The Multiple eXposure Project is a multimedia, multi/trans/inter-disciplinary artistic practice and research-based initiative that explores the many layers of image-making, participatory photography, visual ethnography, and performative encounter(s) between the image and the spectator; the subject and the viewer. As what the name of the project implies, this endeavor is profoundly interested in the notions of the “multiple” and the “exposure” both in their literal and symbolic sense.
Firstly, The Multiple eXposure Project seeks to examine the multiple potentials of image-making or photography (digital and analogue; still and moving) as a medium, a performance, and an instrument of social engagement and (ex)change, and the overlapping of it with other disciplines. As part of its exploration, this project involves a series of visual, photographic or lens-based workshops in collaboration with non-profit, grassroots volunteer groups. The concept of the multiple is also applied under the framework of collaborative work – of bring together multiple individuals with multiple philosophies into a plurality of shared experiences.
Secondly, The Multiple eXposure Project is equally drawn to the idea of “exposure” (subjection, experience, vulnerability, coverage, documentation, and so on) in the process of socially-engaged image-making that exposes what needs to be exposed; clarifies the obscure; and concerns itself with a gamut of critical questions and discursive issues of representation.
Through image-making, we aim to expose and get exposed.
Public Interrogation: Outside the White Cube (December 1-31, 2015)
Public Interrogation:
Outside the White Cube
Organized by The Multiple eXposure Project
www.themultipleexposureproject.co.nr
Location: Public Spaces, Metro Manila, Philippines
Date: December 1-31, 2015
December 1-2 (8pm-10pm): EDSA Avenue cor. Kamuning Rd. Quezon City
December 5 (7pm-9pm): Ayala-Paseo Pedestrian Underpass, Makati City
December 13 (6pm-7pm): Alabang-Montillano Footbridge, Muntinlupa
Public Interrogation:
Outside the White Cube is an alternative, traveling, curatorial project that features image-based works across different disciplines and media by emerging artists whose works discuss the notion of the “public” and its complexities.
What is public? What counts as public? The “public” is a multi-layered concept defined differently depending on how the term is used and framed. It is a notion devoid of singularity and is, grammatically speaking, a terrain of contradictions. As a noun and an adjective, the public constitutes the people, masses or community, and suggests anything that is staged, accessed, or seen out in the “open.” The public can also be used as a verb to describe something one does, as in make public or publicize, suggesting the movement or shift from the inside (private) to the outside (public). Paradoxically, however, the same term also points to the limits of such openness and movement. Given that it simultaneously refers to something “involving and provided by the government”, the public is always at risk of becoming merely an apparatus of the sovereign state and its institutions, thus making the flow of its production, distribution, and consumption partial and counterproductive.
Public Interrogation:
Outside the White Cube seeks to re-frame the practice of curating and spectating images outside the exclusionary, institutional borders of the “white cube” or gallery space. Public spaces are used as an exhibition site to stimulate a mode of spectator experience that revolves around displacement of the passersby (public) from their “habitus” by interrupting the flow of pedestrian traffic. We alter a familiar public space and transform it into an unusual, dialogic site for image projection and exhibition, taking advantage of its accessibility and site-specificity in order to redefine the ways the spectators look at and engage with images. Adopting “guerilla urbanism” as a curatorial strategy, we make sense of the immediacy of the “public” and reflect upon its context, meanings, and intersections with representation, place, and discourse. In so doing, we intervene and reformat aspects of the urban landscapes and emphasize the “counter-spectacle” in art viewing and appreciation. This project also underlines the inherent ephemerality of an open-to-the-public display in relation to time and space. As a “traveling” exhibition which heavily depends on projection technology and public space as its “frame” or “canvas", this project celebrates the momentary nature of image-viewing, consumption, and mobility in the metropolis at a time of constant flux and transition.
