The Pose

Copyright 2008. Knut Skjærven. All rights reserved.

Roland Barthes: “I might put this differently: what founds the nature of Photography is the pose. The physical duration of this pose is of little consequence; even in the interval of a millionth of a second (…) there has still been a pose, for the pose is not, here, the attitude of the target or even a technique of the Operator, but the term of an “intention” of reading: looking at a photograph, I inevitably include in my scrutiny the thought of that instant, however brief, in which a real thing happened to be motionless in front of the eye”. (Page 78).

Roland Barthes: Camera Lucida, Vintage Books, London 2000. Translated by Richard Howard. For full information on the book see Library Thing. Page references are made to this version of the book.

A Simple Statement on Product Positioning

Homage to the advertising community.

This is a picture of basic product positioning. And an important statement it is.

However, it is also a visualisation of how to direct and hold attention in a visual message. And to instigate story telling. Consider this post as a barebones notebook post, so you need to come up with the reasons-why yourself.

Shot in Berlin June 2008 during the soccer match Germany/Turkey. That would be June 25, 2008. They tell me that it was a great game.

Cheers

phenomenology and photography

I have to admit that I had no clear idea of this from the beginning.

I have thousands of pictures and I have hundreds of books. So, my idea was initially to use both sources in combination on this blog.I started using pictures, because I thought they would brighten, and breaking up the blog a bit, and maybe, in some cases, make good illustrations for the points made in the individual posts. Particularly in illustrating some of the gestalt factors the pictures came in handy, since some of them seemed to have been shot for the particular blog post.

Not so. The pictures you find on the blog are in some cases many years before a blog on barebones communication came to my mind about a year ago. My favourite post, in this respect, is the one on gestalt direction. Go look it up. The post “Wertheimer would have loved”. This post, by the way, is one of the posts with the most hits. So, I must have done something right.

As I am the photographer of all the pictures posted, so far, I don’t have to worry about copyrights, since I hold copyrights to all the pictures. It makes life much easier that way, since I am allowed to quote from texts, but I am not allowed to quote from visual material in the same way. I can’t just post somebody else’s pictures.

However, lately, the thought grew on me that maybe my pictures had another role to play, as well. You are probably aware that, for instance, Roland Barthes have written with passion about photography. I am referring to his last book: La Chambre Claire, first published in France in 1980, the year of his untimely death.

I will return to that book in later post, since I fully agree with those stating that this book is one of the most important statements ever made on photography.

But what is more, it constitutes a cross section between semiology and phenomenology (Barthes explicitly refers to Edmund Hussels. Barthes states on page 20 in my copy of the English translation: Camera Lucida, that “In this investigation of Photography, I borrowed something from phenomenology’s project and something from its language”.

Barthes is talking about Edmund Husserl as his inpiration.

There is, however, even a much more important issue at stake here. You know that the phenomenological method includes a “freezing”, a “bracketing” of the natural attitude to be able to describe, and to study it more closely. Maybe you also are aware that one of the key methodological notions within phenomenology is the notion “perspective”.

Question: What is it I do, what is it that every photographer does, when taking or shooting pictures? Answer: Could be phrased this way: I/they/we, as photographers, freeze parts of the world from a certain perspective. That is the very nature of photography.

So, the cross over from photography to phenomenology, is rather obvious to make.

As the blog progressed, it slowly dawned on me, that here is a story that never has been told. I will try to tell it, bit by bit, as the blog unfolds. That was the general idea, anyway.

Think about this idea, and take a look at the picture submitted below: A moment, frozen in time, from a certain perspective. Phenomenological investigation illustrated. Photography on phenomenology. Feel free to re-read the posts on the phenomenological method already posted.

Gassin, France, 2002.

All the best to you as well

For more on the books mentioned, please go here: Library Thing: Roland Barthes: La Chambre Claire, and Library Thing: Roland Barthes: Camera Lucida (translated by Richard Howard).

For more posts on Barthes on this blog, go here, or use the tag cloud for navigation.

amidst other things

Barebones communication is steadily picking up readers. There have been no global burst yet, but I feel that there are enough interested readers for me to continue. And that is just what I will do.

One of the threads on this blog is the notebook thread. Small pieces of information for you to elaborate on. In your notebook, in your mindbook. Even on your macbook. Whatever way you want to elaborate on it, or do not want to expand on it. Fine with me. Notebook posts are intended as an opportunity for you to get barebones communication under your skin.

