So when we look at what happened after the First World War, with the start of the Futurist movement, turning into the Dadaists, turning into the surrealists, turning into the abstract expressionists, this was very much a reflection of the world, especially the Futurists, the first impact of mechanised combat on humanity. At the same time, you've got this understanding of psychology. And then you have people like Edward Bernays taking it into advertising and how we can utilise this to sell things.
So these things have gone hand-in-hand. Art is reflecting society in the bigger picture, the zeitgeist, if you like, some of the pretentious, but along with people utilising psychology for advertising. They've gone hand-in-hand.
Does that make sense? Yeah, well... It totally makes sense, totally makes sense. To add to this, we are taught in art school all about Gestalt and symbolism and the meanings behind symbols. So a symbol can hold a lot of information, even in its most simplest form.
And this is what Gestalt understood, and this is the birth of advertising and branding and symbolism. And yeah, absolutely, symbols can move from one place to another over time, especially, and how the symbol is wielded. We saw that in Nazi Germany, how symbolism worked for their favour.
So a lot of it has to do with how the symbols are being wielded. And so that's why I'm very cautious about anything in the realm of Gestalt, because essentially you could have one intent, and then somebody procures that symbol and takes it to another place, way unintended for you. And so now suddenly you have this attachment to something that could be good or ugly, you know what I mean? And symbols and symbolism in work is pretty much what we're talking about.
