2007 Obey the Giant: Life in the Image World. First Things Next
Tag: activism
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Guerilla Girls (forthcoming)
Guerilla Girls, a feminist group fighting sexism in arts practice. Formed in New York in 1985, the group maintain their anonymity by wearing gorilla masks and using the names of dead female artists as pseudonyms, e.g. Frida Kahlo and Hannah HÖch.
They put pressure on organisations such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York by uncovering statistics that reveal the extent of patriarchy in the art world past and present. The original group disbanded in 2001 but several Guerrilla Girl spin-offs still exist.
Recent campaigns include ‘Unchain female directors’ targeted at the male-dominated world of the Hollywood film studio.
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Dana Lixenberg
My work is partly about the inevitable downside and consequences of capitalism which can result in a sense of alienation…actually I am part of it, and even people I photograph are part of this system and keep it going. I think [capitalism] has become a given because you can see how former and current communist countries are going the same way. I’m really aware of that, and want to face the realities and the downsides of that system that I find also attractive.
I find that the [documentary] portraits and landscapes are really about slowing down, cutting out all the noise and really taking time to contemplate the world around me every time with new eyes. The plain and the everyday is often very exciting to me. It can reveal a lot about life. I’m really inspired by details and I am usually more inspired by non-dramatic settings. Some of my images may seem boring, where there is nothing obvious going on, but I like playing with that, being on the fringes of boring.
While I have no expectation that I can influence social change or that I can ever make a concrete impact with the photographs, I do feel it’s kind of empowering to give the people you photograph a timeless presence in the larger world.
Interview for Mossless magazine
Overview: http://www.thelastdaysofshishmaref.com/shishmaref3/cms/cms_module/index.php
Film presentation: http://www.thelastdaysofshishmaref.com/shishbook/shishbook_release-1.1.11/MainView.html
The Last Days of Shishmaref (2008) by Dana Lixenberg mixes landscape with formal portraits and still life to create a dynamic portrait of an Alaskan community that is under imminent threat from the sea due to the increasingly later freeze of the protective permafrost that encircles the island. The traditions of this community, mostly of Inuit origin, are just as much under threat as the precarious strip of land. The images in the book are informed with essays by geographers and environmentalists.
Lixenberg’s trademark is a 4×5 camera and tripod. This gives an intensity of experience between the photographer and those she photographs that she feels is not there with other types of cameras. She enjoys illustrating contrast in her work and portraying people in pure form.
Biography
Dana Lixenberg (born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands,1964) lives and works in New York and Amsterdam. Lixenberg originally went to New York to become an au pair and then discovered photography at a night school class. She studied Photography at the London College of Printing in London (1984-1986) and at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam (1987-1989).
Her breakthrough in the U.S. came in 1993, when she was awarded a project grant by the Fonds BKVB (The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture) for a series of portraits at the Imperial Courts Housing Project in Los Angeles,CA. She was soon getting commissions from a wide variety of magazines such as Vibe, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Newsweek and The Telegraph magazine amongst many others.
Lixenberg continuously worked on long term personal projects, mostly focused on individuals and communities on the margins of society. Lixenberg has been the recipient of several project and publication grants in the Netherlands.
- 1999 she was the subject of a documentary titled: Dana Lixenberg, thru dutch eyes
- 2005 she was featured in an episode of the documentary series ‘Hollands Zicht’ (Dutch Vision) both for Dutch television.
- 2005 Jeffersonville, Indiana was awarded Best Dutch Book Design,
- 2008 The Last Days of Shishmaref, was also awarded Best Dutch Book Design, 2008.
Since 2008 Lixenberg has been revisiting the Imperial Courts Housing Project in Los Angeles for a follow up to the series from 1993. In spring 2015 Huis Marseille, Amsterdam will organize a large scale exhibition of Imperial Courts coinciding with the release of a publication.
Other work
Lixenberg photographs people from all social classes.
I’ve never taken a different approach between photographing celebrities and un-known individuals, The fragility of life is experienced by all. ..When shooting people who have had a lot of media exposure I’m not interested in reinforcing their public image. I try to really see the person that’s in front of me, the way they are at that particular moment stripped from all the surrounding distractions like their entourage and to slowly bring them to a place where they don’t present a persona basically where they don’t try to hard.
