Anca Sandu Illustration

Alceste

2012-01-26T23:12:00.000-08:00

I have received the cutest little book: Alceste! He is one of Nicholas' friends. As a hot dog fan, I can definitely relate to little Alceste...

Thank you :)

Mister Fox in love

2012-01-25T01:17:00.000-08:00

Original linocuts can be found in my shop :)

It's not snowing yet...

2012-01-16T13:20:00.000-08:00

Rainy day

2012-01-14T13:16:00.000-08:00

How sad that it is raining and I have no one to envy for going to picnics and such

while I am inside working! :)

Linocuts

2012-01-12T21:51:00.000-08:00

I have decided to set up a mini studio in my own house and try linocutting (again… after a failed attempt years ago, during college, when the linoleum was so hard and so painful to cut. That was grounds for a secret hatred for the technique and for all those that managed to master it successfully).

Therefore 2012 is the linocut redemption year. I have to admit, it is so great to get your hands dirty after so much digital work. As for the colors, I really like the fact that they are easy to clean up just with water, even though they do dry up fast on your brayer.

I really enjoy experimenting and this is my second try with these new tools (my first one was of course Mr. Fox :) Looks like there might be a chance linocutting becomes my new passion.

2011

2012-01-11T23:45:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to put together a year in review post and have looked through all my pictures of 2011, but of all those pictures, this picture is enough to describe the past year. The joyful, awesome 2011.

Christmas Cards

2011-11-30T01:36:00.001-08:00

Hello! These are my first Christmas cards, and the first birds I have discovered to like traditional romanian costumes.

You can find them on my Etsy shop. Looking forward to your visit! :)

Why is it...

2011-11-27T00:43:00.001-08:00

...that everyone is getting ready for the holidays and I am reminiscing the summer?

All T-Shirts & Hoodies now $4 off!

2011-11-23T00:46:00.001-08:00

Hello! These are a few of the T-Shirts and Hoodies now on sale on society6.com. Happy shopping! :)

I was getting ready to write a Holiday post...

2011-11-22T00:07:00.001-08:00

... when I came across these spring photos...

Bobo is not going trick-or-treating this year...

2011-10-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

He's just too cold. And the truth is... he can barely move in that coat anyway.

Cambridge...

2011-10-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

...via Bobo :)

Remembering my lovely time in Cambridge...

Romanian wedding

2011-10-23T21:58:00.000-07:00

Meet....

2011-10-18T22:23:00.000-07:00

Mishutka!

My lovely romanian art director Ella sent me this awesome picture of her favorite childhood toy. He might be older now, but he still rocks :)

Birds

2011-10-18T10:34:00.000-07:00

Bunica

2011-10-16T01:42:00.000-07:00

Cri cri cri

2011-10-11T22:12:00.000-07:00

Cri-cri-cri,
Toamna gri,
Nu credeam c-o sa mai vii
Înainte de Craciun...

G. Topârceanu, Balada unui greier mic

Another love story

2011-09-29T23:23:00.000-07:00

Inspired by my latest post, here is Doudou... and his best friend that he had taken care of for years. Yes, Doudou is the (once) fluffy bear :)

Dirty wow wow (and other love stories)

2011-09-26T22:48:00.000-07:00

A wonderful book that gathers pictures and memories of people's first beloved toys! Do you remember your first love?

Update from Zack :) Huggie!

Why I miss home (1)

2011-09-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

Meet... Monsieur Jambon and Madame Bibou

2011-09-23T17:40:00.000-07:00

Seven

2011-09-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

My painting for the Seven event, Portland.

Tea party

2011-09-18T00:09:00.000-07:00

the cat and the hat

2011-09-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

One of the first prints I've sold on society6 was bought by my (artist) friend Zack. I don't know what makes these pictures great, my print or the cat and the hat? Hmm...

Make sure you take a look at his work. He "draws stuff so you don't have to"... :)

society6 framed art prints

2011-09-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

Some of my framed art prints on society6

Bobo is back

2011-09-15T22:47:00.000-07:00

I miss you

2011-09-08T21:14:00.000-07:00

Etsy Shop Open :)

2011-09-08T00:31:00.000-07:00

Churchill has a lot of thing in common with his French cousin, Monsieur Jambon (like the love of croissants and macaroons), but Monsieur Jambon also has a great appetite for business, therefore I decided to ask his help in opening my first etsy shop!

