries here, this is a visual rhetoric blog and I want to address the ways in which “hipsterism” is shaped by these images.

Image Credit: Imgur

What I find interesting here is the ways in which this series of images constructs hipsterism through visual cues and conversation bubbles. These “Hipster Dinosaurs” illustrate both a fashion sensibility tied to the hipster identity as well as an intellectual and anti-consumer attitude.

From these images, we gather that hipsters are coded as often (but not always) wearing thick-rimmed glasses, having manicured facial hair, smoking all-natural cigarettes and generally expressing intellectual disdain across a wide variety of subjects. However, finding humor in the pictures requires a foreknowledge of the identity.

Image Credit: Imgur

The use of dinosaurs is particularly intriguing. Since the term originated in the 1940s, is the use of dinosaurs meant to argue that contemporary hipsters are seeking to resuscitate an extinct species? Or, conversely, is it meant to indicate that hipsters are headed for extinction? Are they bound to be fossilized through their own intellectual elitism? Is it their own negativity that enables them to be put forth as a subject of ridicule?

Using coloring-book images and crayons to illustrate these drawings, the creator links the hipster persona with juvenility – seemingly the “know-it-all” attitude of youth. One could also argue that the act of creating such images is an equally juvenile and petulant response to a rather harmless subculture. This raises the question of authorial ethos. What assumptions can we make about the person that made these cartoons? Can we make any assumptions?

Humor generally relies on somebody being the butt of the joke, and who it is and is not appropriate to ridicule is an interesting question in the (post?) politically correct landscape. As is the question of who is allowed to do the ridiculing. The element of risk seems fundamentally linked to all forms of humor, but that very danger strikes me as the reason it is used and talked about so infrequently in academic discourse.

After writing this post, and getting ready to upload it, I found myself suddenly wondering if this was even appropriate to use. Would it offend someone? Would it get me in trouble? What if I self-identify as a hipster? Is self-mockery the only safe form of humor left?