Hot Rod Biology

Yeah I know what you're saying. This relates to my later question regarding intentions residing in the work . . .

I just asked someone considerably younger than me who Fidel Castro was and got in reply "a freedom fighter". So I was thinking familiarity could work for or against? If people in general knew more about Castro they'd think this was all in very bad taste and cancel their Ihug account [ummm I haven't . . . yet?], but the creator of this campaign obviously was aware of the fact that young NZers think of Castro as a freedom fighter, So I guess for their intents and purposes, it works!

last Thurs:
do you mean ìis it right/proper/worthyî? what about the letter from the girl defending her use of the playboy bunny laser-cut on her car îbecause itís fun and cuteî to the post-feminist critic who felt that the girl was being conned in by a patriachal commodification of gender....

today:

I suddenly thought reading the other posts that there might be something here about the sanctity of history and the power of knowledge, and the need by the young to get away from it and re-invent it - create their own meaning...

Even the attempted dismissal of the original meaning of a sign could instead add yet another layer of meaning...the use of Fidel as a marketing image could rejuvenate his meaning rather than destroy it...

Hmm.. appropriation with the intention to change the original meaning.. it depends what the original meaning was to start with. Words like "queer" and "wog" have been appropriated by the groups they were originally aimed at - so over time their malignancy has been diluted. Does a younger generation watching "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" need to know "queer" was originally a derogatory word for gay people? (trying to think of a visual equivalent...hmm). Conversely, the swastika was originally an ancient symbol with positive meanings - I doubt anyone appreciates or thinks that when confronted with the version appropriated by the Nazis (and I don't think the Nazis were reflecting on the pros and cons of visual parody/pastiche either!!)

I can't believe I didn't see what Yoko said about appropriation and metaphor earlier! The use of figurative visual language should relate back to my idea about hybrids . . . ta!

I guess familiarity [to some degree] must be intrinsic to metaphor, as metaphor is primarily a way of showing a thing as being similar to something else, a means of comparison . . . so if we're unaware of the reference we don't 'get' the metaphor. Sure we might make some other connection, get some other meaning out of the comparison, but if it's not the intended meaning, has the designer done their job?

In the case of Saville's work I guess the answer is 'yes'. Multiple readings, at different times, and by different people are fine here as he's dealing in abstraction and ambiguity.

The Fidel Castro example though? It is a metaphor ñ Ihug's new pricing schedule is 'revolutionary', LIKE the Cuban Communist revolution lead by Castro ñ so it relies on some level of familiarity. But if the familiarity goes beyond being fairly superficial, the metaphor isn't quite as consumer friendly!

Josie's bit about the swastikas is interesting here because in many ways using Castro to advertise an ISP is the same as using Hitler, or Stalin . . . well not quite, but kind of ñ in similarly bad taste to a number of people.