“The rules of satire are such that it must do more than make you laugh. No matter how amusing it is, it doesn’t count unless you find yourself wincing a little even as you chuckle”
– Some wise guy
What is satire?
The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
Elements of Satire – irony, sarcasm, parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, double entendre
The use of words to convey something that’s opposite of the literal meaning of the word.
Taking the piss – PHRASE BRITISH IMPOLITE –to say something to try to make someone look silly
take the piss out of:
“His friends were taking the piss out of him”.
Duchamp takes a utilitarian, industrial object and presents it as art.
Incongruity
Banksy, Rage the Flower Thrower (2005)
To present things that are out of place or are absurd in relation to its surroundings.
Reversal
Marcel Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q. (1919)
“Elle a chaud au cul,”(She has a nice butt)
Giving Mona Lisa a moustache and goatee, Duchamp plays with gender role reversal.
Exaggeration & Parody
Exaggeration – a representation of something in an excessive manner.
Parody – work created to imitate, make fun of, or comment on an original work.
Sacha Baron Cohen (b. 1971)
Is a British actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film producer. He is best known for creating and portraying many fictional satirical characters, including Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, Brüno, Admiral General Aladeen, Erran Morad, and multiple others. Like his idol Peter Sellers, he adopts a variety of accents and guises for his characters and rarely appears out of character.
Who Is America? is an American political satire television series created by Sacha Baron Cohen that premiered on July 15, 2018, on Showtime. Baron Cohen also stars in the series as various characters and executive produces.
Billy Wayne Ruddick Jr., PhD, a far-right conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed citizen journalist
Erran Morad, an Israeli anti-terrorism expert, member of the Israeli military, and former agent of Mossad
Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello, a far-left lecturer on gender studies at Reed College, co-principal at Wildfields Poly-Ed, and a Democratic activist who wishes to “heal the divide” in America between conservatives and liberals
Who is America Preview (interview starts 1:01)
Baron Cohen utilizes a wide variety of satirical techniques to make his work successful. He employs two distinct approaches to satirizing political and social issues. One, where his character will highlight the follies, stupidity, or vices of the people he is talking with. This is the case with the clip above. Another tactic he uses is to play an absurd character that parodies, exaggerates and characterizes an idea, social, or political group (see Billy Wayne Ruccick & Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello). By making a fool of himself, he is satirizing his target group.
Baron Cohen’s mesmerizing but terrifying infiltration of these communities is what makes his satirical approaches to these issue so effective. The fact that the ridiculous and obviously fake characters (at least to the viewer) are able to deceive and manipulate their targets is what promotes introspection, and critical thought of current social and political circumstances.
The key is to have the target of the satire be completely unaware that they are in fact being satirized.
“As in any creative realm you use inspiration of people who’ve already taken that path. And I think in photography, as long as you use it to improve yourself as an artist, and then transition out of that into your own space, I think it’s fine. It’s when you stay in that realm of just riffing off of other stuff, that when it becomes a problem.”
– Mackenzie Duncan, BC based commercial & travel photographer, 17.2k followers
“People eat it up, they love it. Whatever people are into is going to keep happening.” – @youdidnotsleepthere
What are the problems?
Unoriginality and a facade of innovation
Photographers’ unawareness of their role in keeping clichés thriving
Cookie cutter formulas for success
A subsequent hesitancy to do something different
The Goal
To identify trends and clichés that have seeped into visual culture. To satirize the Instagram portrait community by employing irony, burlesque, incongruity, and exaggeration. To bring a more conscious awareness to our image making and image consuming on online platforms. To highlight the uniformity and contrived nature of highly successful (most liked, shared, copied) image concepts. To expose the visual inaccuracies that are prevalent in popular Instagram portraiture.
“Creation is an uncontrolled muscle” according to Arik Levy (born 1963).
Artist, technician, photographer, designer, video artist, Levy’s skills are multi–disciplinary and his work can be seen in prestigious galleries and museums worldwide. Best known publicly for his sculptures – such as his signature Rock pieces –, his installations, limited editions and design, Levy nevertheless feels “The world is about people, not objects.”
Hailing originally from Israel and moving to Europe after his first participation in a group sculpture exhibition in Tel–Aviv in 1988, Levy currently works in his studio in Paris.
