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With post-modern skepticism of representation and modernist searches for authenticity, we are living in a world of warring images, icons and intentions. One of the only claims that can be safely made is that we are in a society of the spectacle. Products no longer have any functional difference from others and thus only signifying signs can direct us to what distinguishes one commodity from another. Explanations of functional value strike dull chords, claims to personality enhancements ring false and distinction from the competition has become increasingly dependent on finding any untapped territory. Is it any wonder that in the advertising warzone, that cultural and ethnic images have become a scavenging ground for signs desperately in need of un-saturated signifiers? The Other, once excluded in social tableaus and used only to promote what We are not, is now the site of a new commodity value: difference. Whether it be in the ads that tell us to "Run for the Border," Just Be Calvin Klein, be a part of Planet Reebok, or Obey our Thirst of Sprite, color and culture are constantly being employed by advertisers.
But what is at stake in this process? What relationships underwrite these appropriations and what do they say to our larger understandings of culture, authenticity and representations of reality? What can we learn from them about power, desire and our own relationships to the self? This project is one attempt to attack these questions. We may not be able to answer these problems, but we hope our work provides some means of exploring them?
