Revelation, 2017

Fluorescent lamps, wires, self-adhesive

Fragment of the work “Revelation”.

The leading motif in the work is overconsumption of visual impressions. Nowadays it has a definition of visual pollution which focuses on advertisements and their intrusive presence in public environment. While going through different visual types of advertising from author’s childhood until this moment, she found it interesting how their aim, no matter of the budget involved, in all cases is the same – to dictate the direction of human attention. Trying to reduce any advertisement to its core essence and all attention-boosters aside, the only thing that conceptually remains is the name of the product and big arrow pointing its direction.

Researching in depth the topic of cheap advertisement in past examples, author gradually got moved by their genuine, pure intentions and unpretentious visual methods – they were bold, showy, obtrusive, but none of these advertisements were hiding their aim to sell behind glamorous, semi-personal, humorous advertisement tricks – they were pushy but true.
Sproge got interested in the visual aspect of low-budget advertisements – since 1972 until 2017 these advertisements have not changed their visual appearance – colors with high contrast and saturation in relation to other used in the work, basic and derived geometrical forms and recognisable symbols and icons, the most popular being the arrow.

Oddly, the history of the arrow as a weapon goes hand in hand with the history of the symbol itself – the first evidence of the creation of arrow dates back to the same year when the first records of oral advertising were recorded in 10th century BC in Chinese Classic of Poetry.
Nowadays the symbol of the arrow is still a weapon, it’s aimed still to target and hit.

The installation consists of 17 fluorescent lamps and three prints on self-adhesive oracal. The self-adhesive oracal together with fluorescent lamps is two most popular materials in advertising. The lamps used in the installation are an indication of a situation where even well-considered, purposeful advertisement loses its’ quality being too blatantly promoted – be it a situation of an enormous banner in the countryside or obtrusive moving virtual advertisement which jumps on the screen and can be removed only by catching the x in its corner. The advertisement industry, often trying to find the most suitable channel for their product popularization, shunts the advertisement itself as a secondary instrument, compared to the importance to sell the product and to make it as recognizable as possible.

The prints seemingly in a hurry overlap the lamp structures. Its light is leaking through the oracal graphics so much that it becomes frustrating to see and effortlessly understand the content of given fictional advertisements, because the fictional installations aim was to excel and popularize, forgetting about the content itself.

The artwork is not available for purchase