Not what you’d expect to see!
Sometimes it is a good idea to put your audience in a bit of discomfort.
Salvador Dali was a master at this. Comedians do it all the time. Why? Because sometimes things need a good shaking. Sometimes it is good to have your audience wonder what’s up. Lucia’s photo is a great example of this concept.
Here we see a tranquil body of water aerated by a fountain making artistic patterns on its surface. But in the foreground, right in our faces, is a torso with a message written on it. Clearly is it a mannequin, so we don’t need to worry that it is a murder scene. But still it is unsettling. What is the message that the torso-tosser left for us?
To residents of Portland, OR., the message would be clear. We would know immediately that it was a macabre joke. Here in Portlandia, we suffered through a day of water problems caused by ecoli in the water system and as the writing says, potential: “death by ecoli”. Well, of course, the mannequin wasn’t killed by ecoli, nor dismembered by it either. It is still a spooky image and an attention-getting message: poison in our water supply will kill us.
If you are presenting on a topic that must get peoples’ attention, you might try an image like this. It is kinda funny. It is kinda off-putting. It is clever. And it will get people to look. And to think. No one likes warnings. No one likes to have their daily routine questioned or changed. And no one likes to be in danger. Public service messages like those about Portland’s water situation contain all three discomforting situations: rules changes, routine disruption, menace. It might serve your purpose, when you need to stir the pot, to try the unexpected.
NOTE: some people poked fun of Portland’s Water Bureau for its handling of the water scare. I don’t intend this post as a way of making light of what was a real public problem.
44/365 Lucia’s Photo-a-day
