ALL CONSUMING IMAGES

CHAPTER 1 “…Images without bottom” THE “endless” INFLUENCE OF STYLE ON MAN AND SOCIETY

//Quotes

1. “Elegance” that is anti-fashion and anti-luxury” - an irony

2. “Today, such signs of status has been democratised.”
3. “In the world of style, ideas, activities and commitments become ornaments, adding
connotation and value to the garment while they are, simultaneously, eviscerated of
meaning.”
4. “My elements of style are what is spread across the pages of… magazines.” Lisa E. P20
5. “Style has become the official idiom of the market place” & “style has become the legal
tender” P22
6. “Style speaks for rise of democratic society – where what one wishes to become is more
consequential than who one is.” Vs “Style speaks for a society where coherence has fled to
the hills… and provided a context of continual discontent.” P23
//

1. Style makes up a way of life and creates an idealistic layer to the dreary daily needs of life
“…offering the consumer a democratic promise of limitless possibility while, at the same time,
projecting the sheltered the sheltered prerogatives of an elite few.”

2. Post-modern style takes a very malleable form, and is ever-changing. Style makes
statements, yet has no convictions
Style presents a way of life that is unattainable for most people, yet provides an avenue for
expression of the way of life from “an audience’s perspective”

Examples:

Call-to-action for potential consumers to purchase “militaristic” panties with camouflage prints to
show off rebelliousness. A departure from meaning, and elusion from reality.

Jeans as a way to rebel against social classes.

//Style presents itself as a “choice”/choice

3. Style is a behavioural model that allows people to identify themselves with. In the process, it
has set an invisible rule for those who seek to “fit in” to a social group. Internal expression
and external.
E.g

Female immigrant looks for a job, but is rejected multiple times due to her choice of style. It reflects
that

Michael H – basketballer, walks with a bop and specifically wears Lee jeans.

//To belong to a group, we necessarily draw lines to exclude those whom we deep do not belong

//Association of images to reality. The way human minds work. Conditioned reflex. Method of
stereotype. Images evoke emotions
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4. Style is a legal tender, overshadowing innate quality and substance.

Volatility of modern style as opposed to a more defined portrayal through image and representation
in past traditions. – lack of coherent meaning provides a context for continual discontent

5. Style is a significant element of power, product of a vast network of industries.

CHAPTER 2 Image and Identity SEGREGATION OF STYLE AS A DESIGN ”image”, FROM THE CORE
ESSENCE “identity” OF WHAT A GOOD IS.

//Comments

the historic development of that “soup kitchen” and its implications

Chapter 2 attempts to exemplify the cause of and the rise of style (its democratisation) through an
examination into the history of the market. The shift in social castes and norms, as well as the
advance of economy were the catalyst for the birth of style.

It also shows how style and image (similarly to photography), removes itself from reality. The items
that were of specific significance, such as religious, position, job, place in society were
“democratised” into mercantile items. Products and their purposes were mashed up to create the
image and “make-belief” of status, or desires. Their functions and their appearances could be of
completely separate essence, and from there the idea of illusion emerges in the market.

What we receive and what is marketed to us are different – underneath the ornate-looking silk-
embroidered chair are steel seats and cheap cushion. However, we buy into the appearance of class
and quality. Over time, we have come to accept this as a norm in the market.

//Quotes

1. “a new reality, shaped by the flourishing of dematerialised surfaces, could take hold.”
- Form as a separate identity from matter, with the invention of photography
2. “The image offered a representation of reality more compelling than reality itself…”
3. “the acquisition of style represented a symbolic leap from mere subsistence”
4. “trade in arts began to grow; style was becoming something one could acquire”
“with the burgeois market in style, however, images became – more and more- marks of individual,
autonomous achievement.”

//

1. Advent of photography and its impact

a. “Image would become more important than the object itself, …and make the object
disposable”
b. Cord between aspect and material has been divorced
c. Image offered a representation of reality more compelling than reality itself
d. Look of visible world could now be easily and inexpensively reproduced
e. For people who, in another epoch, would have been unable to afford it, the
acquisition of style signified a symbolic leap from the constraints of mere sustenance
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2. Merchant activity enabled previously-controlled crafts to be purchasable by the general

public
a. Conspicuous consumption
3. Style embodied a significant transformation from representation of office, to personal
property
a. “With the bourgeois market in style, however, images became – more and more
mark of individual and autonomous achievement. They became property,
possessions, things that reflected upon the person who owned them, more than on
the intricate web of obligation and power that constituted society.
4. Trends towards mass-produced style
a. Cheapening in quality, and increased focus on external appearance
b. “new consumer democracy…”
c. “By the 1830s, design was assuming a modern definition, defining the superficial
application of decoration to the form and surface of the product.”
d. “Up until the 19th century… there was a connection, a symbiosis between the
intricacy of the image and the method of the craft being used to fashion the image.”
e. “the architect has become what one has called a ‘merchant of whimsy’
5. Use of images as a channel for pretension, as the lower costs of photography allowed
access to the masses. In the past, only the rich were able to project that image, and it was a
prerogative of the wealthy.

CHAPTER 3 The Marriage between Art and Commerce APPLICATION OF ART AND STYLE IN
COMMERCE – the use of style as a tool to increase commercial profits

//Comments

Continues to elucidate the development of style in commercialism, and how the employment of
style causes goods to lack quality…

Introduction on machines and industrialisation, and their impact on style

//

1. Industrialisation as a force that displaced traditional culture

a. “If culture can be understood as the accumulated stock of understanding and
practices by which people live and maintain themselves in a society, then the
industrialisation of daily life may have… displaced the fabric…culture
b. Walter Rathenau of AEG, commissioned Peter Behrens to create a uniform
corporate look foe AEG
c. “In order for design to project a new spiritual content, it was necessary to project an
imagistic panorama: a new symbolic totality…”
d.
2. Consumer Engineering
a. “Beauty has always paid better than any other commodity.” – Daniel H. Burnham
b. Businessmen were attempting to “take over consumption as well as production.” –
Walter Lippman on flowering of advertisement
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3. From 1920s onward, advertising agencies broadened their field of action, organising
multifaceted advertising campaigns for their clients. //Advertising as a psychological tool
a. “consumer engineering” – a complex, coordinated merchandising effort
b. “Beauty is introduced into material objects, to enhance them in the eyes of the
purchaser. The appeal of efficiency itself is nearly ended…” - Calkins
c. Beauty… would allow for the undermining of the efficiency factor, stimulating
compulsive consumption.
d. *store vs shop
e. Corporations and their analysis on what triggers consumers to desire, and purchase
4. Engineering desire in consumer’s mind through application of consumer analysis in terms of
behaviour and psychology
a. “Understanding the consumers’ mind comes down to the question of appealing and
enhancing desire.” It is necessary to create a context in which “pictures are painted
before the consumer’s imagination representing the pleasurable aspects of
possession of the commodity.”
b. Application of engineering in the sense of touch and smell
c. Rather than verbal appeals in advertising, they were proposing a depth-psychology
analysis, one that would promote the “exploitation of the ‘subliminated sense’, in
the field of product design”
d. Harold Van Doren: “Design is fundamentally the art of using lines… to arouse an
emotional reaction in the beholder.”
5. Style obsolescence – selling durables as though they were non-durables to encourage
increased consumption //Use of style to improve commercial benefits
a. “Consumer engineering does not end until we can consume all that we can make”
b. Style is something to be used up. Part of its significance is that it will lose significance

CHAPTER 4 – Chosen People APPEAL TO THE NEED FOR SIGNIFICANCE

Comments

//Explains how industrialism and consumerism, with focus on the middle class, is a cause for the rat
race and anxiety in many Americans. It is also a cause of many Americans being trapped in the
“middle-class”. He goes on to say explain how the psychological definition of class has shifted from
the “producerist” aspect to the “consumerist”. He also dwells on the psychology and the intrinsic
need for humans to portray themselves to stand their position in society – much like how a rat is
trapped in its rat race – the conditions were pre-set, and the middle-class of society are trapped in
this pre-defined social norm.

