Selling the Day Before.

[sechan19]

I discovered some photographs through a blogsite that I frequent fairly regularly, and they sent me along various paths of thought in their wake. The photographs, collected here, are for a series of advertisements that ran last year for The Cape Times, South Africa's English-language newspaper.

My first thought was to be appalled by them. I found them (and still find them on certain levels) completely distasteful and horrifying. Then I began analyzing the idea of "trading disasters," something that Akira Mizuta Lippit, a professor of film and critical theory, advises against in his essay on the Yamahata Yosuke photographs of Nagasaki the day after the atomic bombing of that city. There is an emphasis on American disasters (two out of four), and the other atrocities have equally horrifying contemporaries. Why these? Because the stock footage was available? Because they had a certain popularity? Because someone made a value judgment about which catastrophes in human history have more weight?

The one thing, however, that strikes me most painfully in looking at the advertisements, is that each of these examples illustrates the day before death and destruction. This underscores the notion that there is nothing in this world that equates with profound and irrefutable change so much as death does. I've been reflecting on death very seriously in the last few months, perhaps for obvious reasons, pondering ideas of preparedness and acceptance--all those bits and pieces of grief and the way you get past it when it comes knocking on your door. I recently came to the conclusion that there is no preparing and in some ways no acceptance in the aftermath. There is before and there is after, and that is all there is. These photographs beautifully capture that sense, even as they completely and utter repel me with their brutal depiction of ideas that in my view should never be part of a package deal to sell anything.

Comments

[ltsfe.livejournal.com]

Have to say that this was one of the most compelling things I've seen on the 'net in a while--have had the pictures up most of the afternoon. I read through the comments on that page as well (for goodness sake NO that photo was not taken the day before the event, it's the idea Mr. Literal, get it?) and had to take some time to sort out my feelings. But settled on the fact that advertising, whatever else it may be, is indeed art, and this is an intense, interesting, unique perspective. And if something provokes you or compels you, isn't that the very definition of art? I spent last weekend at the O'Keeffe museum absorbing the Marsden Hartley exhibit, and the most dark, raw and disturbing work, depictions of native american cemetaries, was what I was drawn to. Do I know why he painted what he did? No, I frankly don't know that much about Mr. Hartley, nor do I know almost anything about brush technique or whatever else you're supposed to notice when you're looking at paintings. All that mattered to me was what I felt and experienced as I stood in front of his work, and it was arresting.

Even if I lived in South Africa I wouldn't be any more compelled to buy a paper after seeing these, I just am interested in them for what they are. I don't think we're *that* easily manipulated any longer, surrounded as we are by messages and innuendo and Geico cavemen and geckos and...well you get the idea.

I realize the creator of this ad had a job to do. But in the course of that work he's also a human being with, probably, no small amount of art in his soul, and that can't be entirely discounted. Why is it assumed that all advertisers are heartless and only after a buck? I don't know anyone that mono-dimensional. Could it be that when all was said and done the art director would have loved to remove the bottom right tag line and just left the photo and the date?

I see nothing repulsive about them. This is life, in all its truth, ugliness, horror, unfairness and beauty, wrapped up in four images. I wish I could be that succinct (because obviously I can't!)

[reteva.livejournal.com]

There's no denying the power of these images. I myself found them to very profoundly capture a sense of the poignancy of life's immediacy and fragility. I guess, though, that I just cannot reconcile that kind of artistic image (which it certainly is, as you rightly point out) with an advertising campaign. Granted, as someone else has argued, it's somehow more tasteful than aftermath imagery being used to sell news media--a practice run rampant in our desensitized society. But it still strikes me as, in this context at any rate, marginalizing the very thing that the images so succinctly portray.

[alateaqoe.livejournal.com]

I'm interested that you found the photos distasteful. I found them beautiful and much more profound than the after photos I've seen. Some of those are most distasteful. How much better a reminder of all that was lost is a beautiful, happy moment captured in time.

Perhaps your distaste relates to the fact that it was part of an advertising campaign. Still - I think it a more profound and compelling approach than the shocking images that are so often used to advertise news media.

I liked both the campaign and the idea. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[reteva.livejournal.com]

My distaste absolutely refers to the fact that this was an advertising campaign. The images themselves are, indeed, quite remarkable in their capacity to capture a poignant moment in time and to drive home the notion of how fleeting such (and sometimes irretrievable) moments are. It just bothers me that they're selling something, and I'm not entirely sure why. Possibly my current headspace. I'm glad you enjoyed them, though. They are fascinating, whatever else one may feel about them, and - definitely, as you say - much better for the soul than aftermath imagery.