Video Arts
Borders - Anne Murray (USA)
The Separation Loop - Leyla Rodriguez (Germany)
Gnomonicity - Amitesh Grover (India)
36&71 - Anthony Stephenson (USA)
Sully - Marbella Carlos (Canada)
You See Davis - Rembrandt Quiballo (Philippines, USA)
Untitled (Sleeping People in a Train) - Hannah Reber (Germany)
Into the labyrinth - Geordy Zodidat Alexis (France)
The Safest of Hands - Clint Sleeper (USA)
Hunt/Find - Dani Salvadori (UK)
Leaving My Skin - Ellen Wetmore (UK)
Presence of Absence - Matt Lee (India)
Untitled – Mohammad Namazi (UK, Iran)
Still Images / Photographs
Right Time Right Place - Robert Rutoed (Austria)
Peripheral Strangers - Julie Dawn Dennis (UK)
De Staat (The State) - Maarten Tromp (Netherlands)
Ruinophilia - Anna Garrett (UK)
Circling the Square - Arturo Soto (Mexico)
The Spectator, the Viewer, the Observer and the Perceiver –
Francine LeClercq (USA)
Magic Rooms - Carlos Collado (Spain)
Date of Consumption - Lita Poliakova
Street Photography - John Robert Luna (Philippines)
Walls - Elena Efeoglou (Greece)
Fitting Room – Megan Mace (South Africa)
Street art you can take home (for free) - Lorenzo Bordonaro (Portugal)
Victim – Solomon Eko (Nigeria)
Performance Videos / Public Interventions
Balloon Performance - Louise Winter (UK)
Somarts Mural Dance - Johanna Poethig (USA)
Unpatentable Multitouch Aerobics - Liat Berdugo (USA)
Disclaimer at Manchester Art Gallery - Laura Gower (UK)
Sustaintability – Dani Lamorte and Veronica Bleaus (USA)
Animations / Digital
Job Interview - Dénes Ruzsa and Fruzsina Spitzer (Hungary)
In Between - Sofia Makridou, Theodora Prassa (Greece)
Decadence of Nature - Olga Guse (Russia)
AsianGirl N40°42'54.488" W73°59'30.313" - Victoria Elle, Rocky Li, and Jennifer Mehigan (USA)
Get Featured in our Blog!
We are currently expanding the content of our blog and we would like to feature multidisciplinary/multimedia artists, photographers, image-makers, visual artists, performers, and so on, their portfolio, artistic practice, and research interests. The feature section serves as a virtual, archival gallery and a platform for free promotion. This call is open to all artists – individuals or groups; amateur or professional – anywhere in the world.
If you think your works are relevant to The Multiple eXposure Project, send your artist statement, sample of your portfolio, photos, videos, press releases, and other related materials to themultipleexposureproject@gmail.com.
Moving Still: The Multiple eXposure Project Zine 2.0
The sophomore issue of The Multiple eXposure Project zine has been uploaded! You can read the e-zine at ISSUU or download the PDF version HERE.
New media and video artists included in the publication are as follows:
Jessica Buie /
Liat Berdugo /
Laura Hyunjhee Kim /
Nicola Hands /
Tony Radin Jacobs /
(c) merry /
Talia Link /
Justin Zachary /
Adrian Errico /
Matteo Pasin /
Jean-Michel Rolland /
Manasak Khlongchainan /
Boris Contarin /
Hüseyin Çife /
Suman Kabiraj /
Patrick Moser /
Francesca Fini /
Aaron Oldenburg /
Benjamin Grosser/
You Qi /
Dénes Ruzsa /
Fruzsina Spitzer /
Fran et Jim /
Amelia Johannes /
Heidi C. Neubauer-Winterburn /
Jess, Lau Ching Ma /
Scott F. Hall /
Eleni Manolaraki /
Elise Frost
Harrison Banfield
Jack Rees /
Daehwan Cho /
Wu Siou Ming /
Masako Ono /
Bárbara Oettinger
I
n this sophomore issue of the Multiple eXposure Project zine,“Moving Still”, we feature a heterogeneous breed of new media and video artists whose experimental and provocative works emphasize the potency of “videos” or “moving images” in the exploration and expansion of self-representation in the discursive flow of transmission and mediation – from the screen to the spectator; and the perceptive to the conceptual.
Selected artists here make use of the “screen” as medium and performance space. By displaying, curating, and performing in front of the screen, self-image-formation is enacted while relying on playful encounter with unknown spectators in order to weave different webs of interpretation. In this regard, the screen operates as an intermediary in the artist’s performance that brings connections to identities, personal narratives, history, everyday politics, and imaginaries.
