OMP18.1 - Producing Attention

OMP18.1 - Producing Attention
Author: Rudi Laermans
Publisher: Onomatopee
Language: English
Pages: -
Size: 40 x 28 cm
Weight: 207 g
Binding: Softcover
ISBN: -
Availability: In stock
Price: €5.00
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Product Description

Rudi Laermans wrote an incisive text, which basically states that design, despite wanting to be perceived as something thorough and critically eloquent, is not the sole domain of the image because texts are actually the essential conveyors of meaning. Laermans proposes that ‘Aestheticism is often just another word for not knowing, not being able to read an artefact and therefore devouring only its visual rhetoric viz. impact.’ And a bit further on: ‘Nowadays, the predominant forms of visual rhetoric, such as design and advertising, just want to mobilize a conscious attentiveness. They can not convince since they lack a surrounding discourse, a web of words in which they may resonate in such a way that they become persuasive.’ And ‘The primary message of every example of visual rhetoric is therefore an imperative: “look!”, followed by the next command “keep on looking!”.’

Today’s information society is absolutely screaming from every corner and hole for attention. It can be downright annoying having to be selective or having to ignore one of these loud screams for attention. At the end of his text, Laermans even has the gall to insist that even whoever has managed to make it through his text is actually guilty of visual consumerism, of bathing in the visual culture.

Karen van de Kraats has given the text an effective form by emphasising and accenting particular sections of the text. It’s interesting because in this way she places the text into the foreground as image. Slogans and pull quotes are emphasised and are placed apart on their own page. The publication itself can thus be approached from a number of angles. She has thus managed to successfully reach the postmodern and eclectic reader; the very type of reader that Rudi Laermans assumes we all are.