Citizen Journalism

Here is an example of citizen journalism.

The context of the image is the aftermath of the 911 attacks in New York. I couldn't find the source of the image but the photo looks like its been taken relatively close to the incident. The rubble and dust is all over the people in it.

Dick Hebdige 'Subculture and Style'

Dick Hebdige is saying that mods were clean cut, wore respectable clothes and looked generally smart. He goes on to say that they did enjoy parting, ‘the mods went ‘missing’: they were absorbed into a ‘noonday underground’ ’ (Hebdige 4, 53) This meant that the loved to go to discotheques and record shops. He goes on to say they would often, on a bank holiday, party for the full weekend. Made possible by taking amphetamines and other drugs. He seems to glorify this idea of the mod in this short passage.

Gender Ads

The gaze’ is a term used by media theorists to refer to the ways in which people look at images of others in any visual medium. John Berger’s Ways of Seeing analyses the way in which both men and women are culturally represented and perceived. He talks about how women are used in advertisement for the male to view. He talks about how women are capitalised on.The images above is an examples of an advertisements that uses the male gaze to make the man want to buy the product. If the picture makes the male excited he will subliminally like that excitment with the product. 

Alter Ego task

My alter ego is my call of duty character. My gamertag(name) is DeEmuFamer I came up with that name six or seven years ago and haven’t changed it since. I play as a female character for purely tactical reasons. The female character is smaller in stature than the male ones and although the hit boxes are the same the player model looks visibly smaller which means I’m harder to spot. I am from the mind of the game developers at sledgehammer games, but I can change the style of my character. I’m part of a group or a clan called ExploitEsports. I was picked up for the team about a month ago after putting up an advertisement on Gfinity.

4 Images

As part of the brief for this years context of practice we had to create some images along side the essay. Initially I intended to do my essay about subculture, i later changed it to The Gaze but i already had my images. These four image respond to subculture and style. There are two sets of two, overall i am happy with them, I am not a fan of taking pictures of people (I get nervous). Here are the images.

Homage-Rodchenko

Alexander Rodchenko was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design. For me I really wanted to do a homage image of Rodchenko’s because I really love some of his work. He always uses a lot of symmetry and line in his work and often his images are taken from an unusual perspective.

Rodchenko

With its tall shapes and symmetry I really love this image. The use of lines really draws the eye up and through the image. In my homage I want to incorporate this drawing of the eye. 

My Homage Picture

Above is my homage image, I decided to unlike Rodchenko shoot in colour, I felt this added a more modern spin. I wanted to get the really symmetrical lines and the sense you are being drawn into the image and I feel I have achieved that. Overall I am happy with this image.

Homage-Gillian Wearing

Gillian Wearing (born 1963) is an English conceptual artist. The body of work of hers I have look at is called Signs that Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You to Say (1992-93), in which random members of public hold up messages written on sheets of A3 paper. The most famous image of the lot is a man in a suit and tie with “I’m desperate” written on his sheet.

Gillian Wearing-I'm Desperate

Although an interesting series in the sense you can delve into peoples personalities through what they have written on the paper, this series has no real photographic talent behind it, all the images are a mishmash of random scenes. So to pay homage to this image I decided to throw an ironic humorous spin on her images. 

My Homage Image

For my homage image I decided to be funny and take an image of a coconut monkey, I purposefully used a landscape format to take this image to show I am going against Wearing in a way, and breaking away from her norms. Perhaps this image is like my sign and is an insight into my mind just as the writing was for the people. In the end after showing people and seeing them laugh I decided to use this image and I am happy with it.