In addition to ordinary people, Lixenberg has photographed a number of American celebrities, including Prince and Whitney Houston.
Lixenberg is also a film director and directed the Dutch singer Anouk’s 2005 video ‘One Word’
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Donovan Wylie
Power and control are recurring themes within Wylie’s practice.
The Maze (2004)
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This documents the deconstruction of the notorious prison in Northern Ireland. The work is presented as a collection of three volumes, which begins with images from the centre of the prison and works outwards, as it is slowly demolished and returned to the landscape. Wylie employs a straight, uniform technical strategy in this work which Wylie’s views are deliberately repetitive, and perpetuate the absence of individuality throughout the prison’s architecture.
See a sample of the work and essays from the book:
http://www.belfastexposed.org/themedpackages/index.php?id=3&sid=110British Watchtowers (2007) and Outposts (2011)
These seem to retain more of the Bechers’ influence, with the aestheticisation of functional military installations. However, histories of earlier conflicts can be traced in both bodies of work. The system of observation posts across the hills of South Armagh in British Watchtowers dates back to Iron Age strategies for power and control. In Outposts, some of the sites of the NATO forward operating bases in Afghanistan date back to earlier conflicts.
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Interview with Paul Seawright
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Peter Kennard
Peter Kennard (born 17 February 1949) is a London born and based photomontage artist and Senior Research Reader in Photography, Art and the Public Domain at the Royal College of Art. Seeking to reflect his involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement, he turned from painting to photomontage to better address his political views.He has often worked in collaboration with writers, photographers, filmmakers and artists such as Peter Reading, John Pilger and Jenny Matthews.
He is best known for the images he created for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the 1970s–80s. This includes “Haywain with Cruise Missiles“, a cut-and-paste photomontage of Constanble’s Haywain – a symbol of Britain’s rural idyll with American missiles used by CND to highlight the threat of installation of cruise missiles at air bases across the UK, such as Greenham Common.
“ Photomontage may not be subtle but it is effective as a tactic when the aim is to make a point quickly and directly. We grasp immediately that Britain is under threat.” Liz Wells (2011, p.21 quoted Alexander 2013 p98)Because many of the left-wing organisations and publications he used to work with have disappeared, Kennard has turned to using exhibitions, books and the internet for his work.
In “Dispatches from An Unofficial War Artist”, his 2000 autobiography, he writes about the possibilities of undertaking an aesthetic practice in relation to social change, and considers how his art has interacted with the politics of actual events.
One of Kennard’s latest projects is 2011’s @earth, a story without words told in the language of photomontage. It takes the form of a small book priced at £9.99, published by the Tate Gallery, which Kennard believed was a reasonably cheap and accessible way of getting his message to young people outside the artworld. The book contains a variety of images from Kennard’s 40-year career and, as a result, attracts the criticism that its targets are too general. Kennard’s reply was that he wanted “to encourage people to think about their own situation and activate, but I’m not trying to tell them to do this or that. I’m just trying to show how I see the world at the moment.”The idea has expanded to a re-appropriation and re-distribution of his images through online platforms such as Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter. G8 Protest Posters is the latest of these projects that shares images “designed for protest”. Created in 2013 in reaction to the 39th G8 Summit in Enniskillen, Kennard has encouraged the public to “print, Tweet, Facebook, email and share these images as a sign of protest”. He sees online distribution sites as “a valuable addition to the dissident artists toolbox. G8 is a charade masquerading as a serious conference, my posters attempt to rip through the lies and point to the world as in fact it is.”
He has also executed a number of guerrilla street installations and has said “if world leaders insist on assaulting our lives and livelihoods, let’s hit back by assaulting their eyes.”
The first major retrospective of Kennard’s work will be held at the Imperial War Museum for one year from May 2015.
Source: edited from Wikipedia
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Patrick Shanahan
Patrick Shanahan examines the transition from one post-industrial space into a new kind of industry in his series Paradeisos (2005), which explores the creation of the Eden Project in Cornwall. Commencing in 1998, Shanahan’s photographs document the transformation of a redundant china quarry into one of the UK’s most celebrated tourist attractions.
