Thursday, July 24, 2014

Dreaming Florida: An Airstream Ad.

This is an Airstream ad depicting a man, his wife and two young daughters. Their chrome sled and trailer are parked in the sand, (but they will never get stuck) on an idyllic beach of their own, with a ready-made little hut that was waiting for them.  and a weightless moment, which implies the apex of their trip, a moment that can tell the story of this journey.

 They could have done this by their house, in their front yard in Ohio, and they brought it with them in the Airstream, a space capsule, rolling man's castle and property rolled up into one shiny aluminum fuselage, looking like a wingless, shortened WWII bomber. Trailers change the way one travels. They are a constant, enveloping one's choices -- and family -- as they travel, content being contextualized mile after mile. 

Linear time is implied through the idea of the journey. They came to Florida from somewhere, and being tourists, will have to drive back to their permanent home.

The Airstream is hooked up to an equally shiny new car, giving an aura of newness, yet the rounded forms of the trailer blend aesthetically well with nature in the form of trees in the background, and tonally with the beach.

Note how the suspended ball affects our perception of time. This is a particular moment, one of familial bliss and a father playing with the two daughters who will soon grow up and leave to start families and homes of their own. But the moment hangs suspended. In the photograph, they have left linear time, and entered mythic time.

The ball is like a nucleus, and the figures float around it, like a 60's depiction of an atomic nucleus and its orbiting electrons. This is a nuclear family....

--- Luis

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