For this final project I got inspiration from In Defense of
the Poor Image by Hito Steyerl . I find it very interesting how she uses the
poor image to her advantage. “The poor image is a copy in motion. Its quality
is bad, its resolution substandard. As it accelerates, it deteriorates. It is a
ghost of an image, a preview, a thumbnail, an errant idea, an itinerant image
distributed for free, squeezed through slow digital connections, compressed,
reproduced, ripped, remixed, as well as copied and pasted into other channels
of distribution.” Throughout the paper, Steyerl is defending the poor image.
She wants it to be recognized as something that people don’t really pay
attention to. I watched some of her other videos and got inspiration from those
as well. She uses some dry humor in some. I wanted to incorporate all of these
things as well as putting my own twist to it. I chose to make a short video
uses appropriated images from popular advertisements. I chose each ad from
Googling popular advertisements throughout the last ten years. I chose to put
the Old Spice man as the main voice behind the project. The commercial is about
how if you use this old spice cologne everyone will love you and you will be
the best man around. I decided to end the video with the McDonald’s theme
slogan, “I’m lovin’ it.” I made the voices lower than they were originally. I
wanted everything I put into this video to be different than what I originally
grabbed from the Internet. Each picture I chose, I edited it some different
way. I almost randomly put different filters and edits on each picture. On some
ads I made have movement in them. I tried to use some humor in the video as well.
I put the chocolate man at the very end with no sound because I wanted him to
look scary and like he was put of place.
Steyerl talks about how a poor image is passed around,
edited, given to someone else, and changed. I wanted my video to be like that.
I wanted to change the pixilation of them, the colors, and just change them to
give them a different look. When photos and other media are passed around like
this, the piece is given a different meaning and most likely less of a meaning.
Popular advertisements are all over the Internet. You cannot get away from
them. Whatever website that a person goes on, it is likely that there is an ad
somewhere on the page. This is a problem in today’s society. Seeing bill boards
or different posters everywhere give the product or what they are selling a
different meaning. In today’s society photographs are also perceived differently
than they use to be. Pictures were taken with a digital camera or a disposable
camera and you had them printed. My parents have boxes and boxes of photographs
where as I only have digital files that I have taken with my phone mostly.
All together I think that my video could be more expanded.
There were some good suggestions brought up when doing a critique. I could make
the video longer and keep repeating the short video over and over but making
more edits. I think that would have given the piece more of a meaning. Also I
would have used more commercial voices instead of just the two that I used. I
needed to layer more and more. When looking at my video if you were an outside
viewer, I think that it would be difficult to pick up a meaning from it. I definitely
want to expand more on this to prove my point that I am trying to get across.
Steyerl, Hito. "In Defense of the Poor Image." (n.d.): n. pag. E-flux. E-flux, Nov. 2009. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.
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