Please choose an image you like (and upload it); share it here; explain why you like it; and identify questions that the image-as-text raises for you. Also, be sure to respond to at least two posts.
Sorry I can't seem to get the image to upload, but this should open. If someone can give me better directions, I'll try again to get the image up.
I remember the controversy that surrounded this TIME cover of an Afghan teen named Aisha whose nose and ears were severed by the Taliban. The TIME editor, Rick Stengel, explained his decision to run the image as a contribution to the debate about the war. It was not meant to support or oppose the US war effort; rather, its purpose is to illuminate what is really happening. The story that follows is about how women will suffer if we leave Afghanistan and this requires a continued presence there.
The response to the image attacked TIME's exploitation of the actual context. Aisha was not mutilated in the past at the height of the Taliban's rule but with the tens of thousands of US troops in the country. Others complained that the article doesn't address how the continuation of the war is contributing to the very violence that harms women there. It also misconstrues the reasons the US is there in the first place: we didn't go for the women. Even others object to the way TIME is further victimizing this woman.
I find even the caption framing this image problematic. The obvious counterpart is what actually will happen here in America if we leave this war: the stability of the economy, the reunion of soldiers with their families, more jobs. It seems that pictures like these could easily fill the cover and make the same caption work.
My questions arise when I put this image in dialogue with Susan Sontag's Regarding the Pain of Others. What are our responsibilities when viewing the suffering of others? What are the consequences of gendering the US war effort and our continued presence there? What are our responsibilities when providing context and prospective of graphic images? Can images like these be ethically appropriated to further an argument/agenda as TIME is trying to do?
Yeah, I'm having a similar problem posting my image to the blog. Did anyone else have a hard time choosing an image to post? I was debating between several different artists I like, but then Larkin's post reminded me of the Iron Maiden album Powerslave, with all the Egyptian iconography. So then I thought it would be fun to look at a Maiden album cover for this assignment! I ended up going with Number of the Beast, which I like a little better than Powerslave, both visually and rhetorically.
I am currently reading Jeff Chang's 2005 book on the history of hip-hop, Can't Stop, Won't Stop, for an art history class on the impact of hip-hop culture on contemporary art. Chang talks about the interplay of graffiti, fashion, dance, film, and music creating a rich, multisensory, public image of hip-hop culture. This gave me a conceptual framework for thinking about the visual rhetoric of 80s heavy metal in general and Iron Maiden in particular.
I mainly like the Number of the Beast cover because it’s like the ultimate “fuck you” to suburban parents and the entire White, middle-class, conformist, Christian establishment! Eddie, the skeletal demon and Maiden mascot, towers over Satan in a stance that both threatens (parents and other conservatives) and beckons (teenaged metal-heads). But then, have any of you listened to this album (or any classic Iron Maiden) recently? I was in Decent Pizza a few weeks ago and heard the entire Piece of Mind album by Iron Maiden and was really surprised at how tame, and even pretty, it sounded. The music is melodic and sophisticated, and the lyrics are literary and smart. The music it isn’t even remotely as scary as Maiden’s album covers would have us believe. So my questions about the Number of the Beast album cover are: Does the disparity between the aesthetics of the music and the image of the band conveyed by the album cover result from my contemporary listening context (25 years later)? Or did it always exist to a certain extent? If the latter (which to me seems more interesting to think about!) what does that say about the 80s metal fan and about Iron Maiden?
http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2010/1007/a_time_cover_0809.jpg
ReplyDeleteSorry I can't seem to get the image to upload, but this should open. If someone can give me better directions, I'll try again to get the image up.
I remember the controversy that surrounded this TIME cover of an Afghan teen named Aisha whose nose and ears were severed by the Taliban. The TIME editor, Rick Stengel, explained his decision to run the image as a contribution to the debate about the war. It was not meant to support or oppose the US war effort; rather, its purpose is to illuminate what is really happening. The story that follows is about how women will suffer if we leave Afghanistan and this requires a continued presence there.
The response to the image attacked TIME's exploitation of the actual context. Aisha was not mutilated in the past at the height of the Taliban's rule but with the tens of thousands of US troops in the country. Others complained that the article doesn't address how the continuation of the war is contributing to the very violence that harms women there. It also misconstrues the reasons the US is there in the first place: we didn't go for the women. Even others object to the way TIME is further victimizing this woman.
I find even the caption framing this image problematic. The obvious counterpart is what actually will happen here in America if we leave this war: the stability of the economy, the reunion of soldiers with their families, more jobs. It seems that pictures like these could easily fill the cover and make the same caption work.
My questions arise when I put this image in dialogue with Susan Sontag's Regarding the Pain of Others. What are our responsibilities when viewing the suffering of others? What are the consequences of gendering the US war effort and our continued presence there? What are our responsibilities when providing context and prospective of graphic images? Can images like these be ethically appropriated to further an argument/agenda as TIME is trying to do?
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ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm having a similar problem posting my image to the blog. Did anyone else have a hard time choosing an image to post? I was debating between several different artists I like, but then Larkin's post reminded me of the Iron Maiden album Powerslave, with all the Egyptian iconography. So then I thought it would be fun to look at a Maiden album cover for this assignment! I ended up going with Number of the Beast, which I like a little better than Powerslave, both visually and rhetorically.
ReplyDeletehttp://superduper.shapesofsweetness.com/2009/06/19/iron-maiden-the-number-of-the-beast/
I am currently reading Jeff Chang's 2005 book on the history of hip-hop, Can't Stop, Won't Stop, for an art history class on the impact of hip-hop culture on contemporary art. Chang talks about the interplay of graffiti, fashion, dance, film, and music creating a rich, multisensory, public image of hip-hop culture. This gave me a conceptual framework for thinking about the visual rhetoric of 80s heavy metal in general and Iron Maiden in particular.
I mainly like the Number of the Beast cover because it’s like the ultimate “fuck you” to suburban parents and the entire White, middle-class, conformist, Christian establishment! Eddie, the skeletal demon and Maiden mascot, towers over Satan in a stance that both threatens (parents and other conservatives) and beckons (teenaged metal-heads). But then, have any of you listened to this album (or any classic Iron Maiden) recently? I was in Decent Pizza a few weeks ago and heard the entire Piece of Mind album by Iron Maiden and was really surprised at how tame, and even pretty, it sounded. The music is melodic and sophisticated, and the lyrics are literary and smart. The music it isn’t even remotely as scary as Maiden’s album covers would have us believe. So my questions about the Number of the Beast album cover are: Does the disparity between the aesthetics of the music and the image of the band conveyed by the album cover result from my contemporary listening context (25 years later)? Or did it always exist to a certain extent? If the latter (which to me seems more interesting to think about!) what does that say about the 80s metal fan and about Iron Maiden?