Category: Appropriation

Appropriation  – Take (something) for one’s own use.

Appropriation to me means taking an image within photography and manipulating it in a way to give it a new meaning.

For this brief I plan to take stock photography images and change the meaning of it based on society and politics.

The concept of this image is to show the way in which companies advertise themselves to be top brands but sometimes their products are no better. This is not specifically aimed at Puma but is used as an example as a brand which claims to be one of the top brands for sports products.

Artist research –  Laura Plageman

She lives and works in Oakland, CA. She is an artist and educator. Her images look at the relationships between the process of image making, photographic truth and distortion, and the representation of landscape. She is interested in taking a picture of the natural world and transforms it.

This series is a response to the print of Vulture Roost where her images mix between image, object, photography and sculpture. I like these works as it makes the images which were perfectly pictured distorted and unusual through physical manipulation.

This supports the appropriation brief well as it manipulates natural images. For my work I aim manipulate images in such a way to change the meaning of it, incorporating Laura’s technique.

Process to making my image

Step 1 – I grasped the technique of manipulating an image through a scanner. I chose a jumping tiger. However just because they have been changed it doesn’t particularly mean the meaning has changed. I then started to think about what has a cat represented in society and came to the ‘Puma’ logo, for a sports company. After doing some research on its official website, it claims to be a ‘world leading sports brand’. I then started to think about how many companies have to advertise this way to gain buyer a however this may not always be the case.

Step 2 – I edited the cat image to make it look like the puma logo. However the edges are a bit rougher which represents the slip of the company’s product quality. I gathered images of Puma products and printed them off. I originally tried just laying the cat over the top but I didn’t feel like it gave off a strong enough representation of the message I was trying to achieve.

Step 3  – Using the techniques I’d picked up originally influenced by Laura, I scanned the printed sheet of products. I felt like I didn’t need to scan the cat sue to the effect I had created with the edges. I placed the cat logo over the scanned picture of the products. This made them look all torn up and rubbish on the paper. This helped emphasis the meaning that top brands products aren’t always the best quality.

Step 4 – Photo shop edits: I looked at how to edit the image on Photoshop to see if this enhanced the representation anymore. I tried various ways. I found the one most effective was the last one with the brown tint. This makes the products look run down and weak. I kept the cat unedited as this shows the power of logos and how everyone assumes that the products are high quality. Logos have a massive influence in society, but sometimes that can fool us in terms of quality of products.

 

 

 

Concept  – This image is about the idea of the prime minister  of the UK, David Cameron, or anyone in power, is to show that they never really have the full public support because there is still a shocking statistic of those eligible, not voting. Merging stock images together and using the visual technique of Frank Bohbot, I have created an advert encouraging people to vote.

Artist Research – Frank Bohbot

He was born Paris, France, then moved to New York City in 2003 and now based around Brooklyn. He started off in the field of cinema as a documentarian before turning his focus to photography. However his influences of cinematographic form are still present in his work today.

A lot of his work is focuses on the space between reality and fantasy using his documenting and story telling. His work is used to highlight the surreal symmetries of our constructed worlds. Using his techniques I am also going to use this technique, especially from his, ‘levitation’ shoot, in a photo to highlight about the lack of voting in the elections and how we are led to believe that the majority party are in power when really a massive chunk of the country aren’t voting.

Process

Step 1 –The original photographs I used– I wanted to portray the idea that the parties will never truly have the full fair support underneath them until everyone votes for who they believe should have the power. I used a photo of outside the prime ministers home and a separate picture of him.

Step 2– I edited the picture of David Cameron and copy it onto the picture of the house. The way I placed David Cameron was in the style of Frank Bohbot and also surrealist positioning that it looks like he’s walking in mid-air, to hint the lack of full support he has from the country due to the amount of people not voting.

Step 3 – I changed it to black and white which overall I think makes it look better. I then added in a logo, which has been used to encourage more people to vote in elections. With the small hint of colour I think this works with the black and white background, standing out telling people to vote. However I think the picture of David Cameron himself looks too open and welcoming, which I don’t think works. It could possibly show the fact he believes he has the support of the country and this image shows the confidence. I also looked at the placing of the logo, making it smaller and placed it in the right bottom hand corner. The colour makes the logos stand out for itself. it is able to get away with being slightly tucked away in the corner and also balances out the picture a bit more.

Step 4 – I tried a new image. This one works in a different way, as it looks as though David Cameron is looking around, almost for his supports which he lacks in the photo and lack of support from the physical ground in the picture. I edited the Black and White slightly to minimize the greys on David Cameron so he stands out better against the background

Step 5 – I tried out another logo on the photo. Both of them I think work due to being in colour against the black and white picture. However I think the ‘GO VOTE’ logo is slightly better due to the bolder type and generally has more colour in than the ‘vote logo.

Concept – we have a lot of  ‘smart’ technologies which are supposedly is amazing, such as the iPhone but it also applies to other high end technologies. However similarly due to the idea of my first appropriation image, they are full of faults and issues which can sometimes effect the quality of the product. Using techniques from Adam Boomberg and Oliver Chagrin, I have created an image of the iPhone representing this faults in the product.

Artist Research –  Adam Boomber and Oliver Chargin

They both live in London and have done both solo and joint projects. Their work can go from smart to messy depending on the project. I have looked at the work that is messier. The work has been attacked various method such as ink, re edited, scissors, defaced, in order to show the tension between exposure and being hidden. I thought this could be an interesting theory to relate to the advertising industry again after my first photograph. For a high end product such as apple we like to think of it as invincible and it is one of the top, most popular pieces of technology. However what people don’t know is like other technology, hiccups and faults happen. A week ago, globally apple had made a technical error with the new update and it felt like technology had come to a stop. Using Adam and Olivers techniques I am going to create an image used to advertise the Iphone 6 and manipulate it to show the technical faults which could still occur.

 

 Step 1  –  I used an original image of Iphone 6, colour white. I looked at the use of cropping with just the screen or using the full image. I think the full image is more effective as it has more structure to the image by putting the screen to the left side.

Step 2 – Using the influence of Adam and Olivers second image i have used a pen scribble and put it over the whole screen of the phone. This looks like the representation of the phone screen being smashed easily. Going more in depth to the phone technology instead, I am going to try putting it on individual apps.

 

Step 3 –  I put the scibbles on separate apps. This was more successful as it is subtle but when you see it, it can be quite irritating which is what happens when you first start to notice technical errors when using the phone. I put them on all the apps which required internet. This is because they can stop working when the internet or phone connection is bad and then effects the performance.

Step 4 –  I tried another use of manipulating the images by putting a grey box over the apps which I have never used when having my Iphone. These apps I find not everyone uses but fill up a big amount of space on the phone. The grey box over the top represents the lack of attention, as the colour grey can be associated as dull.

Step 5 – To finish off this process, I have merged these two steps together and added a third manipulation to the image. a navy line across the actual apps which the mobile phone was originally created for, calling and texting. Even after all the years mobile shoes have been used, they still fault, sometimes the call doesn’t go through properly, the text doesn’t send creating communication problems which even smart phones haven’t fixed. This image represents different types of errors on the popular smart phones of this generation.