The Glamourous Fist
The controversial power of Words & Images
The controversial power of Words & Images
This book is meant to demonstrate the manipulative power of words and images in branded visual communication. It shall question in which ways meaning is formed and how this ultimately influences and also manipulates our way of thinking. Inquiring also by what means words can anchor the signification of images
and therefore recreate new sense while being shifted around.
The words and images shown here shall produce a certain narrative that can be interpreted in different ways
and therefore recreate each time an other ‘ story ‘. Using completely contrary sources to work with I would like
to demonstrate the power of common advertisement slogans by making them collapse with propaganda images from the First, Second and Cold World War. The photographic material has been taken from the ‘ Iron fist branding the 20th century totalitarian state ‘. Whereas the words were removed from variant
advertisement slogans being produced at the moment.
‘ The reader can be led to meaning through the juxtaposition of words and images. Our desires and our sense
of our own identities are moulded and manipulated by the signs which surround us. Language has inbuilt political meaning. It can be used as an instrument of control. ‘ ( D.Crow, Visible Signs, an introduction to semiotics, 2003 )
and therefore recreate new sense while being shifted around.
The words and images shown here shall produce a certain narrative that can be interpreted in different ways
and therefore recreate each time an other ‘ story ‘. Using completely contrary sources to work with I would like
to demonstrate the power of common advertisement slogans by making them collapse with propaganda images from the First, Second and Cold World War. The photographic material has been taken from the ‘ Iron fist branding the 20th century totalitarian state ‘. Whereas the words were removed from variant
advertisement slogans being produced at the moment.
‘ The reader can be led to meaning through the juxtaposition of words and images. Our desires and our sense
of our own identities are moulded and manipulated by the signs which surround us. Language has inbuilt political meaning. It can be used as an instrument of control. ‘ ( D.Crow, Visible Signs, an introduction to semiotics, 2003 )
