Multimodal Essay

Artwork on Buses in Pittsburgh

Artwork can be found all throughout the city of Pittsburgh hidden in doorways, displayed on the ground, in windows, or any space made available. A major problem with these forms of artwork is that they are physically static making them seen only by a small niche of people either going out and looking for them or by people passing by who happen to take notice. With the use of the new medium of buses, artwork can be seen by the masses with its outwardly bold displays and constant motion.
Demanding attention through their massive physical state, buses are not something that go unnoticed by the people of Pittsburgh who walk past them on the sidewalks. Glancing at the buses that pass by in a blur, one may notice many different kinds of artwork displayed on the exterior. On every bus in Pittsburgh there is a design of some sort trying to grab the attention of the audience. The buses display text, pictures, and a combination of both. Both the text and pictures serve very functional purposes, which is that predominantly of advertisement. Written in varying languages, the text on many of the buses is repetitive, multicolored, and a large enough font to be seen from a distance. The text uses the whole side of the bus as its canvas rather than sectioning off a rectangle of space, such as traditional advertisements do.
Port Authority, the company in charge of the mass transit of the city, has different sized displays advertisers can chose from to display their artwork. The options range from “the full wrap”, which literally wraps the artwork around the bus without regards to a rectangular shape, to a small rectangular space called “the tail-light” which displays the artwork on the back of the bus making it visible to those behind.
Artwork on buses has been seen in our cultural past for almost fifty years. One of the first groups to gain recognition for their bus art was Ken Kesey and his band on Merry Pranksters, who decorated a school bus, the Furthur, with psychedelic art making bold vibrant statements as they drove cross country. The ideology of bus art has changed little since then demanding viewers to take notice to the artwork.
The artwork on the buses contains both text and pictures. Some examples are the repeated words “Port Authority” or an advertisement for the local Pittsburgh Zoo. The artwork is usually specific to the different parts of the city that the buses pass through, so as to make a connection between the bus route and nearby attractions. Functional and purposeful, the artwork is mostly displayed in the form of an advertisement. Some of the buses however only contain abstract designs and patterns, serving no other purpose then as to be aesthetically pleasing. The buses are painted in unnatural colors not commonly found in the Pittsburgh landscape so as to stand out. Demanding attention and constantly on the move, bus artwork in Pittsburgh is a rising form of art that is continually able to reach the masses through its use of the mass transit system.

Mutlimodal Essay Rough Draft

Artwork on Buses in Pittsburgh

In a city such as Pittsburgh it is necessary to have forms of mass transit so as to transport the masses of people living in such a highly densely populated area. The mass transit in the city of Pittsburgh consists of buses, a subway called the “T”, and bicycles. Out of all of these forms of transportation buses are the most commonly used because of their convenient and numerous bus stops on almost every street block. Possessing its own lane on Forbes street, buses hold not only a physical dominance over all other forms of transportation in the city, but a physiological one also.
Demanding attention through their massive physical state, buses are not something that go unnoticed by the people of Pittsburgh who walk past them on the sidewalks. Glancing at the buses that pass by in a blur, one may notice many different kinds of artwork displayed on the exterior. On every bus in Pittsburgh there is a design of some sort trying to grab the attention of the audience. The buses display text, pictures, and a combination of both. Both the text and pictures serve very functional purposes, which is that of advertisement. Written in varying languages the text on many of the buses is repetitive, multicolored, and a large enough font to be seen from a distance. The text uses the whole side of the bus as its canvas rather than sectioning off a rectangle of space, such as traditional advertisements do.
These advertisements contain both text and picture, but the text is on a much smaller scale and is often a longer written phrase that is not repeated. The advertisements are usually specific to the different parts of the city the buses pass through, so as to make aware what is nearby on the bus route. Aesthetically appealing, the viewers attention is drawn to the functional artwork of the advertisements and text. Some of the buses however only contain designs and patterns of abstract shapes, serving no other purpose then as to be aesthetically pleasing. The newer buses are painted in colors not naturally found in the landscape causing them to stand out.

