← Ologies with Alie Ward
Ologies with Alie Ward
Field Trip: Activism Art Panel Recorded at WonderCon
00:35:06
Exactly the inspiration you need. Exactly the perfect time. Pass it on to anyone who loves art and/or speaking up. I went to Comic-Con’s little sister, WonderCon, to moderate a panel on protest art with expert Carol Wells, the founder of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics and C. Andrew Hall, from the Spesh Ep: Functional Magic's Environmental Art episode we did in 2021 about the non-profit he founded. So come along to WonderCon – free admission – as we chat about protest art, different approaches graphically, camouflage among ads, defining propaganda, the tiniest mightiest posters, collectible gig posters for the climate, and how the anti-war movement affected history. Also, short warning, we do discuss a few images of war photojournalism in this episode.
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- [00:00]
Ali Ward
This cold and flu season, Instacart is here to help deliver all of your sick day essentials. Whether you're in prevention mode and need vitamins, hand sanitizer, and that lemon tea your nana swears by, or you're in healing mode and need medicine, soup, and a lot more tissues, simply download the Instacart app to get sick day supplies that reinvigorate or relieve. Delivered in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus enjoy. $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Excludes restaurant orders. Service fees and terms apply.
- [00:31]
Carol Wells
Oh, hey, it's your friend's new boyfriend who makes really good onion dip. Alie Ward, come along with me, if you will, to Anaheim, California, to a little place called WonderCon. Now, if you have heard of the annual Comic Con convention In San Diego, WonderCon is kind of like its younger, scrappier little sister. And it takes over Anaheim for a few days every spring with like tens of thousands of people in this big convention center full of booths and comic book art and film stalls and collectibles and artists like making and signing work. Also, adults in capes. Join me. All right, we're in front of the fountain at WonderCon. So far, we've seen a Loki. I've seen a Westworld lady. Oh, there's a Winona Rider from Beetlejuice costume in the red. The wedding outfit. Oh, with a Beetlejuice accompaniment. We've got a lot of Pokemons. We got some Star Trek outfits. Plenty of those. That's a Captain America, but he's Captain Mexico. Oh, I love that. Check that out. That guy's Captain Mexico.
- [01:32]
Ali Ward
He's my favorite one so far. I love the Captain Mexico.
- [01:35]
Carol Wells
It's like Halloween, but it's in March and no one's dressed like a hot dog. Everyone's specific, and I like that. I loved it. Now, another perk was that I was there to moderate a panel with a dear, dear friend, C. Andrew hall, or Andy hall, who you may remember from an episode we did in 2021 about his environmental nonprofit. He founded it. It's called Functional Magic, and it commissions incredible artists to create gig poster style artwork that's collectible. And because of that episode we did and y'all ologies listeners, that first print run he did in 2021 sold out. And Functional Magic was able to donate $25,000 to the Coalition for Rainforest Nations. And just a side note, Functional Magic was then known as the Drawdown Design Project, but has since been renamed. And Andy says that Functional Magic is dedicated to spreading this unapologetic hope about our shared future VI that they put out into the world. So we'll link that original episode in the show notes because it's a great look at climate solutions and staying proactive with optimism. So Andy organized a panel at WonderCon about activist poster art. And I was more than game to help. I was like, the time, the place, I'm there. Also on the panel was somebody named Carol Wells, and she is the founder and executive director of the center for the Study of Political Graphics, which is amazing. It's this archive in Los Angeles that collects and preserves and documents and exhibits, exhibits posters relating to these movements of social change. How many posters they got? They got over 90,000 posters. So if you have ever had a message you wanted to get across to strangers or a passion that you wanted to scream from the rooftops, but you know that art goes farther, this episode is for you. So free admission. Let's get an update on Functional Magic's work, which involves a launch this week of a T shirt line. That is gorgeous. And let's soak up the decades of history of activism art with Andy and Carol as we cover some history of protest art. Different approaches graphically, who it speaks to, camouflage among ads. Where does street art go to be archived propaganda, the tiniest, mightiest posters, collectible gig posters for the climate, and how the anti war movement galvanized so many artists. Also, short warning, we do discuss a few images of war photojournalism in this episode. So get in. We're going postering with this field trip to WonderCon activism and art. Welcome to the best panel all weekend. I'm so excited to be here. My name's Ali Ward and I host a podcast called Ologies. And I always love to start off by finding out where your passion comes from. So I would love to know, Carol, where did you first get a spark for political posters and activism?
