Purple is the new me

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Monday, March 14, 2011

Friday, January 21, 2011

Intervention Project

In a world where individualism has become the trend, sharing is not an option anymore. For my intervention project, I wanted to change that, if only for a few hours, and perhaps create a collaborative piece of art, here in LAU. The concept is simple, yet, I hope, efficient.

The title of my stand: "No matter what it takes".
Ribbons everywhere, ribbons of different colors. On a ribbon of my choice, I wrote these words: "no matter what it takes".
The person who visited the stand first had to pick a ribbon of their choice, and write on it a sentence that was a continuation of mine. This person then left with my ribbon. Some wore it as a bracelet, others hung it in their room, or just threw it away. The next student got this person's ribbon, with their handwriting, their sentence, and their favorite color. And someone else later got their ribbon too. Of course, I was writing everybody's sentence as we went and recorded everybody's voices.
The resulting "text" is be a collaborative work of art done by the body of students here on campus. I did a flash presentation to show the outcome of the intervention.

You can see it and learn more about my intervention in the following website

https://sites.google.com/site/nmwitintervention

Monday, January 17, 2011

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Design Intervention

Some call it vandalism. Others a waste of time. Some don't even pay attention to it. I call it art.

Design Interventions are meant to create a reaction. Most of the time, they do... Repulsion, fear, laughs, a smile, they always do something to the people who happen to witness them.

Here are a few examples of interventions I particularly find interesting. I hope you like them too.

And remember, one might not be able to change the world overnight, but they you can always try to make a difference, try the show the blind what they can not see, help them see colors, maybe?

"Banksy is a British graffiti artist, political activist and painter, whose identity remains unconfirmed. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stenciling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world." (Wikipedia)

Banksy is probably the most famous art interventionist you will ever come across. His was a
worldwide reputation.
I personally love that he's very committed to change his world and mock the world, show them how stupid they can be.
His work is strong, loud, blunt, straight forward, committed and of course nicely done.
I wanted to share them with you, or at least show a glimpse of his projects.

This was done by a street artist in Budapest. Unfortunately, I couldn't find his name. But regardless, I find this beautiful. The contrast between the thin lines and the big circle. The movement that follows and also takes over the place. This "bird" becomes part of the setting, part of nature in this abandoned building.

This one also was anonymous, but very touching. Amidst the ruins in Burma, someone wrote with some blood red spray paint "Save Burma". This is probably a cry for help. The artist was hoping people all over the world could see his pain and help his country. I hope they did.

In his public-art intervention Dispersed Arguments, Matt Pych appears to have stenciled words on Brooklyn sidewalks using birdseed. The words spell out phrases in a couple's feud that then, thanks to avian accomplices, get dissipated. A plea for healing?

I particularly like this intervention, because it is very poetic, and at the same time, very beautiful. It also helps to feed the birds. So all is good. It was not a polluting act, or a violent act, just a peaceful message to remind us that everything in life is futile and ephemeral.

These two images I found on the web. They made me smile. And I thought I would share them with you. It is very easy to do an art intervention. The smallest thing could get all the attention you want and never dreamt of getting. All it takes is a decision.

This example here is one that I particularly adhere to. I am so sick and tired of all sorts of discriminations that I think this is a great thing to try here in Lebanon. It might not be huge, but at least I'd make a point. I hope one day people will stop hating each other on such shallow grounds.

Amnesty International Ads

Being an international member of Amnesty International, I wanted to show some of their campaign's posters because of the strong message they are conveying. Millions of people are being tortured, some are dying out of hunger, others are being beaten by their husbands. There's always something that we can do, if we just took the time to look at someone other than ourselves.

World Wildlife Fund Ads

These 3 WWF posters are amazing. I particularly love the first and the last one. They make you think about what you are actually doing to the earth. Global warming is not a myth no more. It is a reality. And one should do something about it.

Unfortunately here in Lebanon, green awareness is nonexistent. There are always exceptions of course.

A rising movement in Lebanon

http://ashrafiehtimes.com/main/2010/11/04/interview-with-save-beirut-heritage-movement/

A friend of mine, Giorgio Guy Tarraf, along with some of his friends, founded this organization that aims to protect Lebanon's heritage.
If you happen to be in Beirut, you will notice that old beautiful buildings are being destroyed, only to let another ugly monument that I can't even call "building" arise in its place. This is sad. The fact that in Europe they preserver all of their ancient buildings and architectural sites, whereas here we just replace them without blinking with ugly blocks that we call buildings.
Save Beirut Heritage helps protecting old buildings from getting destroyed or even old cafes that are part of our country's heritage. Anything that might be a threat to our historical legacy is a potential enemy. I say that's the spirit we're looking for in this country.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Genre and Gender: The Case of Soap Opera

The Bold and the Beautiful

Days of our Lives

Dynasty

DOL hourglass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ratxU_z8uNM

This chapter narrows the focus to the production of fictions in soap opera affect our lives, the soap operas which were for female audiences in early 1st in 1930's.

Soap operas offer a fictional experience which intertwines with the audiences' everyday lives, a circulation between events of public debates we learn abt in the news become a subject in a soap opera episode and affect the public view of these events in their gender and social contradictions such as child abuses, domestic violence and so on.

Soap operas are considered to express intense feelings, thats why men dislike to acknowledge their place in it.

Soap opera producers and makers are accused of showing the stereotype woman instead of the image of real women, however the representation of man and woman, are also a construction instead of a reflection of our gender definitions, meanings and identities.

Media forms constitute a major site to define what is to be taken as "real", in an constant on-going struggle to win support for certain cultural values over others.

The gendering of cultural forms is divided to 2 categories: high culture that represents what is masculine and realism vs mass media that has feminizing characteristics and based on expressing feelings. however, gendering of genres is in a continuous struggle to define what counts as masculine and feminine in our societies.

The genre theory can be explained as number of concepts that together form a productive approach to the work of soap operas within the context of the media industries. When two products have the same genre they have recognizable similarities, which lead to predictability.

Filmmaking is very costly, and gendering not only helps standerize the production process but also stabilizes an audience through creating a bond a kind of "brand loyalty".

Soap operas are considered old fashioned if they are not driven by the social change.

Genres must be repetitive to ensure brand loyalty and different at the same time to ensure being involved with the social changes.

A Soap Opera is what we call a continuous serial whereby it promises a never-ending story,

In Soap Operas, women and men are presented as being total opposites. Women are associated with everything personal, home, talk, and community whereas men are associated with everything public, work, action and individualism

The pleasure we get from soap opera's fictional experience is when we relate lived experiences to them. the Soap Opera’s characters become the female viewers’ neighbors. They are aware of their problems, live with them everyday, grow old with them.

Soap opera is a women’s form, but with mass unemployment today, more and more men are watching them, two important changes have occurred: the increasing centrality of male characters and the increasing intrusion of features from male-oriented genres, more and more Soap Opera strategies and conventions are being used in male-oriented genres.

Soap opera, as part of its cultural work, extends the debate into the public scene beyond the fiction, while at the same time, getting inspired by real facts and stories to build its own fiction.