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I’ve got a special treat for you today: an interview with artist Nathan Meltz about his pieces on industrial food production. Nathan has shown his art in group shows around the country.  He received a Master’s degree in Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently a graduate student at SUNY-Albany, where he will be graduating this spring with his MFA.  He lives in upstate New York with his wife, Abby Kinchy, and their infant son Aldo. His artistic and musical exploits can be followed at The House of Tomorrow.

I went to grad school with Abby, so that’s how I knew about Nathan’s work. As a sociologist who specialized in food issues and rural communities, I immediately loved these pieces and thought many of our readers would too, so I convinced Nathan to let me post an interview and some of my favorites. (And be forgiving of my amateurish interview questions. I am not a Creative Type, and my general reaction to art I like is “You made a pretty!”)

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Animal Farm

What drew you to the issue of food?

I have to give a lot of credit to Abby, who is a sociologist at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and has done a lot of research on controversies surrounding genetically-modified corn and canola. [She’s currently working on a book about conflicts over genetically modified crops in Canada and Mexico.–Gwen].  A lot of the themes in my art developed from kitchen-table discussions we had while in grad school in Madison.  What was technology doing to agriculture? And then, from my end, what would it look like?

How did you come up with the idea of representing food products as machines?

I wanted a visual metaphor that would reveal tech taking over plants and animals.  Unfortunately, our most current tech can be hard to visualize.  A series of ones and zeros?  Some sort of digital technology?  I decided to combine elements of Dada collage with early modernist German machine aesthetic [Oh, yes, the early modernist German machine aesthetic! Of course!–Gwen]  to create my own visual vocabulary. One that, while not exactly 21^st century, would act as a symbol of science and technology for the viewer/audience.

What does your Animal Farm series convey about our modern food system?

Waiting for My Mechanical Bull

Enviropig

In my machine world, animals are put on assembly lines, cramped together in feed lots, and, in the case of the chickens in The Chicken Coup animation, reside in an agricultural system designed by sadists.  They all look the same because there is no diversity on the factory farm.

The Chicken Coup, pt. 1

The Chicken Coup, pt. 2

Many people have at least some knowledge of slaughterhouses and the treatment of animals, so the Animal Farm series is probably fairly accessible. But O Canola! is, I think, more complex and harder to understand if you’ve never thought much about bioengineering before, or why the song “O Canada” would be particularly meaningful in the context of discussing canola and bioengineering.

O Canola!

O Canola! was a project long in the making, very much piggybacking on the research Abby was doing at the time. I try to tell the story of Canada’s GMO [genetically modified organism] canola contamination* in a visual form. The clever riffing on the Canadian National Anthem (which Abby thought of) is meant to reflect the nationalist tensions inherent in the controversy, where a hybrid plant created by the Canadian government during WWII to produce a mechanical lubricant at the local level would years later be threatened by GMOs produced by agribusiness.

What about Food for Fuel?

Food for Fuel

Food for Fuel came after news reports kept coming in about food shortages around the world, particularly in Mexico, because so much edible food was being turned into fuel for vehicles.  The message on this one is pretty straightforward.

Food for Fuel, along with Animal Farm, definitely reflects my interest in Agitprop.  At the time I made these, I was sharing a studio with printmaker/activist Josh MacPhee, a member of the Just Seeds print collective, which promotes socially activist printmaking.  A lot of the work he was doing really influenced me, and I think these two prints reflect my desire to have a clear social message.

How have people reacted to the series? Do you get a sense that people react more forcefully, or emotionally, to the ones about animals than the ones about crops?

Reaction has been positive, or at least the reaction I hear about.  A lot of the prints have traveled around in various shows.  I think the animation The Chicken Coup has maybe received a little more attention than the prints among the art audience.  Static prints on paper have a hard time competing with moving images with sound, music, etc.  And I don’t think people care any less about the crop-based works than the animal ones.  I find people who are really into food/agriculture issues care just as forcefully about what is happening to corn as they do cows.