The symbiotic relationship between the screen and the subject cultivates the construction of an image or spectacle that is consumed – temporally and spatially - in a doubling of intermediation. They deflect and reflect a plethora of shifting, hybrid pretexts about ourselves within the digital ecology where the delineating lines between the public and the private; the human and the mechanical; and the material and the virtual boundaries become blurred.
Given their hyperreal structure, these video performances, visual interventions, and recorded choreographies trigger a mode of mediated encounter that heavily manipulates moments of reality – of space and time. Intimacy and presence are concomitantly altered as these pieces can be incessantly scrutinized by the gaze of many anonymous viewers floating in the digital currents, allowing us to re-locate the individual and re-think about the concept of selfhood more fluidly.
Self-as-Subject: The Multiple eXposure Project Zine 1.0
We are pleased to announce that the very first issue of the Multiple eXposure Project zine is now accessible online! You can read the e-zine at ISSUU or download the PDF version HERE. Feel free to share!
Below is the list of contributors (artists and writers) included in the publication:
J.D. Doria /
Dr. Sayfan Giulia Borghini /
Aldobranti /
Olga Sidilkovskaya /
Ana Rita Matias /
Anne Paternotte /
Rudi Rapf /
Leigh Anthony Dehaney /
Laura Knapp /
Jennifer van Exel /
Derya Edem /
Arushee Agrawal /
Utami Dewi Godjali /
Çağlar Uzun /
Mahmoud Khattab /
Noel Villa /
Dawn Woolley /
Teresa Ascencao /
Kalliope Amorphous /
Katrina Stamatopoulos /
Gaspard Noël /
Florian Tenk /
Petra Brnardic /
Sana Ghobbeh /
Alonso Tapia-Benitez /
Libby Kay Hicks /
Agent X /
Rina Dweck /
Yoko Haraoka /
Claire Manning /
Pietro Catarinella /
Anne Beck /
Gabriel Orlowski /
Ralph Klewitz /
Anthony Hall /
Alessandro Martorelli /
Robin Gerris /
Carol Radsprecher /
Veronica Hassell /
Daniela Olejnikov /
Jayson Carter /
Nathaniel St. Amour /
Jonathan Armistead /
Piotr Boćkowski
"Who are you?” “Who am I?” “Who do I think I am?” “What am I made of?” There is nothing simple about such inquiries as they pose a number of phenomenological and ontological issues.
To ask yourself or someone about self-definition is to deal with its vicissitudes and fluidities, oscillating between the ego and the alter ego; the naturalistic (Hume) and the metaphysical (Kant); and the reflexive perception of one’s body and the relational introspection with the “Other.” The self is, arguably and fundamentally, a complicated subject matter. It is an ever-evolving object, a corporeal being, an affective body, a precarious entity, a discursive phenomenon, and so forth.
Divided into three interrelated chapters, this zine features oeuvres by artists and writers from different localities around the world and, as what its theme implies, is an exploration of the “self” and its manifold permutations – its presence, identity, representation, liminality, and (dis)embodiment - in this day and age of digitality, hypermobility, and hyperreality.
In Chapter 1, The Self as I/Other, authors reflect on the dialectics between the ego and the alter ego and the multitude of ways the “self-as-subject” is defined by both internal and external contingencies, or philosophically speaking, by the binaries – “I” vs. “not-I.” Many of these selected pieces are visibly entangled with the act of self-mirroring, which is inherently reflective and performative: it involves the constitution of subjectivities based on visual imaginary reflected on the mirror that does not necessarily resemble the complex structures of the material body. What I highlight here is the notion of self-perception (internal) in relation to one’s experiences and the (external) world. As Anthony Giddens puts it, “A person's identity is not to be found in behaviour, nor - important though this is - in the reactions of others, but in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going. The individual's biography…cannot be wholly fictive. It must continually integrate events which occur in the external world, and sort them into the ongoing 'story' about the self.” (54).
