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.

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.

Maria Mercedes (Mexican TV novellas)

Nour (Turkish Soap Opera)

Star Academy (Trendy Reality TV show)

Gossip Girl

How I Met Your Mother

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5836560/men_are_also_victims_of_spousal_abuse.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100212112028.htm

A new reality...

What I want to address today is the notion of "Virtual Reality" and how it evolved from something that is not even real to begin with. In this digital era, your facebook account is your virtual ID. Even employers check a person's facebook account prior to giving them the job. Also, some people find it easier to make friends online. Worse, some don't find their lives too exciting, so they play MORPG and little by little, lose all contact to the outside "real" world. 

It all started with:

Candy Candy

We were fed fairy tales and cute stories with happy endings, when in reality, none of it is true. This perhaps is one of the things that you want to believe, like the Santa Claus myth. Even when you find out it was just a lie, you still wish you were never been told the truth. Some people escape to their own virtual world by reading, others by playing music or listening to music. And then, of course. There is those who are addicted to MMORPG online games, or those hitched on facebook.

People escaping reality to live in their own "worlds" or even dreams, is a concept that reminded me of one of my favorite movies ever: Inception! Some people go t have group dreams, because their dreams became their reality...

Practices of Looking: What is Real? And what is not?

Have you ever questioned reality? And what is reality? Is it subjective, or universal?

Is there only one reality, or are there millions of realities? Who's right and who's wrong?

What if we were all right? Or wrong? What if there was no reality...

In Art, the question of reality has long existed. Many argue that everything figurative representing something that exists in a very accurate way, is considered to be depicting reality. On the other hand, abstraction is considered to be surreal, and not faithful to our true vision of the world. But who's to know what our vision of the world is?

Paul Cezanne 

Look closely at his Paul Cezanne still life painting. It supposedly depicts reality. Life is real. That, we are sure of. In this painting, everything is dead. To me, it does not represent my reality, which is full of colors, full of life. I never spent more than five minutes staring at a bagel or an onion in a still composition at home, in school, wherever!

Jackson Pollock – Number 1

That, on the other side, is a Jackson Pollock painting. According to the theory I explained, it doesn't depict reality. But, when you think about it, it represents something chaotic, intertwined shapes, and shapes that overlap. When you look at it, you're scared, and nervous. This painting reminds you of something. It reminds you of our world. It reminds you of the wars. Of our daily stress. You could even see tree branches in some amazonian forrest somewhere on the globe. It does tell us a real story. It can be seen as reality too. 

Reality... Isn't it subjective in a way? What is reality to me, can be a myth to you, or anyone else. We always question the truth and reality of things. So what is real? And is merely an illusion?

Unknown Couple

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore

When looking at these two images, one could argue that the celebrity couple, as part of their job, and in order to keep and increase their fan base, often like to project the image of a happy couple with their partener. Out of the two pictures, one would think the first is more real, because it shows a couple from our everyday lives! Well, I say both are fake. Why? Because you can never see reality in a picture. You can't draw conclusions based on a single visual. But that's what we do everyday, isn't it? Judge, draw conclusions, without ever questioning what we all perceive as being the ultimate unquestionable truth.  

Also, it is important to mention the "epistemes", when talking about reality. An episteme means that truth changes in different eras, different times, because what was true in 1800 is not reality nowadays. And vice versa. Here. Take Leonardo Da Vinci for example. He made the first real studies of flight in the 1480's. He had over 100 drawings that illustrated his theories on flight.

He designed the Ornithopter flying machine which never got actually created, eventually. His aim was to show how man could fly. The modern day helicopter is based on this concept.

The Ornithopter - Da Vinci 

At the time, when Da Vinci doodled the ancestor of the helicopter, such a "machine" was futuristic and had absolutely NOTHING to do with their reality. No one, not even Da Vince himself, believed it could actually exist one day. 

Helicopter

Helicopters are everywhere today; we even take the plane very often. Flying isn't a myth anymore for us today. It is part of our reality. It was never part of Da Vinci's!

Dali is a surreal painter. Everything he painted, or almost, doesn't exist the way he painted it. However, there is this one painting he did, the one representing his sister at a window. Everyone says it's realistic, and not surreal, because he respects the rules of perspective in it, and because everything in it is as we see it. 

Dali - Woman at the window

In reality, if you look at it closely, this painting does not depict the truth. Look at how close the sea is. Now look at the window. It only has one window pane... Look at the reflection of the glass. It reflects a house somewhere when it is supposed to reflect the inside of the room. One last detail. The room. It is completely empty. 

Persistence of Time

 In the next two paintings I am going to discuss, Dali's surrealism is at its best. He does not pretend to paint things that he saw, but rather interpret what he sees and believes. The persistence of time shows us how when everything else has disappeared, time is still there. Everything we do is regulated by time. Time controls us. 

Perceptual anamorphic is Dali's speciality. He also likes to create optical illusions like that in the painting above. If you look at it from afar, you see two women's necks and their hair. But as you get closer, you notice that the woman in the background is not a woman, but two distant trees. Reality, illusion? It is hard to draw the line. 

 

Viewers Make Meaning

Kitsch objects are objects portraying "cheap" cultural icons that are mass-produced, and unoriginal. Some people refer to kitsch trends as objects of bad taste. However, kitsch is doing very well in the marketing world. I'll post two examples of kitsch icons, Hello Kitty, and of course the Playboy bunny. Hello Kitty was originally meant for kids. Now you can even find Hello Kitty laptops, toasters, bathrooms, cellphones, expensive jewelry and surprise surprise, even sex toys!! (Note the controversy)

It's ironic how Hello Kitty, a childhood icon, has come to sell adult products, and Playboy, which is strictly intended for adults, is also selling stationery items that are usually purchased by children. Also, some women enjoy wearing expensive Playboy jewelry. Go figure!

Kitsch uses popular images to sell cheap and popular products. Bricolage, on the other hand is another          concept altogether, that I find pretty interesting. It is "a mode of adaptation in which things (mostly commodities) are put to uses for which they were not intended and in ways that dislocate them from their normal or expected context". I found some examples of Bricolage in which an object is used in a way that it means something other than what it was originally meant to mean.

What do we see? An orange of course. One of my personal favorite fruits. It also contains Vitamins C in large quantities, so it's also healthy. Shown to anyone all over the planet, that is what this image would mean. However, in Lebanon, we have a way of politicizing everything. The orange is not just a fruit. It's the iconic symbol of some affluent political party in the country. So, the bricolage here was in using the orange for political means, out of its original food related context. 

Birkenstock! I love Birkenstock! They're just so comfortable and ergonomic. Originally, Birkenstock were born in Germany, and even today, most of them are manufactured there. In Lebanon, and in the US too, Birkenstock are worn as part of our everyday clothing. In Lebanon, they are also worn at parties or at work, occasionally. Birkenstock are not cheap and they have become very trendy around here. However, if you ever go to Germany, you find that people over there don't wear Birkenstock as part of their everyday clothing, but use them instead as house slippers. This is what they were originally intended for, that and for medical purposes, like helping to heal wounds and feet injuries. Bricolage has made Birkenstock a stylish clothing item.

Another cool example of Bricolage would be the use of chopsticks as hair ornaments. Chopsticks are meant to be used with food in asian cultures. Even in the West, they are used to eat sushi, noodles, etc... Girls and women alike, use chopsticks in their hair too. I personally use it a lot to pull up my very long hair. It is very efficient in that sense. It holds the hair together and doesn't loosen up.