Constructing hortiporn: on the aesthetics of stylised exteriors

Hewer, P.A. and Brownlie, D. (2006) Constructing hortiporn: on the aesthetics of stylised exteriors. Advances in Consumer Research, 33. pp. 36-42. ISSN 0098-9258

Abstract

Examines the use of glamorously stylised photographic images embedded in highly refined aesthetic text (the Plant Room), not only as an information technology, but more formally as a situated representational practice producing meaning through signification (Williamson, 1978). We argue that there is a discursive economy of signs and spaces operating within the images and that when embedded within texts, they become active sites of representational practice. Images are referred to as 'hortiporn', where photography inscribes a 'look' into a subject position that demands submission. In this way, the premeditated images of the subject-text not only anticipate forms of arousal, they provide simulations of pleasure.

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