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A3: Recipe Book
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Untitled (Free), 1992
source
(source)
“In 1992, Rirkrit Tiravanija created an exhibition entitled Untitled (Free) at 303 Gallery in New York. In this landmark piece, the artist converted a gallery into a kitchen where he served rice and Thai curry for free. In this deceptively simple conceptual piece, the artist invites the visitor to interact with contemporary art in a more sociable way, and blurs the distance between artist and viewer. You aren’t looking at the art, but are part of it—and are, in fact, making the art as you eat curry and talk with friends or new acquaintances.“
source: (MoMA)
“Tiravanija is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of his generation, and since the 1990s has based much of his art around the idea of creating social spaces and platforms for instruction and discussion. His works have taken various forms, including performances, teaching, readings, broadcasting music, cooking and sharing meals, and are associated with the concept of ‘relational aesthetics’, a term coined in the 1990s by French curator and art critic Nicolas Bourriaud that describes ‘a set of artistic practices which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context, rather than an independent and private space’; or put simply, as Tiravanija has stated, ‘It is not what you see that is important but what takes place between people’.“
source: (NGV)
I like Tiravanija’s focus on creating a community within his works, and how he creates works that bring people together (some that may not usually associate) and creates an environment conducive for discussion.
Artist Inspiration - Rirkrit Tiravanija
I am reblogging this again as Tiravanija work was an artist who has inspired the development of our idea, his combination and lack of distinction between art and life is very insightful and very successful.
Similarly in our event we want to create an environment in which conversations can form and for stories to be told, using old recipes and food as the platform for this to happen.
A3 Idea for Event
Collaborative and community based event located at a local primary school space e.g. Glebe Primary School. The event is based around the idea of community and culture, attendees are encouraged to bring a dish that is maybe a recipe passed through the family or a family favourite. Coming together to share stories and listen to each other.
Main inspiration: relational aesthetics in art
The event will be inviting different people to bring recipes and food and share their stories with strangers who have done the same, uncovering different histories that exist within the communities we live in.
‘theanyspacewhatever’
We did some further research into artist who share similar practices in relation to relational aesthetics. In doing this we came across the art exhibition in the Guggenheim called ‘theanyspacewhatever 2008-2009′ where 10 artists worked together to create a collective experience, all having different expertise.
theanyspacewhatever 2008-2009
Within this exhibition, 10 artists with common ideas on relational aesthetics created an exhibition at the Guggenheim.
‘…ten artists who share certain strategies and sensibilities: Angela Bulloch, Maurizio Cattelan, Liam Gillick, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Douglas Gordon, Carsten Höller, Pierre Huyghe, Jorge Pardo, Philippe Parreno, and Rirkrit Tiravanija.’
Though each artist is recognized for his or her own practice, they are linked by a mutual rethinking of the early modernist impulse to conflate art and life. Rather than deploy representational strategies, they privilege experiential, situation-based work over discrete aesthetic objects.’
All these artists are from ‘theanyspacewhatever’:
Angela Bulloch
Firmamental Night Sky: Oculus.12, 2008
‘Engaging the senses with color, light, and music, Angela Bulloch’s installations explore the effects of environmental stimuli by incorporating elements that are activated by the viewer or patterned according to digital programming.’
Maurizio Cattelan
Daddy Daddy, 2008
‘Maurizio Cattelan is known for his provocative, paradoxical sculptures and installations, which frequently invoke the artist’s own antiheroic persona. While a black sense of humor, roguish pranks, and a taste for the subversive have become hallmarks of Cattelan’s work, its foundation lies in a nuanced confrontation with the absurdity and tragedy of the human condition. Cattelan’s life-size effigy of a beloved fairytale character lying face down in the museum’s fountain reads as a crime scene replete with questions of intent: suicide, homicide, or ill-planned escape?’