In Chapter 2, The Fetishized Self, we see interconnected self-representations that examine the convergence of idiosyncratic fantasies with the phantasmagoria as an offshoot of the fetishized commodity. When I refer to the term, phantasmagoria, I emphasize the volatile strings of imaginations through which the public and the private dimension of identity becomes obscured, blurring the demarcating lines between reality and fantasy. This section functions as a provocation of the fetishization of self and the centrality of the individual as authority. Through role-playing, the self, as a fetish object imbued with power and discourse, becomes an agency displaying and interrogating the politics of gender, sexuality, identity, and bodily desire.
Finally, in Chapter 3, The Fragmented Self, the fragmentation of identity framed within the digital, virtual, or hyperreal context is explored. Featured works here represent the various modes the anonymity, simulation, multiplicity, and control in data superhighway allow the transformation of the self into fragmented, hybrid subjects. The concept of “self-fragmentation” also revolves around the nature of post-modernism: the absence of absolute truth and the presence of disembodied self.
Bibliography:
Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity. Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity, 1991.
According to semiotics scientists - all signs have orders of signification. "Semiotics examines how signs (words, pictures, gestures, sounds) come to mean and have meaning". Our interpretation of signs are determined by the set of social conventions that we are born into i.e. different signs evoke different significations in different cultures- a mopane worm can be seen as a disease carrier in America, while Namibians consider it a delicacy. Saussure talks about how we articulate meaning. He says that "signs are arbitrary, these are social conventions". This would imply that people use agreed signs for communication. The advert articulates meaning through signification. Since American Philosopher C.S Peirce developed semiotics, I will be using most of his definitions for my theory component.
Peirce defines an Icon as "a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes merely by virtue of characters of its own and which it possesses, just the same, whether any such Object actually exists or not". In this sense, it can be seen that the icon is the literal component of a sign and is something symbolic that can be linked to a concrete image. In the ad, the icon can be seen as a boy lying on the ground with his head resting on some concrete. His clothes are torn. These two observations are done at a basic level. Since this is a photograph it can be seen as being highly iconic as it is very much like the object they represent, a sort of mimicry or imitation.
There is the index, which draws attention to the thing to which it refers. Pierce defines an Index as "a sign which would, at once, lose the character which makes it a sign if its object were removed, but would not lose that character if there were no interpreting". The example he gives is of a piece of mould with a bullet-hole in it as sign of a shot. He says that without the shot there would have been no hole; but there is a hole there, whether anybody has the sense to attribute it to a shot or not." There are no distinct links or bridges that joins signification to an object. Cultural conventions provide meaning. The advert refers to a street boy who is suffering from poverty. The Indexical signs represent the unseen and are often abstract- Christianity, morality; guilt can be interpreted from this ad. We read it this way because of our socialization. If one had to show this picture to an aborigine in thirteen-century Australia, they would not draw the same meaning, as they would not make the connection between the boy and the image of Jesus on the cross. This is because their frame of reference would be different from ours. Karl Marx's initial intention explanation for this is that ""it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness." Dry sand in background might imply arid climate and scorching heat. This might not seem out of the ordinary for a Bedouin, but the advertiser wants us to interpret it as being harsh, and that we should relate this weather condition to the child's life. It can also trigger of various other chains of signification, which I shall expand on later.
Chains of signification
Note these are generalized categories only, and are not representative of all. They merely depict stereotypes, as a means of illustrating different chains. It is important to qualify interpretations as potentials and not absolutes. Chains of signification allow advertisers to predict either the dominant preferred readings of the text as well as the deviant alternative or discrepant readings. An oversight of many advertisers is to overlook any negative connotations that might be interpreted, and this leads to a decline in sale and a loss in brand loyalty. Myths about the advert
A myth is seen as something that is natural and taken for granted. Almost like an unspoken truth. Myths confer a "common significance or unconscious formulations which are the work of minds, societies and civilizations". Myths reinforce social and cultural stereotypes, and in doing so, reinforce the particular dominant ideology of the society that is propagating the myth. Ideology is defined as the "grid of significations which organizes myths in the legitimating of particular social, economic and political relations". The dominant class can effectively use the media as a vehicle for portraying ideology and strengthening myths. In the same article, the writer attempts to show how the South African media, maintains dominant power relations, using myth. In later works, Tomaselli goes on to say that those who accept the myth see it as having a concrete existence. There are various myths that can be attributed to this advert, like: many Christians do not believe that Jesus was crucified. There are those who follow Matthew's account and quote: "And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross"- Mathews (27:32)- explaining that Simon wore the cross and not Jesus. This disputes the preferred reading, as there are those who believe that the crucifixion was actually a 'cruci-fiction'. Muslims are also told in the Quran (4:157) that the Prophet Jesus was not crucified.
Not every person reading the ad is Christian, and therefore not everyone will decode the message as intended. The intended meaning would evoke sympathy for the child with the desire to be charitable. The advert also enforces idea that all street children are black; this is another myth as many street children are of other racial denominations. Many Christians do not believe that they are sinless or that Jesus died so that they would be sinless. This would negate the linguistic component of the advert and work against the preferred reading.
Cynics would say that the child collapsed because of excessive glue sniffing. This is a reality that is often overlooked when one looks at the plight of street-children. Many equate this social problem with an expression of freedom and fail to realize that many children leave their home because of domestic circumstances. Also, there is a lot of media attention on AIDS at the moment. Before, people would talk about a variety of issues, and the media would cover these issues. Now, the media is selective in nature in that it provides the topics of discussion. For example, before, people could talk about anything, it could be said that now, when one talks about global epidemics they can only be heard in the media if they talk about Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or HIV/AIDS. Even though glue sniffing is a preference and not a disease, it is still often overlooked, by AIDS etc.
Many do not believe in the adage "He who is sinless, must cast the first stone", and as such have a different set of criteria of what constitutes sinning, and therefore would not be under the impression that the child is suffering for their sins. A question of ethics would then come into play. The ad also destroys the myth that Jesus was a Blond-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian. McCray (1990) as well as Locksley D.M. Geoghagen go to great lengths to prove that Jesus was a man of colour, being a descendant of Ham, with a traceable lineage in Egypt, where there were no Caucasians.
Symbolic
The symbol has no obvious connection to the idea it represents except through convention. This can be seen as a process of understanding society. In terms of the nature of semiotic Interaction, this would be how we make sense of the world. In essence, this is ideology. Pierce defines a symbol as being a sign which is determined by its dynamic object only in the sense that it will be so interpreted. It thus depends either upon a convention, a habit, or a natural disposition of its interpreting, or of the field of its interpreting. We live in a country that is predominantly Christian. "Christianity is the predominant faith of almost three-quarters of the diverse South African population," says R. Elphick and R. Davenport. This advert reinforces this belief.
In the twentieth century South Africans have used Christian doctrine both to justify and to oppose doctrines of racial segregation, and Christian leadership provided much of the impetus for the founding of the African National Congress in 1912. But the history of South African Christianity is found for the most part in local or "micro" narratives, while the highly elaborated "macro" narratives of colonialism, capitalism, and liberation--the backbone of the conventional histories of South Africa--assign Christianity a marginal role, or no role at all.
From this observation, one can hypothesize that Religion plays a large role in a South Africans life- by making the reference and associations in the advert; the company is hoping that South Africans will be more generous. This can once again be linked to crucifixion, as what was once a most disgraceful way to die has been glorified. This is similar to Christianity's role in South Africa, from justifying apartheid to 'turning the other cheek' in more recent times.
With regards to Hall hypothesizes three ways in which people interpret messages. The first is where the reader interprets the message in terms of the writers intention- in the ad, this would occur when people recognize that the foundation is looking for charity and they give money. The second possibility is where they negotiate what is told. "Negotiating the code occurs when readers acknowledge as legitimate the taken-for-granted code which contains the message but question aspects of the way the message is constructed"- Hall in this case, people would question how much of the money they donate, will go into administrative costs. Also, many would question why the advert is alienating Christian symbols only and not Universal ones. The third possibility is that the reader would reject the message entirely by decoding it in a different way. When a discrepant reading is formulated, the reader might think that he is in a worse position than the child or that there are more worthy causes to donate too.
The Multiple eXposure Project is run by a small group of image-makers, visual artists, and researchers coming from different backgrounds, with a wide range of interests.
profile
Please be patient, this page is under construction.
The Multiple eXposure Project incorporates theory and practice in image-making and publishes zine and scholarly articles, essays, stories on photography and visual narratives.
