viz. - protest

Pictures from Sochi

Jenn Shapland — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 00:23:19 +0000

Photo credit: Morry Gash/AP via The Guardian

Earlier today, members of the band Pussy Riot were attacked while performing in Sochi in front of an Olympic banner. According to The Guardian, none were arrested, one was left bloody, and we, U.S. viewers, were given the image above to process. Women in bright colors, women without faces, one woman with a defiant arm raised, one woman holding a microphone and then a man, in an overstated paramilitary uniform, taking a black horsewhip to them. So far, the New York Times is sticking with their skeptical headline “Protest Group Says Cossacks Attacked Them”—uh, says?—despite the volume at which this photo speaks otherwise. In a video that I don’t recommend you watch, more men in uniform arrive to rip the performer’s balaclava masks off, throw them by the elbows to the pavement, beat them with nightsticks on the ground, and attempt to break their guitars.

The olympics are boring. Especially the winter olympics. My interest in them this year is at its nadir. But it’s undeniably addicting to watch the controversy, conversation, and photos unfold all over U.S. news media platforms (and subsequently across the social media verse), eclipsing the stream of non-news that usually takes precedence over international headlines about acts of terrorism, political unrest, and general environmental and economic decline. (Side-note: did anyone else read this main page headline on nytimes.com yesterday and think something serious was happening in the world?).

This is by no means Pussy Riot’s first or last encounter with Russian police, and by now I assume most readers have been keeping track of the band’s headline-making protests against anti-feminist and anti-LGBT policies in Russia. But I can’t help but notice that their version of expression at theses Olympic games, which earlier this week got them detained by police, makes for a stark contrast with that of vocal Americans getting press in Sochi. Specifically, I’m thinking of the flamboyant persona cultivated by figure skating commentator Johnny Weir.

Perhaps because he’s a former athlete, an American, and likely because he’s male, Weir’s sartorial pushback against the confines of Russian mandates for appropriate gender and sexual expression garner him the attention and clumsy praise of style blogs and newspapers, giving interviewers and fellow commentators license to say incredibly stupid, pejorative, but apparently kind-hearted things about him all while hoisting him on a somewhat demeaning pedestal. He earns headlines like “Johnny Weir confirms he coordinates outfits with Tara Lipinski.” But no one comes after him with a whip. Regarding others’ celebration of him, Weir says, "I am not protesting. I am not making a statement. I'm just being myself." He’s not protesting; he’s becoming a celebrity instead.

Image credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

Fashion is one of the only reasons I watch the olympics. When else do you get to see nations compete on the world stage for best patriotic track suit?! (Russia, the worst by far, dressed all their female athletes as Mrs. Claus.) Scandal is the second reason to pay attention. In the lab, we’re still reminiscing about Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan’s infamous shoelace showdown at the 1994 games. Figure skating is always fun to watch—so many spectacular falls, so little mercy from judges and commentators—but Tonya and her 80s leotards brought it to a new level. Still, treating the outbursts and ugliness at Sochi as more tabloid fodder is a scary proposition, as the photo at the top demonstrates. As Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova put it in an interview posted earlier today, prior to the attack,

Unfortunately, I must say that it is virtually impossible for an opposition activist to be in Sochi. They simply prevent us from moving around the city. Our cars kept being stopped by traffic police. Once we decided to switch to public transport they came up with a new excuse [to stop us], which is to bring criminal charges against us. Thus voicing any dissent against the policies of [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin is completely ruled out in this city.

The Politics of Tampon Jewelry

clsloan — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 23:00:18 +0000

Image Credit: Politix

In the wake of the menstrual pad confiscation outside the Texas senate gallery, protesters made some highly creative and intentionally jarring visual statements using, primarily, unwrapped tampons. Sanitary napkin accessories, as far as I know, haven't made a big nationwide appearance yet, but the compactness of tampons, coupled with the built-in string, makes it a relatively easy object to manipulate in craftsy projects. I noticed some bold souls stringing them together to make impromptu necklaces at the state capitol the day of the outrage, but the country tuned in when Melissa Harris-Perry daringly donned some tampon earrings on her MSNBC Sunday show. You can see a brief video capturing her demonstration here.