The first products I am selling are a series of professionally printed greeting cards , and another series of original artwork greeting cards. I am currently working on new products, so please stop by from time to time :) Thank you!

Bernard knows he's handsome

2011-08-30T21:37:00.003-07:00

Free shipping :)

2011-08-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

Hello! Did you know society6 has FREE shipping thru Sunday, worldwide? So if you fancy getting a polar bear cowboy iPhone skin or a scientist frog laptop skin, now is the time to order it :)

There are even Pigeon T-Shirts and pullovers. Classy, right?

2011-08-18T21:45:00.001-07:00

Making of... Pig 1

2011-08-16T21:43:00.000-07:00

One day...

2011-08-16T20:58:00.001-07:00

I drew a chair.

Then I drew a bored panda on the chair.

After that I drew the chair. Again. From a different angle. (I know, how exciting, right?)

Then I drew the panda. Again. From a different angle.

I must have a wild imagination.

The Pig is waiting

2011-08-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

Hello.

There are things you might not be aware of. Perhaps you think such a situation is highly unlikely, but what if it's true? For instance, did you know there is a rumor about a possible new etsy shop where me and the nerd here will sell art…and stuff?

Well if you don't want to miss out on the latest news about art and… stuff, follow us on our new Facebook fan page. Like Churchill. Soon he will be famous and I'm pretty certain you would like to brag about having met him before he became legendary.

The Pig is waiting.

Photography

2011-08-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

Important things happened this week. President Obama turned 50 (despite republican opposition, as the trustworthy Onion reports), but there was another national event that took place: I finally decided to post some photographs on my website.

These were my first two options. From the series "I see you like to chew".

Then I realized they might not be the most 'professional" pick… Why are goats never good enough for one's portfolio? It's beyond me… Therefore you can check out here my other boring picks.

Ice cream

2011-07-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

there are also good days in the life of a princess

2011-07-15T17:43:00.001-07:00

Sad

2011-07-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

Apple

2011-06-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

After being awfully ashamed by my last post, El Bobo decided to go on a diet. He no longer responds to El Croissanto.

fast food

2011-06-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

We all make mistakes, and truth be told, some of them are really tasty.

a twinkle in your wrinkle

2011-06-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

El Bobo 2. Croque Monsieur

2011-06-11T06:55:00.000-07:00

El Bobo likes good food. But if the food is good and portable, it's even better.

El Bobo

2011-06-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

Bobo is a happy fellow with a great passion for the food industry. In real life he is actually skinny (and, as a matter of fact, human). But you know how Facebook never lies about your friends and google never lies about your health… well, my sketchbook doesn't lie either: this is how El Bobo* should look like.

*also known as El Croissanto.

ton ton

2011-06-06T01:49:00.000-07:00

gazelle afternoons

2011-06-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

monkeys and me

2011-06-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

I made this in printmaking class in college, and it wasn't a success at all. Now I quite like it.
Or perhaps I'm being nostalgic.

La multi ani!

2011-06-01T01:02:00.000-07:00

Today, June 1st, it's children's day in Romania! We're celebrating in style...

How to draw baby goats

2011-05-31T07:01:00.000-07:00

1. Go to a farm

You have to find some real goats. Fur and everything.

Do not wear your favorite purse. It will be chewed.

Be prepared to socialize. Kids can be very playful, but unless you are a rockstar or a politician, crowds can be intimidating. (100 baby goats at the farm in the pictures!)

2. Draw realistically

Remember when you believed you are going to be a graphic designer and you didn't predict any goat encounters in your future? Forget that nonsense. Every artists needs to draw a goat in their lifetime. That's how you build a success story.

3. Develop a whimsical character

Now that you have become a goat connoisseur, it is time to develop a character for a potential story.

Quite the most difficult part of the process. Unless you have already spent hours in the cold (+rain) drawing realistically. Or you got attacked by a bear while drawing. Or you saw Anthony Browne and had no idea he is famous.

Right… drawing whimsically. Frankly, I have no idea how you do that. I am trying to make sense of it myself, with each drawing. So you'll have to figure it out yourself. It's just you and the goat now.

a bit very happy

2011-05-30T02:08:00.000-07:00

thank you! : )

2011-05-27T01:25:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday!

Panda 1. Panda 2

2011-05-25T04:47:00.000-07:00

For a new project I've been trying to make my two different characters actually look different. Even though they are pandas. And as we know, pandas tend to look identical. Tom was right. It is hard to make characters different based on their own features, not their outfits or accessories.

coming back home

2011-05-23T02:10:00.001-07:00

Good morning!

2011-04-21T16:11:00.001-07:00

Hi.

2011-04-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

the colored version :)

Friday experiments

2011-04-15T05:33:00.001-07:00

I'm celebrating Friday with a new drawing. And a new app :)

Good evening

2011-04-08T11:33:00.000-07:00

Walt Disney is a genius

2011-03-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

He is not only the impersonation of the classic American self-made man, but also the cryogenized proof of how one can deeply and irreversibly influences the culture.

Various authors proliferated the same stories in almost all the accounts of his life, some disregarding original sources of information, some adding interesting details. For example, he presumably held a notebook where he wrote ideas that came to him in the middle of the night. However (propagandist) that might sound, it would make perfect sense to me. After all, he was a creative person- an innovator and a visionary, employing art and science, creativity and technology in the manufacturing a fantasy that would come to worth billions.

His success story was also influenced by the cultural context and circumstances. The manufacturing of the fantasy world begun during the time America was recovering from the Great Depression. Snow White, the first animated film, didn’t only impressed with innovation and quality, but also because it offered the possibility of having dreams- even if they were basically the same dreams-, and mastering the future. It offered an alternative world, widely and subliminally accepted.

We might regard people’s refuge in fantasy with sarcasm or, at least, disbelief, but looking at today’s society, we can observe the same phenomenon taking place. Think about how many vampire or blue man stories you have seen on television, read books on, or simply seen advertisements about. It is indeed a different kind of fantasy than the one made commonplace by Disney, but it feeds on the same need for an alternative reality. And what is Disney but a clean alternative of Hollywood with higher ethical standards, as Michael Eisner, the former CEO of Disney stated.

What makes the Disney phenomenon particular though it is the interesting process that shaped the world he created into a product, and later on how the product itself shaped the world. This process is dominated by Disney’s contemporary social and cultural circumstances and his view for the future. This interrelation between his ideology and the context is the framework in which the rendering machine operates. In essence, it functions by taking folk tales or historical events and shaping them according to an” identifiable universe of semantic meanings” (Michael Reel), which creates a recognizable Disney product that eventually comes to enforce a culture and becomes and agent of education, spreading its influences on all areas, including art and, evidently, picture books, all with the support of media ad strong corporatist tactics.

My study will analyze each step of the process and discuss its consequences relevant for the contemporary practice. A first interesting observation is that each step of the process so called disneyfication is basically a process in itself.

First of all is the far from arbitrary -selection process. Disney’s sources have been primarily folk tales and historic events or characters. During history, folk tales ascended correspondingly to “violent and progressive shifts in society and celebrated individualism, subjectivity, and reflection. It featured the narrative voice of the educated author and publisher over communal voices and set new guidelines for freedom of speech and expression” (Zipes) and have been perpetuated from generation to generation by telling and retelling, “losing here a detail, gaining there a new hero, disintegrating gradually in outline, but being re-created occasionally by some narrator”, as Joseph Campbell says. He continues by describing them as “an art on which the whole community of mankind has worked” and “Clearly… no toy for children”. C.S. Lewis makes the same argument when he says, “Many children don’t like them [fairytale] and many adults do”.

Victorians dramatically changed the stories and adapted them for your readers. The custom perpetuated: stories were reshaped in accordance with the message that the storytellers want to communicate, the norms of the prevailing culture, and the specifics of the audience.

