Appropriation – Piece 3: Migrant Crisis

March 2, 2016March 2, 2016 Maria Christina Pal Pullen Appropriation

My third piece is a response to the debate about David Cameron refusing to let more migrants come over to Britain even when dead bodies are washing up on our shores such as the little boy Aylan who took over covers of newspapers.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/david-cameron-migration-crisis-will-not-be-solved-by-uk-taking-in-more-refugees

The image of Aylan caused controversy and caused people to see the crisis in a different light. I chose to have his image placed by number 10’s closed door since David Cameron decided not to take in any more migrants even though many thought the image of Aylan would change his mind.

Feedback suggested I should crop the image.

Here is the result:

The cropping of the image makes the presence of Aylan more apparent. In the previous image he was a bit lost in the composition but now he is more central making the image more striking.

Appropriation – Piece 2: Body Image final piece

March 2, 2016April 14, 2016 Maria Christina Pal Pullen Appropriation, Final Images

My image asks the question, why a thin figure would be acceptable on a fashion advert, if skinny bodies would raise alarm if it was in a charity ad? And also reflects how it is wrong to want to be thin for beauty when so many are thin because of hunger. Thin is unhealthy and should be prevented not praised.

Appropriation – Piece 1: Technology

March 1, 2016 Maria Christina Pal Pullen Appropriation

The photographer Eric Pickersgill removed phones from his photographs to show how removed we are from the world and each other when we are on our phones. He viewed a family at a café and saw a family sat together but most of them were on their phones leaving the mother, who wasn’t on her phone, to feel lonely even though her family were next to her.

I found him via this site: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/photographer_removes_smartphones_from_images_to_show_how_obsessed_we_are_wi

This is his official site: http://ericpickersgill.com/Removed

Here is an example of his work.

It’s ironic how technology that was aimed to make humans more connected to each other has actually created rifts in face to face interaction.

Appropriation – Initial thoughts I had

March 1, 2016April 5, 2016 Maria Christina Pal Pullen Appropriation, Work In Progress

I liked the idea of appropriation, changing an images meaning by changing it’s context, like collage. It was interesting to learn about the boundaries that could be broken and the thin line between stealing and re-using other people’s work.

Richard Prince caused controversy as he was known to steal other artist’s work and manipulating them without permission. He would take an existing photograph and change its context like the one below by placing a photo of a guitar on top and painting over the man’s face.

Upon starting this project I was thinking of appropriating cardboard box signs and placing them on people rather than boxes to present humans as objects.

Here is in example:

However, my early work lacked direct meaning as they weren’t based on much research.

So I started to research into current issues.

I looked into issues such as the migrant crisis, issues of beauty image, Chile Miners Crisis and technology’s impact on society.

Appropriation – Piece 1: Technology Final Piece

February 25, 2016April 14, 2016 Maria Christina Pal Pullen Appropriation, Final Images

Disconnected

My image uses the Nokia logo and slogan “Connecting people” in an ironic way. I placed the logo above a group of people who are all busy with their tech. It presents how technology has actually disconnected us now from the people around as technology has become dominant in our lives. I took the hands from the logo and moved them further apart to also show this separation of people since the hands are normally pictured reaching out for each other.