Sublimation - Blog Posts

Journal #1: The Role of Photography in Modern Life

It has been established that the acceptance and availability of cameras in society changed the way people perceive reality (expansion/distortion). Reaching further into the present, photography has become even more widely available, which has further changed the dynamics of its role in every-day life. Society as a whole is becoming more visual. I have found that the public world is scarcely populated by photographic images in the form of advertisements and regulations. In fact, despite the ubiquity of cameras, most of the resulting images reside within electronic devices, such as TVs, computers, phones, etc.

Susan Sontag reasons that the ultimate realism of a photo makes it seem like a magical object, which can be thought of as replacing the actual subject (Wells, 62). As insightful as it was at the time, I believe the changes brought on by the proliferation of digital electronic devices have further altered the landscape of photography in society.

Images have transitioned from physical representations to less tangible digital representations. Thus the environment encountered in daily life, driving down the street, working in an office, running errands at the grocery store, or the bank or any number of other public institutions, the primary source of photographic imagery encountered is almost entirely advertisements. These images are highly edited, and rank with a message that we must all unwittingly have echoing and burning in our minds: “Buy this.”

Despite the ubiquity of the camera, and no lack of using said cameras, I feel the physical world is an artistic wasteland. This is because, if each source of images was a stream, each would ultimately flow into the ocean of the internet, and very rarely be printed into reality. One must therefore access the internet to reach any of the photography that was not inherently driven by capitalism.

Sontag goes on to suggest other effects of photography to include the notion of the photographic seeing, which suggests an intricate relationship between the photographer’s identity and the subject of the photographer’s images - an unending cycle of seeing and being (61). It takes only a single glance at Facebook to see that this is as true today as ever. Among the people that I know, the vast majority use photography explicitly as a means of praising a moment. When my wife and I go somewhere without the camera, she is likely to be angry with me and I joke with her about it. She, realizing the ridiculousness of the situation, openly admits that the day is ruined without the camera. This example demonstrates another aspect of seeing photographically mentioned by Sontag, that perceiving the world as a series of photo opportunities dissociates us from reality (63). This is a notion that creeps into many other aspects of society, and it is my opinion that the most precise explanation of this phenomena must come from a psychological perspective. It is my understanding that, in some way, most of us are dissociated from reality, whether by wealth, or status, or misinformation.

In psychology, the Self-Reference Effect refers to the tendency of people to perceive things that relate to their values more often than things that do not. When considering whether I see photographically or not, I believe that I do. In between appointments, I enjoy taking in my surroundings, and try to find the beauty in them. Sometimes, I endeavor to find a sight that is worth sharing, and take the time to capture, and transform the moment into something shareable. 

Sublimation Object #4

This memento has adorned the rear windshield of my car for several years. It seems rare to find a whole sand dollar intact. I believe superstition holds that they are lucky. I could be wrong. Yet, the symmetry and odd markings have always reminded me that this was once a living creature.  This concept endeavored to reveal the sand dollar's animal origins. When the light shines at a shallow enough angle, it appears to have flesh-like ripples along the veiny ridges on its back. I wish I had had a macro lens to get closer to it.

Sublimation Object(s) #3

With this concept, I had hoped to use the Peter's Ghost technique of reflection to show a real girl sitting in a barbie house, but I didn't have the means to make it work.  Instead, I decided to experiment with glowing objects and realism. I found that the absence of color did a lot to sell the effect of realism, and the glowing aliens seemed to come off as slightly creepy.  I don't feel that this concept was a huge success in relation to the goal of the assignment, but it was a great time.

Sublimation Object #2

The granddaughter of one of my roommates has moved in with us, adding a fun dynamic to our household. One of her streaking barbies agreed to pose nude for me.  My goal here was to capture moments of grace and intimacy. In some of the photos, the model seemed shy, and confident in others. I am surprised at how some of them turned out.

Sublimation Object #1

A couple tacky paintings have been hung in my rental room since before I moved in - a dispirited attempt at giving the place a bit more taste, no doubt.  Having lived here for a year or two, I had not consciously acknowledged these paintings for some time, until a friend on skype joked about how terrible they are.  That's when I really noticed them. What really stands out to me (literally) are the brush strokes and the way the paint is built up on the canvas. I attempted to play with the texture of the built-up paint, and found that the scene can be altered completely by substituting real light where the artist had painted light into the scene. What used to be a couple geese flying over a glassy lake at sunset, is now transformed into a very spooky scene of high contrast, dead trees on a hill. The added affect of shallow depth of field gives the painting even more dimension. 