- [04:46]
Ali Ward
Well, actually, I've always been passionate about art and then high school civil rights movement. I became passionate about social justice, Vietnam War, et cetera, et cetera. I became an art historian, but I taught about the art of the rich and powerful by day, and I protested the institutions of the rich and powerful on the streets on weekends. I really like her, but they weren't connected until I was hired to collect posters of the new revolution in Nicaragua in 1981 by a professor at UCLA who collected posters for years.
- [05:18]
Carol Wells
So very, very brief side note here. So the Nicaraguan revolution started in the late 1970s with an uprising against this family dynasty dictatorship, and then the rise of the socialist leaning Sandinista National Liberation Front, and then the subsequent opposition to them by the contras, which was a right wing militia. So Carroll, at the time was working to collect that activist art on behalf of a professor.
- [05:43]
Ali Ward
And a poster changed my life. And I wasn't interested in the political poster before. And in that one moment, I literally had an epiphany and became addicted to political posters.
- [05:53]
Carol Wells
Where was it? Were you standing on the street? Was it in a train station? Was it in a newspaper?
- [05:58]
Ali Ward
We were living with a family and we went to the women's movement and they were having a big demonstration and had a fresh delivery of posters for this women's march. And I gave one to the family we were living with, and she put it on her living room wall and she was like the local healthcare person. And one neighbor comes in with her 8 year old son, 9 year old son, and the two women go off. I'm alone in the living room with the son. He's not interested in me, but he's looking around the room. He'd never been there before. The poster all of a sudden grabs him and he walks over to it. And I watched him mouth the words on the poster, which in English would say, in constructing a new country, we are becoming the new woman. And I watched him trying to figure. I'm sure he never figured it out, but that was the moment of my epiphany. That was the moment I realized that's how posters work. You're going about your daily life and something breaks through the bubble that we all have around to get through the day. And it makes you ask a question. Whenever you ask a question, you're not the same person you were before you asked the question. I dropped my dissertation, which was 3/4 of the way through.
- [06:55]
Carol Wells
Oh my God.
- [06:56]
Ali Ward
Medieval architecture. My life totally changed.
- [07:00]
Carol Wells
So this poster with very simple line art and just a few basic colors, this kelly green background, the tanned brown of a South American woman's skin, and she's holding a basket full of red coffee berries. This art was made by a feminist organization which arose as part of the Santinistas. And Carol, seeing that little boy reading it and absorbing it made her realize the power of grassroots artwork. Okay, we know posters work. We know that they capture our attention, we see them. But in your opinion, how do they work? Why do they work?
- [07:33]
Ali Ward
Well, they make us look at the world in a different way. And as far as quantifying it, I mean, think of how many millions of dollars are spent on advertising. And in many ways, a Poster are anti advertisement, they're a counter advertisement, but they work in the same way. And we're surrounded by image overload. The trick is not just knowing that images work, but finding an image that will break through all the other images and attract your attention.
- [07:58]
Carol Wells
Just real quick, how valuable is marketing exactly? What's the street value of a message? Well, how much is spent globally on advertising every year? I wonder this Companies spend an average of 12% of their revenue back into marketing. And according to this one big data aggregator, $917 billion went into advertising globally last year. And the US spent the more than the next six biggest spenders combined. And we know from social media our eyeballs and attention is worth a shitload of money. But why make art that is selling a concept or a movement? Are you reinforcing what someone already thinks? Are you completely changing how they feel or think about something? Or are you polarizing them another direction? Where do you think activism and art take our brains?
- [08:51]
Ali Ward
It's all of the above. The people who agree with you need to know that they're not alone. Then you have. It also reaches out to the people who have made their mind up. They're only getting one perspective. So it makes them say, oh, there's more than one way of looking at it. And then there's the folks that are not going to agree with whatever you say, no matter how you say it. But every once in a while you do reach someone and they start questioning what they never questioned.
