User:Mz.Grey/sandbox

= Redaction Art = Redaction Art is the social movement (and/or aesthetic) in which artists censor themselves to illustrate the negative and often hidden sides of society. There are many forms in which this redaction can appear; redacting names (or faces) - to hide identities, redacting words - which create new ideas and potentially present them as poetry, and redacting whole objects - to expose the absurdity of hiding the truth when there was no reason to believe ulterior motives were present.

Similar to Steganography, this art was made with the intent to hide certain information. Where redaction art differs from steganography is that they are visually different, redaction art can clearly be seen from the blacking out of something, while steganography can appear as something normal and untouched and it is up to the being that knows what it really is to decipher and understand what the intended message is.

History
Steganography first developed from the ancient Greek around 400 BC. The ruler of Greek – Histaeus created a version of steganography. They would shave off a slave’s head, write the message onto the scalp and wait for the hair to grow back to cover the secret message and send the slave off to its recipient. The recipient would then shave off the slave’s head to uncover the message. the technique would be redone by its recipient to as a way to reply. This idea of covering up secret messages developed many other versions of steganography. The technique continued onto the 1600 BC using different variations in typefaces to carry out encoded messages.

The root of Steganography came from Cryptography, which is a way of protecting information by creating the information into an unreadable format, called cipher text. Cryptography can be placed as far back as 1900 B.C. in ancient Egyptian scribes. There are many forms of it like in 500-600 B.C. Hebrew scribes used ATBASH which is a reversed alphabet solution cipher and it continues on with many variations.

Redaction is one of the many variations that is an art form of editing and it represents a type of covering up of a truth. The definition of Redact is, to hide or remove (confidential parts of a text) before publication or distribution, or to examine (a text) for this purpose. The redacted parts are usually covered with black rectangles as to hide the sensitive information. Another name for this process is called Sanitization. The definition of Sanitize is, to make less offensive by eliminating anything unwholesome, objectionable, incriminating, etc.

Artistic Expressions
Bonnie Wildie took inspiration from the Press Dress, which was worn by Matilda Butters to a Mayor's Ball in Melbourne on September 20th, 1866. Wildie was impressed by the dress's ability to be a monument to what was taking place at that time period. The Press Dress consisted of 31 pieces of silk satin that had articles from 13 Australian newspapers screen printed onto it. The newspapers used consisted of The Age, Argus, Herald, Australasian, Leader Illustrated Australian News, and Punch.

Jenny Holzer is a neo-conceptual artist whose main focus is the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces. She took interest in redacted work and exhibited Dust Paintings which includes her paintings. She used government documents as a source for her work since 2004. Text has been a primary medium for Holzer since the late 1970s. Going back to her source of work containing government documents relating to the invasion of Iraq by the United States and the United Kingdom, Holzer reconstructed the path to war from the language of its architects and executors. The paintings were a trace of political fallout and human wreckage in the global war.

Through Lines is an exhibition that features the works of several artists that challenge idea of redaction by shredding, blacking out, editing and covering up information, identity and images. Few of the many artists were Scott Benesiinaabandan, Maria Hupfield and Lise Beaudry redacted photographs as a way to complicate the images. Benesiinaabandan’s original photographs were duplicated then crumpled and re-photographed. Meanwhile, Hupfield created her work by felting over parts of the images and Beaudry’s variation of redaction was by shredding and reassembling various photos and reframing them.

Reviews
There are a few people who have taken the time to write about Redaction Art and what it means to them. Touching on issues about what redaction art can mean when it is used and the multiple avenues that this art style can be used. Writers such as, Howard Andrews, Cora Currier Pamela M. Lee have all created articles on the Redaction Art by Jenny Holzer, Jill Majid, etc. that they have viewed and what it means to them / what this type of art could mean for people as a whole.