//

1. Appeal to need for significance

a. This highly individuated notion of distinction – marked by the compulsory
consumption of images – stand at the heart of the “American Dream”.
i. Image is already played in the mind of the recipient through the mail
advertisement, thus tugging at his/her psychology and evoking a sense of
self-fulfilment, prestige, and status for possession of the card.
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b. “The accoutrements of status were beginning to become available to people ‘whose

desires grow much faster than their fortunes.’”
2. Many people were climbing up in social class in terms of style, oftentimes
disproportionately to their growth in wealth //motivated by need for significance
a. ‘genteel poverty’
b. “Wealth and poverty were increasing apace”… “wealth of industrial workers were
measured negatively by the goods they needed but did not have.”
3. Increased wealth inequality due to industrialism, that was covered by the superficial
appearance of accessibility to wealth manifested in the cheap, though elaborately designed
consumables/commodities that the middle-class clamoured to own.
a. Equating democracy with consumption…(mass production was) investing individuals
with tool of identity, marks of personhood
b. Individuality were actually reduced for factory workers
4. 2 distinct ways of apprehending status and class – through the lens of production, and
consumption //Significance was sought in the form of image through consumption and
style, more than their productive contribution
a. …Conflict between those who profited from the increasingly mechanised and
consolidated means of production, and those whose lives, labors, and energies were
being consumed in service of this new industrial apparatus
b. Concept of ‘class identity’ – objective relations to power, to give consciousness to
exploited workers
i. Individuals who view their social class objectively would better be able to
determine if they are being exploited in the ‘industrial top-down chain’.
Most individuals would be eluded by their ability to consume, and therefore
claim their status via what they can afford to consume, as opposed to what
they do in the production chain.
5. The awkward position of the socially mobile middle-class //How the crave for significance
led to this
a. Middle class assumed that they were engaged in a passage from lower to higher
social status. However, it could go either way.
b. Pretense had become a cardinal behaviour of middle-class
c. Rise in possessions of the middle class merchants in the Middle Ages, and capitalists
of the 19th century held palpable evidence of wealth, as opposed to 20th century
middle-class who decorate themselves with style primarily of ‘kitsch’ – cheap, mass-
produced imitations of elite style
d. Some middle-class adopted the culture of the elite, while they were realistically
working-class in relations to power. This had a political effect of dividing the middle
class, where they would otherwise be the same
e. “The middle class is always a firm champion of equality when it concerns humbling a
class above it, but it is its inveterate foe when it concerns elevating a class below it.”
– social reformer Orestes Brownson
f. Steward depicted a growing class of people whose fragile identity was wedded to
the consumption of goods, and whose troubled consciousness was enforced by a
thin veil of appearances
g. “Poverty that argues one’s incapacity closes door to more profitable or
advantageous situations… More superior style of living is considered an investment,
rather than mere desire for self indulgence. Many are in debt…that increases the
load for the future…that the present cannot bear” – Steward
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h. Rise in anxiety
i. Social priority of constructing fronts was giving rise to a state of “constant
inhibition, restraining normal feelings…”
6. Democracy and privilege, once understood to be opposing forces, were becoming engaged
in a strange and fitful unity //A result of chasing significance through stylistic means;
Democracy becomes represented through freedom for consumption.
a. Americans had the option of choosing a whole style of life
b. People tend to buy things that symbolize their aspirations
c. “Populuxe culture”
i. It pays to give a product a high-class image, and also you can get more for
it.” – David Ogilby
7. Stylised goods functioning as “identity kits” //Strive for significance through stylistic means
led to a personality imbalance, where intrinsic and extrinsic value crashed
a. Commodity self
b. Tension between inner self and outer image had become a routine fixture in
everyday life
8. Immigrants and style //Achieving significance through adapting to style
a. “Greenhorns”, tend to view themselves as aliens in the new environment, and they
become objects of scrutiny for others and themselves due to differences.
b. There is a contrast in their original culture and the world that they live in, and
oftentimes they struggle to balance between the influence of the both on their
expression of self to the outside world.
c. Symbols of style may not always be accepted in different environments due to the
stereotype that are marked on certain styles
i. Russian lady looking for job

CHAPTER 5 – THE DREAM OF WHOLENESS

Commercialised style and its impact on identity and personhood

DEFINING PERSONHOOD

1. Function of clothes as a badge of social rank

2. Modern structures of work have impeded freedom, ironically, in the name of progress and
its connotations to freedom
a. Taylorism //how it causes fragmentation of individualism
3. The notion of self as other, as something to be manipulated and molded
a. Packaging of self as a necessity in work life
PATHWAYS OF FULFILLMENT: PHOTOGRAPHY AND CELEBRITY //How we seek wholeness through
these medium

4. Style offered through media and images continually provides an ‘ideal’ reference point to
which we actively compare ourselves to //a reminder that “we are not whole”
a. In order to complete the “dream of wholeness”, fragmentation is necessary. Images
are edited and mashed up in order to give a perfect look
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b. For others, beautiful thinghood becomes an affliction; the image of self stirs painful
feelings of inadequacy
c. Photography’s powerful ability to mediate style is rooted in its simultaneous affinity
to reality and fantasy.
5. Celebrity, like photography are closely-related to the image machinery of contemporary
consumer culture
a. Each success feeds the hopes of millions who will never make it
b. Celebrity’s influence on consumption
i. Celebrity’s convictions may be used against him to package a commodity –
Charlie Chaplin and IBM
ii. Celebrities are linked to audiences in that for both, consumption serves as
an expression of power, or lack of it

THE DECORATION OF INDEPENDENCE

6. Not all activity constituted meaningful freedom – The need to seek freedom out of the
confines of social routines, and for many, consumption is the means of freedom and
representation
a. Freedom is a condition of self-realisation through action, yet most of us are confined
to actions within the scope of expectations that our title entitles us to
b. Against the prominent backdrop of personal freedom, the terms of reality can fill a
person with an overwhelming, insatiable hunger: to act, to make meaning in one’s
life  style becomes a compensation for the substance that mass produces and
markets it
c. Having vies with doing in the available lexicon of self-realisation
i. Style is a realm of being exceptional within the constraints of conformity

CHAPTER 6 – VARNISHED BARBARISM

How America developed its industrial style from the 19th Century, where they adopted artefacts of
elitism from the past European style

//Comment

In this chapter we explore a period where America was discovering her own sense of style, and
beginning to leave behind the encumbrance of tradition. They redefined the Age that we were in.

