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Thanks much to imagineering for the commentary on the post here comparing Cindy Sherman film stills with webcammer T-shirt ninjas. She (Kristin Posehn) says she realized she "actually spent more time looking at the ninjas." Awesome!
There is a free-form use of text in the ninja pix that is almost like folk art. Even the most flippant text in contemporary art feels heavy in comparison, loaded with significance.Some of my own ruminations on the comparison are here and here. I like imagineering's take on the text part of the campics, which I didn't talk about at all. I may have something to add when I get a minute.
The ninjas are borrowing from print and television marketing models, which almost always have text together with imagery. The ninjas naturally include their own strap lines and slogans. Their pictures are participatory advertisements, not film stills. Maybe this subtly suggests a blurring: to communicate is now to publicize.