Advertisement for First Bus Review

Advert Overview

This is a cybernetic campaign, which over the internet or an optional smart phone application allows people on First Bus to leave their own comment on what their favorite part of the service is. This information is accompanied by the container aspect of my idea, that the bus physically encases or represents an item relating to the appeal that they have chosen. My three examples are;

A lunch box,

A wedding ring box, 

And a phone.

These demonstrate perks of the bus from several different ages and points of view and gives the campaign a personal feel. 

The Idea is that people will feel a mundane experience turn into their own little slice of fame. It is not invasive and does not show a picture or any personal information other than first name and route they travel but it adds excitement to the experience of going on the bus along with the perk of free travel for a year. This is designed purely as an incentive to entice the customers to enter the competition and say what they like about the bus in order to form the campaign. 

Their personal point, should they win will appear for a week on their route in billboards, in papers and on onboard TV screens. This constancy should inspire curiosity into the different personalities who travel on the bus and invite people who don't take the bus to give it a try to see the rewards for themselves.

‘Time for More’ suggests that the service is better than others of its kind and also alludes to the time that is taken to simply add an opinion can result in becoming a ‘local in the limelight’ which is a rewarding concept and possibility for regular bus travelers to add variety to their journey.

Cybernetics

Cybernetic advertising shakes the foundations of conventional advertising strategies and tactics. It demands that the audience must take part and almost even compete in order to be part of the buying experience. In the case of the customisable Kaiser Chiefs album it was used rather well in order to make the demographic feel truly linked to the music and part of the generation that  helped to shape the band. However I believe that there are several more effective examples of this effect that are often found through social media sights.
A current campaign that is very similar, bearing particular relevance to Art college of an album design piece. It is s cybernetic piece, not dissimilar to that of the Kaiser Chiefs where any student can pick a genre of music, then for the artist selected they create an album cover for a re-released signle. Then to involve the friends and associates of the participants Facebook or twitter fans or friends must vote for them in order to win.

Above is an entree by a close friend- Suzie Cichy
Secret 7’’ are inviting creatives from around the globe to take inspiration from Jessie Ware’s track, Still Love Me and design an original 7 inch vinyl sleeve. Between 30-50 winners will be selected. One copy of each design will be produced and exhibited in East London for over a week in April. The project culminates on Record Store Day when the 700 one-of-a-kind vinyl will be available to purchase, with all of the profits going to the charity Art Against Knives. None of the buyers will know who created the sleeve, or even which song it's for, until they are holding it in their hands - the secret lies within. Check out the other artists part of the Secret 7'' project: Public Enemy, Jessie Ware, Nas, HAIM, Nick Drake and Elton John.
By Jessie Ware

The second is the current Durex interactive sex advert in which videos are shown of a man in the most awkward and embarrassing sexual situations, and making an option at the end of the video directs the audience to a new video in response to their action. This depends on two or three options at the end of each video, with the over arching theme being wear a condom and honesty is always best.

Creativity for Social Good

Creativity for social good is a tool that I personally have very little faith in, numerous examples have been used especially in recent years in advertising and many have failed.  I may be cynical in the fact that I have no faith in a community ideology. I believe that in England this came to an end with the destructive influence of Margret Thatcher;

"There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families."

This effect is most often seen in charity events and governmental schemes to better the world we live in, trying to encourage people to be safer, be more responsible and reinforce this idea of community. I can think of two particularly effective campaigns that have done this in recent years. The first is a European campaign to try and reduce the transmission of HIV aides whereby decidedly gruesome adverts were shown in places where it was believed that sexual intercourse may be instigated, such as night clubs, or strip clubs. These were then reinforced with hand outs of free condoms for seveal weeks to reinforce the message. Finally it was decided that the adverts (as shown below) were too graphic and it was put to the general public to design an advert for durex that would be shown on french national television to boost awareness. The effect of this enabled people who were serious about the topic to voice their opinion and change the public reaction from a personal level.

However the amount of criticism that goes with each of these examples of creative good is often matched with equal amounts of criticism, in this case exposing everyone to the dark side of something that should be met with enthusiasm and not have negative stigmas attached to it.

The Gaze- Tom Ford

The Gaze is a topic under much debate, many social and political comments about feminism power and objectifying the opposite sex are made when discussing this topic. Generally cologne and perfume adverts are the primary product that evokes the objectifying of the opposite sex and various qualities associated with it.

The advert above is one that, for obvious reasons has caused many debates into the Gaze and how this vulgarity even for expensive produce is not acceptable and is degenerating to all women. However being one of the most famous homosexual designers Tom Ford argues that the advert and thus its strategy is ironic and empowering as it allures men without an identity (or face). The woman exposes the heterosexual man as a lust stricken and incomplete being next to the modern woman. The lack of look or body contortion that is common in most other perfume adverts is removed so that the woman is displayed not as an emblem that is exposed by a man behind the camera but as an object who teases and taunts in a elevated situation. She remains dominant because she highlights the power of women ajoined with homosexual men and demonstrates that the desire of heterosexual men for all base lusts such as gold and sexual pleasure are understood and mocked by women for their physical limitations

Panopticism

Panopticon

1.The effect of the panopticon is to improve detainees behaviour, work ethic or cooperation by increasing the watch over the prisoners, detainees and students and criminals alike are stopped from influencing and corrupting others whilst also making them feel they are being constantly monitored.
"to avoid those compact, swarming, howling masses that were to be found in places of confinement."

