The most blatant way that I saw this concept was in the first picture here, the Che Guevara bag. History gives a form of immortality to humankind, allowing individuals to live forever through texts left behind. Individuals are not able to dictate the form of that survival. So, while our popular culture is saturated with texts of the recently and distantly deceased, at what cost is that survival secured? Che would likely have been mortified, possibly furious over the branding effect that his image has invoked.
Che’s image tells us something about you. The bag has the iconic mug shot coupled with the “Revolucion!” slogan down its side. The only colors visible beyond the black and white scale is the red of the symbols over the drab, faux-fatigue canvas of the bag. Che stood for revolution, yes, but for branding and product placement? Che survives in our modern pop culture in an appropriated, disjointed fashion. The platitude of revolution (I can’t believe I just called it a platitude) is slapped onto a school-bag, a sign of hierarchy, conformity, and intellectual commodification. Che’s image survives, but not as he would have intended.
The next image takes a turn from the survival of the individual and considers that of the institution. Again, the concepts of branding, marketing and sales are involved in a differing twist. Looking down from the L platform at Quincy street, I was confronted by a blur of movement and activity writhing through the city streets. With my headphones in, I could shut out the noises and the roar and focus my thoughts on the visual. With my randomized function on, Weezer slipped to Sepultura turned to The Notwist, giving me the separation from the sense whirlwind below to truly look.
I took this picture more out of amusement than anything at the time. It looked funny to me, like infant pigs crowding around a sow (not to call the gentleman on the street pig-like, it’s just a simile for the boxes). This bank of resources reflects survival on two scores, and more if I extrapolate. First, these boxes all ensure the survival of the parent company. Each news outlet is offering the same basic product to the population: information. How this information is presented, packaged, and priced dictates the survival of each respective corporation.
The second view of survival looks more broadly at the state system of democratic capitalism. Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying, “Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.” Media outlets and information sharing are the lifeblood of the democratic system. This symbolic line-up of news outlets shows (on the surface) the fruition of news outlets. The trouble with survival’s compromises comes out again as it did with Che. Are these outlets truly free and independent? Are all citizens able to read with equal access to information? Do all citizens have equal opportunity to participate in the construction of news and in information dissemination? Can democracy as it was envisioned survive without these elements? Here history shows us inevitable compromises. Our system of government survives after a fashion, but is it the form that the founding leaders intended? Questionable. (I say no, but there’s too much political debate around this to say anything definite.) This image shows the facilitation of survival and the evidence of the survival of a form of democracy.
Finally, I looked up the same street and merely shot down the length (image at the end of the document). Who knows? If I can’t use the images this week, maybe they’ll come in handy for a future journal or project. However, looking back at the image I see survival in hints and clues that point to larger social structures behind the image. Unlike pictures of streets from other cultures, this street shot shows Chicago in all of its rigid glory. All the traffic is lined up, following the rules of traffic (outside of the errant lane-changers here and there; parking is done along the near side of the street; pedestrians generally stay on the sidewalk in clear streams of traffic; lights overhead offer simulated day even when the sun goes down; signs and signals throughout the environment give further direction to all as to appropriate conduct in the streets. Masses of people aren’t crowded haphazardly in the streets on bikes, mopeds, foot or other modes of transportation. This society and cultural pattern stresses order, separation and authority.
This creates another bifurcated view of survival. By obeying, all the people depicted are legitimating the social structure, granted Western civilization life and continuity through the years. An ordered and planned system of rules and technological innovation reigns in this picture. The scientific impulse in this society has birthed transportation, electricity, automated water transportation, and innumerable other advances to make survival easier and more comfortable. Everyone participates in following rules, laws and “common sense” order in this frame. This segues to the other aspect of survival: the individuals within this system are able to survive because of the systematic organization of life. People aren’t being run down on the sidewalks because everyone else is following the same set of rules. The vehicles and mass transit systems pictured here get individuals around the city to their homes, jobs, or other pursuits in a timely fashion.
Looking back over my work, I seem to present a largely ecological view on survival. Everything survives at the expense of something else; nothing survives unchanged. Society is the ultimate eternal compromise. It’s never so simple as just staying alive and intact. How do things survive? Adaptation, either conscious or not.
The don't walk one's better in large size. You can see the expression on her face and the Don't Walk sign pretty clearly. And the guy's face in the ice picture cracks me up.
No comments:
Post a Comment