Reading an Image

The difference between an advertiser and a promoter is one person is trying to create an image or craft something wordy that entices you as his or her job.  The other is trying to raise awareness that is probably more personal to the artist and not necessarily for his or her job.  Now the first description is someone who is doing a job and trying to create something in order to get the highest profit margin.  It’s true someone can be passionate about their job but there is always still the underlining factor of money.  The second description holds the underlining factor of passion.  A promoter tends to draw more directly on the audience’s emotions or experiences to provoke a response.  Tampering with people’s emotions about a sensitive subject can yield a wide variety of responses and often unpredictable. 

Image

When using an image of a national shame, like the World Trade Center attack, some people can become offended.  This image not only uses the tragedy but it changes it to a symbol of something else.  At first glance this image appears blasphemous and might even offend you.  The artist created this image specifically for that purpose.  He printed the picture in the same resolution as the photos taken on 9/11/01 so that the audience realizes the magnitude of smoking deaths.  . He wanted to convey the message that people who smoked we not just dying, they were being killed. 

The picture looks like it is cut out of a newspaper and was at one time folded up because of the creases going through the picture.  It offers the message that the artist might have been going through old newspapers and found this in his collection of important headlines.  I imagine that there are a lot of people who still have the original article that announced the World Trade Center attack from the New York Times.  When the average American is reminded of the incident, they become flooded with sympathy, empathy, and possibly rage.  Rage against the villains who did it.  That same rage is meant to be directed toward smoking and channeled to empathy to make a difference in the fight against smoking. 

The artist left the red of the flame in the cigarettes just as it appears in the pictures of the Twin Towers burning.  Normally, you cannot see the color of the actual burning tobacco in broad daylight.  This color is meant to match the red in the word “killing” to illustrate nastiness and tragedy of smoking addiction.  The color in the burning tobacco of the cigarette yet again draws the mind of the viewer to the nationally renowned horrifying memory.  This picture, as advertisements and promotions are, is very opinionated and leaning one way.    It is debatable whether smoking actually “kills” people or if it is their own will killing themselves.  This must be kept in mind when viewing a picture such as this.  The artist can manipulate the viewer as they want when the viewer’s emotions are compromised.  

by- Cole Moffitt, Jonathan Gourley, Claire Reyburn, Rebecca Pottebaum