Collaboration with individuals and groups coming from different disciplines and backgrounds is of utmost importance at The Multiple eXposure Project especially in the workshops, exhibitions, and other projects. We underscore the potency of shared, ethical, participatory artistic process and accordingly of collaborative authorship by incorporating dialogical, performative interaction into image-making, bridging the gaps between the subject and the medium.
We curate our works in physical and digital configuration, applying methodologies on photo curation (of still and moving images) that are wide-ranging, alternative, experimental, and non-paradigmatic. To be specific, we delve into the concepts of photo curation, not just as praxis of selection or organization of images, or an archival method, but as a social intervention.
One of the crucial components of The Multiple eXposure Project is its practical initiative framed within the context of volunteerism, participation, and engagement. We believe in the collective power and benefits of sharing one’s skills and expertise with those who need them. We provide free photographic workshops, in cooperation with non-profit organizations, which are aimed at empowering marginalized individuals through photography or image-making.
PUBLICATION
The sophomore issue of The Multiple eXposure Project zine has been uploaded! You can read the e-zine at ISSUU or download the PDF version HERE.
Description: In this sophomore issue of the Multiple eXposure Project zine,“Moving Still”, we feature a heterogeneous breed of new media and video artists whose experimental and provocative works emphasize the potency of “videos” or “moving images” in the exploration and expansion of self-representation in the discursive flow of transmission and mediation – from the screen to the spectator; and the perceptive to the conceptual.
New media and video artists included in the publication are as follows:
Jessica Buie /
Liat Berdugo /
Laura Hyunjhee Kim /
Nicola Hands /
Tony Radin Jacobs /
(c) merry /
Talia Link /
Justin Zachary /
Adrian Errico /
Matteo Pasin /
Jean-Michel Rolland /
Manasak Khlongchainan /
Boris Contarin /
Hüseyin Çife /
Suman Kabiraj /
Patrick Moser /
Francesca Fini /
Aaron Oldenburg /
Benjamin Grosser/
You Qi /
Dénes Ruzsa /
Fruzsina Spitzer /
Fran et Jim /
Amelia Johannes /
Heidi C. Neubauer-Winterburn /
Jess, Lau Ching Ma /
Scott F. Hall /
Eleni Manolaraki /
Elise Frost
Harrison Banfield
Jack Rees /
Daehwan Cho /
Wu Siou Ming /
Masako Ono /
Bárbara Oettinger
The first issue of the Multiple eXposure Project zine is now accessible online! You can read the e-zine at ISSUU or download the PDF version HERE. Feel free to share!
Description: Divided into three interrelated chapters, this zine features oeuvres by artists and writers from different localities around the world and, as what its theme implies, is an exploration of the “self” and its manifold permutations – its presence, identity, representation, liminality, and (dis)embodiment - in this day and age of digitality, hypermobility, and hyperreality.
Featured artists and writers in the zine are as follows:
J.D. Doria /
Dr. Sayfan Giulia Borghini /
Aldobranti /
Olga Sidilkovskaya /
Ana Rita Matias /
Anne Paternotte /
Rudi Rapf /
Leigh Anthony Dehaney /
Laura Knapp /
Jennifer van Exel /
Derya Edem /
Arushee Agrawal /
Utami Dewi Godjali /
Çağlar Uzun /
Mahmoud Khattab /
Noel Villa /
Dawn Woolley /
Teresa Ascencao /
Kalliope Amorphous /
Katrina Stamatopoulos /
Gaspard Noël /
Florian Tenk /
Petra Brnardic /
Sana Ghobbeh /
Alonso Tapia-Benitez /
Libby Kay Hicks /
Agent X /
Rina Dweck /
Yoko Haraoka /
Claire Manning /
Pietro Catarinella /
Anne Beck /
Gabriel Orlowski /
Ralph Klewitz /
Anthony Hall /
Alessandro Martorelli /
Robin Gerris /
Carol Radsprecher /
Veronica Hassell /
Daniela Olejnikov /
Jayson Carter /
Nathaniel St. Amour /
Jonathan Armistead /
Piotr Boćkowski
Workshops
Excerpts from digital and analogue photography workshops at Koseli School, a center for slum and street children in Kathmandu, Nepal (January 2015). These participatory workshops incorporated photography with "playing" and performance.
