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Wednesday, 15 June 2011

Tiffany, London


This is such an interesting scheme at Tiffany right now, don't you think? 
We also came across a very interesting site recently called anthroposts.com Anthroposts is a site dedicated to notes, well actually Post-it notes to be be precise that were left abandoned, thrown away, or just discarded when they had served their use and then collected by the author who placed them on the site.  As the site says, "The notes comment on contemporary life". "They speak to a heightened pace, which leaves many feeling so pressed for time that we turn to lists and notes to help us make the most of it, to be efficient and organized." [And] "When collected from the street they speak to the ease with which we pollute, one of the many (arguable) consequences of consumerism."  The majority of the post-it's are of course as one would expect local to the author and therefore have a US bias.  However, it is fascinating to read some of the messages that we write to ourselves.  A lot of the notes simply contain seemingly random numbers, some shopping lists and addresses.  The site makes sense of these as "urban artefact's, that hold something interesting for those willing to look".  "Not only do they document a moment in a stranger but they hold something of the stranger them self: the way they write, how they capture ideas".  Really fascinating stuff.  The site also begins to make connections between Colour, Complexity and commonly used words.  Although the scheme currently at Tiffany may not have possibly been developed from this perspective, it is really interesting to read the private notes of others even when it just doesn't feel right and we know that we shouldn't (although can).  Reading the notes in these windows does emotionally feel is as if we are prying into the private lives of unknown others out there, although as the curious animals that we are, we are compelled to look and read them nonetheless.  As these notes at Tiffany are placed within this context, it is, perhaps, as if we are granted permission to read them even if we feel we shouldn't, but perhaps we simply glance and acknowledge them while making a connection with them? After all, we've all written something similar to these, haven't we?  There is an interesting response with in us that while we felt it was not OK to read these notes, we do, and then somehow are drawn into the personal lives of albeit fictitious 'others'.  Of course, perhaps what is happening is that we feel a closer bond to the brand itself for letting us in on something so apparently private?  Clever stuff.