- [09:14]
Carol Wells
What are historically some of the posters that have changed the world or that were really big, big in movement.
- [09:21]
Ali Ward
Well, actually I did an article on five posters that changed the world.
- [09:25]
Carol Wells
Well, there you go.
- [09:26]
Ali Ward
So. And the first one is actually very graphic. So I just want to warn everybody. It's a lot of dead bodies. It was during the Vietnam War. I'm probably one of the oldest people in this room. But during dinner the war was shown every night on the 6:00 news.
- [09:42]
Carol Wells
Two Americans were listed as dead. One was a machine gunner and the second his company commander, who took over the machine gun from his fallen comrade and was killed himself. Thirteen GIs were wounded. Four enemy soldiers were counted among the casualties.
- [09:56]
Ali Ward
So everybody was eating their dinner while we would see these stories, literally seeing pictures of war, of murder, of death and dying, and this particular massacre done by US troops. Over 500 women and children, mainly a few elderly men. No guns were found. Over a year later, Seymour Hersh, who's an independent journalist who's still breaking news, he uncovered it and the photograph, you know New York Times, Life magazine, they all show this photo. And Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes interviewed one of the soldiers. And he asked the soldier, and babies? And the soldier answered, and babies.
- [10:32]
Carol Wells
Men, women and children. Men, women and children, and babies.
- [10:36]
Ali Ward
And babies.
- [10:38]
Carol Wells
Why did you do it?
- [10:40]
Ali Ward
Why did I do it? Because I felt like I was ordered to do it.
- [10:44]
Carol Wells
Well, at the time, I felt like.
- [10:45]
Ali Ward
I was doing the right thing or I did. You're married, right? Children?
- [10:52]
Carol Wells
Two. How can a father of two young children shoot babies?
- [10:58]
Ali Ward
I don't know. Just one in things.
- [11:00]
Carol Wells
This legendary color photo was taken at the scene by army photographer Ron Haleborough. And it shows this rural dirt path through an otherwise green grassland. And in this dirt road are a pile of over 20 victims of this My Lai massacre, including many children. And the photo showed the actual real horrors of the war imagery that news outlets may have shielded from viewers. Kind of like the deluge of images you may have seen daily on social media of Gazan families and children killed in the last year and a half in Palestine. I know my algorithm was showing them to me all the time. And for more on that, you can see our genocideology episode with Dr. Dirk Moses. But yes, back to Vietnam and babies. A group of New York artists activists from the Art Workers Coalition took the image and superimposed the words and babies and babies.
- [11:56]
Ali Ward
And the Art workers Coalition made 50,000 copies of this and it kept it alive. The. The photo itself made headlines, but if it bleeds, it leads. And the next week there's another photo. But the poster carried in all these demonstrations kept it before the public. And the majority of people believed the lies that the US government was saying until this photo. They did not want their tax money doing this. That plus the grassroots organizing. You don't have just the picture without the organizing. So all of these thousands of people who are demonstrating and protesting and students who are going on strike, we use this picture and others. And basically that's what started to change the public sentiment about the war during.
- [12:35]
Carol Wells
That period, the 60s and the 70s. Did you find that a lot of the art and activism was anti war?
- [12:41]
Ali Ward
Oh, yes.
- [12:42]
Carol Wells
So at the time, in addition to civilians, many military veterans, especially since there was a draft, were also part of this anti war movement. And Carol says that there's no right or wrong approach. Not all activism is poster sized and depicts grim realities. And she advances a slide here, which is a simple, almost crude kind of crayon looking art. It's got a bright yellow background with a thick black line, art drawing of a sunflower and Handwritten lettering that reads, war is not healthy for children and other living things. And it's called Primer. It's by artist Lorraine Schneider. And it debuted in its original form as a miniature painting, just 2 inches by 2 inches, for an art show in 1965. And it became so widespread and iconic an image that Schneider donated all the to the anti war nonprofit Another Mother for Peace. And it raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the anti war effort. I know this one in particular is meaningful to you. You're wearing a necklace with this art engraved on it. So you carry this with you around your neck. Can you describe why this poster meant so much to you, why it's left such an imprint on you?
