{"id":20084,"date":"2016-07-22T00:48:35","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T07:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=20084"},"modified":"2016-07-19T18:11:57","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T01:11:57","slug":"images-and-their-impacts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/07\/22\/images-and-their-impacts\/","title":{"rendered":"Images and their impacts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sergio Toporek made Beware of Images<\/em> to educate people about the power of images. The documentary\u2019s poster includes the pipe from Ren\u00e9 Magritte\u2019s 1929 painting \u201cThe Treachery of Images,\u201d which shows a pipe and, under it, the words, \u201cThis is not a pipe.\u201d The Beware of Images website<\/a> notes that, when Magritte was told he actually had created a pipe, he responded, \u201cOK, you should try filling it with tobacco then.\u201d (image from Sergio Toporek)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Sergio Toporek worked in advertising for more than two decades before realizing he had a problem \u2013 \u201cI had become a tool of the market,\u201d he admits in a 2013 CreativeMornings Vancouver talk that can be seen on YouTube. He decided then to become his own client, and to educate people about how images are being used. The result is the feature-length, animated documentary Beware of Images<\/em>, which premi\u00e8res at Vancity Theatre July 27 and 28, with Toporek answering audience questions after each screening.<\/p>\n

\u201dI first conceived of the idea for a media literacy documentary about 10 years ago, but started working on it two years later,\u201d Toporek told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cAt first, I was doing it part-time, but gradually it took over most of my time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe documentary is based on a 24-hour course I teach at Vancouver Film School. The documentary and course have been influencing each other for the past decade and have evolved in parallel. The original script was five hours long, but I have been distilling it to its current 2.5-hour format.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the original idea was more focused on current technologies, the final piece has evolved to include much of the history of mediated representation,\u201d he said. \u201cThe idea is that the best way to truly understand our current media environment is to understand how it came to be. There are explicit and suggested similarities between past and present technologies throughout the film. My hope is that we will be able to create a better media landscape by learning from past mistakes, mostly by encouraging the audience to be active participants to its future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo
Sergio Toporek (photo from vfs.edu<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the 2014 Kickstarter campaign video for the documentary, which can also be seen on YouTube, Toporek explains that his aha moment came when he was given the opportunity to work on a Budweiser commercial in 2007. The way in which the advertising objectified women started him thinking differently, not to mention that he would be working to increase awareness of a product that didn\u2019t need any more awareness, in his view. Add to that the fact that serious issues \u2013 many caused, in his opinion, by the corporations hiring him, such as consumerism, environmental pollution, racial stereotyping and glamorized violence \u2013 receive little attention, and are even \u201cintentionally underreported.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe documentary is divided in 14 interconnected chapters,\u201d said Toporek. \u201cMy hope is that educators can address specific media literacy subjects by screening its corresponding chapter. While the best way to experience the film is to watch it in full, short chapters on propaganda, advertising, race\/gender representation, etc., can be very helpful to educators to set up and start a conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He will be promoting the film by screening it in educational and community settings around the world, he said. \u201cI\u2019m interested in the potential post-screening dialogue it can generate. After a year or so of touring with the documentary, I\u2019d like to start writing a new film about the history of automation and its current implications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toporek was born and raised in Mexico City. There, he studied photography and graphic design and earned the bulk of his living designing CD covers for Latin American musicians, work that dwindled after he moved to Vancouver in 1996 because of distance in part, but mainly because of changes in the music industry as it went digital. He was mainly earning his living in advertising by 2005, and joined the Vancouver Film School faculty in 2006. He has a master of education from Harvard University and \u201ccompleted the thesis for Beware of Images<\/em> at Stanford University based on research he conducted at the University of British Columbia,\u201d notes the short bio on the film\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in a Sephardi-Ashkenazi family in Mexico City,\u201d Toporek told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cEven though I became an agnostic at a very young age, my Jewish background has been essential\u2026. The great value placed on education during my formative years was instrumental in fostering the constant pursuit of knowledge that has led me to embrace all culture \u2013 Judaism included \u2013 as a single field of studies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since leaving advertising, making a living \u201chas been one of the most difficult aspects to address,\u201d Toporek admitted. \u201cCommercial design and advertising can be very lucrative careers, particularly when compared to the severely underfunded educational sector. That said, there are many fulfilling rewards in education, even when they can\u2019t be monetized. For now, I\u2019ve made peace with the fact that my income will remain more modest than when I was serving the corporate world.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past years, my income has come from teaching at VFS and from the odd commercial project I do when money becomes an issue. I am very lucky, though, to have a very supportive life partner. She has been an amazing champion of this project, helping it come to life with her constant understanding and encouragement.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what an ambitious project, trying to educate people about the power of images. Not only is he up against wealth and power, but ignorance. As he explains in the 2013 CreativeMornings talk: most people believe they can tell the difference between images and reality or are too sophisticated to fall for advertising campaigns, but our reaction to images is emotional not intellectual, and we like the illusions they create. It is our belief that we are immune to images that makes us so vulnerable to them, he contends.<\/p>\n

So, he\u2019s up against seemingly insurmountable odds \u2013 and others have tried before him (Naomi Klein and Adbusters<\/em>, for example). In what ways will his efforts be unique or different?<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a great question, and one that I ask myself constantly,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that we all have a part to play in the media literacy discourse. There are no simple solutions or absolute victories, and there will never be. It is all just tendencies and gradual improvements. I see my work as a small contribution to a vast field of studies \u2013 studies that are as ancient as the Taoist cautious examination of language and as new as virtual reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI greatly admire the work of Naomi Klein and the Adbusters Media Foundation, as well as that of media scholars such as Neil Postman and Jacques Ellul. I think that my work differs from theirs mostly in the way it is being delivered. While I think that the book is still the most nuanced and comprehensive medium we have to address complex issues, we are gradually shifting towards a visual and short-attention-span culture. In that respect, I think that Beware of Images<\/em> talks about its subject in its own language and terms: images about images.\u201d<\/p>\n

For tickets to the July screenings, visit viff.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sergio Toporek made Beware of Images to educate people about the power of images. The documentary\u2019s poster includes the pipe from Ren\u00e9 Magritte\u2019s 1929 painting \u201cThe Treachery of Images,\u201d which shows a pipe and, under it, the words, \u201cThis is not a pipe.\u201d The Beware of Images website notes that, when Magritte was told he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[787],"tags":[6115,6117,6118,6116,6114],"class_list":["post-20084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-film","tag-advertising","tag-beware-of-images","tag-marketing","tag-media-literacy","tag-toporek"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}