Commodity Fetishism is the process by which mass produced goods are emptied of the meaning of their production which means how the item is produced, where it was made and who actually produced it. Then the product is filled with new meaning and ways that turn the product into a fetish object. For instance, the label. Some one who loves Tommy Hilfiger or coach is more than likely buying it because of its label, value, and also because of what people may portray by seeing the person wearing it. Today, people do this often. It doesn't matter who made it or where the product came from but the fact that everyone can see the label has turned into a fetish for most of the society around us in the United States. The importance of the look and label are far more important to our self image than the actual quality itself. The idea of being looked at because I have a coach purse is a fetish I believe would only strike ones idea of me having money or popularity. I will however say that I do not base my clothing or lifestyle on the label. I have bought many items from guess clothing that I find very overpriced and fall apart after a few washings. The clothing may look great, show off a great label, but also forms tiny holes in the material after washing even on gentle cycle. But in today's society we are highly likely to go for the things that we believe because the label or brand is popular, it is of good quality. Commodity fetishism is the number one reason for mass production in the world today due to the needs and wants of individuals. Advertising and marketing have a way of gearing this in the minds of people by making new and improved products and advertising them as appealing, sexy, and empowering thus bringing about the high demand for specific items.
The relationship of consumers and branding has changed in the past couple decades because the production and advertising market has become larger and more advanced. Before it advanced into larger advertisements things such as oats and soap etc were bought and sold out of bins and purchased by consumers by weight. Today, branding has become huge. Labels, signs, icons have become popular along with advertising to sell things for a specific company. Today the branding messages associated with the product is what sells the actual product itself. It isn't always about what we are buys but what the ad is telling us to buy that makes it more appealing to the human eye. With branding, they are selling a product based on the meaning they are portraying into ones mind. We are not buying that soap by bulk but seeing commercials and advertisements for dove soap with moisturizing cream to help beautify and silken the skin. Brands encompass all of the symbolic elements of a company's goods and services (p. 289). Packaging, print, color, etc is also very important when selling products today, this can be very appealing and eye catching.
Metacommunication is when the ad actually speaks to the viewer about the actual process of viewing the ad. The ad gives a message about what is actually being sold by incorporating the awareness in it for the individual to see. For instance, the green campaigns today speak to us by letting us know that the products are eco-friendly and safe. This is another example of metacommunication or making us aware that what we are buying is great but also safe. This is a great example of how advertisers use this strategy.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Advertising, Consumer Cultures and Desire
What is a consumer society? If we think about it in definition, we would say that a consumer is someone who consumes something or purchases something and society is the world around us as we know it, people, places, things, etc. If we think about a consumer society and the rise of modernity we are actually talking about the rise of mass production in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The historical emergence of capitalism has become a huge demand for new and better products and these products change all the time providing us with the same product but a better image. In a consumer society, which we live in today, the individual is confronted and surrounded with a vast assortment of goods to chose from. For instance, take the automobile, everyday this invention changes. We make bigger, better, faster, and now even hybrids. This is an example of the vast changes that occur and make it very appealing to society to the point that we thing we need to change and go for the better. There is such a rise of modernity because we strive as a society to make everything more modern and to keep up with the times. In a consumer society, there is a constant demand for new products. Today, there is also the rise of demand for online goods and services to provide us with what we need, the ease of ordering and having it delivered vs going out and actually shopping for it. Everyday things change, get better, and show us examples of consumer society.
Capitalism is related to commodity culture because a commodity is something that represent us or complements our identities personally. With the rise of capitalism and particular companies whether privately or individually owned, can make things to suit ones needs and desires. For instance, advertising is made to speak to an individual by possibly advertising their brand and how the consumer sees it. By doing so, this can attract different people with individual needs and desires.
Visual pleasure is related to flaneur because visual pleasure was associated with the early nineteenth century shopping arcades and the now department stores which were built for visual pleasure to put goods and packaging on display for consumers to see and enjoy while strolling along malls or arcades (in Paris) as well as cities. The flaneur is known as a figure that moves through the city in an anonymous fashion who's sole purpose for doing so is looking. the flaneur is someone who goes out to browse or also to fulfill their visual pleasure by looking at big windows, bright packages, and sparkling goods. Other things that catch the eye for visual pleasure is enormous staircases, luxurious goods on large displays and elaborate decor. Mobility was also associated with the concept of modernity because window shopping and browsing in a modern society became very popular. The concept of strolling or walking through these shopping centers emerged as a key aspect in modern lifestyle.
When talking about presumption of relevance we are speaking mainly in advertising. Advertisements make people generally see things that they begin to think are relevant to what the advertisement is really talking about. We presume this as true. If an advertisement shows us a before and after photo of someone standing next to a bottle of the latest diet pill on the market, we automatically presume the relevance between the person and the diet pill is true because the advertisement is telling us so. Because advertising has such an impact on society today, most people may not find this image as absurd because the message that the advertisement is giving makes sense in our own minds.
In this statement, "Advertising asks us not to consume products but to consume signs in the semiotic meaning of the term" and what this actually is saying to us is to take the signs and the words conveyed in the advertisement and produce meaning and a like to which the product is encoded. The idea in advertisement is to sell the actual sign and not the product. The sign, or even brand, is the major selling point of the actual object that is on the market. The signs, objects, and words are what is supposed to suck us into the world of the consumer. Have you ever gone somewhere, perhaps a place where they are selling something and having a person advertise the product while demonstrating what the product can do, a good example, sham Wow can hold up to 12 times its weight in liquids and as you watch them soak it up you hear a person next to you say "I'm sold!" this is exactly what this statement means. The fact that words can be enough to simply pull us in without even thinking twice about the actual product itself!
