viz.

Image Credit: Boredpanda.com

I’ve been seeing a growing trend on the internet for the past year or so: sites like Buzzfeed and Bored Panda advertising series like Gabriele Galimberte’s Toy Stories a.k.a. “Children from Around the World with Their Favorite Toys,” or, another popular one, “Families from around the World with a Month’s Worth of Food.” What is the source of our cultural compulsion to view these massive collections of human possessions? Moreover, why do we like to see all of the peoples of every nation juxtaposed alongside one another? Visual Rhetoric is not only the study of individual signs, images, and symbols, but also of the messages that images impart as a collective. In the era of the internet list and the online photo gallery, images are often presented in groups to form a broader thesis. So what exactly is the thesis behind these “People from around the World Holding X” or “Doing Y”?

In looking at these catalogues of humanity writ large, I’m reminded of an exhibit which made its debut long before the era of viral internet photo collections: Edward Steichen’s The Family of Man.

Image credit: Postcards from America Tumblr, Mikhael Subotzky

On a recent visit to the Harry Ransom Center’s exhibition "Radical Transformation: Magnum Photos in the Digital Age” I was inspired by how often Magnum photographers turned their lenses to capture that ever elusive “representative” photo collection of the U.S., as they do in their project “Postcards from America.” The concept behind the project is that a group of acclaimed Magnum photographers work collaboratively. In order to do this, they pile into a van and travel to different cities taking snapshots and uploading them directly to their Tumblr: http://postcardsfromamerica.tumblr.com/.

Image Credit: NancyNewberry.com

Recently one of my students came to class carrying a large mass of ribbons. With a central bow the size of a large sunflower, and gold and white strands trailing for several feet, it resembled a festive octopus. “I’m making fonts for my design class out of mums,” she explained, as she pulled out a chair for her artwork. The class then conferred the knowledge of the Texas tradition that is mum giving.

Image credit: videos.videopress.com

The Harry Ransom Center’s current exhibit “Radical Transformation: Magnum Photos into the Digital Age” poses interesting questions about the ambiguity of the photographic medium in our present time, while simultaneously calling into question the status of the photographer as objective.

[Warning: This post contains spoilers]

Image credit: Amctv.com

In my last post I defined “Breaking Bad” as a tragicomedy. Though the series was suspenseful, it maintained its comedic touch through visual elements. Successful tragicomedies are ones which constantly maintain their equilibrium: neither becoming too humorous, nor too dramatic. Because of this balance, there is something to the tragicomic work that gives it a certain fullness, a sense of having lived a complete life. To this end, there are a few visual scenes from “Breaking Bad” which I would suggest are representative anecdotes; images which serve as microcosmic summations for the series at large.

[Note: This post contains spoilers, please click on the title to proceed]

Image credit: mbmg-media.com

Like many of you, I am still mourning the loss of “Breaking Bad.” I’m not going to spoil it for you. So whether you’re one episode in, zero episodes in, or on the verge of completion…read on without trepidation. Also, this is going to be the first of two posts on our dearly departed “B.B.,” because I’m just that into it right now.

One of the first things about “Breaking Bad” that hooked me (and I have a feeling many of its viewers) was that the desert landscape in the show was so overwhelmingly beautiful. Nothing I say will do it justice, or to cop the style of “B.B.”’s reigning poet W.W., one might say “New Mexico, what is this I see in your landscape of saguaros and meth labs that is beyond all compare?” So here, bask in the glow of your computer screen reflecting this image:

Image credit: pri.org

Image credit: Know Your Meme

In my last two posts, I suggested that internet memes carry a precarious relationship to history because a general principle of most internet memes is their detachment from an original setting (see: Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop and Nina Gouvea em Desastres). In this post, however, I’ll explore an instance in which an internet meme became one of very few access points to a nation’s history.

Image credit: Flickriver

Daniel Johnston’s “Jeremiah the Innocent,” also known as the “Hi, How Are You” frog, is arguably the single-most iconic piece of street art in Austin. Though many who pass it by everyday assume that it is graffiti which has been preserved, Austin news station KXAN reports that the “Hi, How Are you” frog is actually a commissioned mural for which Johnston was reportedly paid a sum of $100 by Sound Exchange, a popular music store. To the dismay of Austinites, Sound Exchange closed down in 2004 and was replaced by a Baja Fresh. At the time of Sound Exchange’s closing, customers rallied to protect the mural, and won. “Jeremiah the Innocent” was the cover of Daniel Johnston’s 1983 album Hi, How Are You: the unfinished album. Throughout the years, various vandals have tried to deface the mural, but time and again it has been salvaged by popular demand.  

In November 2011 student protestors at UC Davis were holding a peaceful demonstration on their campus when former Lt. John Pike pepper-sprayed them at close range.  In the days that followed, my Facebook newsfeed became a log of collective outrage. One day, an image of former Lt. John Pike Photoshopped into Georges Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” appeared, and the “Casual Pepper Spray Everything Cop" meme was born.

Image Credit: Knowyourmeme.com

Reactions to the meme were varied. Some, like a friend of mine who is a UC Davis alum, worried the humor would become detached from the message of the protest. After all, in the world of internet memes detachment is somewhat of a governing principle. Even databases like knowyourmeme.com refer to the UC Davis Cop as “Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop” -- emphasizing the disjuncture of his body language with his actions in a nonspecific time and place, over his place in UC Davis’s institutional history, and in the history of the Occupy movement. I would argue that some subjects seem riper for meme-making than others because their engagement with their surroundings already suggests the kind of disconnect between an individual and his or her environment that we usually associate with the chaotic and Photoshopped world of the Internet.