So here is yet another notebook post then: amidst other things. The title is inspired form a book written by phenomenologist Aron Gurwitsch, that I urge you to read. It merges areas as phenomenology and gestalt psychology. And lots of other good stuff. For once easily read, and highly informative, and on a level that all of us will appreciate. Meaning it is readable. Not all books on phenomenology are. The book is, of course, out of print so you need to get it second hand, which should be no major problem in these efficient times of google search. But if you are interested in this area, this book is a must. So go get it.

Let me quote the first few sentences and set you on the track. Aron Gurwitsch says on page one: “Experience always presents us with objects, things, events, etc., within certain contexts and contextures, and never with isolated and scattered data and facts. Looking at a material thing. e.g. a book, we perceive it in certain surroundings. We see the table on which the book is lying, we see other books, papers, pencils, pipes, and the thought the window, a segment of scenery outside the house. Every material thing is perceived amidst other things which form the background for its appearance. Correspondingly, the same is true with regards to thinking. When we are dealing with some theoretical problem, more then the problem alone is given to consciousness”.

And now to the notebook part. Take a closer look at the picture below. I shot that one in Barcelona, Spain on a visit there in 2003. At the marketplace in the centre of Barcelona. It is a pretty straight forward picture, almost abstract, and that gives opportunities for expressing layers of interpretations.

So here is the deal then – if you want to play along, that is: Use Gurwitsch’ indication of contexts and contextures within the fields of both physical and mental settings. Give a description of the a) physical context of the picture, and the b) the mental context of the same picture. In other words: Give an indication the physical and mental surroundings of this picture. If you don’t have a clue of how to do this, just ask.

If you want to share your notebook notes, feel free to do so as comments to this post. If you don’t have a clue of what I am getting at here, share that as well.

Good luck with it.

Aron Gurwitsch: The Field of Consciousness, Duquesne University Press, Pittsburg 1964. For more information on the book go to  Library Thing.

Second Advertising Fundamental: Dominant Mood.

It can come as no surprise, that the importance of one unified impression fundamental sets the stage for the rest of the fundamentals that Schwerin and Newell points to in their research. And yes, the fundamentals are derived from research into more than 50.000 ads and TV-commercials. So these fundamentals then are much more than one man’s (or rather two men’s) grand tale of what works, and don’t work, in advertising. Make no mistake here. These research results sticks to efficient communication. Not as a bible, but as a kind of default setting for persuasion. You can always go against these rules of persuasion, but I would consider that as risky business.

In this research, Schwerin and Newell found that there was yet another a common denominator for successful persuasion in marketing.. Successful campaigns fall in one of two opposite poles of persuasion: they are either emotional or logical in their “argument”.

What does this mean?

Sometimes the easiest way to explain a thing is telling a story of what it is not. The argument here does not imply that you need to rid every emotional element from a logical advertisement. That is hardly possible. And, it does not imply that you need to get rid of all logical hints in an overall emotional advertisement. This is hardly possible either.

The lesson to be learned seems to be that you need to pick your main road; either logical or emotional. And you need to stay on that road as best you can. That can sometimes take some effort. You need to know what means you have to your disposal for staying on the road. These means could easily be some you find in the barebones toolbox. For instance, it will help you a lot if you are aware of the difference between denotation and connotation, when you draft you concept and later on, the specific layout for the e.g. print ad. You can use gestalt factors to hold things together (text and main visuals).

When you chose your main road you should chose one of the two options mentioned; emotional or logical. Do that, and you chose a dominant mood for your persuasion. And advertising is about persuasion of people.

Let’s be more specific.

I need your help in imagining the following picture (sorry I do not have one in the real). I need you to imagine a white refrigerator. About 1.80 meter tall, and 0.60 meter wide. Doors open so you can see the empty shelves. (It is a brand new refrigerator. Just unpacked).

Do you manage this? Are you able to smell it as well, and sense the depth of it? (You will be amazed of how many people, that will not be able to imagine such a simple scene, but I bargain that you are not one of them. So, I continue).

Here, then, you have this imaginary brand new and very white refrigerator, right? Next step: Now you will image a newspaper and reading it a Sunday morning. On the third page is a picture of that same refrigerator, that you have just imagined. The text that sits above of the picture reads like this: “Be there Sunday before 01.00 p.m, and you get this Siemens for half the price“. The text body goes on telling you about the size of the refrigerator, how good it is to cool your wine, milk and groceries, how cold it freezes, that you don’t have to de-ice it ever, and that it, in terms of energy, will help the polar bears to stay on the North Pole in stead of in the North Pole Zoo.

