Our class readings and discussions have recently focused heavily on narrative, and in terms of this assignment, how to convey a narrative through maps, with a focus on the discursive element, e.g., how and through what medium the story is told, and the significance of what the creator chooses to include/exclude in the telling. In digesting this, I began thing about how, when bored, many of us have a tendency to scope people on the subway and make passing judgments/guesses about their emotional states/stories/thoughts, etc.
Our third assignment for ISCO was to create a portrait of a real or fictional character from two or more distinct points of view using multiple iterations of the same medium (see project brief below for full details).
In creating this multi-perspective portrait of Barack Obama, I used the visual language and symbolism of Byzantine and early Christian diptych artwork as a commentary on the polarized religious and partisan political rhetoric surrounding the current presidential election. Both candidates have been heavily narrativized by their campaigns and the media, but Obama’s representation in particular has arguably bypassed characterization into caricature: he has been both unrealistically deified by his proponents and outrageously demonized by his detractors.