Project Ideas

The remainder of the semester for this class (Iconography) will probably be devoted to our usual procedure of going through iconographies and also to our individual projects. As it is a Fine Arts class, there is no restriction - it can be academic or creative. Still, I decided implicitly to just do an academic paper - it is what I do best, I think.



We are supposed to submit 3 proposals next Monday as to what we can do and, although none of these three have materialized yet, i have the following ideas:

• On the Evolution of the Machine as an Icon: From the Industrial Revolution to the Transformers


• The Role of Animals in the Iconographic History of Two World Wars


• Comparative Study: The Influence of Christian Iconography in the Album Cover Art of Christian Alternative/Rock Bands (Switchfoot, Jars of Clay, etc.)

I like all three. On the first, I want to delve on the evolution of the idea of the machine/the robot/the automatic as an icon and as a central theme in modern art and popular culture. Of course, the machination/mechanization of our society was started during the Industrial Revolution but the face and depiction of the Machine is very different now. A side issue will be the idea of creation - how man has created machine and the ironic overturning of this human dominion by this creation. Plus, I get an excuse to filmfest through Transformers, Star Wars, AI, Millenium Man and all those movies.

The second was an idea since I wanted to do an Iconography of War Symbols. Of course, the animal has been something important since the advent of zoomorphism in Primitive Iconography. But much has changed and new meaning has been appropriated - I seek to ask the question: what are the roles of animals now, as symbols and icons, in a historical period of war and turmoil? Demands real research.

The last was just an idea that came to me while shuffling through my playlist - Switchfoot, a Christian alternative band, had album covers that had subliminal Christian themese in it. And I hoped to extend it to other Christian alternative/rock groups as well - and expand my playlist in the process.

Check out/challenge my last idea and look at these cover art...

I see Christian elements in the first and the second. The third is somewhat enigmatic but it can be argued nonetheless. So in as much as Switchfoot is a Christian alternative band with some Christian themese in their music, their album art also contains hint of their Christian influence.

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My other fall back ideas...

• Iconography of the Lady of Guadalupe: An Intersection of Faith, Science and Art (based from Sir Pope's SOSE Exchange Talk)
• Tracing Christian Influence in Communist Iconography and Symbology

Movie Posters

[Finally, a new post... After ages...]

We just discussed movie posters a while ago - how good they were as pictorial representations and how they themselves tell a story. We were asked to bring movie posters as a homework. Two of my classmates brought the following movie posters...

Miroy said this one was easy - childish even. The story can be gleaned directly from the picture - almost like arithmetic.

This one was a tad bit more sophisticated. Indeed, it was a rich pictorial representation - I was able to glean a lot of things even if I was not familiar with the story of the Notebook.

This one was what I planned on bringing. What do you think?

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Again, according to him - nothing here is for aesthetics - or even accidental, nothing in art is. Art is all about conveying meaning - it is communicative. Art is about power. Art is about money. Not just beauty but meaning and communication.

Trinity and the Deathly Hallows

Yesterday, in class, we discussed the various trinitarian icons from both eastern and western christendom. The aeternitas caught my attention (no photo from the net) - it showed God, the father, sitting with the sun behind him and in front of him is the trinitarian combination of the circle and triangle (triangle inside the circle). Of course, the other combination (circle inside the triangle) is also regarded as a trinitarian symbol.Lately, we also saw this in the last book of the Harry Potter, in the symbol for the deathly hallows.

Harry Potter, of course, draws largely from iconographic history - primitive, greek, christian and, even, eastern. As Dr. Miroy says, Art is never original. Never mind that Ricoeur will contest this idea.