The ad generator..

The ad generator is a generative artwork that explores how advertising uses and manipulates language. Words and semantic structures from real corporate slogans are remixed and randomized to generate invented slogans. These slogans are then paired with related images from Flickr, thereby generating fake advertisements on the fly. By remixing corporate slogans, I intend to show how the language of advertising is both deeply meaningful, in that it represents real cultural values and desires, and yet utterly meaningless in that these ideas have no relationship to the products being sold. In using the Flickr images, the piece explores the relationship between language and image, and how meaning is constructed by the juxtaposition of the two.

http://www.theadgenerator.org/

This is a project from Alexis Lloyd who works at the New York Time as a ‘Creative Technologist’ (a very cool sounding job). It’s a fantastic example of how image, language and meaning don’t always have to work cohesively and strategically in order to create simple emotion.

For me, the essence of creativity is about not having any rules or any preconceived plan, not having any external influence and avoiding the easy choices our brains often tend to make when processing information. Hence, the most creative things are often the most surprising things. The mechanism of this project and its very random nature is a metaphor for this creative process. As such, we find quite quite appealing results.

Here are some of my examples – a minority are very odd but most are something I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see in an advert in some form.

Some are excellent in fact.