- [13:54]
Ali Ward
Well, it's interesting. At the time, it was everywhere. It was probably the most widely reproduced poster during the Vietnam War done by Another Mother for Peace. And it was used basically to fund workshops in high schools against ROTC and against enlisting. So it was really using it to help organize. Originally, it was 2 by 3 inch.
- [14:14]
Carol Wells
Oh, that's tiny. That's like tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny.
- [14:17]
Ali Ward
And it was submitted to a contest and lost. And she made cards out of it. And another Mother for Peace saw and asked if they could use it as their logo. And the rest is history. And so they blew it up into that size. Poster made medallions, stickers, bumper stickers, patches. I mean, the pendant that I'm wearing is the same shape and approximate size as a dog tag. So the gis would wear it with their dog tags. It became a very powerful, powerful statement. And then the organization gave the center for the Study of Political Graphics permission to reproduce it during the Iraq war. And a friend of mine kept coming in and buying them. I said, wow, you're just really giving them out. She says, no, I have one in my front yard and it keeps getting destroyed.
- [14:57]
Carol Wells
Wow.
- [14:57]
Ali Ward
And I had never thought that that poster could piss people off because, you know, who's going to object to war is not healthy to children and other living things.
- [15:06]
Carol Wells
Is it important to have icons or archetypes or imagery that's familiar to someone, like with comic book art? You know, we're at WonderCon here. What is the role of comics and the style of comics in political and social activism art?
- [15:21]
Ali Ward
Well, I think what you said about the familiarity is a key point. I like a corporate ad, which has usually a huge budget and a lot of time to come up with what they think is an effective ad. Political poster artists generally act really quickly. George Floyd, for example, that poster gets made immediately. Yeah, immediately. Because there's demonstrations the next day. In a case like George Floyd, you'd have a portrait. But in other cases it's really helpful to have something that looks familiar but not quite so. You'll see comic strip characters, you'll see advertisement, you'll see fine art incorporated in. So it looks like a commercial. And then all of a sudden, wait a minute, that doesn't look like a commercial.
- [16:00]
Carol Wells
Carol advances a slide to show these early 2000s ads for Apple's then brand new device called an ipod. And these ads always featured a brightly single colored background, maybe in a goldenrod yellow or a royal blue or a magenta and a black silhouette of someone hot dancing while holding their innovative small little white box of an ipod with their iconic white earbuds on the cord. Who remembers this? Right? Yeah, before anyone had ipods, it was like that. That was the life everyone wanted to live.
- [16:38]
Ali Ward
And the ad hasn't been used in over a decade. The same journalist that I mentioned, Seymour Herch, also uncovered the torture in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which was run by the US military. Again, not supposed to happen. And US isn't supposed to do that. Other people are torturers, we are not. But this obviously put lie to that. And there were many, many, many photographs.
- [16:59]
Carol Wells
And around the same time, and this was early in the Iraq war, the US army and the CIA committed violations of human rights laws against those detained at Abu Ghraib prison. Now there was this one leaked image which you may or may not remember. It was a photo of a prisoner in a dark blanket like poncho and a pointed hood and he's balancing on a box, both arms are outstretched to the side and you can see electric shocking wires dangling from his arms. And this photo was nicknamed the Hooded Man. And with just a few graphic design tweaks, maybe blur your eyes a little. And that image was this really eerie echo to the glossy consumerism literally plastered all over the world at that time.
- [17:42]
Ali Ward
That photo became very iconic, I think because of its religious connection. And so there was an artist on the east coast, both of you pseudonyms. There was an artist on the east coast and the one in la, There were two guys, they called themselves Forkscrew Graphics, also a pseudonym, because they were afraid to be sued by Apple. I kept telling them, no, no, no, you won't be sued because it's fair use and it's a political poster, it's free speech. Oh, you're not trying to sell an imitation of an ipod ad. You're not trying to sell anything.
- [18:09]
C. Andrew Hall
At all.
- [18:09]
Ali Ward
You're just using it to grab attention. So they both hit the streets almost at the same time.
- [18:14]
Carol Wells
If you hadn't been born yet, this was in 2004.