Liam Gillick
theanyspacewhatever Signage System, 2008
Powder-coated, water-cut aluminum pieces
‘Liam Gillick’s work investigates the ideological underpinnings of the built environment, exposing the social, political, and economic forces that distinguish architectural spaces, and investigating how these properties construct and mediate behavior. He often exploits the potential of the exhibition format within a practice that encompasses an intricate layering of critical writing, fiction, and sculptural form, with an emphasis on modern design. For theanyspacewhatever, Gillick has intervened in the Guggenheim’s operational systems, such as directions, didactics, and seating, to subtly reorient visitors’ experiences of the exhibition itself. His series of hanging aluminum signs infiltrates the museum, deploying a characteristically spare and arresting graphic aesthetic. Appropriating the conventions of institutional signage, some of the texts playfully mimic imperative and informational language, while others reference the work of the artists participating in the show, or offer enigmatic slogans.’
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s
Meyers, NY.2022, 2008
Sound and light environment, 9 min.
‘Gonzalez-Foerster’s light- and sound-based installation NY.2022 (2008), created in collaboration with Ari Benjamin Meyers, regularly animates the Peter B. Lewis Theater as a new iteration of an orchestral performance commissioned by the museum’s Works & Process series and presented during the opening weekend of the exhibition. The live production of NY.2022 reconceived the science fiction film Soylent Green (1973) as an abstract musical narrative about endings and departures.’
Douglas Gordon
prettymucheverywordwritten,spoken,heard,overheardfrom1989
Wall texts in various fonts and sizes
‘From the beginning of his career, Douglas Gordon has used text and the spoken word to subtly intervene in existing environments. Whether whispered over the phone to unsuspecting audience members or sent via mail, his succinct but poignant missives disrupt the usual flows of communication. Dispersed virally throughout the museum’s rotunda, prettymucheverywordwritten,spoken,heard,overheardfrom1989 … is a compilation of texts that provides a veritable archive of Gordon’s written work. Encountered collectively, the texts reveal the artist’s obsession with opposites–fact and fiction, good and evil, and so on–and the ways in which they often collapse into one another.’
Carsten Höller
Revolving Hotel Room, 2008
‘Carsten Höller’s work generates unstable situations that challenge the assumptions of the viewer and explore the influence of unanticipated movement on human perception. His participation-based installations and devices—ranging from flying machines, slides, and carousels, to goggles that view the world upsidedown—induce new psychological and physiological sensations that prompt the participant to experience him or herself and the environment in a new way. Höller’s fully functioning hotel room invites visitors to spend the night in the museum’s rotunda on four slow-turning discs equipped with comfortable sleeping, dressing, and working areas. Members of the public can reserve the room for one night each and enjoy a leisurely private viewing of the entire exhibition at any point during their stay.’
Pierre Huyghe
theanyspacewhatever transfer book, 2008
‘Pierre Huyghe’s work plays freely with the constructs of time and reality, creating fictional narratives that draw upon and ultimately affect our empirical world. As his contribution to theanyspacewhatever, Huyghe has created a book of iron-on transfers that illustrate the Guggenheim’s exterior and interior, incorporating images of the spaces in which the artworks appear as a speculative device. This representation of a possible reality includes a number of renderings of the darkened rotunda filled with multiple beams of light, in reference to the participatory event, OPENING, that Huyghe will stage three times during the run of the exhibition. Disrupting and disorienting the temporal flow of the museum’s presentation, the performance invites visitors to roam through the space in blackout conditions, lighting their way with headlamps. In a conceptually linked project, an image by Huyghe is currently displayed on a billboard in Times Square, at 47th Street with 7th Avenue’
Philippe Parreno
Marquee, Guggenheim, NY, 2008
‘Philippe Parreno considers the exhibition to be an integral element in his poetic and elusive work, which also comprises publications, lectures, and performances. His site-specific, illuminated movie marquee installed on the facade of the Guggenheim Museum functions as an enigmatic “label” for the exhibition. Rendered in white Plexiglas and neon, this ghostly sign announces the show without making any pronouncements about its content or structure, instead reflecting the open-ended nature of the exhibition.’
Jorge Pardo
Jorge Pardo Sculpture Ink, 2008
‘Infusing the aesthetics of modern design with a Pop inflection, Jorge Pardo reunites form and function to create operative environments within the museum, while also bringing art into everyday life in his architecture and design projects.
