20th Century Genocides
" CAN YOU FIX OUR FUTURE?"
Artist’s Statement
This is not a normal story. This is a story of four people who are either victims or perpetrators of the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a gruesome part of history because of the morbid skeletal remains of the many people Adolf Hitler tortured because of their non-conforming beliefs. Back in the late 1930s, walking around in Europe was almost impossible without seeing piles of decomposing bodies. If you were one of the lucky people who was fit to be in Hitler’s society, you would still undergo the terrifying acts of violence he committed.
I researched many victims and wrote overviews of their stories but only a few stood out to me. For example, one of them was Renee Tully. She was sent to the Auzuwitz Death camp with her mom in her teen years. What made her story so interesting was the the many attempts to escape from the camp. Although she never escaped, she and her mom did get out alive in the late 1940s when the Holocaust came to a halt.
When people walk through my exhibit I want them to understand what it was like to be a prisoner or a person killing a prisoner. I want people to truly understand the Holocaust Victims and what the trigger was in those chosen to be a bystander. In the end, I hope that the people walk out asking themselves can we change our future.
As the artist of this project, I worked hard on making masks and using my artistic skills. I enjoy acting so I could almost act out the Holocaust by pretending to assign people new identities to represent people of the Holocaust. I am good at Power Point so I thought by making the stories in Power Point so that the viewers would see a graphic imagery of this event in History.
Project reflection
I am most proud of my project because it was disturbing. Genocides are generally very graphic and hard to look at, which was the point I was trying to get across to the audience. The audience gave me direct feedback about the disturbing imagery which shows me that I was successful in completing my objective.
I felt the space I had for my exhibit was not as big as it needed to be. If I had another week to work on my exhibit I would have planned out the space that was needed a lot better. I would have done a pre setup and thought about my possible conflicts. I also would have liked to have had more bodies piled all over the inside of my exhibit. These factors would have made setting up a lot faster and my exhibit would have looked more professional.
Audience engagement played a big part in my project because you where given a mask that was symbolizing a person involved in the holocaust. Once given a short overview you entered the hunted house where you where given instructions. This made you apart of my project .
I feel my project needed improvement on the overall professional look. The way I hung my sheets with duct tape and staples was vary unprofessional. I also had some different colors of sheets and different sizes of sheets witch made my exhibit look vary rugged and patched up. I could improve this problem by planning ahead in a more depth way and making sure I have the supplies available before beginning the process of setting up.
For my overall grade I feel I deserve a B -. I believe I deserve this grade because my project was not vary professional. I scored myself a 70 percent because I was missing a piece and had some grammatical errors. However, my project did meet the standards of the connections category. I rated myself a 95 percent because my connections where clear, I used many symbols and images to represent the specific genocide I studied, and my research was put into a slide show for the audience to enjoy. The focus of my project was rated at a 99 percent because I communicated a very clear description of the main point I wanted the audience to know. My project was vary engaging because not only was the viewer looking at a haunted, creepy, disturbing seen, they also became a part of the project when handed a mask that represented the identity that the viewer would now have as they went through the story of a real person who was in the holocaust. All in all I feel a B – is a fair grade.
THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE
Analysis
I created a masterpiece that involved Photoshop. I decided to make a two sided poster that showed the Italians celebrating as the germens ruler is splattered with blood. I wanted the viewers to get that Italy is not going to take Germany’s threat, but that they too could have power. That’s why I have a bloody germen side to represent their leader’s death. I used many techniques to help get this point across. Fear was the first one I thought of, because my poster clearly shows that the Germany was Italy’s main target. Another technique that was used was direct order. My poster says “join the fight!” this technique is literally telling people of Italy to fight. This will make the viewer scared or amped up to fight, depending on whose side there on.
My poster deals with the leader of Germany from the time that ww1 was happing. Italy was not allied with Germany when the war started, so it makes sense that Italy is killing Germany. However, Italy started out in the triple alliance with Germany and Austria. But Soon Italy broke out of this alliance when they found that Germany and Austria where aggressors. Germany sneered about the incident and hinted that Italy would regret their decision. The words “grab a weapon, join the fight, dominate Germany” which are on the poster are related to ww1 because Germany was a power that others wanted. Italy wanted to take over Germany to get back at them for there remark. So my poster is representing Italy standing up for their country.
Propaganda is an interesting thing that not only happened back in ww1 but also to this day. I personally feel that it’s just annoying. Thiers so much of it and lots of it promotes bad ideas. Fore ensample, in ww1 they had posters telling people to “enlist in the army”. This is basically telling people to go shot at the enemy and get shot as well. And in everyday life now, we have propaganda telling us what to where, say, and think or do. The government and groups associated with propaganda use technology to get those points across. This technology includes internet, that uses pop ups, advertisements and chat sits/emails. T.V is another form which uses commercials to advertise, TV shows like Disney Chanel, MTV, and Teen Nick to interest the young crowds. Cell phones are also a grate way to pass along all of the above because of its world wide speed of light sending and abilities. Even though most of the bad ideas come from these recourses, there are many ways to use this technology for good.
Propaganda Reflection
During this project we were told to make our own propaganda. We had to use creativity in the Photoshop program or hand draw are propaganda. The rule was that are propaganda had to be from ww1. We could use whatever country situations we wanted as long as they were relevant to ww1. After a lot of thinking I came up with an Italy .vs. U.S. poster, but soon realized that they were allied and had to change to Italy .vs. Germany. All in all, my final product turned out to be awesome!
Throughout this process I had to make many revisions not only to my poster but also in my analysis. My poster started in Photoshop but ended up more as a cut, glue, and past project. I did that because Photoshop was too hard for me. I also had to print Meany different pictures that I enhanced in Photoshop to piece my poster together. After typing my analysis I got feedback from Lori and had to revise Meany times or add on to my paragraphs.
I feel that my masterpiece was well done due to the lake of Photoshop skills. I rely enjoy the freedom we had to be creative in our own way, but having that relate to ww1 was even better. I don’t rely like that we had to use Photoshop. I had a lot of frustration with it. I rely did enjoy making a graphic seen with blood drippings and blood splatter. All in all, the entire creativeness in this project worked well with me.
I have learned allot during this project but only a few things rely stuck out to me. I rely enjoyed the Black Hand. It was allot of fun to talk about being in a secret society and even getting to create our own in small groups. Another part in ww1 that stuck out to me was the weapons project. I had difficulty with the group I was in but I learned allot about U-boats and other weaponry used in ww1.thease two where rely all that I remember in the loads of stuff we were taught.
If I could revise my poster or do it again I would defiantly become a master at Photoshop. That way I could Photoshop everything at once and not have to print so much. Although my poster looks nicely done, I still could have made it allot neater in Photoshop. If I redid my poster fully then I would want to make a video or reenactment of the propaganda. I would want to do this because that is what I have allot of skills in. all in all I feel I did a job well done.