1. While America mocks communism for the lack of style, America’s new rich did not know
what to style to adopt with their new status, and sought a mixture of European Beaux from
the past. This resulted in an incoherent mess of a ‘style’. – “Varnished barbarism”
2. Sullivan’s movement for development of futuristic style
3. Loos – Impulse to ornament is anachronistic – erotic
4. Sexual division of labour – sexism in terms of style
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5. Rational modernism and Art Noveau, and rational moderism’s triumph over art noveau
through time
6. Rational modernism and Art Noveau posed alternative to Varnished Barbarism, and reflect
the fragmentation and contradiction of 20th century

Chapter 7 – MECHANICAL SENTIMENTS

Modernism as the new ideal and how it has evolved and how it has been adapted and re-adapted
over time, up to a point where it became a new façade for style(streamlining). //The adoption of the
machine culture

1. How US became the leader in modernism

a. The push for systematic and productive approach to lifestyle
b. Departure from the anachronistic pursuit of “formistic” style
“Previously seen as artless and utilitarian, factories and power plants began to assume a “classical”
status, as models of “structural simplicity and harmonious proportion.”

“While parvenu Americans… their links to traditions of elegance and luxury were tentative, and
unconvincing. On the other, hand, America’s separation from Europe allowed it to develop a
utilitarian culture of its own, without having to stand, continuously, on ceremony.”

For Le Cobusier, the tension between the visual sphere of everyday life needed to be reconciled with
the realities of the factory. – “There is no real link between our daily activities at the factory, the
office or the bank, which are healthy and useful and productive, and our activities within the bosom
of the family which are handicapped at every turn.”

Democracy: the freedom of inequities from the past (yet another definition)

Focus on American architecture

Bauhaus “sought to a means of reuniting the world of art with the world of work”

2. Contructivist vs Socialist
“In Constructivism, form and substance are one…. Is the socialism of vision” –Moholy-Nagy

3. Modernism as an image
In trying to “shake off bonds of tradition and strike out in new and unknown worlds of imagination,”
he reasoned, modernism in the arts had provided advertising and industrial design with a compelling
grammar of suggestion, a grammar that could provide a silent, but persuasive, link of products to be
sold and popular aspirations.

//linking forms in terms of tactile and visual imagery, to the popular aspirations of daily consumer’s
lives

As market priorities call for the continual implementation of “style obsolescence”, the sequence of
changing styles has given rise to the visual representation of an ever-improving standard of living: of
progress. – peculiar variation of Darwinism
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“Appealing to us on an aesthetic level, such depictions of advancement are extraordinarily

persuasive.” But when we employ other yardsticks…these claims begin to lose some of their
credibility

“form following profit”, “streamlining”

CHAPTER 8 – FORM FOLLOWS VALUE //A beginning of the “Form follows” series, in an attempt to
explore the factors that influence form and style

//TRANSITION from Chapter 7

“…the modern trajectory of style aestheticized the modern contours of power. It is to these
contours we must now turn”

The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture

1. The bicycle thief

“Every way of seeing is also a way of not seeing” – Helen Merryl Lynd

2. Confrontation between concrete world of human relations and its aestheticized

reinterpretation
Reification – the process by which the social relations of a modern exchange society assume the
apparent status of universal truth, “stamping their imprint upon the whole consciousness of
man” – Georg Lukacs

Within the selectively seductive frame of the commercial image, the dominant power relations
of contemporary society are transmitted, not as a set of arbitrary rules by which the exploitation
of labor and resources is enforced, but as a natural, even beautiful, rendering of things. The
secrets of power remain protected.

As a panorama of apparently random images, the implicit language of style offers a way of
seeing, and of not seeing, the world we inhabit, and our places within it. It affects our
understanding of value, of social power, and of social change. At the same time, it may restrain
the horizons of critical thought.

3. Vaporisation of values
Hunt family: “the most monumental financial reversal in modern American business history.” – Harry
Hurt 3

…the pre-eminence of hard goods has given way to that of abstract value, immateriality and the
ephemeral.

Survival…continues to be rooted in the availability of material goods, but economic wealth is

derived, more than ever, in the circulation of detached and imponderable representations of value.

Amid an economy of thin air, hope and anxiety are never too far apart – on stock markets
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The more vaporous and transmittable the symbol, the greater its value – similar to “hot stocks”

4. Less is more
Style: is a unity of principle animating all the work of an epoch, the result of a state of mind which
has its own special character. – Le Cobusier

…”a wealth which… was divorced from the natural rhythms of life, and which could be transported,
like light, across the immeasurable expanse of thin air.”

a. Rigidity without volume(Behrens, AEG), voids without solids in architecture(Walter

Gropius)
b. Style as being influenced by economic needs (the value)
Skyscraper embodied the essence of form following profit. Built without community or society in
mind

Female fashion in World War 1, for less wasteful use of resources

5. The Body Politic (less is more 2) - Human body contours as a notion of financial well-being
Female body from “heavy bosoms and big hips” to smaller sizes – from materiality and arranged
marriages to mobility of social and economic life

Social mobility (the value) the cause of “less is more”? – “From mid 1910s, bodily substance
became identified with cumbersome excess…”

The epidemic feelings of self-consciousness reveal themselves in behavioural patterns that have
begun to appear earlier and earlier in life.

“80% of women have been on diet by age 18” Vogue

Kent Bloomer and Charles Moore: Body, Memory, and Architecture: “Certainly if we continue to
focus on external and novel experiences and on the sights and sounds delivered to us from the
environment to the exclusion of renewing and expanding our primordial haptic experiences, we risk
diminishing out access to a wealth of sensual detail developed within ourselves… form the core of
our human identity.”

//Style can be seen as a wholesome trend. From bottles, to body shapes, architecture… the shift
comes together – from heavy and big to small and productive, efficient - following the value.

Style as a ideal vs style as a result of economic needs vs assertion of power

Chapter 9: Form Follows Power - “What a piece of work is a man” – Shakespeare, Hamlet

//Comments

//Quotes

1. “The engineer is a familiar villain of modern life, the thief of individual initiative, the creator
of plans in which the creativity of others will be systematically and methodically squelched.
… the attendant’s skill is beside the point. The master of his stools becomes an extension of
the machine.”
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2. “The advance of microelectronics… has the potential of increasing the number of people
who withdraw into their own world and become functionally autistic.” – NIRA report
(National Institute of Research Advancement)
3. “…computer users may fall into a mechanical way of thinking in their daily life, dividing every
topic up into black or white, accepting everything on face value and jumping to hasty
conclusions.” – NIRA report
4. “As the use of such systems increases…they have raised a number of problems. First is the
problem of a sense of purpose to life…. As these skills and abilities are rendered meaningless
by automation, workers may experience increased feelings of inadequacy and alienation.
Second is the problem of isolation…”
5. “Perhaps it is fitting that this quintessential, single, young, urban professional – whose life
has become a circle of work, money culture, and the cultivation of an image – has turned
himself, literally, into a piece of work.
6. “In the world of style, where images seem to float, disconnected from the world that
produces them, mastery can be confused with obedience.
//

HARD BODIES - Impact of powerful machines on form

1. Societal problems from the use of machines obsoleting human skills.

2. The new definition of physical perfection – “the shell”. The author emphasises how this
physical perfection is a result of “The privileged guidance of industrial engineering, and the
mindless obedience of work discipline…”
a. He also uses gym as an example of how machines have creeped into other parts of
our life outside of work, even in leisure.
b. “…self-absorbed careerism, conspicuous consumption and a conception of self as an
object of competitive display have fused to become the preponderant symbols of
achievement.”
3. How soldiers had natural signs of strength, but with the increasing demands of soldiers,
basic training became the mechanism in which soldiers are churned out.
a. Increasing number of social activities have likewise been routinized.
4. Anthropometrics – a generic concept of humanity
a. “The gap could be filled between human behaviour and machine design”

//Quote

1. “If the desolate, regimented loner provides an aesthetic body ideal for the late 20th century,
it is also in keeping with the managerial ideal that took hold in the 19th.” P203
A link between HARD BODIES and REGULATING LINES. The author attempts to chain the behaviour
of the 20th century, as a result of the phenomenon that began in the 19th century. Upon this
reflection, we understand that the 19th century managerial ideal still takes hold in the 20th century,
and that the “lone” regimentation of the 20th century working class was not that individualistic after
all, but rather reflects a collective ideal that has been declared by an invisible managerial body.

