Photoshopping the real world
According to Wikipedia:
“Banksy is a pseudo-anonymous English graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol and to have been born in 1974, but there is substantial public uncertainty about his identity and personal and biographical details. According to Tristan Manco, Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s." His artworks are often satirical pieces of art on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti writing with a distinctive stencilling technique, is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His art has appeared in cities around the world. Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.”
Although Banksy’s works are primarily stenciled pieces or sculptures, I think that he embodies what digital culture is all about. In an age of image editing software where artists can superimpose images on to each other with a few clicks of a mouse, they are essentially doing what Banksy does with a stencil and physical can of spray paint. In many ways, it makes sense to think of what he does as “Photoshopping” the real word. With his wide range of influences, motifs, and themes, Banksy also embodies the mixing, combining, and manipulative elements of digital culture. Banksy’s artistic alteration of 500 Paris Hilton music CD covers and the substitution of her music with remixes from Danger Mouse marks an example where he directly interacts and influences digital culture. His seemingly rebellious attitude towards authority and established convention also is reminiscent of digital artistic culture’s own movement against corporate conglomerates and towards free software. I think Banksy is significant to digital culture because he tangibly shows in the real world what many artists can only show through Photoshopped or otherwise altered images.
It is evident from the video clip and from his brazen artwork that Banksy has a knack for creating provocative works that play on a strong sense of irony and incongruity. Personally, I like digital and graphical art so his manipulative style that mixes elements, media, and themes really appeals to me. I also like how his work has a strong underlying meaning or point that he is trying to get across. Being a former high school English teacher, I really appreciate strong thematic elements.
Here is a link to some of his work:
http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/Banksy/banksy.htm
And also take a look at this interesting clip that I found at www.ubu.com. This is where he alters the CD covers of Paris Hilton's music CD:
“Banksy is a pseudo-anonymous English graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol and to have been born in 1974, but there is substantial public uncertainty about his identity and personal and biographical details. According to Tristan Manco, Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s." His artworks are often satirical pieces of art on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti writing with a distinctive stencilling technique, is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His art has appeared in cities around the world. Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.”
Although Banksy’s works are primarily stenciled pieces or sculptures, I think that he embodies what digital culture is all about. In an age of image editing software where artists can superimpose images on to each other with a few clicks of a mouse, they are essentially doing what Banksy does with a stencil and physical can of spray paint. In many ways, it makes sense to think of what he does as “Photoshopping” the real word. With his wide range of influences, motifs, and themes, Banksy also embodies the mixing, combining, and manipulative elements of digital culture. Banksy’s artistic alteration of 500 Paris Hilton music CD covers and the substitution of her music with remixes from Danger Mouse marks an example where he directly interacts and influences digital culture. His seemingly rebellious attitude towards authority and established convention also is reminiscent of digital artistic culture’s own movement against corporate conglomerates and towards free software. I think Banksy is significant to digital culture because he tangibly shows in the real world what many artists can only show through Photoshopped or otherwise altered images.
It is evident from the video clip and from his brazen artwork that Banksy has a knack for creating provocative works that play on a strong sense of irony and incongruity. Personally, I like digital and graphical art so his manipulative style that mixes elements, media, and themes really appeals to me. I also like how his work has a strong underlying meaning or point that he is trying to get across. Being a former high school English teacher, I really appreciate strong thematic elements.
Here is a link to some of his work:
http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/Banksy/banksy.htm
And also take a look at this interesting clip that I found at www.ubu.com. This is where he alters the CD covers of Paris Hilton's music CD:
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