2.The architecture creates a sustained power relation independent of the person who exercises it by isolating all individuals from one another and then making them feel observed at all times by a watch tower that looks in on all and makes it impossible to tell when they are being observed and when they are not.
"The crowd, a compact mass, a locus of multiple exchanges, individualities merging together, a collective effect, is abolished and replaced by a collection of separated individualities."

3.Panopticon is most efficient because it removes the need for 'selective isolation' as punishment and reinforcement. The idea of being constantly watched also drives performance and increases behavioural traits.
"The efficiency of power, its constraining force have, in a sense, passed over to the other side- to the side of its surface of application."

4&5.The naturalist can also use the panopticon because of its ability to isolate cases therefore displaying results that are unaffected by extraneous variables and not under consideration in the test or experiment, in students this may be cheating in a test. In this way the panopticon is also a laboratory (its definition is a controlled environment in which to test or quantify results.) Nothing can get in or out so in many ways it is a confine in which to test or detain and monitor the most extreme cases.
"it makes it possible to observe symptoms for each individual."

6. Panopticism strengthens power in several ways; Less people are needed to control a large amount of detainees effectively, it is possible to act or react in order to "intervene in any given moment" and often the constant pressure of observation controls mood and behaviour more effectively than sparse and more direct punishment or discipline. Also 'apparatus of power is more intense' meaning that dividing the subjects so they feel they are singularly subjected to the rule over the overseers makes them more submissive to the power structure than if they were united against an authority.

7. The panoptic principal is particularly useful in a society made of private individuals and the state because it reaffirms the individuality of the persons in question and establishes dominance of the state and its power to dictate and alter opinion, 'In a society in which the principal elements are no longer the community and public life' the state can have more definition and foresight into the reaction and attitude of inhabitants without a contagious effect of social situations.

8. Rather than suppressing the individual the panoptic principal gives the individual the feel that it 'is carefully fabricated in it, according to a whole technique of forces and bodies.' The individual feels to be part of a system and structure and needed so that everything can work in unison so that authority and detainee dynamics can work together.

Simulacra and Simulation

Simulacra and Simulation

In many ways this is the best and worst script of the series, it overarches almost all general themes about where the divide between reality and fantasy and then demonstrates how easy it is to blur this line. Reality is cyclical, 'I believe therefore I am' can double back and become 'I am therefore I believe depending on weather faith or solid proof is your justification for the action or the reaction. Society can change the rules and dimensions of what we believe to suit its own image and ideals, finding distaste in an environment with something like sexuality it 'unmasks and punishes them.'

Any person, group or idea can manipulate or change the perception of its own or others reality but the effect of this is reminiscent of a cyclical pattern that in turn will shape their own world and opinions. 

The synopsis for this topic is ever expanding and cyclical, the best way to abbreviate is to reduce the noise of the topic and reduce it to its physical properties. Newtons Third Law; Every action has an opposite and equal reaction. This will come to define, shape and control the reactant in this case.

Simulacrum

Simulacrum

Art has become detached in meaning and identity, therefore its representation in the real world becomes heavily distorted. An artistic piece grows in stages, as it evolves the image it forms (its basis) is lost completely until it bears no meaning or relevance to the subject it had once portrayed.

“Art today has totally penetrated reality.”

The Simile of the Cave

The simile of the cave is a decidedly despairing situation which is derived to beg the ultimate question of nature versus nurture in all of mankind. Is it naturally inbuilt that men should believe only what they can see or weather they should have faith outside of what they are exposed to personally ('he would think what he used to see were far truer'.) Moreover if reality means different things to different people depending on their circumstances who can truly say what reality is or isnt. Reality is entirely subjective, the black cave or the wide world are both reality and yet at the same time by definition neither is because reality must consider all and no one person can do so. Reality is the ultimate ultimatum.

Arguably there are two theories that I have divulged from this text;

The first being a religious comment on faith. One of the abilities that mankind have over animals is foresight particularly where punishment and reward are concerned. Religious faith, without proof is the same principal behind the simile of the cave, faith in something better may give you a reward but faith itself along with the drive and motivation it gives can often be reward enough.

The second is a counter argument for the above;

The word cave itself is an ambiguous translation, in this instance it means 'an underground chamber like a cave with a long entrance open to daylight' however the literal translation from Latin from which this text was cited it means 'beware.'  (Η παρομοίωση της οποίας να προσέξουμε: Translated in Latin 'Beware of the simile) Possibly Plato was trying to warn people about the destructive effect that belief beyond what a person is exposed to personally can have in shaping misguided views about the world and its other inhabitants.

Visual Culture

'With a sudden loss of gravity these lines waver an collapse.' This in many ways is the most depressing of all of these theories and ideas. Not to form anything new, even if it is not representative of its subject like the simulacra and not to have faith like the simile of the cave. This theory simply states that congratulations and punishments are all that remains when no creative innovation thrives. We must review in negative or positive light all things but because of the mediocrity and therefore lack of meaning the line is very blurred.