Elizabeth Ballard-Branco
The icon I submitted was an image of a modern fire alarm found in Kadema 107. I chose this image for a number of reasons, the primary one being that many people are very familiar with fire alarms, having been surrounded by them all their lives. I was living in Santa Rosa during the wildfires of 2017 and 2019 and have been interested in finding a way to connect those experiences to my work, and thought that this would be a good opportunity to. The ART 111 class responded to my image with the history of fire alarms, touching on the fact that before the development of the fire alarm that is most similar to our modern version, a person would have to stay behind and physically crank the alarm to warn others of danger, placing their own lives at risk. In my final image, I drew inspiration from religious iconography, creating a gold halo around a historically-inspired fire alarm. Below I included an industrial factory area, though these style factory buildings look similar to houses, bringing together the past and the present. I created a blend roll from orange to grey in the smoke, replicating the skies I grew familiar with during my time in Santa Rosa. This final image synthesizes the historical context provided by my ART 111 colleagues with the present experiences we face with our wildfire seasons.
Source Image:
Art History Student Response to Elizabeth Ballard-Branco:
By Emma Montalbano:
The icon is of a fire alarm. My initial reaction to this icon is familiarity, the fire alarm is something that must be in public buildings in the country we live in. As children, we are familiar with them as an untouchable item and often have an association with clichés of being pulled by a non-rule follower or prankster. On second look, I associate this with destruction which fire usually brings in these scenarios. The idea of loss and destruction associated with the alarm makes it symbolically iconic. The writing explores a brief history of fire and examines it in a scientific manner from its birth on earth. The ideas of fire as a monopolized item to early hominins contrast with explorations of fire as a vast combusting factor of the early earth. Fire as power for humans or nature is a significant theme in the writing that I found relevant.
Pyne, Stephen J., and William Cronon. “INTRODUCTION: KINDLING.” In Fire: A Brief History, xv–2. University of Washington Press, 2001. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcwnf8f.5.
By Mike Saechao:
The color red being assigned to the Fire alarm fits in the same way that fire trucks are red. The vibrant red makes for easy visibility and human psychology of the color red being associated to fire or warning color as they are in nature. Most venomous lifeforms have vibrant colors on their bodies to indicate they are toxic such black widows and that red mark. In this case, it is flipping the meaning of red meaning toxic into a marker to go towards to in case of an emergency. According to Hua Henning, the importance of firefighting gained traction quickly in the industrialization era as the importance to protect property and lives for economic purposes. With the rise of capitalism came the rise of protecting capital interests that stimulate the economy while also serving possible political interests.
Hua-Henning, Jan. "Opening the Red Box: The Fire Alarm Telegraph and Politics of Risk Response in Imperial Germany, 1873–1900." Technology and Culture 62, no. 3 (2021): 685-708. doi:10.1353/tech.2021.0104.