So, what exactly is the message behind hanging tampons from your ears? Harris-Perry's own statements offer a clue. As she put on the homemade earrings, courtesy of her producer, she noted “...the Texas state legislature said that you couldn't bring tampons in when they were going. These women who, in fact, stand up for their own reproductive rights, weren't allowed to, initially, to bring tampons, so just in case that ever happens again, ladies, you can bring them on your earrings.” This observation implies that the legislature was intentionally targeting medical equipment specific to the female body on a singularly biological basis. This focus served to viscerally emphasize an apparently essential or innate distinction between the “uncontrollable” and “dangerous” female body and, by contrast, the “normal” male body that could move between the public and private sphere without having to surrender any threatening toolkits. Melissa Harris-Perry caught on to the implication: women, according to general expectations, are medically bound to their menstrual cycles and can be neatly subjected to prejudice based on that condition.

The chosen retaliatory method? “Bring them in on your earrings.” Instead of identifying tampons and, by extension, menstrual pads and cups, as the symbols of an irksome but necessary biological burden, Harris-Perry suggests embracing them as representations of the cultural experiences women can share. Inserting tampon earrings and displaying them as accessories suggests that inserting tampons during a menstrual cycle need not be considered an anatomical necessity but, rather, an aspect of female culture. While you can't perfectly control your physical states, the idea is that you can pick your jewelry, and that your necklaces, earrings, anklets, nose rings and bracelets say something about your personality. The rhetoric of the accessory brings personal style, individual flair, and, most importantly, an aspect of choice to an altercation previously about innate anatomical conditions. Pretty appropriate given the context.

Occupy Austin: Love-in, Left-Wing Tea Party, or What?

Marjorie Foley — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:00:14 +0000

Image Credit: Marjorie Foley

Last Thursday afternoon, I borrowed a video camera from the Digital Writing and Research Lab and headed down to Occupy Austin, a gathering intended to stand in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. If you've been following the media coverage of Occupy Wall Street, then you know that people are confused about what exactly it is the protesters in New York want, and in Austin it doesn't seem to be much different.

Image Credit: Marjorie Foley

There were certainly people at Occupy Austin who fit some of the stereotypes coming out of conservative media outlets: there's a hippie playing a flute, people in suits doing yoga, and a bunch of kids who looked like they could start a drum circle at the drop of a hat. And there were plenty of signs proclaiming non-political messages of love and solidarity with others in the movement. Some aspects of Occupy Austin seemed more like a love-in than anything else.

Image Credit: Marjorie Foley

But, as Jon Stewart touched upon in an episode of The Daily Show, there were also many parallels between this and Tea Party protests. Many of the protestors despise the Fed, are angered by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), and think Barack Obama is evil.

Image Credit: Marjorie Foley

During the General Assembly portion of the first day of Occupy Austin, tensions were obvious between those who wanted their occupation to be about community solidarity and those who wanted the group to move to political action. The General Assembly is the portion of the day in which anyone can raise issues for discussion in the group. Organizers depend heavily upon Robert's Rules of Order, voting on who can speak and limiting how long they can speak.

I recorded a lengthy portion of the General Assembly in which speakers raised issues--solar energy, forming political action committees, even forming cheerleading groups--and then voted upon how many minutes each speaker could have. What I found most interesting was the reliance on Robert's Rules of Order, a system of rules intended for deliberative assemblies, in an atmosphere in which political deliberation seemed unacceptable.

