Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Assessment
In my work, I wanted to challenge the pictures we are presented with by those promoting consumerism, and I think mixing images from reality, with those from the false reality of advertising, manages to accomplish this. I hope the pictures I produced for this project will provoke discussion, and achieve my original aim of getting viewers to question whether consumerism is all it is cracked up to be.
Overall, I am happy with my final set of images and think that they work well as a group. There are some however, that I believe could be improved with more time. In fact, one of the things I have learnt from this project is that finding suitable imagery on a subject can be a very slow process. If I were to do another project, with a similar schedule, I would definitely choose a different method of creating my pictures.
Having said all that, I do like the use of the “Readymade” and intend to develop the technique of photomontage within my personal work in the future.
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Cosmetics
This picture examines the cosmetics industry. In the background are the headquarters of Proctor and Gamble, a multinational company in control of many popular cosmetics brands such as Pantene and Gillette. On the building is a photo of a rabbit taking part in a Draize eye test. This involves rubbing cosmetics in the rabbits eyes for 14 days and then killing them. Also in the image are some mice bred with no hair to make cosmetic product testing easier, a slurry pit from a rabbit factory farm and a bag full of dead guinea pigs.

Traditionally known for their soaps and detergents, P&G now produce a massive range of products in hair care, cosmetics, perfumes, personal hygiene, laundry care, snack food, paper and feminine hygiene, and even pet food. P&G’s brands include Ariel, Daz, Fairy, Max Factor, Olay, Pantene Pro-V, Herbal Essences, and Head and Shoulders.
P&G admit that guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, ferrets, rats and mice are among the animals used in their ‘product safety research’, as well as cats and dogs in pet food experiments. Investigations continue to reveal disturbing examples of P&G’s ongoing involvement in painful and lethal animal tests.
Procter & Gamble exist for one reason, and one reason only - to make as much money as possible. P&G test on animals because of their desire to get new chemical ingredients on to the market. This allows them to claim that their new hair dye, skin cream or washing powder etc. is ‘new, improved’, in the hope of increasing sales. But with many companies producing similar consumer products without carrying out animal tests, it shows that P&G’s cruelty is motivated by greed.
Laboratory Cruelty you were not Supposed to See
In obtaining vital photographic evidence of the cruelty of vivisection - Brian Gunn has penetrated the veil of secrecy which shrouds laboratory animal testing research.
During the course of his undercover work he has both been threatened and badly beaten up. His thought-provoking photographs and investigative reports have won many awards.
Brian Gunn's pictures are extensively used on TV and in newspapers, films and magazine throughout the world.
Food
The subject for this image is the business of producing and supplying us all with food. It juxtaposes images containing rows of packaged goods, with landfill sites where the majority of what is on the shelves will end up. Also in the image are a butcher lifted from a supermarket promotional leaflet, a dinosaur made from plastic bags and a row of white eyed satanic cows ready to be milked.

Cars
In this picture I wanted to explore some of the issues surrounding the use of cars. In the background of the image is a depleted US oil field and a helicopter used by the US in the last Iraq war to secure fresh oil supplies. In the foreground is a pile of scraped and crushed cars, a Jeep from a car commercial, and a road traffic accident victim with a bone sticking out his leg.

Use of Resources
The manufacture, operation and maintenance of vehicles impacts the environment by using non-renewable resources such as:
Metals
Petroleum (for plastics and fuel)
Other fossil fuels (e.g. coal for production of electricity).
This affects the environment as follows:
Resources are finite, so we should use them wisely
Producing these resources can cause damage, e.g. damage caused by the mining of resources
Disposing of products at the end of their life can cause damage
Greenpeace says car scrap schemes waste taxes
"The schemes will not increase the competitiveness of the car sector, nor will they benefit the climate, the environment or road safety,"
Read More: http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE5383LB20090409
Greenpeace and Cars: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/cars
Monday, 27 April 2009
Holidays
I reworked my holidays montage without the writing and with a new sky. The upload problem I had before was due to it being in CMYK mode instead of RGB.

