| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Oct | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | |||
Myths of Nature in National Geographic Car Advertising
I am using PersonalBrain© technology in this project to to visually map out the relationships between emergent themes from the visual and textual analyses of the extant literature. Eventually this personal brain will be embedded into the dedicated project website and will serve as both a navigation tool and allow users to explore the associated ideas within the research itself.
Myths of Nature in post-WWII National Geographic Car Advertisements by Shwandel N. Fraser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
National Geographic Magazine Covers
A quick scan of National Geographic Magazine covers, both the image and lead stories provides us preliminary insight into of nature and culture promoted within its pages visit photostream at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thinkfeelgrow/sets/72157619144070502/show/]
Myths of Nature in post-WWII National Geographic Car Advertisements by Shwandel N. Fraser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Timeline of American Environmentalism and Car Culture
A work in progress, I created this timeline as a research aid and data storage tool. It lists what I understand to be key events in the development of American environmentalism, car culture and related policy, and of course some of the ads you will find on this blog. It is my hope that the ads will serve as cultural and visual markers whereby it is made more apparent they way the auto industry engages with the environmental movement by confusing consumer perceptions of nature and the role of automobiles in environmental degradation.
As the discourse unfolds and my research deepens, I will continue to populate this timeline with various media. It will serve as an a [linear] companion to this blog. It also foreshadows the additional software containing supplemental information that I will include at a later date. My hope is to provide you with multiple ways of engaging with this historical information, my literature base and visual data so as to sparking interesting conversation between us.
Any mistakes on this timeline are completely unintentional. If you happen to note a glaring omission or mistake, please do let me know. If you have a reliable or helpful source that you think I should refer to, please do not hesitate to send me the information to thinkfeelgrow@gmail.com.
Onward!
Myths of Nature in post-WWII National Geographic Car Advertisements by Shwandel N. Fraser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
“Technonature: Artificiality and Virtuality” – regular layspeak entry forthcoming
Seemingly exists in opposition to Organic Nature, Escobar asks whether techno nature could serve us by helping us redefiine our conceptualization of and relationship with nature by virture of our “re-creation of a (different) continuty between the social and the natural?”
Further, are technonatures necessarily capitalist and how do ./ could they affect human sociality based on genuine connection rather than economic incentives.
Myths of Nature in post-WWII National Geographic Car Advertisements by Shwandel N. Fraser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
“Capitalist Nature: Production and Modernity” - regular-speak layman’s definition forthcoming
Escobar, Arturo (1999). After Nature: Steps to an anti-essentialist political ecology [and comments and replies]. Current Anthropology, 40, 1-30
Myths of Nature in post-WWII National Geographic Car Advertisements by Shwandel N. Fraser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
National Georgraphic August 2007
This ad seems to portray what Escobar terms Capitalist Nature. The expansive vista of the sky frames the KIA Amanti which in turn, through its rear window, frames the sunbather. This ad is composed with a linear perspective focused on the aforementioned elements, as well the angular, modern [read: strictly geometric] and stark white design of the house. As the viewer, we are outside of this luxurious moment in this exclusive location. Its exclusivity is communicated by the expansive backdrop of the uninterrupted view of the sky, and the privateinfnity edge swimming poolnext to which the model relaxes. The image communicates that this type of relaxation in such a setting is the only way to enjoy the sky and blue waters. The car itself is parked near the pool on pristine white tiles, certainly not where one would expect a car to be, tellign us that the “well-appointed” yet relatively affordable KIA Amanti can be the regular person’s means to enjoying an attainable version of the ‘good life’.
The sunbather is completely anonymous in that we cannot discern any of her features, but we know that she is a woman becuase she is relaxes under the sun that we cannot see, wearing a white swimsuit. She is just a small part ofthe landscape, the only curves aside from those of the car and the coud formations. She is completely objectified as decoration for the car, as much as the skyscape is objectified to highlight the car. Add to that the fact that she is shown through the back window, doubly a reference to raer leg room for seated passengers, however the combination of her near nudity and recline dposition also obliquely refers to other [innuendo] backseat possibilities.
So we must ask, what is missing?
1) The person who sits inteh other beach chair, presumably the Man through whose eyes we may be looking. His view of his home, his car, his woman and private view.
2) Water fowl for starters. Land other than the tiled ground on which the car rests. This location is completely anonymous, unknown and unknowable beyond the implications of rarified air that most people who purchase a $26k car will never, ever know.
