Gender and what it means to our relationships

The original image represents a “cool”, “laid back”, and “smart”, and seemingly environmentally aware. In the image, he stands alone. In context of the magazine, he is used to represent a particular “brand” of guy, as the article writes about types of men in their ideal, vogue stereotypes. My feeling from this image is as if this type of man is for sale. Not literally for sale, but they are marketing a particular personality. This man is supposed to be appealing to women because of seemingly attractive qualities.

In my remake, I decided to reform the image using collage instead of Photoshop. My reasoning for this is that I feel that collage is easier to read as a “remake”. Most of the images in magazines today are Photoshopped to an extreme. Because of this, I wanted to reform the image in a way that would be purposeful, and obviously a transformation.

I remade the “cool”, “modern” and “smart” man into a man who a woman is having an affair with. I wanted to play with the idea of this “man”, who the magazine was so attractive… and put him in a different context with other individuals to talk about relationships. The fashion industry markets the idea that what you where is an expression of who you are. If this is true, than you can change who you are by simply putting on a pair of thick framed classes and riding a bike. Now everyone would think you’re smart, and environmentally concerned (like our man in the picture). But when you take that away, and you’re not trying to sell him anymore… you can remake him into a “wanna be”, just trying to impress girls superficially. I wanted the work to talk about identity and gender relations.