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Abstract: Advertising beleaguers the lives we live. It is a driving economic force and is trying to impose on us not only its internal logic but the economic logic at large. It requires us to behave in a flexible way so as to comply with the dominant power structures by denying the plastic, explosive force that biological singularities incorporate. It is determined to feed its messages to anyone who can be considered a target—all the while forgetting that it targets an imaginary average at best and not realising that the advertising industry is biting its own tail. We are witnessing a veritable squandering of information.
At one point in the Gay Science, Nietzsche suggests the importance of withdrawal. Withdrawal may however just be another form of denying to ourselves that the life-force within us is able to shape ourselves as well as our environment. To a certain extent, we can decide for ourselves what we are confronted with. We can decide for ourselves what messages we will offer hospitality to—and when this hospitality has to come to an end.
The dissertation addresses the aporias of hospitality, giving and responsibility to understand the modalities at work in our relationship with advertising. It tries to find the ethical point of rupture with the unconditional and locates it at the turning point of sustainability.
This dissertation draws from three disparate fields—market (or advertising) logic, biology and the concept of hospitality—to find a life-affirming way to deal with advertising messages. On the one hand, it works with a wide range of thinkers such as Anders, Bataille, Benjamin, Buber, Deleuze, Derrida, Flusser, Heidegger, Malabou, McLuhan, Nietzsche, Schirmacher, Sebeok and Virilio. On the other hand, it incorporates voices of practitioners in the advertising industry (Gossage, Ogilvy) and in sustainability (Braungart & McDonough).
Hospitality in the Age of Media Representation PDF (896kb)
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