For this project I have written a Python code that utilizes MPI (Message Passing Interface) Clusters and Google Books API (Application Programming interface). Once the program runs, it searches Google Books for books of certain subjects commonly banned in the United States. It randomly selects a search term from a list I curated of book subjects/themes, creates a list of their ISBN numbers from the results, and then randomly selects one of them to display the cover image on each computer. The viewer sees these book covers for about six seconds before an image of fire appears over top of them.

The concept of this project comes from the recent increase of book bannings that pertain to identities and subjects that Conservatives find unsuitable for children. The power to ban these books happens on a local level at individual schools, but we see it happening the most in Red states.  

Below is the list of book themes I curated based on research of what books are commonly banned but also which terms provided an adequate amount of results from the Google Books search.

Censorship and Emphasis Generator

Through Python and pygame, I created an image generator that randomly displays a stock photo of a man. Then, it either draws a red circle or a black rectangle on a random location on the image.  Finally, the program will ask the user if they want to save the image and if so, the image receives a unique file name. 

The idea for this came about because I thought it would be funny to censor a part of someone’s body that doesn’t “need” to be censored. I also thought it would be ironic if one body part  was censored while a more “censor-worthy” body part was still visible. Later on I made the decision to only use photos of men because it added another layer of irony since men’s bodies face relatively less sexualization (and therefore censorship or emphasis) than women’s. 

With this work I am considering semiosis, how signs come to be. The generator simply draws two shapes, a rectangle and a circle, but because of their color, shape, and location on the image, we understand them to be censoring something or emphasizing something for a reason. When the rectangle obscures a part of the body, because of our cultural understanding of censorship, we imagine there’s a specific reason we’re not allowed to see it. When the red circle emphasizes a part of the body, we try to see some sort of importance there. Furthermore, the reasoning for censorship/emphasis we’re looking for changes depending on where the shapes end up on the image, specifically which part of the body.

Film and Storyboards