REGULATING LINES //Effecting power through form

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1. Use of architecture as a means of regulating and controlling human behaviour in the

society. A “model citizen”
a. Breuer was a proponent that the house should be a machine for living
b. “Participation in the modern world calls for individuals who have become free of
preconceived ideas and sentimental attachments p199
c. Mayo’s “Night Mind” p199
d. In the works of Breuer (technician of space) and Mayo (technician of mind)k9i20th
century link between modernist aesthetics and social management can be readily
perceived.
e. Reason (in the Enlightenment Period) as an inspiration for revolt against rules of
established social order, ironically becomes the basis to sustain the modern social
order.
2. Panopticism – The principle of physical and psychological restrain of the mind, of control
over many in the hands of a few in power.
a. Originally an architectural plan for a prison in Jeremy Bentham’s book Penopticon.
b. Focault notes that using no other instruments save “ architecture and geometry”,
panopticism “acts directly on individuals; it gives power of ‘mind over mind’. The
panoptic schema makes any apparatus of power more intense.”
c. Individuals subjected to panopticism are bound by their own ideas, imposed on
them through their environment.
i. J. Servan, late 18th century military theorist: “A stupid despot may constrain
his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more
strongly by the chain of their own ideas.”
3. The widespread use of architecture in urban reform to maintaining social order. (Imbuing
the power of control within architecture)
a. This controlling impulse was the same that had inspired the Panopticon, but
whereas the Panopticon was a stark, umembellished machinery of power, these
planners clothed their motives in the aesthetic trappings of a glorified, European
past. P203
b. Under the banner of “moral reform,” the need to establish a pervasive aura of
authority, to educate the masses to the standards of “good citizenship,” began to
enter the purview of urban planners and captains of commerce.
4. Use of aesthetic in modern production also affected the psychology of the people
a. Using clock as an example, in p207: “Telling time has become unskilled labor, it no
longer requires a sense of whole. In a “live for the moment” environment, each
moment only lives for itself, then is consumed, with no trace left, only to be
replaced by a new moment.
5. Reducing of individualism to a small part of a whole, especially in factory/corporate
settings. (And the implementation of a system to prevent revolt against this reality)
a. For revolution to be “avoided”, a “spirit of order, a unity of intention” must be
instilled within the architectural environment. – Le Cobusier p208
b. “The spirit of the worker’s booth no longer exists, but certainly there does exist a
more collective spirit. If the workman in intelligent he will understand the final end
of his labour, and this will fill him with a legitimate pride.” – Le Cobusier on the loss
of pride in individual’s craft due to the implementation of systematic, stepwise
production. Each workman would have to convince themselves that their part were
a meaningful sum of the whole of all the parts – the final product, and find pride in
there.
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//With industrialism, large organisations have seemingly taken the credit off of
individual workman, and placed it on the implemented system on which the labour and
craft of the individual are input. As such, these companies shave off the profits of
individual worker as a collective profit, and then divide part thereof into individual
“salaries”, as a compensation for the “feed” for their machinery. With reduced labour
(due to machinery and system), reduced labor costs (a cut taken off of individual profits
should the workman have created the product themselves), and increased (economies
of) scale, the unit cost to the organisation has reduced significantly.

The organisation then passes on this reduced cost in terms of savings to the individual
consumer. Part of the community of consumers are the workmen who are employed
in the production of the good. Their salary (a portion of the costs of product), would
be spent on a number of units of the product which the company sells at a profit. In
this case if an employee of a company purchases a number of unit of products
equivalent to his compensation for the same number of unit of products, he will
always be at a deficit. He will be “poorer measured by the products that he require”,
as was mentioned in one of the previous chapter.
This corporate machinery will continue to run, as it is fuelled by the desire for lower
costs, economic benefits (for the governers/politicians), and the idea of stable jobs,
amongst others perceived benefits.
6. The idea that homes should be a machine for living, that the precision and efficiency of
factory should be brought to individual lives of the working class.
//And we do buy into this idea. Living close to city centre for prestige and efficiency in terms
of travel time. Living in condos and high-rise buildings, again as a symbol of prestige for
some, as well as efficiency in terms of the use of space, and the effective designation of use
of each space – kitchen for cooking, individual rooms, and living hall – a hallmark of modern
homes

THE AURA OF TECHNICAL PERFECTION //Implying that technical perfection was used as a guise

1. As limitations of machinery were exemplified, the call for order and efficiency on the
common people has revealed itself as a means to its end, as opposed to an
unavoidable/ideal outcome of industrialism and the machine age. 2. The imposition of
controls hence, was an assertion of power above all else that is used to mask its agenda.
a. Ironically, the mathematical austerity of their designs was not easily fabricated by
mass-production machines, and their effective execution required the patient and
time-consuming skills of handcraftsmen. At its inception, then, “honesty” of design
deviated from the hard truth; it was more a call to order than the incontrovertible
outcome of the factory process. P210
i. //To be fair, there may have been a required conjunction between ordered
manufacture lines, and skills of individual craftsmen to create a mass-
produced “modern product”.
However, it may have been the proposal that control and order are
essential, and the reasoning used that called for the culling of individual
character and skills that was outrageous to morality. The argument used by
modernists contradicted itself, because the system that they proposed were
unable to fulfil the ideal perfection which they sought.
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b. “There is a greater concern that the building should look rational rather than the
rational methods should be employed in its design.” – Alexander Tzonis, p211
i. Again, an evidence for the argument that modernist’s push for practicality in
terms of efficiency was more idealistic in essence than it was practical – an
irony.
2. The imposition of controls hence, was an assertion of power above all else that is used to
mask (and aestheticise/beautify) its agenda. (Point 2 is a continuation of point 1.)
a. “The problem of architecture as I see it is the problem of all art: the elimination of
the human element from the consolidation of form. The only perfect building must
be the factory, because that is built to house machinery, not men.” – Decline and
Fall, Evelyn Waugh 1924
b. Here, rational modernism, as a “technology of representation”, reveals itself,
without apology, as an aestheticization / aestheticization of power. Even that which
is a product of the hand, or the imagination of a commercial artist or designer, is
represented as the product of nothing less than a perfect, smoothly running system.
i. Modernism is argued here to be a cover for power. Individualism is lost
here, where products of creativity and craftsmanship are consolidated as
and credited to products of “a smoothly running system”
c. By separating the “nobility” of industrial form from the social content of factory life,
surface departed from its substance… panopticism was now transformed into a
gallery of utopian visions of transcendent perfection.
i. Factory was designed by the likes of Peter Behrens and Le Corbusier for the
“nobility” of mass production and perfectionism, without regard for the
resultant problems to the people who work within the system.

