#vizrhet2014

[vizrhet2014]

WAR: What is it really good for?

Final Revision of my presentation.

I realized that some people in the class did not pick up on the topic of my presentation. So, I added some contextual clues to what each picture is supposed to be telling us. This presentation is intended to educate veterans of war on how the American public is told how to feel about military conflicts overseas through photojournalism. 

[vizrhet2014]

Hey guys- Here is my presentation I didn't get to do in class.

If you get a chance to watch this in the stress-laden haze of this week comments would be great. I guess email #Prof or maybe I'll make a page on the pb works main page? Anyways, "May the odds..."

And here is the link again to V1 if you're interested 

[vizrhet2014]

[Final project video for visual rhetoric]

[vizrhet2014]

[Photo of a little girl standing next to a funeral flower arrangement on a dirty run down corner. Cross memorial also visible in bottom left corner.]

Source

This is a photo by Susan Meiselas from her Nicaragua collection. The photo's visual center is the floral arrangement next to the girl. From there the eye kinda wOrMssss its way around the photo, looking at the girl, the 7up signs, the man laying on the table to the right. 

This image is part of a collection that documented the Nicaraguan civil war. It's intended audience would be Nicaraguan citizens who were in favor of the rebellion. We know this b/c:

The photo shows text that reads "Here lays Julio Roza" in a super informal way (graffiti)

the photoessay as a whole contains images that are very much pro-revolution.

These images were distributed through rebel news publications in Nicaragua during the 1978 revolution. They were also printed in a photobook. 

This distribution echoes what Benjamin says about how reproduction makes everybody a critic and allows people to think critically about issues that matter. (Like a rebellion against the reigning dictatorship)

The paper is sure to have had a big impact on the public opinion about the war.  

[vizrhet2014]

[Music Video for Kool and the Gang's Get Down on It]

I was a bit behind on blog posts and wanted to catch up by doing another music video analysis because audio always works with video.

I'm a huge fan of the oldies and older hits, so Kool and the Gang has been a familiar band to listen to. I knew funky 70-80s bands had many groovy sounds, but I didn't know how their influences could be so apparent.

And this video is quite apparent in its influence.

This video was definitely made with drugs, namely psychedelics, in mind. Though I'm not sure if James Taylor was always high, I know that this video looks like a huge mess of pixels when sober.

What is amazing, sober or not, is that this band and the director of this music video wanted to display their acknowledgement of the effects of drugs. Not the effects of the drugs, but the way they affected the band's music and perhaps their aspirations for making the music. 

**I do not support any type of drug usage and I am not saying that this band was better because of their drug usage. People may say that the Beatles found influence through drugs but so did people like Whitney Houston and Kurt Cobain and they are dead because of them.

[vizrhet2014]

[Food, Inc. poster - cow in field with bar code across side, caption reads 'You'll never look at dinner the same way']

This is one of my favorite documentary posters. Documentaries often have trouble gaining audience viewership and revenue at the box office. Most people would rather see a summer blockbuster than a depressing documentary about the sad state of our food industry. Food, Inc. is one of the highest grossing documentaries and I think that their advertising approach helped get them there.

This photo does a great job of approaching a large audience and hooking them. Everyone eats, everyone has to buy food, therefore, their documentary about food was applicable to everyone.

The image's juxtaposition of nature and industry is eye catching and intriguing. It's tagline is mysterious and makes you wonder what secrets they will spill in the documentary. Curiosity is the driving force behind this poster, and it works.

In terms of the image itself, not only does it catch the viewer's attention, it also does an excellent job of summarizing the main problem shown throughout the film. Food is not natural anymore, everything is industrialized and made to work to benefit the industry, not the consumer. The designers of this poster get this across by taking a pastoral, natural scene and branding it with a harsh food barcode.

The emphasis is no longer on nutrition, animal happiness, or environment. The sole driving force behind the food industry is money.

[vizrhet2014]

This performance of a song made by Rob Cantor is a hilarious example of visual rhetoric. It is a great example of how a performance must build to a climax, and remain engaging with an audience. 

This whole performance idea spawned from a line in a wikipedia page on Cannabalism in which Shia Labouef was referenced. 

I subsequently hid pictures of Shia around my apartment to scare my room mate.