My new interest in blogging has opened my eyes to many different topics that I hope to touch on in future posts. Just last week, my post focussed on web video and persuasion, the idea that web video may send an even more intense message than simply verbal argumentation. Unfortunately, there is no way to total the exact persuasiveness of web video mediums, however, last week's topic led me to think about argumentation as it relates to art and expression. The first blog I would like to comment on is titled, "Visualizing Dissent: Graffiti as Art". The article posted on blogspot by Jeremiah Mcnichols discusses a recent cleanup approach to graffiti in San Francisco. The project, sponsored by advertising agency BBDO West presented their pro bono project named Up with the People. As part of the cleanup message, they produced three advertisements (one of the three can be seen below). The messages, however, caused the art community to speak out about graffiti and their view of graffiti as a critical role in public debate. Much like in my last post, as I was discussing youtube and how the medium has given voice to an otherwise quiet group, graffiti can be seen in a similar light. The advertising campaign opened the door to many graffiti artists who describe their ability to "think in pictures," and gave them a chance to discuss their artwork in both words and images. Much of the work can be viewed on the website Wooster Collective. The second blog I came across is a reflection of the most lucrative business of the modern age, plastic surgery. Recently, a new show entered the television realm on TLC called "Ten Years Younger." The reality television shows main focus is to ask an "unrehearsed," crowd the age of the woman on telvevision. After the estimation, the purpose is to, through a series to surgery and stylists, make the woman look ten years younger. In relating this to argumentation, I would like to present the idea of viewing the human body as art, the idea that so many television shows commodify the human body and encourage one to nip here and tuck there to create a perfect work of art. In viewing graffiti and the human body as artwork and visual arguments, I hope to make my audience question their common assumptions regarding both subjects.Visualizing Dissent: Graffiti as Art
Comment
First of all, I really enjoyed your knowledgeable reflections regarding the post "Visualizing Dissent: Graffiti as Art," response to graffiti cleanup in San Francisco. I especially enjoyed the parallel you drew between the Stanley Steemer Carpet Cleaner commercial, where the housewife is boasting about the cleanliness of the servicemen who come to clean her already spotless house and the idea that the conflict of graffiti essentially boils down to a class-based conflict and/or insensitivity. The increasing visuality of our culture, because of mediums such as the internet, has posed some interesting situations regarding illegal, yet controversial, expression such as graffiti. While I can understand the arguments against public graffiti, I find it hard, considering the fickleness of advertising, to reason with the illegality of the public art, graffiti. Unlike advertisements that can continually airbrush a model or even commercials that can airbrush movement to the point where the model is subhuman and unrealistic, graffiti is the real deal, an argument and expression in and of itself. It is truthful in its original form. Unlike advertising, graffiti or any other form of public art does no need to be altered to be appreciated, it is original and that is half of the message being expressed. The artists who compose graffiti are doing so because they need to express a world view or communicate a message that otherwise would not be heard. In that way it can be considered a line of communication. What right do we have to regulate graffiti, while not regulating or at least agreeing to the placement of the cigarette or alcohol advertisements (see picture to the right) I see everyday on my way to school? Graffiti inspires the audience not just to look, but to truly see the visual vocabulary and practice behind the images drawn. While I believe the strength of graffiti is in expression, I think context has the ability to completely sway the appreciation. Take, for example, graffiti placed on a white wall in a Los Angeles museum. Now, imagine graffiti written in French at a center in Montreal, on brick "urban canvas." Next, imagine preserved graffiti in Warsaw, done on "ruins," where the paint is slowly peeling away. These images present the importance of understanding the context in discovering the background and underlying circumstances that created the need for expression. Understanding the artist's message and context, to me, is key to understanding or at least identifying the need behind such expression. In looking at the picture to left in support of the cleanup project, a private bathroom in a home is no context or argument where graffiti can be regulated. Therefore, I see little that is actually being advertised.The Animal Disco: Ten Years Younger? No Thanks.
Comment:
I greatly enjoyed reading your post regarding plastic surgery in the modern age. Much of what you said in the blog reminded me of a quote I recently heard. E.E. Cummings once said, "To be nobody-but-yourself- in a world that is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting." The theorist Raymond Williams once explained that culture is created on two vastly differing scales, the large scale, meaning the high culture ideals that are created by those in power and the small scale, the individual ideals that act to separate each one of us from everyone else. In the first sense, culture can be looked at as a whole, created on a large scale by those who hold power. There are certain "known," facts that are thought to be true and regarded by society as just that, true. For example, Mercedes Benz, while the engines may be no better than Honda, is held in higher esteem than most other car companies. The name is what gives it its worth much like plastic surgery, where only if you are the "perfect" size, you have worth. The second sense, however, the individual sense is what is supposed to separate us as individuals. The idea that you are who you are because of the choices you make. While society continually imposes messages and poster-perfect ideals in every area of life from shampoo to vacation destinations, individuality is a result of the selecting and choosing to represent one's true character. The problem is, however, media and television shows that reinforce what E.E. Cummings quote is all about. Shows like "Ten Years Younger," are only trying to make us look like everyone else, they are essentially trying to sculpt the human body to make it look absolutely "perfect". Although the image is pleasing, the problem is that post-
perfect image is unrealistic and only until you are enlisted as a plastic surgeon patient can you attain that image. Such shows and magazines (as seen left) reinforce extreme importance on body image and as a result they are telling their audience to of fear the natural aging process, to see it as a negative thing and to do anything possible to prevent it from happening to you. The thing that each of us need to keep in mind is the idea that we are lucky we even have enough time in the day to worry about such petty issues. In some corners of the world, that would be a dream come true. For some, they are constantly worrying about the next meal, or pure survival. How then do we convince the world to stop subjecting others to a mere gaze, and start to actually see them for who they are? At this stage, do you believe change is even possible? When is the post-perfect image going to become too perfect to safely achieve?
