thinking is the new black

Despite the recent bad press circulating on the net about the extensive bills new iPhone users are getting in the U.S , and the critical article in the guardian last week over here about the touch pad interface being slow to use, I really, really, want an iPhone.

I am not happy with my current Motorola, and was considering a blackberry but now I’m not so sure. If you want a sad story in seduction and product placement I chose my existing phone because Jack Bauer has it in the last season of 24. The thing is
I really do not need a new phone and I have spent the last two and a half years of my life dissecting the Apple brand; looking at the social-economic reasons people are persuaded they require an iPod or that Mac’s are different, and yet here I am longing to be amongst the first in the UK to hold this sexy little gadget in my hands…. It reminds me of a chapter in the wonderful Rebel Sell about the contradiction of consumption “ I hate myself & want to buy”.

Perhaps the iPhone is like the blue pill in the matrix?

I’ve been reading the fabulous paper by Neil Maycroft on ‘Cultural Consumption’ which appeared in the Capital and Class journal in 2004. Even though it’s quite old he offers a 1st class critique – though I am not in agreement.

“The concept of life-style seems to have been thoroughly naturalised, both academically and in common parlance.” (Maycroft 2004 p61).

Indeed, a quick internet search using the term ‘life-style’ produces immensely varied results from sources such as the BBC on gardening, home interior magazines, online fashion stores, motor enthusiast clubs, and even horoscope websites. Thoughts spring to mind not just of the ways magazines are categorized in a newsagent, but also of a way of being, but more so, a way of a mediating a way of being, through consumption.
Maycroft details how Alfred Adler originally used the term in 1929 in a psychological context, until it was appropriated in the 1970’s by market research, and thus became bound to the practice of consumption.

“Although many definitions of the term are to be found in literature on consumption, and as components of the promotional culture of capitalism itself, a generic definition of the term can be arrived at: a reflexive, biographical project of identity-formation ad self presentation, based upon the consumption of the symbolic dimensions of consumer commodities, particularly cultural products, services and experiences”. (Maycroft 2004 p63)

Maycroft’s main objection in his critique it that the term has been absorbed into conversation and writing in a very flippant way, though firmly located it “within the nexus of consumerism” (Maycroft 2004 p24) and what follows in his paper is a call to arms for the term to be used with much more caution and consideration of what it really means, if it means anything at all. He looks at various examples of use or modes of life-style, from work, life-styles of the rich and famous to ethnic, digital and unhealthy life-styles in a fairly damning critique.

His assessment raises some valuable questions, but it is a little short on alternatives or answers, perhaps failing to address in any detail the notion of discourse, and it’s relationship with the construction of knowledge. Life-style is plainly not the same as life; without spiralling into an in depth philosophical discussion on what it means to have life and experience life trajectory, it is clear the two are not the same, but Maycroft is not persuasive enough in his argument for me to reject the concept of lifestyle entirely. Once one recognizes life-style as a construct, or an aspect of presenting the self, then it’s not an empty term. As with any type of discourse it depends on the context of production, circulation and use, in the way it shapes how certain things are thought about and in it’s ability to be meaningful.

I’ve been busy tinkering with my literature review 20,000 words and counting and gathering a little more interview material, before I begin the long lonely road that is ‘writing up’. I am actually really excited about finally writing the thesis and it’s hard to believe it could all be over in April.

Success at the two conferences I went to in July and it seems my paper on Steve Jobs has gone down well, and may very well be published online in September. MeCCSA was loads of fun, and great to meet other researchers and share all our woes. I have to say the cake selection was remarked on as much as the key-notes and plenary though. UWE certainly fed everyone very well. I consider myself some what of an expert on high tea, having championed the 4 O’Clock session at the Dorchester way before Kate Moss and her posse got in on it, & having recently sought out Angelina, just about one of the best patisseries in Paris, so I feel somewhat of an authority. A group of Finish academics who I had lunch with on the last day, asked me to take their group picture with the dessert plates and the conversation moved very swiftly from questions of epistemology to the marvels of chocolate fudge. I am cake crazy at the moment – just made a batch of lavender and orange and was eyeing up the Mario Testino tea room in Ship Street on Saturday. Perhaps when this is all over I shall open a trendy tea room called “The Public Sphere”, with Spark style notes on Habermas in the menu?

Anyway IAMCR –Paris. I am absolutely ga-ga over modernist architecture and all objects 1950’s so a high point for me was getting to be in the UNESCO building for 3 days. It was designed in 1958 by Marcel Breuer one of key Bauhaus gang and the inside is a cross between a giant ski-lodge and an urban cathedral (aka hideous / gorgeous). Unfortunately such was my awe that I spent most of the opening address, gazing wide eyed around the vast room, and fiddling with my head set, changing language channels, impressed by the interpreter booths, and thinking “gosh this is just like being in a film of being in the UN”.
During all the sessions there was an amazing mix of nationalities and it is a testament to the IAMCR that people travel from all over the world to attend, but special mention must go to the Spanish hombres – who were all dressed to kill in dazzling tailoring. They looked like wall street bankers or retired premier league footballers, golden tanned, sharply dressed and stood out against the usual academic corduroy aesthetic. I was also mesmerised during another session by a female speaker who had modelled her look on Jerry Springer it seems. She spoke for a full 20 minutes in a peculiarly measured tone, with absolutely no inflection or intonation in her voice . I suspected her at one point, of being an android dressed in a stolen bank clerks uniform due to the glowing man made fibres and high buttoned collar of her blouse. She scanned the room with her eyes at regular intervals like a light house beacon, so everyone in the audience received an equal amount of eye contact and punctuated her sentences with small duplicate hand gestures –lift hand up, wave slightly, speak, – sort of thing. Definitely a robot, or that is what happens when you do research for too long.

I’m back, after a long break, ready to turn my full attention once again to the glamorous world of postgraduate research.

The transfer meeting finally came at the beginning of June and despite feeling I was going to keel over with stress during the preceding few days, it was a huge success and a motivating experience. I had an ‘extra’ on the panel, a professor with some weighty experience in my subject area who fired a 10 point list of questions at me, but who said afterwards that these were exactly the type of questions I would be asked in the real viva and that I did really well, so although it was tough on the day, it was all useful stuff. My department were a bit worried that having such a large panel would be intimidating but anything that prepares you for the real thing I think can only be a bonus.

Aside from having some time away from the UK in S.E Asia where I sadly took the books with me, I have been away at several conferences this summer – MeCCSA & the IAMCR, presenting a paper, which emerged as part of my analysis on the idea of the human logo and personality branding. I prefer to think of this as taking the data on tour, which sounds a bit more rock and roll. IAMCR was held in UNESCO in Paris and all in all was a great conference with some high quality papers and top notch panels. More of this soon…