I am starting to think about making my own subliminals account on YouTube or SoundCloud and posting them with good music because I just can’t listen to subliminals with rain sounds or boring songs. Also if I would do this, I could also take requests from you and you would also get to choose which song you want in the subliminal

Thoughts on Sublimation - Misc

A few random, short thoughts I had.

Random guitar strings don't work on harp AND NEITHER DOES HAIR

The fact Adrien KNEW Marinette just wanted to be friends with Sublime is so precious!!

Omg the cute little frog Sublime's dad drew on her prosthetic~

I can so relate to just yelling at yourself to fight bad mental health

Who else voices the Butterfly villain? I hear Lila (or whatever she goes by now) but who else is there? Is that significant or is she just playing with voices?

Bob Roth is TRASH

Kinda don't like that Ladybug and Chat Noir are proven the "best versions of themselves" when they clearly still have a lot of growth to do. Plus, Ladybug minutes later realizes SHE'S THE VILLAIN so like clearly that being "her best self" shit was literally a lie.

Sublime is so understanding omg Marinette needs a friend like her

I LOVE WHEN A DISABLED PERSON MAKES JOKES ABOUT IT (I too manage my disability with humor lol)

"I know what it's like to live with a disability." BITCH WHAT YOU LITERALLY HAVE SEEN SHIT IS SHE BLIND OR NOT???

Also fucking hell Kagami get your MOM IN LINE WTF YOU SAID YOU WOULD DO SOMETHING NOW SHE'S OUT HERE SCHEMING WHEN SHE SHOULD BE IN JAIL FUCK

Okay that is all, k thx bai~

Thoughts on Sublimation - New Rules?

So the end of the episode shows Marinette realizing as Ladybug that SHE was the real "villain" this time and returned to the racetrack to fix things.

And somehow she... fixed Sublime's prosthetics? Even though all previous "rules" for the ladybugs were that they could only fix AKUMATIZED villain's damage (EDIT: rather, damage done DURING the akumatization, and her prosthetics were damaged BEFORE). This was always a really big point and was emphasized at various parts.

So is this just a weird plot point they decided to throw out to make things work out better, or is this a growth in Marinette's powers? Thoughts?

Thoughts on Sublimation - Lesson

I really like how, despite Sublimation being treated as like a "nice" Akumatized "villain," there is a good lesson to be learned about the way Sublime's mother acts.

When Sublime's dad gets hit by Sublimation, he says, "I know you're strong, and you don't need mine or any's help! You can do this, sweetie!" This rivals his previous encouragement of it being okay to give up and that he will always love her even if she did, but it's CLEAR that these are the words she needs and prefers, considering her attachment to her dad.

The show is displaying exactly how blind encouragement and "You're so strong!" is NOT helpful. Sublime's mother pushes her past fear, and it only causes her to have breakdowns where she has to basically fight herself and yell at her fear.

I know I said in my previous post that Sublime being so flawless almost feels like they're doing the whole disability inspiration obsession BS, but the lesson here almost completely rivals that idea. "No, just because you're disabled doesn't mean you have to be strong and overcome all your fear and struggles! You CAN give up if it's too much for you!" This absolutely applies to everyone that you do not always need to be strong, but it can be especially comforting to the disabled who often feel as though they need to be as strong as possible to be worth anything.

Thoughts on Sublimation - Sublime

Okay, first of all, girl needs a real ass name not just "Sublime" please tell me that's a nickname.

But also omg so pretty with her hair like this okay.

But real thoughts now. I don't like how Mary Sue she is. Don't get me wrong, I do really like her so far, but she's just... TOO likeable. She has no character flaws. To me, it's coming off like the writers thought "disabled" and "traumatized" counted as character flaws which is frankly insulting.

I'm hoping I'm wrong here and they're gonna reveal more about her that will add some more interest and flaws, but, seriously, her being disabled is NOT a flaw, and there's no need to make her perfect to "make up" for her disability. It gives me disability inspiration obsession vibes, which is icky. Disabled people do NOT have to "overcome" their disability and be AMAZING people just to be worth your attention.

Again, I hope I'm wrong, the show has dealt with disability better before, but I truly just hope they add some spice beyond *trauma*, which is also not a character flaw.

I AM excited to see what they do with her!