Mary Mattingly and the CVS of the future
Artist/science-fictionist Mary Mattingly envisions a future of branding in even the most desolate and isolated of places, including the tiny islet of Loss Accountability of Top-Down Ontologies, seen here. In reviews of Mattingly's work, which are collected here, here and here, the CVS sign (among other branded components including plastic Banana Republic, Lexus, etc.-sponsored fruit trees) unflinchingly critique the inescapable ubiquity of the contemporary corporate brand. There seems to me to be another element of Mattingly's work: reliance on branded products and their consumption for survival. This might be a critique, but there is also something exciting about Mattingly's future-persons, with their full-home kits and their do-it-all electronics gadgets; many of these isolated future-persons are genuinely "cool" in the science-fictiony sense, and that seems to be a contradiction.
Which is not to say I would want to live in this particular future; only that there is an element of techno-cyborg-utopianism along with the more dystopian forecasting of increased brand reach. I think this in many ways sums up the conundrum of branding, if there is one: the love/hate relationship we all have with brands: the way we appropriate them to form our self-identity and yet are beholden to them when we choose to purchase "products."
While you're thinking long and hard about that, I'll be ordering some hot wings at this neighborhood bar & grill (via Scarequotes).