Homework Exercise: Disturb/ Abstract/ Make Strange

As usual, I am starting with an image of the completed product because the Blogspot template that I am using does not allow me to choose which photo I want as the thumbnail, but will arbitrarily decide on the first photograph in the blogpost as the feature picture ): I guess that’s one of the downside of having a online journal, even though it does come with many of advantages!

Over the recess week break, we were tasked to use the techniques we have learnt in the collage workshop to Disturb, Abstract and/or Make Strange (the meaning and original message) of our images, and create imagery that is enigmatic, paradoxical, playful and imaginative. As I had just learned about the unscrupulous advertising methods and unhanded means of the Tobacco Industry in the early 20^th century in another module that I am taking, I knew I wanted to do something related to the vintage smoking campaigns of the past. When the threat of tobacco prohibitions and health concerns started to surface in the 1920s, tobacco companies became bolder with their approach to targeting women through advertisements, disputing all research findings pointing out the contradictory, marketing smoking as a style statement, and the cigarette as a fashion accessory and icon of empowerment. The underlying sinister intentions of the advertisers intrigued me.

This is the image that I chose, out of all vintage tobacco ads I could find. It is from a brand called Craven A. I liked how modern and sleek the advertisement looked unlike the vintage pictorials of the era, with bold colours and minimal, attention-grabbing wording to convey its advertising proposition effectively.

Retrieved from: Glass, J. (2014). 14 Vintage, Sexy, and Evil Cigarette Print Ads from Decades Past. Image Retrieved: https://www.thrillist.com/vice/14-hilariously-evil-vintage-cigarette-ads-from-the-past

Along with the advertisement of the woman, I chose 2 other images – first, a clown mask, and second, a photograph of balloons. I had just watched Stephen King’s It over the weekend and the primacy effect of the film was still very strong. But besides that, I thought the clown face was a good image I could use to abstract/deconstruct and combine the face of the female model with, and I really liked how Stephen King’s used the very ordinary balloon as a harbinger of doom – I thought perhaps that was something I could incorporate into this exercise.

Retrieved from: Chan, M. (2016). The Creepy Clown Craze is Taking Over the World: It is Very Alarming. Image Retrieved: http://time.com/4523171/clown-sightings-creepy-world/

Retrieved from: Pinterest. Air Balloons. Image Retrieved: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/de/ae/4d/deae4d4154a21133ee0f43bc82705b7f--air-balloon-balloons.jpg

I also chose this image of a mountain range as the background, because of the ‘otherworldly’ feel it had.

Retrieved from: Wu, R. (2017). An Uncommon Place. Image Retrieved: https://www.behance.net/gallery/57155935/An-Uncommon-Place-III

Moving on to the actual experimentation process, I wanted to play with the idea of obscuring the female model’s face. First, I overlaid the clown face wholly over woman’s face (1). I also played with the idea of covering the woman’s eyes with the tagline from Craven A “Will not affect your throat”(2), as I thought it was a good symbolism of how the truth is hidden away from the audience, as if they had “wool in front of their eyes”, and the truth was replaced by the sweet talkings of tobacco companies.

As I felt the first idea was not abstracted or deconstructed enough, I cut the face of the clown up into its basic components – mainly the eyes, nose, and mouth – and replaced the woman’s original original features with them. I did not discard the spare cuttings away because I think the clown’s side burns, when overturned, actually made for good devil’s ears! An unexpected surprise that I will be saving for later. After rearranging the words and facial features, I think both ideas (1) and (2) work better when combined together.

Next, I superimposed the cut-out of the female model on the background I have chosen. Instead of placing the background in its usual orientation, I decided to the flip it upside down as I think that will make the overall impact even stranger and more disorientating for the viewer. It’s as if nothing is right in the advertisement, and all logic and rationality have been turned upside down.

I also decided to deconstruct the woman by cutting her up along prominent contours. This resulted in an oddly segmented image of the original model, although not as extremely abstracted enough that the viewer will be unable to tell that she is smoking. I wanted the ‘cracks’ in her to reflect the cognitive dissonance she feels when people smoke. Even though many people know that smoking is bad for health, they choose to ignore or distort any incoming information that says so because it is contradictory and cognitively dissonant/uncomfortable to their existing behaviour.

Thereafter I added balloons to the head of the woman, to symbolise the nonsensical thoughts and propaganda the tobacco industry has planted in our heads. I realised afterwards that I made an unintentional pun on ‘airhead’, as balloons are similarly airy too, hahaha!

After I felt that I have sufficiently disturbed the original content of the images, I glued the parts down. I eventually left the ‘devil horns’ out as I thought it overcluttered the image. The inversion of the clown, and balloons, which are traditionally avatars of innocence, as something harmful, evil and disturbing as reflective of the tobacco industry’s unethical practices, made for an arresting image. The overall effect, with the cut-up writing, really reminded me of the style of irrationality characteristic of Dada Art as we had learnt in lecture 5.

I find it amazing how rearrangement and collage, without the addition of any new material, can completely disturb and change the original intention of the message. I also clearly understood, through experimentation, how art can be a critical medium in challenging unethical practices (as was in the tobacco industry) and calling to attention the ills of society. With impactful visuals that can sometimes even reach a wider audience more effectively than words can, either due to the level of cognitive complexity of the audience or other reasons, the need to master the skill of visual communication is more important than ever.