Project 2: E-Card

Project two is a visual icon of a political message. The issue that I chose to represent visually is waterboarding, a torture technique used by the United States. The use of waterboarding by the military has now been outlawed, but the CIA can still practice it as an “enhanced interrogation technique.” I see waterboarding as truly a form of torture and a human rights violation.

Visually, my postcard reflects the physical aspects of waterboarding. The text is slanted just like the person strapped to the board would be, with their head tilted down. Then the victim’s head is covered with a cloth and water is poured over the cloth, simulating the effects of drowning. The orange lettering is concentrated on the left side, representing the chaos that gathers at the victim’s head during the torture. The words are associated with the process of waterboarding (seizing, drowning, thrashing). And the color is meant to recall the orange jumpsuits of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, where waterboarding has been employed in the past. The orange words are blurred and obscured because they are the voices that cannot be heard. Waterboarding is a torture technique preferred by the world’s democracies because it leaves no scar, there is no blood, no evidence. Its use can be easily covered up. But waterboarding is severely psychologically damaging. In my post card the voice of the government hides the unheard voices of the victims.

I used Adobe Illustrator to complete this project. I used effects like blur and different font styles.