What Disney did was seemingly the same: he chose specific stories that allowed him rendering according to his individualistic ideology, according to the general culture, and the specifics of its audience. And, as the worldview those days was shifting between modern and postmodern, so was his tendency of combining the virtual with the certainty, the imaginary and the real. He created a whole new world by interweaving the postmodern techniques of parody and pastiche. He parodied the folklore, the history, and ultimately the world. Everything was a heritage that could be edited, re-evaluated, but not entirely how most postmodernist would do, - that is, regarding the past with a certain respect- but, as Richard Schickel says, by coming “always as conqueror, never as a servant” in the attempt to shape collective memory.

Is Disney following the path of revising the stories according to the culture, or did he use infamous forms of editing that lead to what some call “adaptation decay”? He has certainly rephrased the literary patrimony by adding elements (a cause for that might be the fact that he actually needed to stretch a 6 pages story to a full length film), removing unpleasant historical facts and undesirable elements- a process called by some “sanitizing literature”. Nevertheless, contemporizing, political correctness and the censorship of certain elements do not damage the story itself, as long as a balance is enforced, but what Disney did was far beyond that. He completely changed the purpose of the fairytale, transforming it from a story that was supposed to prepare the young for adulthood into mere entertainment, in the same way postmodernism transformed the knower into consumer of knowledge.

Disney’s monopoly encourages a psychological detachment form the real world, which he replaces with a sanitized, safe and entertaining replica. He reframed the real world by merchandising and packaging it into commercial clichés that can be easily managed and staged. Furthermore, as Baudrillard argues, Disney integrated the real world in his synthetic universe: “We are no longer in a society of spectacle, which itself has become a spectacular concept. It is no longer the contagion of spectacle that alters reality, but rather the contagion of virtuality that erases the spectacle an enterprise of radical deterrence of the world from the inside and no longer from outside, similar to the quasi-nostalgic universe of capitalistic reality today.” Not only does Disney erase the real, but also he also homogenizes the cultures by juxtaposing them in a distinct scenario and completely obliterates the notion of time in a “single atemporal virtuality”. As Baudrillard says, “Disney realizes de facto such an atemporal utopia by producing all the events, past or future, on simultaneous screens, and by inexorably mixing all the sequences as they would or will appear to a different civilization than ours. But it is already ours. It is more and more difficult for us to imagine the real, History, the depth of time, or three-dimensional space, just as before it was difficult, from our real world perspective, to imagine a virtual universe or the fourth dimension [la quatrieme dimension].”

In this way Disney moved from being simply an alternative to other forms of story telling to dominating the entire culture and gained corporate reach and political power over multiple levels of children’s culture. Disney created a global market for children and turned them into consumers by blurring the line between consumption and institution. Giroux states that is impossible for children to distinguish these societal practices of consumption and that makes their exploitations as consumers rather easy. That being the case, stories are selected according to their potential in interpreting their content and characters into products which later come to standardize play and deprive children from naturally exploring and making sense of the world, due to the fact that the means of explorations are imposed on them. Later on, they are forced to define themselves by brands.

As aforementioned, Disney is not just an alternative. Some might say that Disney has made the proliferation of folk stories possible, but that remains only an assumption. Some believe the opposite: Disney has impeded the natural evolution of folk tale. Picture books are now seen as related merchandise. The actual damage produce by Disney is adapting literature according to the vision of globalization, postmodernizing and consumerism.

Even at a stylistic level, it is hard to compete with the absolute saturation of the marketplace. But there are still alternatives and maybe the Disney monopoly will function as an impulse for creating original work that would not be stylistically valuable, but would also acknowledge its educational purpose and pursue to affirming and developing children’s personality and shaping they world-view accordingly.

Disney is a genius. His work, “is capitalism, it is a work of genius; as culture, it is mostly a horror.” (Richard Schickel)

Sisters

2011-03-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

2011-03-06T07:43:00.001-08:00

Graduation 2011

2010-12-18T12:59:00.000-08:00

MA Children’s Book Illustration

Cambridge School of Art

Graduation 2011

The Gallery at Foyles (3rd floor)

113-119 Charing Cross Road

London WC2H 0EB

Exhibition runs 1st – 10th February 2011

http://cambridgemashow.com/

Finding a Prince final spreads

2010-08-22T04:38:00.000-07:00

The Scientist

2010-08-22T04:27:00.000-07:00

final version

Iaşi

2010-08-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

A is for Awesome Alligator

2010-08-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

My classmates and I are currently working on an awesome ABC book. So here is

my awesome entry =)

Behind the scenes

C'est nes pas une grenouille

2010-04-24T00:59:00.000-07:00

2010-04-01T07:11:00.000-07:00

self sufficient frog

2010-03-31T01:08:00.000-07:00

A trendy frog

2010-03-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

human state:

talking through their difficulties

new project

2010-03-14T03:45:00.000-07:00

the sketch for the cover of my new book!

