DMS121 - Bryan A. Burrowes

Collage Series Concept

The concept for my series is a historical redux, a take on war by juxtaposing different sides to various wars and the attitudes expressed by them. I want to show the difference between firsthand and secondhand war experiences and how people involved view them. I also am going to use several different wars, in different times with different styles. The purpose is to show how war doesn’t change, nor does how people react to it or are affected by it. Though the weapons may change, the story does not.

As an example, one image I’ve already begun deals with the Manhattan Project. It should fall somewhere in the middle of my series. The central image is one of the group of lead scientists in charge of developing the atom bomb. Scattered around them are actual signs posted where they researched with sayings such as “Silence Means Security” or “What You See Here/ What You Hear Here/ What You Do Here/ When You Leave Here/ Let It Stay Here”. In the background, however, will be scenes of the bombings. Levelled cityscape, corpses, soldiers running to and fro, any images resembling the real toll of the war. Attached are some of the images I’m using.

I’m currently planning on making the first image of the series to represent WWI. I want to use images of chemical weapons, gas masks, and trenches to isolate which war it is but at the same time include all the common themes of death, despair and the like such that without mention of the weaponry and combatants it would be difficult to tell which war it was.

For the final image of the series, I plan to envision a future war, one where the weapon of choice is technology. It will be extremely different from the previous images in that it will be vibrantly colorful in contrast to the mostly grayscale images of past wars, feature much more media representation, and have an overarching theme of corruption. However, the same themes will be present as in the first images to establish the unchanging nature of war.