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| This is a deconstruction of images found in Sept/Oct magazines. It is a juxtaposition of modern and postmodern themes represented by images of water and submersion. I looked through every magazine at Barnes & Noble and that other big chain store. At first, I was suprised by the new mags--so self-reflexive & cool, oh and edgy (almost uncomfortable edgy). Suddenly, I move from fashion to current news magazines. Startled, then creeped out. A special issue of National Geographic on the tragedy of Katrina. I began to see parrellels and resemblances between the glossy ads and the journalistic photographs. This was an experience of uncanniness. (Susan Lepselter states "the uncanny is something that is glimpsed only thru multiple effects, appearing in narrative form. In a multiplicity of verbal and image forms, and the relations that build up between them, is the social object of the uncanny. A popular definition is an eerie or frightening experience of both familarity or likeness and yet is novel.") I have seen these images before and yet this is a novel event in itself. Also, these fashion photos, particularly the drowning fashion shoot titled "Liquid Sky" where a woman is wearing couture in these poses so close to those of Katrina or at least my imagined experiences of the victims (in one photo the woman is underwater, struggling in her high heels and lipstick). Apart these images in their appropiate context aren't uncanny or unusual but together the images are shocking. |
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