virus: Re: virus-digest V2 #123

Reed Konsler (konsler@ascat.harvard.edu)
Fri, 9 May 1997 11:09:41 -0400 (EDT)


From: Richard Brodie <RBrodie@brodietech.com>
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 16:19:53 -0700
Subject: RE: FW: virus: MEME UPDATE #7: Subliminal Meming

Eva wrote:

>I'm an artist and very detail-oriented, and even
>with his descriptions of the images in hand, I couldn't pick out a
>single
>genital organ or boldface "SEX" from those grainy ads. I suspended
>judgement, generously allowing that it might be a publication problem,
>rather than rather than a paranoid delusion on Keys' part.

You wont have any problem picking them out in this book!
-----

Oh shit! I wish I had saved it...

There is this Visa (Mastercard? effectiveness of branding is advertizing
is very low) print ad in which credit cards from around the world were
reproduced reduced and arranged in a grid. The cool effect was that at a
distance the collage looked like George Washington's portrait. I found the
effect fascinating enough that a spent time examining it in the same way
you see kids in an art museum running towards and away from a Cerat in an
art museum.

Anyway the point is that the meta-meaning "Geroge Washington" was assembled
from the component credit cards which did not, as seperate have any such
meaning.

I wonder, from this perspective, if Keys in his Fourth book, has taken
advantage of new advanced in computer "image enhancing" to make the phallus
in his eye more obvious to ours...given that his past attempts have met
with limited success. It would be interesting to compare the actual ads as
transmitted to the images as reproduced in Keys' book.

I think the argument over subliminal advertizing is often a tempest in a
teapot. Sex sells. Given my impression of the mass audience, they aren't
sophisticated enough to pick up on subtle sexual implications which is why
advertizing has become more and more overt...or perhaps we have become
acclimatized? Sometimes I wonder how much liquor academics really
consume...

Reed

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Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu
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