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The following
is from 312 No. 10, December 2005 [Download
Publication in .PDF format]:
In
Case You Need a Useful Tool: Zsolt Keserue's Conform
A hiker
picks up a branch for a walking stick, but pricks his thumb on
one of its numerous thorns. What a predicament! How can he solve
this problem? Of course, he thinks, I’ve got
my Smart Mate with me. He pulls out an automatic jackknife,
pops the blade open and begins whittling off thorns. Moments later,
he’s blissfully hiking a grassy trail at a field’s
edge.
“In
case you need a useful tool…”
In Conform, Zsolt Keserue adopts the look and feel of
low-budget television advertising, tapping into the fears, frustrations
and wants of the average person to pitch a consumer product. When
facing problems, anything from neighbourhood break-ins to hurricanes,
people often go shopping, their purchases influenced by rational
and irrational fears. Survival purchases include food and water,
but also guns, ammo, and gasmasks. Everyday advertising is typically
more mundane, promising leisure or fulfillment. Buying consumer
goods to solve complex problems is absurd, but makes people feel
proactive. When Keserue suggests that Smart Mate, an automatic
jackknife, can solve problems ranging from thorny branches to
sexual harassment, it’s not any more absurd than usual.
“In
case you haven’t got time for a beauty salon…”
While an automatic jackknife seems an extreme solution to life’s
problems, Keserue makes it seem plausible under the cloak of advertising.
You can use it to clean your nails, or to protect yourself from
dangerous people. Staged like a late-night infomercial, the video
seems just as real as watching the news or COPS.
Supported by the uplifting strains of Beethoven’s Ode
to Joy—the European Union’s official anthem—we
see ‘ordinary people’ in ‘everyday situations,’
much like reality TV. When the video ends with colour bars, it
does seem like the end of programming—as with much regional
television, the programming day ends with the national anthem
and the howl of the colour bars until the new day dawns.
“When
your position ‘hots’ up…”
Suddenly someone uses a Smart Mate to cut apart the flag of the
European Union, turning this mock-ad political. Considering the
turmoil Keserue’s home country Hungary has seen over the
past two centuries—communism, autocracy, capitalism and
everything in-between—I imagine it would be hard to be Hungarian
and not be a hardened skeptic. Keserue himself describes the video
as a product of revolution, revolt, everyday aggression and growing
up frustrated. The EU is supposed to imply hope, but the Hungarian
historical experience holds that hope evaporates rather easily,
just like Soviet tanks used to easily roll in.
“Never
leave him behind…”
In many ways, the discontent of the past is the discontent of
the present. As with advertising, the worst ideas always seem
to be about focusing attention on a solution, any solution,
without paying any attention to the root of discontent. The Soviets
rolled into Hungary to prevent it from leaving the Warsaw pact,
but Hungary left Soviet Communism behind regardless. It’s
easy then to see the Smart Mate as an effective satire of the
feeble solutions all-to-often proposed to overcome vast problems.
Poverty has yet to be eradicated despite promises made by militarism,
fascism, free market capitalism or communism.
“You
can always trust a smart friend…”
When seemingly everything has failed, it’s hard to know
where to turn. It’s easier to understand how advertising’s
promises work. Keserue’s Conform is a reaction
against reductive solutions, both economic and political, a way
of reworking advertising language to reveal its absurdity. The
man onscreen closes his jackknife and slips it into his pocket.
“Never leave him behind…”
Mark
Prier.
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