Examining the Absolut Vodka print ad campaign as a postmodern text reveals dimensions and qualities which are not necessarily observable to the Absolut aficinado. Avid collectors of the Absolut campaign have long struggled to make sense of the campaign as a whole, largely in vain. While trying to identify the body of ads in terms of a ideological consistency is impossible, it can be understood by its repititious structure as a state of things. As a postmodern text, the Absolut campaign forms intricate and extensive webs of relationships by appropriating different images and ideas into its repetoire. For an ad to be recognizable as an Absolut ad it no longer matters what images it has appropriated, rather the structure by which the appropriation is done. Mastered by absolut, this art of appropriation called myth is one of the factors in the campaign which promotes its collectibility. Through the language myth, image, idea, personality, and place, regardless of previous meaning, are effectivly flattened into a two-dimensional structure created by Absolut. This flattening of meaning by Absolut has attracted a new generation of Aficionados who enjoy the ads as a spectacle, with little or no predetirmined interpretations and meaning. Due to their lack of cultural knowledge, the aficionados' primary link to fine art, architecture, and famous personalities of past generations is through second-order texts, like the Absolut campaign, by which theses cultural artifacts have been appropriated. The Absolut Vodka campaign thus embraces the pleasure of the text, with little or no value invested in the "meaning" of its images. Because Absolut Vodka can at onde be equated with pop art, famous personalities, and architectural feats, its total identity can only be explained as a shape shifter with a constant underling structure. Or more exactly, a post modern text that, like its aficionados, has mastered the art of collection.

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