ART214: Collage

While searching the archive for images, I noticed the contrast between fantastical, animated scenes and realistic, live-action ones. This inspired the idea for my “comic strip” collage: an animated apocalypse happening to animated characters in a photographic setting. Using Photoshop, I transformed subtitles to form new words, cut out characters and objects to create scenes, and color-corrected them to form a cohesive whole. Choosing characters with the right poses and expressions was key to forming the story. The original context was key, too; the original stories of the characters involve a lot of adventure, fantasy, and excitement, so expectations for the sorts of conflicts they face add to the context of my collage. To me, what makes most of these images so interesting is the liveliness in them–in the poses, the expressions, and in the subject matter. I tried to pick images that had exaggerated features. When collaging from online source material, the original context of the images also informs whatever the final product of their combination might be. Therefore, collages can be used to directly respond to the messages of the original material. The resulting aesthetic often feels chaotic, with contrasting, unharmonious subjects. But, personally, that is what I think makes it fun!