Sunday, March 30, 2008

Satire-It Might Give You a Flat Tire.
















So, I was inspired by the propaganda of the Nazi party and the work of Barbara Kruger. I took Fraktur, the name of the font that the Nazis used and I used Kruger's aesthetic of black and white images behind strong red and white text. I decided to make three posters that would work together to each address different contemporary issues that human society (particularly in the US) faces. The issues I finally decided on were consumerism, intolerance, and apathy. These are satirical posters, I hope no one thinks I actually believe some of these statements.
Apathy has to do particularly with political apathy and the sad percentage of voter turn-out. For this purpose, I decided to blow up the US Capitol Building. For intolerance, I referred somewhat directly to the Holocaust by stating it as the "Final Solution" and used nooses to refer to execution in general (not just the history of racism in the US). For consumerism, I took three fists proclaiming themselves as consumers with UPC barcodes tattooed on their wrists that show their social security numbers. I wanted to equate identity with being a consumer, hence each person is nothing more than a consumer.

2 comments:

Christina / tide & bloom said...

I feel like the image in intolerance is working better because of the way you altered it. The hands don't look really grounded, and I guess if I had it my way, I'd wanna see like an endless field of hands to make it look overwhelmingly... consumed.

Christina / tide & bloom said...

alright, so you just put up the apathy one and now I'm like going back and forth between liking the fact that the picture takes up the entire background frame and then liking the simplicity of the white backdrop with the noose. I don't know what I want anymore!