Fashion
I looked at the the production of cotton jeans for this montage. I wanted to try and show some of the links in the chain. In the background is a cotton field, a cotton market and the chemical plant that makes the pesticides and fertilisers for the cotton field. In the foreground is a shack used to spin and dye the cotton, mixed with imagery from a jeans sweatshop in China, and an advert for designer jeans.

Chinese Blue Jeans Sweatshop
"They only get about four hours sleep at night, which might help explain their tendency to doze off on the job. But the enterprising Mr. Xi demonstrates his remedy for such indiscretions, namely, stiff fines, and using clothespins to keep their eyelids open."
Read More Here: http://newsblaze.com/story/20070126232727nnnn.nb/topstory.html
The Real Cost
This image was partly inspired by the book, The Real Cost by Richard North.
http://books.google.com/books?id=_0WZ6P2QBvsC&source=gbs_ViewAPI&pgis=1
Electronics
This picture explores the the way consumer electronics are sold, and then disposed of. It is comprised of edited imagery taken from advertising for electronic goods mixed with images of illegal electrical waste dumps where the technology all too quickly ends up.
E-Waste
The UN estimates that some 20 to 50m tonnes of e-waste are generated worldwide each year, comprising more than 5 percent of all municipal solid waste. The fate of large quantities of this so-called e-waste is unknown. Much is exported, often illegally, for dumping in Africa or for rudimentary recovery in Asia, where workers at scrapyards are exposed to toxic chemicals when the products are broken apart and as water, soil and air are polluted.
Complete Wasters
This picture was partly inspired by this group who i did some voluntary work with last summer. http://www.completewasters.co.uk/
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Martha Rosler works in video, photo-text, installation, and performance, and writes criticism. She has lectured extensively nationally and internationally. Her work in the public sphere ranges from everyday life and the media to transportation, architecture, and the built environment.
The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems 1974-75. A series of 45 gelatin silver prints of text and images on 24 backing boards, each backing board: 11 13/16 x 23 5/8 in. (30 x 60 cm) Originally viewed at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England, as part of a Rosler retrospective.

Point and Shoot - 2008, Photomontage

Cleaning the Drapes 1967-72, Photomontage, 20 x 24 in.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Research
A rubbish dump twice the size of the United States has been discovered floating in the Pacific Ocean. The vast expanse of debris, made up of plastic junk including footballs, kayaks, Lego blocks and carrier bags, is kept together by swirling underwater currents. It stretches from 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

