Feminism

It is said that in reference to semiotics, everything about us represents something. Throughout history the photograph has influenced how women are portrayed, it can show us how gender is represented. An example of this is Annie Sprinkle, an American performance artist and a post porn modernist who is confident in herself who quite freely shows off her body. The images of her may not be what we today see as the womanly form because of the stick thin women surrounding the media but once the curvy figure was how women used to look and it shows to just look at any paintings from the past. Sprinkle states that glamour shoots are extremely hard work, standing in ridiculous heels, being strapped in or laced up in your outfit which pinches or sucks everything in so you look ‘beautiful’ for the camera.

The female form has been used in advertising for years, the media consistently saying to us as consumers this is sexy, this is how you should look. I saw a Coke can with a woman from the 50’s on the side of it enjoying Coke possibly for its ‘classic taste’. Men and women have been constantly divided throughout history because of stereotyping like not being able to vote or apply for certain jobs but then the Suffragettes stood up for women’s rights to make it equal. This does not just apply to reality but in film, women’s roles have changed so much from the typical damsel in distress to the femme fatale and women in many modern films taking charge. Actresses such as Marilyn Munroe and Laura Mulvey show that behind the perfectly coiffed hair, the dazzling smile and beautiful appearance that not everything is as it seems.

The Guerrilla Girls do exactly what Hollywood doesn’t. They create art to educate on the way women’s bodies are portrayed. On their website it states, ‘The Guerrilla Girls, reinventing the F word – feminism’. They began campaigning because they went to an art gallery and realised that hardly any of the exhibitors were women and then later did some more research and found that most of the influential art galleries hardly had work from any female artists. They decided to put a stop to this and campaigned creating imagery keeping anonymous but just using masks to hide their identities. Their work is done with humour and tries to provoke a response by showing discrimination. On their website they state that they are feminist masked avengers and expose sexism, racism, corruption in politics, art, film and pop culture. I think the work they are doing is good and is obviously successful as they go all over the world campaigning for women’s rights. I love the loud colours they use and the sarcastic language to really draw attention. I think it is also interesting how they use names of old female artists instead of their own to keep their anonymity. Hopefully their continuous hard work will make a difference in the future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_Girls

http://www.guerrillagirls.com/

http://www.guerrillagirls.com/interview/index.shtml

http://anniesprinkle.org/

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.carnaval.com/sf/Anatomy_of_a_Pin-Up_Photo-Annie-Sprinkle.jpg

Modernism/Post Modernism

It is expected for things to upgrade, develop and change through time, it is the way of moving forward. People argue that this is for better or worse, for example transport evolving has made it so we are better connected, we can go to new places and experience different cultures.  Technology updating has meant that daily tasks are easier and quicker but some may argue that all types of modernisation causes struggle.

Initially the world began to change in the 16^th to 18^th centuries with steam engines, factories, industrialisation, mass communication and more which over the years that has caused wars continuing today as the people revolt against these changes. Marx recognised that there were many bad points about modernisation such as the increasing sense of want and have,’ I must have the newest phones, I want this summer trends’ and machinery replacing human labour means people are starving and in poverty. Nietzsche believed that Christian ideals are being destroyed as we develop, that God is dead. Futurists on the other hand argue that we should dismiss the past and embrace today and tomorrow. So what is the solution and what has this done to the art world?

Much like these views, art has separated itself out. The post modernists mix everything together using past and present for inspiration. They integrate everything together to create something new whereas the modernist photographer would work almost rigidly looking at form, angles and technology. This has happened with music; Jimi Hendrix was ahead of his time and created music using feedback and wah-wah pedals which hadn’t been done before. Rock music also developed from the blues so taking something from the past and creating something new. Architecture has also undergone radical transformations where buildings now look less at function but more at colour and design.

Post modernism is more playful, light hearted and follows popular culture. Compare Ed Westons work with William Eggleston, both of their works can be perceived to beautiful but are completely different. Weston looks at form and composition whereas Eggleston uses colour and strange objects and ideas to create his work. The work of Ed Ruscha in his collection 34 parking lots looks at society and how cars change our landscapes for better or worse. Ruscha looks at how the oil leaks are like traces of us, ghostly memories left to show where we once parked our cars. I think there are many problems with moving forward so quickly but things can work together I write as I listen to Stevie Ray Vaughan on my iPod, contradictory to the futurists I think the past does influence us every day, we just need to ensure we use it positively and learn from it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Ruscha

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/6224022/Ed-Ruscha-interview.html

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&xhr=t&q=ed+weston&cp=9&pf=p&sclient=psy&source=hp&aq=0&aqi=&aql=&oq=ed+weston&pbx=1&fp=a9b9aa294c8c9b68

http://www.edward-weston.com/

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/that-eggleston-photograph/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietzsche

http://www.egglestontrust.com/

http://www.jimihendrix.com/uk/home

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism

Semiotics

I first heard the term semiotics whilst studying media at A level. It was loosely used and described but I can still remember my tutor explaining to me how it was the study of signs.

