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Extimacy
by Louise Jolly| Brighton, UK
Monday, 5 December 2011
tags: clients & brands, consumer culture, culture, emergence, europe, semiotics
The close-up shot is currently a popular visual trope in advertising and media, with examples abounding from all sectors. And as the camera gets closer and closer – in particular, closer and closer to the human face and body – it seems we’re dealing with a new way of saying ‘this is real’.
Brands have long sought proximity to consumers, exploring different ways to express the idea of authentic engagement. But it now seems their quest for authenticity is relying on ever-increasing levels of physical proximity and intimacy.
(Nike homepage)
So what does the physical proximity of the close-up signify? And how does it fit with today’s cultural landscape?
Firstly, there’s no doubt that the cultural ascendancy of science is a relevant factor. For personal-care brands in particular, that means a shift away from images of psychological authenticity (confidence, self-expression) towards the representation of physiological detail such as cellular process and biological structure. So the camera needs to zoom in much closer than it has done before.
This symbolic dimension of the close-up could be dubbed ‘ethical naturalism’: a representation of natural and biological processes that’s far from morally neutral. Instead it’s invested with a sense of awe, placing a burden of responsibility and care with the consumer. ‘See how fascinating and wonderful the skin is – doesn’t it deserve the very best moisturisation?’ Displayed as remarkable phenomena, bodies need to be carefully looked after: the close-up shot of skin or hair implies an attitude of wonder, care and respect.
Vaseline’s platform ‘Your skin is amazing’ provides a typical expression of ‘ethical naturalism’, and unsurprisingly, makes extensive use of close-up photography too.
Also driving the rise of the close-up are social media. The close-up is, in a sense, a metonym for social-media culture, symbolising the over-exposure and intimate revelation made possible by platforms like Twitter and Facebook. With brands keen to participate in this world, it’s not surprising that they’re using close-ups to ally themselves with it.
Both these approaches to the close-up – ethical naturalism and the rise of social media – can be united under the Lacanian term ‘extimacy’. For Lacan, the most intimate aspects of experience are ultimately external or other to the subject, just as the intimacies of social media and of biological naturalism re-locate inner ‘truth’ externally. Extimacy seems to be one of the key tropes in advertising today, which is finding a new aesthetic focus in the externalisation of the intimate.
11 December 2011 at 2:15 pm
Louise says:
Ramona – I agree with you about the sentimentality of the close-up. And behind the ‘wonder’ code is the call to self-care – saying ‘the body is amazing’ is indirect pressure: another way of saying ‘so it’s your duty to look after it.’
Caroline – thanks for bringing up the work of Nikolas Rose. I don’t know it, but will explore further. It sounds like he was influenced by Foucault on biopolitics. Foucault says that, while pre-modern power administers death through capital punishment, modern power administers life instead through various mechanisms of management and care.
8 December 2011 at 4:33 pm
Ramona Lyons says:
What an interesting piece! It made me think of the use of medical scientific imagery across categories. Take, for example, the arena of proactive health products, which routinely uses imagery of internal bodily systems (at times highly schematic versions) to leverage the cultural authority of medical practice/representational systems. The ethical piece is of course the ‘proactive’ dimension, since the onus is on the individual to care for self ‘properly’ and within the construct of health that coincides with this imagery- atomized, independent systems that confirm the world of medical specialization. This in my mind isn’t really an intimate portrait of the body, but one that is culturally cued and generalized. We are accustomed to viewing these images as representing something important inside of us, the authenticity comes from a broadly understood cultural source.
I also think close ups are a visual shorthand for grander statements about ‘humanity,’ a self conscious attempt to strip away cultural baggage and reference what has often been represented as fine and wonderful about human beings- dignity, sensuality, the beauty of human physicality that is an ideological underpinning of body care/beauty/fitness discourses. Our proximity makes us privileged viewers, and this proximity itself is exceptional, absolutely not general. Despite the frequency of this imagery, it provides a presumably more ‘authentic’ and real experience for the viewer. This inspiring physicality also cues a moral imperative- the body and face are indeed most worthy of nurturance.
The meta- message also carries- the continued intensive exposure in our world, the closer and closer in view leaves fewer places to hide and necessitates more and more maintenance and control- even at the cellular level.
6 December 2011 at 7:12 am
Caroline says:
A thought-provoking topic. Some of points touched upon reminded me of the work of Nikolas Rose – a sociologist (and ex-biologist) at the LSE. Rose has done much work into the rise of psychology and its impact on constructing identity and his recent work expands on this exploring the current shift to biology and medicine and how the bio-sciences have come to explain our sense of self. The rise of the biological self means that identity is constructed on an external level through means of bodily maintainance regimes, i.e. diet, exercise, and skincare products such as Nivea and Vaseline mentioned above. This, as Louise correctly points out, endows a certain responsibility on the individual to undertake these activities – for looking after oneself is vital to constructing our sense of self. The way in which we are forced to oblige to these regimes, Rose would argue, is through the idea of risk. Biomedical companies promote the belief that we humans are biologically risky individuals and thus require maintaining (or containing). Similarly advertising companies tell us what will happen if you don’t use their products – our hair will be frizzy/our skin spotty/our bodily odour unpleasant etc.
The close up nature of our lives – and exposing ourselves on Facebook etc only adds more pressure on us to provide a pleasing exterior. It also means we are living out more and more of our lives on this exterior level. It seems the further the lens closes in, the more shallow we are becoming. Lacan’s term describes this externalisation of the internal well.
– for more info on Nikolas Rose see his book ‘The politics of life itself’ or watch this lecture for a very good insight into his work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qCa5shdpto