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* GMO contamination occurs when genetically modified seeds migrate to fields that were not intentionally planted with them, an increasingly common occurrence. Aside from the problems this can cause farmers who want to sell their products as specifically not GMO, and concerns about the ecological effects that could occur if modified genes spread into other varieties (or even related wild species), it also puts farmers at legal risk. GMO crops such as marketed under the Roundup Ready label and engineered to be immune to the effects of Monsanto’s weedkiller Roundup, are patented. Farmers are not allowed to plant them without buying a license (including saving seeds from their own crop to plant the following year, a traditional practice of many farmers to eliminate the cost of buying seeds each year; so-called “terminator” varieties are even engineered to produce only sterile seeds, thus ensuring farmers must buy fertile seeds from the manufacturer annually). Monsanto has sued farmers for patent infringement in cases where a field was contaminated with Monsanto’s GMO seeds when they blew in from a neighboring field. Conversely, a group of Canadian organic farmers sued Monsanto on the grounds that genetic contamination had made it impossible for them to sell their products as organic.

If you’re interested in the topic, you might try to get a copy of Abby’s new article, “Anti-Genetic Engineering Activism and Scientized Politics in the Case of ‘Contaminated’ Mexican Maize,” Agriculture and Human Values.

Chrissy B., Dmitriy T.M., and Lindsay sent in videos regarding Brit Hume speaking on Fox News about the Tiger Woods scandal, arguing that he needs to convert to Christianity, rather than his current Buddhist beliefs, if he’s going to get back on the right moral track:

Transcript of the main point:

The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith, he’s said to be a Buddhist, I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith, so.. my message to Tiger would be, “Tiger, turn your faith–turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a GREAT example to the world.”

It’s an interesting example of how many Americans treat Christianity as the default, “normal,” and the best religion for everyone. Can you imagine Fox News, or any other news outlet, intentionally giving air time to a person saying that Tiger Woods needs to convert from Christianity to Buddhism (or any other religion) if he’s going to change his behavior? Can you imagine the outcry if the suggested religion was Islam?

The Daily Show aired a segment that addressed this issue, and then a day later had another segment about Brit Hume’s claims that Christianity is under attack in the U.S.:

None of this, of course, even addresses the irony of suggesting that Christianity is the only religion that can help save you from infidelity, given the number of conservative Christian politicians who have been caught cheating on their wives in the past couple of years. But I don’t think irony is Hume’s strong suit.

UPDATE: Rosa S. of Newsy sent in this segment about the issue:

On Mary K.’s birthday she received the following birthday-related promotion from Best Buy.  Notice that the promotion is personalized: it says “Happy Birthday, Mary” in the upper right corner.  Nonetheless, the promotion features a tie as an example of a bad gift and a camera as an example of something that Mary might really want.

Given how carefully ads are now targeted to internet users (based both on the demographics it can gather about you [e.g., when you’re on Facebook] and the content of the text you’re reading [e.g., alongside email exchanges]), it’s kind of fascinating that Best Buy is apparently NOT paying attention to Mary’s sex.  This, of course, might be heartily welcomed by many of you.

But, if Best Buy is going to put together a non-sex-specific promotion, it sure seems like it would be a good idea to make it non-sex-specific (featuring, as a bad gift, something non-gendered like an electric toothbrush or something).  For whatever reason, Best Buy went with “we’re going to assume that all our customers are dudes.”

For more instances of male as the default human, see these posts: one, two, three, and four.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Triathlon is the new Golf: As a young lawyer making a name for himself in the mid-seventies, my father’s superiors told him to “pick up golf” as a way to rise quickly within the firm, and to land lucrative clients. It’s still all about who you know, but if you want to get ahead in business today, don’t hit the putting green, sign up for an Ironman. Why?

Like Golf, Triathlon is cost prohibitive: The average annual income of an Ironman participant is nearly $160,000, while the average golfer makes a measly $100,980 a year, according to Golf.com’s 2009 Survey.

With Ironman entry fees upwards of $500 each (plus the flight and lodging expenses associated with destination racing), a decent bike starting around $3,000 (plus $400 for the shoes, helmet, peddles and accessories), $200 for swim, bike and run gear, and $300/month in coaching and facilities fees; you start to understand the need for that extra $60,000/year.

