Argos! the laminated book of dreams
well my toasters/child seat/hairclippers/dog basket/sylvanian family rainbow playhouse has just been lost/stolen/mangled and i could do with a new one were do i go?
well you could go through the time old tradition of going to the shops moseying around town haggling with traders and generally doing what grandparents used to do. Or you could use, the Argos catalog!
yes, Argos not to be confused with the Greek city which spawned its name. But the retail company set up in surrey in the 1970's. Argos is one of the most successful retailers in the country, owning a slurry of sub company's who produce stuff for the biannual catalog with over 1500 pages.
The Argos catalog bridges the gap between going to the real shops and the world of online shops today, like a evolutionary stepping stone in the genus of retail. i can remember Argos being the starting point of my early consumerist education i would compare prices in the catalog at home before going to the local toy shop to see if they could compete with the price. i do things in the same way now by often checking online before going out for it.
what really interests me is how successfully the catalog seems to be at representing consumer demands. how Argos does this must be its biggest secret, i can only speculate. but insiders tell me that by using the entrails of sheep and the alignment of the stars and possibly simply using the data produced by its own sales Argos can produce almost a constant census on the lifestyle and dreams of the British public.
yes i just said life style and dreams.
if you have red any of my notes before you would notice that i bang on and on about a fellow called Adam Curtis. now i take it your on a computer. thats a good start, ok, just type, hell, just copy and paste his name in the search bar in your browser. thats it ctrl c, and cntrl v. very good, well done. if you cant even be bothered to do that, you lazy swine, i'll make even easer for you, and i'll get you to the relevant section to what i'm talking about as well, effectively blinkering you in some way but what the heck, thats what you get with convenience!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/century_of_the_...
anyway if you haven't seen or heard or red any of Adam Curtis work yet, after all of that then this is going to be jam for pigs. just go back to talking about telephone sanitation and hairdressing and ignore this because it could make you angry and confused and make you lash around like a sleepy bear.
this isn't a criticism of the catalog. on contrary i love the catalog. over time you can gather a rather amazing portrait of what people want, you can see interests and hobby's wax and wane colors shift. sofas expand and contract, little snippets of selling language crack and shift with what people want. i love the catalog because it can show us the tectonics of our spending habits. what we spend our money on often reflects how we see ourselves in the world as a nation. the most recent one pushes the online store quite a bit but its color pallet is Tesco. apart from the shop window like color shifts for certain ranges of products. big red stars and circles dot it like a florescent pound shop signs the different sections form a rainbow at its edge (adult child section is light green) matching it's products well.
I propose that a every new copy of the argos catalog should be deposited in the British library from now on because it is a document of national importance for two reasons . i belive that the catalog wil notl be able to stand up to internet and will dissipate quite soon and secondly i believe that the catalog can function as a slice of this culture and its desires and it is of historical importance that these records are kept. so the future can judge us fairly.
well you could go through the time old tradition of going to the shops moseying around town haggling with traders and generally doing what grandparents used to do. Or you could use, the Argos catalog!
yes, Argos not to be confused with the Greek city which spawned its name. But the retail company set up in surrey in the 1970's. Argos is one of the most successful retailers in the country, owning a slurry of sub company's who produce stuff for the biannual catalog with over 1500 pages.
The Argos catalog bridges the gap between going to the real shops and the world of online shops today, like a evolutionary stepping stone in the genus of retail. i can remember Argos being the starting point of my early consumerist education i would compare prices in the catalog at home before going to the local toy shop to see if they could compete with the price. i do things in the same way now by often checking online before going out for it.
what really interests me is how successfully the catalog seems to be at representing consumer demands. how Argos does this must be its biggest secret, i can only speculate. but insiders tell me that by using the entrails of sheep and the alignment of the stars and possibly simply using the data produced by its own sales Argos can produce almost a constant census on the lifestyle and dreams of the British public.
yes i just said life style and dreams.
if you have red any of my notes before you would notice that i bang on and on about a fellow called Adam Curtis. now i take it your on a computer. thats a good start, ok, just type, hell, just copy and paste his name in the search bar in your browser. thats it ctrl c, and cntrl v. very good, well done. if you cant even be bothered to do that, you lazy swine, i'll make even easer for you, and i'll get you to the relevant section to what i'm talking about as well, effectively blinkering you in some way but what the heck, thats what you get with convenience!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/century_of_the_...
anyway if you haven't seen or heard or red any of Adam Curtis work yet, after all of that then this is going to be jam for pigs. just go back to talking about telephone sanitation and hairdressing and ignore this because it could make you angry and confused and make you lash around like a sleepy bear.
this isn't a criticism of the catalog. on contrary i love the catalog. over time you can gather a rather amazing portrait of what people want, you can see interests and hobby's wax and wane colors shift. sofas expand and contract, little snippets of selling language crack and shift with what people want. i love the catalog because it can show us the tectonics of our spending habits. what we spend our money on often reflects how we see ourselves in the world as a nation. the most recent one pushes the online store quite a bit but its color pallet is Tesco. apart from the shop window like color shifts for certain ranges of products. big red stars and circles dot it like a florescent pound shop signs the different sections form a rainbow at its edge (adult child section is light green) matching it's products well.
I propose that a every new copy of the argos catalog should be deposited in the British library from now on because it is a document of national importance for two reasons . i belive that the catalog wil notl be able to stand up to internet and will dissipate quite soon and secondly i believe that the catalog can function as a slice of this culture and its desires and it is of historical importance that these records are kept. so the future can judge us fairly.
Views: 160
Add a Comment
© 2024 Created by National Theatre Wales.
Powered by
You need to be a member of National Theatre Wales Community to add comments!
Join National Theatre Wales Community