I edited the following video down in order to show just how many times the organizers took the floor back (or forceably took the microphone back) from people proposing issues. While the proposers are breaking the rules of order by going beyond thirty seconds to raise their issues, it also seems like the man in charge of the microphone (the guy in the brown shirt), likes to take the microphone back whenever someone proposes political action. Note that at 1:13, he tries to take the microphone back from the older gentleman, and he throws up his arms to show that he has a "block" to what is being said. In Robert's Rules of Order, and as explained earlier in the general assembly, blocks are used only when one thinks that whatever is happening will be disastrous to the group as a whole. What you can't hear the man in the brown shirt say because of sound quality is that "This movement is not about partisan politics."

Video Credit: Marjorie Foley

It's pretty clear that there are some people at Occupy Austin who do think that the movement is about "partisan politics," especially if partisan politics means issue politics. But it seems like the "leaders" (here, brown-shirt guy and white-shirt lady) of this non-hierarchical organization want to prevent the movement from moving in that direction.

There are two readings, at least, of this situation. The first is that, as Jason Fitzgerald argues, while there's no "message" coming out of the movement, there's certainly a reason behind the protests: people are protesting or occupying in order to bring attention to income inequality and corporate influence in government. Instead of debating "issues," these protesters want to express solidarity with other in the community without moving to political action because they believe that the political system is broken. Some people at Occupy Austin certainly fit into that category. The second reading, I think, is something more like what happened with the Tea Party. In order to build a populist movement, groups shy away from being overly ideological, focusing too narrowly on social issues, or focusing too narrowly on identity politics. They build a following first, build solidarity with their communities, and use the General Assembly to hash out what the message is, whatever it is.

Branding Occupy Wall Street

Steven J LeMieux — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 16:11:06 +0000

(Image Credit: Michael Nagle, Getty Images via In Focus)

During the past week Occupy Wall Street has gained increasing media attention. The movement, initially called for by the group Adbusters, began in earnest on September 17th when protesters first began to occupy Zuccotti Park. This initial act seems to have largely been met with bemused ambivalence, and while there was originally a single demand articulated by Adbusters in their July call to action—that “Barack Obama ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington” (Adbusters) –things were quite murky by the time the occupation took shape. Much of the media attention that the movement has gained, especially during this surge in participation, has focused on the apparent lack of concrete demands set forth by OWS. This confusion is misplaced. While the list of hopeful outcomes is amorphous a clear sense of oppositional branding has been developed from the wealth of signs and images created through the movement. OWS demands that we put a hold on our love affair with notions of prosperity that put us in a double bind.

(Image Credit: Adbusters)

This early poster by Adbusters does a nice job of simultaneously crystallizing and confusing the movement. By asking about a single demand it offers the possibility of a unified, concrete protest while leaving that single demand open to interpretation. And while the question broadens possibility the image suggests a possible outcome. Raising above clouds of teargas and crowds of appropriately gasmasked protesters a dancer postures serenely on the Wall Street Bull. She rides the bull when most visitors pose for pictures as they fondle the bull’s balls. The bull can be more than a system by which the 1% (to use the popular 1/99% split that the movement has espoused) cows the other 99%.

(Image Credit: David Shankbone via In Focus)

The Charging Bull, a sculpture created by Arturo Di Modica in the late 80s, has become an icon for Wall Street. Originally created to represent the “strength and power of the American people” the bull has come to stand in for the strength and power of a particular system. What Occupy Wall Street is demanding is that we stop worshiping that system. That all this symbolism has been poured into a bull makes a certain amount of sense. Bulls are domestic animals that never feel quite domestic, yet even with all their power (and perhaps because of it) they are kept under strict control by the humans that own them. Bulls have largely been turned into a tool of reproduction.

The movement has, in some ways, twice enacted a barrier around the bull. Fearful of any particular harm that could befall the icon it was quickly fenced in. The fence and the guards prevented both protestors from nearing the bull and tourists who flock to the bull daily for lucky rubs and pictures. And by enforcing the cordoning off of the bull the OWS protests have perfectly created a visualization of their message. By enforcing this barrier the bull (and, more importantly, what it has come to represent) is show to be something that we cannot access. The above video by BLUCHEEZ accurately portrays some of the frustrations inherent in this sudden distance between the bull and its followers.

