Mixed Media Project

Statement of Intent.

For this module I intend to manipulate a copy of The Conservative Manifesto to visually reflect a utalitarian and hedonistic perspective.

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, a quote attributed to John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902) in 1887. It is this notion that is to be expressed within this work, that will reflect concepts of political power, the abuse of that power, the notion of truth and the element of trust.

With political power there are two great influences, liberty and equality, but the two are incompatible. If society had complete freedom then there would be social discord and no social mobility but if society had complete equality then there would be no personal empowerment. Having a utalitarin regime promoting personal desires under the guise of liberty and freedom, it becomes a case that everyone is free to choose something that makes them feel good, these concerns become purely academic and consequently a charade.

By producing an altered conservative manifesto I will be commenting on issues such as personal freedom and responsibility and the promotion of a utopia within a political system. I will photograph scenes that promote such a perspective, but with an element of perfection created through digital manipulation, images that have been retouched and beautified.

The photographs themselves will be in the genre of social documentary and will be shot using digital technology. The photographs will be printed onto the page as this makes them more intrinsic with the text, and then lines of text will be underlined to suggest the meaning of the image.

The work will also explore the issues around semiotics, of how signs work and how a written language can interact with a visual language.

The end result will be a printed version of the conservative manifesto that has been altered to suggest a different meaning that lies behind the manifesto, a promotion of a utopian society.