His formation was unconventional where surfing, as well as his art and graphic design studio, took up much of his time back home. Following studies at the Art Center Europe in Switzerland he gained a distinction in Industrial Design in 1991.
After a stint in Japan where he consolidated his ideas producing products and pieces for exhibitions, Levy returned to Europe where he contributed his artistry to another field – contemporary dance and opera by way of set design.
The creation of his firm then meant a foray back to his first love, art and industrial design, as well as other branches of his talents. Respected for his furniture and light designs on all continents, Levy also creates hi–tech clothing lines and accessories for firms in the Far East.
Considering himself now more of a “feeling” artist, Arik Levy continues to contribute substantially to our interior and exterior milieu, his work including public sculpture, as well as complete environments that can be adapted for multi use. “Life is a system of signs and symbols,” he says, “where nothing is quite as it seems.”
I enjoy his work because the materials he uses distort what you are looking at. I find he uses his materials in different forms whether it being a closed form or a bunch of planes stuck together. I enjoy his pieces outside and love how they change throughout the day due to lighting.
SEBASTIAN MAGNANI
Born 1985 in a small village in Canton Valais, Switzerland, surrounded by mountains, Sebastian Magnani discovered photography whilst training as a media designer in 2006. After 5 years as a creative in an advertising agency, he decided 2011 to turn his passion into a profession. Since then he has been making a living as a photographer, based in Zurich Switzerland. He currently works on various subjects and several free projects, like the «Underdogs» and «Undercats», where got a lot of media attention and been published on many newspapers, magazines, websites and tv-shows around the globe.
I enjoy his work because it takes one thing (the sky) and puts it somewhere else (the ground) which kind of makes you question what you are looking at and trying to imagine the environment. I feel like it causes a 2D photo experience to be more immersive as you actually what to know what is happening outside the frame.
DENISE RIESEN
Denise Riesen is an award-winning photographer with more then 16 years experience. Her work has varied in style and has evolved as she travels both physically around the world, and through the stages of her own life. Her work expands and alters that of a traditional scene into a complex visual interest. She enjoys the constant challenge of new ways of seeing and the creative output of self expression.
Denise has both studied and photographed extensively throughout the North America and Europe through personal travel and professional involvement. Her work has been shown in a number of galleries within the United States and Mexico. Denise has worked as a photo editor, and curator for a number of exhibits both in Chicago and New York City.
Denise currently works primarily as a freelance photographer and artist based in the Chicago area.
She gave me the idea of water being a reflective surface or a material to distort the surroundings for my photographs.
Final Thoughts
With ideas from these artists I also want to try working with tin foil, glass, mirrors, water, acetate, and cutlery to create a distorted perception of what the viewer is looking at while also creating a visually beautiful image.
I would like to pursue the creation of inventive/surreal photographs that are based off of my own personal drawings, thoughts and experiences. Here are a few artists that inspire me to follow the direction I have chosen. These artist inspire me because of how they work and what they create.
Christopher Mckenney
American Photographer, well known for his “horror photography”. He creates quite interesting, dark and surreal images which often portray people, nature, horror and beauty. Some images appear to be edited, however the use of natural light and recognizable human form have an effective way of delivering an unsettling yet mesmerizing experience for the viewer.
Some of his work:
Joel-Peter Witkin
Creates dark controversial photography that often deals with allegory, death, corpses and religion. He started taking unsettling photographs that depicted his childhood. He was drafted and enlisted as a combat photographer for three years and recorded on film the bodies of soldiers who have died during training or committed suicide. Witkin claims that his vision stems from when he was a child he witnessed a car accident which included a young girl being beheaded.
“It happened on a Sunday when my mother was escorting my twin brother and me down the steps of the tenement where we lived. We were going to church. While walking down the hallway to the entrance of the building, we heard an incredible crash mixed with screaming and cries for help. The accident involved three cars, all with families in them. Somehow, in the confusion, I was no longer holding my mother’s hand. At the place where I stood at the curb, I could see something rolling from one of the overturned cars. It stopped at the curb where I stood. It was the head of a little girl. I bent down to touch the face, to speak to it – but before I could touch it someone carried me away.”
Some of his work:
Daniel Richter
Richter is a German artist. Richter often paints in an expressionistic way. He creates art based off his experiences of reality and is also widely known for his large paintings inspired by contemporary culture and mass media. His work has evolved from corybantic abstractions to more politically driven and representational images.
