Employee of the month
Mar. 25th, 2005 01:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomus
Thogerson Hoy, bank official. "People are strange when you're a stranger," sang Jim Morrison. They're even stranger when you're scrolling around a 1051x1557 pixel employee photograph on a corporate website.
Michael Farrah, head of printers, peripherals, AV and displays. He's the head of peripherals, and this is the periphery of his head. I am in a lunar lander, slowly descending towards its surface. Scroll right! Scroll left! Survey the terrain! Shall I plant a national flag here, or a corporate logo?
Barry Atkinson, head of SMB sales. He's sideways. You approach him from the left across what looks like a blue-and-white checked tablecloth, then discover that his face is brown. Everyone in a suit and tie is a pragmatist and a puritan. Click the picture to explore!
Sarah Percy, head of marketing. Hyper-realism, Neue Sachlichkeit, the images they showed on Manhattan Cable TV after 9/11. The employee as missing person, the employee as dead person, the employee photograph as uncanny memorial, the smile fixed and frozen, grotesque and poignant in the newspaper. I've never had a job. I've never had to die for the company.
Jonathan Schwartz, unspecified computer executive. Hair is funny when you examine it close up, just like a word is strange when you repeat it one hundred times. The unheimlich, the uncanny, irony, detachment, alienation. Is it just a matter of getting too close or too far away? Is "normal" only normal at the appropriate viewing distance, under the appropriate lighting, from the appropriate angle? What a frail thing "normality" is, then!
Greg Stroud, unspecified computer executive. To the Japanese, we have a tall nose, round eyes, a red skin. Do we look like pigs? Are the pores of our skin too big? Do we have a distinctive smell, the smell of a foreigner? Can you smell us standing beside you on the train?
Øystein Thøgersen, bank employee. Rembrandt watched his own face decay in a mirror, painting it in a prolonged act of dispassionate scrutiny. Every photograph or mirror contains a bit of death alongside the pride, shame, embarrassment, surprise.
Vivi Lassen, bank employee. Do people frighten you? Do you have to master yourself when you speak to someone across a desk? Are old people more frightening than young people? Are people with jobs more frightening than people you meet randomly? Which is more scary, a stranger or a friend?
Michael R. Robertson, director, human resources. Have you heard of the photographer Thomas Ruff? Some of these employee pictures remind me of his work. What do the bodies of the disembodied look like? When someone has power, do I cease to see their body? Is it uncharitable to look closely at an employee's body? If you prick me, do I not bleed? I'm just looking, thanks.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 01:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 01:12 pm (UTC):D
This post is one of the best I have seen on LJ. Momus, you plastic, fantastic popster. We sent you into orbit around the earth, to observe, so we could understand ourselves better.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 01:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 01:47 pm (UTC)You know, it sounds cruel or dismissive, but I feel I've spent about 5 years on the internet arguing with people on the mistaken assumption that because we share a language we share a culture -- people who I probably wouldn't have made that assumption about if I'd seen them, and if they'd looked like Pablo in the photo above. Now, there's a good and bad side to this. The illusion of universality is a uniting one that draws me into debate with people I would otherwise hardly interact with. On the other hand, I'm very much a textural-emotional-aesthetic animal. I relate to the world based very much on how it looks, tastes, feels, and I trust my instincts. If something tastes bad, or someone is poorly presented, I veer away. I assume we can't share a worldview. This can sound harsh and snobby, and it does mean that communication might be limited to interaction with people who think the same way as you do, or whom you idealize successfully. It's an ongoing issue in my thinking, this, but I suspect my emotions will win in the end: texture will win over text, and instinct over reason, and form over content.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 03:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 08:58 pm (UTC)even at something like maddox's website the pure text is a nice picture and before we notice the content, we notice the overall layout of the text.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-26 10:43 am (UTC)I think the internet is a poor way to judge one's character though, because text is a such a poor representation unless you do it well (as Momus does). It's very easy for even simple sentences to be miscommunicated in the heat of instant messaging, chat, or silly LJ comments. Sure, you CAN use emotes to provide some emotional input into the text, but those can make you look childish and dull.
The best defense against this is simply throwing your computer out the window, saving yourself from a poor substitute to genuine human contact.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 04:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 11:41 pm (UTC)Thank you for communicating this. I think your aims are often misread.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-26 06:39 am (UTC)interesting post though.
Well
Date: 2005-03-27 07:41 pm (UTC)2nd: Chris_B is a known minor troll of weblog comments. He is apparently a very unhappy resident of Japan, of african-american origin I seem to remember.
3rd: I don't think it is possible for most of us to effectively communicate with everyone, be the hindrance time or prejudice. I think the key is to keep one's eyes and ears open and try not to project one's biases too too much. Some days it works better than others. Some days I cannot bear to speak with the dimwit, some days I relish it...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 01:23 pm (UTC)Though before I read the post, I thought the first one was Moby.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 02:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-31 10:50 am (UTC)J.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 01:24 pm (UTC)Your writing seems to have occluded a corporate transvestite! Ah well, from what I can see, he/she looks happy.
Great post!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 02:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 02:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 02:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 02:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 04:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 05:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 06:09 pm (UTC)Thanks!
Date: 2005-03-25 06:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 07:32 pm (UTC)http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/2005/03/if-i-could-bring-just-one-band-from.html
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 08:05 pm (UTC)loved your post especially the way you arranged the pictures and text. cool
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 08:15 pm (UTC)BOOGER!
Date: 2005-03-25 08:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-25 08:42 pm (UTC)new review of OTTO SPOOKY
Date: 2005-03-25 10:44 pm (UTC)http://www.cdreviews.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=480&Itemid=27
The Office Of Horrors
Date: 2005-03-25 11:30 pm (UTC)Sim City could do a version of this where hairs grow and marks get padded out? Shirts get stained and then cleaned. Develop hairstyles that get ruined in the wind and rain. Health checks and sun tans or trimmed mustaches and rosy cheeks. A little massage machine that roams over the forehead searching for tension spots.
A real joy to behold.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-26 12:52 am (UTC)it reminds me when you search google images for "ceo" or "agreement".. ahhh the corporate imagery
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-26 07:39 am (UTC)the REAL question that everyone SHOULD be asking is...at the top of Momus' Safari browser that's pictured containing each shot, there are his lists of URLS and prefs contained under headings that read, from left to right: Momus, Visuals, Radio, Books, Japan, etc.
now I ask ANYONE (you are included too, nick) to tell me what the eights one from the left says, and what kind of links/URLs it contains, because i have no idea, but would LOVE to know.
best,
r.
p.s. always look at the BIG picture, kids.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-26 09:19 am (UTC)http://ilx.wh3rd.net/newquestions.php?board=1
Probably has his favourite threads...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-26 10:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-26 11:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-26 05:49 pm (UTC)Non-LJ user, thus anonymous...
Date: 2005-03-27 09:55 am (UTC)I haven't been thrilled like this in a long time. This reminded me of a great time on the WWW: discovering Osil8 and jodi and silverserver and netart and cDc and l0pht and and and...how did 8 years become a lifetime ago? Holy cow!
(Aside: yeah, I like Ruff, but I've been to his shows in SoHo in the late 80's/early 90's, and the physicality of the actual prints somehow made them more sterile for me. These corporate PR photos have a more unsettling quality, probably because of the medium, I guess, dunno...)
What a treat! Thanks, Nick!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-28 04:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-28 04:52 pm (UTC)