On 25 March between 18.00 -19.00 the second seminar of Thursday Seminars with the title “Deciphering Advertising, Art and Architecture” was given by Graham Cairns who is an author and an academic. He is also the director of the research Organisation AMPS.
To achieve a comprehensive understanding, Graham Cairns recommended “Deciphering Advertising Art and Architecture (chapters to read:3,4,5,6)” as a key text for the seminar which is part of the thursday seminar series
Also for a participatory process some pre-session instructions were given. First of all participants are asked to bring two images to the seminar.
– ONE OF AN ADVERT THEY FIND INTERESTING
– ONE OF A BUILDING THEY SEE AS FUNCTIONING AS ADVERTISING
Pease read the materials provided and ask questions related to them. If you don’t read them, or do so only quickly, take time to think about the following.
“What do you know about the way advertising imagery works? Find a few examples and analyze them. When analyzing use your intuition (which is how they are intended to be read, so this is a very important perspective) ideas of semiotics, poststructuralism, phenomenology (as found in the reading “Deciphering Advertising, Art and Architecture)
What examples have you seen of the use of architecture in adverts (as images or otherwise)? How does it work, or how is it supposed to support the advert? Again, your intuition is valuable here, as is the use of established methods of visual analysis.
Think about example of buildings that you consider ‘adverts’ for their organization, architect, city, country etc. How do they operate as adverts, who is the audience, who created them and why?
You can speculate on this based on your own ideas, or use evidence published in the media or other literature. Advertising is often about images, but not exclusively. Images have to be disseminated in order to be seen. Think about:
Where did you see the examples of architecture as an advert, or architecture in a n advert? Did you see it? Or did you hear or read about it? What promotional dissemination and mechanisms may have brought that image/building to your attention?”
