Limitless Possibilities: Our Cultural Obsession with Pictures

Glendale, Arizona: A Small Town in Big City

Glendale, Arizona, suburb of Phoenix, is the 4th largest city in Arizona.  Home to the Arizona Cardinals, it boosts the largest stadium in Arizona, the University of Phoenix Stadium.  http://www.universityofphoenixstadium.com/


Despite the large population, innovative stadium, and abundant businesses, Downtown Glendale maintains the feel of a small town. http://www.visitglendale.com/

here is a walking map of Downtown Glendale: http://www.visitglendale.com/pdf/map.pdf

Numerous antique shops line the walkways of downtown. Apple Tree Antiques, http://www.picturetrail.com/appletreeshop and A Mad Hatters, http://www.amadhatters.com/ are popular shops.

Cerreta Candy Company just east of downtown has been a Glendale icon for 40 years.  http://www.cerreta.com/  The smell of cooking chocolate is noticeable for blocks.

Every holiday season the town lights up and enjoys a festival of chocolate and lights. http://www.glendaleaz.com/events/glendaleglitters.cfm

Just outside of Glendale in the neighboring town of Peoria is the Challenger Center. http://www.azchallenger.org/

Falling Rock Falls: We Beat Nature

         The cave at Falling Rock Falls, just outside of Montevallo, has become a literal watering hole for the Montevallo community and is a popular gathering place for college students.  The marks people have made on the place have left an indelible impression of the culture, values, and ideologies of the people that gather there.  Graffiti and art cover the walls, rocks are stacked in clearly manmade sculptures, a large fire pit sits below an ash blackened ceiling, and trash litters the cave and surrounding area.  The evidence left there suggests that this place is often used as a place to hang out, a place to express one’s self, a place to leave a mark on the world, and a place to exert power and control over the natural world. 

            Noticeable on the hike down to the cave are an abundance of large bright paintings working together to cover the cave wall – and in some cases individual painting fill the whole space between wall and ceiling.  Hikers are first confronted with a large face, facing directly towards them while they hike down.  This face is larger than life and distorted, with one bulging red eye, saying “what a trip – sikoe.”   It directly faces the trail down and is place directly next to a source of clean drinking water.  The face seems to be mocking the hiker and the hike – a relatively simple one – by exaggerating the trip down and tying it to obvious drug references.  The artist chose to paint the face in a way and in a place that cannot be missed by every hiker there, ostentatiously drawing attention to it and in turn the artist.  He has successfully left his mark on that piece of the world, everyone that enters there cannot fail so see and acknowledge his work. 

            On the opposite side of the spring water, a natural gathering place, is another ostentatious piece of graffiti, done by a different person in conversation with the person that painted the face.  Here the word snail is painted in shimmering gold and pink with a black outline and blue water and blood splashing behind it.  This piece of graffiti is a signature, it’s a way for the painter to mark his territory and let other know he was there and that space is, and will forever be his.  However, over top this, Sikoe exerted his dominance by quickly scrawling his name several times and then painting a simple snail next to the word snail in the same yellow and blue of the face.  Like Sikoe is exerting dominance over Snail, both – and all of those that write on the walls – are dominating nature, a basic human instinct.  One tagger is quick to point this out to hikers as they first enter the cave.  The very first writing on the cave wall is “rock painting since 10,000 BC” in yellow paint calling attention to the long tradition of storytelling though symbols on a wall and the long struggle of man versus nature. 

            While the biggest and most obvious things on the wall are the paintings previously mentioned, smaller but more permanent carvings also cover the wall.  Various people over the years have carved their names into the wall.  More permanent and subtle than paint, the carvings are people’s actual names rather than the pseudonyms used by the painters.  These names are connected to other names, dates, pictures, or phrases that are important to the person that put their name there. The simplicity of the names belies he effort required to carve something into rock.  The people that put their names in the rock not just to show dominance over the rock but to leave an indelible mark of themselves somewhere in the world; a mark that would last even after they are long gone from this place and perhaps even this world.  They wanted to leave something that would stand, forever, as a testament to their life and that allows them to live, on stone, forever.  The carvings stand as more than the individual though, they show a cultural, a human, desire to live beyond death and to never be forgotten. 

            Over some of the carvings in the wall are the words “1985 Chicken McNuggets,” a part of a larger attempt to chronicle popular culture and seeming innocuous things that have had a large impact within the last 30 years.  Just visible under the layers of graffiti is the rest of the recording of recent history, in a manner that is as old as recorded history itself.  Unfortunately, the timeline has been lost in the melee of insignificant tagging and attempts to create art or just leave a mark.

            Off in one corner of the cave is a large fire pit.  Above this pit is the blackening of years of ash and evidence of many fires.  Fires that have provided food, created warmth, and been a site for people to gather, share stories, bond, and experience a life that is not part of the everyday.  Fire is an original sign and source of power, if controlled fire can provide light, warmth, and energy but when unleashed it is destructive and has the power to consume and change everything it encounters.  To have control over such a destructive force is a wonderful thing, it has allowed humanity to progress and allows us to control our surroundings. 

