When the output (or "products") function along side other products, it forms a system. I tried to visualize a system with my original postcard and the new product that my partner created with his own added imagery that supports my message of the shoe shining box becoming an obsolete object.
I had to research additional information that supports my visual dialog. I am now trying to place the product in a "historical" contextual system.
• What is the impact/relationship to other products?
By using an old newspaper article from the time period of WWII (aka 1939-1945) I am relating my shoe shining box to this time period. The cutout of the missing shoe is no longer a white space, but now it is part of the overall system I have created. The newspaper give an indication of when the decline of shoe shining began.
• What is ONE argument (from a historical point of view) that can be made about the object?
Shining shoes was a respectable form of urban living in the past and gave many successful business types their first foot hold on the corporate ladder. Before the Depression, no bustling city street in the US was complete without fleets of shoe shine boys armed with their homemade wooden shoeshine box, cheap black and brown shoe polish and old cotton rags, all in an eternal quest for nickels and dimes. After the Second World War the enterprising business went into steep decline but personned, shoe-shine stations could still be found in main airports and big city underground garages etc. As the decades have passed, the amount of shoe shiners have decreased even more, mainly because the shoes that are in need of a "shine" are not as popular anymore.
• What are the ramifications or benefits of this system?
This system that I have created results in the viewer gaining knowledge of
a) what the object being shown actually is (the cutout shape of the shoe is an index of what the shoe shining box is used for)
b) what the missing shoe creates as a product ( "shoe shining is becoming extinct, because people don't need their shoes shined anymore")
c) why and when did the depreciation of my object begin?
• How could that engage in a dialectic based on the second postcard?
The second postcard left a lot of things open for question. Why did the receiver of my original postcard cut out the shape of a shoe and leave the composition with such tension and uncomfortable balance? What exactly was he intending to say? The system I have created explains and defines what I thought he was trying to say with his output postcard.
2 comments:
The final postcard still comes across negatively as before. The shoe cut-out shows the related product--the shoe--and the fact that it is cut out shows that it is disappearing (or gone). The newspaper is a nice effect, dating it back to the time period (kinda, I'll get to that in a second), and the small bit of text you can see sets a nice mood. "Daily, Surrender, Over" they all give a sense of hopelessness, like this is done and gone and no one cares.
There is a small issue though...your newspaper is from 1945 (WWII), in your research before you said that shoe-shining didn't really make it through the depression. Maybe this works though, in saying that the end of the second world war was when shoe-shining finally "gave up the ghost".
The sepia color on the newspaper is nice. It adds a pop that i think the postcard was really lacking before. It also directs your eye to start with the main message and work your way through the image to figure out what's going on. It promotes "discovery".
You are correct, I am still showing the postcard in a negative tone. The newspaper is the new element that I added to the "product" postcard you gave me to work with. I was trying to create the system of "shoe shining has been on the decline since the end of WWII." After the Second World War the enterprising business went into steep decline. As the decades have passed, the amount of shoe shiners have decreased even more, mainly because the shoes that are in need of a "shine" are not as popular anymore.
The text of the newspaper article I decided to use includes the words that you also pointed out, "Daily, Surrender, Over." Not only do these words give a sense of hopelessness, but they also indicate that the war is over and now this job of shoe shining is pretty much over. Newspaper also is a good object to use to build my system because it is an index of shoe shining (based on my research from the last project). People often read newspapers while getting their shoes shined, so the viewer of my postcard could gather that, ok, "The shoe shining box, the cutout of the shoe, and the newspaper article about the war being over in 1945 all create a message."
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