A Pantheon of Media Gods
print, Spring 2007
Graduate Studio II: Bethany Johns, Lucinda Hitchcock
Tags: aggrandizement, burlesque, caricature, celebrity, cynicism, mock-heroic, the media machine, pop culture, sass, snark
Overview
- A series of digital 13x19" digital prints that transform media celebrities into Greek Gods.
- A commentary on the power that individual pundits and journalists have in public access to information and in the shaping of public opinion.
Process
The assignment that this project came out of was to re-address an earlier work to create something new. I decided to go back to the Celebrity Catastrophe Wallpaper to focus on the other end of the issue by tackling the news machine itself, and decided to hone in on punditry and personality in the news media, and the control these people have over the narratives that persist in our culture.
Research and planning were crucial to this project. Visually, I wanted to reference neo-classical painting and sculpture, but maintain a modern perspective. I also wanted each image to make an appropriate mock-heroic comment on the personality and politics of each person I portrayed. For example, in Greek mythology, Aphrodite was a vain, temperamental goddess with a fickle, cruel heart – which is why I selected her for Ann Coulter, who is as well known for her looks as she is for her controversial politics.
I drafted a plan for all thirteen of the major Olympian Gods, but due to time and resource constraints, I could only realize six of them.
Form
The ancient Greeks portrayed their gods as people with fantastic abilities. Their unique personalities and biases played a critical role in their myths and stories, which I felt would make an apt analogy for depictions of famous journalists and pundits.
Each personality is merged with a statue bust and surrounded by symbolic tokens that reference both the god and the modern personality. Along the edge of each print is a Homeric-style hymn I composed to cement the translation from human to mythological figure.
A lot of people are fascinated by fame and the famous, to the point of obsession. People put their trust in what famous people say and do. Famous journalists, pundits and talk show hosts are especially powerful, as they can directly sway public opinion on an issue or topic simply by the virtue of their jobs.
But famous people, even journalists, are just people, and like the Greek Gods, inherently flawed.
Exhibition
This series was shown at the Sol Koffler Gallery in Providence, RI from October 19 to November 4, 2007 as part of the graphic design graduate show, Continuum.
(Exhibition photo courtesy RISD Graphic Design)
A Pantheon of Media Gods was also exhibited at the The Rhode Island School of Design’s
2008 Annual Graduate Thesis Exhibition from May 20 to June 1, 2008, and was featured in
The Providence Journal’s review of the show.