3. A “return of power” to the common people/middle-class through design of commercial

goods.
a. While at work many people spend their lives performing routine and minuscule
elements within an impenetrable bureaucratic or productive maze, the design of
many products… suggests that with the purchase of the product, you will have your
hands on the control.
b. “If the housewife’s job looks as complex as a jet pilot’s it is because the controls are
arbitrarily being designed for effect, rather than use.” – Industrial Design magazine,
April 1965
i. An irony to the intended ideal for modernism. A return to the “decorative
era”, where now the extended and not-so-useful “functionalities” becomes
the modern equivalent of decoration
c. As the emulation of ornamental grandeur had been essential to the construction of
a middle-class appearance in the late 19th century, access to “state of the art”
technology has become an essential fixture of middle-class identity in the 20th
century
d. In both systems, this appearance constitutes an implicit agreement with the system
of power being represented.
i. In the past, power was alluded to the decorative appearance of European
noblemen. In modernism, that power has been transferred to technology
and control.
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THE GREENING OF PANOPTICISM //An improvement of the situation

1. The return of aesthetics, and questioning/critique of the feasibility of rational modernism

a. If 1930s was a time when people believed that “practical value” and perfect,
mechanical “efficiency” would give forth their own “aesthetic law”, now is a time
when aesthetic lawlessness is in vogue, when ornament and color and gratuitous
“poetic flourishes” have experienced an indiscriminate reinvigoration. – Bruno Taut
P218
b. Questioning the verbiage of functionalism p219
c. “The skyscraper as the typical expression of the city is the human stable, stalls filled
with the herd, all to be milked by the system that keeps the animals docile by such
fodder as it puts in the manger and such warmth as the crowd instills in the crowd.”
– Lloyd Wright p220
i. Alludes to the corporate system, where employees are packed to have their
work “milked” by the company, and is kept “docile” by the stable salary
(“manger”) they are given, and the warmth that they get from this cold
reality is the familiarity they get from the fact that everyone else (the crowd)
is doing the same – in this sense, there is a form of self-imposed familiarity
that had become beneficial to the corporate system
d. “Monarchy was centralisation. The city is centralisation. Our capitalistic system, as it
stands to fall, is centralisation. And centralisation is no longer practical. (in the
democratic society)” – Wright
i. Centralisation in this sense was seen as a means of exploitation, by the
ruling elites (monarchy), by the corporate system (city), by the banks
(capitalistic system, as is emphasised in the Great Depression at the time)
ii. Also centralisation was “a nuclei for wholesale muder… (in modern
warfare)” – Wright was proved right in the 2nd World War
e. Ralph Walker: Like much formal architecture, Le Cobusier’s machines for living were
the result of architectural plans imposed from the top down, “in line with the mass
thinking of our post-war heritage; that thinking which presupposes daily life supplied
and controlled by others.”
i. The idea of the masses “thinking within the frame of what is pre-set by the
‘managers’”
f. Lippman on Radio City, an oversized theatre in his opinion: “It is the very essence of
materialism,” he concluded, “to make human values fit the equipment instead of
adapting the equipment to human taste.”
i. Reflects the point put forth in the previous subchapter, where the modern
school and ideology of what makes a good design is implemented as a
means to its end (focus on efficiency, form, etc.), without thought towards
its functionality/practicality to the end user. Which begs the question on the
definition of “functionalism” as put forth by rational modernists.
2. The return of vernacular (functional rather than monumental) architecture and the growth
of suburban homes
a. Sibyl Moholy-Nagy: (Formal architecture), she explained, reflects the “official…
history of a culture,” while (vernacular architecture) “testifies to the aspirations” of
anonymous people.
i. If corporate modernism expressed an “official” history of progress, by the
1930s and 1940s a hunger for vernacular community was mounting
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b. …migrated to a new way of life… Still in process, this population shift affected
demographic patterns and social attitudes among a wide sweep of the American
Electorate
i. Could the author be bringing this up to reflect this behaviour as a purposeful
move by the government to impact votes and confidence in the
government?
c. The very structure of these new suburbs posed the appearance of an egalitarian,
middle-class American consensus. The maintenance of this appearance was
predicated on the erasure of social memory.
i. The people left the cities, where some of them were considered poor. In this
nascent community, where there were no “history, tradition nor established
structure – no inherited customs, institutions, “socially important” families,
or “big houses”. Hence there was this sentiment of equality
3. Why the return of vernacular architecture did not mean the end of corporate modernism –
although it did put rational modernism out of favour to a large extent – yet possibly
invigorated it. //not “completely green”
a. …the suburbs themselves were, in many ways, the embodiment of what corporate
modernism had been calling for.
i. The divide between corporate modernism (the corporate state of
modernism where workmanship is centralised and systemised), and rational
modernism (the movement towards modernism as a whole, including
shaping the architecture landscape to complement the factory “attitude”)
b. Although rational modernists had long claimed that their aesthetic precepts would
create a “machine for living” in the modern age, the impact of their cool, stark lines
was limited, for the most part, to costly corporate and public architecture.
c. Walter Dorwin Teague summarised those things which would permit the US to
realise itself as a “land of plenty”. At the top of his list was mass-produced housing
i. “…up-to-date machine for living, costing between $1000 to $2500”
ii. He laid out that to become a “land of plenty”, and for the population of
suburban areas to be successful, “adaptation of mass-production methods
to the problem of home construction” would be “key”.
d. William Levitt, Levittown. The track houses he built were designed to convey a
nonindustrial aura, but the heart of Levitt’s approach to development was mass
production.
i. A twist to the mass-production method which answered to the demands for
individualism against the dull creation championed by rational modernists
ii. “Levitt was able to complete a new house every fifteen minutes at a cost
that lower-middle-class Americans could afford”
e. The suburban ideology challenged the anonymous regimentation of panopticism,
yet the suburb themselves, were the product of a panoptic process
f. Explaining the patent imagistic deception of his promotional materials, Levitt opined
that “the masses are asses”
i. This reflects an arrogant attitude on the part of Levitt, blasting the
consumers. However, he is not completely illogical. The masses are unable
to appreciate what he has achieved for them – affordable housing, but are
quick to point out the flaws that are associated with the characteristics of
what made the housing affordable in the first place
ii. “substituted salesmanship for craftsmanship”
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1. Lower quality and high volume – the attributes that enable

affordable housing
4. Giving individualism and character to mass production //a smart way of business –
satisfying market demands while keeping costs low
a. Teague: “some means of satisfying the buyer’s romantic as well as practical needs”
must be found.
b. …North conceded that “it should be possible to incorporate the desirable elements
of individualism in a low-cost, prefabricated, contractor-produced house…”
c. Standardised diversity
i. By applying surface variations, or rotating the garage, they could produce 72
“architectural flavours”
d. …If productivity includes market conditions, however, “it would sell better with a
peaked roof, some shutters, and…”, as compared to what is done in pursuit of
construction efficiency – Randolph Evans p229
e. The powers of suggestion
i. Prefabricated units were generally smaller than most houses of 1920s, even
though imagistic elements suggested otherwise (picture windows, open-
plan styling)
f. Standardisation of the American housing landscape
i. “Historically, each region of the country had developed an indigenous
residential style…”
5. Conclusion to C9
a. Use of in-built TV to replace the more expensive fireplace
b. Television as a form of suburban panoticism
c. The indiscriminate collage of disembodied images applied a thin, if playful façade of
individuality to an essentially conformist environment.
d. “Material values”, and values of “mind and spirit” were becoming increasingly
interchangeable and confused. A comment towards Levitt’s response to accusation
of Levittown’s conformity
i. Alludes to the first few chapters where the people are substituting intrinsic
values with extrinsic ones, by valuing their identity by how they appear – a
consumerist culture and attitude (“productivist” vs “consumerist” method of
evaluating social class)
ii. The masses who accuse Levitt of conformity are evaluating the houses they
live in by their appearance //Does the author put forth that comment as an
argument for Levitt that the masses are deluded, and that they are
evaluating their material possession with its appearance? //confusing
ending, if this is an attempt to link up previous chapters
Chapter 10: Form Follows Waste //a different connotation of the word follow, meaning after. End of
the “form follows” series, discussing what influenced form, and moving on to how the formation of
form resulted in waste

CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION //Consuming more

1. The solid waste crisis

a. The 5th need is the need for novelty – John Rader Platt, Professor of Physics at
UChicago
2. Waste as the spine for capitalism
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a. In societies where home production and localised subsistence agriculture provided

people with most of their essential material needs, the sources that people drew
from, as well as the constant need to maintain available resources as much as
possible, were immediate, legible pieces of their reality
i. The historical roots of this improvident sensibility lie, for most people, in the
social development of industrial capitalism, and in the apparently
inexhaustible capacities of mass production
b. The most pressing contingencies weighing on the consumer are those enforced by
the obligatory system of abstract value, available cash, or credit
i. //Cash in itself is a system of abstract value – it is a debt for work done, and
its representative value is promised by the government (which doesn’t work
anyway, because the government cheats the value of the money anyway
Read Other People’s Money)
The establishment that credit is a good thing, through the system of dishing
out credit scores to responsible users of credit, through the incentives of
lower interest rates, begs the question: Why do we have to owe in the first
place, to establish ourselves as reliable? There is a system put in place that is
encouraging exuberant spending, and while this feeds the growth of
capitalism, plagues the middle-income households throughout America
c. “To be ‘economical’ did not mean to save, but to prevent waste… to use the best
resources available.” – Waste as a form of profit maximisation
i. This is reflected in the built in obsolescence of even commercial buildings,
which “have a shorter life span than the men who build them.” – Bernard
Rudofsky
ii. //Capitalists, in order to cut costs, and save on the value of the materials
that are effected on them, ignored the negative economic value of the
impact that their “short-term structures” had, in the bigger picture.
d. If market demand were replaced by the rule of “each according to his need,”
however, the industrial potential developed by capitalism would become the source
of material well-being for the proletarians of the world.”
i. //However, if market demand were as “each according to his need,” it
would be following a principle in contrast to that of capitalism. There would
be a lack of greed, competition, and excessive demand that motivates the
capitalist to innovate methods that created the possibility of abundance in
the first place. Capitalism is a double-edged sword
e. Patten: “The standard of life is not so much determined by what a man has to enjoy,
as by the rapidity with which he tires of the pleasure.”
i. Patten’s vision of the future embraced the principle of waste, and saw
human gratification as the product of continual obsolescence
ii. //Waste driven by the characteristic of improvement of standard of living
DYNAMIC OBSOLESCENCE //Consuming again

1. It is the representation and aestheticisation of waste that the modern phenomenon of style
plays its most ubiquitous and persistent role
a. Films effecting images of outrageous levels of consumption, and “carried the
ephemeralisation of matter to new and erotic levels of enjoyment.”
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b. Beyond encouraging us to dispose of that which we have and replace it with that
which they are selling, the “commercial message” itself represents the normalisation
of waste and embodies the ideal of conspicuous consumption
i. Frivolous budget spent on advertisements reflects waste
2. Yet if the advertising industry was beginning to see itself as the promoter of profitable
consumptive behaviour, the productive apparatus was not necessarily tuned to this priority
a. //The nature of mass production leads to an overproduction of a certain style, due
to the rapid-changing nature of style as elicited by the advertising industry, hence
resulting in waste
3. Planned obsolescence
a. Calkins: “We no longer wait for things to wear out. We displace them with others
that are not more effective but more attractive.”
b. Simon Patten had predicted that a standard of living premised on volatile patterns of
obsessive consumption would yield “intense pleasure” to the consumer. Obsoletism
was built on a very different assumption. It sought to erect a visible environment of
change… with a nurtured condition of consumer dissatisfaction.
i. //In contrast with the previous subchapter “conspicuous consumption”, we
are led to explore a different reason why waste is a problem of style. This
waste is a product of consumer engineering of the corporate system, by
eliciting and then preying on the dissatisfaction on consumers, the corporate
system seeks to raise their profits, but at the same time result in
displacement of “old and out-dated” gadgets, which are merely an aesthetic
change, as pointed out by Calkins in point a.
//This is a major backlash on the ideology of rational modernism
c. The impact of planned obsolescence created an environment where change is
desirable, a quality of life. //The success of planned obsoletism
i. P244 Lippincott: “The American consumer expects new and better products
every year… His acceptance of change toward better living is indeed the
American’s greatest asset. It is the prime mover of our national wealth.”
ii. P245 Lippincott: “The prime job… is the breaking down of new sales
resistance. This is chiefly mental conditioning… the job of convincing the
consumer he needs a new product before his old one is worn out.
iii. “Not all product change is stylistic… (but) the filter of style… makes the
distinction between actual technical advancement and style obsolescence
difficult to discern” P245 bottom

MERCHANDISE AND MEMORY – the cycle of how social history are used as images, and vice versa,
and how this phenomenon impacts our understanding of what is true

1. The use of familiarity to elicit consumption

a. “People will more readily accept something new, we feel, if they recognise in it
something out of the past…” – Henry Dreyfuss p246
i. Kodak advertising, which promises you “the stories of your life”
ii. The idea that a product, or the images that surround it, must be a fixture in
public memory is also a cardinal rule of advertising and promotion. //the
value of eliciting recall, and association that megabrands like Coke have
been doing
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2. It is curious that this fixation on memory… while it hopes to preserve an aura of corporate
perpetuity, is deeply involved in a process of market-enforced ephemeralisation and
superficial change.
a. //The irony that helps propel businesses forward – to have the image of perpetuity
and familiarity, while having the image of change and progress
3. The appropriation of history in style “…we confront a visual representation of passing
time(through style)”
a. As style becomes a rendition of social history, it silently and ineluctably transforms
that history from a process of human conflicts and motivations, an engagement
between social interests and forces, into a market mechanism… (which) can be
exemplified in the ways that the style industries have appropriated, and changed,
the trappings of various social movements…
//we define and categorise historical moments into a stylistic era, (which occurred in
the first place because style appropriates social movements, and incorporates itself
with that for benefits of the corporate world.
b. The nuances of society are ignored, in favour of profitable stylistic elements. This
can be exemplified in the magazine quiz/surveys
i. P249 “what they’re talking about” or “their attitudes” were of little concern.
The primary focus was on stylistic elements of the “Now Generation”, codes
that could be deciphered and transformed into merchandising know-how…
ii. …displays a conspicuous absence of political and/or social content. The
counter-culture is reduced to a disembodied constellation of styles.
c. The idiom of subculture had entered the marketplace of style
i. When its marketability has been consumed, the phrase…achieved the status
of cultural wasre
ii. Environmentalism was turned into a style, its meaning was turned upside
down
1. “Natural” foods, “energy saving” appliances
4. Reverse appropriation of meaning of commodities – “bricolage”
a. …popular movements or subcultures can seize meanings from the mainstream
culture and turn them against themselves
i. Skinhead style, a rebel against commodity
b. However, bricolage itself may become a marketable resource
i. Even though clothes are copies of the original… the meaning of the clothes
has disappeared. (Punky becomes cute)
c. Recurrent disposal relegates social history to the dustbin of images past;
nevertheless, these images can, at any time, be revived for commercial recycling
d. Yet as a collection of stylised images, retrieved from the cultural garbage dump,
those higher values, themselves, become no more than a commodity, something to
be purchased. P255
e. Yet in the absence of a deeper, critical interpretation of social forces, such
superficial recyclings become a surrogate for comprehending history P257
f. This is the quintessence of waste as history, history as style
i. Author presents that history is “waste”, that it is unreliable and lack
integrity.
ii. History is also consumed by style, which in turn turns history in waste
iii. Hence the cycle that insults history, and results in our misinterpretation of
truth
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//From part 3-4, we see the cycle of how social history/”the facts”, are used/consumed by style/”the
mutilated facts to elicit consumption” and the market forces. As the facts and mutilated
facts are cycled and recycled, the people are misled in terms of the nuances of truth. Most
people see the surface of what is represented of history, and, being often bombarded by
preponderant sponsored campaigns while on the other hand concurrently lacking verifiable
artefacts of truth, we take the commercially represented truth wholesale, and confuse
ourselves with what is “truly true”.