Whether redesigning a restaurant, an office, or a domestic interior, his work is always characterized by finely crafted, decorative elements and an interest in the social dynamics of public and private space. For this exhibition, Pardo has transformed one of the museum’s ramps with an interlocking system of intricately-patterned cardboard screens that are illuminated by sculptural lamps. Demarcating an alternative circulation route for visitors, the installation also functions as an inventive display system for a series of silkscreened prints created by the artists in the exhibition and produced on a press in Pardo’s studio in collaboration with master printer Christian Zickler.’
Rirkrit Tiravanija
CHEW THE FAT, 2008
A documentary film portrait
‘Rirkrit Tiravanija is best known for the meals he has cooked for visitors during his exhibitions, as well as the architectural structures he transposes to the gallery environment, in a layering of the real onto the aesthetic. True to his career-long pursuit to blend art and life, Tiravanija has created a documentary film, CHEW THE FAT, on the occasion of this exhibition. The film features extensive interviews with the artists in theanyspacewhatever as well as with other friends and colleagues, providing an intimate perspective on the art of the 1990s. The interviews–all approximately seventy—five minutes in length–are on view on dedicated monitors in the High Gallery, and in an edited-down, feature-length version screened regularly in the museum’s theaters.’
After researching and observing all the different approaches throughout this exhibition it really broadened the scope of possibilities of how we could approach this type of topic of creating a community. Ultimately was very helpful when deciding what we were going to do!
A3: Event Collaborative and community based event located at Glebe Primary School. The event is based around the idea of community and culture, attendees are encouraged to bring a dish that is maybe a recipe passed through the family or a family or friends favourite. The event will be inviting different people to bring recipes and food and share their stories with strangers who have done the same, uncovering different histories that exist within the communities we live in.
Advertisement Posters
these were the posters we made in order to advertise our event,
here are the many different coloured variations
A3: Promotional Posters for Event
Promotional posters to be put up around the area, in shop windows and on local pin boards.
Assessment 2 - Images of Final Work, Artist Statement, Bibliography
The concept of ‘toxic masculinity’ can be accurately described by Colleen Clemens, writer for teaching tolerance .org as she states “Toxic masculinity is a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression. It’s the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly “feminine” traits—which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexual—are the means by which your status as “man” can be taken away.”
Though this definition may outline what toxic masculinity entails, it’s important we understand where root of this problem comes from. The gender binaries. As a social construct the idea of male and female and masculine and feminine has changed over several years, though they are still separated, and both ends of the spectrum.
What is deemed masculine or feminine? Why?
Several aspects of our lives dictate how both males and females should be behaving and going about their lives, to the smallest instances on our mannerisms, the clothes we wear, our interests and hobbies and so on. But these aspects can be traced back to the youngest stages of infancy later entailing internal struggle, and confusion.
My body of work captures the emotional ramifications associated with boys at a young age, are taught or influenced to already fit the mould of a masculine being. For this I decided to focus on the idea of children’s wallpaper. In Western society, this act of decorating a room for young children at first may seem like a harmless, if not joyful gesture as we think we are simply sticking wall paper into a wall. This is where the problem begins.
I’ve used what is classified as ‘boys wallpaper’ in my artwork to represent the influencing of our ideas of masculine being ultimately forced upon young boys. Being a practice-led assessment, I’ve carried on over the idea of playing with the materials and manipulating them in a way which evokes a range of emotions. Separated into three works and utilising different materials, I essentially try to capture the journey in which toxic masculinity can entail but also providing a more reflective perspective at the end of my artwork.
I communicate the internal emotional struggle of being entrapped in a room, surrounded by a suffocating construct which is represented by blue wallpaper with illustrations of cars. This is easily recognised as a wallpaper for boys so pushing my material experimentation, several scratches/scrapes, rips, tears, are made to the paper to display the breaking down of this binary as well. Including finger prints on the wall paper reinforces a human experience that can be found within this process.
Using Ryan James’ photograph from the “Man Up!” series from 2015, I wanted to emphasise a more personal and emotional level of struggle. Extremely fascinated by this portrait of a young man who seems to be beat up from a boxing match I think already emphasises a physical battle with violence which can be a result of not addressing toxic masculinity. I decided use various mediums of paint and soft pastel to convey the multifaceted range of emotions such as anger, rage and confusion. Using evocative paint brush strokes and contrasting high flow paints, I also capture the somewhat confronting aspects of even struggling with identity as a result of the gender binaries.
