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IVT105

Subvertisement Studio Project

We have begun to explore the language of advertisements and how they contain both explicit (denotative) information about the products they sell and lots of sub textual (connotative) messages. These underlying messages both reflect and create much of our culture’s ideologies. An ideology as we have defined it, is a socially constructed set of ideas that guides the behavior of a group, social class, or individual. Thus ads are the makers and or promoters of our attitudes and values in almost every aspect of our lives. This is why so many visually creative social critics use the advertisement as their medium of choice.

Subvertising and Culture Jamming:

Subvertising refers to the practice of altering existing ads in ways that calls attention to and critiques problematic notions of social behavior and consumerism. Subvertising is one form of culture jamming that “entails transforming mass media to produce ironic or satirical commentary about itself, using the original medium's communication method. Culture jamming is usually employed in opposition to a perceived appropriation of public space, or as a reaction against social conformity.” (Wikipedia entry on Culture Jamming)) Culture jamming can take many forms including the adulteration of advertising in public spaces, the mimicking or co-opting of public signage, and the staging of media hoaxes, web interventions, and activist performances. Some of the better-known practitioners include Shepard Fairey, Bansky, Poster Boy, the Billboard Liberation Front, the Bubble Project, and Adbusters (see slide presentation available on Bb.)

Studio Project Assignment:

In this studio project we will further explore the visual and textual language of advertisements by physically altering a selected ad in such a way that it subverts the ideological message it promotes. In other words, your subvertisement must act as a critique of the original ad. The manner of your subversion must in some way be consistent with the original ad’s ‘language’ (communication method, visual style etc.) You may work with any single ad you wish. If the image originates in a digital form it must be no less than 1000 pixels wide.)

1. Preparatory Research

Read the full Wikipedia entry on Culture Jamming at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_jamming

2. Writing including:

Analysis Writing (no less than two pages!)
Carefully select the ad that will be your subvertising target and do a complete analysis of its denotative, connotative, ideological meanings as we did in our earlier exercise. I suggest you select an advertisement that you find problematic, understand how it is problematic (analysis) and then decide the goal of your critique (what message in the ad do you want to subvert and why?).

Project Proposal (one or more pages)

Once you have completed your analysis, then explore various way you might achieve this subversion by describing no less than five ways you might transform the ad and how each option critiques the original ad’s problematic message. Do not limit your ideas to changing text, how might you communicate your critique by changing or adding images and or the visual construction (design) of the ad.

Submit: Submit the writing assignment by email as an attached document titled lastname_subvertise.doc including an embedded image of your original ad. AND as a hard copy, prefaced by this assignment page should in your notebook.

3. Studio Work

Create a digitally collaged subvertisement as described above. Refer to the Photoshop Overview for a list of basic software functions. We will work in the digital lab for 2 class meetings.

Submit: Email me your final subvertisement image as a jpeg file titled lastname_subvertise.jpg

4. Self-assessment (no less than two pages) including:

A. Summarize your goals and expressive intentions

· What aspect of the ad’s ideology were you focusing on? (the specific message and how it references or engages in specific cultural attitudes)

· How does your version subvert message? (Describe the changes you made and the new message that arises)

· How did you engage the original ad’s language to construct your critique? (The ad's 'language' could be both the tone and structure of the text and or the visual structure of the image.)

B. Reconsider specific decisions

· Given your goals stated above, what were some of the most and least successful aspects of your subvertised artwork?

· How could you have handled the least successful aspects better? (be specific as possible).

Submit: This assignment should be printed for your notebooks and placed after part 1.