October 24th, 2008, 1:13 am
Codex Seraphinianus
I just found out about this book (via Giornale Nuovo , via A Breeze Of Language, via The Artificial Language Lab), and it sent my bibliophilia all atwitter. Secret languages, imaginary worlds, humour; Borgesian indeed.
Posted by All Surrogate in Things that brighten your day | No Comments »
November 15th, 2007, 2:54 pm
Un Gorille Andalou
Yes, I realise that there are relevant threads, but rather than bump one of those, I thought I’d give the blog a whirl.
Cadbury spokesman Tony Bilsborough said: ‘We have been amazed by the way the advert has captured the public’s imagination.’
Well, well, it’s hardly novel to hate an advert, but there are several recent adverts that make me twitch with ire. The Cadbury’s Gorilla Phil Collins mass-imagination capture device is joined by those wretched Phones 4 U jobbies, and the series with people ‘fighting’ dental plaque in the street (hopefully now discontinued - I can’t even remember what they advertised, and I’ve gone to trouble of mentioning them in a blog). The connection is obvious:
Industrial Quirkiness.
This is oxymoronic. Modern mass production, reproduction, intentionally removes quirks; the product must be homogeneous. Deviations are logistical trouble, and perhaps most importantly, impact upon the brand. McDonald’s is a quintessential example; experience the diversity of the world, and be reassured by exactly the same everywhere. Advertisers manipulate the brand, so the brand must be manipulable, graspable, solid in some sense. To brand is to denote.
To Advertise Is To Connote
So, to connote the quirkless as quirky is an audacious advertising adventure, and thus so often a failure. Moreover, it is a failure which fundamentally reveals the advertising process; it is indecent, embarrassing. Nevertheless, time, energy, thought, wealth has been expended upon this embarrassment. In the quirky advert, advertising is reified; the quirky ad is ad itself …
The Quirkiness Industry
Hence I find my bile at the ludicrous waste of advertising concentrated upon these ’surreal’ adverts, that strut about as if they were transgressive in some way, designed to be so (those twee Orange adverts should be excoriated for their deceitful whimsy). Not surreal, but real, basic, substratal, subreal even. They have perhaps the mitigation of being educational, but only if we see that to ‘capture the imagination’ requires cages, however abstract they may be.
Posted by All Surrogate in Things that fuck you off | No Comments »
May 22nd, 2007, 12:17 pm
I HATE BLOGS
And anyone who writes in them
Posted by butnut in Things that brighten your day | 4 Comments »
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