M3Crit Brad DiBenedetto
Right now I'm currently working on both the sited image project and my individual work. Me and Emily have spent alot of time trying to come up with a concrete idea for the space in LSH. We completely changed direction as a result of the first crit. Our proposed plan is to create an image that is the exact size of a specific window on the second floor of LSH next to the Philosophy offices. What we would like to do is mimic ads found in glamor magazines and use this idea of selling a product that symbolically represents a famous philosopher. So not only are we creating the illusion of selling a product but we are also selling the philosopher. The philosopher we are trying to sell is french philosopher/existentialist, Simone de Beauvoir and we were thinking about using perfume titled 'The Other' since 'The Other' is one of her more famous philosophical concepts. I have done some research on her but I think Emily can better explain this concept. We want to use a catchy phrase like most ads have, to sell 'The Other' perfume and I think the image itself will be fairly simple with an image of the product and maybe one or two lines of text. I think by making it simple, the power of the actual image and message is emphasized even more. It will also be a vector image so that we can blow it up without decreasing the image quality. Me and Emily are meeting on wednesday to create the proposal and hopefully begin designing this faux magazine ad for the space in LSH. If anyone has any suggestions or comments, please let us know. Below is a link that will lead to a site that can provide a brief bio and background info on Simone de Beauvoir and her concept of 'The Other.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir
Individual work
I feel as though I didn't gain that much insight from the crit on friday (atleast on my work) considering I was toward the end and everyone was pretty drained at that point. But just a recap of what I'm doing in my individual work: I'm exploring the ideas of bricolage and reappropriation by taking images from magazine ads and randomly and deliberately juxtaposing them within other ads to see how messages and contexts change when different subject matter is introduced (basically creating a new "mutant ad.") I feel though I could use some more feedback especially regarding how I should display these images because I'm not sure if I should collage them to create one large image or if I should create a grid or database with multiple variations of these mutant ads. Right now I am also trying to figure out whether I should combine the images by using the actual ads themselves or if I should combine them using photoshop. In photoshop I can be more deliberate by altering elements like size, color, etc. but it could also detract from the emphasis on the redefined meanings/contexts of these ads...so any feedback about that would help alot. I was also thinking about the idea of making this piece interactive by separating the images into two categories one being the ads with text and one category consisting of the images that become the subject matter of these ads. I could use velcro or maybe poster puddy which would allow for more choice with where the images are placed. Is this idea too hokey or could it work? Any feedback on that would be great also.
Brad,
You have a strong project. By working with reappropriation of existing ads you can say a lot about the messages that exist and those that are implied. Advertising is a huge part of our visual culture and since it saturates our daily lives it is often easy to ignore it and become numb to it. Your collages bring about new meanings within their contexts that drew me in. They made me realize how often I overlook or simply accept the messages within the ads. I definately think that you should keep working with actual ads. I feel that by bringing two raw ads together by hand has more of an impact and fits in better with your idea of reappropriation where as if they were photoshopped together it might seem as though you were trying to create one coherent ad. Which, I suppose in some cases you are, where they are intentionally put together, but the joining of physical ads maintains a feeling of randomness and emphasizes the use of bricolage.
As for displaying them, I enjoyed the way that they were layed out during critique. I can see them taking over a wall space with a somewhat random order. I think that they should all be displayed together rather than isolated, or perhaps if you want to isolate them, break them up into small groups. An interactive diplay sounds interesting because you could document them several different times and obtain different messages throughout the time period that they are up. I might try setting them up one way, documenting them, and then leaving it for interaction, and documenting again a few times. To keep an interesting display you could attach either the images or the text ads to the wall in the fashion you want to display them, and leave the other set for people to place wherever they want to.
I hope that this is helpful to you!
Frances
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