Visual Intervention
Speech Acts and the Politics of Repetition SeriesDescription: This series explores the repetitive nature and patterns of speech acts and ritualized rhetorics of some of the world’s powerful and controversial figures by incorporating twice-recorded video footages with open-source background music.
Through the process of repetition, new meanings of the moving images and spoken texts are simultaneously (re)created. Specific words are on purpose repeated to generate a multitude of views and reviews and to deconstruct the stability of language. As a mode of visual intervention, these absurdly distorted and edited images/videos are also meant to make a dialogue with, distract, entertain, annoy, and disturb the viewers on the other side of the screen, while highlighting the intersections and contradictions between reality and absurdity; speech and power of the speaker.
Feel free to re-play and re-share!
#1 >>> Obama: You Kinda Screwed Up My Ending But That's Okay.
Video, animated gif, and stills created by Sherwin Altarez Mapanoo
Background music courtesy of einzimmersound
DIGITAL ART
Urban DomesticationDescription: An attempt to represent the psychological state of the subject who was performing to exist (and persist) as a corporate animal in the harsh and precarious dog-eat-dog world of the urban jungle.
Note: Point or click on the image to view its original version.
According to semiotics scientists - all signs have orders of signification. "Semiotics examines how signs (words, pictures, gestures, sounds) come to mean and have meaning". Our interpretation of signs are determined by the set of social conventions that we are born into i.e. different signs evoke different significations in different cultures- a mopane worm can be seen as a disease carrier in America, while Namibians consider it a delicacy. Saussure talks about how we articulate meaning. He says that "signs are arbitrary, these are social conventions". This would imply that people use agreed signs for communication. The advert articulates meaning through signification. Since American Philosopher C.S Peirce developed semiotics, I will be using most of his definitions for my theory component.
Peirce defines an Icon as "a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes merely by virtue of characters of its own and which it possesses, just the same, whether any such Object actually exists or not". In this sense, it can be seen that the icon is the literal component of a sign and is something symbolic that can be linked to a concrete image. In the ad, the icon can be seen as a boy lying on the ground with his head resting on some concrete. His clothes are torn. These two observations are done at a basic level. Since this is a photograph it can be seen as being highly iconic as it is very much like the object they represent, a sort of mimicry or imitation.
There is the index, which draws attention to the thing to which it refers. Pierce defines an Index as "a sign which would, at once, lose the character which makes it a sign if its object were removed, but would not lose that character if there were no interpreting". The example he gives is of a piece of mould with a bullet-hole in it as sign of a shot. He says that without the shot there would have been no hole; but there is a hole there, whether anybody has the sense to attribute it to a shot or not." There are no distinct links or bridges that joins signification to an object. Cultural conventions provide meaning. The advert refers to a street boy who is suffering from poverty. The Indexical signs represent the unseen and are often abstract- Christianity, morality; guilt can be interpreted from this ad. We read it this way because of our socialization. If one had to show this picture to an aborigine in thirteen-century Australia, they would not draw the same meaning, as they would not make the connection between the boy and the image of Jesus on the cross. This is because their frame of reference would be different from ours. Karl Marx's initial intention explanation for this is that ""it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness." Dry sand in background might imply arid climate and scorching heat. This might not seem out of the ordinary for a Bedouin, but the advertiser wants us to interpret it as being harsh, and that we should relate this weather condition to the child's life. It can also trigger of various other chains of signification, which I shall expand on later.
Chains of signification
Note these are generalized categories only, and are not representative of all. They merely depict stereotypes, as a means of illustrating different chains. It is important to qualify interpretations as potentials and not absolutes. Chains of signification allow advertisers to predict either the dominant preferred readings of the text as well as the deviant alternative or discrepant readings. An oversight of many advertisers is to overlook any negative connotations that might be interpreted, and this leads to a decline in sale and a loss in brand loyalty. Myths about the advert
A myth is seen as something that is natural and taken for granted. Almost like an unspoken truth. Myths confer a "common significance or unconscious formulations which are the work of minds, societies and civilizations". Myths reinforce social and cultural stereotypes, and in doing so, reinforce the particular dominant ideology of the society that is propagating the myth. Ideology is defined as the "grid of significations which organizes myths in the legitimating of particular social, economic and political relations". The dominant class can effectively use the media as a vehicle for portraying ideology and strengthening myths. In the same article, the writer attempts to show how the South African media, maintains dominant power relations, using myth. In later works, Tomaselli goes on to say that those who accept the myth see it as having a concrete existence. There are various myths that can be attributed to this advert, like: many Christians do not believe that Jesus was crucified. There are those who follow Matthew's account and quote: "And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross"- Mathews (27:32)- explaining that Simon wore the cross and not Jesus. This disputes the preferred reading, as there are those who believe that the crucifixion was actually a 'cruci-fiction'. Muslims are also told in the Quran (4:157) that the Prophet Jesus was not crucified.