            In the “Paris Not Flooded” chapter of Mythologies by Roland Barthes he says that the Ark is a “happy myth” because it “gives evidence that the world is manageable.”  Like Ark and flood in Barthes Mythologies, the cave at Falling Rock Falls is evidence that the world is manageable.  Humans have come in and left their mark, they have taken control of the nature there, and they have proven that the world, that nature, is manageable and can be controlled. 

Banksy The Artist

http://prezi.com/r8xrdzdkld97/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy



Because sometimes prezi doesn't work:

Street artist Banksy is seen here in a still from his documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop.  Here he is presenting himself as first an artist, then as a person like anyone else.  His art is iconic and he is defending his work to the world, pleading with them to see it as serious art and him as a serious artist.  Many people speculate about who Banksy is and a quick Google search will produce many photos of random, everyday men being identified as Banksy. They are not him; his identity remains a mystery because, for Banksy, the art is more important than the man creating it.

1. Banksy chooses to conduct his interview for his self-directed documentary in his studio in London.  He is surrounded by a combination of colorful graffiti, art supplies (spray paint cans, paper, books, etc), what appears to be work in progress, sketches, a filing cabinet, and finally his iconic mask taking up residence at his right hand.  By completing an interview in his studio Banksy is presenting himself as a legitimate artist rather than a tagger and vandal.  He is even saying that rather than simply a graffiti artist, he is an artist that uses the street as a canvas.  The sketches show his art as planned, well thought out, and intentional.  What Banksy creates isn't an accident, it isn't the product of troubled youth, and it isn't idle.  He sets the background here as the star of this scene, the color and vibrancy of the background draws the eye and calls attention to what Banksy considers to be important - the art. He is an artist and this is how he is showing his audience that through the set he has chosen.

2. Banksy is known for his art and anonymity.  He lives in the shadows of the art world, even in his documentary he refuses to let his face be seen and his voice be heard.  The mysterious nature of Banksy is meant to draw attention to his art.  Here he has placed himself in shadows again.  He is covering almost everything, except his hands, with black clothing and his face is completely hidden in shadow.  Where his hands covered or in shadow, it would be difficult to tell anything about him besides an assumption that he is in fact a he based on his posture and frame.  Practically speaking a street artist would want to keep in the shadows to avoid the legal repercussions of vandalizing for the sake of art, such as the legal issues Shepard Fairey has had to face.  Banksy has taken hiding his identity to the extent that it has created an identity for him.  Controversy over public appearances at the Oscars, whether he would even show and if he did would he be wearing his iconic mask or would he allow himself to be unmasked, are questions that were being asked in 2011 when his movie was nominated for an Academy Award.  Here he is clothing himself in the identity created through his anonymity and bringing the focus to his art and the messages he wants people to see.  Though there is an iconic Banksy style, it is derived solely from his art rather than his life, gender, race, etc.  By hiding his identity, Banksy also creates a person that could be anyone and everyone which allows for a universal ownership of his art.

3. On either side of himself, Banksy has placed faces.  He has hidden his own face but lights the faces around him.  These faces, however, are not descriptive.  The sketch is of a woman but beyond that it is difficult to tell anything about the woman.  She appears to be young and African American, but little is given about who she is and what she is looking at.  While this could be just an unfinished piece he is working on, in contrast to his hidden face, she stands out.  He wants his audience to see her and consider her.  On the other side of Banksy is his iconic monkey mask.  This mask is the other face; the face he dons when he is out in the world.  It is the closest to what he will give people of his identity - a primate.  It is primitive and calls attention to the roots of humanity, something we all have in common.

4. A running theme for this photo is what Banksy is hiding and what he is giving.  He doesn't give much away. He doesn't underestimate the intelligence of his audience.  He hides his face and doesn't make public appearances, but through his art he shows his passions, thoughts, ideas, and understanding of the world.  Perhaps his audience knows more about the real Banksy than we think.  By leaving out the usual markers of identity in his appearances, Banksy draws attention to not only his art, but what he considers to be his true nature.  By hiding his appearance and voice he is confront societal notions about people and the idea that we can know someone by looking at them.  He draws attention, instead, to the idea that we should judge people based on actions; what someone does says more about them then what they look or sound like.  By excluding accepted ways of creating identity from his identity, Banksy is keeping people from making assumptions based on physical appearance.

5. Little is given to the audience about Banksy; he sets himself in shadows and covers most of his body with black, formless clothing.  Here, however, he lets his hands be seen.  The lighting is set so that his hands come in contrast to the rest of his body.  He brings them to the forefront of the photograph and draws attention to them.  As an artist he works heavily with his hands.  They are how he conveys his message; whatever other tools he may use his hands are the one controlling the tools.  By setting them in contrast to himself he is saying that it is his hands that create the art, his face, his body - him - are not as important as his hands. He is attributing the brilliance of his art to his hands, as if they and they alone are responsible for conceptualizing and creating his art.  The posture of his hands is important as well.  They are closest to the audience and placed together in a prayerful, pleading posture.  Through his hands he is creating his art and asking you to consider it thoughtfully and take it seriously.  He has put his art at the forefront of his life and through his hands he is asking people to understand that and to look carefully at his work.