Rachel Blandon's Blog

My commments on a critique by artist Mark Vallen. The concept of plagiarism put forth by the author is a weak one. There is a fine line between strictly "ripping off" someone's work and the reinterpretation thereof. From the original article: "[ Left: Black Panther - Pirkle Jones. Photograph. 1968. Portrait of an anonymous Panther at a political rally in Oakland, California. The Panther photos of Ruth-Marion Baruch and Pirkle Jones are internationally famous and have long been available in book form. Right: Fairey’s street poster, which neither credits Pirkle Jones nor makes any mention of the Black Panther Party.]" In the case of the artistic recreation of Pirckle Jones' work, there is no need or requirement to "credit" the original photographer. It is very common for artists to work directly from someone else's photographs. In some ways it is very similar to drawing a real-life subject. It is not plagiarism. Loosely termed, "all art is p...

I have already posted on this matter in several other blogs, but I will go ahead and copy my words here as well. If you don't know what the above is, it's an optical illusion of a rotating silhouette. Dependent upon how you look at it, she can be rotating clockwise or counter-clockwise. Having a tendency towards skepticism, I initially believed this to be a fake. It is not-- it is a very real optical illusion. Download a free animation editor and you will see that 17 frames are dedicated to the left side, and 17 frames are dedicated to the right. The animation is looped, not reversed. Focus on the first frame and imagine that her back is facing towards you. Slowly direct your way through each frame. She will appear to move in a clockwise motion. Now do it again. Focus on the first frame and imagine her front is facing towards you. She will appear to move in a counter-clockwise motion.