Annotations for Fredric Jameson Reading

Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism:
Everything is seen as waning and has already reached their maximum whatever that may be pertaining to each object individually. Postmodernism in culture takes a posistion on multinational capitalism whether it means to or not. It holds a dominant posistion in our culture with many features comprising it. Postmodernism helped form modernism and can be seen in it. Modern art, which is the precedent to postmodernism, during its time was seen as ugly because of the post victorian era that had just ended. Now because of education we see modern art for what it is and accept it. What was once seen as obscure and explicit is now welcomed with hardly any controversy. Today the aesthetic and commodity are now hand in hand with the aesthetic being overpowered by the idea of commodity and capitalism. With postmodernism we leave the past and don't integrate it, and postmodernism is the pinnacle that all culture must reach.
I) In "Peasent Shoes" its message has been demoralized and most see it as a pretty piece of art now. The viewer must look at the piece in terms of context and how it was made. The painting expresses hardworking unpleasent peasent life. It's a part of a capitalist society. Art rises not from how it physically is aesthetically pleasing, but rather from its social and historical meaning of the time. Since the painting is now mass produced it is seen as a material object seen for nothing more then visual pleasure. In "Diamond Dust Shoes" the object is there to represent something bigger and greater occuring during the time. A problem with postmodernism is the question of trying to find the political statements critical in art. Postmodernism is seen as more superficial and face based compared to modernism. Appearance is lost through photographs and becomes mutated. With the Waning of Affect the newer image has lost some affect due to frivolity, but not all is gone. The aesthetic becomes lost in high modernism to make way for social meaning. Inward emotions are conveyed through outward appearance. There are four models to measure depth in art: the dialectal, Freudian model, existential model, and great semiotic opposition. Surface appearance replaces depth in these models. Loss of depth can be physical and literal such as a building that gives the illusion of being unsupported. The postmodern world does not know anxiety and allienation, but rather the opposite effect occurs causing the subject to break. The subject conveys outwardly the inward emotion being felt. The downfall of this monad-like subject is that the subject becomes self-sufficient and its shut off from all other things. With postmodernism comes the end of the bourgeois style, such as individual brushstroke. With the loss of subject feelings are left up for interpretation and not defined for you by the artwork.
II) Individual subject has disappeared with its personal style. Dialect is also affected by the change in social life and speech is reduced and many jargons are formed. Leaving the old modernist style of speech and enter the postmodern redifined jargon. Because no longer a ruling class in capitalistic societies styles are heterogenous, because not one hierarchy is imposing its beliefs which causes a loss of collectivness. The pastiche then arises which imitates parody found in modernism and is a void mimicry of it. With the collapse of the ideology of style, uniqueness is lost and people who produce culture have to look to the past. Historicism is the random compiling of past styles to create an allusion of the past. Simulacrum then occurs with the idea that there was never an authentic and everything is a copy of something else. In the Nostalgia mode our addiction to the photograph is seen as historicism. Ideology of generations emerged through an attempt to understanding the past. Many look to the 1950's as the desired lost era and we can continually surround ourselves with past generations.

Andy Warhol: "Diamond Dust Shoes"

Warhol's pop art piece displays various high heeled shoes on a background of sparkling black. Larger then actual life size, the shoes are laid in various positions and angles appearing unorderly. The shoes are placed so as not to overlap eachother, but Warhol almost gets a little sloppy with the paint and allows for some of the colors to spill over other shoes at the points where they meet. Using acrylic paint Warhol uses various colors and shades to paint each shoe. Anywhere the print came out black whether it the background or shadows created on the shoes, Warhol added a sparkling touch. All of the black on the painting sparkles and shimmers, because Warhol added sparkles to resemble diamond dush. The object of high heeled shoes gives off an air of sophistication and famousness with the addition of sparkles. By adding the shimmering touch it makes one almost think of flashing lights which leads your mind astray to stardom and the flashing of cameras. Also the sparkles give the allusion of diamonds and how they sparkle. The subject is very fitting for the mood that is given off, because if old ragged shoes were painted the same feelings would not be evoked and would contrast with the sparkles. Fitting of Warhol's attitude and obsession with stardom the piece is easily associated with Warhol and and what he stood for.

Vincent Van Gogh: "A Pair of Boots"

In this painting Van Gogh takes an ordinary object most people would never think twice about and focuses in on it turning it into something to be looked at. The painting is of a brown pair of boots untied with the right boot upright and the left boot laying on its side. Rugged and well worn, the boots resemble work boots that would have been put through rough conditions. They sit on a blue floor with a brown wall meeting in the back of the painting, but without a defined horizontal line. The lack of definition between the wall and the floor is due to Van Gogh's painting stlye. He uses large defined brush strokes that are visible and without rigidity causing an almost blurry effect so as not to give the object a defined shape. A post impressionist painting, the painting is more concerned with conveying the mood of the picture and color rather than the realistic shape of the object. The fact that Van Gogh chose a pair of work boots over nice dress shoes gives an entirely different mood to the painting. It appears almost tired and lonely and gives an impression that the person who wears them might even live a modest hardworking life. The subject therefore becomes very important in conveying the mood and giving the painting a meaning.

Barthes and Rivane Neuenschwander

BARTHES: Rivane Neuenschwander's I Wish Your Wish Barthes essay From Work to Text relates to artist Rivane Neuenschwander's idea of art who uses text to comprise her piece of artwork. Ribbons hanging from holes in the wall display phrases of individual text each with their own specific meaning. When put together the ribbons make a whole piece of work, but divided they are just a piece of the whole. When divided they are taken into context of wishes made by individuals, but when all displayed together the greater meaning of the piece comes out. The viewer notices that in a group a greater message is conveyed and that many peoples wishes went into producing the work. Each ribbon has an individual meaning, because "text is not a co-existence of meanings but a passage, an overcrossing"(Barthes 159). The passages are displayed individually and put together to produce the piece of work. The work has many meanings with many co parts that comprise it, because "text is plural...an irreducible plural"and each ribbon makes its own individual statement. The text on the ribbons has many different meanings, which when understood as a whole become a work of art conveying the wishes of people from all around the world in various languages of text with unique messages.

Works Cited: Barthes, Roland. "From Work to Text." Image Music Text. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1977. 161-61.