Triathletes make better business connections: Like Golf, Triathlon entrances “Type A” personalities, obsessed with winning, even if victory requires continuous practice and focus. Unlike golf, Triathlon also demands incredible pain tolerance and phenomenal endurance. Consequently, “the sport attracts high-income, driven, focused individuals who are able and willing to pay the price in time and money,” says David Samson, Florida Marlins president, and Hawaii Ironman 2006 finisher.

Not only are triathletes more driven, they’re also younger. On average, Ironman triathletes are 35-44, while avid golfers are generally in their early 50’s. Consequently, triathletes are at the peak of their professional careers, while many golfers are contemplating retirement, and thereby less effective in helping you infiltrate the network or company of your choosing.

Triathlon is a better way to schmooze (on a Micro Level): Now that you’ve drawn all of the rich, hard working, high powered individuals into one sport, it is time to make connections. Typically, only four players participate in a round of golf, which takes around 4.5 hours. You likely know at least one or two of the other competitors if you’ve been invited to play in the first place, so you’re left with at best two networking opportunities, which isn’t an efficient way to find the right contact for you.

Most of the Multi-Sport fitness groups in my home town (Marin County, CA), host weekly group rides, averaging thirty to fifty participants. The group usually covers seventy miles in a given ride, thereby providing five hours (plus a group brunch) to make friends, and connections. The group usually breaks into smaller packs of evenly matched athletes after a ten mile warm-up. As competitive, Type A folks, multiple members in a given group will eventually ask you how old you are, what team you belong to, and what you do (probably to ascertain how much time you have to train, how long you’ve been serious about the sport, who coaches you, and what if any advantage your bike may provide you).

It is during this hierarchical ranking process that you establish dominance over the somewhat older, not-as-fast man on the really expensive bike. He may be the CEO of a major tech company in Silicon Valley, but that is the professional “Pond” (Frank, 1987) or “Sphere” (Putnam, 1995). Right now, you’re both in the triathlon sphere, where you’re fitter, faster and had a better time at Ironman Canada last year. As Frank noted, it is relative status that creates happiness and satisfaction, and in this pond, your status is higher than his.

So, for the remainder of the ride (and during brunch afterward), he picks your brain about triathlon, and you arrange to have lunch with him at his office next week, a networking win you’d never enjoy if you’d attempted to engage said CEO in the professional Sphere.

Triathlon as a character reference: Not only have you now procured a meeting, you’ve already passed the first round of the interview process. The ability to withstand (and even enjoy) suffering is a form of ‘bonding social capital’ (Putnam, 2001) that forges a strong sense of collective identity. It implies a preference for achieving work-like goals in the leisure sphere, which translates seamlessly into a strong, professional recommendation from your new friend, the high powered CEO.

Triathlon is a better way to schmooze (on a Macro Level): There is no other sport in which every race includes Professional, Amateur and “Age Group” triathletes from under ten to over eighty, separated only by “wave” times, which are determined by age and gender. As Bob Babbitt, publisher of Competitor Magazine put it: “I can’t pitch to Barry Bonds or tee off with Tiger Woods, but I can be on the starting line with the top people in triathlon.” Consequently, you can train, compete and network with individuals of all ages and abilities, from around the world.

While the world of triathlon is growing rapidly (223,594 US adults participated in a triathlon in 2007, up from just 83,612 just ten years ago), Triathlon is still a small community, even at the Macro level. With a limited number of Ironman (2.4mi Swim, 112mi Bike, 26.2mi Run), Half Ironman (1.2mi Swim, 56mi Bike, 13.1mi Run), Olympic (.9mi Swim, 26mi Bike, 6.1mi Run) and Sprint (.5mi Swim, 16mi Bike, 2mi Run) distance races, you are assured to become familiar (and even friendly) with similarly matched athletes from across the country, and the world.

Triathlon is a reciprocal Panopticon: Your athletic club affiliations are declared on your uniform, and your age is written on your calf prior to each race (so you can check the legs of everyone you pass and everyone who passes you, to estimate ranking in on your age group during the actual race).

