Good News on the Academic Front

I was recently notified that my paper proposal for an upcoming academic conference has been accepted! The event will be held in February of 2009 at the The University of Jyväskylä, Finland. The conference is entitled, "First International Conference on Humour and Satire."
For more information about the conference, see: http://www.jyu.fi/hum/laitokset/taiku/uutiset/humour_call

At the event, I will be conducting a lecture and discussion entitled, "Art, Humor, and Advertising as a Tool for Political Dialogue”. The thematic content of the this lecture coincides with my dissertation research that I'm conducting at the University of Art and Design Helsinki.
Below is the proposal I that I submitted to the conference.


"Art, Humor, and Advertising as a Tool for Political Dialogue” by Lisa Erdman
This multidisciplinary research explores the use of conceptual art in the form of satirical medical advertising as a tool to generate public dialogue in Finland, regarding political and social issues on a local and global level. One of my objectives in this work is to present a better understanding of the role that humor and advertising can play in contemporary culture, beyond the promotion of commercial products and services. In this paper, I will argue that conceptual art, placed within the context of humorous medical advertising, not only serves as an act of personal expression, but, under certain conditions, can generate thought and dialogue that has the potential for social change. My research will involve both theoretical and art-based methods of investigation surrounding this thesis.

Thematically, the paper will examine the use of satire and humor as a tool in contemporary art, to address controversial subject matter. The work of Adbusters, Irmeli Huhtala, Justine Cooper, and The Yes Men and will be examined within this context. The the paper will also include a look at the use of humor in medical advertising as a marketing strategy. Related theoretical writings of Simon Critchley and Henri Bergson be discussed, in terms of humor and laughter as a means of changing a given situation, and defamilarizing the familiar.

I will discuss the role of of satirical humor in my upcoming public art project, and how it may be used to spark public dialogue in this scenario. The content of the public art project will be presented as an advertisement campaign for a series of several fictitious, over-the-counter medications that offer simple treatments for complex conditions involving: global climate change, financial debt, and racial politics, among other ‘ills’. For example, one fictitious medication that I’ve created for the project, a pill called Ethnivox, may be used to treat symptoms of racial discrimination or xenophobia. The medical advertisements will take the form of poster ads, brochures, websites and mock pills bottles. In order to simulate the aesthetic of a pharmacy, the fictitious ads will be placed within a vacant window storefront display in Pori, Finland. The art project will be on display in spring of 2011, for a time period of two weeks.

For its audience, satirical humor can create a cathartic space; a space that offers people the opportunity to suspend one’s disbelief, worries, responsibilities, and, if only for a moment, to laugh – and to think. In this context, I believe that humor, particularly satirical humor, has the potential to disarm the audience and allow people to see the many truths as well as hidden agendas surrounding an issue. This brand of humor can break the ice, so to speak, and allow for new perspectives to surface. For this reason, I am interested in investigating the use of satirical humor as an ingredient in the creation of dialogical public art.

Copyright © 2008 Lisa Erdman.