The LAVA Center is excited to announce “Every Vote Counts,” an art installation conceived by A. L. R. Keaton. “The Voting Booth” opens officially on Friday, Sept. 13, 5:30 p.m. at The LAVA Center, 324 Main St., Greenfield. An interactive session on political advertising follows at 6:30 p.m.
The installation features a voting booth that is part of a larger project Keaton undertook in 2016 entitled “Existence Stories,” an interactive, activist project that gathers and amplifies personal narratives about the ways in which our lives are impacted by the political climate of the US. As Keaton notes, “For many of us — for me specifically, being a non-binary trans person and watching my very identity being pathologized and criminalized by the state — the political climate… is still very volatile. Continuing to exist — and to assert our existence by telling our stories — is an act of resilience and resistance. It’s an act of self-love and an act of love for those who hear (or read, or watch) our stories.”
Visitors are encouraged to enter the voting booth, to read the graffiti on its walls, add their own thoughts, and to cast a ballot for a political candidate, for a cause, for an interest, for hopes and dreams. Keaton will be on hand to introduce the project and guide the process. Contributions from the public are welcomed through the project closing at which time the ballot box will be opened and the contents shared.
At 6:30 p.m., Doug Selwyn and Jan Maher will lead an interactive presentation on political advertising. In 1952 political advertising hit our television screens and it hasn’t stopped since. Counted in the low millions of dollars that year, the amount of money spent on television, print, radio and digital media will exceed twelve billion dollars in 2024. It’s no wonder we feel overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, the advertising has gotten more sophisticated. Four-minute affable conversations of the ’50s, with each candidate focusing solely on their own electable attributes or cautioning viewers against their opponents’ policies in fairly civil ways, gave way in 1964 to perhaps the world’s most famous political ad. With few words spoken and airing only one time, the “Daisy” ad ushered in an era of extremely negative campaign ads. We’ll see that notorious ad and a sampling of others that have aired through the decades. And we’ll note enduring themes, enduring techniques, and enduring appeals rooted in fear and rooted in hope.
Selwyn and Maher, frequent co-presenters for LAVA, and authors and co-authors of several books on educational philosophy and methods, will lead the discussion on the elements of political advertising: how to identify the “frame” an ad uses, how to recognize the fact that we will be manipulated emotionally, whether we like it or not and how to practice the skill of letting the thinking part of our brain have a say. Selwyn notes, “Understanding how advertising works helps us to take a step back, to recognize how we are being sold a particular candidate, and to become more critical consumers of the information and misinformation intended to guide our decisions.”
Together, we’ll create some ads for a few typical fictional candidates.
For more information, contact Matthew@TheLAVACenter.org.
This LAVA Humanities program is made possible in part by grants from Mass Humanities and Markham-Nathan Fund for Social Justice.