Your relative time and ranking is posted within minutes of completing the race, so all can see where you fall amongst the 2,000 or so athletes who participated that day. Award ceremonies are performed immediately, and results are posted online within 24 hours. You can even look up their participant’s photos!

Basically, Triathlon is a Panopticon (Bentham 1995 [1785]; Foucault 1995 [1977]), in which everyone is given the role of prison guard and prisoner. You can’t hide anything about yourself, but in turn, you know everything about everyone else.

Athlink.com results display an athlete’s age, gender, city, and results for every event completed:

Bentham’s Panopticon: A theoretical prison that allows guards to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners, who can’t reciprocally tell whether they are being watched:

Conclusion: Triathletes are a self selecting group of affluent, highly motivated individuals, who spend countless hours forging bonds through the competitive, grueling, and socially cohesive ritual of endurance athletics. The greater community convenes several times a year to establish relative rank by sex, age, casual, amateur and pro standards. With access to the region, age, gender and past performances of every athlete in this group, Triathletes are “tee’d up” to make local, national and international connections that turn into husbands, wives (38% of Triathletes are now women), employees, employers and friends. In a world where it’s all about whom you know, it doesn’t hurt to know the rich, successful, driven group that is Triathlon.

References:

Bentham, Jeremy. 1995 [1785]. Panopticon Letters. Miran Bozovic (Ed.). London: Verso.

Foucault, Michel. 1995 [1977]. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage.

Frank, Robert. 1987. Choosing the Right Pond: Human Behavior and the Quest for Status. New York: Oxford University Press.

Putnam, Robert. 2001. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Galyn Burke–Brown, formerly a competitive equestrienne, is now an enthusiastic triathlete.   She blogs at Economic Sociology.

NEWS:

Lisa was invited to co-host a Racialicious Podcast this week with Tami Winfrey Harris and Minh-ha Pham.  If you’re interested, you can listen here.

Also, in case you’re new to SocImages, you’re welcome to friend us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

FROM THE ARCHIVES:

Sociologists use the term “racialization” to describe the process by which something that isn’t associated with any racial group, becomes newly associated.  In October of 2007, we offered the pit bull as an example of racialization.  Also features Weird Al Yankovic.

People often use the Gay Republicans as an example of a social organization that brings together two ideas that seem to be at odds.  Another example, detailed in a post in October of 2008,  is the pro-environment/anti-immigrant movement (protecting the environment means restricting immigration).  The post features a couple really interesting ads.

Also, haven’t had enough Halloween yet?  Here are our Halloween posts from previous years:

Two extra-special costumes (the Anna Rexia costume and the Sexy Scholar), Max Weber jack o’lantern (by yours truly), Obama mask sold as terrorist mask, a Sarah Palin effigy, handling sex offenders on trick-o’-treat day, and costume catalog analyses (here and here).    See also, if you like, my Huffington Post about the race, class, and gender politics of Halloween.

NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (Look for what’s NEW! Oct ’09):

Downright Offensive

It’s been a long time since we linked to our post featuring pictures from racial- and ethnic-themed college parties, but we found another example (this time Auburn University in 2001).  In this one, college students dress up in Blackface and like Klan members.  Delightful.

We added another example of a urinal shaped like a woman’s mouth, sent in my Liz B., to our collection of urinals and sinks meant to look like women’s body parts.

L. sent us a Facebook teaser for the movie DeadGirl (a movie about the rape and torture of a zombie woman) that describes the movie as “hot.”  We added it to our DeadGirl post (NSFW, Triggering).

Like fashion shoots that present female models as dead bodies? We added more to our post of Lanvin ads that show women looking dead.

We added another example of ads featuring bound Asian women, sent in by Penny R.

Katie let us know about El Emigrante, a video game where the player is a bike-riding immigrant trying to avoid the police. We added it to our post about Border Patrol, a game where you try to shoot immigrants crossing into the U.S., including a pregnant woman.

War and Nation

A World War I British recruitment poster that portrayed the British Empire as a team working together reminded us of our post about re-imagining the U.S. military, so we added it.

