Annotated Bibilography no. 7 & 8 -- Alex Deliso

Observation: The two images are drawings that are rendered almost like comics. There is a single figure depicted in both images—presumably the same figure--and his/her gender and race are indistinguishable in this particular set of images. The words “Let’s  have a talk/To bring us closer” are rendered in print above the character, surrounded by ‘light.’  The top image features the figure smoking a cigarette, and the bottom image features the figure turning to the reader with a glare crossing their glasses. Shadows cover the majority of the figure and almost all of the background, except for where the aforementioned ‘light’ appears to help accent the appearance of the words.

Inference: What interests me the most about this particular pair of images is that the person in the picture is completely obscured, so we cannot tell her gender or race through these images by themselves—it is only through the context of her other pieces of work that we are able to infer those pieces of information. The indistinguishable features seem to be deliberate, and that is somewhat confirmed in the article Acting Like a Man, where it talks about the Mythic Being. Some may interpret it as a lacking or hidden identity, but it may also be a case of an identity that blurs together. The irony of the bottom image is that its caption reads “To bring us closer,” but the image of the person is actually farther away from the ‘frame.’ This may indicate that an attempt to draw people together ends up pushing them apart and counterintuitive results may happen through these attempts.

The article Acting Like a Man brings into focus the idea of a ‘change’ based solely on a change of appearance, and how it has a psychological effect on not only how others perceived Piper, but also how Piper perceived herself. She not only started to act like a man, but also regarded herself as a man with male features, and called into question how race and sexuality are affected by a simple change in thought:  “Piper’s work engaged feminist calls for women to familiarize themselves with their bodies and liberate their sexuality, but it also broached what feminist literature identified as taboo of gendered discourse” (254), but at the same time looked at the opposing angle in order to seek justification for certain mindsets. Not so much that it was seeking literal justification—more so that it was taking ideals that are prevalent, looking at them from an ‘inside’ perspective, and using them in a way that allowed for more diverse ways of thinking about these subjects. In relation to the images, the search for these methods of thought are symbolized in the obscuring shadows, but has a figure that is willing to travel through these conflicting ideals even when the answers are not readily apparent.

Observation: This is a series of photographs taken of a single person dressed in a white outfit. Each photograph is framed with a thick, bold black outline, and the backdrop of the photographs is similar to a gray studio photo. The photos themselves take pictures of the person from differing angles, and the captions underneath give a narrative that is organized almost like a poem. The narrative reads as the following:

“So who’s your hero—

me & my runnin buddy

how his runnin buddy was standing

when they thought he had a gun

how Larry was standing when he found

out

when Buck was being himself

and on saturday when Calvin pretended

he was that famous football player

he could get into any club or

anywhere he wanted

for the past 6 months

work this week is temp.

high risk or low pay

Mr. Johnson walks out

say girl—

ain’t you color film at least?

Cecile with hands on hips got angry &

told him about himself in the kitchen

he stood by the refrigerator

whenever he hears Biko

the way he walks down any street

sometimes Sam stands like his mother”

Inference: This series of photos almost reads like a comic in the way that it’s structured. If photos are still shots of a single moment, then the panel-esque juxtaposition of the images creates still shots of time that flow in sequence. It makes use of juxtaposition in both the photos and in the captions by the way that they’re broken up—the choppy flow of the captions in particular creates an effect that reads like a genuine human voice that’s full of pauses and has personality etched it by the way it is organized. The poses themselves, out of context, may look defiant, but the captions add a defeated outlook to the overall message of the piece.

Although the photos do not appear to be in any specific order, the juxtaposition between them is far from accidental. It is important to note that none of the images feature the woman’s face, and the only one that gives a full shot of the front of her body features her crossing her arms. As stated in Marianne Lately—Lorna Simpson and the Cinema of Feminine Illusion, “Photographs do not speak, but they can speak volumes about what the photographer means them to say about his or her subject, living and breathing and dying in the frame” (Als 144). In essence, the photos here hold the power not in what they mean individually but what they mean when they are placed together. The first set of images almost look like she is walking away from the situation, but then the actor turns around and returns to the scene. When paired with the story that the captions tell, it creates a piece that appears to be about a cycle that is difficult to break and how that cycle is inherited to someone new whenever it circles around again.