- [18:17]
Ali Ward
And what they did, they incorporated the ad into the real ad. They incorporated the protest poster into the real ad. So when you're walking by, all of a sudden you see something familiar in the ipod ad. But what? The torture image of the hooded man with the wires coming from us. It's like culture jamming. But once you get it in your head, once you see that, you can never see the real ad again without doing a double take. Is it the real one or is it the political one? So it was absolutely one of the most brilliant political poster interjections into popular culture that I've seen.
- [18:50]
Carol Wells
So activism art can be tiny. It can be thrust overhead in a crowd. It can be wheat pasted on city streets, or it can hang up as collectibles. And again, our 2021 episode with nonprofit environmental art organization Functional Magic. Founder and creative director C. Andrew Hall, AKA Andy. He shared that his aim is to use beautiful artwork of climate solutions to inspire people in their own daily environments. And he piped up to ask Carol.
- [19:18]
C. Andrew Hall
I have a question. Now, we could disagree about the details, but broad strokes, whether you're Republican or Democrat, there is very little appetite in the American public for boots on the ground, American soldiers in other countries anymore. Do you at all think that a lot of that activism was successful? Do you take any pride in that? Do you see any movement since when you started this work?
- [19:38]
Ali Ward
Pride is not a word that I use. I think because of what we did, the movement did, they got smarter, the warmongers got smarter. So when Bush starts the Iraq war, no cameras allowed, no journalists were allowed. When the body bags came home, oh, that doesn't seem suspicious at all. They were not allowed. So they've learned. And so we've had to become more creative also. I don't know who said it. It's an old slogan. But first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. So we're in the ridicule fight stage. We've been there for quite a while.
- [20:15]
Carol Wells
That quote is, first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, and then they attack you and want to burn you, and then they build monuments to you. It's not from Gandhi, as many people attribute it to him, but rather it's from a 1918 speech by a union activist named Nicholas Klein. Klein, such a G. He was orphaned. He grew up to become an attorney and a labor activist. He even wrote for a paper called the Hobo News. I was like, what's that? Demographic hobos. Real hobos. And apparently it legitimized the identities of unhoused and itinerant workers. And it also started the modern street newspaper movement. So change needs people and people are in public, and the public space needs a street team, no matter what the cause. In a timely last minute edition, this episode is coming out on March 1, but in a few days, just a few days. On March 3, 2025, your favorite toothologist, Dr. Sarah Mack. Dr. Sarah McAnulty, a squid scientist who was also in the modern toikographology episodes on murals and street art that we put out in Octo, is running a free beginner's guide, a zoom to making street art. And it's happening this Monday, March 3rd. It's at 8pm Eastern Time. It's at 5pm Pacific in the U.S. and on this zoom, she's gonna cover everything that a brand new street artist needs to know about getting important messages in front of people in the public space. And you can RSVP at the link in the show notes. Again, March 3rd, free Zoom. Pass it on to everyone. You know, Sarah's the best.
- [21:50]
Ali Ward
One of the important things about the center for the Study of Political Graphics, it's not just that we have collected all these posts to show how many struggles have been going on for so long. I mean, the immigration struggle has been going on forever. The ecology struggle has been going on forever. Women's rights have been going on forever. We do exhibitions and they show how long people have been fighting the same fight.
- [22:11]
Carol Wells
Pride festivals have existed for over 50 years, arising from the anniversary celebrations of New York City's Stonewall riots and then blossoming into this full spectrum celebration, celebration of rainbow solidarity.
- [22:24]
Ali Ward
And sometimes we win and sometimes we lose, and sometimes it's one step forward and two steps back. The other thing that it does, the posters document the victories that we've had. And that's one thing that the corporate media does not want us to know. They don't want us to know that people have power. You know, people have the power, as in the Patti Smith song, people have the power. And so I think that's one of the things that the posters actually tell. The stories that we don't learn in school and they don't really want us to know.
- [22:52]
Carol Wells
And with recent huge cuts in US Federal administrations like Park Services and even epidemiologists at the cdc, anything remotely related to equity or diversity and climate scientists at noaa, the national oceanic and Atmospheric Association. How does the word get out? Art can be one avenue, as evidenced in the center for the Study of Political graphics catalog of 90,000 plus posters. Talk to me a little bit about when we started to see environmental activism art. Is that something that's only been, you know, like, since the ozone layer started to get fucked, or was that like, way before that?
