Anti Adverts

1982 Series of reworked magazine adverts.

Advertising is a tool of the capitalist regime to legitimise and reinforce its socio-political arrangements. Advertising presents consumption as an answer to all material and social needs and bombarded us though every sort of printed media.

These montages were an early attempt to reveal and question the underlying messages that these received images provoke.

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The relentless advertisements for cars is not only creating reward for status it is reinforcing a society where the car is central to ‘need’ and a system organized for us to need to be ‘somewhere else”. The introduction of the settee as a symbol for resting at home is an attempt to question this central assumption.

Images from lifestyle magazines. Images from lifestyle magazines. Fashion shots of what men should wear only present men in one dimension – what they wear is an indication of their value. The addition of the tap was a tongue in cheek attempt to consider other human functions.

In a consumer society where what we choose to wear influences how we are perceived, the addition of the open sandwich creates an visual link to a more obvious consumption.

Women’s hairstyles reflect the social need for them to appear attractive. The savoury biscuit is not apparent at first glance but then undermines the intended message.

The pose of the model is designed to present the idea of our need to be sexy and attractive. The subtly placed embracing couple exaggerates this intention.

Images of women casually getting on with day to day activities whilst wearing only underwear seem an incongruous representation of women. The introduction of a more traditional male image, the football results and table, is an attempt to question this representation and consider if these images are for male consumption.

Smoking was heavily promoted in magazines in the 1980s. The different brands tried to encourage different aspirational lifestyles but fundamentally each was promoting, and profiting from, tobacco addiction. However the inserted image of breasts is asking a more fundamental question relating to seeking extra comfort where infantile act of thumb sucking is in turn a substitute for the mothers nipple during breast feeding.

In response to the pun that “every woman needs a daily ‘male” the inserted image on the front page of the newspaper exaggerates the underlying message.

The presentation of a strictly heterosexual lifestyle culture through the media was reinforced through a plethora of ‘teen’ lifestyle magazines as added as a shirt design.

Although a fashion photograph, the underlying feeling from the image is that you have caught a couple in a sexually intimate This suggests that they will end up in bed together.

The destruction of rainforests was a prominent issue in the 1980s (and still is!) To highlight this issue I added the chainsaw to create a powerful and aggressive ‘head’ for the model and the rainforest image inserted the rainforest view in the trousers to link this to man’s destructive actions.

Attractive models are used to promote products. Campari is being presented in this advert with a sexually provocative look. The inferred connection is enhanced by adding the pornographic image to the bottle.

Women’s underwear adverts are seemingly set in appropriate spaces for the models to appear in just their underwear. However these adverts are placed in magazines that are often viewed by men and by replacing the mirror with a male audience the contradiction becomes apparent.

The safe is an object with strong cultural significance and used in this image for cigarette advertising as a metaphor to emphasise the value of their tobacco product. By placing the photograph of African children suffering in a famine it is reminding us that tobacco is a cash crop.

Time is a human construct that enable us to give meaning to past and future events. This has led us to use it to organise and control human activity, work and behaviour. By adding ‘now’ I am hopefully reminding people that this doesn’t have to be restrictive.