American oceanographer Charles Moore discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by chance in 1997 while taking a short cut home from a yacht race. He said: "Every time I came on deck there was trash floating by. How could we have fouled such a huge area? How could this go on for a week"?
He warned that the rubbish could double in size over the next decade if consumers do not cut back on their use of plastics. More than a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals die every year as a result of plastic rubbish.
Syringes, cigarette lighters and toothbrushes have all been found inside the stomachs of dead seabirds. The rubbish can also be dangerous for humans, because tiny plastic pellets in the sea can attract man-made chemicals which then enter the food chain.
Research director Dr Marcus Eriksen said: "What goes into the ocean goes into these animals and onto your dinner plate. It's that simple."
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Research
From A UN report released on 29/03/2004
At this present moment, the food crisis is seriously affecting the lives of millions of people in 38 countries around the world, predominantly in Africa. Sudan, Ethiopia and Afghanistan are currently suffering the most seriously from a food crisis. The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory is also seriously deteriorating. Famine and widespread lack of access to food means that in the world, 840 million people are suffering on a daily basis from chronic malnutrition. Around 36 million people die from hunger directly or indirectly every year. Progress in reducing world hunger has virtually come to a halt and in many countries hunger is increasing. It is time to recognize that hunger is not a question of fate, but the result of the negative effects of human action or inaction. It is a failure to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food.
Source: http://www.fao.org/righttofood/kc/downloads/vl/docs/Rtf%20hearing%2031%2003%202004.doc
Coca Cola in a Nazi Uniform
Coca Cola (GmbH) were the German bottlers for Coke under the leadership of the CEO Max Keith (pronounced Kite). Coke sponsored the 1936 Nazi Olympics where Hitler showcased his Aryan vision to the world, while hiding the "Don't shop at Jewish shops" posters.
Coca Cola GmbH sought to be associated with the Nazis, it became a bit of a joke that if Hitler or a high ranking Nazi was on the front cover of a magazine Coke would advertise on the back. Coke advertised on billboards that were by the Berlin stadiums, so people attending Goebbel's rallies had to walk past them.
Coke financially supported the Nazis by advertising within Nazi newspapers, in one instance Coke published responses to accusations from rival bottlers that they were a Jewish company. These denunciations were placed in Nazi rags.
Coke advertised in the Nazi Army paper shortly after the invasion of Sudetenland, the ad was a picture of a hand holding a bottle of coke over a map of the world, the slogan was "Yes we have got an international reputation."
Coke opened up a bottling plant in Sudetenland shortly after the invasion.
in 1941 when Coca Cola GmbH could no longer get the syrup to make Coke from America they created a new drink out of the ingredients they had available to them. That drink created for the Nazi soft drink market was Fanta.Fanta is the drink of Nazis.
Monday, 23 March 2009
Research
These images come from a book called Photomontage by Dawn Ades. It covers the history of combining pictures in collage form.
Above: A poster issued by the Republican ministry of propaganda during the Spanish civil war. It is now in the Victoria and Albert museum. The words basically say "What Europe tolerates or protects, your children can await"
Above: Ad Nauseam (1944) by Jacques Brunius. Primarily a writer Brunuis moved from France to the UK in 1940 where he helped to spread Surrealist ideas.
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Research
I looked at the images of Gee Vaucher today. You can read about her here:
http://www.96gillespie.com/artists_profiles/vaucher.htm
Or here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gee_Vaucher
The image below is of a billboard she designed to mark the 60th anniversary of the creation of Israel and goes well with my recent Israel montage.
This image below is from a record sleeve she designed for a band called New Prids.

The image below is from a book she produced called Animal Rites. This book explores the relationship between humans and animals and contains 48 collages.
"all humans are animal, but some animals are more human than others."
More images from Animal Rites here: http://www.96gillespie.com/archives/animal_rites/index.htm
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Research
Below is a version I photoShoped to look more like an illustration.
Link to PhotoShoped version: http://www.alexfleming.com/images/finalcollage72.jpgResearch

