Objects of Desire
About the Project Conception by Dmitri Katz:
I had a freelance job where most of my time went into retouching pictures of cell phones. These were not actual phones, but rather life sized non-functioning models. Often they had manufacturing defects, such as too much space between the plastic pieces, or misplaced buttons. In additions, all details had to be clarified, logos and numbers replaced, cleaned, de-textured, colors corrected, etc. The buzzword was “sexy” -everything had to be sexy, more chromey, more contrast, more gloss, more shiny and so on.
People who produce ads know that a lot of the imagery is quite silly, and yet you have to believe in to work fourteen hour shifts. And of course the technical quality is often very high. So one has to enter into the vision of the product. And of course when you in the middle of spending a few months perfecting an image and a few lines of text, and one can really start to believe in it. Of course, I am not immune, Julia would be glad to tell you how tiresome I become before the new Mac workstations are released.
The essence of advertising is convincing people that one product, usually interchangeable with several competitors, is superior for some focused group combination of reasons. Maybe it really is better, but often, it is more the packaging and promotion that creates the buzz.
This art series is a distillation of what we see as the crux of advertising. Through correct purchasing you can fulfill your fundamental desires such as more or better sex, companionship, popularity, confidence. Our animal needs can be conveniently and instantly gratified through correct consumer decision making.
“Hot Shot” was the first piece of we conceived. The reference, I think, is rather obvious. How sexy is this product? We will show you just how sexy! Why be subtle about it? We chose latex as the surface material, as another reference to fetishizing. And, why not make it all wet and slippery. What I thought was most funny about this piece, is several months later I saw one of the cell phone companies had a promo shot of a black and silver phone shot on black leather. We thought of it first!
“Meet” is our favorite piece in the series. We were talking a lot about the use of bared flesh in advertising, why use a human body, when you can really say it with raw meat. The title comes from the implication to women who buy cosmetics that by application this product one will be more desirable, either improving ones existing relationship or excitingly beginning a new one. Of course there is also a reference to the use of animal testing for cosmetics, though many companies are no longer doing such experimentation.
“Home Safe” plays with a popular metaphor of car advertising, the car as phallus. We chose a rather unsexy car, a 1940’s Volvo, which we elegantly altered the hood logo to “Vulva”. For the female element, we built a dark tunnel of oysters (please don’t report us to PETA). Plus, a little glycerin for extra slime. What more must be said.
“Nice Price” comments on the modern indentured servitude caused by the encouragement to make use of easy credit to pay for unnecessary purchases. We also wanted to comment on the promotion of consumerism as a form of safe substitution of actual sex. And what better to lubricate the whole process than a petroleum product.
all images: digital prints on a wooden frame, 1×1 m, Acrylmedium, Aluminium- and Compositiongoldletters.