New character

2010-03-10T06:48:00.000-08:00

2010-03-08T02:19:00.000-08:00

oOops

2010-03-06T07:37:00.000-08:00

UK tourist

2010-03-05T07:12:00.001-08:00

Meet Churchill

2010-03-03T07:41:00.001-08:00

Churchill is a high maintenance, bohemian pig that keeps popping in my sketchbook and interrupts my normal, very important work.

sketchbook stuff

2010-03-03T02:57:00.000-08:00

blue prince

2010-02-10T14:46:00.000-08:00

Cinderella!

2010-01-31T14:36:00.000-08:00

old old stuff

2010-01-26T14:35:00.000-08:00

Iarna

2010-01-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

Ballerinas

2010-01-23T02:20:00.000-08:00

2010-01-23T02:06:00.000-08:00

A zis mama ca mi-o da,

Valeleu, valeleu,

Zestre cand m-oi marita,

Valeu, valeu, valeleu.

Douazeci de perne mici,

Valeleu, valeleu,

Toate pline cu furnici,

Valeu, valeu, valeleu.

Douazeci de perne mari,

Valeleu, valeleu,

Toate pline cu tzantzari,

Valeu, valeu, valeleu.

Cantecele Copilariei, Editura Gama, 2009

2010-01-22T04:35:00.000-08:00

De ziua ta, mamico,

In dar ti-am adus inima

si crede-ma, mamico,

Un dar mai frumos nu se putea.

Am vrut sa-ti culeg o floare,

Un mic ghiocel frumos,

Dar pana la urma moare

Si cui e de folos?

Am vrut sa-ti culeg stelute,

sa-ti fac un frumos colier,

Dar cine nu stie oare

Ca in zori stelutele pier?

Am vrut sa-ti culeg o raza

De soare, sa-ti prind in par,

Dar tu stralucesti mai tare

De dragoste si dor.

Cantecele Copilariei, Editura Gama, 2009

It's all about the details...

2010-01-21T03:36:00.000-08:00

Details from the book Childhood Poems (Poeziile Copilariei), Gama, 2009

2010-01-21T02:21:00.000-08:00

An image for The Postman project that was left unused.

And some preparatory work

2010-01-19T04:17:00.000-08:00

Heya!

2010-01-19T04:11:00.000-08:00

Please vote for me! Got into a little contest :)

http://www.artistswanted.org/anca

These are the images that I entered in the competition

A bee

2010-01-14T02:20:00.001-08:00

.

2010-01-13T15:27:00.000-08:00

News

2010-01-13T14:33:00.000-08:00

New year, new illustrations! View more :)

And a new book. You can find it at Carturesti.

The Postman- Cover

2010-01-13T14:12:00.001-08:00

This is the cover of the book called The Postman, created during my MA studies.

The title page

The Postman

2010-01-13T14:06:00.001-08:00

Facebook Page

2010-01-13T14:01:00.000-08:00

Join the Facebook Page :)

Cantecele copilariei

2010-01-12T07:52:00.000-08:00

http://librarie.carturesti.ro/product/Cantecele-copilariei,236668.aspx

The Big Deal

2009-06-05T20:10:00.000-07:00

a story by Jamie Brindle

illustrations by Anca Sandu

He started by telling them how they would die. Sometimes, he thought that selling deaths was all his job really was.

   It was always good to start with the death. That's what the customer was invariably looking for. That's what really sold them.
   Having described how his client would die, Quince would then go on in a rather matter-of-fact way to explain other notable features of the life he was hawking: childhood joys and traumas (as well as any exceptional neurosis that would result from them), love affairs, major accidents, famous things they would achieve, and so on. He would then finish off by displaying a rather nice rendering depicting a trans-temporal image of the body to be inhabited, tilting in holographic increments through infancy, childhood, adolescence, and so on until, after ninety degrees, to old age and death.
          He would then look at them levelly and ask them: so?
          Quince had never lost a client yet.