(Image Credit: Erin M via Fast Company)

Gaps have value. And creating distance can be a goal in and of itself. Through this distance we can begin to recognize the multitude of relationships that are manifest between the economic and political systems in this country and the people that inhabit them.

Visualizing (Post-)Racial Protest and Politics

Rachel Schneider — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:25:18 +0000

Image Credit: Screenshot from Towleroad

H/T: Hampton Finger

It’s been hard to miss the recent media coverage of the new Arizona immigration law SB 1070, which allows police to stop individuals and require them to show legal papers proving their citizenship upon “reasonable suspicion.” Many have interpreted this as legalizing racial profiling, which has caused protests to spring up against this, most recently the one pictured above where individuals smeared refried beans in the shape of a swastika to point out the potentially fascist implications of the bill. What makes me curious is how racial tensions have been visually deployed during the theoretically post-racial Obama presidency.

I was fortunate to recently attend a talk at the University of Texas’s John L. Warfield Center for African & African American Studies given by Dr. Soyini Madison on the topic of “White Anger, Crazy Patriotism, and (Post) Black Performativity.” In this talk, Dr. Madison discussed how what she refers to as “crazy patriotism,” which she accounts for as something like a sacred belief in nationalist ideology, first projected their frustrations onto Michelle Obama to portray her as an angry black woman who hates America (as seen on a New Yorker cover previously discussed on viz.), then re-appropriated it as a righteous anger that seeks to preserve American values. This discussion seemed relevant for viz. readers if only because Dr. Madison constantly referred to the visual “momification” of Michelle Obama on newspaper stands nationwide.

Image Credit: Jezebel

Jezebel’s recent post on her magazine covers notes how frequently she likes to pose with her hands clasped:

Why do so many Mobama covers feature the First Lady with her hands demurely clasped? Deliberate signaling of her approachability? Or is it just how she likes to pose? What does it all mean?

Jezebel is clearly onto something here: the pearls she wears, along with her clasped hands, her manicured nails, and the apple on the table all serve to portray the First Lady as a suburban middle-class mom whose causes and views are all as wholesome as the organic foods she grows in her home garden. Yet while some have criticized her for this momification, Madison points out how this particular post-black identity allows the Obamas to displace crazy patriotism yet still maintain race as a part of the discussion. (It’s interesting to consider how her image helps sell magazines as a note, though—she helps sell magazines directed at African-Americans, but “doesn’t produce more than an occasional lift” for general-interest publications.)

The question that I think can come from pairing together what seems like two different discourses is to see how the visuals of post-raciality still lean on racially encoded signifiers. Just as refried beans serve as shorthand to identity an angry Hispanic speaker, Michelle is dressed and posed to present a nonthreatening blackness to viewers.

William Faulkner once wrote that “the past is never dead, it’s not even past.” We can see in these images that while some commentators and Tea Partiers might argue that this law doesn’t involve racial profiling and that Obama is not subject to racist attacks, racism and its legacy remain problems with which we must cope—especially when people are already being arrested according to this law's logic.

Are some protest images too graphic?

Nate Kreuter — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:22:34 +0000

*Today's post is more of a question, and rather than reproduce the images of the discussion, I will write about them.

Today I witnessed what is an annual event at the University of Texas at Austin. An anti-abortion protest group was set up outside of Gregory Gym. Set up behind them were 30 foot tall billboards, a traveling road show of graphic photos that the group claims depict aborted fetuses. The appeal of the photos is obvious, an attempt to ask, "how can people kill tinier people." Note that the photos these groups use (and there are many such groups that hold similar protests at campuses around the country) are not necessarily depicting the same medical circumstances that the groups claim the photos depict.

What was interesting is that this event appears to have taken place under some guise of university sanction. University of Texas police were providing security, and the billboards were protected by barricades obviously owned by the University of Texas. Such marks of officialdom lead me to believe that the protest had to have been organized through some university sanctioned student group, presumably with a faculty sponsor. Obviously the University's allowing the event does not equal an endorsement of the group's message, but they certainly weren't trespassing.