- [23:27]
Ali Ward
We've got posters from the 60s that are already talking about the environmental movement. So there's been an ecology movement. At least you can date it till the 1970s, and it hasn't stopped. I don't think it got the attention that it has now because the existential aspect of it is like, in our face and now.
- [23:44]
Carol Wells
Andy I feel like there is also a culture of gig posters as fine art and as these limited edition collectibles. And what you have managed to do is take activism and take art and turn it into something that you want to put on your wall that is collectible. When you were coming up with the styles and the things that you wanted to convey, how did you narrow it down? Because there's so many ways you could have gone with this. And we'll hear that answer in just one minute. But let's put some money where our mouths are and we'll make a donation to two organizations this week. They should not surprise you. One is the center for the Study of Political Graphics. And since we recorded this, the world has gotten even more bizarre. Carol sent us a message just yesterday saying the intense changes that we've witnessed in the world since this interview took place, especially the rapid dismantling of rights generations have fought for show that the work of the center for the Study of Political Graphics is more important than ever. And by collecting and exhibiting the graphics of past struggles and how people organized and often won, CSPG's posters tell the stories and histories that are currently being censored, hidden and denied. So we are proud to donate to them and their work. And Carol adds that if you have or make human rights or protest posters about any issue or would like to display one of their poster exhibitions, please contact cspgoliticalgraphics.org and we're also making a donation 2 Functional Magic.org to keep up the amazing work commissioning art that inspires inspires people to seek and fight for climate solutions, including a Kickstarter which is linked in the show notes that's dropping the same day this episode is coming out. Featuring some gorgeous art for a T shirt. And you can be a walking billboard for change. We'll hear more about Andy's work in a sec, but thank you to sponsors of the show for making those donations possible. 2025 already a doozy Sometimes life brings you chaos that you didn't ask for. But sometimes there are things that you can control. With Shipstation, you can count on your day to day remaining calm if you're in charge. Order Fulfillment for an e commerce business, that's a certain kind of chaos of its own. But with Shipstation you never need to upgrade. Shipstation grows with your business. No matter how big it gets, you can lead your business into the future. They have smart features and automations. They help boost the efficiency. They save you time, which all of us need. It's the fastest. It's the most affordable way to ship products to your customers. With discounts of up to 88% off UPS, DHL Express and USPS. Right rates up to 90% off FedEx rates. What you can seamlessly integrate with services and selling channels that you already use. The dashboard of Shipstation is bonkers in the best way. You can import your orders from all these different e commerce sites. You can add your shipping services from all the major shippers. You can compare rates, shipping labels. Of course, as someone who absolutely dreaded shipping, having some control definitely is a little breath of fresh air. So come the chaos of order fulfillment with the shipping software that delivers. Switch to ShipStation today. Go to ShipStation.com and use code Ologies to sign up for your free trial. So that's shipstation.com code ologies this cold.
- [26:51]
Ali Ward
And flu season, Instacart is here to help deliver all of your sick day essentials. Whether you're in prevention mode and need vitamins, hand sanitizer and that lemon tea your Nana swears by, or you're in healing mode and need medicine, soup and a lot more tissues. Simply download the Instacart app to get sick day supplies that reinvigorate or relieve delivered in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Excludes restaurant orders, service fees and terms apply.
- [27:20]
Carol Wells
So yes, a quick reminder After Andy's first episode in 2021, y'all sold out his collectible climate solutions posters depicting electrical power, regenerative agriculture, empowering girls and women and engaging with government. And you helped andy again raise 25,000 dol for the coalition for Rainforest Nations. And then since that episode, Functional Magic has made four new prints and one is encouraging voting with a stunning hand printed letter based work by amos Kennedy Paul Jr. Another by Violeta Hernandez celebrates plant based diets. Caspar Wingard's kind of trippy, critter filled piece encourages wildland protections. And there's a vintage comic style nod to electrifying vehicles by Rafa Orico Diaz. And all of these are available at FunctionalMagic document. And the Kickstarter launch of the T shirt art features the work of Kaya Sauter, a Southern California based illustrator and designer and poster artist whose clients have included Fish and Primus and Teton Gravity Research. And Kaya told me she hopes that her artwork will inspire people toward joyful activism and collaboration to make our communities, and by extension, our world, a better place. So Functional Magic's Kickstarter of her work launches literally today, and this is the organization's first foray into that T shirt medium. But let's ask Angie how he approaches his organization's activism art. Why does Functional Magic make these beautifully designed and commissioned collectible handmade gig posters to fund climate activism? What inspired him? And also why a screen print?
