Art 220: Entry 2

Tuesday's session was quite interesting. Our professor, Jimmy Moss, told us we were going to have a test- to the dismay of the entire class. He looked around and asked if we would prefer to play a game instead. The class instantly became joyous and excited. He pointed out that both tasks involved competition and reward but the class countered with the fact that games were fun while tests were stressful. It seemed that Jimmy was proposing that there was hardly a difference between the two tasks. Once we get beyond psychology and the experiences attributed to the words, it was pretty cool to realize that there are indeed parallels. This discussion of visual literacy and how we shape meanings according to what we are familiar with segued into the following activity.

The class was shown a photo with no prior history given. We were asked to state what we knew for a fact and to avoid conjecture. For example, we could describe the people as adults, but we could not state the gender of the people present in the photograph. Gender is a social construct and these days, sex can be altered. There is no way to be certain of a person's gender based solely on physical appearance.  As we continued the exercise, it became increasingly difficult to point out obvious facts. It was fun to try to describe the photo as best we could and after we had exhausted all solid facts, we were allowed to draw conclusions and make assumptions. Based on earlier facts presented about the attire color of individuals in the photo, a student in the class drew the conclusion that the two people were matching because they were a couple.

As artists, we have to be intelligent and use words and colors wisely. The color red can be attributed to passion, aggression and sexuality. In our daily life, it is used for traffic signals such as the stop sign because the color is also associated with urgency. Perhaps someone driving on the freeway wouldn't come to a screeching halt if they saw a red Jack in the Box sign, but the eye-catching color wouldn't hinder their business either. Shepard Fairey's Obama Hope Poster served as positive propaganda but Firas Alkhateeb's joker poster is equally as powerful. Manipulating the image to make Obama appear as the villain, the Joker is dissettling. The red scars across the mouth portray the president as a dangerous and insane. The dark circles under his eyes hint that he is up at all hours of the night, perhaps up to no good.

It was interesting to explore the concepts of psychology in both words and images. As artists, we might be creating work that is meant to influence others. Subtle hints can subconsciously create emotions in an audience or striking colors and provocative imagery can drive the message home. I felt that the exercises were great at developing attention to detail which is a very important skill to have as an artist.



descriptor collection:
drab - uninteresting to look at because of a lack of color or brightness
belligerent - aggressive and having a tendency to start wars
platitudinous - unoriginal and cliché