Me and Nicole made a sweet presentation. We’ve tried to explore apple in the terms of semiotics.

Vishua asked to write a feedback on our visit to the museum of brands, focusing especially on how advertising has been changing.

I wrote about two piano ads, first one was executed in the middle of 19th century, and another one just 20 years later.

First ad sells piano with all of its technical details and another one already sells you a style of living, emotions. The main image here is not an image of piano (as in previous ad, which occupies 65-70%), but the image of happy family listening their mum playing.

Dramatic change in just 20 years.

Museum of Brands Packaging and Advertising…. It is near Notting Hill Gate… Brands from, i think, the beginning of 19th Century.

They changed, from luxurious handmade packaging to chip plastic ones. From hand-decorated to simple prints. I like the old ones, they were brighter, they were more about soul.

Two Nesquicks

Vishua’s task for today was to read Walter Benjamin’s “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction“, R. Bathles’s “Mythology today” and “I think critically, therefore I am” from Times Higher Education Magazine.

From this list, I clearly understood only the last one. However, the subject of Benjamin’s article is very interesting for my, I understood nothing from there.

And it doesn’t matter, are this articles on English, Spanish or German. I remember articles written in identical-style-language in Russian – authored by Nietzsche, Kant, Schopenhauer, Frege and other philosophers or, for example, Manly Palmer Hall’s book “An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy” - I experienced the same while reading – the subject is really interesting, but you can understand nothing.

On the first lecture Vishua asked if somebody listens for BBC Radio 4, I was the only one who listens. I am listening for BBC Radio 4 mainly to get better understanding of spoken english and to grab proper pronunciation.