- [28:56]
C. Andrew Hall
Well, screen print is traditional to gig posters, and I just think they look great. It's just a beautiful analog process. And so there was an aspect of this where I was creating something that I just loved as an art piece. And my idea was that I was gonna foreground the art. They're different, right, than the kind of political posters that Carol's talking about. They're not message first. And I was hoping that people would hang them on their walls and enjoy them and get to know the climate change solution a little bit that the posters were inspired by. And there's like a social contagion thing that they call in activism. Right. Where if people get excited about something, someone else will. Someone else will. You know, there is a real narrative in the media and even some activists that the energy transition, the agriculture transition, a lot of the transitions that need to happen are all just painful and austerity and sacrifice. And that's not really true. The more I research solutions to climate change, a lot of them just will make our lives better, regardless of their emissions reduction.
- [29:56]
Carol Wells
Right.
- [29:56]
C. Andrew Hall
Our lives will be better if everything's electrified and there's less air pollution. Our lives will be better at farming becomes regenerative and there's healthier food available. So let's get excited about that and work on these things.
- [30:08]
Carol Wells
And so trying to put a positive spin on what you can do as opposed to what you have to limit yourself from doing.
- [30:15]
C. Andrew Hall
Yeah, And I don't think it's a spin. I mean, I believe it.
- [30:18]
Carol Wells
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think when it comes to propaganda, propaganda kind of gets a bad rap. But there are positive aspects of propaganda. Is that correct?
- [30:29]
Ali Ward
Oh, I'm trying to redefine propaganda. So, I mean, propaganda, we've been taught that what the other side said is propaganda. What we say is the truth.
- [30:38]
Carol Wells
Yeah.
- [30:39]
Ali Ward
And the other side says the same thing.
- [30:41]
Carol Wells
For a deeper dive on misleading or misinformation used as propaganda, you can see our recent updated episode on agnotology or willful ignorance.
- [30:52]
Ali Ward
So I think, yes, everything is propaganda.
- [30:54]
C. Andrew Hall
Can we. I know we're running out of time, but I really wanted to ask Carol a question.
- [30:58]
Carol Wells
Yeah, no, go for it.
- [30:59]
C. Andrew Hall
Okay. So I know Carol knows this is a super famous poster.
- [31:04]
Carol Wells
So this is the now century old poster of a white bearded man in a suit and a star spangled top hat pointing right at its viewer with the words, I want you for US Army. Kind of like if Michelangelo's heavenly creator were younger and had a better jawline and was in business clothes instead of like a celestial bathrobe. Carol's like, I don't know if you heard the mic, pick that up. But talking about iconography and very recognizable faces, we've got a poster of Uncle Sam who wants you for the U.S. army.
- [31:40]
C. Andrew Hall
You know, there's like these iconic images that have been super successful and you associate with any number of things. This is for recruiting. You know, you think of Smokey the Bear when you think about forest fires. You can think about Rosie the Riveter when you think about selling war bonds. I don't think there's been one yet for climate change. And why do you think that is? What do you think about that?
- [32:01]
Ali Ward
The closest thing to an icon for the ecology movement is in the late 60s, Ron Cobb, who was a political cartoonist, who then went on to do some of the computer graphics for the first Star Wars. He developed the Theta symbol, which part of the explanation of it at the time was that it means if we don't deal with ecology now, it's going to be death for the world. So often you'll see the green American flag with maybe the peace sign on it. That's more common. But it's a challenge for all you artists and graphic designers out there.
- [32:36]
Carol Wells
Since we are among a pop culture and comic book crowd, let's not forget that the Greek letter Theta was used as an abbreviation for the mythological figure of death, Thanatos, who inspired the supervillain to end them all. Thanos, you cute little nerds probably already knew that. But things you don't know let's hear from the WonderCon audience, their questions. I was curious what disruptive public art or guerrilla art looks like in the more digital world and digital space, if you see stuff like that. So online disruptive protest art. Great question. Yeah. Are memes protest art?