What is this ad communicating? About Nature?
This car is the way to appear wealthier and more refined to onlookers. Nature is nothing more than background colors and textures that can enhance the beauty of man made creature comforts, it is not spectacle in itself, only adornment for material possessions.
Myths of Nature in post-WWII National Geographic Car Advertisements by Shwandel N. Fraser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
“Organic Nature: Culture and Local Knowledge” - regular-speak layman’s definition forthcoming.
Arturo Escobar brilliantly questions the relationship between local constructions of nature and our “present-day concerns, particularly sustainability, and whether there are notions akin to management or control in native representations and local models of nature”
He lists the characteristics of what he calls Organic Nature (which may or may not coincide with ideas contained within Capitalist Nature).
Escobar, Arturo (1999). After Nature: Steps to an anti-essentialist political ecology [and comments and replies]. Current Anthropology, 40, 1-30
Myths of Nature in post-WWII National Geographic Car Advertisements by Shwandel N. Fraser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Toyota Lifts a Local Economy
Myths of Nature in post-WWII National Geographic Car Advertisements by Shwandel N. Fraser is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
A car that reads the road. What a novel idea.
National Geographic Magazine Vol 214 No5 November 2008
Technonature – Arturo Escobar (1999)
Tourist Nature – Andrew Wilson (1991)
This sample ad is a tiny stretch for Technonature, however I think it fits just because it attributes to a computer the ‘ability’ to ‘read’ the road in the way that humans ‘read’ NGM. The use of the same word for wholly different entities, human and machine, leaving it undefined assumes if not intends for readers [!] to blindly accept the use of this word and all that it implies. That the abilities that comprise the gulf which makes humans inherently irreplacable by machines [read: automation/the perogative of capitalism] is actually a narrow fjord. This [multi-faceted and deliberately tricky] use of a word which on the surface appears self-explanatory and concise is reminiscent of Demeritt’s (2002) critique of the obfuscating tendencies of discursive traditions. In this ad, the vague idea of a car that ‘reads’ plants a certain ideas of our own human worth / valuation, of who we are [mimic-able by technology = similar to a machine=replaceable by a machine = less durable than a machine over time=in competition with or threatened by the same machine that was built to serve us]…I think I may have just written the Matrix and Terminator screen plays there…
One thought that occurs to me is how likely will it be that I can code an ad as technonature and NOT capitalist nature at the same time given that the two ‘realities’ a mutually dependent in in the industry which commissions these very same ads…
"Everyone can appreciate technologies that go from gas-friendly to gas-free"
National Geographic Magazine, October 2007, Volume 212, No 4.
Nature as well-loved pet; In this beautifully nostalgic ad, Chevy has fashioned a present day Charlotte’s Web - styled narrative brilliantly in one image. Nature as represented by the absent spider tells us a story, or maybe she has left us humans a ‘Dear John’ letter.
She may be communicating that she is dependent on our purchase of ecologically sound Chevy technology to survive, or her absence may be one last note of her unconditional love for us, much like the unfailingly faithful slave of antebellum fiction.
This ad imagery also presents a Capitalist Nature, not only for the textual component promoting the proliferation of their technology for profit, but also in the way that the landscape [read: nature] is objectified, and we the viewer stand outside the frame of reference, which places us in a position of power. Both we and Charlotte are the subject/object in this ad. We are powerful by our ability to surveil and affect her activity and vitality in the Foucauldian sense. Charlotte is subject both to our consumption choices (a la Katz 1998) as well as subject of the image. We also become the subject as Charlotte references us despite the fact that she cannot see us. Her love note is almost like a prayer lifted up to an unseen but believed in god. She if off living her life, hoping that her benefactor deity will recognize her undying affection and have mercy on her in these troubled times. She cannot see us, nor we her likely because she is too SMALL, though we have evidence of her [natural] love for us…puns!
No matter the true narrative intent of the ad, this image certainly makes me want to hig and kiss every arthropod to cross, and whisper a promise over its sensitive leg bristles that serve as ears, “I love you too…I vow to protect you and rewardyour undying affection…with a brand spanking new chevy automobile that i will drive for hundreds of low-emission miles across highways which fracture animal habitats and human neighborhoods! I will save nature, I will save you Charlotte. I drive…for YOU!”
Yes, I over dramatize, but tell me that you don’t feel the warm tingly from the warm lime-green? sunset reflecting off of the “xoxo” framed by fuzzy little clumps of moss?
WPMU Theme pack by