Slogans

1987, 8:35 min, color, sound

Slogans is a visual deconstruction of advertising slogans, a literal and metaphorical illustration of the disintegration and loss of meaning of information in the contemporary "media landscape." Appropriating text from a series of familiar print advertisements — "Choose Your Weapon," "Play to Win," "Talk is Cheap" — Muntadas enlarges, digitizes and overlays words until they devolve into abstract mosaics. Accompanied by a banal muzak soundtrack, this display of text as image demonstrates advertising's insidious transformation of language into empty signifiers.

Images: Canadian and U.S. advertisements, 1986-87. Music: Ray Conniff's Greatest Hits. Technical Assistance: George Lessard, Caterina Borelli.