John Bylander
My design for this poster project is a response to the challenge of creating an ambiguous slogan: the visual cues of an inspirational poster, but with a message that can be read as either inspirational or as a critique of the genre of inspirational media. By a sad coincidence, the germination period for this assignment saw the death (by suicide) of the cult writer David Foster Wallace, a person who had a strong impact on myself and a circle of high school friends now known as The Misanthrope Society. His mammoth novel Infinite Jest and the appropriately sprawling cultural critique contained therein had a huge impact on me in my early college years (7 years ago, now!), so when I found out he had thrown in the towel, I was quite sad. This poster became a memorial of sorts, and my Misanthrope society friends, with whom I still keep in touch, seemed like the best folks to help me disseminate my poster.
The phrase on the poster, "Entertainment is Blind" is a quote from Infinite Jest. It was something that an adult character in the novel wistfully recalls her father telling her as a child on their many trips to the movies. It takes on a more sinister tone within the context of the novel, which is (partially) about a top secret film so primally entertaining that it renders its viewers incapable of doing anything but watching it until they expire! The phrase reflects my own love/hate relationship with the American entertainment machine…It's also the only thing from the novel I remember well enough to quote. The pictures my friends took, I believe, are another story, taking the message in new directions I won't try and detail here, but I think this diversity of pictures strengthens the overall message and tone of the piece, and I'm grateful to my friends for that.
