Tuesday, February 13, 2018

an interpretive enigma


I confess - I don't know how to read this.  I saw the guy - looking uncomfortable - on my way to work this morning, at the same time that I was listening to an NPR piece about homelessness in LA.  It's not that I think he's technically or necessarily homeless, but at the same time the precarity of those who have to cope on slender means with the rapacity of the Los Angeles housing market, or who may not be here with legal documentation, is everywhere.  But what I hadn't seen when I took the picture - in haste; stopped at traffic lights - was the advertisement board.  It's an anti-abortion ad, exhorting one to "believe in miracles;" telling one that there's a heartbeat at 18 days (oh, come on - a foetal heartbeat can first be detected around 6 weeks - that's 42 days - at the earliest).  But given how long I spend in classes assuming that text in images can, or should be read, as a commentary on the rest of the image - what do I do with this?  And what do I do with the fact that there's nothing deliberate about the juxtaposition of text and man?  And that rather than some kind of happy accident, what I'm left with is some kind of interpretive enigma?

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