   He had never lost a client. They always said yes. Not a single time in the whole of his existence - although he existed in a place where there was, technically, no time - not one single time had he even had to offer up a second life for perusal. The Poor Souls always snapped up what he had to give them.

   Quince used to wonder if these Poor Souls were the only type. Certainly they were the only ones he ever came across. They were so empty and pitiful, these Poor Souls, these clients of his, so light. Of course, there was no sight here, just like there was no smell, taste, sound, warmth, cold, or anything else at all, at all, not even any time. And yet, were he asked to describe the Poor Souls, Quince would not have been at a loss for so much as a moment. They were symmetrical without having a shape. They were luminescent without having form or light. They were humble without having a self to humble. But, above all, they floated. Above all, they were light.
   It came to him one day, as a revelation, that they were Poor Souls not because they were to be pitied, but rather because they were not rich. The Rich Souls - if they actually existed - never came to him. His job was to provide the Poor Souls with a means of gaining weight - he assigned them a life in which they might be forged into something with shape and purpose. Existence here was not a life-affirming experience. Only life was one of those.

More...

Brain Candy

2009-03-20T21:17:00.000-07:00

Imaginile în mişcare au o forţă şi mai mare decât fotografiile. Ele au devenit o prezenţă constanta în lumea noastră.

Televiziunea nu "povesteste", ci construieşte lumi alternative, combinând imagini şi cuvinte, şi bazându-se mai mult pe simţurile nostre vizuale. Impactul psihologic profund pe care imaginile îl au asupra noastră este demonstrat de Dr. Steven Most, care a descoperit că imaginile ne pot "orbi" succint, uneori chiar şi timp de jumătate de secundă. Mecanismele creierului, care de obicei ne ajută să ne concentrăm atenţia, devin "paralizate" in faţă unei imagini şocante, captivante, devenind incapabile să răspundă la alţi stimuli. Studiile asupra percepţiei la copii arată că creierul acestora răspunde mai activ la stimulii audio, iar efectul combinat audio/video, de exemplu in cazul jocurilor video, poate avea un impact distrugător. Studiile recente arată ca stimularea vizuală continuă, de gen media, asupra regiunii cortexului, poate avea efecte profunde asupra creierului în dezvolatare al copilului. Consecinţe ulterioare pot fi deficitul de atenţie, hiperactivitatea, sau chiar comportamente violente.

Unii critici semnalează o altă deficienţă în cultura imaginii este dificultatea interpretării. Lipsa unui cod care ar permite raportarea la un anumit set de valori după care se poate emite o judecată, dar şi atrofierea codului(vorbire), ceea ce va aduce dificultăţi şi în transmiterea zestrei culturale către generaţiile următoare. Stephen nu observă că proliferarea noului limbaj nu se datorează superiorităţii lui faţă de limbajul scris/vorbit, ci pentru că satisface dorinţă noastră de 16 gratificare imediată, iar televiziunea este canalul perfect pentru a ne oferi această gratificare, şi de a prolifera astfel cultură video. În "The rise of the Image, The Fall of the Word", Mitchel Stephans susţine teoria conform căreia imaginea înlocuieşte cuvântul, devenind principalul mijloc de "transport mental", şi îl citează pe Ridly Scott, producător de film: "Filmul este teatrul secolului XX, şi va deveni litereatura secolului XXI". Însă el nu percepe pericolele. Deşi scrisul şi cititul s-au dezvoltat tocmai pentru a deveni o unealtă a maselor, ironia este că literatură se va reîntoarce către elite.

Mutaţia dinspre spaţiul privat spre spaţiul public al televiziunii poate fi perceputata ca un asalt de imagini şi mesaje. Conştienţi că trăim într-o lume a imaginilor, în care oamenii sunt obişnuiţi "să vadă", nu numai "să audă", chiar şi organizatorii de concerte de muzică clasică au încercat introducerea unor secvenţe video în spectacole, însă muzicienii sunt sceptici în privinţa alăturării acestor genuri, temându-se de pericolul de a nu deveni o altfel de "cultură MTV", şi privind acest act ca pe unul de capitulare.

