Yesterday morning I went to get my New York Times as I do every Sunday. As I unwrapped the rolled up paper (yes I’m talking about the physical paper edition) I wondered what image would appear on the front page of the first day of 2012. This the leading newspaper in the US surely would bring in the new year with a powerful image of what is to come. Which is why I went through a rollercoaster of thoughts when I revealed this image as the front page.
A bunch of people taking pictures of a ball dropping. Seriously?! Not people enjoying the ball dropping, but photographing the ball dropping. I immediately wondered what happened in the moments after this photo was taken. Were people cheering and kissing and celebrating in the streets? Or were they instantly uploading, Facebook-ing, and tweeting these images? It seems as though more and more people are not presently enjoying events, but rather documenting them to share with others (either for bragging rights, or to genuinely share the moment) But what is better? Enjoying the New Years ball drop and experiencing the excitement in the moment or letting your entire Facebook network know that you were there? Having never actually been to New York to see the ball drop, I’m not sure I can actually answer, however this cover images is but one of many examples of this new behavior - our need to instantly document and share.
Inside this edition of the NY Times, dominating the cover of the Sunday Review section, was the article “The Joy of Quiet”. Pico Iyer outlines our need to escape the constant screens, noises, and electronic buzz and set out into the quiet. This is not a new concept of course, but one that seems in great contrast the front cover image of people mesmerized by capturing their present moment onto a screen.
My favorite part of the article is this paragraph:
"So what to do? The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual. All the data in the world cannot teach us how to sift through data; images don’t show us how to process images. The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen."
Yes! It’s true, technology does not teach us criticality, images do not teach us how to process images or even what to do with them or how to use them. (To keep with my review of this edition of the NYTimes, flip over to the front page of Arts & Leisure where the copyright debate of Richard Prince’s image takes center stage.) When I teach any foundation class in art or design I always begin by discussing what an image is. John Berger, WJT Mitchell, perception, manipulation, physical, virtual, images have power and images have meaning.
So, if what I tell my students is true, that all images have meaning, then what is the meaning behind this image on the font page on the NY Times? Is this a reflection of techno-zombies haphazardly capturing images? Is this a predication of new type of image criticality where we will begin to question what and how we create images? Or is it simply a snap shot of where we are how we document ourselves.
A seperate but related thought on images...
“Images don’t show us how to process images” also struck a cord on New Years as the Rose Bowl game was getting ready to be played. I am not a football fan, nor a sports fan. However I grew up in the state of Wisconsin where several things become engrained in you throughout upbringing. The Rose Bowl is one of the premier college bowl game played on New Year. The teams that play in it each year are always different, however Wisconsin has played in it many times, as they did this year. A few weeks ago I got a glimpse at this years tickets.
When I saw the ticket design my first thought was shock that the college football league would take such a political stance. It was obvious to me that the fist in the center of the design was referencing the many protest in the state of Wisconsin (and around the world). That fist had been an image used over and over again in protest signs, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and websites. This could not be an accident.
If it was an accident, I’d argue that this image was at least in the subconscious of the designer. Similar to my young students who come in with images of Barbie dolls to represent females without being critical that Barbie comes loaded with a wealth of other meanings and connotations.
As I began to show this to others and discuss the imagery of football tickets, the topic of “visual literacy” came up over and over again – how we read images and represent images. My internet searches for who designed the tickets and their intentions turned up nothing. And it remains a mystery to me if this design was intentional or not.
How could this image use not be intentional? On the other hand, how could this be intentional? While I have no proof or evidence in either direction I’d like to believe that the designer was visually literate, and knew what they were doing, while those higher-ups who approve the design were not visually literate and agreed to this design not realizing the underlying protest message.
Which brings me back to the paradox… to understand images or not to understand images? Because while I’d like to wish that everyone become more visually literate, if in fact, this did get by someone who didn’t understand the greater reference here, then bravo!
Comments
Russian style?
The Rose Bowl designs are interesting. To me they're reminiscent of Russian revolutionary art, particularly the one on the right, with its use of primary colours and a kind of star-burst design. As you say, you look at the designs and you think "Nice design - but do they really mean to make a reference to revolutionary art? How's that appropriate? It isn't really appropriate at all, is it?"
I'm inclined to think that this could be an example of an effect the Web has, of making all kinds of images from all periods of our culture simultaneously available, in a kind of flattened-out and everything's-the-same-as-everything-else way, so that people working in the arts these days are likely to include styles, references, even directly-copied material, without necessarily worrying themselves about the threads of association which are attached to them. You look at the Rose Bowl design and you think "This ought to be ironic" - but it doesn't seem to be ironic. To me, the effect is of somebody missing a trick. But then to the designer, perhaps the threads of association are irrelevant, of interest only to old fogies, and the only thing that really matters is the extra visual zap you get when you borrow this particular graphic style.