Tom Armstrong's Cuttings.
Bits of other people's stuff.
Sunday, 6 May 2012
Monday, 20 February 2012
Modern day propaganda
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGO7yaURn5zxay_Bqn9r4aFQkbNsJCDx_NP6kvNWZvpdbNbxy9R1_UbbIvQzWu4T8kxR0lsf3hMmTyFItrpJD4jj-bVuD7YJOOV3YuZNSra_NRGi2IDUMWxW-sRFopvZi212qUoRzfc3LA/s320/watchful-eyes.png)
The style is so similar to that of much war time propaganda - the realistic painting style and the bold large text that it seems unlikely that those war time poster have not been used as direct influence for these poster.
But it is the eye logo that I find most disturbing. I have seen it myself on many notices on the underground and buses around the capital and am always amazed that it is used so widely. It certainly doesn't make me feel safer. The connection with 1984 is remarkable clear. you don't even have to have read the book, there a f TV called big brother with the same fucking logo!
This cant have not been though of and must be used with the belief that this association would be a positive one in communicating the message. which raises the question of who the target audience for these posters are? it seems likely that this totalitarian approach cannot be accidental, and therefore the posters could be aimed "criminal" "scum" etc.
a deterrent, a warning.
It seems that this poster is evidence to surgest that proaganda has never gone away and possibly never will. This poster from a "post 9/11" world (a phase that i fucking hate) possibly suggested that the same fear in a general public can be used to excuse this kind of public notice as it was during the world wars. lets posters like this can be looked back on in books titled "the history of proaganda" in years to come and be seen as quaint funny relics of our strange paranoid history in the same way we can look at old war time posters today.
El Lissitzky - Beat the Whites with the red wedge (1919)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA6-2ab6PajMc6NmeSzh6kBZo0baP1Ix6Cb8BqqrKkxjZyDsgVTxER2Z_tUpit0w6fDybWZdTNcjWFCgBwyeWPUcuED1igjnBSvDDOXJTiSsfjm1WuBuNogz0KvAWsYs2hZhNFfNGCA0t7/s320/BeatTheWhites.jpg)
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Mykhaylo Khmelko
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Yskb7Q4OgXMByIr62PBcaUUfTME0WzNgr_1iJ8-Bbo72EAnW33MCGJvE1Pdw-_Yshd_k6iJp_9tWTWWVNNiih1zubLu-DcKiwTf2ihYsL9E6hY2BpJVGshBFMq1VdkfuI5Im9Ma9I7Kh/s320/Hmelko_NavekiSRusskimNarodom.jpg)
These Historical painting seem similar in composition to that of religious paintings of crowd scenes. This could be interpreted as an artist using his knowledge he has learned by studying biblical paintings purely for ascetic reasons, but then this ascetic quality was not used in religious art completely agenda-less either. Simple techniques of perspective and composition are used to draw the eye to certain figues. In both these images we see authority on the left, elevated above the other figures in front powerful architecture, with the gaze of the crowd on the left drawing the eye to them as well.
Propaganda - photographs and photo realism
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrPJtJr6XhNOR2rY8DXqZzRYqT_P3gp00XXxpLd1Ik5IWQu76lF9d4WG6Xdyk8fVWE3cXHJZ4bSdFShvi5JUWUvKGusTvQkWLcLy2B20IHutwCgVWK5N2e7dcgdLLceXe8HDnMinsJBLFc/s320/china-mao-leading-peasants.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhckB1mbDFuKQyQN3EXmgXYjKVSQeOd7yQKycVI9jlgkxvA92qF8K_i3N212UNDjmEx7I03FPTRBdd2o3zPJhxR7beKyS-3w6wrI2lcWuZs7ToNUfuHSzdHtY1sfgBIvZA72tnkN1ryVgF/s320/mao+and+peasants+photo.jpg)
Here we see a very different representation of Mao with the peasants, where he himself is a representation, placed amongst them. It could be said that this image communicates a more realistic power relationship between ruler and peasant.
It is interesting to wonder weather Mao himself would have had approved of this image.
it is the instantaious captureing of a scene allowed by photography that changed the way propaganda works.
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Barbara Kruger
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-PZE6HI91FzOxYYJN1ENtYhyphenhyphenFeo1DKMK4DfURLXnKWCrFM3fGglHa-dHxag6BczasnQxSUokVeg3nEg4MyjjHxGjhi98vg6LiiJGZpg3PjKIAkSpkUfKBrnKteTIABpcEG7oPKawhwc6x/s320/yourbody.jpg)
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