See the work at: http://www.ffotogallery.org/patrick-shanahan-–-paradeisos
Flash-based website.
Only work I could find on the web were ‘New Images’ seaside pictures that seem to question the seaside idyll – is this the same Patrick Shanahan photographer? But not as punchy as those of Martin Parr. Some a bit gimmicky with different angles. Need to look again
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Landscape as a Call to Action
Photography, and the manipulation of photographs, is often used to highlight and raise political questions. Landscape photography in particular is often used in environmental activism – images of environmental degradation, urban squalor. In NGO advertising (eg GreenPeace) photographs are often manipulated to juxtapose elements that are then countered by a caption.
- Peter Kennard produces explicit political photomontage in the dadaist tradition linked to political campaigning organisations – for example his ‘Hay Wain with Cruise Missiles’ (1980)
- Edward Burtynsky produces large-format photographs of industrial landscapes altered by industry – an ‘industrial sublime’ creating tension between awe-inspiring beauty and the compromised environments he depicts.
- Mitch Epstein also uses large format, but less ‘beautiful’ images that do not aim to convey a specific message, and are more documentary in juxtaposing complex narratives.
- Dana Lixenberg in works like the Last Days of Shishmaref uses landscape and portrait photography alongside working with environmentalists and local activists to produce powerful participatory social documentary.
- Ikka Halso uses digital montage, including 3D, to build dystopian landscapes that raise questions about the ways in which human beings are attempting to control nature.
Exercise 3.4: A persuasive image
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Petropolis: the Power Game – design process
The original games: Petropolis 1976
An exciting game about the fortunes of oil: From 2 to 7 players compete for the thrills of being an oil tycoon. The object of the game [is] to acquire concessions in the petroleum producing countries, control them and operate them. The player who obtains the largest number of petrodollars is the winner of the game. This “roll the die and move” game is strongly reminiscent of Monopoly, with petrol-producing countries replacing the streets, telex messages replacing “Chance” cards, and oil platforms and derricks replacing houses and hotels. Visually, it is a stunning game, with beautifully crafted components: 1 board; 27 concession titles; 25 telex messages; 7 playing markers; 2 dice; 34 derricks; 14 oil platforms; 390 petrodollar bills.
The Dutch HEMA edition was slightly different – 30 derricks, 12 platforms and 430 bills. According to the Dutch rulebook the game is designed for 3-7 players.
Elaboration of the rules by a blogger
Here are the rules I've discovered [I've edited the form a bit from the comments posting so that it may be easier for you to read]: ********* TAKE OFF/LANDING (=Geneva Airport) is on the midfield and the game goes counter-clockwise! 27 countries are spread over the strong game board, each of them having 1 oil consession to give away. From the airport on the spaces are: RED: Venezuela/Argentine/Ecuador LIGHT BLUE: USA/Canada/Telex/Mexico Go To International Court Refuel/Pay $ 100,000 DARK BROWN: Indonesia/Brunei Malaysia/Australia LIGHT PURPLE: China/USSR/Norway Telex OPEC meeting DARK YELLOW: Libya/Algeria/Nigeria/Gabon YELLOW: Falconry in the desert International Court Telex LIGHT GREEN: Iraq/Kuwait/Egypt DARK BLUE: Sjarjah/Dubai/Abu Dhabi Throw Dice Again Go To International Court BEIGE: Oman/Telex/Bahrein/Qatar BLUE GREEN: Iran YELLOW: Lost in the dessert BLUE GREEN: Saudi Arabia Subject to the number of players the consessions are to be distributed amongst them at the start of the game; the remainder must be bought. The oiltycoons always move over the board by plane. Over or on TAKE OFF you receive P$ 500,000. There are 8 molded "gold" tokens representing: Airplane Tanker Sword Storage tank Bar of gold Barrel Drilling-rig Oil-rig. (The German and Dutch tokens are but plastic "emblems on a base"). They are stored in a black vinyl pouch wilth "gold" draw-strings. There is a black dice shaker felt-lined inside. Typical for this edition is the keychain/timer, to set the game up to 60 minutes. This is a clever item because the game is fundamentally played from time. The course of the game is divided into 3 stages: STAGE 1: The opening, playtime 10 minutes. In this stage those oilconsessions who were not distributed amongst the players in the first instance must be bought from the Worldbank now. STAGE 2: Trade and auction, playtime 5 - 10 minutes. The