Scritture Writings

Ben consolidata, nella nostra cultura, è l’idea che la scrittura abbia a che fare con la memoria.

È Platone, in un celebre passo, che ha reso indissolubile questa associazione, pur se in chiave radicalmente negativa. Ecco come Socrate, nel Fedro, racconta il mito egiziano dell’invenzione della scrittura. Il dio Theuth porta vari doni all’umanità, ma Thamus re di Tebe, che li riceve, dopo aver apprezzato i numeri, la geometria e il gioco dei dadi, rimane perplesso di fronte alla scrittura: “Col non far esercitare la mente essa produrrà l’oblio nell’animo di chi studia; confidando nella scrittura, egli non ricorderà le cose dal di dentro, pensandoci di per sé, ma dal di fuori, per mezzo di impressioni esterne. Quel che hai inventato non è quindi il farmaco che dà la memoria, ma solo uno strumento per far tornare in mente le cose; non sostanza di sapienza, ma solo apparenza”. Trasferendo la memoria su un supporto esterno, intendeva Platone, non si sarebbe più addestrata alla corretta conoscenza questa qualità sostanziale dell’intelletto.

Il tanto abusato adagio verba volant scripta manent esemplifica però il rapido e definitivo capovolgimento della critica di Platone. Con la diffusione della scrittura e poi della stampa tramontano infatti le sofisticate tecniche mnemoniche tramandate dall’antichità, come ci ha così fascinosamente raccontato “L’arte della memoria” di Frances Yates, e questo metodo di rappresentazione grafica che è la scrittura assume il senso che oggi ci è familiare, di protesi della mente.

Ma è proprio vero che le parole si involano e che gli scritti permangono? Non sarà forse che sempre sono le parole a essere comunque ricordate, con i loro suoni piuttosto che con le loro forme? Non sarà che, quando si legge, i segni vengono uditi piuttosto che visti? Si pensi a quanta poca memoria si ha in realtà della scrittura: quanti lettori, anche appassionati ed esperti (e tanto più, forse, se appassionati ed esperti) sono in grado di ricordare qualcosa della forma delle lettere che hanno appena letto? Non sarà allora che Platone avesse un po’ ragione, che avesse precocemente individuato uno specifico difetto del sistema alfabetico in questa presunzione che gli è propria di voler rappresentare il discorso parlato, in questo ossessivo quanto illusorio tentativo di fissare una corrispondenza tra lettera e suono? A cosa serve poi oggi, a ben vedere, l’aspetto trascrittivo della scrittura?

Non abbiamo invece bisogno, al contrario, di organizzare e strutturare la comunicazione, ben aldilà dei limiti del discorso verbale?

La scrittura, a ben vedere, è un’altra cosa. La scrittura sta tutta proprio nell’avere una forma, una forma visibile, e nel dispiegare bidimensionalmente i propri segni, nel frantumare e scavalcare il ristretto vincolo lineare e monodirezionale che è proprio della lingua parlata; et par des traits divers de figures tracées, donner de la couleur & du corps aux pensées (e per mezzo di tratti diversi di figure tracciate, dare colore e corpo ai pensieri), come scriveva Pierre-Simon Fournier nel 1764 in apertura del suo Manuel typographique.

Non sarà che ancora dobbiamo capirla, ancora dobbiamo imparare a utilizzarla, questa capacità della scrittura di estendere la mente, di dare colore e corpo ai pensieri?

Ci si potrà arrivare solo sbarazzandoci del pregiudizio alfabetico, abbandonando i frusti schemi che pongono l’alfabeto all’apice imperfettibile di un presunto progresso evolutivo, cominciando a riconoscere che altri sistemi di scrittura (quelli mesoamericani, certo, ma anche quello cinese, ad esempio, così vitale e dinamico, e quello coreano, così ben organizzato e funzionale) hanno assai più del nostro sviluppato sintesi sostanziali tra pensiero e forma.

Ci si potrà arrivare solo costruendo un nuovo paradigma, che consenta di separare la scrittura dalla lingua parlata e di reinserirla pienamente nel suo ambito naturale, nell’universo dei sistemi di rappresentazione grafica. Ci si potrà arrivare solo imparando a guardare, e in particolare a guardare caratteri e lettere. È un processo in atto, portato avanti proprio (e quasi per paradosso) dalle tecnologie elettroniche che anni fa sembravano averlo bloccato: l’ampliamento dei 256 segni dello standard ASCII con i 65.536 di quello Unicode (compresi cinese, coreano, devanagari, tibetano, giapponese ecc., ecc.), ad esempio, spalanca la strada a una molteplicità compresente di forme, e il software non potrà fare che adeguarcisi.

È la memoria della scrittura, in definitiva, a restituire la scrittura della memoria.