Not every person reading the ad is Christian, and therefore not everyone will decode the message as intended. The intended meaning would evoke sympathy for the child with the desire to be charitable. The advert also enforces idea that all street children are black; this is another myth as many street children are of other racial denominations. Many Christians do not believe that they are sinless or that Jesus died so that they would be sinless. This would negate the linguistic component of the advert and work against the preferred reading.
Cynics would say that the child collapsed because of excessive glue sniffing. This is a reality that is often overlooked when one looks at the plight of street-children. Many equate this social problem with an expression of freedom and fail to realize that many children leave their home because of domestic circumstances. Also, there is a lot of media attention on AIDS at the moment. Before, people would talk about a variety of issues, and the media would cover these issues. Now, the media is selective in nature in that it provides the topics of discussion. For example, before, people could talk about anything, it could be said that now, when one talks about global epidemics they can only be heard in the media if they talk about Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or HIV/AIDS. Even though glue sniffing is a preference and not a disease, it is still often overlooked, by AIDS etc.
Many do not believe in the adage "He who is sinless, must cast the first stone", and as such have a different set of criteria of what constitutes sinning, and therefore would not be under the impression that the child is suffering for their sins. A question of ethics would then come into play. The ad also destroys the myth that Jesus was a Blond-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian. McCray (1990) as well as Locksley D.M. Geoghagen go to great lengths to prove that Jesus was a man of colour, being a descendant of Ham, with a traceable lineage in Egypt, where there were no Caucasians.
Symbolic
The symbol has no obvious connection to the idea it represents except through convention. This can be seen as a process of understanding society. In terms of the nature of semiotic Interaction, this would be how we make sense of the world. In essence, this is ideology. Pierce defines a symbol as being a sign which is determined by its dynamic object only in the sense that it will be so interpreted. It thus depends either upon a convention, a habit, or a natural disposition of its interpreting, or of the field of its interpreting. We live in a country that is predominantly Christian. "Christianity is the predominant faith of almost three-quarters of the diverse South African population," says R. Elphick and R. Davenport. This advert reinforces this belief.
In the twentieth century South Africans have used Christian doctrine both to justify and to oppose doctrines of racial segregation, and Christian leadership provided much of the impetus for the founding of the African National Congress in 1912. But the history of South African Christianity is found for the most part in local or "micro" narratives, while the highly elaborated "macro" narratives of colonialism, capitalism, and liberation--the backbone of the conventional histories of South Africa--assign Christianity a marginal role, or no role at all.
From this observation, one can hypothesize that Religion plays a large role in a South Africans life- by making the reference and associations in the advert; the company is hoping that South Africans will be more generous. This can once again be linked to crucifixion, as what was once a most disgraceful way to die has been glorified. This is similar to Christianity's role in South Africa, from justifying apartheid to 'turning the other cheek' in more recent times.
With regards to Hall hypothesizes three ways in which people interpret messages. The first is where the reader interprets the message in terms of the writers intention- in the ad, this would occur when people recognize that the foundation is looking for charity and they give money. The second possibility is where they negotiate what is told. "Negotiating the code occurs when readers acknowledge as legitimate the taken-for-granted code which contains the message but question aspects of the way the message is constructed"- Hall in this case, people would question how much of the money they donate, will go into administrative costs. Also, many would question why the advert is alienating Christian symbols only and not Universal ones. The third possibility is that the reader would reject the message entirely by decoding it in a different way. When a discrepant reading is formulated, the reader might think that he is in a worse position than the child or that there are more worthy causes to donate too.
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