5. History disintegrates as a way of comprehending the world; it becomes an

incomprehensible catalog display… Popular historical retrospectives capture decades in
terms of how things looked… Together they embody the spirit of a decade p258 //Truth is
drowned out by popular representations
6. Insofar as our perception of past, present, and future is unable to see beyond the facades of
the style market, then Orwell’s admonition (…people could not look or imagine beyond the
“official” version of what is, and of what is possible.) may still deserve consideration: “Who
controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
//Power through Control of comprehension and action
a. //We are blindfolded, tunnel-visioned through market forces. Our representation of
truth in the past, present, and future as a result is in many ways controlled. Our
actions in response to the represented truth in turn, is controlled. And vast power,
the power of the society’s collective action lies with the “Big Brother” who is taking
this control.

CONCLUSION – The Political Elements of Style “The given facts that appear… as the positive index of
truth are in fact the negation of truth (//truth that is believed are in fact lies)… Truth can only be
established by their destruction” – HERBERT MARCUSE, reason and revolution

1. …utility of style has made its mark, even in unanticipated places

a. Annual reports
b. The practice of rhetoric and public address…
i. The purposeful construction of a compelling style becomes a far more
important part of training than research or the preparation of a coherent
argument. //But without style, a coherent argument may not achieve its
intended impact. Style has now become a part of the language of delivery, the
holistic “style” of delivery.
2. The variety of circumstances in which style has become the preponderant form of publicly
accessible information is endless.
a. Paul Goldberger: “a visual overkill in our culture”
3. As a form of information, style places us on slippery and dangerous ground
a. The ability to stylise anything… encourages a comprehension of the world that
focuses on its easily manipulated surfaces, while other meanings vanish to all but
the critical eye… the evanescent becomes increasingly real, (and vice versa)
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b. Style is capable of holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously without any

apparent conflict or opposition
i. //Style has makes statement, yet has no conviction –Chapter2
c. As a form of information, style creates a consciousness that is seductively at war
with much of our experience. //Do not correspond with reality
i. That is part of the point. Style addresses deep-seated desires, it promises to
release people from the subjective conditions of their experience.
ii. “Style is ego’s homage to the id” – Psychoanalyst Joel Kovel //ego: the pride
and rationalism of man; id: the innate desires, ero, irrationalism of man. Style
honors/satisfies id, while preserving ego.
iii. Perhaps because it emits this primal, unconscious kind of attraction, style – as
a form of information – discourages thought //Reflects how we often take in
media as it is. It appeals to us, appeals to what we want to believe, and thus
we do not think into its underlying message
4. ‘Enfeeblement of public’s access to information’ in the Information Age
a. “Commercialisation of information…created for special use, is available at a price,
free public information supported by general taxation is attacked by the private
sector as an unacceptable form of subsidy”. //The reduction in presence of
authentic information, as can be seen in the media more intensely today
b. Yet as coherent information has ebbed, the flow of stylistic ‘information’ has
become torrential. //The preponderance of “stylistic”, interested information. (Like
how weeds take over burnt land, for lack of a better analogy. Except in this case,
‘weeds’ take over our minds, and in effect, our actions)
5. News as an increasingly unreliable source of information
a. …truth is continually subjected to the forces of the marketplace
i. Rating system that determines advertising fees, where information
responsibility and “market share” of audience has to be
balancedinfotainment
ii. Within such a stylistic environment, the news is beyond comprehension
(segues, and assembled facts) As nations and people are daily sorted into
boxes marked “good guys”, “villains”, “victims”, “lucky ones”, style becomes
essence, reality becomes appearance. //We take in what is understood from
the surface of the compiled pieces of news through the style of each news
station. Are they truly reliable? Are they profit-motivated? What is their style
in representing facts? Could we be intentionally misled?
iii. Once again we see information shaped by the laws of the market
6. Political influence through style
a. Political style has become the product of coordinated and carefully managed sales
campaigns p266
b. Research into propaganda and human psychology
i. Evaluating successes of enemy propaganda
ii. Tool of “image management”
c. Bernays redefined the Bill of Rights to include “the right of persuasion”
i. “engineering of consent”
7. Democracy becomes a style
a. This fractured consciousness – torn between the substantive perception of social
and political issues, and the inviting concoctions of appearance peddlers – is relied
upon by those in power.
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//People in power makes use of people’s confusion between image/”concoctions of

appearance peddlers” (the version of truth presented by politicians), and
substantive perception of social and political issues to persuade and sway.
i. Reagan’s apprenticeship in Hollywood, in acting
ii. Even though the people rejected everything Oliver North did, they also
thought that he was inspirational
b. Real problems are brushed off as a problem of “perception” //Use of this strategy
preys on the failure of the people – eluded by the stylistic environment – to discern
between facts and perception. It is irresponsible of the ones in power to relegate
any problems as problems of perception, because almost any problem, can be
fended off by the image, the “perception” of the actual situation.
…By reducing all social issues to matters of perception, it is on the perceptual level
that social issues are addressed. Instead of social change, there is image change.
//On this front, underlying problems are not resolved, but are rather “covered up”,
through use of media to elicit a change in perception. An example is the “USS
Indianapolis” incident, where Captain Charles McVay was taken as the scapegoat.
The masses at the time, took the reported truth as it is. There was strong public
resentment, even from people who were not directly affected. The falsehood
deeply affected the lives of those people who were actually affected. McVay
suicided. This is prime example of how falsehood can mislead, and perpetuate an
effect in reality.
8. CONCLUSION: The danger of style
a. The impulse to dissociate images from social experience, or to present images as a
surrogate for experience… //The faith in image over experience
b. “The given facts that appear” imply that substance is unimportant //The inclination
to take mutilated facts as they are presented
c. Our own experiences are of little consequence, unless they are substantiated and
validated by the world of style. //Dilution of personality and distrust of oneself in
favour of a higher, (unreliable) authority – style
d. …chasm between surface and reality widens; we experience a growing sense of
disorientation
e. …concrete possibility and evanescent style have become, too often, confused with
each other
9. PROPOSED SOLUTION: There must be a reconciliation of image and meaning, a
reinvigoration of a politics of substance //Giving substance a purposeful space on the stage,
through a system of celebrating and profiting from substance

