Controversial Art

-Sally Mann-
Sally Mann is considered controversial art because her photos are of her children completely nude. To her, they are little more than tender, maternal photographs of her children. Yet to others, they were child pornography, and the mark of an irresponsible mother. Sally Mann chooses to explore the concept of childhood and "growing up" using a variety of the sensual, reality and the fantastic; all through a maternal eye. "Immediate Family" is a collection of photographs taken in rural Virginia, where the children, and Mann herself, spent their childhoods. Mann photographed the children and the landscape through a massive 8 by 10 view camera, staging elaborate portraits that still lie within the realm of possibility. Mann states that these photographs are "of my children living their lives here too. Many of these pictures are intimate, some are fictitious and some are fantastic, but most are of ordinary things that every
mother has seen" (Mann)

-Six Days in Fallujah-

Six Days in Fallujah is a video game which sought the input of insurgents to recreate those eventful six days in 2004. It's set in the Iraq war, and aims to give players as realistic a view of 2004's Battle of Fallujah as possible. Atomic says it will not editorialize. But despite the game's just-the-truth attitude (and the fact that all that's been released so far is a concept, a title and some screenshots) just the idea of a realistic Iraq war game has angered a number of peace activists and military veterans. Tim Collins, a former colonel of the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment, told Britain's Daily Mail, "It's much too soon to start making video games about a war that's still going on, and an extremely flippant response to one of the most important events in modern history. It's particularly insensitive given what happened in Fallujah, and I will certainly oppose the release of this game."On the other side of the ideological coin, Tansy Hoskins of Stop The War Coalition, had this to say about Six Days: "To make a game out of a war crime and to capitalize on the death and injury of thousands is sick... The massacre in Fallujah should be remembered with shame and horror not glamorized and glossed over for entertainment."

Picture This

Cameraphone extreme closeups.