Class

Steve, my private plane friend, send me some more pictures of the luxury of private aviation.  A free, personal cinema, in this case.

Gender

Amanda C. sent us another example of an instance in which “sex” is conflated with women.

We updated our post comparing beauty pageant standards to standards for judging livestock with a photo taken by Steve P. outside a skincare store, in which a woman’s face is sliced up into parts to apparently help you pick the correct product for each section.

Our post on gendering and sexualizing foods has new additions: sexy fish sticks! And a Vegas restaurant appropriating feminist imagery from the 1960s.

We also updated our post about the controversy surrounding Jennifer Love Hewitt’s weight last summer with images of her in Self magazine showing her new, much slimmer body.

We also updated a post about a website that helps men find their “Ukrainian Beauty” with an image from a protest in Ukraine about sex tourism…that features scantily-clad young women.

Tawny T. sent us a video from Sweden about how heteronormativity affects gays, lesbians, and straight people. We added to our post on an Argentinian bank’s commercial that portrays transgender individuals positively and a Progressive insurance ad that may be portraying a gay couple, since the reason those two ads are so surprising is that we rarely see ones like them.

Rachael H. told us about Maxim’s guides to how men and women argue (Women are crazy! Men put up with their crap so they can have sex!) and we added it to our post of a video showing a range of “men are like this, women are like that!” stereotypes.

Will there ever be a month where we don’t add more examples to our post on pointlessly gendered products?  Maybe not. This month we added gendered tips for choosing a mattress, gendered versions of Windows XP customization software, gendered epsom salts,gendered snuggies, and gendered Target gift cards.  Submitted by Shannon C., Em, Ondi, and Dmitiry T.M.

Race/Ethnicity

We added images from a photo shoot in a Romanian magazine to our post showing people in poor parts of the world posed as props next to expensive fashions or White models.

Speaking of using the “Other” as a prop.  Shakira has been using a set of undifferentiated Asian drummers in her recent performances.  We added it to a previous post on this theme.

To my first post in a series about how people of color are used in advertising aimed (mainly) at white people, I added an example of a black woman being used to represent “rhythm.”

Jackie and Jasmine alerted us to another example of doctored diversity, this one from the University of Texas, Arlington.

Race and Religion

We added an image from Mother Jones depicting Newt Gingrich as a “guru” figure to our guest post on the National Review “wise Latina” cover of Sotomayor and other uses of Asian/Buddhist caricatures.

We posted earlier about the biology behind the controversy over Caster Semenya’s sex.  Germán I. R.-E. and Philip Cohen (who has his own post on the topic) asked that we comment on her recent makeover.

Some sociologists argue that gender (as opposed to sex) is really more about performance than it is about our bodies.  That is, we do gender and, when we do it in ways that other people recognize, everyone feels satisfied.  This is, perhaps, what Caster Semenya’s handlers were hoping for when she submitted to a makeover for South Africa’s YOU Magazine:

Notice that Semenya carries the same body into this photoshoot, but she is properly adorned with make up, feminine clothing, jewelry, a passive pose, and a pleasant and inviting facial expression (because to be feminine is to be accommodating).

Perhaps more importantly, the copy and the interview tells the reader that Semenya likes dressing up and looking pretty, another important indicator of both femininity and non-masculinity.  The cover says:

WE TURN SA’S POWER GIRL INTO A GLAMOUR GIRL – AND SHE LOVES IT!

(Notice, too, the implication that power and glamour are opposed.)

This insistence that Semenya feels (or wants to feel) feminine, as well as looks it, is mirrored in the text (as summarized by the Guardian):

It carries an interview with the 18-year-old student. “I’d like to dress up more often and wear dresses but I never get the chance,” she says. “I’d also like to learn to do my own makeup.”

The lifestyle magazine quotes Semenya’s university friends saying that she wants to buy stilettos and have a manicure and pedicure. Semenya adds: “I’ve never bought my own clothes – my mum buys them for me. But now that I know what I can look like, I’d like to dress like this more often.”

You magazine says that, after the photoshoot, Semenya told her manager that she would like to buy all the outfits she had modelled.

