Wishbook
Woolley, Dawn 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6958-5658
(2015)
Wishbook.
N/A.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
The title Wishbook derives from nineteenth century commodity catalogues such as The Great Wish Book and American Dream Book, that sold the American way of life, homogenizing other cultures to the American ideal. The title also alludes to Benjamin’s idea that consumers can appropriate commodities as emancipatory wish images. To intervene in a commercial space in which advertising tactics are far more insidious than in traditional advertising media, I disseminated this work on Instagram using hashtags that reveal the commodities signifying message. The reproduce the advertising convention in which an object isolated against a white background. However, in Wishbook the commodities more closely resemble the content of a bin than a glossy mail order catalogue. The images look like poor quality adverts or the content of a bin and the hashtags read like bad poetry. They appear among adverts on social networking sites and behave abnormally.
Actions (login required)
 |
Edit Item |