On the bus today, another media interventions sign. In the four corners (going clockwise from top left):sex,for,everyone,creates. In the middle; opportunities. (I tried putting this in a table, but that seemed to fuckup my site. I’ll have to investigate why later on).
Now how’m I supposed to read this? Initially, I read this as: ‘sex for opportunities creates everyone’. But what does that mean? I mean, of course sex creates everyone. What do opportunities have to do with that? Then I re-parsed it as ‘sex creates opportunities for everyone’. Which I took at first to be something about molestation or abuse, but on a second thought, took to be a pro-prositution message. Although now, with a few minutes more thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that a)I don’t know how to read this b)I’ve no idea how I’m supposed to interpret this (compounded by a), of course).
Other ways to parse this:
- sex for opportunities creates everyone
- sex creates opportunities for everyone
- opportunities for sex creates everyone
- opportunities creates sex for everyone
- everyone creates opportunities for sex
- everyone creates sex for opportunities
…and a whole bunch of other ones that make even less sense.
How would you parse this?
I’m guessing this is a designer-y thing where all the words aren’t supposed to be read in a sentence but are “keywords” that are supposed to evoke some kind of epiphinatic response without being conventionally comprehensible when read in a non-linear sequence that the viewer chooses.
It’s all so very exciting and disorienting, don’t you think…
I’m guessing this is a designer-y thing where all the words aren’t supposed to be read in a sentence but are “keywords” that are supposed to evoke some kind of epiphinatic response without being conventionally comprehensible when read in a non-linear sequence that the viewer chooses.
It’s all so very exciting and disorienting, don’t you think…
Yeah, you’re probably right, Day, but I can’t help wondering how many interesting and/or appropriate concepts contain both the word “sex” and the word “opportunities”… They just don’t spark much off each other, at least for me. Opportunities is such a wishy-washy word, anyway — it has no emotional temperature really, whereas sex is a “hot” word, so they just seem unlikely bedfellows.
Yeah, you’re probably right, Day, but I can’t help wondering how many interesting and/or appropriate concepts contain both the word “sex” and the word “opportunities”… They just don’t spark much off each other, at least for me. Opportunities is such a wishy-washy word, anyway — it has no emotional temperature really, whereas sex is a “hot” word, so they just seem unlikely bedfellows.
Y’know, I don’t think they are keywords. Mostly because of the existence of ‘for’ For is just not a keyword. It’s a …umm….preposition? yeah. And I think there’s an unwritten rule (it may even be written, somewhere), about using prepositions as keywords. They’re just not so evocotive of things. I suppose the other thing to note is that these words are superimposed over a blurred out photo of intertwined bodies (impossible for me to tell what body parts are being shown. Hands, possible). Although, this whole campaign is just so bizarre that I wouldn’t put anything past them. It reminds me of the squirrel with a gun anti-fur campaign in some ways.
Y’know, I don’t think they are keywords. Mostly because of the existence of ‘for’ For is just not a keyword. It’s a …umm….preposition? yeah. And I think there’s an unwritten rule (it may even be written, somewhere), about using prepositions as keywords. They’re just not so evocotive of things. I suppose the other thing to note is that these words are superimposed over a blurred out photo of intertwined bodies (impossible for me to tell what body parts are being shown. Hands, possible). Although, this whole campaign is just so bizarre that I wouldn’t put anything past them. It reminds me of the squirrel with a gun anti-fur campaign in some ways.
Again the thing that bugs me about this campaign is that it’s really really really badly designed. It looks cheap. It doesn’t blend into the overall design/advertising/media landscape. It stands out, not because it makes you think, but because it is badly done. While I’m keenly aware of the limitations inherent in this kind of ironic sub-vertising, at least Adbusters does it really well. That’s my take on things anyway.
Again the thing that bugs me about this campaign is that it’s really really really badly designed. It looks cheap. It doesn’t blend into the overall design/advertising/media landscape. It stands out, not because it makes you think, but because it is badly done. While I’m keenly aware of the limitations inherent in this kind of ironic sub-vertising, at least Adbusters does it really well. That’s my take on things anyway.
I like the idea of using really innaprorpiate words as “keywords” (whether they are grammatically stupid, or just boring words).
Let’s see what we can come up with in terms of a rewrite that’s stronger in that direction:
challenge / through / emerge / relationship / because / the collective
or how about:
generating / between / interaction / affordance / hot / together
perhaps:
propsals / about / coitus / activates / the proletariat
Anyone up for the challenge to create the worst possible version?
I like the idea of using really innaprorpiate words as “keywords” (whether they are grammatically stupid, or just boring words).
Let’s see what we can come up with in terms of a rewrite that’s stronger in that direction:
challenge / through / emerge / relationship / because / the collective
or how about:
generating / between / interaction / affordance / hot / together
perhaps:
propsals / about / coitus / activates / the proletariat
Anyone up for the challenge to create the worst possible version?
magnetic poetry does this best. just throw the words at something metallic and watch the fun begin. day and steve may remember that we had this on the back of the second floor door.
magnetic poetry does this best. just throw the words at something metallic and watch the fun begin. day and steve may remember that we had this on the back of the second floor door.