Remix
Semester A of Third-year of University - Small task
Brief:
Understanding the question:
"Can art be seen as a form of protest or activism?"
Utilising our own artistic skills we had to address or respond to contemporary political issues.
Here is the university brief for this small project.
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Research:
Using the brief provided I looked at Jonathon Barnbrook and his Adbusters as well as another form of art protest known as "cold war steve" and using these two examples of creators I created my visual pieces using these two people's work as inspiration.
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Execution of the project:
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Cold war Steve inspired responses:
These responses are my "Cold War Steve" inspired artworks and these responses came about very shortly after the controversy during Covid-19 when the Pubs of West Minister remained open after Curfew as well as without the collection of NHS Track and Trace details. This controversy was all over the news at the time and sparked discussions on whether the upper-Class politicians could abide by one set of rules while the general public had to abide by another.
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As cold war steve is very much a political art activist I thought this would be a perfect place to start to demonstrate my own understanding of using art as a weapon through these satirical political pieces - the rest of these responses stemmed from the first and I thought it would be interesting to explore these political leaders in other unconventional, unlikely situations.
Jonathon Barnbrook (Adbusters.org inspired) responses:
These next two responses were inspired by Adbusters and Jonathan Barnbrook - his art, in particular, is somewhat anti-capitalist, and a lot of his work is spoof ads for various companies.
For my responses I thought it would be interesting to also explore this avenue, with spoof ads for coca-cola and KitKat, pointing out the negatives to these two corporations and how both products can be severely unhealthy for the human body.
These responses are satire and are made to point out issues with rising obesity as well as the sugar tax policy that hit the UK back in 2018.