Tratto da/from NB. Numero/Issue 3, Anno/Year III – febbraio – aprile 2002

Pubblicato per la prima volta in: Nota Bene. I linguaggi della comunicazione/Communication languages, Anno 1 – N. 1, 1999, Fausto Lupetti Editore.

 

(1) Sull’argomento c’è comunque un saggio tuttora fondamentale: L.Spitzer, “American Advertising Explained as a Popular Art”, in A Method of Interpreting Literature, Smith College, 1949.
(2) Un primo tentativo di una storia di questo tipo fu abbozzato con grande perspicacia ma scarso sviluppo da Mary Tuck. M.Tuck, “Practical Frameworks for Advertising and Research”, in AA.VV., Esomar Seminar on “Translating Advanced Advertising Theories into Research Reality”, Amsterdam, 1971.

 

Foto: Iscrizione Maya su legno (Michael D Coe e Justin Kerr, The art of the Maya Scribe, Harry N.Abrams, New York, 1998)

[english]

The year 2000 is now upon us and numerous events are lining up to be celebrated – the end of the millenium (it is not particularly important if the exact date is 2000 or 2001), the Jubilee, or the end of the 20th century which, in itself, has many reasons to be celebrated. Perhaps there are too many things to celebrate, considering that even the Teatro alla Scala, in its bi-millenary season has decided to evoke the development of opera in the 20th century, apparently forgetting that in the year to come also the fourth centenary of the birth of melodrama, an anniversary, if one believes in anniversaries, of the greatest importance, above all for Italy, but it will receive little attention, certainly less than the centenary of Milan A.C.

Another activity which characterises the century coming to an end will also receive little attention, to judge by the total lack of preparations.

If this has been the century of communication, it has equally been that of advertising.

In fact, most of the development of communication, ranging from the radio to journalistic printing, from television to the Internet has been and still is financed by commercial advertising or company communication, as it is more politically correct to call it today.

It is undeniable that this particular branch of communication has deeply interacted with 20th century culture, both at a popular level and in the higher echelons.

It has transformed the nature of landscape, above all the urban landscape and especially the most modern part of urban centres. It has conditioned television languages from their birth, subjecting them to schedules which have to take into account advertising insertions and interruptions. It has revolutionised the form and the nature of magazines, it has modified daily language, enriching it in some cases, impoverishing it in others. It has influenced cinematographic narration by means of a give and take which it is difficult to analyse. It has significantly contributed – sometimes without being aware of it – to the rediscovery of rhetoric (another merit of the century which is dying). It has become popular art, receiving from official culture the same attitude of curious interest and scornful aloofness which other forms of popular art – from the feuilleton to the detective story, from the burlesque to cartoons – had already come up against. It has deeply transformed – political propaganda practices, creating serious ethical and juridical problems. It has made a substantial contribution to the development and progress of socio-demographic research. It has become a formidable weapon in the development of the consumer society. We could go on and on; it is not intended as a list of merits, but only wishes to stress how advertising has co-operated in this century to making of our society that which it is today, for better or for worse.

What is more, this lack of celebration reflects another gap. There still does not exist an authoritative and exhaustive history of the development of advertising, from the earliest Pompeian finds to the authentic advertising explosion of our century. There are many reasons for this.

On the one hand, we might say, as certain advertisers themselves say, that it is a totally unsuitable subject for historical analysis. Advertising production is ephemeral by definition, aimed at responding to the needs of the here and now and destined to disappear once those needs no longer exist. Who cares today about how Camel accompanied the rise of femminism and therefore female smoking, or exploited the affections of the families of soldiers at the front, during the Second World War? This is all long gone by, Camel has to face up to problems of a totally different nature and these concern only its current communicators. The old advertising, at this point would only provide useful clues to investigations about the daily life of other times, or at least study materials for specialists and students of the proliferating schools and universities of communication. Like the pleading of lawyers in the past, they say nothing today, outside the strictly professional sphere.

The most extremist even arrive at adding that advertising is even be worthy of a history, like minor arts1, since it does not amount to such. It is clear from such a negative stance that the more or less declared intention to claim for itself if not a scientificity, at least a prevalence of professional techniques aimed at obtaining a practical result of a persuasive type – once more sustained, above all, by advertisers – in which the component mistakenly passed off as artistic, is no more than a series of rhetorical expedients which can, at most, be inserted into repertories or manuals. The only history possible is therefore a history of advertising techniques and their links with the evolution of the theory of communication (but also in this field little gets done).

On the other hand, we have to take into account the considerable difficulties in getting hold of material which might constitute a documentary and illustrative core for this hypothetical universal history of advertising. These difficulties are mainly the result of the lack of documents from past centuries and the excessive quantity of documents from this century. (It is not by chance that the historiographical examples that we have are almost all from the 20th century and they are particular episodes. In past centuries equally titanic enterprises were carried out in other fields, but such efforts seem basically contrary to the present-day spirit and attitudes and the doubtfulness of whether they are really worth the trouble certainly does not encourage eventual explorers.

