Each and every moment of each and every day, we are engaging in a constant, continuous, subconscious process of framing everything we see and experience in our world and environment. Again, this process is subconscious; we may not have any intention or even awareness of it, but we perpetually “frame” our outward experiences in order to interpret, analyze, make sense of, and assign concrete definition, meaning, and value to the things that surround us. That last one, value, is important. We frame things relatively, and determine their place within the entire “framework” by assessing their relation and degree of proximity to other elements of the framework. As George Lakoff says when he speaks about socially scientific framing and metaphors, we become engrained with concepts from a young age, such as the idea that more is up and less is down, that define how we think of these terms, and how we internalize the what the word means for us, which usually derives from the actual meaning of the word. This example of Lakoff’s is directed more towards the topic of linguistic metaphors, but it is essential to the overall concept of framing and how affects the way we value our world; when words, concepts, and ideas can be so simply manipulated, or simply used with versatility so that they begin to carry more weight or conjure different mental images or emotional responses than they are essentially there to do, they truly alter the way that we see the world. This is both an exhilarating and terrifying notion; as an artist, I see immediate virtue in it because it basically explains they way that any art is achieved. I could use the framing of shots or the editing of a film to metaphorically explain this explanation of metaphors, but it can most simply be shown with poetry: poems and poetic forms of writing or lyricism use words in an order and rhythm that evoke far stronger emotional responses than any other literary type can, regardless of whether similar diction is used. So framing can be exciting, in that we can accept that it’s an unavoidable part of human nature and embrace it to make art that ultimately elevates and expands the way that we frame our world. However, our world is unfortunately not only framed by our own natural intuition or by artwork. Advertisers are masterminds of framing, and know exactly how to do the work of framing what we see for us- to subliminally message us- and to assign meaning and value to the world for us. The PBS program “The Persuaders” addresses the way advertisers seek to become an inescapable part of the physical environment around us so that we have no way of framing by our own instincts because what we are trying to frame is already part advertisement. They blur the line so that we may actually believe that buying a certain brand of sneaker or paper towel actually merits the same principles of value and judgment that one would apply to any other aspect of life or relationships. What’s truly scary is that art, or at least an understanding of the way art affects the human spirit, is a part of what has helped advertising to grow from the bright and shiny tangibility of the 20th century to the visceral, everyday part of life that ads play in our experience today. In the PBS program, Andy Spade is seen creating an ad campaign for a new airline that seeks to portray itself as the advocate of the modern person while adhering to a low fare model. Spade creates an entirely artistic ad that appeals to (and in doing so, frames the viewer’s understanding) of the viewer’s identity without any mention of planes or prices. The marketing execs are skeptical, but what’s scary is that Spade isn’t crazy; the most successful contemporary ad campaigns of the biggest corporations have almost all utilized this method of visually creative and stimulating ads that both make us forget that we are taking the role of the consumer and cause us to enthusiastically embrace it. By appealing to our emotions rather than just our pragmatism and senses, we apply the same framework of values that we would to the important aspects of our lives to what we buy and consume, and the degree to which we feel we need to consume is increased dramatically. So, I accept the fact that I constantly frame the world and people around me in order to be able to understand it. And that’s what framing is to me: it’s the way we make sense of the world. What’s troubling is that so much of the frames I already have in me are not a result of my own cognition but have been instilled in me by other people, and yes, companies, that can and will easily change the way we define things for their gain. Scary stuff.