Semiotics is the study of how these signs communicate with us and when this was first explained to me it was presented as a prop in a film scene. These signs all have a connotation, a meaning referring to something other than what is initially apparent; it may lead us to search deeper within an image to find what else is trying to be said. Signs may differ between cultures, they may have other words for objects represented or a sign from the image may mean something different to us, it is how we interpret these items. An example of this is Darmi Halake Gilo by Fazal Sheikh 1992-93. Some people may see her as a woman who is poor, made to pose in the baron lands in Africa but if you look closer you could begin to think well she is wearing jewellery, this doesn’t happen to be an everyday commodity and could symbolise wealth.  As said in Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes, ‘With regard to the heterogeneity of good photographs, all we can say is that the object speaks; it induces us, vaguely, to think.”

Semiotics can be broken down into the signifier and the signified, the physical form and then what it is referencing to, for example a top hat is just a hat but it could mean wealth from a certain time in history. The Vanities of Human Life by Harmen Steenwyck is a good example, we see a skull, an oil lamp, a recorder, a book etc which actually symbolise death, wealth, love of music, knowledge etc. Semiotics has been used via a range of media and invites the viewer to think hard about what the artist is truely trying to say to us.

http://www.fazalsheikh.org/

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/harmen-steenwyck-still-life-an-allegory-of-the-vanities-of-human-life

(Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, 1980, page38)

John Stezaker

I recently visited the Whitechapel Gallery and was introduced to the work of John Stezaker. I had heard his name before but never took the time to look at what he had created. He takes old film stills of particularly unknown actors, postcards or book illustrations and collages them which completely changes the meaning of the image. He cuts away parts or places new images over the top to achieve his new desired outcome. His work uses the uncanny in his work, we as the viewer are constantly trying to search for a face and imagine it how it should be.

As previously stated, I had never seen his work before and was impressed how the images worked so well. The Marriage series was one of my favourite. Some of the pictures met so effectively and others changed the face so it was twisted and grotesque portrait. I did think that there was something very mesmerising of this work and stood and stared trying to imagine the whole faces without the added sections.

His famous mask series fused postcards of waterfalls, caves or cliffs with a person’s face. I stopped to again to peer deeper into the images and try and see any facial features. In the end it decided I didn’t need to try and take these images apart but to just look and enjoy.

My favourite piece by him was the upside down reflection of the woman and man in the piano, I think because this was so simple that it was so successful. I turned my head to view it up the right way and then thought I actually preferred it how Stezaker had planned for us to view it. He has taken the normal and made it abnormal but we can still relate somehow to it which is what fascinated me.

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/john_stezaker.htm

Whitechapel Gallery, John Stezaker exhibition

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/john-stezaker

http://framescourer.blogspot.com/2011/03/john-stezaker-at-whitechapel-gallery.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stezaker

Shoot, Beautify and Share your now

This advert was found in Hello magazine and at a first glance it hard to see what it was advertising. With just the imagery of a woman at some kind of concert with a microphone crowd surfing it is hard to think that this is selling a phone. The image shows the woman singing and obviously having a good time and this could be a once in a lifetime thing for her. Then you read the tagline, ‘Shoot, Beautify, Share your now’. It is referring to the phones ability to offer photo editing applications so you can upload your images to social networking sites such as Facebook. This would be a selling point for many younger women now as Facebook is such a huge part of some people’s daily ritual.

A photograph captures in an instant a part of your life; it is a way to document your past with the family albums coming out to embarrass you. Stephen Shore says ‘a photograph has its own life in the world. The context in which the photo is seen affects the meaning the viewer draws from it.’ This refers to how I said the photo by itself just shows a woman having fun and some people may aspire to do something like this in their life but in this case the text is what grounds the image. Now, more than often, people snap away but leave their photos in digital form, as we have lost going down to the shops and handing your film in for processing. By ‘sharing your now’, Samsung are trying to sell the phone on the notion that as technology has changed, so have we in the way that we share photos.

‘Shoot, beautify and share your now’ leads me to think it the photo editing and uploading is a relatively quick process so you could update your life on your Facebook page. It is strange when you think how we have changed with the advances of technology and maybe a little saddening to realise some things have gone such as getting you film processed. I do think this advert is effective because it shows you what the selling point of the phone is and what its main features are. It is strange to think how technology has developed and how we as the consumer have changed so that now we want a phone to do everything but just call.

 www.samsung.co.uk

http://www.hellomagazine.com/

Stephen Shore, The Nature of Photographs, The Physical Level, Page 26.