Such an advertisement, may indeed raise you emotions, but in terms of dominant mood it is riding the logical main road. You build up an argument, and you stay with that argument. The main string in such an argument could be size, price or polar bears. Or it could be something else. It am sure that you get it  

Now to the emotional advertisements, and the second of the two main road available within the scope of dominant moods. Let me see if I can find a suitable picture so that this post will not end up consisting of text only (people don’t read much nowadays). And this post has already too many words.

Here is a suitable picture. Let’s look at it. You look at it.

 

So, what have we got?

For sure, this is not then the inside or the outside of a refrigerator, as in our imagination above. No, this is a picture of two deck chairs in front of a Bacardi poster. Shot on board one of the large ferries taking people and cars from Copenhagen, Denmark to Oslo, Norway. Shot, as I recall, in 2006.

Now, to the next little experiment. Forget the refrigerator, and in your imagination place this picture over the whole page in the same Sunday paper, that you “had in your hands” a while ago. Add the following headline to it: Free Drinks. 

Having this image in you mind, would you say that this was a dominant mood of what: logic or emotion. Would you be travelling on the emotional road or the logical road. What do I hear you say? Do I hear you at all … no, I don’t so I will have to speak once more

You could, of course, say that the heading “free drinks” could be a part of a logical argument. For instance “free drinks and you will save money”, which most of us will understand as a reasonable argument. But in this context, I would argue that this imaginary advertisement is dominantly emotional. How do I come to that conclusion. Well, why not use the connotations that might come with this picture. Here are some suggestions: relaxation, vacation, travel, sunshine, good feeling, et cetera. 

And that is nearly all I have to say this time. Sorry for such a wordy post. YOU need to continue from here

Very quick summary. Dominant mode is one of the advertising fundamentals stressed by Schwerin and Newell in their research. You are better off if you chose one road, logic or emotion, in stead of trying to travel both at the same time.

You should notice, that research in advertising goes very well with more academic sources like semiology, gestalt psychology and with phenomenology, even if all these sources have not been made explicit in this post.

Basically, the idea of merging resources are what barebones communication is all about: How different sources of competence may work together. They can even do so in very practical situations. Like, for instance, analysing or “constructing” a piece of communication like “an advertisement”.

If you want to read the first post in this barebones section on advertising, please go here. For an overview go here.

Other posts

You’ll find direct links to the other posts in this series on advertising fundamentals, below. If the post title is linked, it means that the posts has been submitted, and that you will get to it if you follow the link. If the fundamental is not yet linked, it means that that the post is not there yet. So you need to have a little patience.

First Fundamental: One Unified Impression.

Second Fundamental: Dominant Mood.

Third Fundamental: Visual and Verbal.

Fourth Fundamental: The Simple Truth.

Fifth Fundamental: Product of Consumer.

Sixth Fundamental: The Right Consumer.

Seventh Fundamental: Thoughts Worth Entertaining.

If you want to go for the book making your learning curve steeper and faster, here is the Library Thing information on it. And you’ll get the full information here as well:  Persuasion in Marketing, The Dynamics of Marketing’s Great Untapped Resource, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1981.

Stay well. A post on the third fundamental will emerge on this blog soon.

Barthes’ Connotation Procedures 5: Aestheticism.

5. Aestheticism

Obscurity is not a world unknown to Barthes. Or to his readers or his critics.

Particularly if you want to venture into his world of photography. Barthes is famous for his article on the Third Meaning, that he wrote for the French periodical Cahiers du Cinéma in 1970. Here he introduces the notion of the obtuse meaning of an image. Some would rather call this the obscure meaning of an image (I will handle this issue in a separate post).

I have to admit though, that already in 1961 when introducing his fifth connotation of aestheticism obscurity is present. To me it is, anyway.

Barthes states: “when photography turns painting, composition or visual substance treated with deliberation in its very material “texture”, it is either so as to signify itself as “art” (which was the case with the “pictorialism” of the beginning of the century) or to impose a general more subtle and complex signifier than would be possible with other connotation procedures”.

I’m am not sure what Barthes means with “a general more subtle and complex signifier”. So I am not in a position to be very helpful here. Sorry about that, but I urge you to pick up Barthes’ text directly, and tell me what this is all about. I will be more than happy to be educated here . How his connotation procedure of aestheticism can act as a mean of laying content into an photography, obscures me. Simple as that.

Here is an example of what I would call aestheticism in Barthes’ meaning “photography turns painting”. Or at least such a trial. This image, that is shot in Barthes’ own country, France, are overly saturated and filtered to make it look more like a painting than a photography.

Library Thing. (Roland Barthes: Image, Music, Text, pages 15-31, Fontana Press 1977, UK. Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath).

Buy the English translation of Barthes’ work. Follow the link and support the site:
Image-Music-Text