REFERENCES
● ADMIXTURE - a mixture.
● Agrarian - relating to cultivated land or the cultivation of land.
● All and sundry – everyone
● Amorphous – without a clearly defined shape or form
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● Anachronic - a discrepancy between the order of events in a story and the order
inwhich they are presented in the plot:
● Androgenous - pertaining to the production of or tending to produce male offspring.
● Anglophile - a person who is fond of or greatly admires England or Britain.
● Anorectic - relating to, characterized by, or suffering from anorexia.
● Ateliers - a workshop or studio, especially one used by an artist or designer.
● Balustrade - a railing supported by balusters, especially an ornamental parapet on a
balcony, bridge, or terrace.
● Bourgeoisie - of or characteristic of the middle class, typically with reference to its
perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes.
● BURGHERS - a citizen of a town or city, typically a member of the wealthy
bourgeoisie.
● BURLESQUE - an absurd or comically exaggerated imitation of something,
especially in a literary or dramatic work; a parody.
● CABARET - entertainment held in a nightclub or restaurant while the audience eats
or drinks at tables.
● Chiaroscuro - the treatment of light and shade in drawing and painting.
● Chimerical - unreal; imaginary; visionary:
● CONCEIT - excessive pride in oneself.
● Condone - accept and allow (behavior that is considered morally wrong or offensive)
to continue.
● Conspicuous - standing out so as to be clearly visible.
● Consternation - feelings of anxiety or dismay, typically at something unexpected.
● CORPULENT - fat
● CULMINATION - the highest or climactic point of something, especially as attained
after a long time.
● Diocese - a district under the pastoral care of a bishop in the Christian Church.
● Discombobulate - disconcert or confuse (someone).
● Eclectic - deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.
● Effigies - a sculpture or model of a person. (to be destroyed)
● EMANCIPATION - the fact or process of being set free from legal, social, or political
restrictions; liberation.
● EPISTEMOLOGICAL - relating to the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to
its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and
opinion.
● Evanescence - the event of fading and gradually vanishing from sight
● Eviscerate - deprive (something) of its essential content.
● FECUNDITY - the ability to produce an abundance of offspring or new growth;
fertility.
● Feudal - absurdly outdated or old-fashioned.
● FIN DE SIECLE - the end of a century, especially the 19th century.
● GENTEEL POVERTY - Poverty is the state in which the basic needs of life are very
difficult to obtain. When poverty is ‘genteel’ it is a state one falls into from above,
usually late in life, when one’s wants and needs are supposed to be simpler. It
means a loss of power and influence which had been sizable; the individual or couple
reduced to genteel poverty typically are not in poverty but instead are reduced to
circumstances very greatly diminished from what they had before.
● Guise - an external form, appearance, or manner of presentation, typically concealing
the true nature of something.
● HEGEMONIC - preponderant influence or authority over others : domination battled
for hegemony in Asia
ALL CONSUMING IMAGES

● HERMETICAL SEAL - A hermetic seal is any type of sealing that makes a given
object airtight
● HIEROCRATIC -of or relating to government by ecclesiastics (as priests or prelates)
● HITHER - to or toward this place.
● Homage - special honor or respect shown publicly.
● Iconoclast - a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions.; 2. a destroyer of
images used in religious worship, in particular.
● Id, Ego, and SuperEgo https://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html
● ID - the part of the mind in which innate instinctive impulses and primary processes
are manifest.
● Imagistic - (relating to imagism, image)
● Immanent - existing or operating within; inherent.
● IMMISERATION - economic impoverishment.
● Immutable - unchanging over time or unable to be changed.
● Inchoate - just begun and so not fully formed or developed; rudimentary.
● INDIGENCE - a state of extreme poverty
● INVIDIOUS - (of an action or situation) likely to arouse or incur resentment or anger
in others. (of a comparison or distinction) unfairly discriminating; unjust.
● lathe - a machine for shaping wood, metal, or other material by means of a rotating
drive that turns the piece being worked on against changeable cutting tools.
● Miasma - an oppressive or unpleasant atmosphere that surrounds or emanates from
something.
● Mimetic desires of parvenu taste - Human beings naturally imitate the desires of
other human beings. (Have you noticed that? Obvious, yes?) Human desire is, by
and large, mediated desire. Girard calls this “mimetic desire” after the Greek word
“mimesis.” Someone signals a desire for a particular thing, and now you discover that
you want that thing. Most advertising works through this mechanism with
demonstrated success. You and I are mimetic creatures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNvgIb-mPf4 https://woodybelangia.com/what-is-
mimetic-theory/
● Monastic - relating to monks, nuns, or others living under religious vows, or the
buildings in which they live.
● Motif - a decorative design or pattern.
● NASCENT - (especially of a process or organization) just coming into existence and
beginning to display signs of future potential.
● PALAESTRA - (in ancient Greece and Rome) a wrestling school or gymnasium.
● Palpable - (of a feeling or atmosphere) so intense as to seem almost tangible.
● PARVENU - a person of obscure origin who has gained wealth, influence, or
celebrity.
● Pastiche - an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or
period.
● Perpetuity - the state or quality of lasting forever.
● polymorphous - having, assuming, or passing through many or various forms, stages,
or the like.
● POMP - ostentatious boastfulness or vanity.
● Preponderant - predominant in influence, number, or importance.
● Profane - relating or devoted to that which is not sacred or biblical; secular rather
than religious.
● PROLETARIAT - workers or working-class people, regarded collectively (often used
with reference to Marxism).
ALL CONSUMING IMAGES

● Promiscuous - demonstrating or implying an undiscriminating or unselective

approach; indiscriminate or casual. E.g. l"the city fathers were promiscuous with their
honors"
● protean - tending or able to change frequently or easily.
● Putrefaction - the process of decay or rotting in a body or other organic matter.
● Quintessential - representing the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class.
● Reveries - a state of being pleasantly lost in one's thoughts; a daydream.
pastiche - an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or
period.; 2. an artistic work consisting of a medley of pieces taken from various
sources.
● Rhapsodise - speak or write about someone or something with great enthusiasm and
delight.
● RIVULET - a very small stream.
● Sartorial - relating to tailoring, clothes, or style of dress.
● Segues - an uninterrupted transition from one piece of music or film scene to
another.
● SINUOUS ECTOPLASM Sinuous: having many curves and turns. Ectoplasm: a
supernatural viscous substance that is supposed to exude from the body of a
medium during a spiritualistic trance and form the material for the manifestation of
spirits.
● Stultifying - cause to lose enthusiasm and initiative, especially as a result of a tedious
or restrictive routine.
● SUPER EGO - the part of a person's mind that acts as a self-critical conscience,
reflecting social standards learned from parents and teachers.
● SVELTE - (of a person) slender and elegant.
● TELOS - an ultimate object or aim.
● Transgression - to violate a law, command, moral code, etc.; offend; sin.
● VENEER - cover (something) with a decorative layer of fine wood.
● Verbiage - the way in which something is expressed; wording or diction.
● Vernacular - architecture concerned with domestic and functional rather than
monumental buildings.
● Vie - compete eagerly with someone in order to do or achieve something.
● Virility - (in a man) the quality of having strength, energy, and a strong sex drive;
manliness.
● “Conspicuous consumption” - expenditure on or consumption of luxuries on a lavish
scale in an attempt to enhance one's prestige.