The final part of my work offers a different perspective on the gender binary and toxic masculinity, but still uses similar materials and mediums. The two universal colours for ‘male’ and ‘female’ are used in this process of allowing paints to settle into each other with the aid of a pouring medium. The three boards viewed from left to right tell the story and capture the beauty of what result can be achieved when we take down these binaries.
At first a very opaque, puddle of blue and pink seem to be clashing with each other not allowing for room to mix, then moving onto the second board we can see an almost mesmerising effect of a marbled blue and pink pattern, frozen by pouring medium. The complex and fluid details here reinforce the beauty which can be viewed when we let these binaries cross over into each other. Lastly, we can see the final foam board being engulfed in a cloud of blue and pink hues which can evoke a sense of confusion or haziness. Though when looking up-close, finer details within the pouring medium an be viewed further expanding on the complexity and ever fluid nature of binaries.
Frank, P., ‘Artists Tackle Stale Ideas Of Masculinity That Restrict People Of All Genders’, Huffington Post, 13 January 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/art-masculinity-queer-man-up-exhibition_us_5874ebe1e4b02b5f858b0bb0, (accessed 11 September 2018).
Clemens, C., ‘What We Mean When We Say, “Toxic Masculinity”’, Teaching Tolerance, December 11 2017,
https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/what-we-mean-when-we-say-toxic-masculinity, (accessed 9 September 2018).
Man Up! Masculinity in Question, Exhibition Catalogue, California USA, Chaffey College, https://www.chaffey.edu/wignall/Ask_Art_Man_Up.pdf, (accessed 14 September 2018).
Assessment 2 - Experiment 3
For this experiment I decided to steer way from the previous two experiments and being playing with high flow paints and pouring medium. As this assessment is considered a body of work, there’s the room to submit multiple artworks which I think is the direction I’ll be heading in. For a topic such as gender binaries, there’s a plethora of perspectives that can be offered from various angles and I think adding more depth to this concept will help me gain a deeper understanding into my concept.
This Liquitex pouring medium is the medium I’ll be mixing in with my paints. I only have a small bottle cause this stuff aint cheap! I have to be wise with how much I’m using for experimentation in order to make sure I have enough for my final pieces.
I had already created experimentation for a small exercise in ADAD last week and thought I would also play around with that. Using ONLY the pouring medium without and paints I feel is important to see what its raw properties are. This might take a while to set because I just added a thick layer of the stuff on top.
From a physical standpoint, you can already see the image underneath beginning to warp as a result of the thickness of the medium. I feel as though this will make the medium set unevenly which is a little bit annoying, but this could still produce interesting results.
Before moving onto a larger size, I added a small drop of the medium onto the same canvas from the previous experiments then proceeded to add the pink and baby blue. You can already see the translucent nature of the medium as a subtle gradient is starting to form. This could be used as visual representation of binaries essentially having a spectrum or gradient to them?
Blue!
Pink!
You can just see the white fluid of the pouring medium which has been added in.
I cut out a small piece of black foam board and added around 10 cent sized drops of the blue, pink and pouring medium. You can already see the development of the colours mixing with each other and also how both colours interact with the medium forming fluid patterns and motions.
Here’s a closeup of a second pour I did which shows the glossy finish on the board, though I don’t think it will stay as a glossed finish. I think that may require another coat which I’m skeptical about because it may set unevenly as I a plan to have a spill which will grow therefore resulting in a raised surface not allowing for a 100% smooth finish.
Here’s the final product of the first pour I did, which as you can see did not completely set in a glossed finish. This is fine as I’m still happy with the pattern that has been achieved. I will have to move this on to a larger size of the foam board which will have more room to move around.
My plan is to show the progressive nature in which binaries can be broken down, displaying the beautiful and complex nature of this concept. I think I will have three boards all lined up from left to right which will show a spill of the blue and pink ultimately growing from a small puddle into a more complex and detailed fluid pattern emphasising the fluid nature of gender binaries.