As a colleague and I walked out of the gym, he asked an intriguing question, "I wonder what would happen if someone launched a similar protest with equally graphic images of dead US soldiers and Iraqi civilians?"

I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm captivated by it and its ramifications. What if a similar student group, operating through the same channels and meeting the same bureaucratic requirements, launched an anti-war protest graphically depicted some of the 4,000+ Americans who have been lost?

I don't know how UT would respond to such an event, but it would be explosive. How would your academic institution react?

*I have not included relevant images in this, our visual rhetoric blog, as a personal decision not to reproduce images that I feel inhibit, rather than enabling, civil debate.*

Is it still a protest?

erinhurt — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:05:11 +0000

How does the space in which protest art appears affect the ways in which people respond to it? Or, even, if they see it as a protest at all?

In my class the other day, we talked about protest art. Among other things (Shepard Fairey), we looked at anti-war peace protester Brian Haw. Haw has lived in a peace camp in Parliament Square in Britain since June 2, 2001, remaining at the site full time, leaving only for court appearances.

Over time he amassed a large collection of signage (over 600 signs) that took up considerable space in the area. However, after continuous struggles with the police over his right to be there (and their attempts to remove him), Haw finally applied for a permit and was approved, but only under the condition that his demonstration site did not exceed three meters in diameter.

But the story gets better. Mark Wallinger recreated Haws' signs in an exhibit called State Britain. The description on the Tate Gallery website reads:

Mark Wallinger has recreated peace campaigner Brian Haw’s Parliament Square protest for a dramatic new installation at Tate Britain. Running along the full length of the Duveen Galleries, State Britain consists of a meticulous reconstruction of over 600 weather-beaten banners, photographs, peace flags and messages from well-wishers that have been amassed by Haw over the past five years.

Faithful in every detail, each section of Brian Haw’s peace camp from the makeshift tarpaulin shelter and tea-making area to the profusion of hand-painted placards and teddy bears wearing peace-slogan t-shirts has been painstakingly sourced and replicated for the display.

While the Tate website argues that "bringing a reconstruction of Haw’s protest before curtailment back into the public domain [...] raises challenging questions about issues of freedom of expression and the erosion of civil liberties in Britain today," I would argue that thinking about both of these visual collections raises questions about efficacy and intent. Do those who see this exhibit in the museum consider this a protest? Or do they view it more as something removed? My students argued for the latter concept, and I am tempted to agree with them. But, something should be said about Wallinger's project's ability to "save" Haw's artificats, which otherwise would be gone from the public eye. But can the exhibit still do the work that these signs did at Haw's camp?

The inconsistency of Easter imagery

Brett Ommen — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:48:04 +0000

Easter is one of those odd holy days turned secular holidays that creates a lot of incongruous images. Why do we have baskets with marshmallow bunnies instead of a nougat filled crucifix? Perhaps it is that kind of visual confusion that lead a group of protestors to create a new kind of visual Easter mix up.

On Sunday , a group calling themselves Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War stood up in Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral right before Cardinal Francis George’s homily and sprayed stage blood on themselves and other worshipers. The gaps between visual display and reality are as confused here as they are between the Easter story and Peeps.

The problem, in my estimation, is that the protestors assumed a kind of visibility that exists in a vacuum. The image of protestors covered in fake blood, while perhaps a bit cliché, is powerful. It forces people to imagine bloodshed in everyday life to call attention to the real bloodshed war-torn nations experience. The protestors’ choice of venue was in some ways a wise one. The press was on hand to cover the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Easter celebrations, and so a broad kind of exposure was guaranteed. And so if good visual performance were limited to the creation of a powerful image that has a strong channel of circulation, this protest would have been a success. But visual communication, being communication, needs to recognize the other contingencies of meaning production.

