Proposal for Moving Image Project

 For my Moving Image video database, I will stimulate subconscious human desires.  This is a technique similar to that used originally by Edward Bernays in the 1920s.  Bernays is the first to advertise products to consumers not because they needed them, but because they should want them.  His most significant campaign promoted cigarettes as torches of freedom. A symbol of women’s rights.  Like Bernays, I will combine rational concepts with various objects in an effort to trigger reactions in the mind of the audience. This type of commodity fetishism is common in most advertisements. Contemporary society gives special value to products, which give them qualities of living organisms. This also suggests the link between the body and a machine. 

Clips will include mechanical systems, foods, and other everyday objects. These clips will be presented on one half of the screen. The other half will contain shots of human behaviour. More precisely, behaviour related to the five senses. Clips will be short.  At high speed, the computer will select one clip from each database, placing them side-by-side.  The result will initiate subconscious emotional responses. To maintain viewer interest, a rhythmic music will play in the background. I do not wish to integrate spoken or written word as they distract the subconscious though process. 

This combination of databases will stimulate secret human desires through suppressed emotion.  The random patterns demonstrate the ability of the human brain to create associations, which do not, in fact, exist.

 Technical Specifications

This database will be created using two sets of clips. Body clips will be contained in one mov file and the products in another. This will facilitate the selection process in MAX/MSP. Each clip should have an equal and short duration. A MAX program will be constructed to select the clips randomly and glue them together. 

To learn more about Bernays or this advertising technique watch the following clip.

 

Related Links

•  Amazing Youtube clip – Effectiveness of subliminal advertising
• Commodity FetishismOther Explanation
• Perpetual Art Machine
• Many companies use such techniques