Assessment 2 - Experiment 2
Continuing on from my first experiment, I went back to my research on the idea of wallpaper being assigned to girls and boys from a young age. I decided to start looking for some wallpapers that have a light hearted tone to them and still clearly convey if it was aimed at young boys or girls. After researching online I found this one, not because it was the first result, but because the image retained a high quality for printing and didn’t have any furniture obstructing the print as results only came up for concept photographs.
Source
Due to time constraints as well as not being able to find any stores that would ship in time for the assessment, I had to resort to printing out the image in colour which is disappointing but I feel won’t have a major impact on how the artwork will be perceived.
I started by gluing down the wallpaper on to another canvas panel once again providing some support to push my experimentation with the material.
I also used a pair of scissors to start scraping the material back in a similar fashion to my first experiment.
More scrapping!
Here is when I started to slowly become convinced and like some of the work that was coming out of this. A really threatening and ominous tone is captured within the wall paper just by simply splashing paint and degrading the material though I could push it even further.
When pushing my experimentation further I started to like the flowing of paints on top of the wallpaper as it became more conceptual. There’s more question as to why there’s added paint on top of wall paper but I feel as though I don’t want my concept to immediate to viewers.
Assessment 2 - Experiment 1
For this first experiment I decided to play around with how I can create similar look to my first poster in assessment 1. I printed out black and white images from Ryan James Caruthers, from "Tryouts, Boxing," 2015 and use those as a base for my experimentation. I really like this specific photograph as I think it captures somewhat the emotion I am trying to evoke.
I had a large canvas panel from a while back and decided to use this as I am going to be using a blade to experiment with so it can act as a barrier between other surfaces and I can push my material even further.
I laid out three prints in a row so I could do comparisons as well as leave room underneath for any paints that I want to experiment with to drip down on to the canvas so I can capture every piece of experimentation.
In a similar fashion to my first assessment, I approached this first part of my experiment with no goal except to see what the unexpected can bring. I used the end blade of a pair of scissors to scratch and scrape back the paper.
I think as a first experiment, I feel I can push this by adding more mediums on top of this as well as possibly taking some of the image away? I think I’ll add some paint on top to see what effects can be achieved. I interestingly only have shades of blue and pink which suit my assessment quite well as these are the universal colours associated with the genders of male and female.
I had some old high flow paints which I think will be useful to evoke a more destructive nature within my work.
After even mixing around three colours, I’m starting to like the patterns and formations between the paints. It can be perceived as something beautiful but also carry a more sinister notion. Because I like how the first set of paint turned out I decided to create more small patterns.
This is a closeup shot of one of the patterns I created which I think looks rather nice. I documented this as reference to my other experiments which may be needing a similar technique but with additional mediums or paints.
From this I decided to see what look could be achieved when splattering this on to the photographs I already experimented with.
Using just a paintbrush I mixed all the colours and let them drip onto the photograph. Additional drops and splatters I feel create a sense of violence, but there’s a sense of peace within the shades of pink and blue? I kind of like it tho. Maybe my work could also explore the beauty of what results can occur if we try to take these binaries down.
I decided to push further and take some of the scraping techniques I used in my previous experiment and apply them to the image while the paint is still wet on the image. It would be interesting to see what results can be achieved when the paper and canvas absorbs the paint.
I tried a similar process again on a third image but included some finger strokes and added paints in a different order. The finger stokes I feel add a sense of internal struggle but is quite provoking due to its addition of human experience into the work.
Assessment 2 - Research
Moving on from Assessment 1, I feel I had gained an understanding of how I can approach the idea of toxic masculinity through gender binaries. Although, after receiving feedback, I think I would like to go further into the direction of creating a more conceptual piece and evoke a sense of emotion through exploring a variety of mediums.
Exploring photography as an example I think is a good way to start brainstorming how I can approach this assessment.
“ManUp!” arrives at a particularly fraught moment in terms of gender politics. After being painfully close to electing the first woman president, America is soon to be lead by a man who elevates brute masculinity, whose public image has been bolstered after objectifying, degrading and humiliating others. With Republicans threatening to defund Planned Parenthood and overturn Roe v. Wade, the hazards women will face in the coming months are abundantly clear. Yet the future of masculinity is nearly as tenuous, and the consequences are similarly grave.
