Subject: "Second Prize Pig" Date: 12/8/2005 By Robert A. Baron ref: 2005-07-01-20-59-42_a4-bg.jpg "Second Prize Pig," a photograph by Robert A. Baron The picture entitled "Second Prize Pig" and/or "Ceci n'est pas un cochon." (This is not a Pig, referring to Magrite.) purports not to be a photograph of a pig but, due to the photographed frame, a photograph of a photograph of a pig. The pig holds in his mouth a red second-prize ribbon. The picture now seems to represent a picture of a picture of someone's prize pig. However, closer inspection reveals that this ribbon is not an award for being a pig but for being a photograph. One result is that we are presented with a visual incongruity. The pig can't be a photograph of himself. One might say that the levels of reality projected by the image conflict amongst themselves -- in much the same way as the drawings of M.C. Escher can only be resolved as self-contradictions. Moreover, in the context of this competition, the pretense of being be a picture of a picture, asks us to question the competition's requirements for originality and uniqueness. The image is pretending to be an appropriation rather than an original work. The WPS definition of "Open-Mind" as a competition category -- into which this image has been submitted, notes that "Open Mind" subjects may include "abstracts, collage, special effects, three-dimensional objects, and other imaginative creations that do not follow the normal pictorial rules..." In normal pictorial contest submissions the relationships between image and reality are usually clear. But Open Mind photographs often challenge this distinction through visual manipulation of the photographed object. "Second Prize Pig," uses visual cues to challenge the confidence with which we tend to distinguish fiction from reality as it pretends to challenge the competition rules under which it to be assessed. As such, it belongs in Open Mind. Robert Baron