“Let truth be the prejudice"

2008-12-16T00:27:00.000-08:00

"Vestea că fotografia poate înşela a adus şi mai multă popularitate fotografiei."(Susan Sontag)

Unele din cele mai faimoase manipulări ale imaginilor fotografice sunt realizate sub comanda megalomaniei paranoice a lui Stalin, care şi-a omorât toţi duşmanii, dar i-a şi şters din orice fotografie, prin diverse tehnici. Însă chiar şi in societăţile non-totalitare, tehnicile de falsificare au fost folosite pentru a înşela masele (precum fotografiile cu expunere dublă ale spiritelor, cele ce prezentau diverşi guru levitand, sau cele publicate în diverse reviste de 1 Aprilie).

Revista ”Life” a compus o fotografie a unui democrat, astfel încât să apăra vorbind in public cu un pliant comunist. Alegerile au fost pierdute. National Geographic a alăturat două piramide pentru a se putea încadra în formatul coperţii, folosind tehnologia Scitex.

Christine Rosen enunţă însă apariţia Photoshopului în 1990, un mijloc necostisitor şi uşor de folosit, ca punct de început în rescrierea istoriei vizuale. Consecinţele "democratizarii imaginii” sunt însă imprevizibile. “You give people a tool, but you can't really control what they do with it." (John Knoll, inventatorul Photoshopului). Rosen afrma că oamenii ajung să îşi piardă respectul pentru tot ceea ce pot manipula cu uşurinţă.

O înscenare faimoasă este cea a lui Muhammad Ali antrenandu-se sub apă, deşi el nu ştia să înoate, sau cea a lui Andreas Serrano, care a înscenat imagini fotojurnailistice. Campania Bush-Cheney a fost criticată pentru că a duplicat un grup de soldaţi, pentru a crea imaginea unei mulţimi mai mari de oameni, fapt asemănător montajului "Stalin şi Masele". Aceleaşi metode au fost folosite şi de Kerry în campania sa, pentru a simula sustinere din partea populatiei.

Existenţa tehnicilor de înscenare şi manipulare a imaginilor a adus un anumit grad de scepticism în rândul publicului. Chiar si anteriori, fotografia ce surprinde momentul morţii unui soldat republican în timpul războiului civil spaniol (Robert Capa) sau cea a ridicării steagului american la Iwo Jima(Joe Rosenthal) au fost contestate, pe nedrept, ca fiind false.

Fotografia lui Robert Capa surprinde momentul mortii unui soldat.

Efectul grav al Photoshop-ului ar putea fi considerată acea democratizare a abilităţii de a comite fraudă. În consecinţă, s-au dezvoltat programe care analizează codurile imaginilor şi sesizează pixeli anormali.

Eyes wide OPEN

2008-09-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

"Eyes Wide Open, the American Friends Service Committee’s widely-acclaimed exhibition on the human cost of the Iraq War, features a pair of boots honoring each U.S. military casualty, a field of shoes and a Wall of Remembrance to memorialize the Iraqis killed in the conflict, and a multimedia display exploring the history, cost and consequences of the war". (Mary Ellen McNish,
General Secretary, AFSC)

One day in the Iraq equals:
-423,529 children with healthcare, or
-6,482 families with homes, or
-34,904 four-year college scholarships, or
-1,274,336 homes with renewable electricity, or
-720 millionj dollars.

Proliferarea imaginii. Consecinte.