It is not only women who are oppressed by patriarchal hegemony. The traditional tenets of masculinity ― power, stoicism and dominance ― are holding men back rather than urging them forward. (In fact, it can literally kill them.) Today, it is crucial to look past feeble and outdated understandings of masculinity and explore the potential of human beings untethered by societal expectations and gender norms.
The artists of “ManUp!” offer alternative understandings of masculinity that don’t rely on notions of biology or stereotypes, but rather view manhood as a complex network of rituals and desires, distinctly organized in every individual in which they appear. They reject the idea of an “ideal man” against which all others will fail to measure up, and in doing so, support the idea that people should be free to live their lives ― free to express themselves through their appearance, actions and gestures, molding their gender identity like a work of art along the way.
Ryan James Caruthers, from "Tryouts, Boxing," 2015, archival pigment print, 36 x 30 inches.
Source
I think this photograph by Ryan James explores a more dangerous side to toxic masculinity purely through portrait photography. This interests me as photography is a medium I haven’t explored as much
Conrad Ruiz, "Tough Lover," 2015, watercolor on canvas, 72 x 60 inches.
Also a part of the “Man Up” series “Tough Lover” I feel explores the same concept of toxic masculinity within the gender binary but utilising watercolour on canvas which I think is vastly different approach to photography. The amount of detail within this work could also allude to the complex nature of gender binaries but also display a more chaotic internal struggle that young men experience.
Not so much an actual artwork, but from these works as well as the works I’ve researched in my previous assessment, I think I want to investigate where this concept of masculinity comes from. I remember looking at a reading during SAHT this semester and as a class we did an exercise googling “baby boys bedroom” to see what results would appear.
No surprise here as to what came up, but this fascinated me. Rooms with baby blue wall papers, cars and rocket ships engulfed my screen.
For this assessment I would like to experiment with the idea of wallpaper in bedrooms acting as a what seems to be subtle decoration, but actually further separates the binary of masculinity and femininity. In similar way to my poster from the first assessment I’ll try to push how I can express emotion through the destruction of wall paper. I feel using a wallpaper that is usually associated with joyful connotations but instead destroying parts of the material could provoke deeper thought into the forcing of masculinity even at young ages.
For further research into more materials, I decided to research into the medium of high flow paint artworks. I’ve had experience with using this medium in the past and I feel conceptually and aesthetically, the end result of using this type of paint can produce excellent results. Not many big name contemporary artists use pouring medium as this type of art has started to take off over the last few years.
Stephanie Gagos, Untitled, Acrylic Paint mixed with Pouring Medium (2018)
Video Source
Facebook Source
With the experimentation of materials I intend to conduct, I feel as though pushing myself to incorporate more textures and visual effects will result in unexpected outcomes that will be useful for the future of this assessment
Work by Tessa, Patrick, Nicolette, Ferg and Ebony We explored the idea of temporary conditions of natural elements over time. We used sound as a temporary vehicle…
We explored the idea of temporary conditions of natural elements over time. We used sound as a temporary vehicle to show time passing, capturing the process of a stick being dragged against manmade and natural elements, and its deterioration. Additionally, the water being poured onto the ground as we were walking communicates the passing of time through exploring the process of evaporation, leaving a temporary trail of our experience. By capturing the sounds of our surroundings whilst trekking around campus and overlapping it with a visual of our route, we combined these elements to create a collaborative visual and auditory artwork.
Tessa, Patrick, Nicolette, Ferg and Ebony
Stick!
Assessment 1 Final Work + 300 Word Statement
“I felt like a failure because I didn’t live up to an archetype that I never signed up with to begin with.” - Paul Richmond
From a young age, children are given a set of rules to abide by. Making sure to
like this colour, play with that toy, walk like this and talk like that. Boys and girls are being shoved back into the moulds to try and conform to the ideal ‘man’ and ‘woman’. This binary that has been put in place may seem like an unharmful construct, but the signs are showing that the way in which young men are being taught to act is only hurting them.
Exploring the concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’, my artwork utilises the form of a poster as a vehicle of advertisement. Reminiscent of propaganda posters from the 1940’s, a tear-off section of my poster allows for anyone to obtain traits such as emotion, self-expression and sensitivity. As long as you are a girl. This is ultimately what young men are told and in a similar way. Being bombarded with sayings such as “don’t act like a girl”, “man up”, “men don’t cry” intoxicates our society and culture, resulting in men suppressing their emotions only to endanger their mental health.