still unsold oil consessions must be sold or auctioned anyhow. Next the players can trade together in order to complete color groups. STAGE 3: Main match, playtime 60 minutes. The oiltycoons can now open up their properties by building drilling-rigs (instead of houses) and finally oil-rigs (instead of hotels). For the rest the game works out according to the usual rules. All property cards are made of thick vinyl with gold lettering for prices and interest rates. The money consists of clumsy tiny (45 x 75 mm) but good looking plastic laminated Petrodollar banknotes from the Worldbank. In the centre is a circle with a dromedary (or camel?) with "IN OIL WE TRUST" over it! The bills are in the amounts of P$1,000 - 5,000 - 10,000 - 20,000 - 50,000 - 100,000 and P$1,000,000 denominations. Instead of Chance and Community Chest cards there are 25 Telex cards, consisting of black paper with gold lettering. The instructions are like: "The radar of your private jet is out of order. You miss a turn." "You must appear in front of the Tribunal of The Hague - President of the Tribunal." "Heavy storm: important repairs on all the oil-rigs - Pay P$100,000 for each one." The card "Your political influence has helped to prove your innocence. Keep this telex - President of the Tribunal." correspond consequently with "Get out of Jail free". From http://www.muurkrant.nl/monopoly/usa_related_games.htm
Petropolis – the Power Game: Designing my adaptation
The aim of the game is for players to develop strategic alliances to best promote the interests of their country – playing off east and west.
Contents:
- Board with map and squares. Each country has a number of specific squares that have different instructions eg you are caught by the secret police, you win a big contract etc or you have to convince a key player to let you leave etc. Then there are linking squares along the trade routes: collect x amount of money, you have a conflict with x – you must negotiate and pay them off, you are diverted to x and have to make alliances to get out and so on. Some are also particular contract cards that can be taken up or traded.
- Game Booklet: Main issue, background and Rules
- Country portfolios: Iran, Saudi, Oman, UAE
- Ally cards: one page presentation of key actors. These are clearly colour-coded by country/ies of initial affiliation, but can move between countries and change allegiance – at a price. All the players are up for auction at a negotiated price – depending on their money/ethical track record and power status. But these are decided and negotiated by the players as they go along – using the information on the cards to persuade the others to part with cash, or enhance/risk their reputation by association.
- Player tokens
- Telex cards
- Deal cards: these have different balance of money and ethics. But these values are negotiated and agreed between players in the game as they go a
Stages of the Game:
Opening:
- Country profiles: the four country profiles are places in a pile, each player is blindfolded and picks a profile: Oman, Saudi, Iran and UAE. The players are give their respective token and place this on the start point of the board.
- The ally cards are shuffled and half are distributed between the players. The rest are put in a pile. From the cards they receive, each player decides who they want to be (they place that card face up so others can see), who they want to keep on their side (these they can keep secret), and who they are prepared to sell to the other side in order to get the best team (these they reveal as up for negotiation).
- The deal cards are shuffled and distributed.
- The money notes are shuffled to mix their values and one quarter is distributed at random – so each player will have a different start amount.
STAGE 1: Initial trading of allies and deals – players are given the opportunity to offer money to the other players to increase their team using the money they have. They can also decide to sell deals that they do not think they will be able to take up – bearing in mind that in Stage 2 they may be able to trade up the value. Players can decide at this point what balance of ethics and money they want to aim for.
STAGE 2: Main game – players roll the two dice and move around the board – landing on the squares and following the instructions associated with each square. Some of these involve negotiation and buying and selling of allies and/or contracts. This can be timebound – minimum 2 hours.
STAGE 3: Final assessment – who wins and who loses on money? on ethics? Each player has to justify and explain their final position to the others. In terms of both money and ethics. The others then vote. The player with the most votes from the other players wins.