2008-07-30T01:25:00.000-07:00

Pe de altă parte, există un imens potenţial de înşelăciune şi manipulare, de perpetuare a ficţiunii într-o manieră atât de reală încât nu mai putem face diferenţa. Christine Rosen, în eseul sau "The Image Culture", pune în discuţie influenţa saturaţiei de imagini asupra publicului, folosind două celebre exemple: dezastrele uraganului Katrina şi imaginea prăbuşirii celor două turnuri WTC. Ea ridică astfel întrebarea asupra modului în care imaginile au afectat răspunsul nostru umanitar şi politic, şi asupra modului în care aceste imagini vor influenţa memoria noastră culturală, şi implicit, scrierea istoriei. Analizând lipsă de surprindere pe care o are acum un privitor în faţă imaginii celor două turnuri, imagine ce a fost cândva şocantă, ea subliniază o caracteristică importantă a culturii noastre: prin dezvolatarea mijloacelor de replicare, multiplicare şi prin dezvolatarea canalelor de comunicare, imaginile îşi pierd repede impactul şocant, acesta fiind un proces specific în istoria contemporană a umanităţii. În trecut, liderii politici au fost conştienţi de puterea imaginii, şi au luat măsuri extreme de a le controla şi manipula. Unul din principalele scopuri ale forţelor rebele este preluarea controlului asupra televiziunii. Pentru a controla o ţară, trebuie să controlezi imaginile. Un alt exemplu ar fi Stalin, care a dispus manipularea fotografiilor şi eliminarea inamicilor chiar şi din imagini.

Gillian Wearing a studiat modul în care fotografia a fost, de-a lungul istoriei, o modalitate de control. Experimentul sau,"Sixty Minute Silence" presupune o sedinta foto a unui mare grup, actori profesionişti, îmbrăcaţi în uniforme de poliţie. A-ţi asuma o anumită poziţie înseamnă a te transforma într-o fotografie, a sta nemişcat în aşteptarea ei. Uniforma de poliţie a fost
aleasă în mod intenţional, ca o metaforă a autorităţii camerei de fotografiat asupra nostră, indiferent unde ne aflăm sau ce poziţie ocupăm.

Astăzi, putearea democratică a tehnologiilor permite oricui să distorsioneze texte şi imagini. Efectele acestei libertăţi, şi costurile lor potenţiale, sunt puţin studiate in perspectivă. Istoricii şi antropologii definesc o mişcare a omenirii de la o cultură orală spre una scrisă, şi mai târziu spre o cultură a imaginilor. Imaginile crează o noua formă de comunicare. Se ridica întrebări asupra înlocuirii adevărului ce poate fi transmis doar prin cuvinte cu imaginile ce pot fi înşelătoare.

Dezvolatarea tehnologiei a subestimat considerabil abilitatea nostră de a crede ceea ce vedem, însă oamenii nu şi-au asumat încă adecvat efectele acestui fenomen asupra noţiunii noastre despre adevăr. Mai mult decât atât, criticii atrag atenţia asupra pericolului apariţiei dificultăţilor de comunicare, de înţelegere şi de acceptare, şi asupra pericolului compromiterii scrierii istoriei şi
transmiterii culturii de la o generaţie la altă.

Boorstin, autorul cărţii "The Image", 1961 afirmă că înălţarea rolului imaginii deasupra substanţei şi a formei deasupra conţinutului duce la crearea unei pseudo-evenimente şi înlocuirea virtutilor reale cu imagini fabricate, şi descrie în detaliu procesul de creare a imaginilor publice a diverselor persoane. "The result was a culture of synthetic heroes, prefabricated tourist atraction, [and] homogenized interchangeable forms of art and literature." Boorstin susţine în continuare cât de iluzorii sunt imaginile. "We risk being the first people în history to have been made able to make their illusions so vivid, so persuasive, so "realistic" that they can live în them." Pe de altă parte, W.Benjamin susţinea, într-o vreme în care dezvolatarea mass-mediei era doar la început, că funcţionarismul fotografic poate deveni mai semnificant decât potenţialul său artistic într-o lume a proliferării imaginilor. Deşi astăzi trăim în era imaginii, într-o cultură a reproducerii, se pare că originalul a rămas totuşi mai important.

În consens cu Boostin, Roland Barthes afirmă: "the image no longer illustrate the words; it is now the words which, structurally, are parasitic on the image". Paul Virilio reia această idee, denunţând media că pe o adevărată ameninţare-"the evocative power of the screen". În confruntarea cu literatura, imaginea este triumfătoare. "It is the real time that threatens writing, once the imagine is live, there is a conflict between deferent time and real time, and in this there is a serious threat to writing, and to the author."(Paul Virilio)

2008-07-29T13:23:00.000-07:00

2008-07-24T10:06:00.000-07:00