JUST 4 FUN ;P

ON POSSESSION AND LACK

I. THE FOLLOWING IS EVIDENCE THAT A BUS STOP IS NOT A PLACE WHERE ONE SHOULD ATTEMPT LANGUAGE.

II. THE FOLLOWING IS NOT A REVIEW OF THE THING IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING, BUT PROBABLY SHOULD BE:

The “Bag Lady” is marked by her inability to enter into a relationship with the world of consumer goods (i.e. the circumstantial limitations of her identity as a capitalist), yet her physicality is huge with ownership, detritus of an entire life moves with her: she is synchronous in time and space with the act of Possession.

By contrast: vacant, decadent, oiled figures in, say, vodka advertisements (or any non-necessity or luxury good intended to confer high status to the user) are characterized by their Lack. Minimal clothing, empty poolside scenes rich in concrete, and tonal contrast that is heightened, due in part to the very absence of color…to paraphrase Sut Jhally in “Advertising as Religion: The Dialectic of Technology and Magic,” this “emptying” of advertising allows the advertiser to introduce a new (often non-sequiter) symbology of “meaning” through the insertion of an arbitrary, inherently meaningless product.

Therein lies the visual conflict between an endorsement of a “non-essential” and the representation of one who does not, ostensibly, “need” anything. This mentality has seeped across the barrier which blurs reality and simulacra, manifesting as comically-small, yet outrageously expensive handbags, extravagant micro-technology, or as the sleek lines of interior décor. Advertising has reengineered our mental associations with wealth in relation to the size and number of actual possessions: opulence and abundance has been rendered as “kitsch,” while minimalism conveys “class.”

The latter also carries with it a certain spiritual purity. The low weight of models within advertising and the sparseness of their attire communicate a retro Puritan work ethic which decries consumption as sinful or “dirty”; moreover, purity is derived from one’s restraint, or his/her control over consumption (while the ad’s true message, of course, contradicts this idea entirely.)

This linking of spiritual elevation and material lack becomes more ironic when considering that significant movements within the tradition of a more brutal, linear, or “reduced” aesthetic—from the Bauhaus to Rothko to Ikea or Apple—stemmed from the gaping spiritual void endemic to the postwar, industrialized environment. Details were abased as craftsmen were made redundant. So, it is apt that this anti-human advertising/manufacturing praxis should serve as the theoretical template for neo-elegance and modern conspicuous consumption. By extending this tradition, the absence of the human is seen as normal and aesthetically-pleasing, rather than a calculated choice with deleterious social implications. Advertisersing, in the past two decades or so, has cleansed the aforementioned aesthetic of its bleakness and cynical social commentary. This theft and reappropriation of these movements’ meanings arrive at a cultural moment when mass-production and consumption have effectively supplanted organic, original “spirits” or identities: we are but walking amalgams of consumer choice and [sub]cultural representation.

In a time when we are increasingly “possessed” by inanimate objects, vis-à-vis the credit system, we must physically make them more remote—put spatial and psychological distance between us and them— in a vain attempt to subvert this threatening dynamic. To be, in short, less like the “bag lady.” She is a shadow-figure in our psyches, a haunting specter of capitalism’s devastating consequences, as well as a terrifyingly human reminder that our role in this society could be re-negotiated, against our will, at any moment. As the human-object relationship becomes more damaging on a national scale, in a time of economic collapse, advertisers use the silent language of goods to playfully abstract from the causal “'need'-->product to fulfill 'need'” sequence:

For example, Target's current public advertisements depict two scenes side-by-side (a typical binary situation, in which a problem arises because of "the wrong" good, or the wrong configuration of goods, and its remedy is--another product!) One is a woman, passed out on an airport luggage rack--a victim of her possessions' weight--and the proposed solution, to her immediate right, is (portable) Starbucks coffee. Or, an empty backyard swing is fixed in the air--the human void--but the moniker "Monkey" is displayed on the fence. Also displayed: a cluster of bananas.  

The message's success is contingent upon the viewer’s (consumer’s) adroitness at interpreting its discursive wit within the object-based (rather than language-based) social vocabulary. At the same time, the minimalism, the Lack, communicated by these ads adheres to the aforementioned tenet of contemporary design: reduction and essentialism are reworked as visual tropes unto themselves, which signify “hip,” “chic,” “classy,” et al. The goods depicted, however, are items such as coffee and bananas, which are relatively inexpensive and widely-available. Blackly ironic too is, again, the theft of these goods’ actual meanings—a history of colonization, unfair trading practices, and worker exploitation—which are subsequently reworked and represented as mere, innocuous punctuation in a quirky narration of the consumer’s daily life.

Through cognitive—and visual—detachment from Possessions within advertising, corporations are better able to insert whatever meaning or value they deem appropriate. Advertisers depict fulfillment through its inverse, the Lack, and offer possessions to satisfy unrelated needs.