The novelty of a tear-off poster allows audiences to not only interact with the poster but pose deeper questions as to why it is “(for girls only)”as anyone is able to physically tear off from the poster.
Burns, rips and tears that are present on the poster emphasise that this notion of “girls only” is in fact outdated and is continuing to break down. In reality, anyone should be able to possess these traits without prejudice, and certainly without being forced back into the binary.
Experiment #3
As I intend to create a poster that includes elements which rely on public interaction, I decided to actually create a poster (which will most likely be handed in as the final work), as well as hang the poster up in a public environment.
Continuing along with the ‘tear-off’ aspect of my experimentation, I have made the decision to incorporate this into my final work. I feel this aspect can convey more meaning rather than just a standard print out only allowing audiences to view rather than interact as well.
As additional research I was looking for these magazines which I recall seeing as a young boy, but couldn’t remember the name. The only thing that stood out to me was the ‘no boys allowed!’ slogans which were printed on every issue. After researching I found the magazine which was called ‘Total Girl’.
Source: https://twitter.com/alana_dp/status/622930389930127360
I started playing around with what text could be used to evoke some sort of reaction from the audience. I did like the “GIRLS ONLY” text, but felt it didn’t have the same effect of drawing in people’s attention, then abruptly shifting tone.
I eventually ended up just using the saying “TAKE ONE!” and have “(GIRLS ONLY)” in a smaller sized font to communicate this shift in tone.
I then added different ‘feminine’ traits such as: Sensitivity, Self-Expression, Emotion, Gentleness, Vulnerability and Nurturance. These were added to the tear-offs at the bottom with the intention of advertising exclusively for girls.
After printing out the poster I decided to see if anyone would interact with the tear offs from the poster. I taped the poster to a street light pole near my house in the morning and came home to see if anything had changed.
To my surprise someone took the ‘vulnerability’ tear-off, which I didn’t expect. (??) The fascinating aspect of this is the fact that anyone would have been able to tear off from the poster which in return further emphasises the futility of the masculinity vs femininity binary. I feel this somewhat interrogates the prompt to some extent.
Even though it did hurt to see someone rip a poster that was $10 to print, I was intrigued by the effect the rip had to the poster. The idea that these notions of only women being able to possess ‘feminine’ traits is ultimately becoming outdated and I think this could help communicate this further.
I tried burning the poster (again), but felt this didn’t communicate the idea of these binaries becoming out dated as the fire seemed too staged and unnatural. I’m gravitating towards the ripped, wet and worn-out look as this is what is usually seen on outdated posters that are placed in public environments.
I decided to digitally add texture to the poster to re-create this ‘outdated’ effect. I would’ve liked to let this happen naturally, but due to time constraints I was unable to.
Experiment #2
For my second experiment I decided to play around with different forms of posters that have more interactive features within them. I started out with the folding poster as it conveys a sense of mystery to the viewer as well as explicitly getting the message out. The tear-off poster is what intrigued me the most as these elements can be played around with depending on its context. Could it be for an event? What ‘tear-offs’ are being given away? Who can take them? I may be incorporating this type of playful element within my poster but recontextualise elements to somehow ‘interrogate’ the binary of masculine and feminine.
Experiment #1
For the first experiment, I tried to create a poster (digitally), that speaks to the viewer in a demanding typographic voice, utilising only text and composition. I decided to play around with the idea of set ‘rules’ that young men are taught from a young age - one of them being told not to cry. This ‘step-by-step’ guide took a similar approach to Jack Daly’s “The Real Man Catalogue” where the audience’s attention is focused on a concept, then abruptly ended on a ‘sour’ note.
To push this experiment further, I decided to experiment with damaging the poster itself. I used a tea bag to dampen and soak the paper while simultaneously adding colour in order to emphasis the idea of “real men” not crying outdated.
As additional experimentation I also decided to BURN
THIS. looks kind of cool?
The end result of this experiment I was pretty content with. Visually comparing the untouched poster to the final result, it has become evident that tampering with the material itself can say a lot about the history or implications of the poster.