Capitalism is related to commodity culture because a commodity is something that represent us or complements our identities personally. With the rise of capitalism and particular companies whether privately or individually owned, can make things to suit ones needs and desires. For instance, advertising is made to speak to an individual by possibly advertising their brand and how the consumer sees it. By doing so, this can attract different people with individual needs and desires.
Visual pleasure is related to flaneur because visual pleasure was associated with the early nineteenth century shopping arcades and the now department stores which were built for visual pleasure to put goods and packaging on display for consumers to see and enjoy while strolling along malls or arcades (in Paris) as well as cities. The flaneur is known as a figure that moves through the city in an anonymous fashion who's sole purpose for doing so is looking. the flaneur is someone who goes out to browse or also to fulfill their visual pleasure by looking at big windows, bright packages, and sparkling goods. Other things that catch the eye for visual pleasure is enormous staircases, luxurious goods on large displays and elaborate decor. Mobility was also associated with the concept of modernity because window shopping and browsing in a modern society became very popular. The concept of strolling or walking through these shopping centers emerged as a key aspect in modern lifestyle.
When talking about presumption of relevance we are speaking mainly in advertising. Advertisements make people generally see things that they begin to think are relevant to what the advertisement is really talking about. We presume this as true. If an advertisement shows us a before and after photo of someone standing next to a bottle of the latest diet pill on the market, we automatically presume the relevance between the person and the diet pill is true because the advertisement is telling us so. Because advertising has such an impact on society today, most people may not find this image as absurd because the message that the advertisement is giving makes sense in our own minds.
In this statement, "Advertising asks us not to consume products but to consume signs in the semiotic meaning of the term" and what this actually is saying to us is to take the signs and the words conveyed in the advertisement and produce meaning and a like to which the product is encoded. The idea in advertisement is to sell the actual sign and not the product. The sign, or even brand, is the major selling point of the actual object that is on the market. The signs, objects, and words are what is supposed to suck us into the world of the consumer. Have you ever gone somewhere, perhaps a place where they are selling something and having a person advertise the product while demonstrating what the product can do, a good example, sham Wow can hold up to 12 times its weight in liquids and as you watch them soak it up you hear a person next to you say "I'm sold!" this is exactly what this statement means. The fact that words can be enough to simply pull us in without even thinking twice about the actual product itself!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Realism
Realism in art takes many forms. Realism is an important aspect of our senses, what we feel they mean in our minds as citizens in a world in which images proliferate as forms of both communication and expression. Realism refers to a set of conventions or representations that have historical meaning or values about people, objects and aslo events in the world througout centuries and eras. Realsitic art has one goal and that is to reproduce reality as it is. Approaches to and appreciation of realism in art have political meaning because what constitutes realism in historical, geographical, or national context can become a political issue. What we can question is what we actually see and feel from art and visual culture when pointing to certain politics of a given social context. Does it actually have political true meaning and if so what do we feel from it?
Realism is exactly what it means, realness or representing something that is real. Cubism is an abstract art style in the form of objects that are less realistic, usually shapes that are shifted around to create a style of what we are looking at in a more abstract setting. With abstract art, reproduction can occur and we can understand and make out images that we can also hold in our thoughts and memories. With coventions of representation of art and image making in both realism and cubism, they each shape and reproduce contemporary ways of seeing and give a rise to and reproduce worldviews.
Avant-garde is a term that represents particular movements in art history or artistic experimentations that depict major changes associated with modernism. An example of this is in 1932 the representational style of painting was embraced as a state policy bringing about geometric abstraction and objective abstraction for icons modernizing society and showing us what was forthcoming in the world and picturing reality.
Michael Focault used the term episteme to describe how a given era organizes knowledge to represent truth. This is a dominant mode of acquiring and organizing knowledge in a given period of history. The work of signs is a way of undersnatding a worldview of an era, for example, if we take a classical period and modern period in time, it puts things in order of organization and representation of what we view. Each period of time, according to Focault, has a different episteme.
Realism is exactly what it means, realness or representing something that is real. Cubism is an abstract art style in the form of objects that are less realistic, usually shapes that are shifted around to create a style of what we are looking at in a more abstract setting. With abstract art, reproduction can occur and we can understand and make out images that we can also hold in our thoughts and memories. With coventions of representation of art and image making in both realism and cubism, they each shape and reproduce contemporary ways of seeing and give a rise to and reproduce worldviews.
Avant-garde is a term that represents particular movements in art history or artistic experimentations that depict major changes associated with modernism. An example of this is in 1932 the representational style of painting was embraced as a state policy bringing about geometric abstraction and objective abstraction for icons modernizing society and showing us what was forthcoming in the world and picturing reality.
Michael Focault used the term episteme to describe how a given era organizes knowledge to represent truth. This is a dominant mode of acquiring and organizing knowledge in a given period of history. The work of signs is a way of undersnatding a worldview of an era, for example, if we take a classical period and modern period in time, it puts things in order of organization and representation of what we view. Each period of time, according to Focault, has a different episteme.
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