Nan Goldin

Looking at Nan Goldins early work, you can see how the death of her sister after she committed suicide at the age of only 18 had a huge impact on the rest of her life. The feeling of loss and longing is very palpable as is the sense that this fragile woman just wanted to be part of something and loved. She filled this void in her life, in some way, by being introduced to the gay and lesbian scene by a friend. Goldin soon became a firm friend of the drag queens in New York City during the early 70’s and documented her time with them. During that time in N.Y. being with, as she says, ‘the most creative and free of souls’ drew her into a life of clubbing and drugs. One series of her work deals with sex and the immediate relationship people have after sex. The picture below shows Nan with her then boyfriend, Brian, after having sex. You can see how see is staring at him and he is utterly disconnected with her whilst smoking a cigarette. Nan’s relationship of 4 years with Brian ended after he beat her up. Her way of dealing with all these things that life can throw at us was to pick up the camera and document it.

 

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z3sihEuiEk
• http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/fineman/fineman12-12-96.asp

FAME GAME

Hey this blogging things alright.

Fame, discuss! Stupid really isn't it, especially these days when you don't even have to have the talent of a great singer or actor like the old days and that's not even that long ago, I'm talking the 80's. Even then you had to at least be able to back up you're fame with a number one record, that took more than 200 singles sold to make it to the top spot, or a top quality film, not necessarily a blockbuster to your career.

These days all you need to be is a pair of dickhead twins with stupid hair, who can't sing and bobs ya uncle, stardom, own TV series and a good bit of dosh. I've never understood the allure of stardom and fame, image you're down the pub with your mates but you can't have a drink anymore cos prats who don't know you want you to scribble on a piece of paper all night. Same with eating in a restaurant, that's not gonna happen cos all people do is stare at you 'Look he's actually eating WOW'

Seriously, who cares

All you need to do is look at your local newsagent to see the amount of magazines dedicated to the trash that is now the majority of celebdom. Take 'Hello' a soul destroying mag devoted to the likes of Jordan and Kerry Katona, that they pay thousands of pounds for unbelievable empty interviews, which also fuels the worst kind of photographer, The Pap. These low lifes have no care for the person they're chasing or who might get in their way as long as they get that shot. But as we all tire of these idiots making money for no talent and more and more people only pick up a camera to get a shot of someone famous for money, here is the answer. STOP buying the mags, stupid non-celebs will have no interest in them and then people wasting the art of photography will have to get a proper job 

Semiotics of Cigarettes

Hi welcome to my blog, this is my first one so forgive me if it looks terrible.

You can now only smoke out of your nose or ears, law!

Any how down to business, just been watching the news and saw a great thing on cigarettes and how the whole idea of them needs to change to in-turn change peoples idea of this ridiculious (to me anyway) action. Now don't get me wrong, I hate all this control stuff at the moment, 'you can do this, you can't do that' if someone really wants to fork out a fiver a day (or whatever it is) on something they burn and inhale the crap that comes out, good on em, more power. Also I'm not one of these people who would ever tell someone the rights and wrongs of something I'd never tried. I have tried smoking in my younger years, to look cool, it had no chance of fixing that, but I just never understood burning your money away and then coughing it up in the morning in the form of thick brown shit. The interesting thing that came up in the debate was that there is a very semiotic thing going on with cigarettes, they do make them look appealing to both young and old. As I've already mentioned, people think they look cool smoking them. They're neat to hold and look good, with their brown speckled filter, little gold band and neat white roll with it's burning red end. Also the packet has many semiotic connections, the bright colours, we all know a packet of Malborough Lights from a mile away with it's gold K's and of course the Marborough Cowboy. And there is a whole raft of semiotics in the communication of smoking, it has it's own language almost, more so now with the fact that all smokers have to go outside like a little club who don't even have to talk to each other as the pure fact they're all there to smoke negates the need for small talk. Just like when most people start smoking at school behind the gym or bike shed, 'Alright mate give us a fag' say no more son, you're one of the gang! So make it ugly, a crap packet, like a crisp bag that you pull open and the stuff goes everywhere and the cigarette is square so you have to hold it with two hands and you look a twat smoking it. That'll stop em

Research

Of Cigarettes, High Heels, and Other Interesting Things

An Introduction to Semiotics

2nd Edition

Marcel Danesi

http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=303456

GREG ROWLAND SEMIOTICS
http://www.semiotics.co.uk/?gclid=CMHav6GLwqcCFUFC4QodommE-w