Sunday, February 11, 2018

Trump and Nuclear Weapons? We need a different future . . . .

Dunne, Raby, and Anastassiades,
"Priscilla Huggable Atomic Mushroom"
from Designs for Fragile Personalities in Anxious Times


Yesterday I was at the Art Institute of Chicago and saw a staggering piece of art: "Priscilla Huggable Atomic Mushroom," from Designs for Fragile Personalities in Anxious Times by Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby, and Michael Anastassiades.

The plush mushroom cloud is the perfect size to hug while curled up in a fetal position: "The soft, toylike object allows users to confront (and cuddle) their fear of nuclear annihilation directly."


"The soft, toylike object allows users to confront (and
cuddle) their fear of nuclear annihilation directly."
Dunne, Raby, and Anastassiades,
"Priscilla Huggable Atomic Mushroom"
 

I immediately thought of the Kurosawa film I Live in Fear, about a man who is alert to the risk of the next atom bomb dropping and can't rest until he finds some sort of solution.


Fearless samurai portrayer Toshiro Mifune plays against type
as the haunted protagonist of I Live in Fear.


And then there is what people in Hawaii experienced recently . . . .

Dunne and Raby have a book entitled Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming, directed to getting us outside the ruts we're stuck in and inviting us to think about how the world could be completely different: "Dunne and Raby pose 'what if' questions that are intended to open debate and discussion about the kind of future people want (and do not want)."

What a perfect coincidence with the events of the past few days! We have just seen a vote of confidence in a new future by the people of Korea, as the teams from the North and the South marched together under one flag at the opening ceremony for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.


Athletes march under the flag of a united Korea
at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang.
(New York Times photo)
.


Could there be a starker contrast with the stuck-in-the-past behavior of the current US president?


"CNN BREAKING NEWS . . . .
Trump: If N Korea keeps threatening, will be met with 'fire'."


And people in the US were confronted with that very mushroom cloud imagery again this past week as the cover story of TIME described Trump administration efforts to ramp up the US nuclear weapons program. The TIME piece described how the US government is toting out all the old arguments -- "we need more, bigger, better so that they don't get a step ahead of us!" -- while also reporting the argument for an alternative future: "Enough! We don't have to do this!"

For anyone willing to imagine the alternative future, here are two ways to work to make it happen:

(1) Support the effort of members of the US Congress to restrict the US president's ability to conduct a nuclear first strike.

(2) Support the effort of countries worldwide to bring about a global ban on nuclear weapons. (It's happening now at the United Nations!)

Working for an alternative future: do we really have any other choice?


LIMITED TIME ONLY!
O F F I C I A L
Trump Administration
Collectible Plush Toy
MEMORABILIA!
offer good while supplies last . . . .


Related posts

Bunker Mentality

Is Kim Jong-un giving the US its "Suez Crisis"?

Korea: A History of Living Under Nuclear Terror

Nuclear Weapons: People Power Over Trump Power

133 Is a Lot of #Nuclearban-Supporting Countries


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Wednesday, February 7, 2018

MEMES: Moment, Frame, Image, Words, Flow

I make a lot of memes, and I'm trying to work on my technique.

On Monday, I headed for Cambridge to visit my granddaughter. I had a copy of Scott McCloud's Making Comics in my bag. I thought this trip would be a good chance to study McCloud's great analysis of comics ("juxtaposed pictorial/other images in a deliberate sequence intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer") and think about how his analysis might apply to the memes I create.

As I walked to the gate, I spotted this TIME magazine cover:


TIME, February 12, 2017: "Making America Nuclear Again"
featuring "Trump's Gamble"by W.J. Hennigan and
"Inside the Doom Factory" by Simon Shuster


"Well, I've gotta have that," I thought.

Later, as I read the first chapter of Making Comics somewhere above Colorado, I made notes about these elements:

* Moment
* Frame
* Image
* Words
* Flow

"I've got a few hours to kill," I thought. "What kind of meme would I like to make right now? Can I put these concepts to work?"

I thought about the TIME cover. It was a pretty good meme all on its own. It captured the moment of nuclear peril, using an image of a mushroom cloud, and all on its own it solved the problem of proper framing by showing the mushroom cloud within the magazine cover context (including the TIME logoface, associated verbiage, and an actual red frame).

I realized the words remained for me to add. It was immediately obvious that I wanted to rise above the ambiguous tone of the cover ("Making America Nuclear Again") and express urgency. The words that came to mind were, "When are we going to learn?"

McCloud stresses that the difference between a cartoon (one frame) and comics (multiple frames) is flow. My first thought was that my meme's flow could be from the TIME cover (frame #1) to the words "When are we going to learn?"(frame #2). Then I decided it might be interesting to show motion in the TIME cover ... starting with the original and fading to nothingness, to suggest the consequences of nuclear weapons.

This is what I ended up with:


@scarry on Twitter:
"Donald #Trump Is Playing a Dangerous Game of #Nuclear Poker"
@TIME @wjhenn http://time.com/5128394/donald-trump-nuclear-poker/ …


I tweeted it together with a link to the story in TIME, as shown in the caption above.

I'm still not sure if I like the font and size I selected for the words, "When are we going to learn?" I didn't want to shout, but rather to encourage the viewer to lean in and share in this personal message, and think about it. I hope it's big enough to be visible. (Maybe I'll revise it later, after an interval and then a fresh look at it.)

And now . . . time for me to study Chapter 2 of Making Comics: "Stories for Humans"!


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