For the task of “appropriation”, I was required to liberate existing media images from the public domain and recontextualise the media images to create a set of images with new readings and intentions.
For the first image, I chose an image taken from The Sun tabloid newspaper. The image was originally a male and female ‘reading’ The Sun newspaper. The means in which I appropriated the image was adding The Sims 2 Plumbob (The green diamond) above both, the male and female’s head to show that they are under control; As the Plumbob figure represents the characters in The Sims 2 that are being controlled by the game player.
The reason I chose to do this to the image of The Sun readers, is because The Sun newspaper’s political alignment is in favour of the Conservative Party, Led by David Cameron. The Sun tabloid newspaper is a subsidiary of News Corp; Founded and Chaired by Rupert Murdoch, who is known for having secret backroom talks with PM David Cameron during the Leveson Enquiries.
Below is the original image of The Sun readers (left) and my appropriated image (Right).
For my other piece of appropriation work, I chose to appropriate something more current in the News. This being the Salafi Jihadist militant group known as ISIS. They have been in the news many times now, however one article that stood out to me was “Teenager thrown from roof ‘for being gay'”.
I have a strong dislike against ISIS for their heinous crimes, not just for throwing a gay teenage male from a roof just because of his sexuality. However, I felt that homosexuality “hits them where it hurts”. Thus being said; I chose to edit an image of two members of the ISIS militant group holding the ISIS flag and edit the ISIS flag out and add a rainbow flag, which represents the LGBT movement. I deem the appropriated image to be a “middle finger” gesture towards the ISIS militant group. Below is the contact sheet of the before (top) and after (bottom) images.
The inspiration for this piece of work had stemmed from the “JE SUIS CHARLIE” slogan/logo and the movement for the freedom of speech, Which originated from the satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo”