Critical Themes.
Interrogative Design.
As written in Wodiczko’s “Designing for the City of Strangers and Avant-Garde as Public Art”, interrogative design is defined as, “Critical articulation of what is most questionable and unacceptable in the present: the stranger’s pain in survival” (Wodiczko, 9). The bench in this photo represents that within a public space. It’s up to the viewer to decide whether the space is used for contemplation, socialization, or for some other purpose not currently known.
Experimentalism.
While this picture is seemly pretty simple, the nature of the reflection of light off of the windows was very challenging to achieve. After waiting a while and repositioning a couple of times, I found a result that works well. Corrigan and White state, “Adventurous filmmakers have used film to go outside the bounds
of traditional narrative and documentary forms, combining images and sounds of the seemingly mundane, the unusual, and even the bizarre in order to address and challenge their audiences in fascinating ways” (Corrigan & White, 286). Even though this concept discusses film itself, the same applies to photography. At a first glance, it’s not complicated; only when you dive deeper does it seem to have meaning.
Post Modernism.
In the “Theorizing the Postmodern” reading, Linda Hutcheon states, “In most of the critical work on postmodernism, it is narrative—be it
in literature, history, or theory—that has usually been the major focus of attention” (Hutcheon, 5). This picture feels like it has a narrative. First, there is simple modernity in the fact that the subject is standing over a complicated piece of technology. Second, there is the meaning behind what he is doing; it’s just up to the viewer. The viewer doesn’t know what kind of music he’s playing, or what the crowd is doing. You are only pulled into the focus of the DJ, clearly getting ready to cue his next track.