- [33:12]
Ali Ward
I think the word that got me was disruptive. Because when you're looking at your computer screen or your phone and you're looking at all these images and they're all over the political map and then you go on to the next one, you're not doing anything. It's a very passive way of receiving information. And you really is talking about an economic level of having access to a phone or a computer. Paper posters are actually still used more and more because you can't carry your computer screen in a demonstration. You can't plant your computer screen on your lawn, you know, so paper is still being used. Now, what the computer does, what the Internet does, what social media does, it makes it very easy to transmit the posters. I think this started with Occupy, did a lot of free downloads. And so you have artists make the posters and then whoever likes that one or that one or that one, they just download and print themselves.
- [34:07]
Carol Wells
And Carol is referring to Occupy Wall street, which was a series of protests against income inequality in the fall of 20. Carol also has plenty of poster download resources and we'll link them on our website.
- [34:20]
Ali Ward
Then the immigration movement in Aalto, Arizona, they did a lot of free downloads. Just Seeds is a great organization and when a poster's on a wall in a market or in a library, you're going there because you're gonna use those facilities and all of a sudden you see something you weren't expecting to see. And that's really the power of the poster.
- [34:40]
C. Andrew Hall
Well, I just really wanna thank you. It's so exciting for me as someone who's just starting this and trying to. To be as effective as I can be to have this resource. And I can't thank you enough for keeping it going.
- [34:50]
Carol Wells
Thank you all for being here and having this chat with us. Thank you both for letting me ask you so many questions.
- [34:56]
C. Andrew Hall
Thanks, Allie.
- [34:57]
Carol Wells
Yay. So ask activist people artistic questions and make a poster. Use your voice. Thank you again so much, Carol and Andy, for orchestrating this. And again, we have links to the center for the Study of Political Graphics and to Functional Magic in Show Notes and also a link to Andy's Kickstarter for Functional Magic with gorgeous new T shirt designs by Kaya Sadder. Check those out. We'll also link the social media for both organizations. We are Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky. I'm Allie Ward on both. Smallogies are shorter kid friendly episodes in their own feed. They're linked in the show notes. We have ologies merch@ologiesmerch.com and to support the show you can join our patreon@patreon.com Ologies thank you to Erin Talbert who admins Theology's podcast Facebook group. Avileen Malik makes our professional transcripts. Kelly Ardwyer makes the website. Noelle Dilworth is our wonderful scheduling producer. Susan Hale managing directs the whole shebang. Jake Chaffee is an editor on the decks and lead editor producer of this field trip episode who also did additional reporting and some writing is Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio. Thank you so much for taking the lead on this one. Nick Thorburn wrote the theme music and if you stick around until the end of the episode I tell you a secret and I am proud to tell you. I started reading a book for fun last night and I got like a ways in to it and TBH wasn't enjoying the vibe. I was like but I should finish this. This would be a good book to put on my to have read list. Even though it was just for fun. And then I remembered we're all gonna die. I don't know how much longer I have left. Something could fall out of the sky, bean me right in the head. And guess what? No one will ever be standing over my casket like stern faced reading from a spreadsheet of the books I did or did not finish reading for fun. So I stopped reading this book book picked up a different book. I loved it. No regrets. My problem is I feel rude to the book I'm putting down. But guess what? No one has to know there's a book for everyone out there anyway. Just read a book for fun. Times are tough so it's okay to escape a little bit into a book. Okay, bye bye. Pachydermatology Cryptozoology Lithology Nanotechnology Meteorology Olfactology Mapology Serology I've got something to say. This season a new hot deal has arrived at Metro. $25 a line for four lines. With all the data you need and.
- [37:28]
Ali Ward
Four free Samsung Galaxy A15.5G phones, getting.
- [37:31]
Carol Wells
Metro's best deals is easy. No ID required. No no activation fees. Get a new number or keep your own. It's up to you. That's four lines for $25 a line plus four free phones. Visit a store or go online today only at Metro by T Mobile when you join Metro Plus Tax for limited time and subject to change max one offer perhaps.