So, in the face of the leaked and unconfirmed finding that Semenya has undescended testicles and higher levels of testosterone than the “average” woman (see note at end*), there is an assertion here that what matters (i.e., the measure of sex that we should attend to) is her gender identity (feeling feminine) and her gender performance (doing femininity).

Anna N. at Jezebel points to how the public interest in Semenya’s sex may have pressured her, and those around her, to play this gender game. She writes:

…up until now, Semenya and her family have been unapologetic about the way she looks and dresses. Her father said that she had always preferred pants, but that she was still a woman — and the idea that she has to put on a dress and lipstick to prove her femaleness to people is pretty depressing.

It is also something that almost all women in Western countries do everyday.  We perform gender, in part out of habit and in part consciously, all the time.  Semenya hasn’t cared about this performance and that is at least in part why the controversy over her sex is taking the form that it is.

* Note:  The release of male-related hormones, androgens, isn’t the whole story here.  Cells must also have the relevant receptors for the presence of the hormones to matter.  Semenya likely is lacking some of those receptors, either in her whole body on in parts of her body, because her body obviously didn’t respond to the hormones (otherwise she would have a penis and scrotum).  My point here is dual: (1) the presence of testicles and testosterone doesn’t tell the whole story and (2) even if we knew the whole story, it doesn’t tell us if she is female or male.  What if her body doesn’t detect the presence of those androgens?  What if it reads the presence of some of them, but not others?  What if she is chimera or mosaic?  All these are interesting questions biologically, but the answers will not tell us whether she is male or female because sex, like gender, is a social construction.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Mette C. sent in this lovely old ad for Broomsticks slacks:

Text:

Ring around Rosie. Or Carol. Or Eleanor, etc. Fun. But you can only play if you wear Broomsticks slacks. Hopsacks, twists, twills, flannels in blends of Acrilan and rayon for permanently pressed good looks. Play styles. Game colors. To help make you a winner. But if you don’t want to play our way–take off our pants and go home.

Um. In general I find ads like this, where you have a single woman (often scantily clad) surrounded by a group of men, creepy. Why is she in her underwear (or maybe a bikini)? At least she doesn’t have a look on her face that could be interpreted as scared or uncomfortable.

Also, notice the idea that women are basically interchangeable–Rosie, Carol, whoever is handy.

Given this situation, I’d really prefer there wasn’t any taking off of pants, regardless of which way they might want to play.

Also: hopsacks? Twists? Until today I’d never heard of those types of pants.

You might think that during an economic crisis that leads to job loss, workers might begin to think more positively about unions, seeing them as a possible buffer that would keep each individual worker from being completely on his or her own. But Nate Silver, over at FiveThirtyEight, posted a graph showing the relationship between the unemployment rate and public support for labor unions, based on historical data that goes back as far as 1948, and it’s distinctly negative:

Of course, support for unions has been decreasing in general since World War II, so some of the trend is likely due to that. But Silver says that even after controlling for the overall downward trend in support for organized labor, we see:

…a decrease in approval of 2.1 points for unions for every point increase in unemployment. Both relationships [this one, and the model without taking the overall downward trend into account] are highly statistically significant.

So what would explain this? The obvious answer would be that people must in some way blame unions for job loss–perhaps believing that they have negotiated pay and benefits that are too high and as a result have driven companies out of the U.S., causing people to lose jobs.

Or maybe some workers who were in unions blame them for not negotiating hard enough to keep their jobs–perhaps as people lose jobs, or see those around them losing theirs, they feel that their unions didn’t do everything possible to save their jobs, that union leaders got scared and gave in to corporate demands to allow layoffs. That might explain the decrease in support for some, though today unionization is low enough that it’s not enough to have a large impact on overall levels of support.

Another possible explanation is that during a time of rising unemployment, people simply feel they can’t afford to support unions–that they need a job now, and they’ll oppose unions and collective bargaining if they think that makes it less likely that employers will be hiring. In that case, they may not be blaming unions for unemployment directly, but may think that unions are a luxury that just have to be discarded when you’re desperate, individually or as a nation.

Thoughts?