December 01, 2005

The War on Terror and Drugs. At first it all seems innocent enough...then you look closer. "The War Against Terror and The War On Drugs" is a series of digital art prints by Nigel Ayers.
posted by Paranoia Agent 18 years ago
  • oooh
  • Rockwell would be proud.
  • I really love this one.
  • I get a very Lord of the Flies vibe from it, and then I feel ashamed... Except that I'm not the one doing these things. My own evil brothers are at the door and I am powerless to stop them!
  • It would be interesting to measure the reactions of people to the work and then listen to how people comment about how it all "looks so innocent" until you really see what is going on. Then the same pieces should be done with black children of the same age. I would guess that people might not make the same "looks so innocent" comments as often. Just a suggestion for a potentially interesting social experiment.
  • But we already know people are biased. Doing more social experiments to prove what we already know is depressing. I admit it, the kid that looks like me is going to be the one that looks innocent, to me.
  • We know we're biased but we don't really know how or why. Science has helped erase many of those biases already, and the more we understand, the better chance we have of getting rid of those biases. Personally, I think I'm more biased towards thinking I understand people that look like me, but this doesn't necessarily correspond with innocence.
  • Forget about black vs. white, what if you eliminated the bong and just had the second kid hitting a nicotine delivery system as well (in Children of the Bong). I would guess many would then fail to see "the point" of such a painting.