The Catholic Church, by way of the global voice of the Pope and the national voice of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been clear in its opposition to the war. The setting of Holy Name Cathedral, then, serves as perhaps the most incongruous location for this protest. What’s more, the Chicago area has experienced a few high profile acts of public violence in recent months along with the unfortunately typical violence of urban life. And so a Catholic Church in Chicago is doubly problematic as the setting for this protest. The failure to recognize the setting that serves as a backdrop for the visual protest causes all kinds of problems for the protestors and undercuts their message. Some of the protestors suggested that the setting was appropriate because Cardinal George has visited with President Bush, but that line of reasoning suggests that leaders who disagree with the President over issues relating to the war should avoid him, and that indicates a certain lack of faith in the prospects of communication. Of course, if I were as poor at communicating as the Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War, I suppose I’d have a certain lack of faith in the prospects of communication as well.

Ways of looking at a bird: Paper anniversary edition

John Jones — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:03:47 +0000

A year ago today, the city of Boston was brought to a standstill by led advertisements for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. Here’s how I described the incident way-back-when in viz.’s first blog post:

on Jan. 31, 2007, some members of the the Boston police force interpreted some electronic, guerrilla marketing devices for the movie Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters as bombs. The city closed down bridges and shut down the river to boat traffic. In the ensuing fallout, video artists Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens were arrested and the president of Adult Swim resigned over the incident.

Today, graffiti artists and other pranksters have commemorated the incident by posting similar LED art all over Beantown:

Some of the installations included special warnings:

Apparently, Berdovsky and Stevens ended up receiving a slap on the wrist—they had to do some community service—but the incident has become infamous among technology-types as an example of the wonderful things we can accomplish as a society through a steadfast reliance on our vast reserves of ignorance and fear.

Happy Aqua Teen Day.

Making a public argument with the Trevi Fountain

erinhurt — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 03:26:29 +0000

In my rhetoric course, I ask students to find and bring in examples of protests. This week, one of my students brought in a news story about a man (Graziano Cecchini) who poured red dye into the Trevi fountain in Italy.
According to The Guardian , "Police found leaflets near the fountain signed by a rightwing group claiming responsibility for the act. The leaflets said the red paint was a protest at the cost of organising the Rome Film Festival and symbolically referred to the event's red carpet."

The image Cecchini creates is striking - pictures of it abound on the internet in spite of the fact that Italian authorities had the paint and fountain cleaned up in a matter of hours. I find Cecchini's protest to be effective in terms of garnered publicity and awareness, but find that it drops the ball in terms of connecting viewers with his actual issues about the Film Festival. But, as we discussed in class, protests whose aim is first and foremost publicity often aren't necessarily concerned with making specific points but rather raising awareness in a more general kind of way. I'm not sure if I find this to be true most of the time, but it does seem to be the case with Cecchini's particular protest - and it works.

Critical Mass and Visual Protest

erinhurt — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 14:24:31 +0000

In my "Rhetoric if Protest" class today, I had my students watch We Are Traffic, a documentary directed by Ted White about the xerocratic protest group Critical Mass. This group relies on several key elements of visual rhetoric to both make their points within their local communities and to spread their ideologies nationally and internationally. I find these to be excellent classroom resources.

One way that Critical Mass spreads its message is through their flyer exchange . Each flyer offers a visual representation of how a particular Critical Mass community decided to present their ride - some are more informative, others are more political.

Also featured in the documentary is an artist by the name of Rigo23 , whose murals often take the form of street signs but impart drastically different messages by building eco-friendly meaning onto these pre-existing symbols. He explains (I'm paraphrasing here) that as a pedestrian and biker he found roadway symbols to be nonsensical (he uses the example of the one way street, which only seems to apply to cars) yet if one disobeys these symbols the result can be a city fine or even injury. His protest murals bring attention to the signs themselves, the meanings (or arguments) that we already attribute, and then add another layer of meaning. I found them to be one of the more interesting aspects of the documentary.