Appropriation – Final Images

For my first two images I wanted to imitate Peejet’s appropriation images by photoshopping myself and others into well known images. I really liked the humour he portrayed in his images so I wanted mimic that. The first one, a still from Stormzy’s music video ‘Shut Up’, has mine and two friend’s faces in the background. This image could have been done better if I had taken photo’s of mine and my friend’s faces instead of cutting them from pre-existing photos.

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The second image is a still from a famous scene in Pulp Fiction. I like this image a lot more than my first as it looks a lot more realistic and the image of me that I photoshopped in is better quality as I took it for the purpose of the appropriated image.

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My third image is it the style of Salvador Dali. I really liked how he’d take random items, put them together and give them some sort of new meaning. I wanted to photograph a piece like his Lobster Telephone but to have some form of meaning to it. I came up with this idea whilst hungover and though ‘what if I put a load of drugs on a plate and photograph it?’* and it came out looking pretty cool. I set it out like a gourmet meal with the intention of it meaning that, to a drug addict, their fix is more important than food.

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*only the small amount of weed is actually real, I don’t sniff coke or take smack

 

Appropriation Research – Salvador Dali: Lobster Telephone

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Lobster Telephone, 1936

Created in 1936, Dali wanted to create a surreal piece using two items that were not normally associated with each other. Dali always associated Lobsters and Telephones in a sexual way, especially Lobsters and various other types of seafood, which he used in his 1939 live art installation, where models were dressed in seafood and there genitalia covered with lobsters.

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Salvador Dali. from everything I’ve read about him and all the images of him it just seems that he was a complete mad man, but his art was fantastic so I guess it balances itself out.

This piece is really interesting and I love the fact that it’s just a man made sculpture that’s been photographed, unlike the majority of appropriation images I’ve looked at, that have all been created using photoshop. The way he placed two of the most random items together is intriguing as it means nothing to anyone apart from him. I’d like to try and create something in the style of Dali but give my image some form of meaning that isn’t as surreal as the Lobster Telephone.

Appropriation Research – Peejet

The New York based graphic artist, who goes by the name of Peejet on social media, became well known in 2014 with his various photoshop edits of him with celebrities. His work’s interesting as most people think of appropriation as being very arty or having some deep impacting meaning, but not Peejet, his work solely revolves around him adding humour to otherwise quite mundane images of celebrities. It’s also note worthy that, unlike other appropriation artists, none of the owners of the images he uses or any of the celebrities in them have tried to take legal action against him despite him selling prints and various other forms of merchandise with his appropriated images on.

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Peejet's most famous image, with him, beyonce and Jay Z riding a moped
Peejet’s most famous image, with him, beyonce and Jay Z riding a moped

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His photoshop skills are exceptional but I’m going to try and imitate at least one form of image in his style as I like the use of humour within his images and how subtly he fits himself into them.

 

Peejets website: http://www.itspeejet.com/

Not many of his appropriated images are on his website (his Instagram is full of them), but it’s interesting to see how his online success of appropriation has created a huge window of opportunity for him, his audience is that big* that he now sells T-shirts with his face on them.

*Has almost 250,000 followers on instagram, and over 20,000 on both Facebook and Twitter.