Widely known for her self portraits where she takes on many different personas. Claude once explained “Under this mask, another mask; I will never finish removing all these faces.” Claude stood against the way male surrealist artists viewed women, (as objects) and created images of herself which challenged the idea of gender.
some of her work:
This is a bit of an early stage of research for me in terms of my final project, having said that these artists inspire me for different reasons, furthermore each artist and their work get my ideas flowing and challenge me to think of ways to overcome road blocks which I continue to encounter when thinking about photography and creating surreal images especially ones based off of my personal experiences and drawings.
Johansson thinks that traditional photography is not based off of talent, but is about being at the right place at the right time. Anyone can do this. Therefore, he is inspired by creating something where the process of the image starts when you press the trigger. His images have an unexpected twist, but they still retain elements of photographic realism. This is accomplished by creating something that cannot exist in the real world, but appears as it could have been captured as a photograph. These are not photographs that are realistic, but what we think looks realistic. With these, a brief moment is required for the viewer to understand the “trick” in the image; therefore, the importance is more focused on capturing an idea, rather than capturing a moment.
In his TED Talk, he relates his images to optical illusions. This is because they do the same thing as the most important part of his photographs; that is, they combine different realities. Here is the example of the optical illusion that he shows in his TED Talk:
Technical Methodologies
In order to make his photographic ideas come to life, Johansson uses Photoshop to combine elements from different photographs. Erik Johansson includes three rules when creating his photographs to achieve a realistic result:
Photographs combined should have the same perspective
Photographs combined should have the same type of light
Seamless photographs: make it impossible to distinguish where the different images begin and end
Johansson matches colour, contrast, and brightness in order to make an image compressed of hundreds of different layers look like one singular image.
Formal Methodologies
In contrast to taking a good photograph by being in the right place at the right time, Johansson’s images require lots of planning. As a result of the heavy Photoshop editing that are contained in his images, the more he plans out the idea, the more realistic his image becomes. He starts this process by beginning with a sketch of an idea. Once he takes the photographs, the next step is combining them with Photoshop.
There is often informal balance in his images. The following are great examples of what I am interested in for my final project:
“All of the tools are out there, the only thing that limits us is our imagination”.
– Erik Johansson
Pol Úbeda Hervàs: I’m Not There (Series)
Conceptual Methodologies
Each image has the same pair of shoes placed perfectly, then a shadow of a man wearing the shoes. These suggest a sort of “ghost-like” quality; similar to the images by Johansson, they are doctored images that appear as if they could exist in reality. They are meant to reference the fact who we are at this moment will disappear, but there will be a trail which remains as evidence of your past existence. This relates to the feeling he has that he is constantly changing. Furthermore, these images focus on photography is often human interaction with its surroundings, while these capture the absence of the human from these surroundings of industrial spaces. These are places that humans have created, enforcing the idea again that even if humans are not inhibiting these spaces, they still leave their mark by creating these spaces in the first place.
Technical Methodologies
I could not find anywhere the photographer explains his process, but I assume he had the help of another person, and a tripod. I’m assuming he took two images here, one where he is standing and wearing the shoes, and one where his shoes were placed in the same position where they were when he was standing. Then, I assume he merges the two images together with Photoshop by copying only his shadow in the image he is in, then dragging and aligning it onto the image of just his shoes.
Formal Methodologies
Each image only contains the shoes, shadow, and an empty background within an man-made space. There are no other powerful elements in the image to distract the viewer. There are often leading lines in these spaces, adding more interest for the viewer to allow further looking into the image.
William Henry Fox Talbot, Lacock Abbey. What is arguably the first and oldest positive from a paper negative. Image of SATURN, (Saturn, people!) from the Cassini spacecraft.
ANSEL ADAMS Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941
JOHN PFAHL Moonrise Over Pie Pan, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, 1977
ANDY GOLDSWORTHY Description on The Art Story | Rivers and Tides
Andy Goldsworthy talking about The Stone Sea SALLY MANN
March 2nd 2014: A reported drone strike killed three in the village of Al-Shabwan, 5km from Marib, while travelling in or sleeping near their vehicle. #drone #drones #yemen (at Erq al-Shabwan, Marib Province)
Endia Beal, who told me about her project in which she took white middle-aged women to a hair salon and gave them “black” hairstyles. She then took their photographs in the style of corporate headshots. Her work had a mix of humor and poignancy, a look at both race and gender; it quickly went viral.
