Cartaya Scalar Project : IML 201 Main Menu IML 201: The Language of Digital Media Olivia Cartaya, Spring 2021 Visual Table of Contents A Data Collection of all Pages and Media Intrographic Who am I? Video Essay A Decade of Pussy Riot: a punk guide to post-internet political art Responding to "Regarding the Pain of Others" by Susan Sontag The Power of A Single Image in Media Relevancy

Image Project

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Inspired by both Barbara Kruger’s visual and textual components and Joiri Minaya’s themes of “tropicality” or the over-sexual colonial perspective of Carribean women’s bodies, I created a digital image collage which I felt best combined the two as well as helped convey my personal experiences as a cuban-american young woman. For better reference, the woman is from a Cohiba cigar ad and added a “flamboyan” or royal poinciana flower to the woman’s hair (this tree is found all over Cuba’s tropical landscape and is prominent throughout Cuban art and culture). Similar to Minaya’s pieces in which she collages tourism worker’s bodies with tropical prints, the background is a pattern using an image of Cuban mosaic tiles (one of the architectural features most celebrated in Habana’s tourism). In Minaya’s performance piece Siboney, the artist states “I see how you look at me, but I’m not here for you” which is where the image’s quote comes from. This piece aims to be a subtle “fuck you” to the male colonialist perspective in which Carribean women are exotic delicacies made for tourists to divulge in, similar to cigars, rum, old cars, and architecture. 

reflects on the divisive social impact of Richard Fairey’s Hope poster of Barack Obama. I wanted to play on the propaganda-ish feel to the imagery and the conservative Cuban perspective against it. While Fairey’s imagery is used to encourage hope, unity, and freedom, the communist propaganda from the Cuban revolution acted as a double-edged sword; to incite revolution and change but also insurrection, violence, and establishing control. Using an archival image of Che Guevara (an icon of leftist radicalism and anti-imperialism), I created a satirical version of the original Hope poster by utilizing the color scheme and same typography Fairey uses. As I’ve witnessed first hand through my family and community in Miami, most older generation Cuban exiles align themselves with extreme rightist and conservative politics directly to avoid anything remotely resembling socialism (which to them is the totalitarian communism they experienced). Their trauma from the revolution directly affects every aspect of their lives, which is passed on to the following generations and ironically yet sadly leads them to yet another extremist stance. 

 

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