So anyhow, when I walked past this store in Utrecht I was happily surprised to see this guy repeating. Clones, eurika, but why him, I wondered? His line of sight picks up a rage of sidewalkers. One of him is probably looking at you -- he's picked you because whatever is slightly different about that one, sees what is slightly different about you?
And then, of course, her too. And this one caught the reflection of the far side of the street. You can see the opposing windows inside this one, and they repeat, like her. They also obscure or puncture the image while also giving it a strange dimension, like she is emerging from the seam of the two buildings.
Then, today I went to write in Amsterdam and I saw the same add and I decided it made sense to take the photos again. To record the reproductibility and its little game of difference.
Here, not only do the brunette clones have a pair of blond friends, but then, randomly and magically, the clone appears "in life" at the left of the photo. Perhaps that is not right, but is it virtually right? What are "her" rights, as a "real" person in "public" to not be compared, in image, to another image, in another "public"? I seemed to have crossed an ethical line.
And there he is again too, now with hair. Here the red baseball cap is reflected under an embedded and inverted red McDonald's sign. The store is called "Forecast" but you can read "recast" in bright blue within. In the upper left corner you can read "one" written backwards.
And here is a photo from the redlight district. I took it from far away, without zoom, because you are not supposed to take photos of the women in this area. (The ethics of this post, let alone the photos themselves, is something I'd like to discuss. I feel OK, but not great about it.) But here, virtually-speaking, we see a tall guy and a woman making arrangements through the window, which she has opened. There are the two little phallic concrete erections on the sidewalk and a vaginal canal below with a friendly duck swimming by. Perhaps, part of the uncanny panic this district induces (apart from the highly-contestable sexual politics going on) is simply the odd mode of imaginary consumption. You fall into the window, into where the clones (the images) are being reproduced in some, one suspects, totally non-sexual way. Lots of the men in this district look like clones too, packs of middle-age British men all in soccer jerseys and short hair, only too ready to reproduce their self-image. But, looking at it now, the scene above seems slightly different. It is daylight and they seems tentative. He doesn't look like a tourist.
5 comments:
Aren't all the men in the first picture looking at exactly the same spot? Besides the ads being cool and creepy--which, as I'm sure you know, I find perfectly acceptable as an end in itself--what is the ostensible point of these ads? That, first and foremost, we express our difference through our clothing? But every male clone wears a collar--even the differences are very minor; also, in both ads, the shirts repeat (the checkered ones). Look at the scarf of the 3D female and how it clones the repeating checkered shirt of the 2D female.
The backwards "one" and the "recast" are especially cool. I'm assuming these were happy accidents (right?); corny as it sounds, it's like the camera does the interpreting for us. Catching and squaring off the reflections and clones, the camera composes a little symphony of meanings and re-meanings.
Not sure they are looking at the _exact_ same spot. Some look slightly left or right or down. They are all the sidewalk, true dat. The variation is minor. Same with their clothes. Although they're in the same shirt, they wear it a bit different, some with undershirt some without.
You're right about the scarf, very cool. She'd just come out of the store too. I think the camera can do its magic partly because it makes it all 2D. It flattens everything so that things far way appear next to each other. "Recast" and "one" where total accidents. I couldn't see them, only a camera could.
The point of the ads? I think it is supposed to be an affirmation of conformity through consumption but also a recognition of minor individuality. It is an ad that pretends to already know what you already know -- that buying mass produced clothes is not an expression of your individuality, no matter how off-beat or fake-authentic. Indeed, it almost fascistically draws strength from the uniformity and youthful vigor of this conformity. It is an army, and it is intimidating.
But also, I think at least, it inserts this minor difference, as if calm you liberal subjectivity. This variation is what makes the ad OK. I think capturing the ad operating within and across different public images is what makes the ad really pretty cool.
Also, intuitively, I put the pic of the john and prostitute up. Does it work as a cycle or not? Why?
Yes, they definitely work as a cycle. Though the final picture is aesthetically quite a bit different, so is the act--walking through the glass, or bartering with one of the models. Though, if I were arranging the cycle, I would probably put picture 4 in slot 3 and vice versa. Right now it goes A,B,B,A,C. But A,B,A,B,C or A,A,B,B,C might punctuate the final picture even more; we get closer to walking through the glass.
Good point about how the ads work, only I'd say that our liberal subjectivity is more likely calmed by the ad's recognition of conformity, rather than difference. This is why the ad DOESN'T work for me in a political way--selling conformity by meta-izing / ironizing advertisements is SO YESTERDAY (see my Obama post on E's blog, see DFW's essay on TV). It's not so much offensive as it is ineffective thematically. The ironic subversion has become the norm. However, these images work wonderfully in the aesthetic sense--I would love to be walking around Amsterdam and see one of these ads.
Also, of course, a picture of the ad behind glass with reflections is a whole other thing, thematically speaking. We're definitely getting into some Baudrillardian territory here.
I especially like the "recast" you captured in the fourth photo. Until you mentioned that "Forecast" is the name of the store, I assumed it was the title of the ad campaign, forecasting the clones the store will create, or at least some sort of ironic version thereof.
You should check out "The American Store" in Maastricht -- I think it's on the Brusselsestraat, or the Grote Gracht. Whatever the case, it's on the way to the Irish pub from the Vrijthof. I remember it selling Mountain Dew and Levis jeans, and other such items for the fashionable clone. Can't believe I forgot to tell you about that -- we should talk more on Skype.
An amusing line about Hegel from the Agamben you suggested a few months ago: "I grant that from now on history is concluded (except for the epilogue)."
If I were writing some smart-ass comic novel, the slob character would tug on his bow tie and say "And what else? Except for the postscript? The index? The works cited? The backward-looking angel's discussion questions? The list of important terms? Yo!"
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