Monday, May 19, 2008

The Effect of Visual Arts on Environmental Awareness

To influence minds of the masses, it has been resorted to visuals as a means of propaganda or lobbying for certain causes. In my paper I will discuss how Environmental agencies, ministries, media and NGOs have utilized visuals as a successful means in order to educate and influence the ideas of the commoners and in raising their awareness, as well as the extent to which the visual perception has been successful in achieving the original aim. This was attained through movies, animations, documentaries, photography galleries and contests, as well as posters.

Below is a prelimenary list of visual productions i compiled that deal with the subject matter reflecting on the importance of environmental awareness.

1. Movie releases\ documentaries:
“Inconvenient truth” ,
"The Great Warming" ,
"Crude Impact",
www.crudeimpact.com/

2. Photography exhibitions\ competitions:
Establishing “Environmental Photographer of the Year” prize, www.ciwem.org/arts/photographer/
Competitions on major TV channels, Nat Geo , BBC, etc…

3. Posters (competitions, display)


Design competitions (Earth Day)
NGOs (Greenpeace)


4. Series\Animations
TV productions and animated series have contributed to this awareness more implicitly. E.g. "Army recruitment" , the Simpsons’ politically geared jokes are the ones with the most bite and brilliance touches upon the issue of environmental awarness. This particular clip encompasses several topics from the episode regarding over-fishing, global warming, and deforestation.
As the visual arts can help portray our world in a subtle way, it can also be used to stimulate the emotional and motivational state of the perciever, hence visual perception as such can trigger a sense of environmetal awareness. My final paper will try to survey what's available , try to assess the impact of these visuals on the people , and discuss how it was visualy percieved.
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1 comment:

hawzers said...

This is very interesting.

I would suggest you include work that has been produced locally and critique it as well.

Try to locate what are the recurrent visual strategies that are used to represent the subject of environment and analyze them. What is their preferred medium (billboards? magazine ads? documentaries?) their actual message, the tone (confrontational? shocking? friendly?), the visual tool (photography? illustration? type?), etc. Can we start creating certain patterns that are recurring?

You can also locate WHO is raising the subject of environment and WHY. How does it differ when the NGOs, the governmental bodies, or the private companies raise this kind of awareness?

You have good references, but what are you reading on the subject? I do not mean what are you reading about the environment, but about these representations.

May 21, 2008 at 3:30 AM

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