Double Exposure (5): the Zen of Leviathan
By:
July 6, 2009
“My life is made up of so many other lives…. all of them rearranging themselves.” This advertisement for the Palm Pre smartphone promotes the curious Zen of being your own Dear Leader.
Pajama-clad minions engaged in mass calisthenics; misty mountains in the Pure Land of Bliss. What’s not to like? Or, as the narrator intones, “isn’t it beautiful when life simply … flows together.” It’s the middlebrow myth of the smartphone: achieve release through total control.
But as a T-Mobile ad from earlier this year shows, it’s we who do the dance, for mobile phone companies that make handy Dear Leaders:
T-Mobile’s minions domesticate the flash mob, making a farce of wonder. “Life is for sharing,” runs the copy at the end. Another middlebrow koan: achieve release through total transparency.
MORE SEMIOSIS at HILOBROW: Towards a Cultural Codex | CODE-X series | DOUBLE EXPOSURE Series | CECI EST UNE PIPE series | Star Wars Semiotics | Icon Game | Meet the Semionauts | Show Me the Molecule | Science Fantasy | Inscribed Upon the Body | The Abductive Method | Enter the Samurai | Semionauts at Work | Roland Barthes | Gilles Deleuze | Félix Guattari | Jacques Lacan | Mikhail Bakhtin | Umberto Eco