Source: Expenditure and Food Survey, Office for National Statistics
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Research
Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem were the two principal theoreticians of the Situationist movement. They were part of a small band of avante-garde artists and intellectuals influenced by Dada, Surrealism and Lettrism. The post-war Lettrist International, which sought to fuse poetry and music and transform the urban landscape, was a direct forerunner of the group who founded the magazine Situationiste Internationale in 1957. At first, they were principally concerned with the "suppression of art", that is to say, they wished like the Dadaists and the Surrealists before them to supersede the categorization of art and culture as separate activities and to transform them into part of everyday life.
Under capitalism, the creativity of most people had become diverted and stifled, and society had been divided into actors and spectators, producers and consumers. The Situationists therefore wanted a different kind of revolution: they wanted the imagination, not a group of men, to seize power, and poetry and art to be made by all. Enough! they declared. To hell with work, to hell with boredom! Create and construct an eternal festival.
In their analysis, the Situationists argued that capitalism had turned all relationships transactional, and that life had been reduced to a "spectacle". The spectacle is the key concept of their theory. In many ways, they merely reworked Marx's view of alienation, as developed in his early writings. The worker is alienated from his product and from his fellow workers and finds himself living in an alien world: The worker does not produce himself; he produces an independent power. The success of this production, its abundance, returns to the producer as an abundance of dispossession. All the time and space of his world becomes foreign to him with the accumulation of his alienated products....
The increasing division of labor and specialization have transformed work into meaningless drudgery. "It is useless," Vaneigem observes, "to expect even a caricature of creativity from a conveyor belt." What they added to Marx was the recognition that in order to ensure continued economic growth, capitalism has created "pseudo-needs" to increase consumption. Instead of saying that consciousness was determined at the point of production, they said it occurred at the point of consumption. Modern capitalist society is a consumer society, a society of "spectacular" commodity consumption. Having long been treated with the utmost contempt as a producer, the worker is now lavishly courted and seduced as a consumer.
Research
Typical girls try to be
Typical girls very well
Can't decide what clothes to wear
Typical girls are sensitive
Typical girls are emotional
Typical girls are cruel and bewitching
She's a femme fatale
Typical girls stand by their man
Typical girls are really swell
Typical girls learn how to act shocked
Typical girls don't rebel
Who invented the typical girl?
Who's bringing out the new improved model?
And there's another marketing ploy
Typical girl gets the typical boy
Research
In the mid-1970s, Prince was an aspiring painter who earned his living at Time-Life clipping articles from magazines for staff writers. What was left at the end of the day were the ads: gleaming luxury goods and impossibly perfect models that provoked in the artist an uneasy mix of fascination and repulsion, disgust and envy.
http://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/HD/pcgn/ho_2000.123.htm
+1977.jpg)
4 Women Looking in the Same Direction - Richard Prince
The Same Man Looking in Different Directions - Richard PrinceThursday, 12 March 2009
Research
Following on from the experimental montage I made last week (Safe European Homes - See earlier post below) I started looking at how tourism is sold to the consumer and found this map of Israel in a holiday brochure.
It seems Palestine has literally been wiped of the face of the earth. I find it interesting to compare it to real maps of the region.
This is a map from the BBC :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2001/israel_and_palestinians/key_maps/

This is a map that shows the land the Palestinians have lost in the last 60 years or so.

Of course none of this is mentioned in the brochure.
To quote the companies own literature "We will look after you and take you on a journey that will exploit"
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Reflection on Group Discussion
With my work on the web in a Blog however, (and no internet access during the lesson), it was hard for other members of the group to grasp the kind of images I was looking to produce as they had never heard of the artists I was researching and looking to emulate.
It was suggested by members of the group that I should look at the work of Situationist such as Guy Debord. This I intend to do.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Research
Taj Mahal - 1984Simmons uses plastic figures in this image to suggest the roles that were encouraged by the emerging consumer society that dominated her own childhood.
Alex Fleming
I made this montage to demonstrate the type of thing I am looking to produce. It pictures tourists at a gateway in Morocco. The images through the gateway are taken from a magazine article looking at the levels of violence and poverty in Africa.
Marx - 2009
This image of Marx was produced by freezing a black and white ink jet print. The water brings out the coloured inks. The idea was to link the serving up of political opinion with the serving up of frozen dinners.
Xray Specs
I know I am artificial
But don't put the blame on me
I was reared with appliances
In a consumer Society
I wanna be Instamatic
I wanna be a frozen pea
I wanna be dehydrated
In a consumer society
Art - I - Ficial by Xray-Specs
Monday, 2 March 2009
Research
Richard Hamilton
One of the founders of the Pop Art movement.
This is his description of Pop Art: "Popular (designed for a mass audience); transient (short-term solution); expendable (easily forgotten); low cost; mass produced; young (aimed at youth); witty; sexy; gimmicky; glamorous; and last but not least, Big Business." [Quoted in History of Collage by Eddie Wolfram, p. 159]

Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? 1956
Richard Hamilton's famous fifties collage Just what it is that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? was made with normal collage techniques by cutting and pasting parts of the pictures from magazines in one day. He began by making a list of topics to be presented in the image: man, woman, humanity, domestic appliance, food, cars, cinema, TV, telephone, comics, tape recorder, history and space.
Just what is it that makes today's homes so different? 1992This print updates the images for the nineties following the same list but using new computer technologies to scan picture elements electronically from a range of sources such as magazines, photographic prints, transparencies, and even a circuit board. Other details were 'grabbed' directly from video tape or shot with a Kodak DCS 200 digital camera and transferred into a computer. A variety of proprietary software prepared the material for transfer into a Quantel Paintbox to be masked, cut out, resized, put into perspective and pasted into the image. The process, which included learning to use the new technology, took many weeks.
Source: http://collection.britishcouncil.org/html/work/work.aspx?a=1&id=39513§ion=/theme/
Saturday, 28 February 2009
Research
Buy Nothing Day
There’s only one way to avoid the collapse of this human experiment of ours on Planet Earth: we have to consume less.
Saturday November 29h 2008 is Buy Nothing Day, It's a day where you challenge yourself to switch off from shopping and tune into life.
Saturday, 21 February 2009
Negotiated Project Proposal
Research & Practice
In Still & Moving Image
Production
NEGOTIATED PROJECT PROPOSAL
Your Name……Alex Fleming…………………………………………………………………
(Please Print Clearly)
De Montfort University
Department of Imaging and Communication Design
_______________________________________
February 2009
1. What is the idea behind your project?
You need to consider and discuss the theme, topic, focus or perspective of your project and why you are interested in it.
My theme is consumerism and the focus is on marketing products, ideologies and lifestyles. I am interested in this topic as I am keen to examine the power multinational companies have over us, and our governments. I am also interested in looking at the incompatibility of consumerism with a sustainable lifestyle.
2. What do you want to achieve through this work?
Discuss your artistic and personal aims of your project and comment on how you think it is likely to affect the people who experience it.
Through looking at the way consumerism delivers its ideologies to us I want to explore the concept that our lives have been stolen from us, re-packaged and then sold back in convenient monthly instalments. I would like people who experience the work to take a look at their lifestyles and surrounding, and those around them, and ask themselves, “Are we getting a good deal?” and "Are we happy with the way things are?"
3. What is the context of the project?
You need to consider how your project relates to contemporary and/or historical theory and practice in the subject area.
This project relates to the work of a wide group of artists from Dada and Surrealism to pop artists such as Andy Warhol, Peter Blake and Jamie Reid.
4. What research and development strategy have you defined for the project?
How will you set about achieving the goals you have set for your project including your working methods, artistic, technical and ethical considerations?
I intend to spent the first 2-3 weeks researching and concentrating the idea, I then want to spend about 2 weeks looking at how to create and display the work, this includes technical aspects and costing. The final 3- 4 weeks will be spent creating the work.
5. How feasible is the project?
Identify the risks/problems that might arise in the development of you project and provide a proposed timetable of activities. This will enable both you and your tutor to monitor progress.
The only problem I can think of at the moment is the possible use of copyrighted images.
Week - Activity
1 - Research subject and look for image ideas.
2 - Research subject and look for image ideas.
3 - Research subject and look for image ideas.
4 - Look at how the work will be created and displayed.
5 - Look at how the work will be created and displayed.
6 - Create work
7 - Create work
8 - Create work
6. What are the influences that have helped you in thinking about the project?
Provide a bibliography of reference materials in an alphabetical list. This can include but is not limited to:
· Written material from books, journals, articles and conference contributions or interviews.
· Digital and broadcast media.
· Performance and or live presentations.
· Artefacts, designs or exhibitions.
· Films, videos and other presentations.
· Advisory reports.
· Archival or specialist collections.
Books and Pamphlets
Photomontage - Dawn Ades
Warhol - Klaus Honnef
20th Century Dreams - Nik Cohn and Guy Peellaert
Hieronymus Bosch - Gregory Martin
Advertising Photography - Allyn Salmon
Bits of the Unfairy Tale - Danbert Nobacon
Surrealism - Patrick Waldberg
The Media Students Book - Gill Branston and Roy Stafford
7. Additional information
Include any further details, which you feel are relevant to the successful completion of your project that havn’t been covered in the previous sections.