“I wanted people that had a certain idea of what you’re supposed to look like in the workspace, because it would be a challenge for them to understand what I experienced in that space,” Beal said. “And to a degree, many young white women have shared that experience, but for older white women it’s an experience they haven’t necessarily had.”
BOOKS and ARTISTS from THE EDGE OF VISION THE EDGE OF VISION The Edge of Vision, Revisited.
The Edge of Vision VIDEO INTERVIEWS! with most of the artists!!
Lyle Rexer explains the book’s concept
Artists from the powerpoint for Assignment Three: What is Photography?
Guy Fabian Miller
John Pfahl
Liz Deschenes
Uta Barth
Ori Gershl
Martin Klimas
Dean Kessmann
Adam Fuss
Sara Greenberger Rafferty
Mike and Doug Starn (The Starn Twins)
Sarah Anne Johnson
Makers: Robin Rhode | Interview with the artist
Thomas Demand
Holly Roberts Molly Springfield
Laurie Simmons
Ann Hamilton (sculptor)
Andy Goldsworthy
Thomas Demand
Ruth Thorne Thomsen
Christian Boltanski
Robert Parke Harrison
Dieter Appelt
David Levinthal
Helen Van Meene
Laurie Simmons
Ann Hamilton (sculptor)
Andy Goldsworthy
Thomas Demand
Ruth Thorne Thomsen
Christian Boltanski
Robert Parke Harrison
Dieter Appelt
David Levinthal
Helen Van Meene
Abelardo Morell (amazing camera obscura)
Vik Muniz
Sigmar Polke
Gordon Matta-Clark
Aspen Mays
THE ROOT of Photography and how it relates to painting
Watch: David Hockney’s, A Secret Knowledge, (part 1), (part 2), (part 3).
A contemporary film where a non-artist makes a camera obscura and tries to paint like Vermeer. (It’s great!) TIM’S VERMEER
And finally, thinking about drawing!
Paul Chiappe
These are tiny tiny tiny drawings, based on vintage, found, photographs. Go here (it’s a great site) for more information
All Images are from the NPR Picture Show blog. Lawrence with the 49-pound “Captive Airship.” Courtesy of the Lawrence Family
Before drones (and projects like Dronestagram) were used for photographic surveillance, people relied on balloons, kites and pigeons. The camera in the above image was large enough to shoot large format film and required 9-17 kites to lift it.
San Francisco Bay, 1906
Read the rest of the article and see more images here.
After our conversation yesterday about the tension between analog and digital/fast and slow, I thought Emma and others would be interested in Bruno Ribeiro’sabsurdist interpretation of Instagram.
And while we’re talking about Instagram, it’s worth mentioning, yet again, Dronestagram. And this: Le Mois de la Photo a Montreal was Drone: The Automated Image. Search the site for better yet, download the program.
The Hillman Photography Initiative at Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA) investigates the lifecycle of images: their creation, transmission, consumption, storage, potential loss, and reemergence. Technology accelerates the pace of this cycle, and often alters or redirects the trajectory of an image in unexpected, powerful ways.
The Hillman Photography Initiative is an incubator for innovative thinking on the photographic image. The Initiative centers around four projects that, taken together, investigate the boundaries and possibilities of photography through the way that an image travels. Conceived through an open, discursive process, unique in a museum setting, these projects include live public events at the museum, a pop-up reading room in the galleries, two collaborative web-based projects, and a series of commissions, including documentary videos, art projects, and writing.This website is designed to foster public conversations around the larger story that these four projects tell, and knit them together in a single experience.
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The Hillman Photography Initiative has so many cool projects: Orphaned Images, The Invisible Photography, I’m especially excited for the upcoming issue about Physics and photographic processes! (nerd), and This Picture, which asks people to stop, look and respond to one image at a time. One image at a time—how we should all be looking. Looking, not swiping through SnapChat and Instagram.
• Kunie Sugiura | At MOMA | The Kitten Papers
• Erica Baum | Guggenheim | Aperture Magazine | Ubuweb | Frieze 
“The rules of satire are such that it must do more than make you laugh. No matter how amusing it is, it doesn’t count unless you find yourself wincing a little even as you chuckle”
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“People eat it up, they love it. Whatever people are into is going to keep happening.” – 
