Hurrican Katrina and the Nature of Visual Communication subjective expressions of news events and the complicated nature of images

Abstract

Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath prompted a great deal of introspection and exploration for the nation, as well as for me personally. This creative project describes work produced over several months following the devastation of New Orleans. The exploration begins with a series of essays expressed in a Weblog. The next portfolio is a collection of illustrations that use appropriated terms from news stories in typographic compositions that describe their meaning in a subjective, interpretive way. Their purpose was an attempt to frame the vocabulary of disengagement and distance used in news stories to describe the victims of Katrina.

The final portfolio is a collection of illustrations produced in response to the cartographic images of the Gulf. Cartography is both an artistic expression of space and an attempt to present the scientific reality of a place in objective terms. The overarching intent of this series of illustrations was to challenge the inherent bias of “truth” as represented in maps and cartography. To the victims of Katrina and to the artists that interpret the “facts” or “news events” relevant to this devastation, there is an inherent subjective, personal reality that is best expressed through art. My study of each of these expressions is an attempt to draw attention to the subjective nature of the reporting (through language, or typography, or images) of catastrophic events.