http://www.mutuallyoccluded.com media & film, design, philosophy, politics Tue, 18 May 2010 02:12:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Might the jingle be a very old thing, pre-dating radio and television? Here is Bakhtin trying to explain the type of orality featured in Rabelais through the medieval and early modern cris, or street cries: "The cris were loud advertisements called out by the Paris street vendors, and composed according to ... http://www.mutuallyoccluded.com/2009/04/pre-history-of-the-jingle/ [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Textile display, 1972, Eaton's Department Store"][/caption] There are, it would seem, two kinds of novelty: the one that breaks from tradition, ushering in a new order, and the one that perpetuates the same under the guise of change. The latter, associated with fads and trends, marks the ... http://www.mutuallyoccluded.com/2009/03/novelty-and-the-commodity/ [caption id="attachment_737" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="MemeTracker for the Presidential Campaign '08"][/caption] In a thought-provoking post on I cite, Jodi Dean describes the proliferation and popularity of 'tag clouds' as capturing "the shift from message to contribution characteristic of communicative capitalism". That is, in place of meaning and context, which in actuality govern ... http://www.mutuallyoccluded.com/2009/02/politics-tag-clouds-and-meme-tracking/ "The alabaster bosom that seventeenth-century poets celebrated in their poems was to be found only in dolls, whose fragility often cost them their existence." Walter Benjamin, "Cultural History of Toys" 115 Taken together, three short essays by Walter Benjamin on the subject of toys outline a novel approach to ... http://www.mutuallyoccluded.com/2009/01/benjamin-on-toys-play-and-the-joy-of-repetition/ [caption id="attachment_468" align="alignleft" width="224" caption="Wraps Magazine"][/caption] In a story related to yesterday's post on the new NYC Transit window ads, it was noted that the semi-transparent film on which these 'wrap ads' are printed is manufactured by 3M for specifically that purpose. Paul J. Fleuranges, a spokesman for New York City Transit, ... http://www.mutuallyoccluded.com/2008/12/the-ad-creep-of-scotchcal-ad-wraps/ [caption id="attachment_454" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="The new anti-scratchiti NYC subway ads"][/caption] I've been racking my brain trying to recall other instances where advertising has been used as a crime deterrence strategy - or at least this is what NYC Transit authorities are giving as the reason behind their new ad policy. According ... http://www.mutuallyoccluded.com/2008/12/subway-ads-as-scratchiti-deterrents/ [caption id="attachment_392" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="A Kmart store layaway associate retrieves a package from a layaway storage area on November 17, 2008 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Yvonne Hemsey/Getty Images)"][/caption] Remember layaway? If you don't, you will. With the credit crunch now in full swing, it's making a ... http://www.mutuallyoccluded.com/2008/12/from-credit-to-layaway/ [caption id="attachment_355" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Agency: Jung von Matt Zurich, Switzerland"][/caption] The placement of the above anti-obesity ad - on the seats of swings in a children's playground - is wholly inappropriate. Even if obesity is a problem amongst children, the last thing in the world you should be doing is putting ... http://www.mutuallyoccluded.com/2008/12/anti-obesity-ads-on-playgrounds-is-a-really-bad-idea/ Advertising Agency: Germaine, Antwerp, Belgium Creative Director: André Plaisier Art Directors: Alexis Bellavoine, Jeroen Goossens Copywriter: Pieter Claeys Photographer: Kurt Stallaert Retouching: Edwin Veer Published: October 2008 Now I may be wrong about this but I don't think the World Wildlife Fund explicitly promotes vegetarianism. (They were in fact recently caught selling fish sticks to raise money ... http://www.mutuallyoccluded.com/2008/12/wwf-animal-rights-image/ From Soviet montage to the Memorex mix tape, leftist Western thinkers have proudly declared their membership to a "sample culture." Remix theory, the latest version, keeps the candle burning bright. Like its predecessors, it attempts to found an aesthetic regime on the claim that the explicit selection of texts – ... http://www.mutuallyoccluded.com/2008/03/the-mashup-and-the-remix-fetishizing-the-fragment/