We also have to consider the problem of the choice of a perspective, which is necessary to shape and justify the presence and absence of given materials. What is to be stressed? The aesthetic side, provoking the reaction of those advertisers most closest to the persuasive function? The innovative side, leading to an elite presentation which would neglect the great mass of actual production? The economic side, relinquishing a great quantity of episodes of little commercial value but of a high cultural interest? Who has most right to enter this history, the commercial Ferro China Bisleri in which for the first time in Italy and perhaps in the world we see an uxoricide full of gunshots and blood and which has received minor programming – refused by the RAI and only shown in the cinema or the umpteenth presenter convincing the umpteenth housewife to choose her detergent and which is shown again and again ad infinitum, thus conquering a large share of mind slice? Who will have access, the mythical Michele who, criticised by all, determined the success of his whisky and created a new way of considering the entire category, or the famous Genoese comedian who, with a number of extremely amusing spots led to market share of his yoghurt falling? Will “celebrity” dare to define a criterion of selection, according to which however, a David Ogilvy will end up beating a Howard Luck Gossage – much more subtle and innovative than the former? Probably the most convincing way to create such a history – if we ever decide to write one – would be that of letting ourselves be guided by the theories which, step by step, have led production and its transformation and choosing examples from those which illustrate such theories better or more clearly.

However, here also it is necessary, but much easier, to distinguish between false theories, often only dictated by the need for metapublicity and self-celebration, and others known only to the more attentive of specialists but which are more authentically the basis of most production of an era. It is thus be necessary to put into its correct place a star-strategy and fully re-evaluate the attitudes of Fishbein2.

We must also not give into the temptation of imagining that the basic structure of advertising communication has effectively evolved with the evolution of its techniques.

To clarify this point I propose the analysis of an example which in our hypothetical history would go into the chapter dedicated to prehistory. It is a handbill (we would call it so today) carried out, using a xylographic technique, by Erhardt Altdorfer (almost certainly the brother of the much better known Albrecht) and advertises a lottery held in Rostock in 1516, almost five hundred years ago.

This leaflet is divided horizontally into two parts which seem the graphitization of a unresolved conflict inherent in advertising communication and about which in recent decades a great deal of debate has taken place: that between information and emotion. Impartially, the author of this message puts the information in the lower half of the handbill and the emotion in the upper.

Indeed, underneath there is the illustration of the prizes to be won in the lottery (furniture, hangings, textiles, jewels), a simple list with illustrations and captions in which the most emotional impact derives from the desirability which the objects themselves communicate, as if in an exhibition. It is the effect of a shop window, which stylists continue to count on so much, even today, thus relinquishing, on their pages, the infinite possibilities offered by more articulate advertising.

Today they would be television notaries with their assistants. These are also dressed well but in serious, simple clothes and they are obviously elderly people who mitigate, with their austerity, the frivolous youth of the announcer. Most of the message is already there: “Come along and you’ll enjoy yourselves; don’t be afraid, we guarantee that it’s all above board”. But this is not all: on the extreme right the author introduces another four characters, with a further function. We are at the entrance of the hall and a mature man, with a register in his hand, checks the interests; thus we see an old man, dressed very elegantly, albeit austerely, as his age – and probably his role – demands, and behind him, a couple whose portliness and whose wealthy clothes tell us that they are well-off. This further part of the message says: “Come along and you too will prove that you are one of the richest and most powerful class”, just as today, certain chocolates present their consumers with the illusion of being invited by ambassadors to have a chauffeur named Ambrogio.

It is a persuasive construction which is part of the typical expedients of advertising and which exploits the aspirational identification of individuals ready to identify themselves with models they think superior, by means of the mediation of a magical instrument of which they can take possession: chocolate, or lottery tickets.

Certainly the communication techniques are primitive, a distribution of balance is lacking which would place more stress on the most important parts of the message: the exploitation of the potentialities of the word are lacking, the memorability of a title or a slogan and obviously the persuasive verisimilitude of the photograph. But the advertising structure is all there: the material promise, the consumer benefit (prizes), the immaterial promise (the identification with the upper classes), the supporting evidence (representation and description of the prizes) reassurance (the notaries).

 

(1) On this argument there is an essay which is still fundamental: L.Spitzer, “American Advertising Explained as a Popular Art”, in A Method of Interpreting Literature, Smith College, 1949.
(2) An initial attempt at a history of this type was drawn up with much perspicacity but little development by Mary Tuck. M.Tuck, “Practical Frameworks for Advertising and Research”, in AA.VV., Esomar Seminar on “Translating Advanced Advertising Theories into Research Reality”, Amsterdam, 1971.