Commercial Images & Cultural Messages
Featuring Sut Jhally
Advertising & the End of the World features an illustrated
presentation by Sut Jhally of the University of Massachusetts Amherst,
the producer and writer of the award-winning Dreamworlds series.
Focusing
directly on the world of commercial images, he asks some basic
questions about the cultural messages emanating from this market-based
view of the world: Do our present arrangements deliver what they claim
-- happiness and satisfaction? Can we think about our collective as well
as our private interests? And, can we think long-term as well as
short-term?
Drawing from the broad arena of commercial imagery, and utilizing sophisticated graphics, Advertising & the End of the World
addresses the issues these questions raise, encouraging viewers to
reflect on their own participation in the culture of consumption.
Making
the connection between society's high-consumption lifestyle and the
coming environmental crisis, Jhally forces us to evaluate the physical
and material costs of the consumer society and how long we can maintain
our present level of production.
Advertising as Culture | How Do We Become Happy? | What Is Society? | How Far into the Future Can We Think? | Imagining a Different Future